Very confused about "battle cleric"

I've never really heard the term "Battle Mage" so I can't really help you there.
Let me try to break down your two options. You seem to be gearing to participate in TW's, so let's just focus on that. The 2 main builds for TW oriented cleric's are a Robe Vitality Cleric and a Light Armor cleric. The theory behind each build is that a survivable cleric is better than a cleric that can easily be killed in 1-2 hits. Both builds have advantages and disadvantages.

Light Armor clerics have a pretty rigid point distribution. 1 Strength, 1 Dexterity, 3 Magic every level. Notice you have no extra health from stats. That's your disadvantage. On the plus side, you have much more physical defense than a Robe user cleric. Also, because of your points in dexterity, you have a higher critical hit rate. To counter your main disadvantage (lack of health), you should socket your armor with health gems. So that answers that question of yours.

The other disadvantage of this build is weakened magical defense. Having not played a light armor cleric yet, I'm not sure how big of a deal this is. I know that as your resistances get higher, there are dimishing returns. So going from 1000 physical defense to 2000 physical defense is much greater than going from 6000 magical defense to 7000. You have to factor in the fact that not all of your time in game will be spent in TW or PvP. You still will be grinding at higher levels and you will be fighting magical mobs. So you will take more damage than a robe user. Having to heal more frequently will slow your killing rate. Perhaps a more experienced LA cleric can enlighten us both.

The other main build is the robe vitality cleric. The stat point distribution on this one is a little more flexible. At minimum you must put in 6 magic and 1 strength every 2 levels. This leaves 3 flex points. You can go "pure vitality" and put all 3 points into vitality. This would make your magic stat identical to the light armor build, so you would have equal magical attack, but with the LA armor's increased chance to critical, the robe user would deal a little less damage over time. Most vitality builds I think put more points in magic so they do a little more damage. Again it's up to the player to decide what they prefer. When it comes to gear, the theory there is also up in the air. Some people swear by putting phys defense shards in their armor to counter the major weakness of wearing robes...lack of physical defense. Some people mix phys defense gems and HP gems. Some people just use physical defense ornaments and figure that's enough of a phys defense boost, then go pure health gems.

Those 2 are the basic templates. As to which is better, I'm not totally sure. Right now I am a level 79 cleric with HP gems and physical resist ornaments that has about a 7 mag/2 vitality point spread. I preferred the extra damage because I grind a lot. I am in the process of gathering mats to switch over to HH80 Light Armor though, cause on paper, I think that's the better way to go. On a very general level, Light armor takes better advantage of our buffs than robes do. And if you're comparing just the 2 builds above (I won't go into pure int clerics), it seems the damage is roughly the same. A light armor cleric does a little less damage than a 7/2 robe cleric, but criticals a bit more. It's just a question of which negative is easier to counteract. Lack of health on light armor, or lack of phys defense on robes. It's easy to raise your health just through shards and refinement...especially now that dragon orbs are 50% off. Even if you don't use the cash shop, you can still buy them from other players at a greatly reduced price now. I'm not sure it's as easy to raise your physical defense through shards alone. Again any experienced clerics that have gone this route care to chime in?

So that's what I can contribute, but again, I'm no expert.

Battle cleric...I haven't heard that on PW until now. On Fiesta, there's battle clerics (I was one in fact) which are clerics that are built like a DD fighter and fight as if they were one, except they also have healing skills. They're extremely useful in parties if they can fight and keep the party alive at the same time. They can even jump in as a tank if needed, though they don't hold aggro quite as well as a fighter. In PW, however, doing this doesn't seem possible. I've only seen discussion of full support and FAC. Basically, the full support stands around and...well...supports, while the FAC is built to be a mini-mage with wings.

at lvl 81 going light cost me a whole 6% m def... not much really. However I gained about 30% pdef (I have 57%pdef with full buffs) so that was totally worth it to me. Also the gold 80 light set is CHEAP (12 chips) so that was a no brainer for me. At 9x I think I will go full con robes because of set bonuses but for me LA is perfect for 8x.

Also I survive in TW much longer as a LA than a FAC... I am loving this build.

ZadirZex - Lost City wrote: »

I've never really heard the term "Battle Mage" so I can't really help you there.
Let me try to break down your two options. You seem to be gearing to participate in TW's, so let's just focus on that. The 2 main builds for TW oriented cleric's are a Robe Vitality Cleric and a Light Armor cleric. The theory behind each build is that a survivable cleric is better than a cleric that can easily be killed in 1-2 hits. Both builds have advantages and disadvantages.

As an FAC I have to disagree at this point. Simply put it's not easy to kill me in TW despite the fact that I have low hp. Anything that CAN kill me in 1 or 2 shots is going to do the same whether I wear light or arcane armor. That would be Archers or a Wiz/Cleric 10-20 levels higher than me who gets the drop. You know who you are. :P

so,Im a FAC (Full Attack Cleric) and i belive there is a diff between fac and battle cleric.I ussualy try to define battle cleric as a cleric who wears more equips that hand out phys def like vit build and light. As a FAC, it ussualy means to me the ability to deal as much damage possible not worrying bout health or anything (hence the name FULL attack cleric). Im 100% pvp oriented even though im in pve server (Dont ask how it happened,is stupid rofl), and Id like to say that no one, but no one my level will ever be able to kill me one on one. Have been doing way too much pking and yes there have been many defeats, but ussualy countered by many wins on that same person. Consider this, fac will **** anywhere wether it is pvp,pve,or TW. In TW, if u stay back, like u should, u will be able to get many kills and not die whatsoever. ussualy when u die in TW is by that one hihg level that just wants the kill wether is because of the role they play in TW or selfiifhness to get on leaderboards. those ussualy are venoes with phoenixes and archers and sum bms. Ussualy wether u are light or full vit, u will drop to these people anyways..all u doing is wasting time by takin a few seconds longer to die.

Ithilmir - Sanctuary wrote: »

I typically see "Battle Cleric" used synonymously with "FAC".

It shouldn't be. Battle clerics fight while dealing good damage and keep their party alive at the same time (unless they're a fail cleric, but that's entirely different), while FACs fight, dealing a LOT of damage and don't heal at all. In PW, battle cleric can't be done because the cleric needs to produce high numbers in either healing or damage. If they try to go both ways, the healing numbers won't be enough to keep the pary alive and the damage numbers won't be high enough to do anything significant.

Hitakitsune - Heavens Tear wrote: »

It shouldn't be. Battle clerics fight while dealing good damage and keep their party alive at the same time (unless they're a fail cleric, but that's entirely different), while FACs fight, dealing a LOT of damage and don't heal at all. In PW, battle cleric can't be done because the cleric needs to produce high numbers in either healing or damage. If they try to go both ways, the healing numbers won't be enough to keep the pary alive and the damage numbers won't be high enough to do anything significant.

That's a total nonsence. You CAN heal and DD at the same time. as for the skills you only need ironheart maxed to keep all the party alive, the rest - attack skills. And for the combos it may look like that: ironheart > ironheart (tank), 2 shots depending on mob u're fighting. repeat that again depending on how strong is tank, how strong is mob, if people can hold agro etc...

b:shocked i think im going LA cleric