Consideration for EP9 - Priests

[Makrokosmos12]

Priests really need some help.
A cost decrease would be the best option, also to compensate for higher wood cost of churches now.
Could lower it from 200g (current) --> 130g. Yes this seems a lot, but considering this units was useless for the past 15 Years of aoe3, i think priests need a remarkable buff for people outside of aizamks build, to even consider them. Also their healing rate is kinda slow. They just need to long to heal up, so you wanna make a couple of them, which would normally cost 600g (600 g for a unit which is almost useless).

Kinda the same goes for missionaries, Zoi thought with a slight buff to missionaries and unction people would start to make missionaries. NOPE, nobody made them (i told Zoi but stupid as most of the time he didnt listen). Even when people did put unction in their decks they still NEVER send it, coz its to much of an investement before you get someting in return. Also its not spains playstle to go for a drawn out lategame where your missionaries come into full effekt.

You shoud consider it for EP9 or leave priest and missionaries useless forever.

[Mitoe]

Not dismissing the idea to buff priests in some way, but Missionaries & Unction are definitely useful at the moment

[iNcog]

Unction buff?
? Have you heard of the son of Garja, Rohbrot?

[Makrokosmos12]

Not dismissing the idea to buff priests in some way, but Missionaries & Unction are definitely useful at the moment

When was it useful? I cant remember a competetive game in where anyone made missionaries lol. So yeah, its not useful, when nobody uses it, because in practice its not affordable.

The thing is, in theorie unction and missionaries are good, but in practice they are not used until extreme lategame (which again, happens like 5 % of all competetive games), and even if we got to lategame, basically nobody made priests or missionaries.
So if people not even use unction then their is a reason for it, which is again, missionaries being to expensive.
You could lower the priest and missionarie cost and slightly nerf unction to not make it too broken for lategame.

[Makrokosmos12]

Unction buff?
? Have you heard of the son of Garja, Rohbrot?

I dont specifically suggest an unction buff, but youd should buff priest and possibly missionaries.

[Riotcoke]

Buff cheap team priests, they need to be 25 coin.

[Imperial Noob]

Priests are the greatcoat of artillery (and military). They are already good, just nobody uses them.

From yesterday's stream: "...is retreating with 5 cavs, they are nearly dead, maybe 300 HP left in total". I don't remember what happened to them later, but in a standard "competitive" game their likely fate would be to all die to a volley of trash units or villager self-defense punches, and do nothing, instead of getting healed back to a 1000 res batch whose arrival can swing a fight.

Ditto artillery. When someone has falcs with little HP, they basically decide "meh", and sack the falcs for maybe one more volley, instead of retreating them to the base and getting a free second chance with healed falcs, or even with one.

[duckzilla]

I think I never build a single priest in 15 years of playing the game.

[wardyb1]

I like the idea of a small priest buff, but they may see some more play anyway if an xp trickle is attached the to the church is one form or another.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

i think people not training priests is down to the players forgetting / opting to not have extra units to micro manage. choosing to micro which unit stays home to be healed while the rest push out is awkward at best of times. I often use select all same unit hotkey so it would be kinda awkwards to keep returning back to the hussars at home to tell them to stay put. Priests have ridiculously high HP for what they are meant to do (which possibly increases their cost) and have a base heal of 10 HP per second which is rather ineffective for high HP units.

their base coin cost is fine for what they do, if we (the patch team) were feeling adventurous then the priests could shadow tech in depending on age. 10Hp/s in age 2, 15Hp/s in age 3, 20Hp/s in age 4. Other than that i dont think there is a desperate need to change them really.

We need to focus on change whats matters first and achieving a healthy meta before sorting out all the side options.

[_RDX_]

Priests actually have the same healing rate as the surgeons and they even have better stats. They're good for their cost but people don't just use them. There used to be some games where i overgathered coin as germans because of shit macro and i trained priests in age 3 to heal uhlans, war wagons after going for raids and fights. Low hp uhlans are no good to take into fight, you're gonna only end up deleting them instantly and also you don't want your unit shipments get wasted. Priests can tank damage and win fights in certain cases, they're really worth 200g imo.

Yeah, i agree with Harrison. Please buff the Mission Fervor tech in the church to also increase the healing rate of priests. It is not really used by anyone. Increase its cost if it's necessary for balance.

[wardyb1]

What is a priests speed? They are kinda slow right? Maybe a speed buff so they could be a bit more versatile than just sitting in base and tanking on defence.

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

4 speed i think which is same as a lot of eco/civ units like the envoy. faster priests makes no sense wouldnt recommend. Faster training priests i can get behind and is what actually makes the russian team cheap priests card not a terrible card.

[Victor_swe]

Has everyone already agreed that healing as an ability u had to click to use was stupid? Or could u try give them that? In some non stupid way to not make them op with an invincible army in front.

[chronique]

I don't understand how we can talk about priest balance, and no one said "wololo hability". It's no possible but you must start this thread by this sentence.

[helln00]

I wonder if you can add wololo back to aoe 3, maybe limit it to mercs and natives only or something.

[Imperial Noob]

It would take just modifying the TWC conversion ability

[Makrokosmos12]

Wololo seems a bit drastic, but i would like the auto-healing ability for priests like the indian monks. That would be nice so that you dont have to babysit the healing. That together with a cost reduction of some sort would help a lot.

[chronique]

To me the biggest mistake of aoe3 was the no wololo priest. Make WOLOLO great again

[chronique]

When was it useful? I cant remember a competetive game in where anyone made missionaries lol. So yeah, its not useful, when nobody uses it, because in practice its not affordable.

Spain is not the most picked civ in tourney and i would said that there are not a lot of spain player (spain was picked recently by peaple which don't usualy play spain, and you don't need unction on map with 4+ tp).

But as a decent main spain, unction is a must have, its a very good option when the game reach 20/25+ min.

[iNcog]

vulululu?

[duckzilla]

Has everyone already agreed that healing as an ability u had to click to use was stupid? Or could u try give them that? In some non stupid way to not make them op with an invincible army in front.

Wait, they don't heal units automatically? That's even worse than I thought.

[iNcog]

It'd be nice if they did heal units automatically and efficiently.

SC Medics/Medevacs are pretty efficient. Priests in AOE2 are also rather efficient. AOE3 religious leaders suck. I wouldn't mind a buff to that

[n0el]

It'd be nice if they did heal units automatically and efficiently.

SC Medics/Medevacs are pretty efficient. Priests in AOE2 are also rather efficient. AOE3 religious leaders suck. I wouldn't mind a buff to that

religious play in aoe3 relative to the rest of the franchise is really bad

[chronique]

Wait, they don't heal units automatically? That's even worse than I thought.

They heal automatically but not when your unit are in action. It's like the hero, he heal himself when he do nothing.