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View Full Version : The Official Bishops Need Improving Thread


Ammano
02-21-2006, 11:04 PM
I'm about to pull out the cheese and pop the cork on some port. (I'm including this phrase now to ninja it away from the INEVITABLE [and oh-so-tired] statement of "want some wine..." from any half-wits thinking they are being clever.)

I participated in my second siege the other night and found that the bishop class lacks significantly in several areas. Granted, I'm not nearly as experienced at this as some, but these issues are glaring. I've also tossed in some observations that don't necessarily relate to sieging.

#1 - Spell Casting Range

Bishops have a max range of 600 on spells. It looks to me that many (most or all?) ranged classes of the nuker/archer variety have a 900 range. Why can't offense and defense players have the same range? Someone tell me how that would be unbalancing. What's wrong with allowing the defensive characters to heal a party member from on top of a castle wall? As it stands, I can't even heal or buff a person standing directly below me on the ground without having to jump off the wall.

#2 - Viewable Alliance HP

Healers can not see any out-of-party players health condition—specifically alliance and clan members. At the very least, during a siege, healers should be able to target clanmates/alliance members and see their HP. When standing next to the flag or in the castle holding room, healers are blowing mana left and right double and triple healing people who don't need it because someone else got them already. On the battlefield, whole parties are going unhealed because a bishop standing right next to them doesn't know their HP condition. It shouldn't be solely a clanmate's responsibility to say "need heal here!"; a bishop should be able to target people and see instantly if they need help or not.

#3 - Ressurrection

I've been told that rez does not work during a siege (therefore, I have not tried it). Why not? It's seems that this is exactly what the class was made for. The idea that you can save your mates from going to the "time-out" room or back to the flag when on the other side of the castle would be of benefit to the mechanics of a siege without being unbalancing. After all, we're trading mana for the rez; not to mention that we can only rez every couple of minutes.

While on the subject of ressurrections, why don't bishops have the highest ressurrection in the game? Sure, they have better than every other player rez out there, but one small piece of parchment that can be bought in bulk every other week makes this skill obsolete.

#4 - Out of range casting

Don't make us run to a party member if we attempt to cast a spell on them from out of range. My personal experience was that I inavertantly jumped off the castle wall several times because I attempted to run to an out-of-range party member. At least give us a toggle to turn it on and off.

There are more observations, but I'm getting long-winded as it is. Thank you NCSoft for considering these suggestions.

FILI_Lionna
02-21-2006, 11:23 PM
Good points, I agree with all of them. Now about the out of range casting. Don't you stay stuck in one spot if you hold down shift while casting the buff/spell/heal. Then all you get is the out of range message instead of falling off the wall? I guess I need to try this but I think it works. I know its not the best solution to the problem but its better than falling into the enemys awaiting arms.

TatsuAoi
02-21-2006, 11:28 PM
You CAN res on a siege feild. You just can't do it unless you have a flag up (I don't know about the defensive side, I don't think anyone really has tried?). The reason for this is clans already holding castles have to spend time to get back on the siege grounds to help their alliance/friends or what not.

Hold shift if you don't want to move.

Boo
02-22-2006, 02:40 AM
For the defensive side - you can rez if you and teh victim are signed up. If you are signed up for defense, you can also mass rez allies that are not signed up. The same goes for attackers - if you have a flag still standing.

Bloodfest
02-22-2006, 02:49 AM
a thing that I really hate since C4 is the party CP bars.
for every party member you see 3 bars, and in the heat of battle you see those going down all at the same time, wich can get incredibly confusing, especially during sieges or mass pvp.

some sort of option to turn off the CP and mana bars from party members would be incredibly usefull, since we can't heal neither.

I agree its lame we still have the same the same range as we had as a cleric, even as a cardinal. somewhere along the road we should have a skill to let heals reach at least 800 range.

Spudnik
02-22-2006, 08:31 AM
well, those are very nice suggestions there and i agree with all of them.

but consider the negative effects now...

imagine you have 900 range on your heals, should you also have 900 range on your sleeps? and roots?

i think so.

imagine your siege, you can sleep and root those attackers/defenders so that melee/ranged/magical users in your allys can come to DD. as it is, trying to sleep/root my opponents is difficult as i keep gettin oneshot by some nuker before i get in range.

now in terms of just what the negative effects of heal with a greater range are, i can say it might be considered perching if you could heal from on high.

viewing HP bars of allys/clan that would be cool. just have it hover beneath their name and we can heal at will.

i really like this post and it deserves some love.

Warper
02-22-2006, 09:35 AM
1) Spell Casting Range
Not signed.

You are not supposed to heal people staying over the wall. Other than that... The range is not very high, but healing spells are not supposed to be useful for close fighters with bishop staying out of range.
If you heal range attacked though, you have a range in addition to their attack. That is, you can stay up to 1500 away fom those they attack.
It's all ok.
By the way, cardinals Balance life has no range restriction at all.

2) Viewable Alliance HP
Signed

Good idea, even though it will increase network load upon activation in a manner you describe. I suppose showing only your target (if it is ally/clannie or summon of the one) hp/cp shold be enough. It loads some info upon targetting anyway, so it will not produce any excessive traffic.

3) Ressurrection
Signed

I have no understanding of why people can't be rezzed during sieges. After all, mass rez is the unique spell and it is not useful in every-day situations.
Also, rezzing is possible in some situations during sieges (for example, people can be rezzed somewhere inside Aden castle, our siegers has used it when they siezed castle from NPCs).

4) Out of range casting
Signed, but only partially.

Sometimes it's gerat if you actually run to someone and buff. That way I can buff people if they are not far away.
Even though it's absolutely dull behavious if a person is far away (for example, person ports to CH from a battlefield).
I'd like to suggest the distance (like 1500 range) from what you don't ever run toward the party member trying to buff it. Rather than that you should get "Out of range" message nistantly.
And for short ranges... shift-click is enough.

Bloodfest
02-22-2006, 12:20 PM
[ QUOTE ]
By the way, cardinals Balance life has no range restriction at all.

[/ QUOTE ]
no it doesnt.

[ QUOTE ]
3) Ressurrection
Signed

I have no understanding of why people can't be rezzed during sieges. After all, mass rez is the unique spell and it is not useful in every-day situations.
Also, rezzing is possible in some situations during sieges (for example, people can be rezzed somewhere inside Aden castle, our siegers has used it when they siezed castle from NPCs).

[/ QUOTE ]

you either have to be signed up to defend or to attack and have their flag up when defending. people who don't have that have no way to rez their clanmembers.

EllieBelly
02-22-2006, 05:17 PM
Having been in sieges on every castle on the map since level 29 I can sorta comment on this.

1) A longer range would be nice, but I can't say it's every really been a problem that I've noticed. Healing from castle walls would get you owned no matter what the range is, trust me. The best bet to stay alive in sieges while healing is not really our heal range, but staying behind ONE select person in the party, and doing your best to mix in with everyone else. If they die, pick someone else to stay BEHIND. Plus with a longer range you'd still need line of sight to heal.

2) I don't know... sounds kind of "hax" ish. Just be in that persons party. I can't imagine trying to heal/rez MORE people than my party in a siege. I blow through mp like crazy as it is. I would never try to heal someone out of party unless they were behind the walls or something.

3) It does work at a siege, there's a few conditions though. If you are attacking, you have to have a flag up to rez. Which means you are also signed up to attack. If you are defending (which means registered to defend), the life crystals have to be intact. If those go down, no more rezzing. We own at rezzing though, IF you have the mp (which you probably won't) you can rez, then mass rez while the regular one is still recharging. Plus a scroll rez if people don't mind losing a whole 1%.

4) You can always hold down shift or whatever it is to keep from jumping off walls. But from my experiance, it's best to have one person in the party that you follow around like a dog, and if anyone else isn't within range they just don't get heals. You don't have time to be chasing people down in a siege. If they die, have a secondary person to follow, and so on.

I have lots of healer siege videos on my site if you wanted to check it out. My Site (http://www.elliebelly.net)

Oh and I also find the CP bar a pain to read, it totally throws me off. I guess I'll get use to it.