How am I supposed to have enough for anything when I spend heaps on mp pots?

Well, I'm not that high of a lvl, but I can tell you, we do burn through mana.
That being said, my cleric is by no means poor.
I save ALL the mana pots I pick up, and I only use them when I'm in a party.

I've soloed where I kill a monster - meditate - kill - meditate...you get the picture.

Also, buying MP charms is more cost effective than than pots, so if you do end up in a position to buy pots, go with the charm.

Here's a good money making guide that I've found on the forums:
http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=125991

Quick summary:
1. Pick up everything you can (within reason... don't go stealing from other people). Every little bit counts.
2. Walk more when you can and kill things on your way. Which of course means you pick up what they drop.
3. Meditate when you have time and save your pots for emergencies.

There are a lot more tips in the link, but those are the basics. Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Az

Sadly clerics are notoriously poor skills, charms, and lots and lots of pots. The advice I would give you would to make a veno get her to level 20 and catch pets and sell them in lost. At level 20 you can catch rare pets and still have a blue name so you wont get pked by others go after the same pet. Also use pots only when you really need them, when you just grinding or questing try to meditate more and use pots less. Save those pots for bosses, and never go for a boss run with out pots. Trust me you will have a very angry barb if you don't have mana pots. It's also good to have a couple hp pots so if a boss has an AoE you can just use a pot instead of healing yourself so you can stay on the tank. And of course the apothecary skill is very useful.

What i have found out playing cleric here and also in PW MY is that... if you want to level without relying on pots or meditation is this:

Make a veno and just level it. By level 30 if you picked up all dropt, dq items and do quests you'll have enough for 1 maybe 2 gold mp charms. Veno's do not require mana pots, hp pots since they have a pet to do the tanking and the skill to get their mana back in a few secs. Also you have almost no repair cost since you get hit very rarely.

ATM my veno is lvl 37 and my priest also 37 (leveled only with gold mp charms) and when I run out of charms and money to buy them i just hop on my veno, do some more leveling and get some more money.

Also with veno you can try going for rare or semi-rare pets and sell them - if you know the spawn time and coords.

Of course you can level by using meditate but it's boring and slow. Better than that i prefer to put my cleric on hold till i get the money for a new charm. Also a cleric without charms or pots is useless in boss support or fb support. You usualy run out of mana long before the boss is dead.

Herbs. That's all I can say. Apothecary saves me massive loads of money from charms. I mean, if I had the money--I'd get as gold charm coupled with Focus powder or Concentrate orb--but herbs are free [if you pick them--and I pick almost any I see]. You can sell them if you don't use them or you can use them to save money on pots. Almost win-win. At level 64, I grind HARD on flying mobs using only Concentrate orb...and it does wonders. Seriously. I usually only have to throw in two or three mana pots that the mob drops anyway if I'm low. Or I just float there for a few seconds, get a drink, go to the bathroom, turn off a light or whatever--and my mana is back.

Anyway...I have an obsession with herbs--but for good reason. Apothecary skills = win.

apoth would be the best thats wut i use all the time
as for money i jst sell my DQ items that is if u wanna do DQ
and i only use mp pots during FBS otherwise i jst buy charms

Thanks for the tips guys... I am closing in on lvl 30 Cleric and your discussions on the thread were most helpfull

Hey, my cleric is just now starting to get rich and hes at level 35 at the moment. I use Focus Powders like candle at times, go north of Hidden Village and collect Crane herbs and Salvia! Make some Focus powders then when you've made 5, use those focus powders and go to The river right beside the Hidden Orchid and Hunt those dolphin looking creatures. They have a very good drop rate of "Hay" and stuff that sells for 1k each. Plus your going to level up fairly quickly while farming from the Underwater monsters.

If your like my Cleric, your going to have some Vit, Str, and Mag. So you can take the hits from them and kill them in about..3 hits. Which isn't to bad. After collecting about 10 Hays, sell them for 40k and you will have enough for 100 MP Pots. Keep in mind that you will most likely still have 2-3 Focus powders to use, 40k to spend, and most likely if you just used pots while farming, you only used 40-50 pots. Repeate this process for about 20 minutes a day, and your going to have a lot more money for Mana Potions than you think.

Side-Note: I sell mine at the Auction house, they're gone before my daily is finished. Lol.

Id certainly agree with all this, when grinding all you really need is a focus powder supply as your mana is full in under 10 seconds if you meditate, so no need for other pots. As has been said though, often in boss fight you will need a bigger pool than this. Also use Dew of Rival protection in place of plume shell, it works better and doesnt consume the ridiculous amount of mp plume shell does.

I generally go around without a charm on, then if I am going to do a big boss which does aoe damage I'll pull out a bronze charm (see note at bottom), though this is a decision I make based on less hassle for me in the battle rather than cost effective mp recovery, aoe bosses are complex work for a cleric, I dont really want that extra hassle of worrying about my mp running low too. For straight basic "heal the tank" style boss fights, jade powder and other potions do you fine.

If you have a few veno friends, ask if you can trade the hp pots you drop for their mp pots. With the switch up spell veno's have they do a lot better recovering mp by getting hp to full then switching and using a couple of hp pots. I play on my gf's veno occasionally, and I literally never ever used a single mp pot as they just aren't as effective for mp recovery.

As a summary I would suggest, in order of importance.
1. Make Focus powder, jade powder, dew of rival protection.
Use focus powder when grinding and meditate to recover
Use Dew of Rival Protection instead of the mana hungry Plume shell.
Use Jade powder along with other potions in mana heavy boss fights.
2. Try and trade up your hp pots for mp pots with a few veno friends.
3. If you do decide to go for the charm for boss fights (less face it you have enough to handle with some of the aoe bosses without worrying about your mp running low too) then just grab a bronze charm for the fight and go back to potions after that. Avoid the gold mp charms till a much later level.

**I know that when you look at it, the gold charm comes across as more cost effective, but in reality for a cleric it isn't because you will use up 50k mana where you really needed it, then you'll waste a huge amount grinding where you could have just used a couple of potions.


I hope this helps you head in to the next few levels with a clearer view of how to save on your mp costs. At the end of the day playing a cleric you are going to have large costs on retaining mp. The trick is working out how to recover reasonably quickly, but finding cost effective ways to do it.