Cleric grinding 101

Welcome,

This is what I soon hope to be a guide for beginner clerics discussing actual gameplay mechanics to maximize your effectiveness in how you carry out your role as the most popular [in demanded] class in PWI.

This will show you the ropes in combat, aid to others, and questing. You will not find discussion on builds, skills, or quest specifics as they are discussed in great detail on other threads. You will not find very many facts in this guide as far as raw data or actual numbers, meerly instead, real time strategy for grinding and leveling your cleric as effeciently as possible based upon my limited experience.

Thank you for reading in advance,
Corwin


CONTENTS:
The need
My build
Attacking
-Heads up skill usage
-Remember
-Basics
Squads
Kitting
Thanks
More to come!


THE NEED
Why did I type this? I think it may be boring for many players to start off soloing a begginer cleric with 2 attack skills and a few weak heals. Early deaths and costs while grinding can be very discouraging to the player and might lead to an premature class change. This is why I believe the cities of PW are not flooded with clerics. Some of these things I learned in the first few hours of playing, and some of them took weeks to develop, or could have been overlooked by other new players for a long time. I would like to keep updating this with corrections and new information and strategys as much as possible so please submit your constructive critisism or debate.

MY BUILD
I believe it might be refered to as a HYBRID but that desn't really matter. This guide was tested with a high magic, 5 dex build. What's important is that you adjust your interprutation of this guide to fit your style of gameplay so that you are using only the advice that will help and not hinder your performance. On a side about my build, I never use the 9mag, 1str, or even levels: 1vit, 1str, 3mag odd...etc. I simply raise my magic as much as possible. When I need to meet requirements, say, by level 21 I need 8 more strength to use my weapon, I will put 3 points into strength and 2 magic on level 20. I would then place 5 points of strength on level 21. This ensures my main skill (magic, duh!) is always as high as it can possibly be. I try to ensure that I can always tank 5-6 attacks from the monsters I am currently fighting, in case I get into trouble. If a monster in a new area is hitting me for 120 and my life is only 600, I might put a few points in vitality, or better yet use a shard for +hp to stay ahead of the damage curve.

ATTACKING
My old baseball coach used to always preach "Heads up baseball" to us kids. What he meant was that you should never just go on auto-piolit during a game. You should always be asking yourself what will be your next move. If this happens, what would I do next? This level of preparedness will save you a lot of time and frustraition and, I believe, increase your level of enjoyment during gameplay. Heads up grinding does not involve macros. Macros are for the lazy button mashers. Button mashing leads to carple tunnel syndrome and failing gameplay.

Combos:
What is the best combo? The one that kills the current monster you are fighting in the shortest amount of time while keeping you alive. I switch my combo for nearly every different type of monster I am fighting, as well monsters with special charicteristics like increased life. Max hp, p&mdef, range, speed, flying, element, etc. all play an important role in deciding which skills to use and when to use those skills or kite.

A few important things to remember when grinding:
Always use the combination of skills that will kill the monster in the fewest amount of casts. An exception would be if the monster was melee and increased magic defense, you still might want to whirlwind them simply for the slow effect. On wood monsters, WW might take priority over plume shot depending on what level your skills are.

Basics:
So you think your doin good? Whirlwind, plume shot over and over again? Thats good, you've mastered the basics. But wait their is a little bit more here. Try leading off with plume shot>whirlwind>kite until ww is ready>ww>plume shot. This combo is great because your plume shots will not be interupted by monsters that melee. If your at a fair range (lvl 3-5 skills) you should be able to do this without getting hit so you have to heal less. The extra range on plume shot might make your toon step forward, so pause a fraction of a second between the first two casts. The ww would normally wear off before the monster gets to you at this early of a level, and so their is little difference in how many attacks the monster can get off if your speed debuff fails. Using plume shot first negates the extra half second channeling time over WW.

After the first few attacks, you need to gauge just how much life the monster is going to have left before your fatal strike. Do you need to plume shot because one WW wouldn't be enough, or can you save mp and precious time by casting the less exhausting WW to finish the job?

Remember that you can spam plume shot with almost no delay, however if you are going to WW>WW to save mp, you need to kite during this skills cool down time.

Try to always cast from max range of your skills on melee monsters. On archer monsters, you need to get right up in their face and whirlwind to restrict their movement in case they try to run. Then plum shot>WW>reposition next to monster>WW/PS*>WW/PS*. This is because their damage will really hurt you being physical in nature, but it is halved when you are at point blank range. *Depending on which is more efficient.

During solo grinding I like to keep a healthy stack of potions always on hand. These can be found frequently in drops and purchased relatively cheap compared to charms and apoths. I use one every 1~2 monster typically depending on how often speed debuff fails. Having a high boosting mana apoth is a huge help, but most of these are a level 30 requirement. Seasume Yuanxiou(sp?) is a kind of potion purchased from players for 1.5-3k and is available from level 25. If you find yourself in a bind you should use plume shell as a percautionary before you try to fly away. Use with your highest mp restoring item if things get really ugly. Charms are really not neccessary this early in the game unless you are buying them with real money.

When pulling a monster you don't always have to attack it to keep him from fleeing. You can heal yourself or even recast buffs to keep them following you. Your spells only do half as much damage while flying so don't even bother trying to kill special monsters like increased life.

Ironheart before battle on anything but weak special monsters. Normal monsters you can wait until after battle to heal while targeting the next monster. Always keep your buffs up, and try to level them to max early.

Melee monsters must run to you and they can not pass through barriers like trees, fences, and rock structures. Use this to you advantage by making the monsters take more time running after you than attacking.

Try to grind where alot of spawns are present. Remember when grinding against multiple monsters, you have to remember the different combos for each. Slow moving monsters like blobs will hit you far less often. Try to avoid fighting metal monsters or ones that can cast their own movement debuff. Grinding around nodes is great if you are collecting as it gives you time to replinish between rounds.

If you cannot afford your primary skill upgrades, then you should only kill light green monsters until you can realize your full potintial for your level. This will result in a great reduction in exp loss due to death.

SQUADS
Since most of your leveling early on is from quests, you would be wise to always try to be in a squad with similar toons trying to acheive the same goal. I like to stack my quests for a particular area, so a few friends and I can just kill everything in sight. Early squads will be hectic as the monsters are not too hard to kill individually. This is great when you have three players with you all making kills at their normal solo speed, however, each monster killed by a squad memeber will count towards everyones quest.

Try to always come prepared with potions or whatever you use, and plenty of inventory space so you don't have to risk getting kicked because you are leaching exp. This is when the exp handicap will be least devestating. If you find it hard to keep people alive then tell them to stay close to you if they want to live. You cant be an effective healer/dmg dealer, if you are spending too much time running all over the compass.

Then you get to monsters that are much harder, and present problems for various classes. Such as metal melee monsters that are super strong, or monsters that will stop you from avoiding them. After your mid-20s you might find that the groups get a little more organized as to focusing fire on one target. Be carefull to not waste mp when you see your friends landing the final blow. Now your growth will slow this way, but sometimes you need the help to finish quests and not risk dying. The more people who are in your squad, means the more you will be casting supportive spells like buffs and heals. It is good to add a bit of extra damage, but with a full squad you need to watch you mp, because most tanks at this level will not. This 2v1 and 3v1 does increase the drop rate it seems by allowing you to take on monsters at a higher level.

KITE
Live to fight another day, or slay a formatable opponent without recieving a scratch. Cowardly you say? Have fun with those repair bills! Cheapskate you say? Frugal is a much nicer word. Kiting may be spelled with two t's. If so I'll fix it later. Anyway kiting is where you run away from an opponent to escape further abuse. Kiting doesn't work so well on ranged units, but can still be effective if they cast spells instead of using arrows. If you can't kill the monster before being hit 2~3 times, than you will die when your speed debuff fails, or have to use too many ironhearts. Your heal is your biggest mp sucker. If you are killing a monster and you aggro a second monster you should whirlwind and flee until the status is gone. Then ironheart and kite until you lose the agrro of the second beast. Now you can kill in peace. Tanking them both even with plum shell is dangerous, and you will die if the new monster is increased anything. This will get you the kill you were after without wasting mp already spent if you fly away.

Try alternating kiting and healing for increased life monsters. It may go like this: Pshot>WW>Kite until debuff wears off>WW>Pshot>Kite 10 meter>Pshot>IronHeart>WW>Kite 20 meters>Pshot

You can't always avoid getting hit. The trick is letting them get close enough to land just one hit, get debuffed again, so you can continue the attack from afar. I don't know if its just my machine lagging or what, but it seems like it takes a few seconds for the monsters to get up to full attack rate. So after the first few hits, I start dying much quick. Time your kite so that you take a few steps back if possible while the monster's animation of attacking is ending. This will give you a few seconds before they chase you. I always pull the screen around 180 degress so I can see where I'm kiting too. This way you don't head into a heard of other aggro monsters. Be aware of your surrondings anyway.

That is all for now as I am wanting to play some more. Thank you to all the DEVS, MODS, GMS, and players who make this a great game all around!

Please leave you comments, suggestions, and questions below.