hiya.

I love to play a supporter role, thats why i went on full MND to be able to heal my comrades in arms. which also works fine unless they are 1-shot by several monsters. But there are several huge downside to this play style.

1. exp while in party: Noticed this with a friend. Hes lvl 14 dual sword and i run behind him to use heal I and Strike Boost III (he dealt once 4064 crit with this boost lol). i am myself a lvl 14 staff user. But at the end of a dungeon i get about half of the pool-exp then he does. The reason was discovered quickly: I only get 1/2 of the exp if i dont help (attack) to kill the monsters. this is really BS imo.

2. i cant buff myself with various buffs available on staffs (atleast sofar)

3. the difference of the heal force of different ranked skills doesnt match the SP consumption at all. Example: i have the skill "Energy Ball II" (61 SP) and "Energy Ball III" (91 SP). I heal about 245 + 2 over time with rank 2 and 275 + 5 over time with rank 3. This doesnt sum up. i have to pay 50% more SP for just a little bit more heal. This also works well with the normal "Heal" skill. from rank 1 to rank 2 the SP costs are almost doubled with a not really too great difference in heal. Thats why i prefer using lvl 1 heal skills since i would almost instantly run out of SP while team playing.

4. droprate of staffs: this might be only me, the game hates me or MND focused players in general. I rarely get any Staffs at all. i keep finding tons of silver, gold and even red equipments. especially wands, dual swords and spears. i had to play until lvl 9 with a lvl 1 staff when i first found a higher staff (lvl 10 white). This continues even until now. im now lvl 15 and only found 2 times a lvl 13 gold wand (which i lost due to a bug at lvl 12 -_-). the next staff i found is the silver lvl 21 staff... this really bugs me.

anyone can share this above mentioned issues? or is it just me?

Yeah I had those issues too especially the xp one so re-rolled to a dual swords and bow. Never looked back.

Mage's power was shafted in this CBT.

A lot of this happened to me too, with the support char I was running w/ my brother and a friend. Got lucky with the staves though, and got one w/ both heal/sanctuary and breath of light on it, b/c of the Exp thing I just ran up and spammed that on each enemy. Also, MND increases Staff basic attack damage, so you're not totally defenseless as a support.

Prolly take the Defensive trait @ creation for that boosted Vit, so you don't get smacked as easily as talisman+staff's preferred starting spec (only 2 base vit lol)

god i thought i aws the only one..
decided to go full staff as well can;t even do enough damage to get decent exp in dungeons. plus i cant buf fmyself. really sux as i really love support roles..

i got bored in this game's support class,:(

decided to create pure dex character and was loving it...

now confused which char to go main...

actually the damage isnt too bad.. always depends on the monsters/lvls... im dealing abit over 1k damage to this... undead samurai monsters (forgot their name) with Holy Light II. so im able to to dungeons on my own.

But since i really cant seem to find staffs im pretty much forced to play in a party since you will find more weapons that way. downside is that i'll def some exp because of this. :/

hope the will balance this stuff out, otherwise supporters are about to be extict.

^ i guess you maxed out the staff right holy skill only work well with some mobs that weak again holy (obviously) otherwise the damage is so-so
First i want to comfirm that everything op said is true and i too have to endure it.But the thing that bugged me the most is that people take us healer lightly as if we are freeloader. And to anyone that have the same though, you need a highfive, in the face, with a chair.
Second is not only the drop rate of staff is low but finding a good staff with skill is even harder. I'm still looking for that ingevo or whatever it is skill rank III.

Weird, I tend to find rare staffs all the time. about 50% of the blue star+ items I find tend to be staffs... I don't see wands, spears, or axes too often though.

yeah, the friend i spoke of keeps finding staffs alot aswell. i specualte that it has to do with on what your focusing.

i find lots of red Spears, Wands and Swords. but the first silver staff that i have ever seen was the lvl 21 staff... ._. never seen a red one (besides the one that you can craft)

Still think if you plan to run support, Dex/Mind or Vit/Mind might be a nice hybrid, especially in preventing the "Freeloader" issue. Though, to be fair, people seem to think that heals are "useless" primarily because they're never hit. Sucks to be them when they DO get hit