Thursday, March 11, 2010

Back to Clerics

I have been playing around with my cleric more and more, and have been having fun with her. Really, I had forgotten how fun and versatile clerics are to play -- I think maybe I started to believe a bit some of the comments I've heard that have labeled clerics as 'broken'. Sure, clerics do seem a bit dated at times, and a bit too tied to the D&D version of the cleric, but all in all, they're still one of my favorite guilds, and in my opinion, one of the least-broken guilds out there.

Are there things that I would change if I had free reign to redesign clerics? Sure. I would like to see a bit more differentiation in the different orders of clerics. As it stands, the most noticeable differences between clerics of Odin and clerics of Ilsidahur are the color of their flame strike spells and their specialty access. I think that personally, I would favor a design philosophy that would add more uniqueness and expand upon clerics' existing powers and play style rather than a complete re-imagining of the guild in the fashion of the Red Magi/OIA, Azure Magi/OZM, and Rangers/Verynvelyrae/Zetesai/Coven.

But I digress. I am really having a lot of fun rediscovering what a well put-together cleric can do. I have always enjoyed versatile characters, and Esmene is pretty versatile -- she can heal, can use a spear quite well, can debuff, has tons of protection, can dish out a good amount of magical damage, can create food and water for herself -- the list goes on.

Anyhow, I think that I may try to make Esmene my first Amberite legend. Only 20 million xp to go.