Cayeon's Guide on Full Attack Clerics

Bloodmess - Lost City

cayeon wrote: »

I've recently released my guide on Full Attack Clerics over at MY-EN, but I'll cross-post it here for a larger audience:

Note: Because the guide is just too large to incorporate it into a forum post, I put it into a .pdf file and uploaded it to my site. Rest assured that it is totally free of any viruses or spyware.

EDIT: I'm happy to present the new PW-INT version! The names have been changed accordingly, in addition to some minor revisions:
>>> Click here for the PW-INT version <<<

Thanks everyone for your support

The old PW-MY-EN version can be seen here:
>>> Click here for the PW-MY-EN version <<<

Enjoy!

You sir. Are the man.

raemi

I was thinking about making a full attack cleric myself, but I had a quick question, if that's alright...

It seems that this guide is focused on PvP, but what I'm really looking for is solo'ing ability in PvE. I don't get to play much at a time, so I don't have time to find parties, and I'm not interested in PvP at all, so soloing PvE is pretty much all I'm concerned with. Does a full attack cleric do well at solo PvE? I realize that a venomancer might be better....but darn it, I want wings! XD

Caiyue - Heavens Tear

Yes, me too!

Well, I'm close to level 34 and still doing quite well going solo. Having played a wizard to about the same level back in the Malaysian server, I find that they play very similarly, at least up to this point.

Cayeon: Thanks. Based on your experience though, do you think debuffs or heals are better for solo PvE? I only have one debuff so far, the one that reduces elemental defence, but I find that I am hardly ever using it, mostly because spamming Plume Shot and Great Cyclone seem a lot more effective.

cayeon

Riyuko, the build you're describing is, unfortunately, not possible to do before level 80-90. To be good at something, you always have to sacrifice something else - until you have enough SP to master all skills. Even as Full Attack, your SP are so short that you have to go without your most needed debuffs until much later (level 55+), to be able to skill your nukes and buffs in the first place. Imagine how long it will take you when you throw in the heals, as well. This is the reason that the clerics' PvP potential only starts to show very late in game, and therefore you have to be very selective when it comes to choosing your direction. An all-round support cleric will be rather bad at PvP until level 75 at least - and that's the time when most people have already quit the game.

As far as your post goes, you seem to be most focused on PvP, which excludes the possibility of making a support cleric. However, what I could recommend to you, is that you can more or less follow the guide, with the exception that you skill Ironheart Blessing right from the beginning; and that's as far as your healing powers will go. Ironheart Blessing is by far the most useful heal for all clerics, and it enables you to take a semi-supporter role in most dungeons. It is also quite useful in PvP once you have your sleeping debuff, so you can regenerate yourself while the enemy is immobilized.

The rest of the heals is not really necessary, and would be a waste if you still want to keep your attacking potential at the maximum. Later, at 70+ or so, you can skill Regeneration Aura to satisfy all requirements of a healer in a party. But as I stated earlier, you will sacrifice some of your PvP potential that way, and have to postpone it until much later. The skills for your build that I can think of, that you don't necessarily need neither for PvE nor PvP, are:

All party buffs, Celestial Guardian's Seal, Thunderball, Razor Feathers, Siren's Kiss, Tempest, Revive (level 1, not higher), Purify (level 1, not higher), Silence Seal, Blessing of the Purehearted, Wellspring Surge, Soon the Light, Stream of Rejuvenation, Regeneration Aura and Heaven's Wrath.

If you have all other skills, it should be okay for both a decent healer and PvPer. Remember though, this is not a Full Attack build, and you might get drawn into the supporter role too much by hearing things like this all the time: ''Clerics are supposed to heal, why are you concentrating so much on damage if you're not even Full Attack?'' Another thing is that you shouldn't try to skill a little of everything, because then you'll just be bad at everything. Pick only a very small number of skills that you really need, and keep them at the maximum all time. I know it can be difficult, but especially the debuffs are worthless until they reach level 7-10.

And that brings me to my next point. Caiyue, for PvE, a solo heal will be much more effective than a debuff. The reason is simply that debuffs don't make a big difference in PvE, especially not in the low levels. Plus, you can can only really use these debuffs on mobs that you attack magically, but not get hit magically, or that you attack physically, but not get hit physically: the debuffs reduce your own defense by the same percentage as the mob's. So yes, debuffs are pretty much just for PvP. There is only one heal that qualifies as a worthy solo heal though, and that's of course Ironheart Blessing. Don't keep it at a too high level though, and don't waste your SP on any other heal than this.

About the difference between a cleric and a wizard. They indeed play very similarly in the beginning, but their differences will get bigger over the levels, especially in PvP. Wizards do always have the same strategy through all levels, which is pretty much ''nuking until dead'', while clerics develop a more strategic way and control the fight with their debuffs and heals.

Raemi, a Full Attack Cleric is, after the Venomancer, by far the best soloing class. In the later levels, archers come close (if they wear a hiero), and sometimes it can be difficult to survive when aggros gang up on you as a cleric, but overall, I always found my soloing ability very fast and effective.

Pulse - Lost City

Cayeon. When you solo. Do you AoE or pick monsters 1 vs 1?

heaven123

how did you solve the massive mp consumption issue with the spells? Seems like mp use is very high so far. Not exactly sure if it's the same case for wizards, but I think I used up less mana as a wizard to kill something than I did using a cleric at the same level.

So how did you solve the mp issues?

Pulse - Lost City wrote: »

Cayeon. When you solo. Do you AoE or pick monsters 1 vs 1?

I'm going to give it a shot to answer this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I can tell from just looking at the skill list, Clerics really don't have any good AoE spells except the last one, Tempest, but I doubt you will or even can spam that spell to AoE effectively.. That just thinking logically looking at the skills.

Caiyue - Heavens Tear

Yeah, I thought heals would be better in general. The last two debuffs, the ones that paralyse and sleep, sound really good though.

And it's good to know my chosen build can solo well.

For MP, I just meditate a lot. It's slow, but it's cheap and lets me come look around the forum. I'm starting to craft some potions, but it's a little hard getting all the herbs I need.

cayeon

Cayeon. When you solo. Do you AoE or pick monsters 1 vs 1?

1 vs 1. That's the typical solo grinding style. Of course, you can also solo AoE, but for that, you have to max Purify, Razor Feathers, and Siren's Kiss. You lure some poison mobs and kill them with these skills, while simultaneously regenerating yourself with Ironheart Blessing and purifying whenever needed. Depending on your situation, one or the other method might be faster.

Tempest is really only for PvP. It requires 2 spark, so you can't really use it for solo AoE. For 1 vs 1 grinding, these 2 spark will be much better used for Advanced Spark Eruption, which then does more damage combined with Wield Thunder / Cyclone as Tempest alone would do.

So how did you solve the mp issues?

Actually, apart from Wield Thunder, or frequent Ironheart Blessing spamming, I found the MP consumption quite acceptable. If you like to save MP, try to attack with Cyclone and Plume Shot only, as those have the lowest consumption. Cast Ironheart Blessing only when necessary, or kite instead. Plume Shell is of course a big no-no for PvE, as well.

Another thing you might to, is to buy +MP regeneration stuff. Grinding usually doesn't require a set with all the nice bonuses like +INT or +HP, so if heavily stacked, +MP regeneration can save you some time from meditating.

As Caiyue correctly pointed out, crafting potions also helps a lot. To farm the herbs efficiently, try to remember their spots exactly. When you pick them, look at your clock to calculate exactly when they will respawn - it's every 10 minutes. Then, go to the next herb and try to construct an exact route that you follow during these 10 minutes, so you will arrive at the start again to pick up your herbs just after they respawned. I'll give you an example of my mining route at Plain of Leaving (Plain of Farewells in this version), done on my jaguar pet ride to harvest about 28-30 mines in 10 minutes:

Click here

It's only roughly from what I remember, so the actual route might be a bit different, but I think you can see the pattern. The starting point isn't important, you just have to complete the route within exactly 10 minutes, so you arrive at the first herb/mine just after it respawns. That way, you also prevent other people from stealing your mines. It may sound a bit complicated, but after you make a few runs, you'll get used to it.

If you're interested, here's a site with all the coordinates of the materials you can find:

http://pw-wiki.onlinewelten.com/Default.aspx?Page=enCrafting

You can create these mining routes wherever you like Some areas are more dense in herbs than others.

andyboi

I discovered this guide when I was level 15 or so and pretty much stuck to it until now, Im level 44 at the moment. What I am finding is that my mp consumption is very large and I basically have to live on mp pots. Otherwise, a grind that would normally take me half an hour would take me an hour if i were not to use mp pots and meditated instead. I highly encourage using herbs to make pots. It will save you tons of money in the long run. What has worked for me so far is crafting the lvl 2 mp pots, the one that heals mp+50/sec and then ones that heal mp+3000/30 secs. I believe the first pot requires 15 crane and 10 salvia while the latter requires 10 realgar and 5 golden herbs. All these herbs are fairly easily obtained. And you can definitely use Cayeon's strategy of picking herbs.

Anyway, thanks again Cayeon. Im loving my cleric.

bachi

Meh after reading the guide, I'm still a bit confused on how the skill points should be added each lvl. Is it depending on the requirements of my equipment? Do I base it on that when to add dex or str.

I'm planning on following 100 percent of this guide :P

cayeon

The skills or SP are in no way related to the stats or the equipment. I suggest you read a few newbie guides first, because my guide requires at least a basic understanding of the game. It also doesn't exactly determine your build/skills, but leaves you a certain amount of freedom how to construct your character - and that's why I didn't indicate any clear levels for the skills. There is no ''optimal'' time to get each skill, it all depends on the player.

legendaryhunter

Well... i met a venomancer friend and i told i can defeat them in pvp after i reach lvl 80+ but then she said i cant do that to a were beast because of there insanely high HP
i refused to that..and now also it shows my full attack priest does about 800-850 damage from plume shot to level 24 monster when i am lvl 24 and another cleric in my party ( same level as me) could do abt 600-650..b:victory

By the way my question is i saw cool wings from a pic in your guide but in this INT version i think we are getting black wings..( not cool for me >.<) so where can i get that cool type of wing in your guide o.O



EDIT: got the answer from cayeon xD

Elrond - Heavens Tear

I am a level 54 attack cleric and enjoy this class. Also i would like to thank Cayeon for this wonderful and very well written guide.

I am disappointed with the skill Wield Thunder. I have 3 ranks in Wield thunder, 9 in Spirit's Gift, and 4 in Metal Mastery. I find that my Greater Cyclone does 3000 +/- ~300 and Wield Thunder at best does 1000 more damage then Greater Cyclone. For such a large investment in both spirit and coins, I hardly ever use this skill. My question is will this continue or as i skill up Wield Thunder to its max will it's 3x the mana of Greater Cyclone become balanced by a larger damage?

On another note, I am starting to skill up my debuffs. Should i max them one at a time, or should i skill them all up at the same time? I'm leaning towards maxing them individual, but which ones do you suggest I do first? Also what is the difference between Silence Seal and Chromatic Seal and which one is better for PvP, TW, and PvE?

Also I have Maxed Iornheart Blessing and I strongly suggest everyone to consider doing the same. Maxing Iornheart Blessing allows me the flexibility that I so enjoy from this class.

cayeon

Thank you Elrond for your compliments, I'm glad to hear you're enjoying your class.

You're right, considering Wield Thunder's high MP cost, it starts off rather weak compared to Great Cyclone. However, we can't expect it to be amazing at level 3 already - almost no skill is. Since you've probably maxed out Great Cyclone and Plume Shot by now, the damage of Wield Thunder compared to them will increase much more as you level it. If I remember well, it will do at least 1.5 times the damage of Great Cyclone in the end.

This is Wield Thunder at level 3:

Cast a chain of lightning at the enemy, inflicting Metal damage equal to base magic damage plus 130% of weapon damage plus 2449.7.

... and at level 10:

Cast a chain of lightning at the enemy, inflicting Metal damage equal to base magic damage plus 200% of weapon damage plus 4583.3.

About the debuffs, I'd strongly recommend that you level them one at a time. Debuffs have no or close to no effect until their reach level 7+, so they're not really worth using before then. For PvE, the first one to level is without a doubt Elemental Seal, followed by Dimensional Seal.

For PvP (including TW), Chromatic Seal would be my first choice, followed by Elemental Seal. Silence Seal only paralyzes the enemy (unable to move, but able to attack), while Chromatic Seal sleeps them (unable to move or attack, but wakes up if attacked). Blademasters and barbarians will surely have a hard time with Silence Seal, but it's kinda useless against wizards, clerics, archers, and venomancers. During Chromatic Seal's uptime, you can heal yourself, use spark and debuff with Elemental/Dimensional Seal, without having to worry about the enemy attacking or running away.

wolverous

Can someone put the names of the skills translated from guide to name on skill tree up i know some like plume shot/shell=quill/barrier but other im not sure of

legendaryhunter

Wolveruos plz read the INT version not the MY-EN version of cayeon's guide



i got one question

is there any type of potion/pill/ herb which cures abnormal state

like

*stopping debuffs ( chromatic seal especially )
so when we put the chromatic seal if the target uses such pills and get rid of chromatic seal we are in disadvantage

PLUS
Can our opponent who is trapped in chromatic seal use healing potions?

cayeon

Yes, there is a potion at the pharmacist that you can craft to remove all negative status effects; plus, there is another one that makes you immune to all immobilization (paralyze + sleep) for 20 seconds. Don't worry though, they require quite a lot of herbs, so not many people actually use them. In my whole PW life, I've never seen them used anywhere except in very intense TW fights. For normal PvP or PK purposes, people won't go through all the hassle to craft them.

As for your second question, yes, they can use healing potions while Chromatic Seal is up. Only their movement and attacks are blocked, not item usage.

Elrond - Heavens Tear

Cayeon, I have been unable to find this information elsewhere so I thought I would ask here. How do debuffs stack, for example to quote the Venomancer skill Ironwood Scarab and the Cleric skill Dimensional Seal.

Reduces enemy's physical defense by 30% for 10 seconds.
reduce enemy's physical defense by 30% of equipment value. Lasts 20 seconds.

There are also many other debuffs built into other spells, movement hampering comes to mind and some Venomancer pets can debuff magic resistance to.

cayeon

Very interesting question. Just like Ironheart Blessing, the time and amount of stacks of the debuffs are very hard to measure. Honestly, I am not 100% sure myself.

From what I can tell, debuffs do stack in terms of time. Unlike Ironheart Blessing, which still runs out after about 15 seconds no matter how often you spammed it before, the debuffs seem to last forever if you recast them each time before they run out. This probably also applies to stacked debuffs from different classes, as in your example with Ironwood Scarab and Dimensional Seal. In terms of power however, debuffs don't stack. 2 times Elemental / Dimensional Seal will still only reduce 30% of the opponent's defense, not more.

But well, please don't quote me on this, as I might actually be quite wrong on some points. I've never really looked into this, let alone accurately measure it. If you are very interested in debuff stacking, it would probably be best to team up with a friend and do a few experiments yourself. I'd love to see what you could come up with.

copywheel

This is an excellent guide. I played a warrior until level 75 on the MY-EN server, but the journey there was extremely boring, and I'll admit that upon coming here I wasn't very keen to do it again. A Full Attack Cleric, on the other hand, seems a lot more interesting to play in that you have to 'think' more about your attacks against various players/mobs, but when you do it correctly you gain a clear upper hand. So, it's a much more strategical class to play, no? Sounds fuuuunnn... xD

Elrond - Heavens Tear

So a ran a few tests on debuffs in PW. These where from a duel with a low level Venomancer. I figured out this information by looking at charicture information. This worked out well because our seals debuff us, so I was able to compare to debuffs.

Fist off, debuffs do not stack. The bigger debuff overrides the smaller debuff no matter what order they are cast.

Second, all debuffs (and buffs for that matter) are based off of the base stats. So if you buff your physical resistance by 60% then debuff it by 30% you are effectively buffing your physical by 30%.

Lastly, all of the buffs AND debuffs are actually lower percentages then what is displayed. For while my buff claimed a 60% increase in physical defense it only increased my base by 56.4%!

I only tested physical buffs and debuffs, but i presume the others work similarly.

Elrond - Heavens Tear

Cayeon, you mention somethings about area effect soloing. Can you elaborate on this?

Also for other attack clerics I have been having good luck killing water mobs, most of them go down in 4 hits and they give 330 exp per kill.

Vlora - Heavens Tear

Thanks for the useful guide

cayeon

Thank you Elrond for taking your time to do these experiments. I really wasn't sure if the stronger debuff would override the weaker one or not, so thank you very much for clarifying this. I have no idea as to why your buff increased your defense by only 56.4%, though. If I had the time, I'd definitely look into this a little further.

Cayeon, you mention somethings about area effect soloing. Can you elaborate on this?

Sure. I assume you mean solo AoE? At least that's what we called it over at MY-EN. Basically, it's just what the word says: as opposed to group AoE, you do it alone. In this case, no ''zhening'' is involved, and neither is Regeneration Aura. You just lure the mobs by yourself, stack some Ironheart Blessing, and attack them all at once with either Razor Feathers or Siren's Kiss. Because of the cleric's rather low defense, this is usually done on poison/burning DoT mobs only.

Unfortunately, it is pretty much required to have the skills Purify, Razor Feathers, and Siren's Kiss at a high level to be able to solo AoE efficiently, which is mostly not possible before level 70. If a slow kill speed doesn't bother you though, you could try it earlier, probably starting with the poison mobs level 61 called Petalii Hexkiss (In MY-EN, they were called OrchisSclew Hexeido) around Dreaming Cloud. I'm not sure how effective it is in the lower levels compared to traditional 1vs1 solo grinding, but I guess it's worth a try. Some people liked it, some didn't.

thumper

I've got a real beginner question. I'm following the guide (more or less) and just made lv 29, finished fb29, have aware of harmony and have Spirit's Gift in my list of available skills. It's greyed though, and I can't skill it because I don't have the skills. Since I have the cultivation, coin and SP, I can't figure out what else I need. Can anyone tell me what I'm missing?
thanks for any help!

Saiena - Heavens Tear

You need to learn the two skills to the left of Spirit's Gift. Sorry -- I forgot the names of the skills, and it's maintenance, so I can't check my skill tree. However, if you hover your mouse over Spirit's Gift, it will say that it requires the skill to the left, which in turn requires the next skill to the left.

Hope that makes sense. If it doesn't, just hover your mouse over Spirit's Gift and see for yourself.

klath

Vanguard Shield (pdef) and Magic Shell (resistances).

klath

Lastly, all of the buffs AND debuffs are actually lower percentages then what is displayed. For while my buff claimed a 60% increase in physical defense it only increased my base by 56.4%!

Thats because they work on the equipment bonus, not the base stats you have without gear. So you wont get exactly +60% of the value you see on your character stats screen.

thumper

Saiena - Heavens Tear wrote: »

You need to learn the two skills to the left of Spirit's Gift. Sorry -- I forgot the names of the skills, and it's maintenance, so I can't check my skill tree. However, if you hover your mouse over Spirit's Gift, it will say that it requires the skill to the left, which in turn requires the next skill to the left.

Hope that makes sense. If it doesn't, just hover your mouse over Spirit's Gift and see for yourself.

Thanks, it was all there just like you said and somehow I wasn't seeing it. I'm good now

Lazyluna - Heavens Tear

I finally got myself off my Veno long enough to read your guide, it seems I had my cleric planned perfectly all along. Which is beyond lovely to see, since I played an attack cleric for over a year on another MMO. I would've been devastated if I learned nothing from that.

One thing from your guide (fills my heart with joy) is I now know at level 90+ I can max out all my useful support skills. I like being able to solo as an FAC, being able to shoot opponents down and take out my spite on anyone who dares look at me wrong. b:angry But I also get a unique satisfaction from healing and buffing. So knowing this makes me very, very, VERY happy. b:victory

REALLY love the guide. Kind of sad to realize I've entered the game right as your leaving, but oh well. You got your kicks from it already. You would've been fun to know in-game. b:bye


Also, sorry if this all sounds a bit weird. It's 2 A.M. and I'm having difficulty forming concepts into complete sentences.