Skill Revamp Suggestion: Saint

[Mr.Shovels]

HEY!

Since the Light Fury and Physician class got their revamp, both of them have been a better DPS than the Saint with almost equal of healing powers of the Saint but in my opinion is great considering there should be other choices of healer roles other than the Saint, but in terms of DPS, The saint is being left behind and now LF is the top competitor for being the best healing class with a jack of all trades for being a good dps, a good healer and support, also with the assassin's party buff revamp turns into an elemental increase type of skill which buffs up the party with 10% more elemental buff, and on top of that LF is more agile and mobile than the saint which in my opinion is so slow whenever casting his most remarkable skills such as antiphona pool and blessed sign which is his best DPS skills after the Awakening.

We will discuss what are the differences of the Saint with the other 2 Support class in the game:

• Mobility - in terms of movement speed, with the buffs applied when relics are used on Class Mastery, The saint is fast enough, but in terms of the pace for the saint to cast certain skills, it is somewhat too slow, this makes him vulnerable in so many occasions, requires positioning wherever and whenever he needs to use these said abilities
• DPS - The DPS of the saint is problem, but since clerics are supposed to be a class in which relatively has lower dps in terms of board damage of their abilities, i can understand that LF and Physician succeeds the saint, but even so the dps isn't really comparable to that even 3/4 of the inquisitor's ability to deal damage, the dps of saint is too weak. I am not saying to make the Saint OP, but rather increase his ability to deal dps, LF and Physician has way more DPS capability than the saint, that is what i'm saying.
• Antiphona Pool and Blessed Sign - both of this skills are decent in terms of dealing dps but not good enough
• Summoning Relics -
  
  Lightning Relic - The 3 small lightning relics falls too slow, even with just 1 second delay could miss the chance to use SoR considering the other 2 relics are way too important to waste to deal dps.
  Healing Relic and Cure Relic - their skill animation is quite a bit slow, making the character vulnerable to many dangers while using the skill.

Now let me share you my idea on how to actually improve Saint:

Saint

• Shock of Relic
  • Should have a better casting animation, should have the ability to be used whenever possible, similar to that of Cure Relic being able to use even in the middle of using a skill or summoning another relic
• Bind Relic EX (Requires level 8 bind relic)
  • Gives falling damage of 1000% of character's attack power
• Class Mastery II
  • Adds in Bind Relic as the triggering system for having self buff as proposed on Class Mastery II (10% Light Attack for 20 Seconds)
• [Awakening Passive] Saint Role
  • Add in some passive enhancement for certain skills
    
    Cure Relic and Healing Relic - While skill is being used, action speed increases by 30%
    Protection Shell - Cooldown is improved from 85 seconds to 60 seconds
• [Awakening Passive] Lightning Relic
  • Since Lightning Relic is the only skill that the Saint depends mostly to deal damage using SoR, i suggest that there should be atleast 2 additional cooldowns saved whenever possible, this is to better improve the ability of the saint for relic placement to further improve the dps of SoR
• Antiphona Pool
  • This skill needs to have a faster pulsating (explosion) rate for where it deals damage because the moment the holy dot is shot from the ground, it stays there for a moment, and if the enemy moves away, the skill is pretty much useless, so positioning and the right timing of using the skill is necessary, a disadvantage of some skills of the saint
• Blessed Sign
  • Should be improved with a better skill animation, and deal damage at a faster rate since the channeling sequence of the skill is holding the character in a steady position which is a problem, either the player avoids the boss and cancel the channeling of the spell, or take the hit head-on in order to deal the most dps.
    
    Could be improved if rather the skill is given less lands to deal and just increase the damage and increased damage dealt to monsters when certain hits of the skill to the enemy is achieved
• [Awakening Passive] Holy Burst
  • This awakening passive is pretty much lacks that punch, it is good in terms of actually summoning a lot of relics around an enemy
    I suggest to have Holy Burst an additional cooldown saved in order to use at any moment, giving the ability for the saint to improve in dps.
• Immortality
  • I know this is already too much, 3 seconds of invulnerability is already a good advantage, but in my opinion should have atleast a 5 second buff duration since 3 seconds won't be enough in some cases

Any of your opinion is highly appreciated, you can also suggest any other skill changes for the saint to better improve their potential.

[TaintLight]

Although I don't really play PvE anymore... Here are some of my thoughts:

• Isn't the Enhanced Antiphona Pool (additional dots) triggered by Grand Cross Awakening?
• As for CMIII, Holy Bolt enhances Blessed Sign instead...
• I don't see a reason for Wand Mastery to be a buff (wastes hot-key slots) and Eyedentity has mostly gotten rid of party buff for a reason.... (Oh hey, that old era where there are literally only 2 free slots for others.)
• Not sure what you mean by "Casting Speed improves" for Healing/Cure Relic, Do you want them to be summoned faster (Cause that's what "casting speed" technically means) or do you want them to apply their effects (What I think you want?) at a faster rate?
• About the Miracle Relic Awakening Passive... Does the Bind Relic EX shoot out 2 types of Holy Energy at the same time (one with Holy Burst's damage & the other with Miracle Relic's damage) or does it overwrite the Bind Relic EX's Holy Energy (Holy Burst)?

I'll leave the skills to those who understand PvE.... because I'll be very upset if I have to face this in PvP.

[Mr.Shovels]

i don't think i may have suggested the best possible outcomes for a saint revamp and may have made saint too op for this...

the reason i wanted to have Wand Mastery to be toggled type skill is to bring back the previous function of the toggly type ability from the paladin's skill tree atleast, but i don't think it is necessary so whenever i get the time i will edit this to a more balanced skill revamp.

Yes, but i suggested to replace the awakening passive grand cross with another awakening passive

What i mean by Casting speed improves by 50% is that the animation for summoning the relics takes around a second and a half, full 2 seconds without any action speed buff.

The Miracle Relic shouldn't affect Bind Relic since it already shoots holy light from the ground similar to that of holy burst awakening passive but i may have to edit it out.

I will need to make major changes on my suggestions, this seems pretty much OP and the current saint satisfy pretty much anyone's criteria for a support class but it needs a bit more tweaks to really compete with Light Fury or Physician, both of them are very versatile with abilities that requires less standing and idling and doesn't need that much positioning.

And Saint is the only one with the ability to actually provide invulnerability which is great on many situations, its just that saint lacks a bit on the dps department and on the ability to cast their skills at a faster pace

[Skyros]

Here's my version of Saint balancing (or small rework)

General:

• Relic collision and targeting removed (like GM Towers so basically invulnerable but still can be removed by mech wipe to promote skillful use)
• Reduce Relic 'drop delay' by 50%

Skill Changes:

Lightning Relic

• Now pulses an Electric Field to deal damage; 3m AoE and pulses every 2 seconds.
• Removed 'relic drop' damage.

Lightning Relic EX

• Effect Changed: Damage increased by 50%; AoE increased to 5m

Striking

• Cooldown increased to 10 seconds

Healing Relic

• Removed 'relic drop' damage

Cure Relic

• Removed 'relic drop' damage

Cure Relic EX

• +MoveSpd buff duration increased to 25s.
• +MoveSpd buff increased to 30%.
• Now applies the buff immediately after cast.

Bind Relic

• Removed 'relic drop' damage.
• Summon duration increased from 9s -> 12s (30s duration at max level for potential 100% debuff uptime)

Shock of Relic

• Skill delay removed.
• Visual cue on AoE improved.

Class Mastery I

• +MoveSpd buff changed to +30% ActSpd buff.

Class Mastery II

• Changed skill trigger from Holy Burst to Grand Cross.
• Duration increased to 30 seconds.

[Awakened] Holy Burst

• Relic AoE increased to 3m.

[Awakening] Saint's Role:

• Added Effect: [Miracle Relic] Buff duration increased to 10 seconds.

Skill Rework:

[Awakened] Lightning Relic

• Removed Small Relic 'drop damage'.
• Small Relic damage reduced to 50% of Lightning Relic's damage.
• Added Effect: While casting [Striking], press Left Mouse Button to move all Lightning Relics (including Small Relic) to your position.

Class Mastery III:

• Added Effect: Casting [Holy Bolt] leaves an inert Holy Dot in the cast location for 3 seconds.
• Effect Changed: Casting [Blessed Sign] with an inert Holy Dot in the field will activate the Holy Dot. [Blessed Sign] will be cast by the activated Holy Dot instead with 50% increased cast speed and damage.

Antiphonary Pool

• Skill changed: Summons a Holy Dot that gathers enemies towards the center. After a few seconds, the Holy Dot explodes to deal damage. The nearer the enemy is at the center, the more explosion damage is dealt. Atk per hit 1500% (5 total hits). Explosion damage: 100% in 5m; 200% in 3m.

[Awakened] Grand Cross

• Projectile size and speed changed (larger and slower like old Inqui v2 GC).
• Explosion damage increased to 200%.
• Changed Effect: [Antiphonary Pool] Holy Dot can now be hit by [Grand Cross]. If [Grand Cross] successfully hits, Holy Dot triggers to explode automatically. [Antiphonary Pool] explosion damage increased to 500% regardless of AoE.

IMO, this pretty much solves much of Saint's innate problems. A) Vulnerability due to long-cast animations, B) Reliance to luck on boss movement, C) Relic vulnerability and issue during nests/raids, D) Underwhelming Awakening Tree and E) Loss of AoE skills to solo-clear dungeons. I know that DPS is an innate problem but I'm not a 'balancing pro' to crunch the numbers and compare it to the other Healer subclasses, so my numbers are just tentative value to retain the current DPS of the aforementioned skills. What I simply did is to provide input on how to solve Saint's gameplay problems.

Some of these effects and values are OP in PvP (like Relic invulnerability) but I'll leave the discernment on PvP to the PvP players.

Feedback is highly appreciated. If you want a specific rationale on the changed effects/skills, you can leave a comment.

[Lans Vahndreas]

Probably change the name of "Great Heal" to previous "Holy Shield" and also cleric voice mentioning "Holy Shield" when the skill is being casted.

[Lans Vahndreas]

Skyros Hey bruh...! Check my previous comment This is just my suggestion... my suggestion, my suggestion
And I don't think if they really want to implement this...
With both effect of current "Great Heal" effect and old "Holy Shield" effect applied, so the heal ability is increased than just heal +regen for few seconds.
For Clear Debuff status effect sure can be cured with "Cure Relic". Just in case "Cure Relic" on CD and party member on the dangerous situation caused of burning effect/ poison effect debuff, so atleast can additionally heal amount of HP per hit acquired from those burn/ poison effect last for few seconds. If no hit received by players with this heal skill buff, only normal HP regen effect will be received till buff time is ends.

Or just forget those effect suggestion...........
I'm hopping they'll improve the skill voice and animation on current Great Heal skill. cz it sounds like normal Heal voice of cleric skill.

[Skyros]

Lans Vahndreas No need to be mad bruh lul. I'm just saying that old Holy Shield doesn't heal when damaged by status effects (like Burn and Poison) but only by direct hits.
If Cure Relic fails, Miracle Relic can remove debuffs. Additionally, all of Saint's heals have a 'heal-per-second' effect due to his Saint's Role Awakening. I'm not saying your suggestion is shiet, but your suggestion is already there. Good day.

[Lans Vahndreas]

@Skyros
You should able to see my emoticon smiling widely above

Ah, yah, the old effect of Holy Shield doesn't work on Burn/ Poison effect, but in this my suggestion is revamp that old effect abit to be able to heal during poison/ burn effect too... So, the healing regeneration effect is doubled, "within heal buff applied, player will be healed xx amount every xx seconds last for xx seconds, and if player got hit any attack from enemy's skill/ from area of effect during buff applied will be additionally healed lesser amount of main heal regeneration effect."

The top of those suggestion I'm just hopping if all of these player's feedback/ suggestions would be delivered to developer's side and consider on it...

[Mr.Shovels]

my version of a revamp on saint might be too OP so i'll leave at it to other people's discretion to give their own version of the revamp (will edit it out if i get an idea of a proper and balanced out saint)

My only problem is that the saint needs proper placement in the area where the boss is located before he can even use antiphona pool and blessed sign, and both skill doesn't even deal that much damage compared to most, so its a hassle and like playing chess while using saint

[Lans Vahndreas]

For DPS problem probably need to boost those Antiphona (Normal & Awakened) & Blessed Sign hit rate for more burst...
If throw Antiphona on enemy and hit accurately will be attached on enemy's body till skill duration is ends. if it touched the ground 1st will be remain on the ground and gives damage to enemy nearby.

Really hard for saint to place all relics if the enemy is hyperactive @_@

And 3 Mini Relics from Awakened Lightning Relic appearance is dropped together immediately after main Lightning Relic touched the ground, and hit area is increased.
I think only this little boost would be enough to help DPS ing....

[Mr.Shovels]

Blessed sign, antiphona pool and the slow falling of the 3 mini relics and lightning relic is the problem as to why Saint has a really low DPS, i know for sure since i've tried playing saint and its really frustrating, considering its not even comparable to the dps of Light Fury and Physician, i am comparing it to the 2 because they are healers, they aren't sub healers but capable healers now that they've got better heals than from before.

[tehkangthai]

Hi, I made an account just to join in on this discussion,1ST of all I've been playing on and off since the start of DNA sea, back during the open beta till now, clerics are my favourite class especially saint, and I must say when they decided to take the route of adding dps for saints,I'm a bit disappointed, look, saint is a support class, a dedicated support, so I really don't like the idea of saint being compared in the sense of dps, it's not meant to do that, granted I like that we have some abilities to be able to clear some dungeons on our own now and level up on our own, but for nest content I firmly believe we should not be a dps contributions,maybe a filer dps, instead I'd like to implore on the perspective of revamp on saints supportive abilities. I stand by the idea of saint being a dedicated support, and our enemy should always be the depleting health of our teammates, a full health BAR is always the aim of saints, and our abilities should always focus on that aim, of course some form of damage abilities for us to clear dungeons is always welcome, because that is always the frustration of playing a saint, leveling up to reach level cap, of course these are just my personal preference.

[Skyros]

tehkangthai You just contradicted yourself Sir. You talk about the current KOS-oriented meta while trying to turn down changes on Saint's DPS improvement.

IMHO, Saint DPS is currently fine (even potentially surpassing LF DPS levels). What I am for is improving the Saint's quality-of-life when it comes to his skills. A main problem is Saint's reliance to his Relics as 2 of his most potentially damaging skills (SoR and Holy Burst) need Relics to function well. Relics are static and simple movement of the boss would lead to a miss or heavy reduction on his damage potentials, not to mention that both of his damaging skills suffer the same problem (Antiphona Pool and Blessed Sign).

Saints are shunned in PTs except for Trial Nests, GDN and FDN and there's no denying that. LFs are not in the same boat as Saints even though both are designed as healer classes. Why is that? Simply because of their DPS capability. Nests scale with the party number and as a Saint with zero-dps contribution, you are indefinitely useless and unwanted in parties. Yes, you'll be healing your mates but you'll be a waste of a party slot without substantial DPS contribution. As a pt-builder I'd rather build a full DPS party that can chew through a boss before party wiping mechs trigger than get a Saint that would reduce the DPS-capability of the party. (And Saints can't even save you from party-wipe mechanics)

I've been a Cleric and Saint main since 24 cap and the reason why Saints (or supports in general) worked before is because of how the Nests functioned. With a KOS-oriented Nest design, the healer role is now obsolete. Wouldn't it be good if Saints would get changes fit for the current meta?

TL;DR The Healer role is a dead role due to the Nest/PvE design. Saints need to have changes fit for the current meta or you'll be left soloing (or changing characters). Nobody here is saying that Saint should be S-Tier DPS or anything near A-Tier at best, we just want to get a DPS/Gameplay improvement so that we'll be can contribute to the DPS requirement of the party and not be just a hunk of standing shiet and be carried.

[Lans Vahndreas]

tehkangthai, HEY BRO....

So Player must change to DPS type classes to go solo while his/her main char is a Support type (Saint especially)?
Do u have brain to think that will be costly to gear more chars?
IF want to be DPS then go DPS Class, currently Flurry is the top DPS Class. So, need to spend more gold/ resource to build Flurry Char and STILL learn skill rotation of Flurry. 
HEY! I'm Main Saint, I'm not comfortable using other classes... I'm enjoying using Saint because it's my Main Char.

Let me tell you, I'm not a cash player who spend real money to gear my char. I'm not that rich in real life. Unless there are good cash event rewards like Limited edition mount, Costumes, etc (Gacha Event). And I only join for 1 or 2 chars if needed.
If u talking about cash spender for Full Conversion set, well, I'm not included. I and some of Guildmates & Friends are Hard Worker casual player. We grind together to collect gold to buy desired items at TH like currently L Jades.

And again according to your statement ["why'd you play saint if you wanna solo a nest? would'nt it be wiser to choose other DPS class?"] I'm sure most people disagree with you!!! I'm a kind of person if I like/ comfortable with something, I would keep that thing forever till the time say goodbye... So, I keep playing Saint because it's my main char with almost everything I've collected in that char, Title, Mount, Normal items, Another cash items from past free events.

For public party, do you thing most of them are kind? No, that's totally NO!. People mostly looking for decent gear with High DPS. If u talk about "carrying" actually no one want to carry useless people from pub PT. 

["again why would you solo nest? and with saint? unless you're a masochist, you'd wouldnt wanna attempt that"] 
Because many reasons & situations! one of those is Rushing Daily Task. If there are any Guildmates/ Friend we go nest together for Guild Points / CP.
Currently Nest system, solo is better than going with party in Dungeons/ Nests for material & Gold hunt. Beside of that, Bosses's HP in Nest is Ticker when enter Nest more than 1 Player (unless all pt members are know mechanics and how to play, and at least equal gears). So, if going with random pub player mostly wasting time and FTG (in FM & MC FTG immediately used upon enter).
It's also challenging, and how player train their own char wisely, learn nest mechanic, how to solve every mechanic, knowing our limit in which floor of nests. Unless u only want to be carried surplus...! Just simple, begging for boost in nest all the day...
And have you tried to solo the old STS (Manticore) from beginning? I've tried to attempt and cleared that in almost 1 hour without die. Really it's challenging. And just to know am I (as Saint) able to clear that or not.
If u still don't know STS, it's Event Stage Storm of Time of Space (Comp On), all stats are balanced.

According to Skyros is yes. If someone can't contribute DPS in the Party would be useless.
I've slowly pushed Lab Floor with my Guildmates & Friends from Nest Lab 40 to 50.
That's totally need DPS and Heal + skill to control each char. One of our member was only full skila & U jades. But he can survive with good dodge skill so we able to climb up the higher floor.
At that time we stopped at Lab 49 because runout of time. At another time after I got some L Jades and also other members, we able to clear Nest Lab 50.

There are still many nest especially in Raid Nest that need DPS contribution per player, including Healer Classes.
Read again my previous post above!!!
["Like currently in Forest Dragon Nest Light at Dragon Stage Blue/Red Ball mechanic. where the other 6 members killing Tortree and 1 player still in Mushroom room). Some times multiple mechanics appreared at the same time when the party role are divided. And I'm as a Saint keep standby at dragon stage to lure dragon position, while the Blue/Red Ball mechanic apprear, need to run & hit correct ball at the correct timing too."]
At hat time I'm unable to destroy the correct ball within the time limit due to slow cast skill & not enough skill damage. So, all pt members got damaged around 75%+ HP bar of us gone from Full HP 100%
If you've experienced in FDN you should know that situation, and some mechanics like to appear together at same times.

If you still insist about Saint must be fully support role it's fine. That's your own Saint not mine, not our.
Just be supporter as a Saint (if u main Saint) and look for Geared party members to bring you along Nests/ Dragon Nests...
Oh, yeah, and try to find or gather people for Nest/ FM/ MC/ Trial Nest Lab 45 - 50 with your fully support role main Saint!

[Mr.Shovels]

Calm down... everybody has their own methods and preferences of doing things their way, if they wanna solo nest using a support class thats fine, they finished it then that's great, if not then it is just mean that they didn't put much into consideration that a support class isn't really that capable of finishing a nest alone especially undergeared.

As a support, it doesn't mean your only role is to heal, cheer on your party members and buff them up with supportive buffs, it also means that you need to defend yourself and deal as much damage as you can in order to take down your enemies, its not the same as many jrpgs you assume to be (although this is a korean rpg, i don't think its much less difference) as what i've known for my long years of playing a lot of rpgs, albeit western, japanese or even indie rpg, i found that doing what you want makes it all a different and fun experience, not just for you, but for some who does it too, if you disagree then its fine, this is a thread to share all of our thoughts and opinions and not about ranting that everybody else disagrees with you and it turns into an argument and then you guys fight and bark at each other, bickering won't really solve anything nor learn from something.

The moment you people bickered i think that this is just a waste of time to respond, but then again i just don't want anyone having indifference for the sake of provoking someone, and i think that's the issue here, and if anyone of you understands the other one is saying, then great, but if you're here to search for an argument, then i think this isn't the place for you to find one.