DISCLAIMER: These posts won't go too much into detail on levelling and how to farm money; maybe I'll do a post on this in the future but this is more to get people acquainted on how people can and do play the various classes.
PRIEST / ABPriests, from what the name suggests, obviously they are the major supporting class of the game. However, aside from the FULL SUPPORT (FS for short) pri/AB, there are other kinds of priests as well though they are less common and usually dismissed in favor of FS priests for MVP parties or major dungeon runs. To distinguish between these major types of priests is the following list:
- Full Support Priest (FS) - They focus on keeping the entire team alive and buffed. The AcoPri class already is armed with a lot of important buffs, though once they reach Archbishop class their healing power is multiplied and they can do AoE buffs (Canto Candidus and Clementia) and even do AoE healing (Coluceo Heal) amongst other interesting utility. Their main stats are INT, DEX and VIT. (Kiro is a FS priest, you can find him @ Hijiri)
- Turn Undead Priest (TU) - These priests focus on using Turn Undead to instantly kill Undead property monsters. They used to be incredibly popular in pre-Renewal because of the ease of accessing Sphinx 4 and killing Anubises with it, which yielded lots of EXP. Now, it's not so popular due to how Renewal vastly changed EXP rates and the EXP table. TU priests focus on the stats INT, LUK and DEX. They choose between either AGI or VIT for survivability.
- Magnus Exorcismus Priest (ME) - These priests use the powerful anti-Undead/Demon nuke Magnus Exorcismus, which is a field spell that constantly casts Grand Cross whenever such Undead and Demon monsters go near it. It is an incredibly powerful spell with its major downside being its incredibly long cast time (10+ seconds at LV10). Furthermore, ME priests are limited only to certain spots to level with this skill. They need to have lots of DEX and INT in order to minimize ME's cast time. They can choose between either VIT or AGI for survivability, most choose VIT thoguh because Flee is useless for Pri at high levels.
- Battle Priest - The most fun type of priest, they attempt to get close and personal with maces or books and bash their enemies to submission. They get damage bonuses (very insignificant) against demon/undead enemies but their ability to buff themselves (especially with Aspersio and Assumptio/KE) and the Archbishop's Duple Light give them increased DPS potential. However, they are super hard to level without gear and they have no AoE at all. Their gear dependence also limits them from supporting the team properly when it's actually needed. They focus on STR, AGI and DEX.
OK, so, they are the major archetypes for building a priest. Personally, I'm not a fan of forcing skill builds on people so instead I'll post some generic guidelines on what skills to pick up per archetype. A rule of thumb though is that typically, if you aren't going to max a skill, you get that skill up to the level that opens up a more important skill. That and there's always the himeyasha skill simulator to play around with so you can figure things out for yourself. I'll also post general tips on what gear and cards to hunt for in case you're ever interested in building such a priest.
FS PriestStats:
1. I > V > D (FS Heal VIT Tanker)
THE premier stat distribution for a FS priest. You don't need as much Dex because your buffs do not have much cast time to begin with, so you focus on getting high INT and VIT for higher healing and for higher survivability. A minimum for Stun immunity is 100 VIT including Job bonuses. High level Meditatio means you will be healing for almost 3000 even with minimal gear and you can use Assumptio to really tank some hits. Your INT should be as HIGH as possible, 105~120 at optimal level.
2. A = V > I > D (FS Flee/VIT Tanker)
You sacrifice a LOT of INT (and I
mean a lot, because you need lots of AGI to make Flee substantial) in order to maximize your tanking potential. With high VIT, you have a lot of HP, but the high AGI means you get some Flee to buffer the high HP. With appropriate gear, they tank much better than they actually support, meaning to say that the most they can do is probably to provide buffs while tanking, though their healing power is greatly diminished since you'll probably be packing only 50~70 INT.
3. D = V > I > S (FS Priest for GvG)
This only applies to WoE, which we don't have on the server, but I'll still discuss it. Why do we pick up STR? Well, you need increased weight capacity to carry lots of consumables. As a WoE FS Priest, your need for DEX is suddenly much more important as you strive to attain near-IC or FC values, in order for near instantaneous buffs. INT is less prioritized as people in WoE tend to use pots to keep themselves alive. Instead a WoE FS Priest is expected to constantly buff, and spam Sanctuary, KE, and Safety Wall. In fact, due to the high DEX requirement, Resurrection is no longer kept at LV4 as a result. High VIT is to make sure they survive getting ganked by other classes and making pots heal even more.
Skills: Obviously, you're to max skills like Heal, Blessing and Increase AGI as an Aco. Also, Pneuma is a prerequisite. Actually, all types of priests should get these basic Aco skills maxed. Picking up Cure is your choice, most FS Priests actually do so. Angelus at 2 is the typical move that people do, though some people run Angelus 3. The most variety comes at the Pri/HP stage, where you have much more skills to play around with. SP Recovery, as a rule of thumb, should always be LV5
or lower. You can get Meditatio as a FS Priest which is a lot better if you want to, but those points could be spent elsewhere. Magnificat should be maxed, as well as Resurrection. Recovery and Lex Aeterna are a must too. Your choice on what level of KE you want, same with Aspersio/Assumptio/Sanctuary.
Gear:
Upper Headgear
- Dress Hat [1] - A very basic headgear for an FS Priest. Getting it to +7 increases the effectiveness of your heals more than the existing bonus, due to the MATK bonus. A good card to put on this would be either an Isilla or an Elder Willow card, because they grant INT bonuses.
- Ulle's Cap [1] - Only get this if you have an Odin's Blessing armor, since you'd only get this for the combo, which is to reduce SP consumption rate by 10%.
- Circlet [1] - Adds some resistances, supposedly. I forgot the values on this.
- Feather Beret - This is only applicable in WoE, since it reduces damage taken from Demihuman type enemies. Player characters are Demihuman type.
Middle Headgear
- Sigrun Wings - +1 to all stats. Solid.
- Robo Eye - MATK+% bonus. Solid.
- Red Glasses - +1 to INT. Cheaper than Sigrun Wings by 200k on the server cash shop
- Any slotted mid - Because it's slotted, you can add more cards. Unfortunately you can't get slotted mids on this server.
Armor- Saint Robe [1] - Highly refined, with some stat enchantments will make it work great. A Marc card would be good. If you have a Grand Peco card, you may also use a Peco Peco card.
- Medic's Robe [1] - (KVM WARNING!) Has an awesome combo with the Combat Boots [1] and Commander's Manteau [1]. Until such time we can get KVM stuff, don't worry about this.
- Divine Cloth [1] - Adds bonus status resistance. Decent. However, it has no MDEF versus the Saint Robe
- Holy Robe
- - Highly refined, similar to the Saint Robe except with no slot. However, it reduces damage from Demon race and Shadow property by 15%!!! That's quite good. By the way, a slotted version exists, but the 0 slot version is the only one that drops. And it drops from Magaleta or Pharaoh or Bapho. So good luck with that.
- Odin's Blessing [1] - Honorable mention for the versatility of its set combos.
Weapon- Recovery Staff - Premier FS Pri weapon, due to the Heal bonus once you refine it to +8~+10. It has an additional effect with the Benevolent Guardian [1], but that headgear takes up both Upper and Middle, so take at your own risk.
- Erde [2] - Slot this with 2 Fabre cards, and it can heal the same as a +7 Recovery Staff. However, it's much harder to get.
- Rod [4] - Only used for the high amount of slots. Use either 4 Fabre OR 4 Drops cards. Drops is better if you're hitting for DEX.
- Dea Staff [1] - An excellent staff which adds a chance to heal 200 SP whenever you use Heal. And each refine rate seems to increase your MATK by a bit. However, it drops from Maya. At 1%-tier rates.
- KVM Cure Wand - As with all KVM gear, this piece of crap is AWESOME. Skill delay reduction, instantly gain 14% increased healing power, and you get a total of 15% extra healing bonus at +10. You can also get a chance to heal somebody twice with one casting of Heal at +9. If you can somehow get this thing to +14...
Shield- Stone Buckler [1] - Common Shield choice due to the extra VIT and 5% dmg reduction from Large type enemies. Use an appropriate Racial card OR an Alice card for MVPing OR a Hodremlin card if you don't want to farm a bazillion Shields.
- Valkyrja's Shield [1] - Reduces damage taken from 4 different types of monsters by 20%, which is ridiculous. It also has set bonuses because why not? But it drops from Valkyrie at a 5%-tier rate.
- Round Buckler [1] - No special effects, but is notable for having 90 DEF, which is absurdly high for a shield. It's also relatively easy to get, dropping from Stalactic Golems.
Garment- Wool Scarf [1] - Only get this if you combo it with the Tidal Boots. Wool/Tidal combo is the most popular equipment combo for its solid bonuses and "relative ease" of getting, once you actually unlock the damn Nameless Abbey. Refine this to +7 and pick either Raydric, Noxious or Deviling card.
- Nydhorgg's Shadow [1] - Not viable to get right now but very good stand-alone garment. Same card choices as above.
- Muffler [1] - Temporary placeholder until you get a better garment.
Footgear- Variant Shoes - Unrefined, for obvious reasons (the HP/SP boost). However, this nasty thing drops from... uh... Berzebub. Yeah.
- Tidal Shoes [1] - Combine this with Wool Scarf for good things. Choose between Verit, Sohee, Green Ferus or Matyr card. Better refine this to +7 too.
- Shoes [1] - Temporary placeholder until you get a better footie
Accessories- Earring [1]
- Glove [1]
- Clip [1]
- Safety Ring [1]
- Cards: Phen OR Zerom (with Glove) OR Scaraba OR Osiris (mvp warning) OR Berzebub (mvp warning) OR Spore
TU PriestStats:
1. D >= I > L >= V (Basic TU)
Your aim with this stat distribution is to get a high and healthy balance between DEX and INT in order to hasten the casting of Turn Undead, which has a relatively high cast time for a Priest spell. INT is prioritized over LUK as the offensive stat because INT can affect the damage of your healbombs and your healing potency in general. LUK is picked up at all because it can influence your chances of successfully landing TU, though in Renewal it's not a bad idea to get more than 40 as was customary in pre-Renewal due to how LUK now provides additional MATK. VIT is the preferred survivability stat because Flee is hard to raise on a Priest.
2. D >= I >= L > [V or A] (Skewed TU)
Interesting note is that the Turn Undead success chance rate places equal emphasis on both INT and LUK, the only variable factor being the enemy's current HP. Also, the chance caps at 70%. So you can actually tweak the amount of INT and LUK you have depending on what you want; LUK can also help in adding survivability by having additional Perfect Dodge. But there's not much variance between this TU distribution and the previous one; DEX is still the god stat.
Skills: Similar to the FS Priest; however you can drop some other skills in favor of naturally maxing out Turn Undead at LV10. LV10 makes the base success chance 20%, which in combination with buffing yourself with maxed Gloria (yes you want to max Gloria) and Blessing will make the success chance quite high considering the cap is 70%. Assumptio is a must for this build as well, since it adds to your survivability in case your TUs fail. Resurrection also has the same effect as TU but it costs more (1 Blue Gemstone), however it does have instant cast time right off the bat.
Gear:
Upper Headgear
- Lunatic Hat - Increases LUK by 3.
- Ramen Hat - Increases DEX by 4.
- Apple of Archer - Increases DEX by 3. Get this if you can't afford a Ramen Hat.
- Crown of Mistress - Increases INT by 2 and SP by 100.
- Hat of Fortune [1] - Increases LUK by 2, additional +1 LUK per refine rate past 4. One of the best headgears for a TU Priest, due to the sheer LUK boost potential.
Armor- Puente Robe [1] - Good for reducing the cast time of TU.
- Sprint Mail [1] - Only get this if you can complete the Sprint set: this mail, with Sprint Shoes and Sprint Ring. The combo increases HP and SP by 7%, reduces variable cast time by 3% and reduces delay by 15%.
- Orlean's Gown [1] - Good for making your casts uninterruptable, furthermore you can offset the increase in variable cast time with the Orlean's combo which is Orleans' Glove + Orleans' Server.
- Cards would be similar to the FS build, for survivability purposes.
Weapon- Quadruple Dextrous Rod (Rod + 4 Drops) - Excellent for the DEX bonus.
- Survivor's Rod [1], Dex - +3 DEX, with extra HP for as long as you use the Survivor's Manteau.
- Principles of Magic [2] - An absurdly good book due to the INT + 3 bonus. If you equip a Librarian Gloves and a Pocket Watch, you get an additional +5 INT and +700 HP.
Shield- See the FS Priest for basic Shield gear
- Note: Orleans' Server - Only get this if you have Orleans' Gloves, it will greatly reduce your cast time, and does very well in offsetting the increase in cast time that equipping an Orleans' Gown would force on you. This also means you don't need to waste an accessory slot getting a Phen card.
Garment- Survivor's Manteau - Only get this if you're using the Survivor's Rod weapon. Keep in mind that the rod is 2h
- Wool Scarf - Solid Tidal/Wool combo as usual!
Footgear- Tidal Shoes [1] - Solid Tidal/Wool combo as usual!
- Sprint Shoes [1] - Very useful if you can combo this with the Sprint Mail and Sprint Ring. However, on its own the +5% SP Regen isn't useless.
- Variant Shoes - Don't refine this, obviously. Also, don't even think about getting this on this server. It's impossible right now (or ever?)
Accessories- Earring [1]
- Glove [1]
- Clip [1]
- Safety Ring [1]
- Sprint Ring - Of the Sprint combo, THIS thing is the most important item, as on its own it already reduces cast time and delay.
- Librarian Glove [1] - Only get this with Pocket Watch and Principles of Magic.
- Pocket Watch - Only get this with Librarian Glove and PoM.
- Orleans' Glove - Very good with Orleans' Server. No need to fit a Phen card on any accessory if you have Orleans' Gown.
- Cards: Phen OR Zerom (with Glove) OR Scaraba OR Osiris (mvp warning) OR Berzebub (mvp warning) OR Spore
TU Priest is not very gear dependent; however their usefulness is diminished in Renewal compared to pre-Renewal. Run this at your own riskME PriestUnder ConstructionBattle PriestUnder Construction[/list]