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...

The reasons are admittedly valid after all. Clerics are the slowest class in the game. If you lack a Windwalker or a Waxer, any party bringing clerics will find that much time is waited waiting for the holy men. Furthermore, many clerics subclasses have somewhat low damage. Of course Inquisitors are the exception, but that is only 1 out of the 4 subclasses, not enough to overcome the herd's mindset that "all clerics cannot damage to save their lives" (and for the record, I still believe Crusaders have crap damage outside of their DA+JP burst window).

Yet, I believe any levelling party will actually stand to gain from having an Inquisitor. "Why?" you might ask. The answer lies in the very title of this post.

"Flooders"

You see, one advantage of an Inquisitor that few other classes match in levelling parties is the ability to literally obliterate the room in one spell. That warrior spamming skills to clear one side at a time? Or that sorceress using her AoE spells only to have another wave spawn on top of her? The Inquisitor simply scoffs, drops a Consecrate and waits for the barrier to dissipate.

While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, it is a little known fact that Inquisitors are some of Dragon Nest's best mass murderers. Using any combination of Consecrate, Holy Burst, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Grand Cross and Miracle Relic. The Inquisitor can clear two rooms in the time it takes another class to clear one.

In fact I can summarise a typical GM hard run with an Inquisitor as follows:

1st Room: Watch him drop a Consecrate and Miracle Relic, run to the barrier and wait a few seconds. (The delay is from the second wave spawning)

2nd Room: Watch him Lightning Bolt the mobs to oblivion, then Chain Lightning the mobs that spawn to death. If he is feeling kind, he will just drop Grand Cross on one pack and let you deal with the other.

3rd Room: Wait for everything to spawn, watch the Inquisitor Holy Burst. Clean up any odd monsters left behind.

4th Room: Yawn as the mini-boss dies to one Chain Lightning then pick one of two remaining spots. Yes, two, because while the Inquisitor covers one spot, his Consecrate is covering another.

Boss: Damage him a little bit, then watch as one Chain Lightning nukes his hit points to oblivion.

To demonstrate, I have a video from one of my own levelling parties. It was a three man party consisting of me, an Acrobat and an Adept.


The total time taken? 1 minute and 37 seconds as seen in the final score screen. Sound good eh?

However, before you party leaders out there start inviting Inquisitors into your levelling parties, remember that Inquisitors in general are still clerics. We are still as slow as a turtle. In order to take full advantage of the Inquisitors' mass killing speed, you must bring an Academic or an Acrobat to provide a movement speed boost so that we can actually travel from room to room fast. That video above shows the perfect scenario, I had both an Acrobat and an Academic to boost my speed.

Remember, the general rule of thumb is this: Inquisitors can only make the run faster when they can run faster.

But hey, don't let that discourage you from including an Inquisitor in your levelling parties if you lack a class that brings movement speed boosts, we can still sheath-weapon run. It will be slightly slower (around 1:45-2 minutes per clear) but you get to slack, most of the time.

All in all, an Inquisitor is a solid pick if you want a "Flooder" or mass AoE'er. And don't forget to bring other clerics subclasses in general too. You might suffer a little bit now, but you'll be thankful when there is a healthy supply of them upon the release of Guardian and Mist Nests!