Is the princess any good?

[Taikan]

I've barely see any serious build including a princess, is she truly useless?

[Flexor]

I've barely see any serious build including a princess, is she truly useless?

only useful with 3-4 and above ranged merc in ur formation,i would say at least 4

[Bilge]

There are three support-class mercs with seal-type spells: Exorcist, Princess and Prophet. They are for supporting casters, ranged and melee type mercenaries respectively. Which one(s) you get depends on your build.

[Arietta]

her offensive signet spells are situational at best... at least pve wise.

[Ferishi]

Copy and paste of what I said in the Exo Article thread:

I have one for fun and she just doesn't really DO anything. Her defense buff doesn't heal and give enough defense to significantly increase the longevity of your ranged chars in PvP anyways (and does jack squat for magic attacks) and quite frankly, no one really cares about defense on a ranged char anyways (Swordsmen and other tanks exist for a reason, you know). This is as opposed to a Prophet where people loooove attack+ on melee mercs. And debuffing an opponents' artillery men and gunners won't stop the stun swirlies from popping above your heads (and heaven forbid your opponent use both gunners AND cannoneers. You can only debuff one type!). Princess can be kinda fun for PvM since you can then rotate in your rangers as back-up tanks (in PvP doing that even with a princess will just get them killed). But... that's about it.

Exorcist meanwhile gets the best of all worlds. His mana seal completely shuts down staff users (because no one cares about a staff user's normal attack anyways) while a prophet and princess do NOT completely shut down melee or ranged chars (de-buffed enemies can just use magic attacks), and Exorcists' speed cast buff is insanely useful (unlike Princess Order, which is insanely useless). He doesn't even have to choose between two types because his de-buff seal works on ALL types of staff users (as opposed to a prophet having to choose between axe or spear if your foe has both under brutal will). And he gets other utility spells like Mana Burn, too (where's my Princess's instant damage cross-shape attack!?). Heck, unlike the Princess or Prophet, you can even use an Exo as a frontline tank once you get guardian stones! Exo has superior de-buffs, superior buffs, and superior tanking ability, while prophet has superior buffs and the ability to use a bow if nothing else, while Princess is just junk. Good grief, NDoors needs serious help when it comes to balancing mercs.






IMHO, the Princess doesn't buff friendly rangers enough and she doesn't de-buff enemy rangers enough. Seriously, compared to prophet and exo, added defense does NOT help ranged chars as much as added damage AND accuracy helps melee characters, nor does added defense help ranged chars as much as added AP helps staff characters. And lowering an enemy's ranged char attack power still leaves them with a ton of other options to mess you up (magic attacks, stunning, etc). And the added defense doesn't even make that much of a difference (your ranged chars will still get chewed through quickly enough once the front line goes down)

[jesada89237]

I think the princess is not worth a spot in any formation, even in a full ranged formation, she barely has a spot. Her passive gives mediocre defense, the passive heal is nice, and it provides no form of accuracy or damage buff. She is better off being replaced by another damage dealer or a second healer

[LostCause]

So far the only use for a princess is to lv her to 50 with royal stignat so you can start the cannoneer quest. Other then that I highly doubt you will get much positive feed back.

[LtKillroy]

In other words, someone arse the devolopers to buff the princess. No sense having a essentially useless class, just taking up room.

[Ferishi]

They did recently increase the healing and defensive power of Princess Order in PvP with a recent patch. ....it didn't help. The fundamental use in general just doesn't work. Everyone LOVES extra AP on their staff mercs and extra damage on their melee mercs, but seriously, ranged chars aren't supposed to be soaking up physical attacks in the first place (and again, Princess Order does jack squat to block magic attacks)

[kaiser99]

Aww... Princess is really unpopular...
All my books sell out nicely expect hers...
She is really situational.... Use a Patrol licence on your oppenent and swap her out if u see her to be useful...
Other then that....

[Ferishi]

The problem is she isn't even very good for the situations she's supposed to be good in. She doesn't buff your ranged chars enough to make a difference and she doesn't de-buff enemy ranged chars enough to make a difference (compared to say, Exo, who royally screws over enemy staff users)

[methane]

At least you get her for the looks! Pretty much a lot of things about why princess is not good has been listed out in the previous post. And also one point i think that hasnt been pointed out in is that. Heck when does your range merc get hit? Ans: When you are losing the fight. Well its true that that isnt always the case but most of the time, you know its game over when your tankers are dead and your ranged merc has to do the job. And besides her debuff best works well on gunners thats all. You don't really see a build with more than 2archers and on cannon they mainly exist for stun. So damage debuff to them really isnt much of an issue? Thats why i do not think it is wise to include princess unless you're really into her looks.... Yes shes imba cute. that much i agree!

[Aura]

totally agree...princess is hell weak compared to prophet and exocrist...
thats kind of sad....i have 4 long rangers and my princess is lvl 97 now...
i dislike her use in battle more and more....however i still keep her
because she is the cutest and hottest XD.

the developer seriously need to buff the princess or even make new skills for her.....the debuff spells dots only half damage compared to prophet's
this is pretty sad....and in higher lvl most ppl dont even have more than 1 or 2 long range type in their team(usually 1 prophet sometimes with an arti or long range main).......

i heard lvl 100 princess gives 1500 def bonus...however it is really nothing to later games....she either sux in both pvp , pve....
exo owns too much in pvp, prophet is doing good too....but princess..
sigh... my love is doing crap ><

[cfk]

Well at least you have one for inventor quest.

[HardcoreGamer]

Well, gotta agree she is hot... The fact that she is a staff user means she wear robes and robes defence is as good as nothing is indeed a let down...

[leawen]

I plan to get her and all the mercs for that matter .. more to say I have had them not to actually use them hehe

[HardcoreGamer]

Well, then you need a lot of mercenary rooms =/ and that aint cheap!

[kaiser99]

haha, just use a 7day merc room... dont think you would need to reopen that merc room after you store princess in.... You would notice a sharpe rise in efficiency :D

[HardcoreGamer]

Well, it does sell for 2.5-3.5m each, lol.

I would rather have cash =/ Feels better in my hands :D

[Locksley]

2.5-3.5mil? lol, in macedon, she's worth below 1 million

[Plum]

see main problem with princess is that she buffs the ranged chars...in other words the DPS (or ppl who should be DPS) defensively :=\

i mean if i take gunners or archers or cannons it will be cuz i wanted high dps/stunning.how will her +def passive(negligible may i add) help in that?
her heals help if you will ranged units but not if they are getting pounded by enemy mercs.

compared to the prophet for example...melee become the DPS with +attack +accuracy and much better heals.nvm the fact that the princess can be mana sealed and doesnt give mdef too.

IMO the def buff should be changed to something like small attack buff/small inc. in critic chance or something like that for her to be useful >.<

[FrozenFury]

Having played all 3 merc supoport units, I can say that the princess is clearly the worst of the three. Her Princess Order is completely useless. The def it provides to your ranged units doesn't help your ranged units that much and the order's heal is just as useless too since it doesn't seem to heal too much to make the difference.

If Princess' Order is useless, Imperial Signet has to be a piece of trash. Why would you want to reduce the damage done to cannons anyways? Thy don't do much damage anyways and even affected by Imp Sig, they can still stun you!

Fsmily and Royal signet are much better than Imperial signet, but they are only situational at best. If you are in a pvp battle with no gunners or archers, those two skills are completely useless!

As for her basic attack, it is nothing to get excited about at all and worst of all its a staff attack which doesn't do much damage to begin with!

The only point I see in getting the princess beside her looks and her sassy attitude is to get her to lv50 so you can get access to the inventor class.

Compare this to the exo, who shines in pvp! He's not of much use in pve because all of his skills (except mana burn) only affect staff users. But when he is useable in pve, his mana seal can change the course of the battle!

The prophet is usable for obvious reasons. It makes your already powerful melee units deadly with her concentrate which improves attack, accuracy, and heals them every turn. The prophet's other three skills are like the princess' signets except they are more useful since they weaken melee weapons and not bows, guns, and *cough* cannons *cough*.

[Ferishi]

Exo: Best disable debuffs, 2nd best buff (speed cast), best defense (especially with guardian stones. He's even one of the frontliners in ALL the top 8 Korean teams!), 2nd best magic defense (again allowing him to be a frontline tank)

Prophet: Best attack power (in my experience), best attack type (Bow can target anyone. Good for shooting down scrolls), best buff (concentrate is madness), 2nd best debuff (what enemy PvPer doesn't have a melee character somewhere on their team? Tons of melee-monsters in the game too), 2nd best defense (ranger armour)

Princess: 2nd best attack power (far as I can tell. Frankly, no one cares because it still stinks and she can only hit one front line target at a time), worst defense, best magic defense (no one really cares since your enemy isn't going to be targetting her with magic anyways and it doesn't allow her to frontline tank like the exo), worst buff by far, worse debuffs (lol @ stunning cannons. And most PvPers don't bring along archers. Heck, ranged monsters are pretty rare too)

Princess is horrible. Exo has soooo many uses (screwing over your enemies, buffing your casters, FRONTLINER, mana burn does AoE damage) and prophet is sooo wonderful for turning your melee-ers into killing machines.

IMHO, they should merge broken axe/spear/sword into one skill that debuffs all melee and merge the signets into one skill that debuffs all ranged, and then give Princess something you'd actually expect a staff user to have (a magical attack spell or maybe minor heal spell that like, temporarily raises magic defense for a turn). When the SWORD USER (Exo) has a magic attack spell (mana burn) while the staff user does not, something is WRONG. If Exos get mana burn that works on ALL chars and not just staff users, why can't the Princess get something that works on all chars and not just ranged users? (and er, ditto for Prophet I guess, but she doesn't need it, really)

[Zpirit]

After getting hit by princess + cannon's bombing campaign for over 2500 and have my front line being wanded down by her, I must say she's got potential.

I think she might be way better for an AOE build than a staff main.

[LostCause]

see main problem with princess is that she buffs the ranged chars...in other words the DPS (or ppl who should be DPS) defensively :=\

i mean if i take gunners or archers or cannons it will be cuz i wanted high dps/stunning.how will her +def passive(negligible may i add) help in that?
her heals help if you will ranged units but not if they are getting pounded by enemy mercs.

compared to the prophet for example...melee become the DPS with +attack +accuracy and much better heals.nvm the fact that the princess can be mana sealed and doesnt give mdef too.

IMO the def buff should be changed to something like small attack buff/small inc. in critic chance or something like that for her to be useful >.<

Wish the devs. would take this into consideration and redo princess so she can actually be more useful. the def is so little that i try to put my range merc up to tank. even with the extra 1.2k def , 2 hit from an axe user almost killer them all. It is so sad, range char have low def and hp so what is even the pt of givign them a def buff so they can think they can tank? and then next sec they at start tasting the dust.

[Krullthor]

As it was mentioned the biggest problem is that it gives defensive buffs to mercs that arent usually hit around much making it kinda useless, even if they buffed the defensive buffs it would have to be to a point that a ranged merc could nearly tank making it a bit overpowered perhaps. Changing the buffs to offensive would make it look like a prophet but for ranged and you would have 2 mercs that would be very similar and they might want to keep mercs different to allow for different alternatives in setups etc.

[Ferishi]

How on earth does a princess order you to have more defense, anyways?

Princess: Stop bleeding, you cowards!

[cfk]

Had to do that 20 signet thing for inventor quest. Accidentally did bombing campaign. Looks fun...but seriously, how often are you going to have 3+ ranged targets of same type?

[Jimsta]

Had to do that 20 signet thing for inventor quest. Accidentally did bombing campaign. Looks fun...but seriously, how often are you going to have 3+ ranged targets of same type?
Most people have prophets, and some with archers (or archer main).

People also use artilerlyman + cannoneer for stun formations.

Not many people use gunners anymore though, they mostly get replaced...

[Ferishi]

Most people have prophets, and some with archers (or archer main).

Not many people use archers later on. No top team in Korea has more than 1 bow user (the prophet)

People also use artilerlyman + cannoneer for stun formations.

That's only two cannon users, not three.

Not many people use gunners anymore though, they mostly get replaced...

Pretty much.


All the top Korean teams had at MOST two cannon users (cannon main and cannoneer. But it was often an axe main instead of a cannon main. They also only had one archer, and one gunner. At most.

Meanwhile, they all had at least 2 staff users (witch, oracle, and monk) and sometimes 3 (+witch). Go go exo! Horrible game balance design for the lose.

[kaiser99]

and ranged getting hit = tanks are goin down.. unless they have alot of range... which is..

[Spydermage]

so maybe swapping princess ability with prophet will be better?

[Manager123]

If not for the inventor quest, i wont even touch that dog

[AtsushiHayami]

Well princess is a bit useless because she only has buffs for Range merc and most of the people use mainly close range merc so for now lets just say useless

[Aura]

lol pvp build is too obvious for this game...
it is really sad to see princess as worse merc...

bombing attack? easily get rid of by hg

[Vrael]

until princess gets some skills changed i consider her worthless. as people have said, added defense to ranged mercs is usually useless because tanking is for.... tanks. the only usefulness she has is to be a tool to get inventor

[Ferishi]

In PvM, she can be decent for making your ranged chars be good enough to back-up tank for your melee tanks if your front line is starting to get worn down. But even that she's only mediocre at and you'd better not keep your ranged guys up ther for more than one round while your melee guys get healed (of couse, in PvP, where healing is much worse, this strategy isn't very viable at all)

[crazynjay]

princess only good in the inventor quest.... after that no more but if you are a range lineup she do good just give her a good armors ^_^

[Ferishi]

What would giving a princess good armour accomplish besides the obvious part of making her slightly more durable? She still won't be able to tank for you :O

[thailehuy]

What would make a princess good is combine all her debuff into one (curse ranger or something) and make her order heal double the amount

[Taikan]

and change the def buff for a dmg buff... ormulti it buff... or something that is actually usefull to ranged mercs

[HardcoreGamer]

If not for the inventor quest, i wont even touch that dog

Clear to explain more? Why princess needed for inventor quest?

[Aura]

Clear to explain more? Why princess needed for inventor quest?

you need a lv 50 princess to do inventor quest
it is a must.....

[HardcoreGamer]

Shit, that sux... DO i need to upgrade it as well? O.o

[jesada89237]

nope, and it also requires that you use the royal signet skill 20 times

[Arietta]

nope, and it also requires that you use the royal signet skill 20 times

if u dont want to get shot down, have a friend compete with you and just have him pass his turns while u royal signet his gunners

[Aura]

if u dont want to get shot down, have a friend compete with you and just have him pass his turns while u royal signet his gunners

just go to sparring in rome >_>...pick a lv 19 gunner main...
and use the signet like mad lol...

[Taikan]

too bad its thet a horrible merc... i was thinking that maybe with the added def bonus u could use your gunners/artys as backup tanks while you heal your main tanks :S.... guess the buff is still too weak

[HardcoreGamer]

damn... if that's the case, AO devs actually force us to use the lousiest merc ever >.>

[nothingxs]

The princess is a really fringe mercenary with very limited use, but she's good at two things. First off, paired with a Cannoneer, she can really screw up enemy ranged formations. Second off, she's a clean counter to enemies who put Witches in the front row.

[Spydermage]

hmm... i am sorry, but i think i fail to see how princess can counter witch?

[Kiena]

hmm... i am sorry, but i think i fail to see how princess can counter witch?

Princesses are staff users, which means that they can hit flying mobs. They also do a decent amount of damage (they tend to do a lot of hits). At least, this is what I assume he meant.

[Wraythe]

Princess is lacking in many ways but im building a fun stun build with 3 art/cann 3 gunner(jani inv, main) monk shaman(noble sac) and princess. I know it wont go anywhere in pvp but itll be fun seeing all those purple halos heh

[Taikan]

i've thought of doing somthiong similar... but the def buff isn't that great... al lvl 46 princess with princess order lvl 42 improves def by 1k ... maybe a little more, but still due to equipment differences your gunners are still 2k under a tank, without taking the vit diference into account

the only hope would be that those buffs increase A LOT at higher levels.

[MiaFLSurf]

Which of the class D mercs should Princess replace?

[Plum]

i've thought of doing somthiong similar... but the def buff isn't that great... al lvl 46 princess with princess order lvl 42 improves def by 1k ... maybe a little more, but still due to equipment differences your gunners are still 2k under a tank, without taking the vit diference into account

the only hope would be that those buffs increase A LOT at higher levels.


unless the princess offers mdef too OR the ability to increase the dps of ranged builds they will be useless.

even if your gunners/arti have +10k def they will just be flame sworded/meteored to death since they have low vit.

[Taikan]

Which of the class D mercs should Princess replace?

if u have read this thread... u shouldn't get the princess; even a clmusy viking is better than the princess