Why the Malakai Priest isn't very good.

[sIKE]

Sectarus, I know equipment, and that is out of school which was the point I was going for. Still 0 Familiars for the Holy school.

[jacksmack]

Also I think you're vastly underestimating the value of Malakai's Fire. Burn is great, especially now that we've seen the low-HP Resilient creatures appear. As for the Hand of Purification vs. a 4-die basic melee attack against a 0-armour target, the average damage is 5 vs. 4. Against targets with Armour or Resilient, the Hand of Purification with Burn is able to keep most of it's damage, going to ~2.666 damage against Resilient targets vs. 2. If you give them both a Gauntlets of Strength it goes to ~3.6 vs. 2 against Resilient targets. Malakai's Fire, even with the lower 2-die attack, works better against armoured targets than the higher 4-die attack does (direct damage being amazing and all...).

except vs a resilient target you cannot reliably damage that target with just 2 dice.
even with 3 dice you have almost 30% of not doing damage.

I think the points of burns strengths is good. But i disagree on how easy it is to apply without bearstrength / staff of asyra.
I wish that it wasnt limited to 1 per round, rather 1 per attack to avoid zone attack abuse. But still allow for attack spell synergi.
Would it be overpowered? cant see how with geyser, renewing rain, healing wand, spring and suring wave in game.

I too feel that the priest is weak and also extremely predictable.

Bad maths are bad.

With 2 dice you have 56% chance to get at least 1 critical damage.
With 3 dice you have 70% chance to get at least 1 critical damage.

Are you kidding me??

Is 56% reliable to you?
is "almost 30% chance of not doing damage vs resilient" not the same as "70% chance of 1 or more critical"?

[Wildhorn]

Oops, misread the 30% part. Thought you said 30% chance of doing damage. My bad.

But the 56% is more chance to hit than miss

See them has all having a defense of 7+

[Aylin]

Are you kidding me??

Is 56% reliable to you?
is "almost 30% chance of not doing damage vs resilient" not the same as "70% chance of 1 or more critical"?

After you get out the Dawnbreaker Ring, you have the same chance of doing damage against a Resilient target as any Mage without Battleskill...except if you hit you'll be doing more damage (on average) than the Battleskill Mages.

To be honest, against a Resilient target you want to get out one of your two Staves of Asyra quickly, since it has +2 to nonliving creatures.  With 6 dice you have a 91% chance of rolling at least one point of critical damage.

[jacksmack]

Are you kidding me??

Is 56% reliable to you?
is "almost 30% chance of not doing damage vs resilient" not the same as "70% chance of 1 or more critical"?

After you get out the Dawnbreaker Ring, you have the same chance of doing damage against a Resilient target as any Mage without Battleskill...except if you hit you'll be doing more damage (on average) than the Battleskill Mages.

To be honest, against a Resilient target you want to get out one of your two Staves of Asyra quickly, since it has +2 to nonliving creatures.  With 6 dice you have a 91% chance of rolling at least one point of critical damage.

my reference was to a post about 2 damage vs resilient was uber powerful because of the burn.

i was merely pointing out that 2 dice do not (in my world) land damage on a resilient target reliably.

I rest my case.

[Zuberi]

Against a resilient target, each attack dice does an average of 0.5 damage. With his two dice attack, the priest has a 56% chance of doing any damage and thus applying a burn. The average damage of a burn depends on how many rounds remain in the game but could be as high as 3.

3 x 0.56 = 1.68
0.5 + 0.5 + 1.68 = 2.68

Thus according to my math (which isn't my best subject) the priest can expect to do an average of 2.68 damage against a resilient target with each of his unbuffed attacks. In comparison a normal mage can only expect to do 1.5 damage and a battle skill mage can only expect 2.0 damage per attack on average. The priest has a clear advantage which just gets better with buffs.

I'll agree that 56% chance to do damage is less reliable than a 70% chance, but the amount of extra damage you deal more than makes up for it in a normal game according to the math. Sure, averages don't always work in your favor and you will see games where you can't seem to touch those resilient guys, but you'll also see games where you annihilate them and on average you should be doing better than other mages attacks.

[IndyPendant]

Heh.  Maybe it's time to weigh in again.  Everyone seems to have focused in on whether a burn token is worth one mana, or whether the Priest can expect to deal more damage than the Beastmaster in specific cases.  If you'll check my original post, I actually state that the Priest once everything is in place, the Priest ends up outdamaging the Beastmaster.  However, the Priest is so starved for mana that he can only have a chance at getting everything in place if his opponent stands around doing nothing and letting him.  He can't expect to be able to have enough mana in place to do everything required to deal that superior damage.  At least, not within a realistic time frame, if he's facing a capable opponent trying to stop him.

Once you boil it down, my problems with the Priest are that he is way too mana starved for everything he needs to do, and in most respects when you compare him with the Beastmaster he falls short.  Anything I build with the Priest, I end up thinking "this would work better, faster, and easier with the Beastmaster".

[Zuberi]

I think you are comparing apples to oranges, personally. The priest and beastmaster are vastly different mages with very different play styles.

To start with, I could not really say whether pet or holy avenger is better, because they do such wildly different things. Pet is about increasing your creatures damage and survivability, making it a force to be reckoned with. Holy avenger is about creating a distraction and providing some board control. The avenger protects your mage and gives your opponent a catch 22, while the pet simply creates a bigger threat.

You can compare malakais fire to battle skill, in which case the latter is a free constant +1 damage, and the former is an optional +3 damage. Battle skill is cheaper and more reliable, but the fire is more powerful. Different people will have different preferences whether they prefer reliability or power.

The creature pool I agree is a legitimate complaint. Disregarding going out of school, the beastmaster has a lot more options at his disposal.

As far as being mana starved goes, I kinda feel like every mage is mana starved when I play, lol. No matter which one I play, I always want to do more than I can. I don't really see how this is worse for the priest. 9 channeling is the same as the beastmaster and other aggressive mages. You say he only has 8 because of malakais fire, but you are forgetting that that ability is optional. You do usually want to use it, because there are few things I would consider to be better than 3 damage for 1 mana, but it is still a choice.

[Zuberi]

And I'm not sure what all you are referring to when you say he needs to get a lot in place. He begins the game dealing more damage than any other mage without any buffs. A priest with asyras staff will do more damage to an armored opponent (2+ armor) than a forcemaster with galvitar. Indeed, all of the other mages are playing catch up to him, he just has to invest a little to stay ahead.