hereticori/ara/corvus

[covert venture]

Exactly so you have to look and compare Heretic with all classes, and all content, to create a BALANCED class that plays its intended Role, Heretics are a mage, what role does it play, how to make it balanced where it say doesn't need to be super tanky like other classes but can perform at same level

[rugged parcel]

Who said Heretic isn't tanky?

Omnimancy, steadfast and second chance

Enough to excell in pvp and raids

Or are you not taking those in consideration?

[covert venture]

Having survival abilities doesn't make it tanky

[rugged parcel]

It sure does

I used to play with heretic too

Al 20 on that class

[covert venture]

Being able to take a 200k hit and have hp and ward is tanky, having a 50% chance to survive a hit does not make one tanky

[rugged parcel]

Omnimancy and mana rush saved my life many times

[rugged parcel]

It does

That ward and hp will be chipped away

Quite easily in high anguish

[covert venture]

If we are tanks than what does that make a Gilgamesh and deity, who have 300k ward double our defense and have second chance

[rugged parcel]

Double? No

300k ward if they build for it

At anguish level 30 (which most players play at) a dual weild sweep/mage dance build is still preferred

So rest assured no-one has +300k ward there

[covert venture]

You clearly haven't played a MMO if you are saying a one off to survive a single hit makes one a tank

[rugged parcel]

This is concerning end game players with a good amount of al

[rugged parcel]

You can argue all you want but the majority of orna players will agree with me here

Steadfast and omnimancy chance to take no damage

Is quite good

[rugged parcel]

Than being one shot at 50k ward

[covert venture]

Than please start a poll is Heretic a Tank Yes or No I would love to see the results

[rugged parcel]

Heretic isn't your conservative "tank"

It has decent tanky abilities

[rugged parcel]

You can make one yourself just add in the full context

[covert venture]

Why should one need an explanation? If a class is a tank it's self explanatory if one needs to explain why it means its argumentative which means its not as clear cut as you are making it out to seem

[rugged parcel]

Why doesn't an opinion need an explanation?

Anyway i doubt I'll be able to convince you anything so I'll stop here

[covert venture]

If I make a post asking if Heretics are a Glass cannon most would say yes without needing an explanation, or if u say is beo a pet class what need to be explained

[rugged parcel]

This is going no where

Glass canon means taking one hit and dying

Not having a +50% chance of surviving

That's your context

[covert venture]

A glass cannon is someone who can't take a hit and has low chance of survival, a tank is someone who can consistently take hits and not die

[rugged parcel]

Based on how you view it

What will you call that mana rush and omnimancy then?

What "type" of skills are they?

[little rapids]

Heretic is just straight-up not a glass cannon. It has very good defensive passives and a great base ward as well.
People that build it sequencer and die are no different than people who go swash on other classes and die.

[covert venture]

SURIVIVAL

[rugged parcel]

Isn't your whole point of this buff argument that heretic isn't good at surviving 😂😂

You are contradicting yourself now

[covert venture]

Having a survival ability doesn't mean it's good at surviving

[rugged parcel]

If Heretic is a true glass canon why does it have those skills?

[rugged parcel]

You are contradicting yourself yet again

[covert venture]

Knowing how to make a fire doesn't mean you can survive camping in the woods alone

[little rapids]

okay, good talk. 😅

[rugged parcel]

Same

This discussion is getting salty now

[covert venture]

I don't understand how you have such a hard time understanding that if a heretic will most likely die 80/100 times it gets hit by anything over 100k while a gilgmesh a true tank will survive 80-100% of the time

[median nexus]

Completely negating damage from something is tanking just like taking a 20k+ hit and living

[rugged parcel]

I don't want to discuss any further

I don't think you read any of the points i made

[median nexus]

I'm not refuting you

[rugged parcel]

I meant sizzle

Not you 😂

[median nexus]

He seems to be fixed on a certain image for tanking

Ah

Lol

But yeah this is... Draining and I have raids to excel at.

Farewell

[potent zodiac]

All this conversation and I'm just looking for someone to suggest a change that gives me a reason to use heretic Ara

It's necessary in endless for us to lean into ultima as our dex is pitiful and we lack the static miss chance attacks that other classes benefit from (ignoring cs heretic). Beyond raids, I don't think there's other good use cases for ultima. Anguish I'll leave alone since I have no new points to add. Towers we were good at but have fallen a couple notches with other classes being able to use the new spec more effectively, unless you have an amazing ward turn/damage Amity or crazy high AL. Boss horde we can clear quickly but certainly die to it. Pvp I don't know well but wager that we're average.

It might be cool to do something with Ara+sigils to change the miss chance or dex modifier on attack against sigil opponent

Though you still waste a turn applying so that likely won't change much

[burnt wing]

What my main points are

Heretic Ara needs a massive change. It's useless.

Corvus probably works.

At higher anguish CS builds allow a vastly superior way to clear content in comparison to what heretic can access. The disparity between these is greater than just some classes are better at some things.

[amber basin]

But higher anguish is not the only way to get proofs. Heretic is one of the literal best aoe classes in the game, you should be able to farm medium anguish well enough with MD. Even my al20 deity can clear ang30 with aoe, I have a hard time believing heretics cant. On my gs higher anguish is the pretty much the only option because it cant do aoe, but my runs are ofc slower

[rugged parcel]

Heretics don't have access to lute and have minimal att stat

So it is indeed harder compared to beoh or deity

But definitely doable

[celest blade]

Hello. Thanks for you contribution to this thread. You have a hera 29, so if possible could you do a anguish 30 run with it and tell us objectively your feeling about it and compare with your deity or what you maybe remember of your GS runs at this AL? I suppose you have great gear and most likely celestial Hera classes, so it has to be taken Into consideration for conclusion because it won't be usual AL 29 heretic run.

There are really good comments on this thread and it could be good to try to keep objectivity. If many heretics players claim it is in their opinion harder for hera to do some content other classes Can clear way more easely, I hope we could find objective way to compare

Showing videos of one of the best heretic in this game (hello Zipper) is fine, and yes obviously heretic anguish 90+ with good gear can do some good things for sure 😋 but IMO, if some of you really want to use it as proof to say we re wrong thinking it's (way) harder for heretic to do some content (anguish farm is the main point discussed here, as I think we can all agree that even if some classes are most likely better on raid, all classes can do them right ?)

*then be fair in your process and show here results for nearly same AL other classes, and I think it would be more interesting to compare at différent AL, because some issue can appear/disappear when AL is lower/higher

In my opinion, I really think, with all the talk/experience/videos, that there's a gap in what someone can expect about character progress in this game if he choose heretic instead of most of the other classes for now.
Again, as it already has been discussed but there have been some other comments about it after : no one say heretic is not playable, and no one would create this thread and feed it if we thinked there s just a small difference between heretic and others. So yes, as everyone, us heretic Can also agree that it's normal to have some classes "speciality" (this one little better in this content but less in another one), of course. But I think it's fair, with so many heretic players thinking there s a gap, to keep this thread to analyse it objectively 🤘 If we have some clear proof we are wrong, we ll surely agree. For now, I didn't see anything clear enough to claim we are wrong thinking there s some gap, and we miss some analyse/numbers/comparison to proove we are right thinking this too.
So yes, I Hope we ll see some more Zipper videos here, as he is a nice person and a beast for us all heretic ! But I also hope some players will share orns/hour and anguish/hour you can expect from heretic and other classes at different AL and with what investment/time on this game for exemple.

Maybe one solution could be to give Zipper some money so he can HoC to all other classes and show us what he could do with them. My bet? Way better than what he Can achieve with heretic. But proove me wrong and I ll gladely agree I was wrong 😁
Sorry for my english, and sorry for these long messages. I hope this thread will stay a peaceful and nice place for us to share our thought, remember we all share same love for this game 🥳

[amber basin]

I'll test heretic anguish when I have access to my ot again

Return to ot feature doesnt seem to give me ot bonus

[celest blade]

Thank you 🤞👍

[burnt wing]

Yes but I have no access to higher anguish. You can do both. CS can do both. Might be slower might be pointless but I'd like the option

Plus AL 30-40 cs blasting through Ang 50 is nuts

I'm not sure about GS really..but I know a GS AL 46 with a anguish level of 222. So must be good at high anguish. He was AL41 until yesterday

He goes up aguish levels of 1-2 per day

So must be high for that xp

[amber basin]

dont you think that's overpowered?

especially given the fact that odie said ang50 was meant to be barely possible or something like that

[burnt wing]

Yes

But I don't think calling for nerfs goes down well

Plus nothing, absolute silence on it from NF

[celest blade]

That's exactly what we said AT the start of this thread

[celest blade]

Just for the pleasure to quote miself ! :

Thank for helping us to proove our point, because you won't see many heretic AL 3* clearing anguish 30 dungeons on usual farm with the ease you have. And again, yes some will surely find some videos of heretic able to do it with some luck and completely insane RNG for some dungeons IMO, but will you find heretic AL 3* with "normal" gear AT this point saying he use to farm anguish 30 as you do.

I Hope you will, because I ll be (for real) glad to learn we are here wrong thinking that's there s a gap between heretic and most other class on what help in character progress.

[celest blade]

It will maybe come from your try 🙂🤞

And just to remember what the player who sent some weeks ago his anguish 50 run with heretic think about some classes (two days ago on this thread, after Steve shared Bart video as a point to proove heretic is so good) :

And if you want to talk about the fact it's fine to have some classes little better AT some contents than other, I ll be glad to also have a fair comparison between heretic and other classes at same AL on tower 🤞 for this point, am I the only one having so many Friend switching to another class on early/mid T10 to be able to have descent results in tower? And please, don t share Zipper vidéo about heretic tower AL 90, we know it, thank you 😋 but I don't think I m the only one seing there s something strange when my kingdom go to War against another one, seing most of the Time GS/GS/Beo/GS/Beo/GS on many of the kingdom we meet.

Here is the result for my current kingdom War : 16 players /29 are in Beo/GS path. And you?

Feels strange as Beo+GS is just 1/3 of the choice available. And it's the same everyday since weeks, and it was already the case before BOF so it doesn't explain this "strange" statistic.

IMO, it's because it's easier to do most of the content with those classes. And again, I wish we re wrong thinking this. If not, I m not sure that hoping for some change to have more balance between classes and nearly same expectation on character progression with same time on game is unfair.

[celest blade]

In my opinion, heretic progression is good as it is, i had to "fight" to have descent progress, to have some more AL to be able to see my character improving decently in most of the content, and I think it was what was expected for anguish guild and tower for exemple. On the other hand, those same things seems too easy too quickly for some other classes, and it's in my opinion an issue for both, and an issue for this wonderful game.

But I m sure if everyone try to look objectively at what is currently on Orna, there are surely some nice ideas to change some things

[amber basin]

well I still dont have ot access lol

[amber basin]

why does this prove anything? Gs is much less effective than heretic at clearing horde dungeons fast. Gilga is much less effective than heretic at farming endless. You cant just look at one category and conclude the class as a whole underperforms

https://youtu.be/uXoGwywBUos?feature=shared

also heretic cs lol

[burnt wing]

200k hits for CS

Fucking crazy

[celest blade]

Ahah i have to admit this one is really funny! Good point

[celest blade]

This doesn't proove anything, same for videos showed before 🤷🏻‍♂️

[celest blade]

I never talked about Gilga for a reason : I see heretic and gilga as two quite nicely balanced classes when you compare their ability and weakness. One being quicker, the other one able to farm higher anguish for exemple and having easier time on tower, it looks fair to me.

What is not, is thinking that some other classes are better at most of the content. I may be wrong, but I think Beo, GS (and realm for exemple but it's a "New" thing if I m right) are better at anguish/hour and orn/hour and tower, and this more quicker (less Time/AL needed). And it create a snowball effect I think, until some AL where heretic Can also have some descent results, but with more investment/Time than some other to be there.

[burnt wing]

@amber basin what AL?

100% doing that

[amber basin]

that guy is al100+ Im pretty sure

@lyric rose

[celest blade]

Well 😅

So this thread is now close now that we can see heretic can do anguish 40 when AL 100+

Just kidding

[amber basin]

it's not like al solve everything as far as Im aware. Havent seen al100+ gilga endless yet

[celest blade]

No, but it surely help right? And if some classes have access quicker to it is this normal?

[amber basin]

not sure about realm, but gs towers is slow af if you dont have massive investment

and I dont see how it's related to heretic specifically. Sounds like it's more for a class balance thread

[celest blade]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7MY_NYAZU&pp=ygUMT3JuYSBhbmd1aXNo

I have tons of videos too if it's enough to claim something 🤷🏻‍♂️

[lyric rose]

I could do 50, I just didn't have it unlocked at the time lol. And I don't find 50 worth it for the extra time it takes vs 40. But yes, I'm 104 AL lol

[celest blade]

Because if heretic is weaker than most in most of the contents it's maybe not a bad Idea to talk about it

[amber basin]

weaker than most, but so far you're only looking at 1 class in particular: realm

[celest blade]

And yes, not a lot of player farm at anguish 50, but my point is with same AL, heretic usual anguish sélection is lower than most of the other. And the "speed" thing doesn't close the gap between what you Can expect from usual anguish dungeon farming.

[lyric rose]

Heretic isn't the best at anything, but certainly not the worst either. I think it's the most well rounded class. It can be a little rough pre 245, and without a few AL's. It gets better though

[amber basin]

I actually used heretic for my early tower grind because gs was slow af, that was when I was al30 ish on gs

[celest blade]

😱 dis you read what I said just some minutes ago? I talked about GS and Beo + realm because that's the 3 I m pretty sure i Can claim they are way better at most content with same AL/time

[amber basin]

like I said, gs towers is very slow early on

beo towers is also slow af until you can do beoh chained shield / av2

[nocturne hare]

Heretic makes up 16% of my regional (Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Madison and many other mid-size cities) Top 100 and 24% of the Global top 100. If its performance were as you claim, I would expect these numbers to be lower than this.

[celest blade]

Not slower than heretic tower early on in my opinion

[celest blade]

Remember that lots of player you re talking about are not active anymore. Heretic was one of the best before anguish run as some stat (def/Dex) didn't matter to clear pré anguish dungeons.

[nocturne hare]

True, that is why I included regional as it is more indicative of active players below 25th.

[amber basin]

I used gs to get ara vesta 2 and a celestial weapon. Once I got those 2 things heretic was much faster in towers for me, so thats what I used. Now I'm using chained shield but to make that work on gs you obviously need a lot of al

[celest blade]

What i see in mine, is GS/Beo have better AL than other player with same dungeons/boss cleared for exemple.

[celest blade]

Could you please share the classes of the kingdom you re having a War against today?

If you want to talk about statistic i think we could take a look at this thing too

As for weeks now, when i look at kigdom war opponents when we re against active kingdom, BEO/GS are by far the most played classes

16/29 are on Beo/GS path for my kingdom War today. That's not exactly what it should be right?

If i add RS, it's 23/29.

That's not exactly 1/2 🤷🏻‍♂️

[nocturne hare]

Beo 1
Deity 1
G Summoner 2
Heretic 1
Nyx 2
Realm 7
Bahamut 1
Summoner 3

[celest blade]

So it's 16/18 for you for GS BEO REALM against HERA DEITY GILGA

[nocturne hare]

But this only looks at one aspect of the gameplay and not the class overall.

Not all classes should be equal at all content.

[celest blade]

It just show some classes are way more selected than some other for active player now.

[nocturne hare]

Also, my sample size is small. You'd need to do a handful of large kingdoms to get a better sample size. Especially the really active ones.

[celest blade]

Everyone agree on it. But it's the same for weeks when fighting against active kingdom. Am I wrong thinking it could be because some are way better than others for now on this game?

[nocturne hare]

And what is wrong with that?

[celest blade]

I m open to share it everyday as it's the same thing since weeks

[celest blade]

What is wrong with some classes being better at everything than some other? Balance maybe 😅

[nocturne hare]

Better is subjective. As others have pointed out, they have their drawbacks based on setup and gear and hoping for good RNG.

[celest blade]

Maybe some issue for classes to enjoy some content as much as other, maybe some issue with what player Can expect playing

[nocturne hare]

RS sucks for and is slow at horde. Should it get a buff so it is on equal footing as the classes that are good at horde?

[celest blade]

And if it was just this, we will all agréé and all will be fine. Point IS WE are several player thinking there s a huge gap for now for many content between heretic and some other classes, so we re hère to talk about it

[nocturne hare]

This is essentially what y'all are asking for for Heretic.

[celest blade]

That's not the truth for now in the game if i m correct

[celest blade]

We re asking for objectivity on both side, for nice talk, because I Hope we Can agree that if me and some other player are correct thinking heretic IS way weaker than others in anguish/hour, orn/hour for exemple, it means there IS a balance issue

[nocturne hare]

It is for base RS. Different if you have a Celestial class.

[celest blade]

And I m glad to agree with you! But Can you Say the same for heretic?

As far as I know, talking with RS Dorado Friends about what they usually do for farming on this game, there IS a gap between them and heretic.

I m not trying to Ask stupidly for a big boost for heretic, I m just trying to share what I think is true : there IS a gap between what you Can expect from some classes for now, and it's a heretic thread as heretic IS on the "wrong" class side for now 🤷🏻‍♂️

I really Hope i m wrong thinking this

And again, if it was just something about class "speciality" (being a little better at something and little worst than Other on other thing) we will be totally fine with it. But for now, WE are several thinking there is a gap.

[nocturne hare]

What you need is a thorough study of each aspect between all classes. Endless, raids, Anguish, Towers, PvP, etc to truly find out where each classes stregnths and weakness are and compare them to each other. I'm sure you will find each class lags behind others somewhere and excels in at least one compared to others.

NF has all the raw data to collate and analyze this to help them make informed, objective decisions when it comes to class balance. People are inherently biased without realizing it.

[celest blade]

I Never claimed I "am" the truth, I share my thought and feeling, and ask for some comparison to have a better idea of all this things.

If I m wrong, that's totally fine. For now, I don't know if I m completely right but I don't know if I m wrong neither

[nocturne hare]

Feelings have no place in balancing the classes. It's a numbers game.

[celest blade]

I have a feeling that there is something wrong with numbers. Is this well said now?

[nocturne hare]

Hard. Concrete. Data.

[celest blade]

That's what i try to do too.

That's why I Ask Pie of valor to share the results of his Hera anguish 30 run

That's why I m asking know what you Can for now do on your anguish run with RS AL 24?

And I would be really glad to have for all classes the number of what you Can expect regarding anguish proof/hours, orns/hours, shard, AT différent AL 👍

[nocturne hare]

I run at 15 regularly.

Turn it off at floor 100.

[celest blade]

Nice. Thanks for this shared number (for Real)

[celest blade]

What? You re talking about endless? 🤣

Oh my

[nocturne hare]

Ang 15 is always up for dungeons and overworld.

[celest blade]

Well. NF, we have a balance issue here 😊

[nocturne hare]

I can comfortably go to floor 100 in endless before turning it off.

I don't like taking chances with Fallen Realmshifter.

Never use it for towers or raids.

[celest blade]

I m maybe wrong, but that's clearly not something AL 24 heretic could Say.

[nocturne hare]

For Horde, I have to switch to Zwei (from Charmer) and use Sweep. Takes 6-8 minutes to do a T11 dungeon.

Longer if I run into Medea(s).

[celest blade]

When Realm/GS/Beo see shards/orns/anguish proof, heretic see death 🤷🏻‍♂️ just kidding but there s something right IMO behind this

[celest blade]

Anguish 15?

[nocturne hare]

Yep

[celest blade]

AL 24 heretic, with "normal" Gear AT this point, will most likely just die trying to do this

[nocturne hare]

In towers (no anguish), I have to switch to GS for some of the guardians. Not saying I can't do them as RS, but it takes longer.

[celest blade]

Heretic AL 24 have pain doing towers I think

As far as I know, I see many players switching to GS/Beo on early/mis T10 with low/middle AL.

[nocturne hare]

GF MMH, GF FYC, GF YMB, A Jolly Stockings, and 2x Legendary Concords. Everything but the Concs are Ornates.

[celest blade]

That's normal Gear for your level I think ?

[nocturne hare]

Eh, YMB is event locked twice a year. Same with Mightiest MH. Stockings and Concs aren't ideal for dungeon runs. I have them equipped right now for Moondrops.

[celest blade]

Ok 😊

[tired granite]

Oops haha sorry to mislead... but I wasn't referring to heretic as my class haha another message I wrote was "from the other side of a fence" I play gilga

The conversation above was about speed vs survival

[celest blade]

Not sure i understant exactly your answer (sorry I m french 😅). But what I was saying is other than heretic can go to higher anguish with more ease. About Gilga, I Can be wrong but I think there s a good balance between heretic and Gilga for now, with their own strengh and weakness 🙂

[tired granite]

I was just providing perspective to sizzle as a gilga with similar AL as they them

[celest blade]

Ok 🙂 thank you and sorry if I missunderstood you

[celest blade]

With my really bad english, I ll try to summerize some things that have been discussed here :

• balance : several players think there is a balance issue for now in the game, heretic being in their opinion weaker than some other classes in most of the content that allow character progression (PvE content such as anguish and tower have been discussed), creating a harder/slower journey for heretic than some other classes.
• heretic "identity", celestial classes : Some players think for exemple there is something wrong with the way Ara spells work for now. And some talked about the lack of synergy regarding what celestial class "give" to heretic players.

[celest blade]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpGNSuT_LGo

Well...

[rugged parcel]

That deserves a nerf imo

bastion strat was nerfed due to the same reason

[amber basin]

Ang25 is probably the highest I can do with mages dance with my current gear. Would probably need to make an ara vesta build for higher anguish but I dont have DoF lol

[rugged parcel]

Ara Vesta probably won't be viable at high anguish

Unfortunately

[amber basin]

Probably still better than md

[rugged parcel]

Yep most likely

[little rapids]

An ang25 dungeon that takes 1:30 to clear (as in that video) is the same prang rate as an ang50 dungeon that takes 3:00 to clear.

Stating the obvious here, but just wanted to draw attention to it.

[rugged parcel]

And from what I've seen heretic can also use cs an al 50 friend of mine has tried it

Not worth it but doable

[celest blade]

With good gear and all Tbuff 🙂

[amber basin]

How much more do you want to shift the goalpost

As if that al40 gilga you showed earlier doesnt have good gear

Its super easy to have t buff on corvus with the built in passive, Im also using status duration amity

[celest blade]

The goalpost was to talk about some issues about heretic. Some players came here to say we were wrong thinking there is a disbalance, so yeah it seems we had to talk about it 🤷🏻‍♂️

[rugged parcel]

And not using a celestial weapon

I'm certain that a celestial staff with Selene hands will work better

This seems quite good honestly

[celest blade]

Celestial weapon doesn't offer anything for mage danse compared to what was before.

[amber basin]

Gear used

[rugged parcel]

Steady hands of Selene

Yes they do

[rugged parcel]

If you don't have a fey crowsong you can just as easily use a kaladanda as pie just proved that it's doable without steady hands of selene

[celest blade]

A lot of players talked about it. And I tried it too. It has some potential but not that good. You won't find many heretic who use it as usual dungeons Gear because what was done before (chim+arisen Imagination for exemple) seems to have more potential than hybrid for heretic.

[rugged parcel]

They aren't using a hybrid weapon

For sure

[celest blade]

I m using nearly the same build. And I Can tell you I often die on anguish 25 solo.

[rugged parcel]

A celestial staff filled with steady hands of Selene and an arisen fey crowsong should easily get an heretic att and mag over 10k

[celest blade]

With 64 AL.

[rugged parcel]

Do you use snotra?

Or don't buff up

[celest blade]

But you loose auto zerk, that's why it's not that used by heretic. And most still claim hybrid is duable but not better, that's why most don't use it.

[celest blade]

If course no

[celest blade]

Of course yes

[rugged parcel]

You can see for yourself

Arisen mammon did 500 damage

[celest blade]

I use Corvus, duration 50 amity. A miss on a zerk? I Can die with 64 AL on anguish 25.

If I don't have CD up

And just to add some more détails, I have Themis

So I m not sure what Pie showed here is what you Can expect for an entire run..

[rugged parcel]

Other classes can die too

[rugged parcel]

From what I see pie wasn't even using bis gear

[celest blade]

With 64 AL on anguish 25 often?

[rugged parcel]

No offense but I think you're doing something wrong tbh

[celest blade]

If it happens to me sometimes with 64 AL, imagine with less AL and not such good Gear what it is

[celest blade]

I play with Our Fair Lady, #18, hera. It's not to proove that I know how to mage's danse correctly but I Guess i m not that bad

[rugged parcel]

Can you post your gear and one of your runs at anguish 25?

[celest blade]

I know Corvus has positive duration, i know with amity it help too, but I also know it doesn't mean CD doesn't disappear, and in this case, Pie would surely die often.

That's one of the build I use

[hollow bison]

As someone fairly fresh to the Hera grind(237), and having done my best to build in with the community, I feel like the largest thing that's ??? about Hera at the moment is seemingly Ara. While it is one of the meta pickups, it's only for a single skill, and the rest of the class gets dumped almost immediately due to the clunkiness of sigils vs their payoff as it stands.

[celest blade]

With my AL it's good to do anguish 25

[rugged parcel]

@amber basin can you post your def and res in that build?

[amber basin]

pretty sure no class has 100% consistency lol

I also die often when doing anguish as gs

[rugged parcel]

I run with beoh and i die occasionally too

Managing immunity and dex is no joke

[celest blade]

But pretty sure most of the other class Can Do better than what you Can achieve as heretic with low/mid AL

[amber basin]

but heretic is still not bad

[rugged parcel]

Maybe but heretic shines at other stuff

[celest blade]

Wich one?

[rugged parcel]

Orn endless, raids does reasonably in towers

[spark perch]

Still there is a point of failure. Nothing is assured.

[amber basin]

why do you think I have al in heretic? It's because gs sucks ass at horde clearing which is important for me if I want to farm events like moondrops, or want to farm scrolls

heretic endless is also good with ultima

[celest blade]

I would again gladely have numbers of orns/hours and anguish/hour at different AL.

[amber basin]

you are so hyper focused on anguish and anguish alone

that you just ignore the things heretic is good at lol

[rugged parcel]

You can ask around in the community heretic is one of the best if not the best class for orn endless

Time orn wise

It's a well known fact

[celest blade]

We Can talk about tower also if you want to. Am I wrong thinking that anguish IS for now one of the best content to improve a character?

[amber basin]

tower is still ahead by a significant margin

[rugged parcel]

Agreed

I don't even touch anguish guild now

Al 42

I just focus on towers

If your class doesn't perform well in anguish it isn't the end of the world

[celest blade]

It's not "Bad", but again, i would like to have all number to compare, because I m quite sure GS/Beo for exemple have better orns/hour potential in endless too. And while farming anguish, you Can also use farm Gear way easely than heretic.

[rugged parcel]

I'm no expert in gs but that class is full rng mode in endless

[amber basin]

it was 5.2k def and 7k res. Honestly arisen riftrogue helmet would have been better and has more def but I dont have a good one so using rift cowl instead

[rugged parcel]

Takes a much longer time to setup

[celest blade]

Nothing is the end of the World. I love this game, I love playing heretic 🤞

[celest blade]

5.2k def anguish 25 : you just die, really often.

[rugged parcel]

And beoh endless is just watered down heretic ultima quickcast

Speaking from experience

[amber basin]

like I said, my gear is not optimal. I'm also half your ascension level lol

[rugged parcel]

Bastion strat was nerfed a lot so idk how good beoa is anymore

[amber basin]

but to be fair, my deity would also die often if it didnt have dc

not a heretic exclusive issue

[rugged parcel]

Same for my beoh

I just run with Themis at this point

[celest blade]

I m sorry but your gear is much better than what most of the players who play heretic has main first class has while being AL 29

[rugged parcel]

I seriously doubt that

[amber basin]

ok so what

as if the al40 gilga you showed earlier doesnt have very good gear

[rugged parcel]

Unless they don't like to grind gear similar to that should be obtainable

It had gear that was much harder to procure

[amber basin]

you just keep shifting the goalpost

[rugged parcel]

Arisen pumpkinless and spiked shield

[celest blade]

So I still think heretic path is way harder/longer than some other class for now.

[rugged parcel]

And he was running with gunnr on

So I'm sure he dies a lot too

Fallen enemy should easily do +200k when you have no defence

[rugged parcel]

When it comes to anguish that may be possible, all I'm saying each class has its shortcomings

You can't ask for perfection

[celest blade]

But the gap is too important

[celest blade]

I really don't want perfection. I would like more balance 🤷🏻‍♂️

Having some spécialisation (some class being little better than other in some content and little weaker in some content) is a good thing

[celest blade]

But he is AL 42 on anguish 50 😅

[amber basin]

tbh I still think chained shield is a bit overtuned

not sure if that should be the standard across all classes

[rugged parcel]

If you want balance then you need to address rs horde clear speed at low al, gilga orn farm, gs in pvp, beo not having steadfast or decent dex, deity not being the best at anything

[celest blade]

I agree

[rugged parcel]

As I said each class has it bad in some content

[rugged parcel]

Rs and gilga chained shield build especially

[amber basin]

I just cant see how you could achieve any variety between classes if you want to constrain yourself like that

[celest blade]

What do you need to improve faster ? AL is one of those thing. What do you need to ascend? Orn + mats. What is one of the best way to farm mat (the one that Can block) : anguish. What are the way to farm orn ? Endless is one of them, anguish also. So if one class IS way weaker on anguish farm, it's a balance issue IMO.

[rugged parcel]

Anguish and towers

Towers seem better

[celest blade]

And towers yes

Regarding mats it's good

[rugged parcel]

So yes you have the option

And it's not like anguish is impossible to do with heretic

Regarding orns you have endless

[celest blade]

And guess what? Those class who have better anguish/hour are also better at tower than heretic if I m not wrong !

[rugged parcel]

Then that's up for discussion

Heretic ara and sigil play is definitely up for a rework

[celest blade]

Indeed. I Never said it was impossible to progress as heretic. I just said it's way harder/longer than for most of the other classes.

[amber basin]

tbh we need some actual numbers if we want to compare it like this

[celest blade]

Thank you. Yes I really Hope we could have some

[rugged parcel]

Again as pie said you all are being too fixated at anguish when you have the option

My class performs decently at anguish but even then i progress just as easily with towers

[celest blade]

As I totally agree, I could be wrong, but with those numbers it could help to détermine if there is a clear unbalance or not

[amber basin]

towers is for sure better because you also get the random mats

[celest blade]

I know there are some options, but do you often see people saying it's good to switch heretic to do them?

I don't, but I see it often for some other classes.

[rugged parcel]

Surely not but i haven't seen people recommend gs for raiding either

Or gilga for orn farming

[celest blade]

So yes, we need numbers 😁

To compare.

[amber basin]

I have used heretic for towers in the past because gs with summons was slower

[celest blade]

I Hope we ll have them 🙏

I agree we won't be able to détermine easely if there is a gap or not

[hybrid meteor]

Where is this al30 rs ang50 run

[rugged parcel]

If al 30 rs can do anguish 50 then that's a discussion for a nerf not comparison

Oddie said it himself anguish 50 should be hardly possible

[amber basin]

there it is

[rugged parcel]

How much time did it take from floor 1 to 25 overall?

[amber basin]

no idea, dont have the full video

[hybrid meteor]

That is a very lucky run lol. His ward is really low prolly took atleast 7mins

[rugged parcel]

I'm al 42 with beoh and have all the bis gear and i still can't achieve that

[hybrid meteor]

Which is not even worht it

[rugged parcel]

Agreed

In 7 min I can run 3 anguish 25 dungeon

[hybrid meteor]

Misclick CS when he meets a zerk and the run ends

[celest blade]

Why do I think there is one :

• many talk with people about what they use to do to farm in game, it seems there is a gap (anguish selected at same AL seems to be class dependant a lot, and difference look huge)
• what some classes can "wear" in dungeons : I m maybe wrong but it seems some classes Can farm mid anguish easely with not so high AL while wearing full/some farm Gear, wich has to be Taken Into account about orn/hour too. Try heretic with farm Gear on anguish : good Luck 😅
• active player T10 class choice : on the last weeks/month, when I look at kingdom War opponents, there are way more of some classes.
• talk with players expérienced who run heretic and other classes
• seing some classes having an easier time grindind AL with same Time/play on game

[rugged parcel]

I'll have to disagree no class has al farming easy

Almost every class can do towers just as effectively

[hybrid meteor]

You can do that easily in orna. If have enough refineries

[celest blade]

Are you so sure about it? 😅

[rugged parcel]

I'm more than sure

There is a heretic with much higher al at lower play time than me

It all depends on rng

And yes he runs his towers with heretic

[amber basin]

I thijnk gs would be one of the slowest towering classes for most players. CS requires very high al to work and summons by themselves are way slower than players using DoF with a pseudo aoe skill

[celest blade]

We need number (I m sending this message in Hope for those number to Come now! 😁)

[rugged parcel]

Rs require a decent amount of als too

My al 16 rs does about 55k with bis gear

Rs dorado

But is a beast at a very high al

[spark perch]

Personally I feel that why Dorado and Gilga were able to clear is due to D/BoF spec, having that extra turn equal not having to take damage. Hence making the run seems much easier.

[celest blade]

(by the way, thank you all for the good talk, and sorry if I m wrong with my thought. It feels good to be able to talk even if we don't share the same feelings about the in game balance between classes 🙏 If I m wrong, I wish some of the concern about Ara for exemple will be taken Into account. I really wish we have some numbers at some points, and I ll gladely stop being annoying if I m wrong 😁)

[rugged parcel]

The same reason why bastion strat was nerfed

A chance to attack 3 enemies or guarenteed turn

Is the same

[spark perch]

The difference is that if you missed, the horde of bosses will pounce on you and lose a big chunk of your ward. At that point, you might not be able to recover from. Not able to take damage via bastion is not the same as removing enemies, the former do no damage to the enemies and stuck in the loop where the latter remove the amount of threat and proceed to the next level. The former method used to work for Beo who can turtle up and the follower do the killing. This isn't appliable for Dorado nor Gilga.

[rugged parcel]

The point is ease

If gilga and rs can clear horde anguish at anguish 50 in around the same time at al 30/40 then i think it's subjective for a nerf

[spark perch]

Not using the spec will sing a different tune.

[rugged parcel]

That doesn't matter

The same could be said about beo bastion strat wasn't possible without Ymir shield and amities

Still got nerfed because it was too op

So if rs and gilga is close to that clear speed using that spec with similar al then they are subjective to a nerf too imo

[spark perch]

So the point is that the spec is broken in your opinion or is it the class problem?

Because until now, I yet to seen Dorado/Gilga clear without that spec.

[rugged parcel]

Spec

The combination honestly

[amber basin]

nerf the spec

[rugged parcel]

And chained shield itself, it is too op in high anguish

Not other skill works

[amber basin]

agreed

[spark perch]

Chained Shield and SS was Odie's way to mitigate the miss rate for Gilga. But I guess it got badly translated.

So the whole thing was CS/SS?

[amber basin]

spark what do beos even use for anguish now? Still kektus or cs?

[rugged parcel]

And exploited

With cactus I'm restricted to anguish 35 now

Even Anubis can penetrate my 8k def/res and bastion strat

Beoh chained shield is an option

But no steadfast is a problem

[spark perch]

Doesn't seem to be an issue for Dorado.

[rugged parcel]

Yeah that class has it too easy in high anguish

Free turn is almost guarenteed with that spec

[spark perch]

So if any classes using D/BoF spec using CS/SS would excel too?

[rugged parcel]

They would but gilga and rs excels the most with the addition of avidity and cd

You can see the two video above

My beoh will always end up taking hits

[spark perch]

With the spec and build?

[rugged parcel]

Yep

As I said its the combination honestly

And I doubt nf will be able to do something about it without hurting cs tower play

Cs really is much better than its ara Vesta counterpart

So instead of asking for Heretic buff you guys should ask for an ara Vesta buff

To make it viable at high anguish

[amber basin]

or a cs nerf

[rugged parcel]

Or that yeah

[celest blade]

No. Both

Just kidding

[spark perch]

If CS get nerfed, all gilga will cry.

[rugged parcel]

Exactly

[spark perch]

I hope Hera Ara get a passive that randomly apply the sigil(s) at the start of the battle.

[celest blade]

It could be a good thing Indeed!

[rugged parcel]

Still won't help with sigil raiding aspect

[spark perch]

Have to rework the sigils to give different effects like increase hit rate, do more damage from elementless spell, etc.

[burnt wing]

I dont mind vesta buff. But CS requires ward therefore tanky whereas vestas is crit which nerf stats which means CS offers power and tank

[amber basin]

and cs has static miss chance too

[burnt wing]

Yeah

Does that mean mystic feather doesn't apply,

[rugged parcel]

So it isn't that Heretic is weak the problem is chained shield being too strong

Right?

[burnt wing]

It's the same thing. Buff one or nerf another

[zealous grotto]

It very much does

[burnt wing]

I can't see e CS nerf

We've got 349 extra guilds to add before then

[zealous grotto]

The problem is that with CS you can build tanky while still outputting good damage
And that works really well for anguish

[burnt wing]

Exactly

If only there was a staff member, like a manager of the community which could help in this massive thread

[rugged parcel]

Didn't you see bastion nerf 😂

[burnt wing]

That's true

[tired granite]

Have you tried reaching out? Lmao

Or passive aggressive comments ftw?

[rugged parcel]

Xd

[swift oxide]

As a RS player I wonder what if Heretic Corvus had High Tenacity or Resurgence 1.

Leanning a little in RS-ish style but still being magic focused.

[eager token]

I dont think HT should be on a class with steadfast 1/2. Waaaaay too much power creep

[sage pebble]

you can add him in your friend list and go to runeshop, select him and buy the HoC for him
first, ask him if he wants ofc

[celest blade]

🤣

[sonic quiver]

In general, the class as a whole is well balanced from game balance perspective, though the celestial class, had some glaring issue with gameplay design.

Base Heretic:

• Compared to other classes, Base Heretic lacked an unique identity and does not offer unique gameplay experience compared to other classes. This comes down to the fact that the abilities and gameplay of Base Heretic can be found in some form of variations in other classes and even pet.

• Base Heretic (and also extending to the 2 sub celestial class) feels pigeonholed into pumping out critical dmg at higher level as Non crit spell are outclassed in the damage dealing department.

Suggestion: Gear/adornment that have Double cast chance, but with penalties to crit chance.
Double cast can be explored as an alternative playstyle way of bringing non-crit spell up to standard to crit spell. At the same time, the penalties to crit chance is deliberately included to prevent crit spell from becoming even better than it is.

Heretic Ara:

With reference to:
https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1111713209532022914
#1160206504167743658 message
#💡│suggestions message
#💡│suggestions message

• General consensus is that it is not worth it to line up multiple sigil and smacking with Ara Vesta spell as the gameplay intended. Most of the sigil falls off after a single use and the 1 turn worth of damage increase is not worth the turn spent on casting it. The sigil also falls off over time and can be dispelled.

• The Class abilities are inferior to base Heretics for most content, with the notable exception for pvp. Mana cost increase and lack of life siphon means Heretic Ara can't sustain as well as base Heretic. The increased damage for ‘sigil and ara vesta’ combo does not outweigh the problem of doing such a combo as explained in the previous point.

Suggestion: Change up the Ara ability the class.
Replacing the extra damage to marked enemies, Heretic Ara can have a set chance to apply a random sigil when targeting an enemy. This will solve the problem of poor turn economy of the intended playstyle.

Suggestion: Improving the sigil duration and imparting an unique flavour to each sigil
All sigils should not be consumed after an ARA spell and each sigil can have their own unique properties:

1. Crux sigil cannot be dispelled
2. Carina sigil takes 2 turns but casts a super long lasting sigil
3. Lyra sigil also lowers enemy damage by 20%

• Ara Vesta 2 is superior over other Ara Vesta spell in terms of damage per turn. That means there is no reason why player should use other spell in the kit.

Suggestion: Make Ara Vesta (AV1) 1 a sidegrade to Ara Vesta 2 (AV2)
Increase the M1 value for AV1 by 0.2 will make AV1 a slightly harder hitting spell than AV2 without the bounce

[tired granite]

#💡│suggestions message

[spark perch]

I think sigil playstyle issue can be alleviate if a follower that can debuff enemies with sigils.

[sonic quiver]

fair enough

[tired granite]

Odies take on those items

Just pulled that out of the "useful" stuff my brain remembers haha

[burnt wing]

That's a really nice write up

[atomic briar]

i like the idea of the non-crit double cast spell idea, would bring up new builds with old spells maybe

[hollow bison]

Hm. Here's a thought, actually. I'm too tired and fever ridden to see it through but you might have some ideas for it -

What if the some of Sigils worked somewhat like the Stances from Beo do? Where it provides the target some stat ups in exchange for a stat down. So they can become a risky form of damage, but in exchange, don't fall off.

Obviously not the to degree Beo stances do - I don't think I need to mention that letting us force enemies into Snotra would be absurdly busted. But something like a 30% buff to attack and defense in exchange for a -20% to Res, and vice versa could be interesting gameplay wise and for PVP - making them a self damage buff, as well as a type of defbuff if you know how to scout your enemies well.

[atomic briar]

give a equivalent of prisma sigil to ara sigils, where the spell has a chance of applyieng several sigils at once

and by the way, why is there no arcane sigil, but the rest of the elemts has sigils?

[lyric furnace]

Hi as the “al30 rs” who recorded this video, I do not remember sharing it outside of my kingdom discord or dm’s to help out some friends. Would prefer that the video is not used anymore and is deleted thank you.

Actually surprised to see how people in the maincord have access to the video…

[ashen crystal]

I won't question the fact that you have the right to ask that, but I would like to know why you are not okay with it being shared

If that's okay

you don't have to answer if you don't want.

[rugged parcel]

Well people tend to keep broken overpowered stuff when it comes to games

But it's fine

[lyric furnace]

Eh its prob fine I am just very very surprised that it just made its way here. I dont spend much time at the maincord esp in these discussion posts as people get passive aggressive about buffs/nerfs. I was just trying to help out friends

[ashen crystal]

the only answer to that question is that someone from your DMs / kingdom shared it with someone outside that group. Simple as that.

Gotcha, thanks for the answer

[lyric furnace]

If u guys want to ask more about the runs or my anguish in general, I am happy to answer

[potent rivet]

Are these runs consistent for you? Do you die often? How high is your attack stat?

(not that it really matters for this thread, im just curious)

[lyric furnace]

Currently ascension level 36 btw.

Anguish50 runs are quite consistent. My runs usually end if I meet a t10 zerk boss tho.

[rugged parcel]

Thanka for your honest answer but don't you think it's a bit too op?

[lyric furnace]

The reason I am hesitant to say further is because I understand these nerf/buff change posts are highly politicized and anything I say can get myself blamed for nerfs or charged arguments for other specs that I dont want to be involved in.

All I want to do is just play the game, learn some info and builds from these servers.

[rugged parcel]

I disagree, sooner or later other people will find about it and start to hoc to exploit the class like they did with beo. Having such imbalance in the game is quite unhealthy and should be dealt with at its root but i understand your concern for being anonymous

Dealing with drama isn't cool

[lyric furnace]

Thats why I personally dont want to be involved. Its just my preference. I will be honest and transparent but will not give subjective opinions that will get me involved in unwanted drama.

[rugged parcel]

That is fine

[lyric furnace]

But to answer if I think it’s op,
I personally dont know bc I havent played the other specs. Trying to compare how strong it is compared to other classes, I am grossly unequipped to do so.

However, from a single player perspective, I found it fair. I had to grind out almost all the other celestial classes for skills to make rs remotely serviceable. I had to grind for non-thief warrior gear. While this may be easy for some of you, it was a very difficult journey for me, and being able to complete content efficiently after my hours of investment felt, in my opinion, fair and not overpowered

[rugged parcel]

To put it in your perspective I'm al 44 beoh with bis gear and almost half my anguish 50 run as beoh are fails

Same for classes like deity, Heretic and gs

The bof spec synergieses too well with rs

If you one shot something a free turn is almost guarenteed

Beo bastion strat for anguish 50 relief on some very specific gear and amities too but it was nerfed because it made anguish very easy

Odie even called it unhealthy for the game

[lyric furnace]

Well thats not up to me to make a decision on 🤷. Let odie do his thing. Maybe make a separate post asking for nerfs on a spec?

I thought this was a post about changing heretic identity…

Im not to interested in orna politics. Just want to play the game you know

[rugged parcel]

Most of the heretics here are complaining about other classes outperforming it when it comes to anguish especially rs and gilga

[rugged parcel]

That's understandable

[earnest agate]

I'd like to remind that this is a thread about heretic, not some ang50 rs.

[lyric furnace]

Thank you

[celest blade]

I understand this 😉

[celest blade]

Hello 🙂
(If I remember correctly it was more GS/Beo/RS. But I clearly don't want to talk again about it, for same reason as Beresad)

[rugged parcel]

Probably but we do know that some imbalance exists

It should be dealt with, now let's return to heretic class discussion and leave that rs avidity exploit stuff behind

[celest blade]

Exactly. As I think that even if this unbalance thing discussed before is unclear, there are some things everyone agree that could have some change (some in pinged message).

[sage pebble]

https://youtu.be/sm_FDFrNKc4?si=JujSog9socwtqLLp

oh look, an easy way to anguish 50 as heretic
it's a fuss with gear/spec/anguish swaps but doable
i'm using exactly that strategy from the video, except that i swap to raider for Berserk

[rugged parcel]

Doable yes but consistent? No

And he is al +70

[burnt wing]

90

[rugged parcel]

Imo it shouldn't be consistent for any class below al 60 or something

[eager token]

Dont be goaded into giving more then what you want. Its a decent perspective and you dont owe anything to anyone

[celest blade]

I m glad you re sending this here, and as you know, it's from yesterday on OL heretic, after some nice player shared his thought about using Aegir stance.
Not consistant until some AL by the way 🙂
But feel free to continue to feed this thread with those things if you just can't move on and prefer to keep using passive/agressive way to show when you disagree with some persons.
That being said, I wish you (and your goat) a good night 😉🙏

[sage pebble]

why it's not consistant?
especially if you pair it with berserk from raider and maybe ashen phoenix?

it's even an overkill imo

[rugged parcel]

That seems like a very lucky run

Ara Vesta doesn't have a fixed miss rate

Also a variety of other reasons

[celest blade]

If you want to talk about it, send me a DM tomorrow and we will, because I think everyone on this thread (those who think classes are well balanced, and those who think the opposite) are all trying to move on from this balance/unbalance topic and focus on some things everyone (or at least most of the players) agree with, such as what is on the pined messages.
(I agree with some players thoughts about the fact we don't have enough number to proove there is/there isn't a balance issue, and I also agree with some persons when they said if something is wrong with balance, NF will work on it at some point.)

I hope some players from OL heretic who have nice ideas about some changes about Ara for exemple will join here to continue "working" on those ideas.

[celest blade]

Here is a message from Zipper :
"First of all, Heretic Ara is a great celestial class to unlock Ara Vesta II. Except those raids where you want to flex the x5 damage cap passive, it's useless.
Heretic Ara = Ara Vesta II & damage cap flex
Heretic Corvus is decent.
Base Heretic is great.
i'm happy with how base Heretic and Heretic Corvus perform atm
but Heretic Ara, great concept, with unique sigils & vesta spells, bad execution tho"

[little rapids]

I agree to move on from the "heretic is worse than other classes" balance discussion.

I'd like to talk about one possible vision for making the heretics more interesting instead. Interesting meaning that it changes the way you gear, the followers you use, the skills you use, the specs you use. (Something can be balanced and not interesting or vice versa; it's orthogonal.)

---

Heretic, and the entire mage line could use an archetype passive similar to bestial bonds for valhallans, avidity for realms, CD for warriors. I would propose that magic return to its roots and focus on elements -- mages have large skill pools for a reason and can carry a wide loadout to exploit weaknesses.

Every mage should have a (sizeable) bonus to hitting enemy weaknesses, as a passive. ||Ultima needs to be changed in some way for 245s+ to keep skill choice, but that's a... long discussion.|| The 2.5x base crit multiplier goes away. Heretic (base) focuses on inflicting sigils/elemblights and hitting those elemental weaknesses. Heretic's largest challenge would be a non-weak raid, which is fine.

Corvus would own the crit package, losing some elemental effectiveness to regain that 2.5x base crit multiplier (or some other good crit passive, chance or multiplier, perhaps a t.crit^/^^ autoproc?). It would keep the positive status passive as well. It doesn't need much more than that.

Ara would change the most. It needs at least a "debuffs last longer" passive both for celestial sigils and for statuses generally (sleep, blight, etc.). It also needs some kind of auto-sigiling, because the game speed being what it is, you can't spend turns durdling on de/buffs. A celestial sigil pet would be nice, as a mostly-Ara specific thing.

The hardest part is tying Ara to elements when it does non-elemental damage. Perhaps a tie-in would be to auto-sigil when you hit a weakness, so it alternates eleweak hitting with vesta sigil exploit?

Ara definitely feels like it comes from a design time when players weren't doing millions of damage per turn using all-class gear and generic skills/followers. And given how particular the community is about game speed, there's not really any way to unwind that clock.

[earnest agate]

To add to the element-exploiting-idea of Fux, something I'd like to check out is giving Anubis AoE sigils from the get-go and not being locked out by BB3.
What that would accomplish? Giving both Anubis a niche compared to Lotan or any other blighting god-dragon, as well as giving Maji's AoE a way to outperform Mage's Dance by requiring to select the correct spell instead of blindly clicking MD 22 or 25 times.

[little rapids]

We have a few followers with sigils already (mostly dark/holy sigils). Having year-round sigil access -- and aoe sigil access -- through Anubis would be nice, and make the follower more useful than it currently is (which is... not).

I don't really know how to fix the aoe problem given that a non-elemental non-split aoe is the gold standard and expectation now after several years. Anything more finicky than that is just going to get a thumbs down.

Ultima, Phoenix (read: follower choice), and AoE are all threads that I've attempted to make in the past. All of them went like 1k+ comments, turned into people freaking out about the possibility of losing any amount of player power in order to free up design choice, and then were locked and nuked. It makes it hard to talk about anything at all other than "idk how about just give +20% damage to players 🙃".

[ashen crystal]

As a person who is outside the spectrum of heretics (so take my opinion with a grain of salt), how would a damaging skill that had a small chance of applying each sigil (of the ara sigils, plus maybe the elemental sigils).
Coupled with longer lasting debuffs, it could potentially lead to interesting gearing with nagg belts / assassin / fomorian king for the application of several sigils at once, paying off with one huge Vesta spell.
Or perhaps, once again playing with idea that mages have an obnoxious amount of spell slots, having the Vesta spells have different purposes / uses in sigil interaction. Maybe one vesta spell consumes all of the targets' sigils to give you a powerful buff depending on how many it consumed (to allow you to salvage large amounts of sigils from a dying foe), one vesta spell consumes all the sigils to deal AoE damage times the consumed sigils. Maybe one vesta spell has the chance to spread sigils from the target to all foes.
That being said, most of these things end up being irrelevant because MD exists. And basically everything that isn't a raid dies to it. So sigils end up only being viable in a single target scenario.

In conclusion, ignore that I said, this problem is hard.

[hollow bison]

...I mean, there is something to be said of trying to just combine the current Ara sigil design with the elemental sigil design, right? Both of them try to accomplish the same overall system, so allowing them to interface would give Ara more options.

[little rapids]

Only if NF is down to change the ara skills to be elemental in some way. Make it respect weapon enchant, like an attack? 🤷‍♂️
On the whole I just don't really see any way forward for Ara.

The thing Ara should do is delete raids, but everyone deletes raids, and this playerbase won't accept not-deleting raids. Even an OR full of 10x HP raids is over in a like a half-hour for high level players.

[cold drift]

The hardest part is tying Ara to elements when it does non-elemental damage. Perhaps a tie-in would be to auto-sigil when you hit a weakness, so it alternates eleweak hitting with vesta sigil exploit?

this could be "fixed" making two things, first giving to heretic ara ( or a pet) a "prism alightment" buff that gives one alightment randomly and making that ara spells do either non-elemental damage if not alightment or the element of the caster alightment

[hollow bison]

...Hm. That's an alternative way.

What if we explored a different angle for Ara instead of its focus on more sigils=more damage, and went to the reason why Ara Vesta II became so iconic - it's multi target ability.

What if Sigils aided in targeting? Two ideas immediately came to mind, one of which seems like it'd be HUGELY useful and help immensely with one of Hera's core problems. Give Ara an accuracy buff to targets with sigils on them. They're based on the star signs, and star signs are all about portents of the future, so it even makes sense mechanically.

The other would be an Ara sigil that targets every enemy with a Sigil on them, making the AOE sigil skills useful.

[hollow bison]

This helps out with one of the smaller issues we've been having with the current Ara discussion, in that it gives a real reason to pick it up over its alternatives, rather than just as a skill pick.

[ashen crystal]

Won't that just boil down to the original issue of why use one or more turns applying sigils to then AoE them down, when you can just one one mage's dance

or, against more powerful enemies, like in towers, when you can use ara vesta twice

[hollow bison]

It would at least give it a major utility as a Zerk breaker - a path out of "no win" situations

(And Summoner PvP, LOL)

I think I like the accuracy buff more to represent it there, TBH

[ashen crystal]

Part of the issue with the sigils is that they do nothing other than amplify damage. They don't disable or anything. If you're spending a turn and the amount of enemies didn't change, and they're all still capable of attacking perfectly fine, not only is your run slower (more time spent on enemy turns), but it is also lengthier and increases your chance of dying

It could be good at killing zerks, but I was under the impression that people didn't particularly need help against those

And I'm not sure if sigils are a good idea in PvP. Between the existance of steadfast and the fact that multiple people deal five to six digits of damage unbuffed, turn one, at AL0, spending a turn doing nothing is pretty scary

[cold drift]

then what stops NF to make those sigils temp buffs instead of temp debuffs?

[late hedge]

But, Ultima coming from Deity..
It just happen to be good with heretic..

[brittle ferry]

How about a new passive that reduces the chance to inflict non-elemental statuses (bleed, stunned, petrify) while increasing the chance to inflict elemental statuses (frozen, burning, poison, rot, blight), and additionally those elemental statuses now apply a unique elemental weakness effect which would make it stackable with elemental sigils

Or they could cycle through the elements, so one status sets up the next element in the chain

[median nexus]

Blades of Finesse is the only area of gameplay in which I've been able to make use of sigils, if only because of the house rules.

Sigils are categorized as debuffs but seem to ignore any debuff prevention since they have never missed/failed to land in my experiences, for whatever that is worth.

[median nexus]

A Ring of Anwnn would shut this down completely unless the Ele-Blight effect could still land independent of its associated ailment.

[brittle ferry]

Obviously not intended for PvP purposes unless some specific pieces of equipment get nerfed exclusively for PvP

[median nexus]

Many raid bosses are immune to everything from Bleed to Petrification, though. And this would make pinning something (like a berserk Realmshifter) down with Stun Dart difficult, wouldn't it?

I like the idea of an elemental cycle/chain though. And being able to cause those elemental blights/sigils somehow as Ara should be a possibility.

[rugged parcel]

Seems too op tbh heretic already shreds raids

[median nexus]

So let's assign each sigil an element. They would preferably cause some kind of (de)buff/effect when you mark your foe with one.

When an AV spell hits a marked target, the sigil transforms into its elemental equivalent, and THAT sigil will only have a durability of 1 like the non-Aquila sigils do now.

So you're working toward getting that elemental sigil out for a nuke every few turns.

Cycle through sigil, AV, and then an elemental bomb. But the vital part is making the sigils do something immediately in addition to their "reaction/trigger" with AV.

Or you can stack up the sigils to burden the target with their effects if that suits the situation better.

Could get a little more complicated and add unique effects depending on the combo of sigils a target has when hit with AV to make using more than 1 rewarding somehow.

Full AoE chance, Ward absorption, T. Buffs for yourself, etc.

[potent zodiac]

When using H Ara, maybe add a static miss chance to H Ara spells? Doesn't fix the sigils but would give a reason to use the class outside of raids. This would mainly impact towers and anguish I would imagine

[lyric rose]

I'll just leave this here for the heretics that want to run high anguish. Under 2.5 minutes for 50 anguish. Doable at lower AL's than mine with a little tweaking, and anyone under 60 AL could still likely run 40 anguish quite reliably with the same setup builds. This is not a max ward build either, there's better options to gain more ward for those that need it. https://youtu.be/c8oYqfT1QJU?feature=shared

With that said, no one should expect to reliably run 50 anguish. Every class has plenty of failure running at 50.

You can apply this method with av2 instead, but you'll miss more.

[eager token]

My AL 36 gilga with meta gear still gets put 6 feet under at Anguish 37 horde boss

Not every time but it does happen when a zerk shows up

[lyric rose]

Yeah, zerks are always a cheek clencher haha. I got smacked for 450k by an rs zerk on 50

[eager token]

Dear lord

[nimble wolf]

Ofc it's CS build

Jfc

[lyric rose]

The way CS is scaled with AL's and with the static 5% miss chance it's pretty much the answer for every single class to run lol. It can be done with av2, but there's no static miss chance and misses is more chance for death

[eager token]

That was the original worry with spiked skills getting a static miss rate.

[lyric rose]

Maybe it will be reworked in another year or two. Lol

[nimble wolf]

Is AV2 a static missrate?

[lyric rose]

No, that's why av2 misses more and it makes more sense to use CS over av2

I changed the wording so the comment isn't misleading or confusing. I did make it look like av2 has a static miss chance

[zealous grotto]

The reason why spiked shield skills got a static miss chance is because without it gilga can't hit shit
Meanwhile heretic actually has a decent amount of dex to play around with

[lyric rose]

I hope heretics having dex to play around with is a joke... lol. Heretics have massive dex issues without a lot of AL and thief gear on corvus

Sure you can get the dex, then you can't get the damage to hit anything

[zealous grotto]

Also heretic gets a ×2 multiplier which helps with dex
Gilga only has a 1.5 multiplier

[lyric rose]

Still have to sacrifice a lot for good dex. Dex is hands down the most complained about issue on the OL heretic channel. Other than that heretic overall is considered to be in a decent place. With the exception of Ara being useless outside of damage flex

[eager token]

Note that the worry I am talking about is that this skill has a high AL harmony and another boost. I think at the time it was fair as there was not many ways to stay in passive and the cost of a miss with SS was: 1. Removed from class passive, 2. Loss of temp buff turn investment 3. Happened frequently.

These days the meta is very different

[amber basin]

Cs is massively overtuned lol. At this point every class uses it at the endgame, even mage classes. You dont really see that the other way around with a mage spell

[potent rivet]

i do gilga mage, ive even seen realmshifter do it

[amber basin]

As meme builds sure, but cs is actually meta

[eager token]

I think that while cs is over-tuned now. It is not the cause of the meta. Just a toll being used to show the power creep

[burnt wing]

I think the titan followers have got some Ara type of abilities. Hopefully this will give NF some ideas for a Heretic Ara rework