Just starting out

As a caster you will never have a high physical attack, never. The build you reference gives you reasonable defense, at the cost of HP.

Magic Armor is the Arcane sets, which provide the worst Physical defense but the best magic defense. This is made up for by the points that would have gone into a semi useless stat (dex, which only improves your chance to crit every 10 or so levels by 1%, so is only good for getting light armor) goes into vit, which naturally ups physical defense, and HP.

So, the best defense for a caster is 3 things:
1) A good offense
2) A good amount of HP
3) Knowing how to kite

Magic swords are amoung the many magic weapons, they have reasonable balance so they are fairly consistent and fairly strong as well.

The recommended build is the Balanced Build. This gives you good offense, lets you use your latest Magic weapon and magic armor, and the vit gives you a good amount of HP since as a Cleric: You have Plume Shell which reduces incoming damage using your large volume of MP. So your HP is "buffed" so to say by the amount reduced.

http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1331


That is a really good starter guide for clerics....helped me get started. I started with 3 stat points into mag,with enough strength to use appropriate robes for my level and saving the remaining points every level up to about level 18 because i was torn on which build I wanted to use. By 18 though things were starting to get rough. But thats enough to get ya started if you can't really decide how ya wanna go and is plenty to get ya by for about 10 levels till ya get the feel of how ya wanna stat him.

One piece of advice I will give ya though learn to kite at a low level (even though you can kill the low level mobs easily enough without kiting ) even if you have played a kiting class in other mmorpgs. The kiting mechanics are a little different in this game. you will need the kiting skills later and the trial and error at lower levels will give ya some room to work. When ya **** up it will mean having to drink an extra pot or throw an extra heal instead of dieing and losing 5% XP.



Goodluck to ya!

The balanced build is this:
6 Mag
1 Str
3 Vit every 2 levels.

By far this gives you the best defense, without gimping your HP or magic capabilities. It will allow you to wear the next set of Arcane Armor.

Beyond this you need to make a choice between Skill Builds. which would be this:
Full Attack: Focus on offensive skills primarily, secondary on Buffing/Debuffing Skills, least worry about Healing Skills. Primary Healing skill is Ironheart Blessing. Good in PvE solo, good Secondary Supporter in FB/HH/TT. Best with the Full MAG Build.

Full Support: Opposite of Full Attack, Heals first, buffs/debuffs second, Attacks last. Recommended for PvP with balanced build, and is generally in demand for TW/FB/HH/TT.

Hybrid: You just try to keep everything relatively equal, but you will not have everything up to its current max for your level. Alternatively you could focus on one of the other skill builds, then start leveling up skills in its opposite to create a Hybrid. ex: Go Full Attack and at some later point level up your healing skills. Hybrids should go with Balanced build.

Disadvantages of FAC is that you are more of a soloer then a party person. The best build for a FAC cuts out vit in favor of just increasing your damage output to such that you do not need to kite: what you decide to kill dies before it gets to you. "The best Defense is a good Offense" is the creed of the FAC.

In PvP/TWs you will not be wanted, as the slot you take up could be better filled by a balanced build Full Support Cleric, who would keep the rest of the fighters alive and with their higher HP, would survive much better then you.

A FAC would need to get gear that has slots in it to put HP stones in order to offset the lack of vit.

FAC does not care about Physical Defense, the critter should not reach the FAC to hurt them.

You could try going light armor if you're that worried about physical defense but it could cost you magic attack (from what I've read around here)

basically you'd have to add every level (calculations may be wrong)
3 mag
1 dex
1 str

OR you could get equipment with sockets and add phys def stones or HP stones.

tankhunter wrote: »

FAC does not care about Physical Defense, the critter should not reach the FAC to hurt them.

i have to agree with u
the critter should not reach the FAC .... because there should be no FAC to begin with

An Alternative is to raise the Tailoring skill and make your own armor. Sometimes you can make an NPC armor a 2* instead of it being a 1*, which doubles its defensive attributes, in addition they come with sockets more often then a mob dropped armor which will always be 1* but may have points allocated differently.

With sockets you can use the Jewelcraftsman and the Merchant to make shards that can add to your physical defense, HP, magic defense, etc. This is how you would boost up your defense even further.

Keep in mind, when using the crafting skills (such as Tailoring, Apothecary, Blacksmithing, Craftsman) you need to make 10 items of your current skill level to be able to proceed to the next level.

Besides Tailoring to boost up your defense, you can use the Apothecary skill to make a variety of items to help boost up your resistance even further indirectly. For instance there is an HP regeneration orb you can make at level 1 Apothecary which increases your HP regeneration by 50 per second. In combat this results in a regeneration level from the orb itself of 12.5, so if you take a hit while kiting you can regenerate the damage done to you. Out of combat at your HP levels you can meditate for a few seconds and you will be at full HP again. When you hit level 2 Apothecary you can make a MP regeneration orb that regens 50 mp/sec out of combat 12.5 when in combat. Which is quite nessecary for keeping your MP up to use your survival skills, like Plume Shell.

You got more then just armor that can save you.

You can also use Blacksmithing to try to take the FAC approach: Kill the critter before it gets to you by making superior weapons to beat the critter up with. Remember, a 2* weapon does twice as much damage as its 1* brother.

If you wind up with equipment that is not as good as you want, you can sell it off for money.

@Deadbones
Bones, the major skill difference between FACs and FSCs, is the lack of the group buff AOE skills, the lower level Revive, and the general lowest level of healing skills besides Ironheart. As well as the line of thinking of "I want to kill **** too."

How about, if you really want to keep FAC numbers down, you ask groups of people in your guild to go around, find FSCs and help them level. The major complaint I hear from FSCs is that it is too damn difficult to level. If there are a ton of nice people going about and helping lower level Clerics, you get more of the cleric type you want, FSC, because they have the parties they rely on so much.

Make it a cross server help system for new clerics to help them learn how to work in a party, and let the loner FACs do their thing. Do not go about telling them their build sucks, if they ask for help, then have someone willing to help, help them while you help all those FSCs asking for help who really badly need it.

You do good and to boot you get more FSCs who would be competent in helping your guild achieve PW TW domination.

tankhunter wrote: »

@Deadbones
Bones, the major skill difference between FACs and FSCs, is the lack of the group buff AOE skills, the lower level Revive, and the general lowest level of healing skills besides Ironheart. As well as the line of thinking of "I want to kill **** too."

How about, if you really want to keep FAC numbers down, you ask groups of people in your guild to go around, find FSCs and help them level. The major complaint I hear from FSCs is that it is too damn difficult to level. If there are a ton of nice people going about and helping lower level Clerics, you get more of the cleric type you want, FSC, because they have the parties they rely on so much.

Make it a cross server help system for new clerics to help them learn how to work in a party, and let the loner FACs do their thing. Do not go about telling them their build sucks, if they ask for help, then have someone willing to help, help them while you help all those FSCs asking for help who really badly need it.

You do good and to boot you get more FSCs who would be competent in helping your guild achieve PW TW domination.

Quoted for pure truth. The main reason that so many people go FAC is because they don't get any help as FSC and not to mention as an FSC (Yes I have one but she's a lowbie at the moment.) especially if you are lower lvl one you practically get ignored. I've had people who have sent me an invite and then as soon as they learn that I haven't gotten the lvl to get revive yet I'm dumped. It's probably part of the reason I'm still a lowbie cleric to begin with, I find myself just going back to my veno.