Priest healing tactics
As a priest, you are the lifeblood of your group (in other words, you take responsibility for helping your group survive as much as you can with your healing). But be warned, part of their strategy is that you have to do what it takes to be both efficient and useful at the same time. This tutorial will help you get used to the daily routine of a healer, as well as the role you play in PvP.
For starters, think of a scale with two sides on it. One is your efficiency; this indicates how well you save your mana during battle. The other side of this scale is reliability; how often do you use your healing skills to help your group members survive. Now why are these two things so important to keep in mind? Well, for instance, if you're a healer and you hardly use your healing skills, it's great that you're not wasting all of your mana at once, but your group will have a tough time trying to survive in the dungeon. On the other hand, most beginner healers think that you should keep on spamming those healing skills. You may be helping your group survive by doing that for a while, but it's a big no no, because if you are standing there with 0 mana, you're just a sitting duck that is letting all of your group members get wiped out.
But first, here's one major point that you should consider. In most RPG games, you would think that there is no cooldown for potions. Well guess what? This game has a 2 minute cooldown when you use a single potion, so it's not going to help you at all unless you really need it; hence why every group requires at least one healer in it.
Now, to answer the bigger question here. The solution is that you want to be in the middle of this scale; you want to be efficient but also reliable enough to the rest of your allies.
Alright, now enough theory, let's move onto the popular priest skills. The summary of below is this:
Contents
Healing Priorities
Below lists some of the healing priorities for a priest. Each ally that you're healing has a different level of importance (i.e. a tank will need more healing because they take more damage and have more health, versus a damage dealer that may take less damage and can easily be patched up by common healing spells). By matching these priorities against each other, you can see what kind of spells are needed.
Note that there are two important facts to consider. Just because the spells that fall closer to the right are less likely used does not mean that they should never be used. It is perfectly okay to use them, as long as you don't waste the spell (using a strong heal on an ally that took little to no damage). The same can be said for the left side as well. A tank should never only receive stronger healing spells (ex. spamming only Heal on Tanks). Using weaker healing spells like Revitalize along with stronger spells is key to keeping a tank alive.
Priority of Healing to Allies (from weaker spells to stronger spells)
Damage Dealers < Healers < Tanks
Spells for all priests (from commonly used to uncommonly used/emergencies):
- Healing Winds (Lv. 37 and above) > Revitalise > Heal > Healing Springs > Surge of Light/Emerald Shield > Greater Heal > Song of Harmony
When To Use Certain Healing Skills
- Revitalise is your best friend. It may seem weak at lower levels, but give it some time and you have a cheap, reliable, instant cast spell that does the work for you on one ally. But remember that it heals health slowly over 12 seconds, meaning that you should only cast it once every 10 seconds or so on that ally that took some damage. Healers should use it on players that have taken damage, typically when their health is about 50-80% or lower. You should choose to use Revitalise on your ally if they fall below 50% of their health while healing them (especially if they're the one that is taking constant damage, as it may save them from being knocked out).
- Revitalise is often used in place of Cure Poison to soak up the damage taken from enemy damage over time spells. However if the enemy uses poison that has a very long duration and inflicts heavy damage over time, you should just use Cure Poison instead.
- In diverse groups of tanks, damage dealers and healers, your damage dealers should really only receive Revitalise from you at most while Tanks should receive both Revitalise and Heal. This is because damage dealers have less health than a tank; rarely you should feel the need to use Heal on a damage dealer unless they have low health (about 10 to 30%).
- Heal is a powerful healing spell that restores a large amount of health in one use to a friendly target. You should avoid using it a lot and instead use Revitalise on your teammates. In times of emergency when one of your damage dealers is not expected to survive with a Revitalise that you placed on them, that is when you should use Heal on them. But for most cases, use it on a tank when they are at about 50% of their health or lower (if your Revitalise cannot heal them enough).
- As mentioned above, only when a damage dealer is down to less than 30% of their health or so, then you should use a heal on them.
- This spell in particular allows you to instant cast a spell that would otherwise take too long to cast. This should be best saved for a Revive to instantly revive one of your fallen allies. If one of your heals will not make it, then you may choose to use this skill to immediately heal them once and immediately go ahead to cast for a second heal. Remember that it should be used sparingly, as this spell has a cooldown to it.
- Healing Springs is a spell that heals all of your damaged allies multiple times that are standing in this spring, but the drawback is that you have to stay in one spot and channel it. In order for this spell to be effective, you want all of your allies to be standing on it at once. In cases where you are stacking (as many allies including yourself standing in the same spot), this spell can work wonders. Springs should be used when multiple allies are at 50-70% of their health, however you should refrain from using it if your group likes to split up a lot.
- Using Healing Springs should not interfere you from carrying out your regular revitalise pattern unless you believe that one healing spring can consume less mana than multiple uses of revitalise and heal just as efficient.
- Surge of Light is your alternative healing spell to Heal. But remember that Surge of Light's healing is based on the current skill level of your Heal. This spell should be only used in critical situations when an ally has only 10% to 20% of their health left, and they won't be able to survive another attack within the time it usually takes for you to Heal them. Unlike Heal, Surge of Light serves as a panic button, and should not be used more often than Heal because of it's expensive mana cost.
- Emerald Shield is an emergency spell that when used on one of your allies, it absorbs a limited amount of damage, ultimately buying you time to recover their health with a Heal. As outlined in the skill's description, it should be used when your ally that you're healing only has 10%-20% of their health left and won't be able to survive another attack. Because of this, the skill should never be used consecutively.
- The spell can be cast on yourself to buy yourself some time and prevent your revive from being interrupted while Divine Clarity is on cooldown. Other applications can include extending a target's health to prepare against a high damage attack.
- Song of Harmony is a last ditch effort spell that recovers health to all of your allies within a large radius, with a weighty cooldown of 7 minutes. You should never ever use this spell early, as later on in the battle you may need to rely on it as a life-saver. Ever considered a time where multiple allies are at around 10 to 30% of their health, one or more of them are likely not able to survive the next attack and all of them need to be healed at once? This spell should really only be used at that point of time in battle.
- There are exceptions to Song of Harmony's use. You may have to use it early or mid-battle because a boss's signature one-time attack hits your group, or even pounding through your tank (even after they used Burning Determination to reduce the damage).
- At level 37, you acquire this underappreciated spell with a master level of 1 with a cooldown of 15 seconds. Healing Winds to Revitalise is like butter to bread, because of it's ability to slowly heal multiple allies over 15 seconds. Consuming one revitalise's worth of mana and slightly weaker than Revitalise itself, it is commonly used to heal off minor amounts of damage across each of your allies. Healers should use this spell as their main priority over Revitalise when multiple allies (particularly damage dealers) fall to 60% to 90% of their health and continue to use Revitalise on the tank of the group if they are not affected by Healing Winds.
- If the group is under constant pressure from damage, more than what Healing Winds can heal over, you should consider to combine both Healing Wind and Revitalise effects on your allies. Also, in order to boost the overall healing power for Healing Springs, you can use Healing Winds on them beforehand.
- Late at level 42, you obtain another healing spell, which is a stronger version of Heal, but with a master level of 1. It consumes less mana than a Surge of Light and more than a Heal. It is also not dependent (Greater Heal has it's own healing value) on the skill level of Heal unlike how Surge of Light is. However, the biggest drawback of this spell is how long it takes to cast. If you have an ally such as a tank whose health is low (about 10 to 30% health), but isn't in immediate danger, then this spell is suited towards that situation. That ideal situation might not always occur.
- Due to it's long casting time, this spell is completely up to you whether or not you want to learn it.
Healing Routine
After reading the descriptions of each spell above, you probably now have a sense of when to use those spells, but you still don't know the overall healing routine works. Try to relax, as healing isn't that stressful unless you make it stressful on yourself. Here are some key tips that you should follow (or just incorporate into the way you heal).
1. Briefly look at the list of health bars for your group from time to time. When someone's health bar goes down, that's when you know that you should respond with a Revitalise. At later levels, if multiple players lose a bit of health, throw a Healing Wind at them. If someone takes critical damage, respond immediately with a Heal. If multiple players including the tank lose a lot of health, throw both Revitalise and/or Healing Winds at everyone, while throwing Revitalise, Healing Winds and Heal at the tank.
- Note: Please use the group's health bars on the top-left of your screen to select a player to heal. Do not click on the actual player themselves (because selecting players when they all overlap is only going to waste your time).
2. Stay aware of your surroundings during a boss fight or a tough group of monsters. The moment you take your eyes off the battle is when a boss could easily catch you off-guard with a gimmick or an AoE (e.g. green/blue poison puddle). Don't stay in one spot for too long and don't focus too much into the health bars, only to get yourself killed.
- Note: The same advice applies to your teammates. If they keep taking damage on purpose constantly without at least trying to avoid it, don't Heal them (they're only going to drain your mana before the fight ends).
3. Watch your mana bar once every so often to see how much you're spending in the middle of a boss fight. If you walk into a boss with only less than 30% of your mana early into the fight, your group already lost the battle before it even started. Mid-way through battle, if you're down to about 30~50% of your mana (potions and SoH are both on cooldown), you can't heal everyone with the same flexibility as you had before. Slap a Revitalise (and Healing Winds) on those who actually took some damage and wait. If the damage dealers are above 80% health, you don't need to heal them yet. Just focus on healing the tank.
4. Quickly scan for harmful debuffs on players and dangerous monsters on the field, then act on it immediately. Note that debuffs with a green outline can be cured with Cure Poison, while debuffs with blue outlines can only be dispelled by Mages with Dispel Magic.
- Nightfall priority vs monster type: Possessor > Healer > Monster can inflict freeze/sleep/stun > Monster that does a lot of damage. Leave it to a Tank to Smite, or a Mage with Flash Freeze to cover the other monsters, while you usually go for the healer. Usually, the healer gets first dibs on applying sleep to a monster before a mage can freeze in a pull.
- Dangerous debuffs: Monster puts a player to sleep (use Cure Poison to wake them up), Grevious Slash (you must heal whoever got hit with this to 90%+ HP to eliminate the debuff), strong damage over time Poison with few stacks, not multiple (Cure Poison).
As the role of a Damage Priest
Alternatively, a healer may choose to become a damage priest instead, allowing for hybrid healing and offensive tactics. A damage priest can choose to become either a poison priest (with Petal Rain inflicting wind damage), a light priest, or a dark priest. Each of these three builds specialize in their own strengths, however dark priests are more suited to certain PvP game modes (e.g. Cheese Hunt) and/or namely PvE.
Revitalize is likely to be your only healing skill, due to limitations on the number of skill points. A good build will incorporate a max level Revitalize and at least one point in Revive, and focus on a specific element (such as poison, light, etc). The reason for this purely comes out of survivability; allowing for solo play, easing the healer's job and in emergency situations where the healer is down (having a damage priest removes the need for Potions of Life). Without it, you become just another Mage within a group.
A couple of reminders that you should follow:
- Like a Mage, a damage priest should not divide up their skills into several elements (e.g. mixing dark and wind/poison skills).
- If possible, a damage priest should not leave some of their damaging spells at an unmaxed level.
- A damage priest cannot replace actual dedicated healers within a group.
- Whatever decision you make is up to you in the end for what skills you see fit for your chosen element.
Base Builds
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Healing
Toxicology
Note: Skill points can be substituted out of Surge of Light and Emerald Shield in exchange for other skills. |
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Toxicology
Healing
2 extra points that can be placed anywhere you want. Some examples below.
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Toxicology
Toxicology (Light)
Healing
Note: Since Exorcise only works on Ghost, Demons, Undead and Dark element monsters, Exorcise can be substituted out completely for another skill, such as Poison Dust (MAX at Lv.6). The extra skill point can go to Revitalise (Lv.12 -> MAX at Lv.13). You can also take out Revive for 1 more point in another skill, if you don't mind losing the ability to revive other players. |
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Summary Basically a variation healing build piecing together skills from both Healing and Dark. Drops Heal and Divine Clarity in exchange for Life Tap (Lv. 2). Spamming Life Tap constantly gives you back mana at the expense of health, which is recovered back using Revitalise and Healing Winds. Trigger-friendly build that still works while wearing Mage/Damage Priest equipment, but weak when responding to fast heals and/or when the healer themselves takes too much damage. Build may become less effective depending on level scaling from dungeons/trials. Dark Pact gives you 25% more armor/40% less cast time lost for survivability, extra crowd control skill with Terrify Lv.2 and Possess Lv.1 for gimmicks. Takes advantage of Greater Heal (at level 42) for not being under restriction from Dark Pact. Use with Charm of Rejuvenation to quickly patch up the damage taken from Life Tap and provide extra healing, or Charm of Ancient Protection to provide a bonus heal to a shielded target for 75% of it's absorb effect. |
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Healing
Toxicology
Dark
3 extra points that can be placed anywhere you want. Some examples below.
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Summary A soloer's damage over time variation build by slowing bosses down to a crawl, applying DoT, then kiting them until they die. The main skills include Revitalise, Poison, Holy Fire, Nourish, Curse of Silence and Curse of Slowness itself. The build is very difficult to execute, as it involves constant management of Holy Fire stacks, refreshing the Poison and Curse of Slowness debuffs, interrupting dangerous spells with Curse of Silence and healing yourself with Revitalise. But it has allowed a few players to beat several bosses on their own without a group. Certain pets that have the Spike Trap spell to further slow down the boss and the Charm of Nurturing Rain complement this build as well. |
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Toxicology
Toxicology (Light)
Magic
Healing
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PvP Combat
In PvP combat, Priests are the main target out of any good player group. They're the one that gets picked on more than any other class because they are what keeps the enemy team alive. As a priest, you should stay behind your teammates and try to use Nightfall whenever you can to prevent one of the players from targeting you with a deadly spell. As a healer yourself, you should aim to use Revitalise as much as possible on your allies to outlast the opponent, but be sure to keep your own health in check as well.
- When facing Mages:
- Mages are more likely the members out of the enemy team to target you specifically. If one of them has Flash Freeze, they can take you out of commission with it to limit your healing while focusing on the heavy-hitter members of your group. Other strategies include bombarding you with an AoE such as Ice Spikes, Blizzard or Fire Wall to take you out immediately, or having Mages cause a back to back disrupt on you.
- Focus on the mage that is trying to take you out and quickly use Nightfall to stop their assault in it's tracks. Then you can let the damage dealers on the team take care of the other team's priest. If the priest is already down before you used nightfall on that mage, the player that is still sleeping cannot attack you, so let your team deal with the rest of the attackers. In addition, you should try and bait mages to use their expensive spells on you to waste their mana.
- Mages are more likely the members out of the enemy team to target you specifically. If one of them has Flash Freeze, they can take you out of commission with it to limit your healing while focusing on the heavy-hitter members of your group. Other strategies include bombarding you with an AoE such as Ice Spikes, Blizzard or Fire Wall to take you out immediately, or having Mages cause a back to back disrupt on you.
- When facing Warriors:
- If a DPS warrior or Tank sees you casting one of your healing skills (with the exception of Revitalize), they can rush to you and try to neutralize it by smiting or bashing you. They will try a number of approaches similar to a Mage to try and get to you, but they have an easier time because unlike Mages, Priests cannot use Skip to counter a Charge.
- Try to position yourself in a spot that is hard to reach and far away from the Warriors but still capable of you healing your teammates. If a warrior is in pursuit of you and not a mage, you should try to use Nightfall to get away from them as far as possible.
- Against Tanks, they may not pose much of a threat against you unless they are aiming to Smite or Bash you down. Only DPS Warriors will have the choice of trying to land as much melee swings against you to knock you out.
- If a DPS warrior or Tank sees you casting one of your healing skills (with the exception of Revitalize), they can rush to you and try to neutralize it by smiting or bashing you. They will try a number of approaches similar to a Mage to try and get to you, but they have an easier time because unlike Mages, Priests cannot use Skip to counter a Charge.
- When facing another Priest:
- Against enemy healers, they have no choice but to rely on Nightfall to stop you in your tracks, while healing to protect their damage dealers. If you or another member of your team are not quick enough to respond, their healer may quickly get you with Nightfall.
- Be able to recognize the enemy healer first in their team and try to use Nightfall as quickly as possible on them. Otherwise, try to stay out of their casting range so that they don't get a chance to use it on you.
- Against damage priests, not only can they have Nightfall, but their Revitalize gives them a lot more survivability in the battle. Their skills (strong to Neutral) give them a deadly advantage in combat towards players who do not have elemental potions to change their defending element. Beware of these hard-hitting players in an enemy's arsenal, as they can act for part of the role of a healer.
- One advantage is the fact that they cannot disrupt or smite you (even if they invested points into Curse of Silence, it would hinder their DPS). Try to stay back and let your warriors try to dispatch of them quickly. They are a bigger threat than Mages because of their healing capabilities that can soak up damage. By letting your teammates overwhelm them with amounts of damage for more that they can heal, they will be taken out more easily.
- Against enemy healers, they have no choice but to rely on Nightfall to stop you in your tracks, while healing to protect their damage dealers. If you or another member of your team are not quick enough to respond, their healer may quickly get you with Nightfall.
- When facing Hunters:
- Pure Hunters will fight far away from you (likely on another platform), but you have the range to deal damage to them. Their ability to do a large amount of damage to a single target from far away is menacing. However, this can be a problem trying to get close to them, because there is no Skip. They may have superior horizontal range, but that doesn't mean they have great vertical range for their attacks. Try to get outside of their attack range, then rush to them.
- If you are a healer, stay out of their attack range, and instead bait them to come closer so your allies can get the jump on them.
- When facing Pet Hunters, avoid dealing with the pet, as it eats up most of your time. Instead, focus on trying to close the distance towards the Hunter, and use Revitalize to shrug off any damage.
- Hunters are unlikely to use traps in PvP. Although traps can be useful, they only work best when an ally is assisting you, and you know exactly where and how many enemy players will come. Watch out for Root Trap, as you have to deal with getting rid of the roots, taking up some of your time.
- Pure Hunters will fight far away from you (likely on another platform), but you have the range to deal damage to them. Their ability to do a large amount of damage to a single target from far away is menacing. However, this can be a problem trying to get close to them, because there is no Skip. They may have superior horizontal range, but that doesn't mean they have great vertical range for their attacks. Try to get outside of their attack range, then rush to them.
Remember that you are the most valuable player out of your group, as seen by your enemy team and allies. Because that happens to be the case for most PvP fights, make the enemy team think that their main priority is taking you out. Be prepared to expect this when that seems to be their game plan, so that you can have your team counter this by leading them into a trap. Knowing this fact is key unlike Mages where elemental match-ups are more important to them.
- This page was last edited on 4 May 2023, at 12:13.