[Selfish Gene]

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a great day/evening and whatnot.

I wanted to throw this suggestion out there in hopes of bringing more appeal to curate classes (mostly LB). I was wondering if the idea of having "God Rod", the Priest staff casting skill, be transferred to Curate instead. In its current state, you can only use staves as casting tools if you have Priest as one of your classes and it's strictly limited to Mercalan domain spells. As such, people who wish to use Lantern Bearer are strictly limited to using tomes, even though they have two skills that benefit from being staves/polearms (Imbue Strike and Skyhigh). As such, if you go destiny curate, the only Lantern Bearer spell that will benefit from God Rod is Phoenix and the rest will have their damage drastically reduced without a tome.

I propose that "God Rod" become a Curate skill that either:
1. Allows you to use any Curate/LB/Priest spell with a Staff weapon.
2. Allows you to use staves as a casting tool altogether.

What are your thoughts? I'd like to hear them so we can discuss this and see if it's a viable change.

tl;dr
The Priest skill "God Rod" should be a Curate skill that lets you use spells of any domain so that Lantern Bearers can benefit from it as well.

[Lolzytripd]

I agree this should be a curate skill, this would bring an immense amount of synergy for Spear LB's.

[Autumn]

I don't know, its a really strong skill and sort of what makes Priest, Priest, it'd be a lot to give it to curate even as a main class skill, I mean magical moon exists as an option for LBs if they want to use a spear and cast with it too, I'd like a little bit of discussion before considering it, plus right now every class has a nice set of 19 skills each, barring summoner of course.

[Lolzytripd]

I don't think Staff's is the priest's thing, the priests thing is Mercalan domain invocations.

[Selfish Gene]

I would be inclined to agree with you Spo, in that Magical Moon and the Spear Tome weapon exist nowadays. The only thing which honestly keeps me from considering those to be viable options are the scalings. Both have 60% Strength and 60% Will scalings, thus making it nigh-mandatory to invest points in strength and will to obtain the full potential and scaling this has to offer. If I wanted to run a build that involved spears and strength, I would instead run an average build involving Duelist and Soldier rather than Lantern Bearer. A prime example of a staff that would benefit greatly from being utilized by Lantern Bearers is the Bamboo-Bo. With the 110% Skill scaling, it makes it so that someone can be a proficient cryomancer and have enough points to invest in other stats for a more versatile Lantern Bearer. If I were to go with the Magical Moon or Tome Spear, I would have to invest into strength and be forced to use Salamander even if it doesn't suit my character. Basically, instead of having to invest points into strength and will, I could run a Bamboo-Bo and invest those points into skill and any other element Lantern Bearer provides (Vitality for Water, Luck for Nature, Defense for Earth, etc.)

I simply think that allowing staves to be an all-around curate skill would be more beneficial in the long run. One extra point worth spending in Priest, a more versatile arsenal for all curate classes, more than likely a higher likelihood of seeing some neat builds involving Imbue Strike and all of the other interesting, yet relatively unused, skills (such as Skyhigh).

Edit: Not to mention that curates already have a skill called "Use Staff". If anything, the effect could be added alongside this since it even states in the description that it allows people to use staves effectively. I'm well aware that it's referring to the battle item, but it could make sense for staves as in the weapons as well. This way curates will still have 19 skills and it can allow for a nice brainstorm for another Priest skill to take its place.

[Autumn]

Its that very reason as to why I think that God Rod as a curate skill would be rather strong, bamboo-bo itself is the weapon at fault for my indecision on the matter because it is exactly as you say, 110% SKI scaling, a lot of builds need to build SKI anyways and literally everyone needs at least base 15 to function correctly, bamboo-bo is a great weapon and has been limited to mostly duelist and priest builds so it hasn't gotten too far out of hand yet, the moment it becomes available to lantern bearer as a casting tool is a dangerous proposition all on it's own.

A result of building STR on a LB is fire ATK for Salamander and for Solar Lance as well, its not outside the realms of possibility that the STR used for Magical Moon would be useless, its just that giving Curate the use of god rod will eventually arise problems with balance in the future as well, its not exactly easy to just give Curate a skill like this without accounting for what might be to come, like more staff weapons and other curate classes, its just not fair to give Curate that much of a power spike now and in the future.

Lets not forget there are several tomes to circumvent this issue, that allow you to build WIL + SKI for the same result, and if you never used STR then what business is it of your's to be whacking people with a spear in the first place?

[Snake]

You can also use a spear main hand and a tome off-hand, the game chooses the tome as the casting tool. Tomes are still viable, they just block someone from being an omnigod kung-fu curate master with a two-handed polearm.

I also think the main reason for this to not be moved to Curate was about said in details by Spo. All in hope that Curate has yet some (more broken and absurd) things to gain in the future that might promote synergy between their own or other class. Like Demon Hunter and Spellthief did. (Maybe even Boxer to an extent)

Also, Magic Moon being like that also opens the possibility to balance out, trading STR for WIL while keeping the amount of points spent relatively the same, so you can also get more FP and Elemental ATK on all stats, without losing much on STR if it's being an impairment. It's what I often do to detour having to spend points in STR, with a STR/WIL weapon.

[Lonestar]

And what about the possibility of keeping it as a Priest passive while also going with the second point, the one where you can cast spells other than the Mercalan Domain?

[Selfish Gene]

My primary issue with running God Rod with a staff main hand and a tome sub-hand is that it feels incredibly restrictive and burdening. I'm not saying it isn't a solution since it clearly is, but it feels cluttered and unnecessary. Considering that the staff becomes a casting tool with God Rod, but exclusively to Mercalan domain spells? To have an entire skill dedicated to that feels a little underwhelming in my opinion. So yes, what are your thoughts on keeping it as a Priest spell but expand it from Mercalan domains to all of them? This way it would be easier to synergize with Lantern Bearer, Evoker, Hexer, etc.

Edit: Also, I don't really think this would make curates even more overloaded, per se. I just think it would make it more iconic and realistic. Heck, even Curate's two weapon types are polearms and tomes. I personally think it fits the class perfectly. A prime example of this being me making a new character and slowly leveling as a curate. I see that polearms are allowed as a weapon type and that one skill, Solar Lance, can be used with one. But low and behold, if I want to make use of the other 99% of the skills, I also need to slap a tome in my free hand? I just think that's overkill. That could be just me though.

[Snake]

Sadly it also makes that synergize with all the other types of magic, and again, thanks to Bamboo Bo's scalings. This will become an issue relatively fast. Tomes already are losing a lot of their importance thanks to Spelledge weapons, so why make it worse?

I say make it work only with Lantern Bearer's spells, if we're going to multiple domains.

God Rod
A staff is a common symbol attributed to priests and bishops, and through it, they can channel their holy power. Lets Staff weapons be used as casting tools for all spells from Curate and it's promotion classes.