Well, it's finally happened.
I've been totally annoyed by the number of clerics that don't heal when I'm on my archer, so I decided to come up with a guide.
There isn't much point in posting the guide here since most people here are sensible, but here goes anyway.
In this post, all references to "party" mean a party of atleast 4-5 members)
1.
What is a party?
A. Why are you playing fiesta? Anyways, a party is a small band (5 at the max) of players fighting
together and
co-operating to more easily kill monsters/gain exp/help others.
2.
What is my role in a party?
A. Well, that depends on who you are! Now, this is a cleric guide, so I'm going to fill you in on a cleric's role in a party.
A cleric has a vital role in any party. He/she's the one with the ability to make fancy lights and
support and
heal the other party members.
A cleric's base dmg is minimal. Appalling. Absolutely worthless.
A cleric's base def is so-so. He/she can take a lot more hits than archers and mages. So he/she can survive, but he can't
tank. That's because their dmg is minimal remember? So the monster won't be too interested in killing off something that isn't dying easily, and isn't doing much to it either. Unless you spam your heal skill. But that's something that I'll discuss later.
So, even if you're a pure STR cleric with a hammer, your dmg won't match up to anyone except maybe a full END fighter with a 1h sword.
So what do we learn from this? In a full party where everyone's doing their bit, you might as well do your own too. Heal. Make sure nobody dies. Sure, you get that reviving skill at lvl 20, but that doesn't get them back their lost exp. So they'll be mad at you anyway. So your role in a a party is to heal and support. Heal is pretty straightforward. What's support? Well, starting from lvl 11, you get a buff that lasts an hour everytime it's cast, and increases the defence and damage of the entire party. In fact, the more party members you have, the more effective it becomes. Don't forget to always have them casted! If there are about 10 minutes left, you might as well recast them.
3.
What do I do when a party member is getting damaged?
A. Click on him and heal you moron! And don't forget to map heal to a button that's easily accessible for you on your hotkey bar, so you can heal them before they die.
4.
What is "clanking"?
A. Cleric + Tank = Clank
WORKS BEST ON BOSS MONSTERS WITH LOADS OF HP
Now, I said clerics couldn't tank, but that's not entirely true. They
can but it's a very risky thing. Use only when absolutely necessary. The idea is, first, tell your party to stand back, and not attack. Head up to the monster, and start attacking it. But more important than attacking it, keep healing yourself as often as possible, i.e every 2.1 seconds, if you've empowered the cooldown on heal, which you should have done. After about 3 heals, your party can start attacking. But that doesn't mean you can stop healing. Keep spamming your heal, and the monster should stick to you, because the monster hates you for healing yourself and not letting it kill you. Gradually, the monster's hate builds up to a point where it hates you so much, it can't hate anyone else.
That was a best case scenario. Now suppose the monster goes of to attack someone else, STOP HEALING YOURSELF! HEal the person the monster is after as often as you can even if they aren't taking too much dmg. The monster should eventually return to you, at which point you should resume healing yourself.
5.
What should be my stat build?
A. The two builds considered totally support builds are
a) Full SPR
b) Full END
In my opinion, full END ranks above full SPR in terms of support builds.
Details: Full SPR : You have a huge SP pool with which you can heal others a lot more before having to use a stone/pot. You also have pathetic HP and DEF, unless you have some good END-statted gears, which makes you mostly suitable for parties.
Full END: A slightly more complex build. Going full END gives you a high block rate, high
er def, and more HP than your non-END companions. What use is this? Well, like in the clanki9ng explanation, the monster hates you even if you heal others. So it'll come after you if you make it hate you too much. If you don't have much END on you, whether from free stats or from equips, you're going to die pretty easily. And a dead cleric can't heal the party.
If you aren't going to be partying all the time, I suggest you pick neither of these builds, and rather go for the classic 25 SPR, 50 END build. The 25 SPR gives you an extremely helpful 5% crit rate boost. But it's effectiveness halves at lvl 25, so it's not really worth upgrading after 25. 50 END gives you a 5% block rate, 250 HP, and 25 def. But the thing about this def is, that it's going to cut out the damage you take by an absolute number that is equal to (your free stat END)/2. So it's useful. Whether you continue END after 50 is up to you, but the effectiveness of the block rate increase halves, so many people start adding STR at this point.
There is a solo build, but this is a party guide. So don't look here for soloing tips.
6.
What should my skill build be?
A. Max decrease cooldown time on heal. Also max decrease it's SP consumption since it's going to be your most used skill.
MANDATORY
Technically, you won't be attacking in a party, so empowering bash isn't necessary. But that's only if you're in a party for your whole life. It's usually recommended to max the dmg of bash, and halve its SP consumption.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
5 points into the duration time of invincible can really save you/a party member. The time increases from 10 sec to 17.5 sec. Keep in mind however, that the max dmg absorbed by invincible remains unchanged, so if a monster can break through that amount of dmg, it's going to break through regardless of the duration time. This empowerment isn't mandatory, but good.
RECOMMENDED
All other empowerments depend on your playing style. If you're a heal slave, then you can reduce cooldown time for rejuvenate which has a high CD of 10 sec, and is reduced to about 7 sec after empowerment.
7.
Other important points:
I. When you're healing a party member who's attacking multiple monster (very common in AOE parties, or parties in which large number of monsters are gathered and killed off), and some of them come at you,
use stones/pots to heal yourself, and continue healing the main tank! This is for two main reasons:
1. Healing yourself is going to fetch you more aggro which is going to make it even more difficult for the tank to get the aggro back.
2. Your first responsibility is towards the party members.
However, if your pots and stones aren't doing enough to keep you alive, then do not hesitate to throw in a heal to keep yourself alive. After all if you live, you can revive them. If you die, they die.
II. If you're a cleric who has a solo build and you solo a lot, atleast try to switch to support mode when you join a KQ. Seriously, your damage is so low, there's no need for you to attack the monster, and keep attacking even when another party member is dying. The ideal cleric will make sure his/her party will never have to use a HP stone/pot.
III. Your weapon of choice is up to you. I use a mace since I don't have any DEX equips, and I keep missing with the hammer. But, when it comes to clanking, the mace is better than the hammer. This is because the mace can land 2 hits within 2.2 sec, while a hammer can land only one. Now, since you're spamming heal i.e every 2.1 sec, you'll be able to slip in that second hit with a mace pretty often just before you heal. And 2 hits with a mace will
always out-damage 1 hit with a hammer. All this adds to the total aggro you have.
IV. Cancelling spell animations (credits to lvramire): Most cleric skills have an animation that is considerably longer than the actual cast time of the skill. So it's advised to use a second skill immediately to prevent animation delay.
V. Yeah this guide sucks, I know, but it's my first guide, and I had to feel like I was doing
something to stop the overflow of non-healing, non-supporting clerics..
Any inputs appreciated, any errors regretted
CREDITS: lvramire, and ME!
Linear Mode
