Suggestion Disciple's main problem in a nutshell...

[STDs4YouAnd4Me]

Lack of magic damage.

If you want to compare the 3 'squishy' melee classes in the game, you're looking at Ninja, Runeblade, and Disciple. Each of these classes have varying degrees of armor, Disciple being the least armored, Runeblade coming in second, and Ninjas generally bordering on a reasonable set of armor. A great rule of thumb is that if you're a squishy melee class, you're compensating armor for damage. Let's go through the process, shall we?

The following will be a list of magic damage skills owned by each respected 'squishy melee class' :

Ninja
Envenom You apply a deadly venom to your sword and arrows for 14 seconds. Your attacks cause great pain, dealing an extra (8 + 0.25 per intellect point) damage to your target.

Blitz You deal (150 + 2 per intellect point) lightning damage to your target within (6 + 0.025 per intellect point) blocks. Pierces armor. Takes 1 second to warm up.

Shuriken By right-clicking with a flint, you throw 3 shurikens, each dealing (10 + 0.5 per agility point) damage.

Eviscerate Your sword deals (130 + 2 per strength point) instant damage to your target within 4 blocks, bypassing armor.

Runeblade

ToxicRune Upon damaging a target with your sword you apply a Rune of Toxicity, which deals an additional (18 + 0.25 per intellect point) poison damage every 3 seconds for 13 seconds.

VoidRune Upon damaging a target with your sword you apply a Rune of Void, which deals an additional (20 + -/75 per intellect point) magic damage and silences your target for 1.5 seconds.

**Not positive this skill goes through armor, nor is it available to test on the Test server**
DuskBlade Your blade drains (50 + 1.5 per strength point) damage from your target (within 4 blocks) and restores 60% of this damage to your health.

FireRune Upon damaging a target with your sword you apply a Rune of Fire, which deals an additional (40 + 1.25 per intellect point) fire damage.

IceRune Upon damaging a target with your sword you apply a Rune of Ice, which deals an additional (30 + 0.875 per intellect point) magic damage and slows your target for 2 seconds.

***** It should be noted that Runeblades have the added benefit of stacking their sword with Runes before a fight even begins, giving it instant burst without the burden of GCDs or a diminished mana/stamina pool.

***** It should also be noted that in order for these skills to function they must left-click their opponent while the Rune is up. This gives the Rune damage + the sword damage all at once.

Disciple

Smite You deal (40 + 1.25 per intellect point) damage to your target and (100 + 1.25 per intellect point) damage to undead targets (within 5 blocks).

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Disregarding that a Blazerod does less damage than a Ninja or Runeblade's diamond sword, a Disciple's lack of magic damage is one of it's main burdens. I understand that their lack of armor is part of their 'lore' and that they are a 'Support' class. At the end of the day though, if you're going to give a class a base of 18.75 Equipment Weight you better give it a high enough DPS to compensate for it's lack of armor. A bloodmage is in a very similar spot as a Disciple; supportive and squishy. Yet even a Bloodmage's skillset goes through armor.

Hell, if you want to dig deeper into this Wizards, Beguilers, Necromancers, and even the Caster/Melee class of Pyromancer all have skills that go through armor. All of these classes are 'squishy' and to compensate all of their skills (aside from Darkblade and Maim) goes through armor.

Should a class be neglected of magic spells simply because it is able, at times, to keep itself alive slightly longer than any class with 30 Equipment weight should? The answer seems to be an outstanding 'Yes'.

 

[malikdanab]

"Disciple the physical mage"

The skills of a mage with the damage of a warrior. The problem I see with the class is that it's kit makes it out to be an assassin, but it's play-style is supposed to be a support. News Flash, you can't support your team if you die first. Disciple has a good set of CC skills, but think that over. Why would a support class WANT to be near the enemy where it will get killed.

IMO I think Disciple should scrap it's healer roots and turn back to a more damage based " Monk/Martial Artist "

 

[Zaihn]

Let's Compare Healing Spells

Ninja

Potion You can drink Potions.

Runeblade

Potion You can drink Potions.

Duskblade Selfheal. Your blade drains (50 + 1.5 per strength point) damage from your target (within 4 blocks) and restores 60% of this damage to your health.

Disciple

Potion You can drink Potions.

FistOfJin Each of your melee strikes using your Disciple’s specific weapons restores (12 + 0.2 per wisdom point) health to you, and (6 + 0.2 per wisdom point) health to party members within (7 + 0.05 per wisdom point) blocks. This ability does not heal more than once per second.

Chakra You radiate a group heal of (85 + 1 per wisdom point) health and remove up to 2 debuffs from party members within (6 + 0.1 per wisdom point) blocks

Renewal You heal your target within (8 + 0.15 per wisdom point) blocks for (150 + 1.875 per wisdom point) health. Takes 3 seconds to warm up.

Balance You redistribute the health evenly throughout your party with a (6 + 0.1 per wisdom point) block radius (with no overall gain or loss).

In Conclusion

You cannot compare a healer/support class to a high dps rogue class.(Apples and Oranges?) Following your logic we should give Ninja's/Runeblade's more group heals. Sure Disciples are underpowered at the moment. Why make another high dps, squishy character? Just go ninja/runeblade if that's what you want to play.

Disciples have always been overpowered in group fights because of the ability to balance an entire team, and chakra an instant cast group heal that removes a number of debuffs. Their numbers may be a little weak at the moment but that is probably because they were wrecking everything for a month on test server prior to the map reset. Currently there are no real team fights or enough to make it worth it to go a support based class imo.


Edit: Just realized you can actually make chakra overpowered still.

Chakra You radiate a group heal of (85 + 1 per wisdom point) health and remove up to 2 debuffs from party members within (6 + 0.1 per wisdom point) block

40 points into wisdom -> Yes this is a lot of attributes but guess what, you will be doing an over powered ass heal every 11 seconds. Would be awesome if there were team fights.

40 Points into wisdom gives -> Instant Cast 125 Group Heal + Removes 2 debuffs from party + 10 block range. Combine this with balance and you have a very strong support for a 5-10 man party.

The issue being no large team fights and the disc would be almost pure support.

 

[malikdanab]

All hybrids are bad atm (Kainzo has admitted this.)

 

[Zaihn]

All hybrids are bad atm (Kainzo has admitted this.)

As in hybrid, you mean dps/supports?

Bard - High Dps, Average Support.
Disciple - Low Dps, Average Support
Paladin - Low Dps, God Tier Support
Bloodmage - Average dps, Average support

How to fix?

Bard - Look at pewpew's post.
Disciple - Make Chakra OP again, make force push/force pull go through armor.
Paladin - Perfect IMO
Bloodmage - Idk, issue seems to be more of the dull play style so people stop playing it or maybe the abundance of Ninja's/Dragoons that counter it.

 

[malikdanab]

As in hybrid, you mean dps/supports?

Bard - High Dps, Average Support.
Disciple - Low Dps, Average Support
Paladin - Low Dps, God Tier Support
Bloodmage - Average dps, Average support

How to fix?

Bard - Look at pewpew's post.
Disciple - Make Chakra OP again, make force push/force pull go through armor.
Paladin - Perfect IMO
Bloodmage - Idk, issue seems to be more of the dull play style so people stop playing it or maybe the abundance of Ninja's/Dragoons that counter it.

Pretty much this (Plus Druid IMO). Since hybrids have to split their attributes very thin, they end up being able to do many things, but none of them well. Kainzo has been thinking about tweaking the attribute system to make it less hurtful towards hybrid classes.

 

[JupiterRome]

Ik this thread is dead but I searched disciple in cuz im debating between bloodmage or disciple or druid.............

With my druid build on test I do 135 damage per ire and 150 per bolt, my heals are OK not very well but I don't need to worry about mana Druid has heals but they sorta suck *only putting druid out cuz @malikdanab said something about it

As a disc I do like 50 melee damage and heal like 15ish with fist of jin (going off of memory) renewal is 144 hp (remember that for a fact) and chakra is like 100, Disciples heals arnt very good and there damage isn't that amazing either, I got a berserker (which is apparently "fine" atm) down to like 3 hearts as disciple when I had ran away and healed while keeping them at a distance with forcepush...... disciple is really up compared to other classes