[Rendar]

As of right now, no one actually bothers to use Lantern Bearer in a PVP (or even really PVE) meta. It's largely an unused class because of frequent nerfs to it, and there just being outright better options (See: Priest). With the advent of the main class skills, this became even MORE apparent and made less people actually want to play the class because.. you could get +5 to 2 stats.. or you could get 10% DR/10% Extra damage.. etc. This, while not being the only thing, quickly made it undesirable. To top it all off, the people that might want to use it after the inevitable Priest Sanctuary nerf... Simply.. won't. Why? Pacifist Boon is absolutely useless if you want to provide stat bonuses to your allies alongside rather supportive skills. It's to the point that even if I wanted to play LB, I still wouldn't because other classes got main class stuff (or sub class nerfs). The idea behind this is that it allows for Lantern Bearers to get a bit more sparing with their SPs (instead of going "I GOTTA SPEND 30 SP TO GET THESE GUYS TO MAX RANK AND THEN FIVE MORE TO GET ETERNAL FLAME AND... I can't get anything else..." which is what it currently is.)

This will make it more akin to a "Magic Gunner" in regards to their auras, and will revamp "Eternal Flame" into something different, but vastly better.


FLAME AURAS

As of current, the flames all pretty much break your pacifist boon should you use it. Which sucks, a lot. This change will have it interact with "ETERNAL FLAME" (now coined "INVOKE FLAME" or some such) in entirely different ways. Namely in that it will no longer have 5 SP to max out each flame. Each flame will be one sp each. That's it. On their own however, they are largely useless on their own, but spell thief could probably just use the old versions or some shit. Iunno. These "Auras" will cost 0M, 0FP, and might even just be classified as "SKILLS" or something. Who knows. I sure as hell don't, but they'd be useless on their own for a Spellthief to steal. So who knows. I sure as hell don't, specially since if they cost 0FP, they make it easy to give 3fp to errybody with capacity. SO WHO KNOWS. DEV CAN MAKE IT WORK

ETERNAL FLAME

Right now this is a 3m skill that makes your flames give +5 to all stats should you actually be capable of fitting LB as a main class into your repertoire(IE: Never). The planned change to this is a bit of a doozy, but one that will ultimately benefit this class as a whole during the rework. It will remain at 3M, and have set FP costs throughout that are inline with what the auras are now (rehash old code yo). It is also a "Shifting" spell. In that it's DOMAIN and "REPEAT ACTION" momentum are different based upon your aura, so you could do typhur eternal flame twice and it cost 7m. Or you could do Typhur Eternal Flame > Altera > Eternal Flame and it cost 6m. With this, you could balance them out to all have the same FP and POW, but if you want variation, just use the old code alongside the auras.

What both of these changes do is make it so you're not spending 35 Sp just to max stuff out, and get more 'choices' with the class as a whole. I hope you enjoy looking over these, thoughts and comments below.

[Egil]

Adding more passives/innates involving one's accessories (ie if you have a single item that gives you resistance to ice, there could be a passive that increases that resistance by 5% per rank for that one item only) would be great for the class imo. I'm not sure what they all should be, though!

Otherwise, +1

[Rendar]

Having a passive/innate that made them actually having a lantern equipped give BONUSES would be dope as well.

I mean. Could have it lower the "decay" range where damage get lower.. so it's 120% at close range and by the end of it, only.. 80% or somesuch. Even having it raise "Flame Strength" Good suggestion Egil.

[Rendar]

More Proof of "Why Lantern Bearers suck"... This is, admittedly, an evoker casting, but I was the same class combo for both works but hey. Lets compare.

Jammer takes 205 Wind damage.
--- ROUND 0 ---
--- ROUND 1 ---
Jammer takes 111 Wind damage.


--- ROUND 0 ---
--- ROUND 1 ---
Jammer takes 157 Wind damage.
--- ROUND 0 ---
--- ROUND 1 ---
Malice Jammer takes 84 Wind damage.

This is a Typhur two different ways. Dual Wielding Desert Winds, and with dual wielding Mugendais. This is taken in a POINT BLANK DW, MAX RANGE DW, POINT BLANK MUGEN, MAX RANGE MUGEN format.

So from pointblank to max range with the Desert Winds, we lost about 94 damage, nearly HALF of our total damage, which is pretty bad. For the Mugendai's, they were much less fortunate, they lost 73 damage, which was again, about half of their damage. Now, normally this would be 'okay', but let's compare it to other things... Like Magaisendo with the same stats.

--- ROUND 0 ---
--- ROUND 1 ---
Jammer takes 195 Earth damage.

--- ROUND 0 ---
Jammer takes 97 Earth damage.

--- ROUND 0 ---
--- ROUND 1 ---
Jammer takes 151 Earth damage.

--- ROUND 0 ---
Jammer takes 75 Earth damage.

In this time, we have the same parameters as above. However this time it is with a rank 5 magaisendo at point blank and max range (cross map sniping)

Both times, they lose about 50% of their damage because of this, however their effects? Much, much greater, considering it's not limited to just within 6 squares. Not to mention, for an added 6M, you can overcome a ton of the resistance stat.

So what's the deal? Mages get, quite literally, explosion which is a delayed ticking time bomb that is the same size as LB stuff and gets better damage off at father ranges.

Also, for 'posterities' sake. Lemme give you the stats on my Doriad because this is with ridiculous WIL.

RACE: DORIAD
WIL: 91 (94)
TOME POWER: 23 (21)
TYPHUR RANK: 5
MAGAISENDO RANK: 5
EVOCATION RANK: 5
GEOMANCY RANK: 5
AEROMANCY RANK: 5


So for my best results I had going for me... ((91+23+15+10+5)*1.36)*(CLOSE RANGE BENEFIT) with Typhur...

And for Magaisendo?

(91+23+23+10+5)*1.36. Though, none of these numbers really seem to be adding up but hey. Whatever.

This needs to change for Lantern Bearer to even be remotely viable as a class.

[Maikito]

I think I would prefer if LB stopped trying to be a "Chimera" of sorts in terms of a class. LB shouldn't be doing as much damage as say Evoker or any other class really, not in the straight forward sense that the standard damaging classes do. Instead LB should have more buff and/or debuff based skills based around it. As I recall, Lantern Bearer was intended to be a sort of "Buff/Battle Mage"-esque class that did decent AoE damage, but it''s main focus was being supportive.

Giving them some sort of super buff that set them apart from Priest would be nice, seeing as Priest has the healing factor and fairly good damage.

However, I wholeheartedly agree that they are fairly underwhelming as they are now. +5 in two stats is. . .okay? I guess to a point, but that +5 won't really shift the tide of battle all that much these days. (Especially after the GR occurs). Top that off with abysmal damage and you got yourself a pretty unattractive class.