Revision as of 07:57, 30 July 2013

Aligned with earth, priests in the Kingdom of Elyssia lead a life close to nature. Over many generations, their spiritual research of plants has given them an understanding far beyond that of normal townsfolk. Believing in the power of the Light, they use powerful magic to heal their allies, and the knowledge of herbs and poisons to lay waste to their enemies.

Priests are the only class that can restore their own and other adventurers' health in battle for a long period of time and generally having larger Mana reserves than mages. However, they are not just limited to healing. Having access to Wind, Poison and Light element spells makes them an excellent choice against a lot of monsters, and still a good option against the rest.

Typically, priests follow a path focusing either on healing or damage dealing, however a hybrid path (damage with some healing) is a great idea in many situations that can give your group the edge.

Pure Healing

Priests focusing on pure healing place most - if not all - of their skill points into the healing tree. This gives them a number of spells to keep themselves and their group alive:

Primary Spells

• Revitalize is a basic heal-over-time spell. Once cast on another character, it will heal them periodically (about every three seconds, for twelve seconds). This is the spell of choice if someone needs some healing, but isn't in immediate danger of getting knocked out. If you cast Revitalize on a target before the effect expires, it is refreshed to its full duration (they do not get extra healing if you repeatedly use Revitalize on them).
• Heal is a slow-casting direct heal spell that recovers a substantial amount of health at once. Generally, it is best used to heal someone who is taking more damage than Revitalize can heal. By combining Heal with Revitalize (cast Revitalize first, and then start casting Heal - that way the first Revitalize will tick about the same time you finish casting Heal), you can restore a lot of health at once. Unlike Revitalize (which is Earth), Heal is Light based, so it will hurt demons, undead and dark element monsters.
• Bond of Healing is a direct heal spell that recovers health of your target, and also some of your own health. This spell is very mana efficient if both you and another character are taking damage at the same time.

Emergency Spells

• Surge of Light is a quick-casting direct heal spell that recovers a little less health than Heal. It also uses more mana than Heal. Use this spell if your target has little health left and would get knocked out before your next Heal cast finishes.
• Emerald Shield is a spell that priests learn "for free", by completing a short quest chain. It can be used to shield a target from a set amount of physical and magic damage, once every 30 seconds. Its high mana cost means that this spell is best used only in emergencies to instantly stop further damage on yourself or an ally, while you prepare slower-casting spell (such as a Revitalize - Heal combo) to actually restore health.
• Song of Harmony is a wide-area healing spell that recovers the health of any friendly character around you. It is channeled, meaning that once you begin casting, it will continuously restore health until the channel ends (up to six seconds). While this spell effectively brings your entire group back to high / full health, you need to be careful about when to use it: not only does it have a high mana cost, you can also use it only once every seven minutes. Finally, it is advisable to shield yourself from damage while channeling it (using Emerald Shield), so that enemies don't interrupt your channel.

• Revive allows you to bring a knocked out player back to life. It is primarily meant for out-of-combat recovery, since any damage to you will cause the spell to fail. However, with good timing and a bit of luck, you can succeed in reviving a knocked out group member even during boss battles. Watch the spells your enemies carefully, and once you identified a time window where you won't receive much (or any) damage, shield yourself and begin casting revive. Note that revive uses a lot of mana, even if the spell fails.

• Divine Clarity makes the next spell that you cast instant, and can be used once every three minutes. Combine this spells with the previously listed spells for different effects - for example, Divine Clarity + Heal for an instant large heal, or Divine Clarity + Revive for an instant revive that will always succeed^[1].

Notes

• Especially in dungeons, the health restoring services of a priest are very important. While some dungeons (such as the Cultist Prison) use mechanics that allow completing it without a priest, most dungeons expect a group that challenges them to have a healthy mix of classes.
• Every dungeon can be completed without any of your group members getting knocked out. However, depending on your group members^[2], that may not be possible. In this case you have to triage:
  • Generally (unless a boss is almost down, and the only way you may win is by giving one of the other group members one final heal), you should try to keep yourself up. If you get knocked out, no one gets healed anymore, and your group will most likely get knocked out quickly.
  • The second most important is the player holding the boss. If they get knocked out, the boss will look for a new target (which might just be you) - which will likely take quite a bit more damage than a heavily armored warrior.
  • Next in line are the damage dealing players, considering their own capabilities of staying alive (a mage with almost full mana can use Mana Shield to protect themselves at the cost of mana) and how much damage they do to the boss (saving someone who is dishing out large amounts of damage to the boss every second they stay alive will help your group succeed more than someone who is slowly whittling it down).
  • You do not need to keep everyone alive. If someone is continuously standing in a poison patch, requiring constant and large (emergency) heals, you will quickly run out of mana and then everyone in your group will get knocked out (that person usually being the first to go when the constant stream of heals stop). Throw them a revitalize, and hope they will see the "low health" warning as a cue to look at their feet, to see what they're standing in.
  • Bosses are balanced in the expectation that your damage dealers are alive for 75% of the time (however some may well need to stay alive 100% of the time to deal the same damage another player deals that was alive 75% of the time).
• Monsters will notice you healing. Unless someone else is attacking them (warriors can swipe, mages and damage dealing priests can use area spells to keep multiple monsters occupied) they will go straight for you when you heal someone they attack. You are not expected to hold those monsters on you - if this is causing you troubles, you might hint to the rest of the group that they should help you there.
• In case you have a moment of quiet and no one needs any heals, just wait. You do not need to be constantly casting a spell. If someone is at 98% health, using revitalize will mostly be wasted: the first tick will bring them to 100%, and the remaining ticks will have no effect, since they're already at full health. In the Combat Log, this is recorded as an "overheal".

Damage Dealing

Priests that focus on dealing damage will spend most of their skill points in the damage tree. It contains the following main spells:

• Poison and Poison Patch: These spells periodically deal damage over time, and are extremely effective against any of the elements, with the exception of fire, dark and ghost. Poison Patch is an area spell that stacks (the longer your target resides in the poison, the more damage they receive), while Poison is a single target spell that does not stack (poisoning a target you already poisoned simply resets the time on the poison to full). With Leeching Poison, you recover a small amount of mana every time your Poison spell deals damage.
• Petal Rain is your primary wind spell. It is a ranged magic attack that is very effective against water, fire and ghost, and still somewhat effective against dark element monsters. Similar to your Poison spell, leeching poison allows you to get some of your mana back every time you use Petal Rain.
• Judgement and Exorcise are light element spells (Exorcise is an area spell, whereas Judgement is single-target). These are the spells to use against dark and neutral element monsters.

• In addition to the damage spells above, Spiritual Regeneration is a useful spell that allows you to restore a large amount of your mana every three minutes. This can cut down the number of mana potions that you would have to use otherwise.

• Nightfall is a crowd control spell that is useful even to healing priests - essentially, it causes an enemy fall asleep for a certain time, as long as they do not receive any damage. At level 2, Nightfall can take a target out of combat for up to 40 seconds.

Hybrid

A hybrid priest uses spells for both, damage dealing and healing. Which spells you pick exactly is up to you, and what you need.

For example, you can go with a full damage dealing build, and then, with your remaining skill points, get the highest level of Revitalize that you can. That way you can deal damage to your enemies, while using Revitalize on yourself and your allies to constantly recover health. At level 32, the maximum level of revitalize recovers around 115 health every second - so the health that you gain back is quite substantial. In addition, since Emerald Shield is "free" (meaning you do not need spend a skill point for its first level), you will always have it at least at level 1. This can be used to buy yourself some time without damage, so that revitalize can heal you up more. Kiting (where you run around with monsters chasing after you) can also be very effective in avoiding damage.

1. ↑ Note that during a boss battle, you are limited to two revives for a five player group, and one revive otherwise.
2. ↑ This includes their equipment, spells, the amount of damage they do, how good their armor is and how well they withstand damage, their capabilities to not stand into a huge pulsating poison patch the boss left on the ground.