Use the Force, Luke!

[phulshof]

I've been playing a Force character since I started playing Silkroad, and until the Euro characters hit it did come in handy. Lately though I've come to doubt my decision for the following reasons:
1. For single play, it really doesn't add much. The vital spots sound good in theory, but more often than not the mobs resist them (especially if your equipment allows you to grind on higher level mobs), and your casting time is better spent sending out another nuke. My nuke splash will attract other mobs regardless of my circles, and I can't bloody well ress myself.
2. For party play, if you can find it in botroad, clerics are much more useful. Certainly, the circles do come in handy at times, but parties often grind outside the protection level of your circle.
3. For PvP, any cleric in your opponent's party makes your vital spots useless. For everything else, there's pills these days.
Does anyone have different or similar experiences using Force?

So, with all that in mind: is Force still useful these days? I'm seriously considering deleveling force, and taking up either fire (for power) or pacheon (for fun). I already have my bicheon Sybian after all.

[Tasdik]

1. Force is useless for soloing.

2. You're chinese, no mastery is going to benefit a party THAT much. Force is the best option though.

3. Pills are only so effective. Sure HW is a bitch, but then again, you don't really have much of a chance beating a subclass cleric anyways. *unless they're like int*.

Are you talking about your full force character in your sig? If so, that build will never do good in 1v1 pvp. And only be sort of useful in group pvp.

Luke has arrived. Have no fear.

[XMoshe]

Yeah holy spell is a bitch, I was never able to kill str chars with cleric sub. Then again they never managed to kill me either (well in the end they would, when the crits landed perfectly for them but it was always a long long battle ._.)

If I'm not mistaken they are finally going to implement the holy spell reduction in iSRO so force chars might get a bit better soon. Either that or the only change is going to be bless being linked to a cleric rod.

Even with the shitty holy spell force has always been my most beloved tree, and it always will be

I'd go more in detail on your questions but I pretty much agree with Tasdik, so this time I will allow him the pleasure of being Luke

[omier]

Even with the shitty holy spell force has always been my most beloved tree, and it always will be

[phulshof]

Seems to me like force is only viable for a STR based character then. An INT based character needs at least two energy trees already, so an INT force build would not have access to a weapon tree. Force isn't very useful in PvE, and without a weapon tree 1vs1 PvP is also problematic, which would leave group PvP.

[omier]

What about Cold/Force/Weapon? Do debuffs get the Cold nukes to hit harder than Light or Fire? Weapon skills with debuffs would still own in PvP though.

[phulshof]

What about Cold/Force/Weapon? Do debuffs get the Cold nukes to hit harder than Light or Fire? Weapon skills with debuffs would still own in PvP though.

Ice nukes only give decent damage against 5 enemies; below that lightning deals more. Fire always deals quite a bit more. Using force debuffs on multiple enemies, let alone 5 isn't practical.

Also, you'd be missing out on both the physical % increase of fire, and magical % increase of lightning. I think bicheon/lightning/cold would be more effective than force there.

As far as I can tell, weapon/energy/force is best left to STR builds. Full INT lightning/cold/force or fire/cold/force can be used in PvE (with force not adding much), and group PvP. 1vs1 PvP I wouldn't recommend a full INT force build at this time.

[omier]

STR Force builds are better when you are against a wiz at an unique. So you can cast the phy def debuffs and ks the wiz. Full Force with Force mastery doesn't benefit from that situation(though this build doesn't require as much SP).
But who cares about uniques anyways.