Ok, since it’s more nerf than buff, where do I start?
At first, I have 2 question for the Staffs:
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What exactly is the effect of Arcane Energy now?
It says that on maps you don’t use up Stamina or SP anymore.
Does it really do that? And what about the scaling per level? -
What about the scaling of Counterspell? Judging from the description, the skill has a fixed duration and CD time and unlimited charges, so is the skill now a 1 skillpoint skill or what?
Now to the feedback:
- Prophecy:
This skill was already bad before the nerf, basically 1 Rank of Plague Doctor was better than 2-3 Ranks of Oracle worth invested into Prophecy. Now the skills is totally useless as it still has the flawed charge system(with halved charges on top), only preventing Rank 1 status ailments and having a fixed higher CD time than lasting time.
Why would anyone sane in his mind now invest even a single point into this skill?
We have Dispeller scrolls from Pardoner to do the same that cost no skill points, and monsters nearly never have any dangerous status ailments anyway;
Death Sentence was made laughable if used against a player by a monster, and poison can be cured by antidote,point.
GG by making this skill useless.
- Counterspell:
The skill went from 1/3 uptime to 1/6 uptime, with its use limited due to the low timeframe it is active. This skill also became basically useless unless it either has some uptime scaling with skilllevel or became another 1 point skill in the Oracles skill roster.
GG^2 for this one,too.
- Death Sentence:
Although the premise might sound good for starters (up to 130% additional damage on 5 targets), the high CD time (60 seconds) and the low potential power output of general Cleric skills of Rank 5 and lower make this skill a pretty sad existance.
In a nutshell, you need Dievdirbys and Pardoners Discerning Evil(if that even works) to make the skill good enough for the Oracle itself to benefit from it.
Also, please don’t tell me that it’s +130% for the whole party while the Oracle gets a share of that damage shoved back into his/her …
This will certainly kill the purpose of Oracle as you will always die in the process unless you save your Safety Zone for that moment…
GG^3 for that one, especially since it means the Oracle needs to rely on the other Classes damage skills even more to actually kill the monsters.
In my opinion, you should analyze 2 things:
“How much damage does the Oracle Class feature?” and
“How useful will the skills be after rebalancing in actual gameplay?”
The answer to the first question is easy: 1 skill in 3 Circles that damages 1 monster every 35 seconds (and heals it afterwards if it didn’t die in the process).
This is worse than all other Classes in the game. You didn’t change this very aspect that made Oracle the worst Cleric Class of all. Instead, you made it worse by removing the Death Sentence certain kill ability, leaving 1 skill that only drains ~ half of a monsters HP every 35 seconds.
The answer to the second question is a lot more complex and complicated, but to make it easy and short: Most skills of Oracle don’t serve a real purpose in the game after the latest patches went over it.
Counter Spell is basically just for the strong field bosses and PVP, Prophecy is useless as normal monsters don’t induce ailments anymore, elites are too rare and boss monsters can be countered with Dispellers.
Death Sentence is lackluster due to the high CD time.
No idea what to say about Arcane Energy…
If at all, the Circle 1 1 point skills and the Circle 3 skills are the most useful skills, mainly Resetting, Clairvoyance,Forecast,Foretell and Twist of Fate.
What could be done to benefit more from Oracles skills:
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Prophecy:
instead of making the skill a lackluster skill that does nothing more than protect from a handful of status ailments, the skills should do something interesting, e.g. boosting your power when suffering from a status ailment and resisting incapacitating from freeze,stone,stun,root,silence.
Scaling could be 3,33% per skillevel, so you gain 50% more attack power for every debuff you suffer from at level 15 Prophecy for the skill duration. -
Counter Spell:
the skill should be changed to an aura buff that reflects magic damage back to the caster for the skill duration. Duration should be e.g. 2 seconds per skillevel and 1 additional reflect every 3 skilllevels, so you start with 3 reflects and 12 seconds duration at level 1 and end with 9 reflects and 42 seconds duration at level 16 (considering there’s a Counterspell gem/Divine Might). The spell removal effect on cast and CD time should stay the same. -
Death Sentence:
After watching what you did to the skill, I’m not sure what to propose here.
I have a good idea for it in combination with Twist of Fate,though:
Add an attribute to Twist of Fate that additionally affects all monsters under the Death Sentence debuff instead of just 1 target. That way, Death Sentence could still be considered a Death Sentence, because Twist of Fate on top of the bonus damage will cause over 100% HP-damage to non-boss monsters, resulting in the targets to directly perish.