Just wanted to see how many people really tried it out this Beta. I did a good bit at the end of this last closed Beta and I noticed two important things while engaging various groups and winning or losing battles:

1.) We would always go straight for their Priest.
2.) They would always go straight for me.

I ran around with my brother (a Warrior) fighting groups of 2-5 and generally winning the encounters we engaged in. However, in most of those fights I felt useless without him babysitting me and peeling any melee that was on me off. Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled that melee have enough gap-closers to get to a ranged/healer when needed, but my main concern was that if I was hit one time, without his help I was near useless for the rest of the fight.

A great example is a Lancer, Berserker, Archer, and Priest group we fought. I was running around at combat speed due to their Archer's perpetual auto-attacks, and for a while I was fine. We killed their Priest while I took some hits and nearly died twice, but when the Lancer (finally) landed a leash on me I was dead. In the rain of blows that happened right after that, I couldn't cast a spell. I tested it in a duel with my brother many times: if I am under attack by any melee, I'm perpetually interrupted and "knocked back" unable to cast. I can't even Fiery Escape if I'm spamming the keybind. Basically I was leashed, stunned, and not even close to dead after. I was maybe half health. But the Lancer kept using Combo Attack, the Berserker just spun around, and the Archer use his spammable level 1 skill like the Lancer.

The above situation happened to me and happened to Priests we fought numerous times. Mystics seem to be in a better place to avoid such situations with Teleport Jaunt, Glacial Retreat, and Backstep. But with only Fiery Escape, after I was caught once it was basically the end for me. My PvP this CBT relied on me using my one escape spell to avoid ever being hit once while keeping my ally up.

So anyway, long story short: The constant interrupt mechanic that accompanies melee hits had be a bit disgruntled; either that, or simply the extremely limited resources I have to escape them. Just looking for thoughts from other Priests or people who may have more insight to offer.

-Mnem

you've got to be SLEEPING targets.

if you're not sleeping people then you'll die... the best heal and depending on your partner - is CC.

if your healer is sleeping melee that are trying to chase him down - it turns the fight around alot... infact if you have a sorc/zerker/archer with you and you're sleeping targets - you're going to see alot of dead people in a very short amount of time.


priest is nasty, it's just not tankin yet... later on mystics are better at not getting dog piled - but honestly dog piling is bad anyways... nothing like having 1 slayer KD 3-4 melee that are on your priest. or heck, just 1 sorc AoE will clear out melee dog piling you - either through death or avoidance.

I think you missed the purpose of my post, although I appreciate the feedback you're offering. Sleep was used on CD to keep melee away, but the point is I don't feel I should have to give my soul to the gods when one of the other melee I can't sleep or otherwise CC does catch me with my one escape. The fact that I can't cast - not even an escape or a heal - while getting hit with basic attacks is debilitating and frustrating.

Things that helped me get away from melee were the glyph for run speed blessing which gave extra in combat movement speed, the in combat movement speed crystal, and when i can i will be getting the glyph to reset fiery escape.

other then that you need to only use sleep once in combat or else you will enter in to it and dodge the hell out of the melee,

while running away to give myself extra heals i would always place the 10m heal and then fiery escape right in to the heal, heal thyself and keep dodging

after that it is pretty much a game of stay alive while your dps either turn to help you or kill there healer

I am glad the healers are not immortal in this game.

Per your example you got kbed and dog piled by 3 ppl that'll kill any squishy class not just priest. This isn't a good example if ur trying to prove priest are underpowered.

I roll with a 2 man squad of slayer and mystic and if my mystic gets kbed and dog piled by 3 ppl he's dead too.

I didn't ever say Priests were "underpowered". I gave an example of an experience I had, and then followed it up by saying I tested it one-on-one with several classes. To be specific, I tested it with a Lancer, Slayer, and a Warrior and had them attack me while I attempted to cast.

The point of my post was to ponder about the caster "knockback" when being melee'd. With the amount of gap closers melee have (which I am glad they have) to catch up to healers and ranged in combat, I didn't feel the excessive inability to cast or defend myself was merited.

Perhaps I'll add a "TL;DR" at the bottom of my post to better summarize the intentions of my post.

Does no one, quite literally NO ONE, understand the actual point of the OP's post? Really? I find this to be baffling. He's not referring to getting zerged, he's talking about melee in general applying a very small knockback from regular melee hits, causing him to be in a mini-lockdown of sorts, getting him killed. He's not complaining about anything being overpowered, or underpowered. He's asking for Priests who PvP'd during the Beta, much like he did, who can offer any advice on how to deal with this, and their opinions on Priest PvP in general.

The knockback/stun/interrupt was annoying. I found if I got caught, that getting away was hard simply because I couldn't use any of my skills since I was locked down even on auto attacks. I think once we get backstep that will help a lot, but I think the focus still needs to be just not getting caught. I think kiting on a Priest takes some practice and communicating with your team about who your going to sleep so they can ignore that person is key. I found myself constantly on the move in order to keep distance, using the lock-on heal or an instant circle when I could. But I generally tried to get myself out of the "heal first" mentality from other games and instead focused on just getting myself far away and then healing myself when I had a moment.

I'm still working on improving but I do think our teams will have to peel a bit if we have too many melee on us, especially if we or our our teammates are getting low. But honestly I don't see this as an issue - in a team or group activity, everyone should be watching out for everyone else. This is so cliche, but there's no "I" in team. I protect their butts and in turn they protect mine - teams need to work as a team and healer's in this game aren't immortal. As soon as people learn this game is not like past games it'll be fine. Although ideally you won't have to kite around a pack of melee for too long if your dps are doing their job. Hopefully they can take down the enemy healer and other squishies fast enough so they can focus on the melee chasing you.

Although honestly in other games I've played, the teams that I won the most with were the ones who understood teamwork. A team that knows how to work together properly and knows their teammates and what they'll be doing, is hard to stop. Just because people aren't a healer or a tank that doesn't mean they can run around tunnel vision dpsing people and ignoring their group.

i had the same problem. team fights are tough. in thsi thread here, http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/cbt3-general-feedback/topics/CBT3-Feedback-14471 someone suggests making the basic attacks merely snare, not stun, and putting escapes on a greater cooldown.