The Bishop: No longer needed?

So I saw a very interesting argument today regarding the Bishop class.

"Let's be brutally honest here bishop class has been reduced to a minimal role when it comes to bossing. Bishops are used for leeching and the only other use for them is door and res or hs mule. You will almost never see a mage being the main attacker in a boss run other then maybe a 1st gen run in a new server where the majority of the people made a mage class. At boss they will always be just a support class, and are pretty much not needed anyway. Must suck to be replaced by a pet equip and all cures. If it wasnt for the fact that they are needed in gpq and cwkpq, you probably could do without a mage class period. But then people would actually have to train instead of leeching. xd"

So what are your opinions? Are Bishops truly no longer needed for Bossing? Do you agree/disagree with the above paragraph? If so why?

Holy Symbol. Then again, there are priest mules that can fulfill that role. If that technicality counts, then yes bishops are "useless" and expendable as most people heal themselves at bosses anyways. With that in mind though, holy symbol is enough for bishops to get into boss runs.

i'd like to see a successful HT run without bishops =)

They should make Holy Shield prevent Dispel.

Wheel of Destiny is going to make resurrect much less useful.
Pink vynn will take some serious allcure spammage without holy shield though because literally nearly every one of its and its statues' attacks cause a status effect.

No single class is useful in every boss... as shown by the fact that half a dozen classes have soloed Zakum without needing their HB, HS, Haste, SI, SE, etc.

As they go, Bishops rank pretty high on the order of useful classes, but that's the best you'll get - there's no one class that does everything, and there shouldn't be. Any attack-only class can be replaced by giving your Night Lord an apple, does that make them useless?

Holy Shield is the new Holy Symbol- Just throwing that out there.
And Res/dispel/Holy Symbol/bless (have fun at Pink Warriors) are all icing on the cake.
That and invincible makes for a serious damage cut.

At boss they will always be just a support class

Isn't that what they're supposed to be in the first place?

Bishops are the fastest levelers, one of the classes that's always babied, and are always wanted for parties. You guys don't have a good single-mob attack because you're not supposed to be attackers; you're supposed to be a support class. Your skills are supposed to benefit other players more than you. Bishops are integral in boss runs, anyway (Well at least the ones that take more than 2 minutes to kill...lol zakum).

Bishops save people a lot of pots, increase exp gain, and provide a nice safety net to account for people dying by human error or lag. Still awesome.

So I saw a very interesting argument today regarding the Bishop class.

"Let's be brutally honest here bishop class has been reduced to a minimal role when it comes to bossing. Bishops are used for leeching and the only other use for them is door and res or hs mule. You will almost never see a mage being the main attacker in a boss run other then maybe a 1st gen run in a new server where the majority of the people made a mage class. At boss they will always be just a support class, and are pretty much not needed anyway. Must suck to be replaced by a pet equip and all cures. If it wasnt for the fact that they are needed in gpq and cwkpq, you probably could do without a mage class period. But then people would actually have to train instead of leeching. xd"

So what are your opinions? Are Bishops truly no longer needed for Bossing? Do you agree/disagree with the above paragraph? If so why?

Judging from this Bishops are only used for:

- Leeching
- Door
- Res
- HS
- Be a support class
- Needed in GPQ
- Needed in CwkPQ

Well, that surely doesn't seem like alot of things.

The day the most played, highest lvl'd, most useful class becomes obsolete is the day MS ends.

If u make a "best class in MS" thread I gaurantee you bishop will win.

The whole debate rests on one crux, that simply being player availability. The only reason why Bishops, ArchMages, and several other classes still exist is because they're needed at certain times for certain things.

Let's start explaining this. Essentially, Stereo made a great point about Zakum - at least the majority of all classes in this game have had at least one solo, if not almost all, thus proving it possible to kill a boss like that without the use of another's benefits (fast attacking or buffs, whatever). But is that how we all work? Do people go HT and Zakum by themselves whenever they want because they can? No, they can't, and I speak from experience when I say a solo of that magnitude, especially for my class, takes an extreme amount of time and planning to actually accomplish. Alright, it's not THAT much planning, but I'm telling you right now I don't have 8 hours a day and the mesos to spare to solo the thing twice a day, nor would I want to kill 1/3rd of the day for whatever Zakum groups may be in those time slots on that particular channel.

Summing up that point, you need all the classes you can get for special abilities (again, fast attacking, buffs, etc.), if you want to create a run or even do ANYTHING in this game as efficiently as possible. Oh wait, isn't that how life works? You can't do it all in this world by yourself - you need other people. You can't manage 4 AP classes AND Zakum solos every day; you need to go on maybe one 20 minute run a week, or whatever if it works for you. And to do that 20 minute run you need these other classes.

Okay, so we know that simply to keep playing this game or to do essentially ANYTHING you need the help of other people. Now, we know too that you can have 30 NLs in the Zakum Altar and have a run that lasts 3 minutes. What a great way to work, no? 3 minutes is all you need to play this game every day...what a deal! Oh wait, there are never 30 NLs all in one place at the same time unless it's organized, and even then, having a permanent time for all of them to meet up is bound to create problems for every one of them sooner or later (aka some will be unable to come from time to time). So who do you substitute them with? Heroes, BMs, other classes...oh wait, there aren't any of those available because it's a 12am PST time slot (you see where I'm going with this?)...so what's still available? Those other classes - Bishops, ArchMages, Shadowers, Paladins, etc.

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To sum up that entirely, extremely long post, we've essentially proved why the contemporary Zakum run, HT run, or training party exists as a diverse group of classes rather than 30 melee NLs and/or BMs: player and class availability. You're never going to have, consistently every week at one appointed time, an exact group of people together for something. Life doesn't work that way. So we have tons of other classes from which to choose from, and millions of people who play around the globe. Together that makes a humongous array of options 24/7, none of which are the most optimal or efficient, but all of which are capable of success.

QFT above post

The whole debate rests on one crux, that simply being player availability. The only reason why Bishops, ArchMages, and several other classes still exist is because they're needed at certain times for certain things.

Wrong. Most people play their classes because they like the playing style. If they find out they don't, then they switch classes. Or they can follow their default and stay with the class they originally picked. It has nothing to do with what's available or not.

Okay, so we know that simply to keep playing this game or to do essentially ANYTHING you need the help of other people. Now, we know too that you can have 30 NLs in the Zakum Altar and have a run that lasts 3 minutes. What a great way to work, no? 3 minutes is all you need to play this game every day...what a deal! Oh wait, there are never 30 NLs all in one place at the same time unless it's organized, and even then, having a permanent time for all of them to meet up is bound to create problems for every one of them sooner or later (aka some will be unable to come from time to time). So who do you substitute them with? Heroes, BMs, other classes...oh wait, there aren't any of those available because it's a 12am PST time slot (you see where I'm going with this?)...so what's still available? Those other classes - Bishops, ArchMages, Shadowers, Paladins, etc.

While this is possible, not everyone is crazy about Zakum. Your friends aren't on, great. Go kill Pap instead. Oh, you papped twice? No problem, training will take it's place.

Also, don't forget that the reason people don't do 30 man runs is that it lags like hell and the split is near 0 (including the exp being split among 30 people). You don't substitute, you just stick with it and go without them. People nowadays do mostly one or two party runs, and its not hard to get ~10 people in and out of the altar.

Life doesn't work that way. So we have tons of other classes from which to choose from, and millions of people who play around the globe. Together that makes a humongous array of options 24/7, none of which are the most optimal or efficient, but all of which are capable of success.

I agree with this part of your post.

Wrong. Most people play their classes because they like the playing style. If they find out they don't, then they switch classes. Or they can follow their default and stay with the class they originally picked. It has nothing to do with what's available or not.

While this is possible, not everyone is crazy about Zakum. Your friends aren't on, great. Go kill Pap instead. Oh, you papped twice? No problem, training will take it's place.

Also, don't forget that the reason people don't do 30 man runs is that it lags like hell and the split is near 0 (including the exp being split among 30 people). You don't substitute, you just stick with it and go without them. People nowadays do mostly one or two party runs, and its not hard to get ~10 people in and out of the altar.

I agree with this part of your post.

Well, right. Player satisfaction with their class is always the top priority in continual playing of a class, but in terms of our lesser-used classes having a part in the larger picture, all I meant to say is that we DO in the sense that we're used when no one else is there and people don't want to wait for 30 minutes for another NL to log. But yea, you're definitely right; you have to love your class if you're going to keep playing it.

I guess that goes along with the second part of your post too, on how people usually go on ~10-12 people Zakum runs nowadays just because we can with 4th jobs and new equips/scrolls. In that sense people aren't going to wait until they form a party of 12 NLs; I'm sure many ArchMages are used to this, but I'm often asked by friends forming a random Zakum run to come along if I'm online or whatnot. Usually, as you said, people just ask whoever is online they know can contribute something rather than hardcore organizing like we did 2 years ago. Of course this isn't the case for HT, but even still it will eventually become something that you only need 15-20 people to kill, maybe 3 of which being ArchMages because your main attackers are so damn strong.

In any case my only point was that the game has evolved to one requiring any player to fill the few spontaneous spots rather than the necessary players to fill half the spots, if you know what I mean. In that sense ArchMages, Pallys, etc. are wanted more than usual, so as GameStop would say, "Power to the Players."

As a bishop myself, at first I thought this was complete bogus. But now it's a reality for me. I've been completely replaced by non-leeching hs mules. Almost all my friends use them now and it has put me in a non-leveling spot. It frustrates me knowing that no one really needs me anymore except for the occasional cwkpq or zakum or pap or whatever. Meh, I'm gonna stop bumbling on now.

In my opinion, Bishops could be seen as useful or not useful depending on the situation and depending on what they are being used for.

Honestly, Bishops' heal can and can not be useful in bosses.
I remember I was buying a zhelm on my level 58 assassin and i had a bishop in my party. The bishop healed great and I used minimal HP pots until the third body came around.
The thing is, the usefulness of a bishop really depends on how reliable he/she is. It is really up the player whether or not they trust the bishop to be able to heal. I have been in plenty of parties where the priest/bishop is really quite bad at healing and therefore quite useless to the party. I have, however, been in parties where the bishop is incredibly useful, as i described above. It is all about preference.

Now that pirates are out and there are a substantial number of buccaneers around, I feel that only one or 2 bishops are really necessary. In bosses, the bishops can just switch out of parties for ressurection, and then the buccaneer can use time leap on both so you can get a good 4 ressurections out of that. So that is not a problem. Anyone who dies more than that is not worth the ressurections.

The only things that bishops provide for parties are dispel, bless, and holy symbol.

-Dispel is useful for zakum and such, but not absolutely necessary. All cure pots.
-Bless is also useful for some warriors, but not really all that much. Plus the new archer pots in NLC help.
-Holy Symbol. Very useful. There is nothing that can really substitute that.

In conclusion, I think that bishops are useful, but only one or two are enough. And it also helps to get very reliable bishops. Not just random ones.

Bishops are used for leeching and the only other use for them is door and res or hs mule.

If you can say that then, NLs and heroes are nothing more than DPS mules, DrKs are HB mules, bowmen are SE mules, bucs are SI mules, I/L's are just blizz mules, and F/P's are just meteo mules.

Well, no auto hs-ing anymore, and we bishops have Resurrection (or you can pay for that reviving item f3).