After reading the guide.....

Galliteya - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I still don't understand what skills to max first. My heals and buffs? Won't that make my attacks suffer though. I know I'm a low level but sheesh I'm at half health by the time I down a mob. No fair b:cry. b:cute

For attack skills at your level concentrate on plume shot and cyclone. If you cant level all buffs now, level at least you vanguard spirit and spirits gift - these will raise your pdef and magic attack, making it a little easier killing mobs without dying. Max your buffs between 39 and 59 so you can get squad buffs.

At early levels it can be hard for clerics to kill mobs quickly. At your level I would stack 1 or 2 Ironhearts, alternate between cyclone and plume, hit a pot or heal if need, top off with wellspring once mob is dead. At later levels you'll find it much easier to kill. I stand at maximum range (so they have to run to me before they can attack) and start with weild thunder, then alternate between cyclone and plumeshot, topping off after it's dead with wellspring...alot of times the mob is dead before it even hits me.

In my guide, (which won the wiki contest btw b:pleased), I go through each skill individually and rate how important it is to level.

i have a cleric alt a few lvls above you (30-ish), i've had great sucess stacking an IH or two, then alternating plume and cyclone.

also, >.> so what if youre at half health! you have heals b:victory

SylenThunder - Sanctuary wrote: »

In my guide, (which won the wiki contest btw b:pleased), I go through each skill individually and rate how important it is to level.

Purdy. I used the IceDrakes guide from the wiki but yours looks nice.

Super easy guide:

Problem: "Arggh! I die in one hit! How can I build my character so that I can kill this and still be alive?"

Solution 1: Max attack. You can kill it in 2 maybe 3 shots. But remember your still a 1 shot. If the mobs come close and sneeze you die.
Solution 2: Max buff/heals. You die in 5 shots but you kill in 4-5 shots. IH and potions can still prolong your life even if you get hit multiple times cause your body has the endurance, just not the HP

Choose your path =D

Ankiel - Raging Tide wrote: »

in all honesty, i have not found that problem, except for range physical mobs, which i tend to skip now, but actually killed those without huge trouble until level 50 or so

i do shard a little bit, but only with average shards, which dont cost to much
also, another thing thats very useful is the earthquake genie skill, it will knock back physical melee mobs, giving you that one extra shot that can make the difference

The OP is in their 20s, you're lvl 65...big difference.

DryadLaFey - Sanctuary wrote: »

The OP is in their 20s, you're lvl 65...big difference.

i started sharding in the 60's, in the 20's i had no need

RedsRose - Lost City wrote: »

Plume Shell...you can learn it at level 9 b:embarrass

that works fine as well, its just an option to put out there.
its also rather useful if you are just a drop short on damage, a few hundred extra damage sometimes kills the mob on its own

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Erm, unless you either extremely heavily shard/refine early on (which is a huge waste of money), even when pure magic, once you get past like level 8 or so, you do get hit quite a lot, in the 20s-40s stacking yourself once or twice is pretty much essential even with a pure mag build, questing on any physical mob, as most mobs are still going to reach you, especially the archers that I see you mentioned.

In my opinion, if you save your gear for alts, or if you can sell it well enough, refining and sharding early on would not necessarily be wasteful.

And a +1 refine frequently only uses a single mirage celestone and rarely uses many. If +1 refines save even one trip to town, its probably worthwhile.

P.S. if you are using production skills, you should consider making some of the items you will need for your level 4 skills while you are low level enough to farm the drops yourself: Here are the quests you need for Craftsman, Tailor, and Blacksmith -- and keep in mind that you will probably need to try several times before you get two star gear. You can often find the mats you need in west archosaur for not-too-unreasonable prices but sometimes they are priced very high, and sometimes you cannot find them, and when you are level 50 you will not be able to get the drops you need very quickly, which means spending a lot of time (possibly on lower level alts).

Galliteya-

Thunderball, in my opinion, is not really worth leveling. It does damage over time and I have honestly never found a use for it in my play style. I'd least get level 1 of it and then level depending on whether you find it useful or not.

What you might have seen is wield thunder which is a very high single target metal damaging attack and an attack further a long in the metal skill tree. It looks similar to thunder ball but a beam of lighting shoots out at the target. I would definitely suggest leveling wield thunder. I use it constantly and can easily knock down mobs higher level than me.


The great cyclone-->plume shot combo is usually suggested because it can keep physical mobs off you. cyclone slows the enemy so you can run back and start using plume shot to pick off the enemy at a distance. Then cyclone again, run back, plume, rinse repeat. It helps keep those hard hitters off your back.


For equipment I personally lean towards using a physical resist belt and necklace, but I switch back and forth depending on what add on stats there are. If an elemental necklace has -6%channeling I may wear that in instead of a physical one that does say...dex or some other add on that does nothing for me.

As for genie:

Earth flame is very much worth keeping. It is used for luring. If you have 4-5 enemies all grouped up and attack them they may all run at you and kill you in seconds. BUT if you use earth flame on one of the mobs and run back only ONE of those mobs will come at you. It's very useful for pulling bosses or mobs away from big groups, thus making them easier to fight.

I, personally, have second wind. I fight a lot of bosses and mobs that can stun/sleep me. Especially in Frost city there are situations where you just can't heal yourself. Second wind is good to have on a genie for that "OH SHI-" moment where you're about to die and can't actually heal yourself. It's a quick instant heal.

As for other skills you should consider the following:


Holy Path- The cleric staple. You're the slowest class. This genie skill makes you run at 15 m/s for a period of time. Very handy if you gotta walk back or catch up with your squad. Other times you might be asked to chase down and meet a barb at a specific spot in a dungeon or have to outrun a mob you accidentally aggro'd. It's definitely worth having.

Relentless courage- Your mileage may vary on this one. I found it useful at lower levels because it could increase my channeling speed for a short time. I could quickly revive and buff a fallen squad mate in seconds so I could immediately go back to healing the tank/rest of squad. I grew out of this skill but it was very much my best friend from level 40-low 70's.


Absolute domain- Imagine you're in a dungeon. Suddenly the tank dies and the boss immediately turns around and looks at YOU! What do you do?!

Well, if you have AD on your genie you can hit this skill. It makes you immune to damage for a few seconds. This is usually enough time for someone to get control of the boss so you're not a greasy spot on the floor. It also effects any team mates within 5 feet of you so you can protect not only yourself but those close to you.

wellspring is basic heal and you just learn it. eot

you can argue how fast to max it and thats all


then, replacing ws with genie skill is just fixing the problem caused by not learnig it.


and if you are desperate to save some sp, then learn just plume shot and leave cyclone behind for few levels

No, you will not get a new weapon with your FB29 unless you get a weapon mold to drop or a 3* weapon to drop. At this point, I normally would have my blacksmith skill up to level 3 and be working on making a new weapon personally. Your Trial Wand should last you till 34, then you will want to start getting better weapons. I would suggest though just finding a temporary weapon until level 43, and then get the legendary weapon Wheel of Fate, it is expensive however, so you will want to save up some money. That will easily take you to 60 where you can start using TT weapons.

Once you get to 40 though, you will have a quest line which will level you to about 45-46, and you will also be able to start doing Bounty Hunter quests, which basically is killing three bosses in an FB dungeon. 40-49 is Qingzi in FB29 (you will get three quests, one after the other, all for him), 50-59 is FB39 bosses, 60-69 is FB51 bosses, and so on.

As a tip, you will want to start stacking your BH quests so that you can have all three with you and not have to teleport out and back in. You do this by taking your BH 1 quest, killing the boss, but wait to turn in until the next server day. You then turn it in, get your BH 1 and BH 2 quests, complete them and wait till the next day to turn them in, which you will then be able to get your BH 1, BH 2, and BH 3 quests. Then you just always wait till the next day to turn your quests in so you keep them all with you. The only time you should turn them in on the same day you get them is if you know for sure the quests will level you up to the next BH set (such as leveling from 49 to 50), in which case once you turn them in and level, you will receive the next set, allowing you to get an extra group of BH's done.