Inquisitive: How the Devs Should Revamp the Class

In Inquisitive, Jovion discusses and debates issues of class balance, game design, community perceptions and other contentious subjects involving the Inquisitor class.

As many would know, Inquisitors as a whole is a dying class. This is due to the fact that Inquisitors find it very difficult to find a raid or nest spot nowadays as it is unable to distinguish itself from Saints.

What do I mean? You see, Saints have the ability to single-handedly make a run more "stable", you would have a much higher chance of surviving if you bring a Saint because of one skill: Holy Shield. I've been in a few runs with a Saint before, to put it bluntly, so long as the Shield was up, the party will almost never die, no matter what skill is thrown at them.The icing on the cake is the much bigger AoE radius of key support skills like Cure Relic and Healing Relic, allowing the Saint to perform both roles with less constraints with regards to the positioning of raid or nest party members.

This means that Saints are almost always guaranteed a slot in nest or raid parties, and because it brings all the same party buffs (blessings) and have a superior support skill set (healing, curing and Holy Shield) the Inquisitors are never taken as they have nothing unique they can bring over a Saint. Even if we bring superior DPS, we are still overall lower than other classes, as such, in the DPS slots, either a pure DPS class or a semi-DPS class with a unique support element like Elestras is taken. Inquisitors are left by the wayside.

In order for an Inquisitor to be seen as a viable pick without compromising the viability of Saints, the design paradigm of Inquisitors have to change drastically from a hybrid. There are three possible design paradigms I will be discussing after the jump and the possible ways to push Inquisitors towards those paradigms. The three are pure DPS, semi-DPS with unique support elements, and support.

Delivering Lightning: The Inquisitor DPS Rotation

Delivering Lightning is a guide to the Inquisitor class that teaches new adherents how to play their character. Ranging from rotations to skill guides to musings on mechanics, this series aims to help you become a better Inquisitor in Dragon Nest.

An Inquisitor is a hybrid class. In other words, Inquisitors are able to do decent damage and provide decent support. While we might not do as much damage as a pure DPS class, or provide as much support as a Saint (or the Light Fury in the future), we can certainly perform those roles competently, if we skill correctly and play correctly

Our support element is easy-to-understand, buff and rebuff, cure ailments and heal when our party is low on hit points. 

Here is the thing, we are hybrids, so the other half of our role is damage dealing, and from general observations of other Inquisitors, many do not understand our DPS rotation.

As such, I have written a complete guide to the Inquisitor DPS rotation, the goal is to teach new Inquisitors how to DPS and why is our rotation in such a manner. Read more to proceed to the guide proper.

Inquisitive: "Flooders" - The Case for Inquisitors in 60-70 Leveling Parties

In Inquisitive, Jovion discusses and debates issues of class balance, class design, game design, community perceptions and other contentious subjects involving the Inquisitor class.

Discrimination.

It is a thing in Dragon Nest, and many other MMOs really, with the exception of World of Warcraft. Specific classes or specialisations are conveniently ignored by party leaders because they are deemed inferior to an alternative choice. Class discrimination permeates through almost all PvE aspects of Dragon Nest, be it levelling, nesting or raiding.

For levelling parties in particular, clerics in general find it tough to get into a party. Saints, once a prized commodity every nest party begs for are suddenly shunned and tossed aside. Guardians, usually highly sought after as main tanks for raids, are also largely ignored when looking for a slot in "GM Hard unli". Crusaders are still largely ignored, to the surprise of no one.

And Inquisitors? Well, being clerics after all, we suffer from the same discrimination as all other cleric classes...

First Post!

Greetings!

To kickstart this blog, I'll just state the aim of this blog, the goal of this blog is to:

a) Inform - Provide information on the Inquisitor class.

b) Chronicle - Chronicle my in-game shenanigans with my Inquisitor

c) Evoke - Provide food for thought, evoke genuine thinking and discussion with regards to in-game issues and topics

d) Fun - This blog is not intended as an "emo" or "my life story" kind of blog, it is simply all about having fun. :)

A little info about my Inquisitor. My in-game name is Jovion and I play on the Greenwood server. I focus mainly on PvE with my friends. So far, we have cleared Nesting content on Hell but have yet to attempt raids due to lack of... manpower. My inquisitor is a damage-focused support, in other words, I attempt to maximise my damage in my skill build and gearing while retaining the expected support capabilities of a priest, namely buffs, healing and Miracle Relic.

I also bought the second skill tree which is dedicated towards PvP, I'm not an avid PvPer, but I do like to get my hands dirty once in a while.

Going forth in 70 cap, I will most likely still main my Inquisitor, but have two sub-characters, namely, a Saint and a Gladiator.

So yeah, that's all, enjoy!