Discussion on Prayer Results

[SaltedSalmon]

I was gonna post this on Suggestions but I kind of want to know if people even agree with me first.

How do you guys feel about Prayer results currently? I know Prayers are supposed to be unwieldy, but I feel that Sheperds and Advocates actually have a raw deal on offensive prayers.

Here's the things that are bothering me specifically:
Sheperd-specific prayer results actually roll on any non-Sheperd exit too, so you end up giving T3s silly stuff like Foe of Goliath instead of Offensive Might/Might of Heroes, and Unbroken Bond isn't that good statistically. Its really T2 focused stuff.
On that note, Advocates also roll for Sheperd results if there are no good characters around them. I'm not sure how to feel about that either. Foe of Goliath might be useful for ranged characters, but if I have melee I'm rolling for powerful damage buffs on Prayer already.

As Kandarin said about the variable prayers:

It's supposed to be something desirable in T2

And it is, but it really screws you over in T3. Desecrate upgrades at T3 (You get better results for killing T3 people than T2 ones) so I feel Prayer should too, specially on the class that is meant to use Prayers for combat.

Also Divine Providence unlikely to be useful pls buff.

EDIT:
Also the Crystal Golem is actually overrated, any decent tank can get its hit rate to below 10%.

[Nayru]

attack chances cannot be reduced below 10% (you're welcome)

aside from that, would like to see a counterpart to advo prayer if there is an evil mo present that goes a bit back to when advocate was what archon currently is, even just something like activating a powerful 'castigate' innate attack for a time

[Kandarin]

Suggestions are a good concept here. The idea with B5 Prayer is that it should be situational - you should only get a prayer effect in situations where it'd be useful and/or is something you want - so you don't get a mass-buffing effect if there isn't anyone to buff, you don't get an item-protecting effect if you haven't got any items that need protection, etc.

We are always open to ideas for more effects and more situational conditions in which they would apply. And if current effects are popping up in situations where they're useless, we're open to ideas for rails to keep them in situations where they are. Shepherd-specific stuff (really non-Advo/Archon/LS stuff, as you observed) isn't a universal, it's occurring alongside stuff like Offensive Might.

That said, a pet (even one as weak as an Aethersprite) is broadly useful, especially on a class that doesn't normally get pets. It's 40 attacks you don't have to pay any of your own AP for, that'll retaliate if you're attacked, heal you and probably force the enemy to kill it before you.

[Nayru]

one thing i'll note is 3 ap has always been prohibitively expensive for prayer, particularly as a free skill

starting off at 2 ap (rather than devout having that reduction) even if the base mp cost went up to compensate for it (which could be reduced in devout) would do wonders for its usability and devout would still retain its major upgrade aspect in doubling the chances of two better results + enabling putting far more mp into a given prayer

would be broadly more useful like desecrate (though only corruptor/fallen have desecrate's upgrade so it's a bit of a wonk comparison) without having two levels worth of cp in the way of actually using it (as far too much potency is wrapped up in devout as it stands)

[SignedName]

I wouldn't mind 2AP/3MP Prayers with Divine Intervention reducing the MP cost by 1.