Priest Development Thread

[kablizzy]

Ability	Description	MP	Range	Effect	Speed	JP
Pray	Same thing as Black Mage here. Turns Cure into higher levels.	0	Self	1	40?	0
Cure	White Magick that soothes injuries, restoring HP.  Can be Reflected. Quote: "Life's refreshing breeze, blow in energy! Cure!"	6	4	1	25	50
Dia	Light White Magick damage.	8	4	1	25	150
Restore	White Magick that soothes injuries, restoring HP.  Can be Reflected. Effect: Cure and Regen.	10	4	1	20	180
Miracle	White Magick that soothes injuries, restoring HP.  Can be Reflected. Quote: Revive and Regen.	16	4	1	15	450
Life	White Magick to fetch a warrior from the brink of death.  Can be Reflected. Removes: KO. Quote: "Spirits of life, return to us! Raise!"	10	4	1	25	180/200
Full Life	White Magick to fetch a warrior from the brink of death and fully restore HP as well.  Can be Reflected. Removes: KO. Quote: "Spirits of life, give a new life to the soul! Raise2!"	20	4	1	10	500/600
Reraise	White Magick that endows a unit with a protective force that will revive him or her only once after being KO'd. Can be Reflected. Effect: Reraise. Quote: "Inject life's energy! Reraise!"	16	3	1	15	800/1000
Regen	White Magick that invigorates the life force, gradually restoring HP as long as its protection is in effect.  Can be Reflected. Effect: Regen. Quote: "Share lives with all things in nature.... Regen!"	8	3	1	25	300/350
Sanctify Weapon	+20% damage Add: Holy	15	3	1	25	280
Protect	White Magick that conjures up invisible armor made of air to protect the body from direct blows.  Can be Reflected. Effect: Protect. Quote: "Precious light, be our armor to protect us! Protect!"	6	3	1	25	70
Shell	White Magick that conjures up invisible, mystical veil to protect the body from magick.  Can be Reflected. Effect: Shell. Quote: "Silent light, shield from evil! Shell!"	6	3	1	25	70
Dispel	Dispel positive buffs on enemies. Effect: Get that shit off yo' face!	15	4	1	20	550
Wall	White Magick that conjures up an invisible barrier to protect the body from physical and magickal blows.  Can be Reflected.  Effect: Protect, Shell. Quote: "Ancient light, rise and revive! Wall!"	24	3	1	25	380/400
Esuna	White Magick that removes negative status effects. Can be Reflected.  Removes: Stone, Blind, Confuse, Silence, Berserk, Toad, Poison, Sleep, Immobilize, Disable, Doom, Provoke, Terror. Quote: "Heavenly wind, carry us to a fountain of power! Esuna!"	18	3	1	34	280/300
Holy	White Magick that attacks the target with sacred light.  Can be Reflected.  Element: Holy. Quote: "Bright light, shine down on bloody impurity! Holy!"	56	5	1	17	600
Divine Judgment	Element: Holy Holy-Elemental damage to all enemies.	70		All Enemies

Reaction

Name	Description	Trigger	JP
Regenerator	Receive the blessing of HP regeneration.	HP Loss	400
Martyr	Recover MP after taking damage.	HP Loss	350
Critical: Divine Intervention	Priest is healed and enemies hit with Holy Damage	Critical	700
Critical: Divine Vengeance	Counters with Holy.	Critical	650

Support

Name	Description	JP
Magic Defense UP / Divine Blessing	Take less damage from magickal attacks.	400
Turbo MP	Uses twice as much MP to garner double the effect.	450
Sanctified Weapon	As spell, auto	350

Movement

Name	Description	JP
Pilgrimage	Recovers HP and MP on Move	350

Notes:
This needs some cutting, and there are a couple abilities I ran across that don't necessarily belong here, but I do love some of the support and Reaction stuff, even if not for Priest, perhaps for another class.

[Schwerpunkt]

So here are my thoughts on the "archetype" of priest heals in the baseline FFT.

1. "I heal you."
2. "I heal you for more."
3. "I heal you over time."
4. "I heal you from death."
5. "I heal you from death more better."
6. "I heal you for even more betterer."
7. "I make it so you take less damage so that I don't have to heal you so much, you meathead."
8. "I cure those status effects that are mauling you so I don't have to heal them."
9. "Oh, and I have a single target nuke because that's how I roll."

Which is to say that this class in FFT is just really meh. We need to fundamentally redesign it.

So, return to my suggestion on the Wizard. Remember how I proposed a 'channel' spell that basically lets him turn single target spells into aoes? Exact same concept here for expanding aoes. Once that's established, let's go with something like.

1. Protect
2. Cure
3. Restore (Cure + Regen)
4. Esuna (only dispels magic effects)
5. Revive
6. Miracle (Revive + Regen)
8. Holy
7. Sanctify Weapon (friendly target deals 20% more holy-elemental damage with his next attack)
9. Pray (minor Holy-elemental damage to all enemies; Channel would be redundant here)

Reaction
Critical: Divine Intervention - Priest is fully healed and all adjacent enemies are hit for Holy-elemental damage (on par with Pray).
Critical: Divine Vengeance - Priest casts Holy on the last unit to hit him.

Support
Sanctified Weapon - Every melee attack deals an additional 25% damage (10% if secondary) in Holy-elemental damage.
Divine Blessing - Reduces all incoming magic damage by 10%.

Movement
Pilgrimage - Every move action restores a small amount (1%) of HP and MP.

[kablizzy]

Yep, my "Pray" up above was designed to be that ability. I *love* Sanctify weapon, whether it be a primary or Support ability. Especially considering that Priests are gonna Hammer some faces. Love pretty much all of this as well, actually.

Edit: My only actual complaint is that the Priest's early game is still a bit underwhelming. Added Dia as an early option, and pondering the usefulness of Protect / Shell / Wall, Dispel / Esuna, and Life / Full-Life / Reraise. 

[Schwerpunkt]

Yes, the Priest's early game is one-note. And so is every other class's early game; the Wizard gets three variations of the exact same skill before he gets more interesting options.

I don't like Regenerator, Martyr, or Dia. Dia loads us with three Holy-elemental abilities (which is just nonsensical) and there's no reason to use it over Holy or Divine Judgement. Regenerator has always been very underwhelming; Regen by itself simply isn't very useful in a game like FFT (or any similar game) -- note that it's also pointless if you immediately can heal to full on going critical. Martyr is just pointless given Pilgrimage.

And Turbo MP exists entirely to make magic less terrible in endgame. If we actually have to include it, there's something fundamentally wrong with our mechanics.

[kablizzy]

My only point was that every other class's one-note is damage and progression towards winning; Priests can only heal until they ramp up to Holy, and I figured we didn't want that, so I wanted a lower-case option for damage. Unless we figure they're going to be slapping with hammers the whole time.

I'm not a fan of Pilgrimage, but eh. Included both in the build until Ilium throws input in. Same difference with that and Martyr, really. Regen has never been all that impressive on its own, but also included that for posterity.

[Schwerpunkt]

Well... it's a Priest. There's more versatility in this build than the Wizard's, which is nothing but raw damage output (with one status effect and one special effect in the entire tree).

You're getting hung up on the "this guy primarily heals" thing.

[Mordred]

Ladies, I have an idea.

Right now IIRC all classes have the ability to use items on themselves, so Priests need some other schtick to be more than the FF equivalent of the Kool-Aid Man. So let's fold some Bard abilities into Priest and make Priests more of a whole-party support dude than a single-target guy like he is currently.

Priests should only whip out single-target Cure when a party member is in immediate, desperate need of healz. Instead, Priests should be focusing their turns on providing full-party buffs Bard style or whipping out damage with Pearl.

Concept ability list:

PRAY LIFE :: Restores small amount of HP to the entire party. Effect continues like a Sing or Dance effect until interrupted.
PRAY SOUL :: Restores MP to entire party, see above.

CURE :: Restores large amount of HP to single target.
RAISE :: Brings back a K.O.'d target with an percentage of HP dependent on caster's MA and FP (no more Raise2).
REGEN :: Applies Regen & Reraise to single target.
ESUNA :: You know what this does.

PROTECT :: Applies Protect status in Effect:2 (no more Protect2).
SHELL :: Applies Shell status in Effect:2 (no more Shell2 or Wall).

PEARL :: Holy-element instant damage to single target.
HOLY :: You know what this is.

The Prayers should not require MP, so the Priest's overall MP pool should be quite low. This will limit Priests' ability to multiclass into Wizard or Summoner and tear up the battlefield.

[Schwerpunkt]

What's the difference between Pearl and Holy? One's instant and one isn't, with the non-instant one costing more and doing more damage? That's silly.

Regen adding Reraise is horribly imbalanced. As a rule, Reraise is not a status effect we want because, chained together, it functionally makes a character immortal (hence why the Lancer lost his auto-reraise nonsense). But if we only have Regen add Regen, it's kind of pointless -- it has the same problems plain old poison does. Hence having a heal that also adds regen as a sort of more expensive step up.

I do like the pray options, though.

[Mordred]

I don't see what's silly about having a practical damage-dealing spell and also a big gun spell for taking on bosses or immobilized foes weak to Holy element. It's like saying "why have Fire and Flare?"

If we don't want Reraise at all, that's fine, then we can replace REGEN with something like PRAY HOPE, which could have a chance of giving Regen to each party member. Or something. A third PRAY spell would be a great way to hammer home the "support" angle to the character.

I like the idea of *some* spell adding Regen naturally. It's good shit, but I worry about CURE getting out of hand in Priest secondary. Maybe staple Regen onto Esuna or Raise? Dunno, just spitballing here.

[Schwerpunkt]

If you're approaching the Priest with "we need two tiers of direct damage spells of the exact same type," you're doing it wrong. The entire point of Holy is that it's a wtfhuge nuke. Divine Judgement is more what you're thinking and it actually fits your theme of stealing from the music classes -- because it's basically inflicting a small amount of damage to every enemy regardless of where they are. It fits your PRAY theme. Pearl is just "this is a lazier, instant-cast version of Holy for those who don't actually want to use Holy."

As far as the regen effect goes, it's goddamn terrible. Slapping it on Cure for an increase of like 30% MP is good utility and makes it expensive enough that you wouldn't want to spam it. Esuna, on the other hand, should be dirt cheap.

Raise + Regen has some serious synergy, though. But I don't think the added MP cost is really justified since Raise'd dudes are very likely to eat a sword a few CT later anyway.

[kablizzy]

I love Raise and Regen together, that makes sense.

[Mordred]

Ok, let's staple Regen to Raise without raising the MP cost.

As for Pearl, sure, let's kill it. Giving Priests the ability to do Dancer-style damage is an idea I wouldn't have thought of, so let's roll with it.

Revised list:

PRAY LIFE :: Restores small amount of HP to the entire party. Effect continues like a Sing or Dance effect until interrupted.
PRAY SOUL :: Restores MP to entire party, see above.
PRAY JUDGMENT :: Inflicts small amount of HP damage on all enemies, see above.

CURE :: Restores large amount of HP to single target.
RAISE :: Brings back a K.O.'d target with an percentage of HP dependent on caster's MA and FP, and also adds the Regen status effect. (no more Raise2).
ESUNA :: You know what this does.

PROTECT :: Applies Protect status in Effect:2 (no more Protect2).
SHELL :: Applies Shell status in Effect:2 (no more Shell2 or Wall).

HOLY :: Massive single-target Holy elemental damage that ignores M-EV.

[Schwerpunkt]

I can get behind this.

Although, for the sake of clarity, I'd call it "Pray: Life" instead of just "Pray Life," which simply doesn't make any sense.

[Mordred]

I was trying to tap into the classic Engrish feel of the original FFT. I think a more grammatical version would be Life Prayer, Soul Prayer, Judgment Prayer.

[Schwerpunkt]

"Prayer of Life" is the more grammatically correct version.

"Pray: Life" does what you want and simultaneously passes as near enough to be correct that nobody will think twice.