83 replies to this topic

[synesthetic]

8/26 -- I won't be playing anymore, so I won't be able to follow any updates made to any skills or gameplay, or reply to anymore questions in this thread or forum.  If anything significant changes, I hope someone else devoted to the game can make and maintain their own guide.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Everyone loves you. The end.



0. Foreword
I. Acolyte Skills
- - DPS tree
- - Support tree
- - Healing tree
II. Priest Skills
- - DPS tree
- - Support tree
- - Healing tree
III. Stats
- - INT vs. AGI
IV. Gameplay Advice
- - Bug Warnings
- - Basic Skill Usage
- - Leveling
- - Managing Your Threat
- - Movement While Using Skills
- - Lv.50 Gear Progression
- - Colosseum
V. Miscellaneous Information



0. Foreword

This guide provides an in-depth look at how to play a FS Priest.
There is no best build. I've provided a skeleton build with core skills under Gameplay Advice, but you won't find complete builds here. FS Priests are tight on skill points, so there's a fair amount of variation in builds. I encourage you to determine your own to suit your playstyle.

If you choose to be a FS Priest, you will be the strongest healer in the game, and wanted in every party.
Sorcerers (and later, Soul Makers) can also heal, but often can't replace you.

Can you still solo monsters? Yes. You're just slower at it. It's not that bad, but if you find it unbearable, consider going hybrid by sacrificing points to invest in DoTs. Or you can often find someone willing to help kill for you.
Most of your experience will come from quests, so don't worry about needing to grind.


I. Acolyte Skills

You have three skill lines. On the left are DPS skills, on the right are primarily healing skills, and in the middle are supportive abilities that benefit both DPS and healing builds. I'll be referring to these three lines as DPS, Support, and Healing trees.

Note that you don't have to spend all of your skill points before advancing to priest.


DPS tree

• Holy Light
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Damage target by 27 / 30 / 33 / 36 / 39 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Next 3 Holy Lights will automatically crit.
  • Your basic attack skill. Well.. your -only- attack skill, if you're really FS. You automatically start with it at Lv.1; leave it at Lv.1.
• Lex Divina
  • Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
  • Lv 1 - Damage target by 22% of your magic attack.
  • Lv 2 - Damage target by 26% of your magic attack. If target has below 20% health, skill will crit.
  • Lv 3 - Damage target by 30% of your magic attack. If target has below 20% health, skill will crit. If target died to this attack, then regain up to 3 Holy Waters.
  • If you decide to go hybrid to help your leveling some, then leave this at Lv.1. Most of the damage hybrid/DPS priests do come from their DoT skills and Genesis.
• Oratio
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 20 sec duration
  • Damage target by 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
  • Some FS priests decide to spare 2 skill points to get this at Lv.1 to help them level a bit faster. If that makes you feel better, go for it. However, if you change your mind and decide to go hybrid/DPS, then consider maxing it.
• Judex
  • Instant cast, 3 sec cooldown
  • Damage target and 2 nearby enemies by 14 / 17 / 19 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - All targets hit are stunned for 3 sec.
  • If you have it, leave it at Lv.1.

Support tree

• Blessing
  • Instant cast, 3 sec cooldown, 30 min duration
  • Boosts maxHP by 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 % for party members in range.
  • Almost every class has a party buff. This is yours. Highly recommended that you max this skill since some bosses (especially at endgame) do high-damage burst attacks capable of one-shotting some people. If you know that you're going to have good raid groups with other priests who have maxed Blessing, then you can get away with having just Lv.1.
• Increase Agility
  • Instant cast
  • Boosts movement speed by 40% for party members in range for 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 sec.
  • 260 / 240 / 220 / 200 / 180 sec cooldown.
  • Leave it at Lv.1. It's only good for getting by some crowded rooms when you're rushing through a dungeon. Otherwise, outdoors you'll be able to ride a Peco once you're Lv.15 (40% mspd), and people prefer to use Wind Elixirs in dungeons if they really need to run that far (60% mspd for 1 min).
• Resurrection
  • 3 sec cast time
  • Revives target with full health and respawns them at your feet. Usable in combat. 50 / 40 / 30 min cooldown.
  • +Aspersio - Spell is instantly casted.
  • It's recommended that you activate your Guardian before casting this, to further reduce the cooldown as much as possible. I feel it's up to player preference on whether or not they should max this skill. I would imagine that if you know you run raids with exceptionally good players, then Lv.1 may be fine.
• Aqua Benedicta
  • Instant cast, 1 min cooldown
  • Grants you 3 Holy Waters and restores your SP by 15%.
  • Because of this skill, you will eventually never run out of SP no matter how long the fight is. Only two fights I can think of have a chance of directly hurting your SP (50% for one, 100% for the other) so keep SP pots onhand, just in case. Despite this being an instant skill, you're actually locked in about 2-3 seconds of animation. Note that Holy Water does not take up physical space in your inventory. Think of them more as a maximum of 3 charges for you to use Aspersio.
• Aspersio
  • Instant cast, 20 sec duration
  • Makes the next cast of certain skills have an additional effect. 60 / 40 / 20 sec cooldown.
  • Affects Holy Light, Judex, Resurrection, Heal, Highness Heal, Magnus Exorcismus, Ray of Genesis, and Sanctuary.
  • Max this. It is the bacon in your BLT.

Healing tree

• Heal
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Restore target's HP by 30 / 33 / 36 / 40 / 43 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Next 3 Heals will automatically crit.
  • Your basic heal. If used with Aspersio, the total amount done by 3 critical-Heals at Lv.5 would be 258%. It's worth keeping in mind that you can use this skill at a further range than you can use Renovatio.
• Renovatio
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 12 sec duration
  • Restore target's HP by 16 / 29 / 22 % of your magic attack every 2 sec.
  • Total amount healed per level: 96 / 114 / 132 %
  • Max this. This should be your primary healing skill. If someone is hurt, you should always try to have this active on them. If someone is about to get hurt, it's good practice to have this active on them, too. It heals a good amount and it makes your life as a FS priest immensely easier, even if you have a derpy party with four people splitting up and taking their own mobs. And as an instant skill, you can also move while using this, which is important as some boss fights will force you to kite but you still need to heal.
• Meditatio
  • Passive
  • Increases the amount critical heals do by 3.4 / 3.8 / 4.2 / 4.6 / 5.0 times however much Hit Rate you have above 95%.
  • I recommend leaving this at Lv.1.  It's not a bad skill, but unless you're at late endgame, there are clearly better skills you can get.  Through endgame equipment, you can eventually have over 100% hitrate. Let's use 104% for an example on how this skill works. You'd have 9% hitrate to apply to Meditatio, and crits naturally do double (200%) damage/healing. Lv.1 Meditatio would then make your crit-heals do 230.6%. Lv.5 Meditatio would make your crit-heals do 245%. Early endgame, you wouldn't have that much hitrate, and you'll probably have around 2k magic attack, which would make your Heal do ~800 HP normally. With that Meditatio Lv.1 described, your crits would heal 1844 HP. With that Meditatio Lv.5 described, you'd heal 1960 HP. That's a difference of 116 HP, which doesn't mean much compared to the 4-6k HP your average party members will have.
• Highness Heal
  • Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
  • Restores the HP of your target and 2 nearby allies (within ~4.3m) by 44 / 49 / 54 / 59 / 64 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Increases amount healed by 50%, and applies a HoT that does the total amount that was healed over 10 seconds, to all targets.
  • Total amount healed per level w/ Aspersio: 132 / 147 / 162 / 177 / 192 % per target
  • (The ingame description incorrectly says it heals specifically you and two others. If you're targeting someone, it heals that target.) Max this. You should be using this more often than you use Heal. Functionally, Aspersio used with a max HH heals for 96% instantly, and applies a 19.2% HoT for 10 seconds. You can also crit with it, so a Lv.5 HH with Asp would heal a total of 384% per target. Note, I would have said "party members" instead of "allies" if it only hit party members; but this skill can also hit NPCs if they're near your target, which means a party member may be left out.

II. Priest Skills

Priest skill trees continue off from acolyte ones.


DPS tree

• Credo
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 30 sec duration
  • Damage target by 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 14 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
• Adoramus
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown, 20 sec duration
  • Damage target by 10 / 11 / 13 / 14 / 15 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
• Magnus Exorcismus
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Damage up to 10 enemies in target area by 24 / 28 / 32 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Applies Oratio (whatever level you have it at) to all targets hit.
• Ray of Genesis
  • 2 sec cast time, 20 sec cooldown
  • Damage target by 95 / 106 / 117 / 128 / 139 % of your magic attack.

Support tree

• Gloria
  • Passive
  • Holy Light or Heal has a 5 / 10 / 15 % chance of making the next HL or Heal instant.
  • Whether you level this or not is up to your preference.  It may not be reliable at a 15% chance, but you're thankful when it does proc.  Before endgame, I would say it's not as useful since you can usually get by fine with mostly Renovatio and Asp+HH.  But in raids, you will most likely finding yourself using Heal frequently as well.  The difference between having no Gloria and having maxed Gloria by that point is tangible, but the skill is still not a must-max.
• Recovery
  • 1 sec cast time, 10 sec cooldown
  • Removes certain debuffs from up to 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 allies in target area.
  • The skill description may say it removes all negative status effects, but it doesn't. So far, it's only known to work on Immobility, Frozen, Polymorph, and Silence. And if there are more people in range than your skill level can handle, then it's random which targets are hit. Fortunately, most debuffs are short, and by the time you manage to cast this skill, they're probably over already with negligible harm done. But there are some bosses for which this skill could save a person's life.
• Suffragium
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 30 min duration
  • Boosts your Haste Rate by 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 %.
  • Haste Rate reduces cast time by the percent shown. This skill is up to player preference. Almost all of your skills are either instant or 1-sec casttime, and then you have unspoken casting delay from skill animations. I know adamant supporters of the skill, and I know you can do fine without it. I don't use it, but I can see potential to it.
• Angelus
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Boosts Defense of all party/raid members in range by 3 / 6 / 9 %.
  • Note, that's Defense, not Defense Rate, so it's not a direct 9% boost. It's 9% of whatever it is you already have. For the most part, only tanks get any significant defense rate (~50% with good gear), whereas you're paper (~10%). If you have only 10% defense rate, then Angelus will only mitigate less than 1% more damage for those 10 seconds. I would either not get it, or leave this skill at Lv.1 as a pre-req for Archangel. I've seen two people swear this skill is awesome, but I don't know why they think that. If someone can convince me with solid reasoning, please do. In the meantime, if you agree with me, please voice your support for my proposal to have the devs change it to Defense Rate instead of Defense. Njoror himself has stated that they're more likely to pay attention to the more popular proposals. So many fights would be more manageable if this skill actually mitigated a static 9%.
• Archangel
  • Instant cast, 90 sec cooldown, 30 sec duration
  • Increases your magic attack by 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 %.
  • It gives you shiny wings--I know that's enough reason for some people to get it to Lv.1. If you max it though, it's powerful for either burst DPS or healing. And as far as emergency skills go, it has the shortest cooldown.

Healing tree

• Sacrament
  • 4 sec cast time, 3 sec cooldown, toggle ability
  • Increases your healing power by 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 %, decreases your damage dealt by 10%.
  • Gives you an aura that's practically a healer badge. I recommend getting this to Lv.4-5. You can go without it, but your job is a bit easier with it on. I can feel it, some don't. Or if you like the idea of healing as if you have 150-200 more magic power at endgame, then get it.
• Coluceo Heal
  • Instant cast
  • Completely restores target's health. 300 / 270 / 240 / 210 / 180 sec cooldown.
  • Get at least Lv.1 of this. Leveling it higher is up to player preference. I recommend leveling this skill based on how often you find yourself wishing it were available more often.
• Assumptio
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Decreases damage taken by target by 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 %.
  • I highly recommend maxing this. It significantly reduces damage when maxed. Useful when you know a boss is about to hit to player that would normally one-shot them, or if someone is leaking HP like a sponge faster than you can heal, or if you're busy healing someone else who has higher priority.
• Sanctuary
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Heals party/raid members within ~5m of you by 59 / 66 / 73 / 80 / 87 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
  • Total amount healed per level: 295 / 330 / 365 / 400 / 435 %
  • +Aspersio - Buffs targets within AoE with a 15% maxHP boost.
  • (The ingame description incorrectly says this has a 10m-radius.) This skill is channeled; you can't cast anything else while it's going, and moving will cancel the effect. Get this to at least Lv.1 for the maxHP buff for raids. For dungeons (non-raids), if you only have it at Lv.1-2, don't bother using it for healing, because you can heal your party for more using Reno, Asp+HighnessHeal, and Heal over 10 seconds. I would say that it's not effective for healing until it's at least Lv.4. Lv.3 is iffy. But you should make sure your party is willing to run into it for healing. In raids, however, save it for AoEs if the fight requires it; several bosses require the priests and sorcerers to set up a Deluge/Sanc rotation for the HP buff so that the party won't be one-shotted. If the raid boss doesn't require the HP buff, then use it as you see fit.

III. Stats

Spend your points on INT, AGI, and/or VIT.
Please refer to my other thread for details:
http://forums.warppo...stats-guidefaq/

Summarizing that thread with respect to priests specifically,
- VIT is a matter of player preference, get more if you want to be a little safer
- INT will overall give you more output than AGI will, but if crit'ing even the slightest bit more often makes you happy, then by all means prioritize AGI


INT vs. AGI

If you read through the link above, then you should have an idea of how the effectiveness of one point of INT vs. one of AGI changes depending on how much magic power and crit rate you already have. Regardless of breakpoint, however, there is value in going with either build depending on how funded your character will be. This goes beyond your stat points from leveling.

Pro-INT: Priests only get around 2k magic power, their HoTs and DoTs don't crit, and then you can force-crit Heal with Aspersio. So point for point, INT would give you a stronger output.

Pro-AGI: If your Aspersios are all used up on HH, then you can shoot for crit'ing with Heal. But I think the bigger beauty of having an AGI build is that Highness Heal can crit.
Asp+HH already more than doubles the healing value of HH, and then crit'ing that doubles -that- total amount. Whether you're using it for the direct heal or the HoT part of the spell, that's delicious.

The downside though is that priests don't naturally get a lot of crit rate (around 10%), so getting a decently high crit rate of around 40% involves cards, enhanced runes, slotted costumes, buffs, etc. to get an extra 350+ AGI (a little less if you have access to foods and buff that directly give crit). If you went with pure AGI from your levels' stat points, then it'd be 300+ instead.

But if you could get 300+ INT, then that's an additional 600 magic power.

But crits are fun.
Both builds are viable. It's a matter of playstyle preference again.


IV. Gameplay Advice

Your core healing skills are all from the Acolyte section. It's more than possible to level all the way to 50 as just an Acolyte. Priest skills just make it easier for you by either strengthening what you could already do, or handle emergencies better.

Here's a skeleton build to start out with:
http://ro2base.com/b...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0

From there, depending on your personal preference, you can figure out how much you want to focus on Suffragium, Archangel, Sacrament, Coluceo, Assumptio, and Sanctuary.


Bug Warnings

If you like using Alt-hotkeys, be aware of where your mouse cursor is. If your cursor is on top of any windows (Skill, Quest, Chat, Quest Tracker, the HUD in general, etc.), then Alt-hotkeys will be "sticky". They can work, but you'll most likely have to remash both keys a couple of times for them to register.

If you like to target party members by clicking on their HP bars, then get used to rotating your camera so that no monsters/players/NPCs are behind the bars. If something targetable is behind the bar of the person you're trying to click on, then you'll end up targeting that thing instead.

"Asp+HolyLight sometimes doesn't crit" -- this is NOT a bug. Critical hits can be blocked. If you watch carefully when it happens, you should be able to see a faint shield appear behind the damage number, and the damage should be the same amount your regular HLs do. Crits double damage, Blocking halves damage, so the net result is normal damage.


Basic Skill Usage

When you're just starting out, get at least Lv.1 Renovatio immediately. It is your primary healing skill from beginning to end. Work towards getting Lv.3 Aspersio as your second priority, and then max Highness Heal after that.
These three skills are pretty much all you need to support your party in any regular dungeon. With the occasional Heal if those aren't enough.

Use Renovatio on the tank or puller and anyone else who needs it, and then follow up with Asp+HH or Heal as necessary. Once you're more familiar with some fights, you may want to pre-emptively cast it on targets at risk to make your life easier.

Try to always use Aspersio and Aqua Benedicta whenever they're off cooldown. Asp+HH heals a lot instantly and stacks an HoT on multiple targets. Having Reno and Asp+HH is generally enough to keep everyone's HP topped off. If it's not, then casting Heal on top of those HoTs should be enough.


Leveling

For the easiest time, get someone to kill stuff for you.
Do all of the quests available to you.
Do all of the kharas that give you experience. (Press O to open the khara window.)
Do daily quests if you can. (Available starting in South Plains.)
Buy scrolls within your level range from Monster Buster NPCs and use them as you do your other quests. (Available starting in South Plains.)

It sounds strict to have to do everything, but it's fairly important, because quests are the primary source of experience in the game, you're the worst class at plain grinding, and the higher you are in level over your target, the better your Hit Rate is against them (making it much easier for you to kill stuff). If you're even one level below your target, then your Hit Rate will already feel pretty bad, slowing your leveling down even further.

Monster Busters aren't always necessary, but if you can afford them, they help to keep your level ahead.
To complete a Monster Buster, you don't have to kill all of the targets listed. You just need to kill one of them.
For example, say that it lists kill requirements for Plains Flips x10, Red Plains Flips x10, and Breezy Flips x10.
Just killing 10 Breezy Flips will complete the quest.

By the time you get into Verta Delta (Lv.4x), I recommend getting help even if you're the type who likes to solo.
By the time you get into Sogratt Desert after that, I HIGHLY recommend getting help because the quests there are asinine. You may want to stop doing Monster Busters by this point too, because they start costing about 5z each.

You'll probably hit Lv.50 sometime in Sogratt Desert or Road of Blessings. Once you reach that point, you can choose to ignore the rest of your quests and start working on endgame.


Managing Your Threat

The average tank can handle a mob size of about 3 or 4 before they start taking too much damage for you to keep up. If you're fortunate enough to be in a party with a very good beefy tank, you may see mobs of 6+. (Fastest party I've had would pull ~10+.) If you're not careful, however, all of the mobs may target you early on, and whether you survive or not, this warns the party to go slower.

Optimize your survival like so: use only Renovatio on the tank until he's done mobbing and starts to AoE. After he AoEs, then you're free to use other skills like Highness Heal.
If you use Heal or Highness Heal before that point, the entire mob will go to you instead.

The reason why this works is explained by Ryouichi's breakdown of threat gain here.
Essentially, if a tank is pulling (without doing damage), he automatically has 3 Threat generated on every monster he's aggroed. If he doesn't AoE, then you'd need to generate 4 Threat to pull a monster off of him.
Using Renovatio generates only 1 Threat, and the HoT ticks from it generate 0 threat. (This is also true of Sanctuary.)
Using Heal or Highness Heal will generate as much Threat as the amount healed.
Other skills like Aspersio and Assumptio should only generate 1 Threat, so those are also fairly safe to use during the pull.

If a monster is still attacking you even though it looks like the tank should have its attention already, try moving around a bit. Sometimes, a monster will be bugged into staying on a target until then.


Moving While Using Skills

 

I guess the developers finally decided this sort of thing was a bad bug, and fixed it with the patch that brought in WoE.

You can still use Renovatio and Aspersio while running, at least.

For the most part, you can move while using instant skills--Renovatio, Aspersio, Highness Heal, etc. You -will- need to kite while healing for some fights.

An odd exception to Instant skills is Aqua Benedicta. It's "instant", but you're locked into about 2-3 seconds of casting animation and delay, so normally you can't move while using it. You can probably manage without this, but there is a way to move still. Auto-run + hold down the Right mouse button. If you do that before casting, you'll keep on running as long as you're still holding down the mouse button. It still works if you do it in the middle of the animation.

This does not work for Sanctuary, unfortunately. Moving before casting gives you a warning saying you can't move while using the skill. Moving after activating the skill cancels it prematurely, but moving normally already did that.

You'll probably want to change your key setup for auto-run anyway, out of convenience.
Esc > Shortcut Key
Click on "Custom Options" to make it so you can use your own preferences.
I have auto-run set to F, personally. It warns me that that conflicts with an existing shortcut, but it's irrelevant. I've only seen F used for stuff like Rogue and Sorc skill procs, and they should have the relevant skills they need hotkeyed anyway.
(Be wary of one thing though. After you log out completely for the first time after setting custom keys, your Friendlist will be unbound. Just go back into Custom Options and put your Friendlist back on U. The problem won't happen again after that.)


Lv.50 Gear Progression

Once you're Lv.50, you are eligible to attempt raids, but most people won't want you yet because you don't have enough HP. The closer you are to having 5k HP unbuffed (no Blessing), the better. So work on your gear to reach that point.

Goblin Leader
First thing you should do is join a weapon-hunting party for a Lv.50 red khara boss. Goblin Leader parties are fairly common, but all of them drop the same things. GL is easy (just "tank and spank"), so your party may find competition from other parties. If it's too much, then consider hunting Wanderer instead. If Wanderer casts a tornado on you, then run away from it immediately, or else you'll be turned in a cute (but useless) dog. The range of the tornado is deceptively large though, so give it some extra space.

STCs
After you get your weapon, I recommend getting 5x Scratch Thief Cards, which are dropped by Looters in Road of Blessings. STCs give 17 VIT and 6 to all other stats.
If you're willing to farm for them yourself, despite all of the competition, go for it. But expect it to take a long time.
If you know someone who'd be willing to help you farm them, that'd be great.
Otherwise, be ready to buy them.

RHDs
Whether you managed to get STCs yet or not, look for Random Hard Dungeon (RHD) parties so you can start getting blue gear. Boss strategies in RHDs are the same as in the normal versions you went through before.
Ideally, you want to collect a full set of RHD armor--the closer the better. Even the weapon is slightly better than the GL weapon you just got, but GL is good enough.

If you want to make your own RHD party, then find a tank and three DPS members.
Open the Find Party window (N), click on the middle tab, select "Random Dungeon (Hard)" from the drop-down box so that you see a blue chest (OBB) listed as a possible reward, and click on the Find Dungeon button at the bottom.

Everyone will be asked to indicate their party role. If there are multiple tanks or healers in the party, then they need to decide which one checks the tank or healer role while the others choose DPS. You can do whatever you want once you're inside the dungeon.

Raids
By now, hopefully you have close to 5k HP unbuffed. Now you can start raiding without getting one-shotted (as much) and get some epic gear!

"Garden of Baphomet" and "PVE Arena" drop the first tier of epics. If you want a full set, you need to do both.
Later we'll have "Culvert of Abyss" (second tier) and "Abaddon of Despair" (third tier).
If you're curious how you'd look, check here.

I don't have strategies to give for bosses yet because my memory is terrible. I just do as I'm told by my competent raid leaders and act on memory once I see what's going on. After I've had more experience, I'll include a section on it, if no one else has made a comprehensive one already.

Crafted Gear
An alternative to raid gear would be crafted gear (and Colosseum gear, which I'll describe later).

Crafted gear is expensive. Some of the ingredients to craft them are rare drops which you've been getting from RHDs and OBBs. The recipes to make each piece of equipment is even rarer, so Artisans and Blacksmiths who have them can afford to charge a premium for their services.

Crafted sets differ from others in that instead of giving Hit/Haste/Vigor (or Dodge/Parry for tanks), they'll only give Hit/Haste or Hit/Vigor, depending on what class the armor is for. Priests get Hit/Haste--same amount of Hit as other sets, but more Haste to compensate for the lack of Vigor.

As with the raid epic sets, crafted sets come in tiers. I don't know if all of the recipes for each tier will actually drop here, but we currently have Desperate Apostle (tier 1) and Darkness Valkyrie (tier 2).

A full set of Desperate Apostle would give 21% Haste Rate.
A full set of Darkness Valkyrie would give 23% Haste Rate.
The highest set I know of, Hell's Valkyrie, would give 30% Haste Rate. But that won't be available for a long time from now.

It's up to you whether you think that added Haste Rate suits your playstyle more to justify the lack of Vigor and the high cost. Or maybe you have a situational use for it.


Colosseum

This is a battle royale form of PVP, where you're pitted against 29 other players and some monsters, and dealing the finishing blow on someone earns you points. Entry is available twice per day at 1pm and 6pm PST. When it's open, an icon for it will appear above the Kafra Shop icon in the lower-right of your screen; click on it to enter.

Players of any level can enter. Stats are roughly equalized so that everyone is "Lv.50", but you only have access to the skills that you leveled. So lower-leveled players are still at a disadvantage.

You may think that you don't like PVP, or that you can't PVP as a FS priest. But you can do a fair amount in there, and the epic equipment you can get in exchange for Blood Points is very worth it right now. Colo equipment is on par with Culvert of Abyss gear, which we don't even have yet.

If this is of interest to you, then check the option to let you Tab-target onto Non-Party members, and read on.

Game Settings > Control > Switch Target > Non-PT

You may also want to have all HP bars displayed, so you can see monsters' health.

Game Settings > Display > Mini HP Bar > All

Basic System
There's a total of five, timed rounds in Colosseum. You get Blood Points if you successfully advance to higher rounds. Your rank needs to be higher than some threshold to advance.

Your current rank is indicated by the number next to the trophy in the HUD. The top 5 players will additionally have their rank displayed above their heads.

You increase your ranking by dealing the finishing blow on players or monsters. Players are worth much more though, whereas it would take several monsters to increase your rank once. Dying may decrease your ranking.
Round 1 - top 24 advance (3290 BP earned even with 0 kills and not advancing)
Round 2 - top 18 advance (7720 BP earned)
Round 3 - top 12 advance (10265k BP earned)
Round 4 - top 6 advance (12810k BP earned)
Round 5 - #1 is declared Champion (15355k BP earned)
So a Champion would have won a total of about 49440k BP, and then a little bonus for each kill made.

Hybrid priests can become Champions. FS priests... very difficult. But you can reach R3-4 often enough. It may be difficult for you to kill people, but it's extremely difficult for other people to kill you, so most will leave you alone because you'd take too long to die 1-on-1.

"Strategy"
If you want to heal yourself, you need to be targeting either a monster or yourself. So be ready to hit Esc or F1 to untarget players.

Be a shark, running in circles, tabbing on everyone until you see someone badly hurt. Then move in for the kill with Holy Light. Asp+HL greatly improves your chances of being the one to get that finishing blow.

If you're not casting HL or Heal, then you can always be on the run. Reno, Asp, HH, Assumptio, Coluceo, and Aqua Benedicta can all be done while running.
I hear that having maxed Sanc is fun here.

Every so often, waves of monsters will spawn. Getting the finishing blow on them also helps you, so if you see some nearing death, try to snipe them, too. By R3-4, getting player kills may start getting difficult in your instance of Colo, so you may have to go out of your way to kill only monsters instead.

You'll also see 1-HP Novelty Porings spawn. Don't bother with them. They're there to give random buffs/debuffs to players, and only 1 out of the 6 results is really useful to you.
Among the debuffs are Stun, Snare, and Silence.
Among the buffs are 100k HP healing, 200% damage bonus, and 50% Defense Rate buff. The healing is pretty useless to you since you should generally be at full health already. The damage bonus supposedly only applies to physical skills. The Defense Rate buff is the most useful to you here, but most people don't want to waste time on you anyway.

Gear
Over at the Prontera Knightage (that building across the street from the church) you can spend your BP.

I recommend getting the mace, or the "Honor Knightage Magic" line of accessories.
As stated earlier, the gear here is on par with--or better than--that from the Culvert of Abyss-Hard, which we don't have yet. So the weapon would be a big boost for you.
The armor would be too, but the bonus stats on them are PVP-oriented instead of giving set bonuses. So I would give these lower priority.

I prefer the accessories over the mace though. They're cheap, they're catered to magic users, and there isn't much need to replace them even when Abaddon of Despair comes out.
For example, the best accessory you can get from Baph/Arena is a necklace that gives STR/INT/WIS. Roughly 12-13 INT.
The Honor Knightage Magic Necklace gives INT/AGI/WIS. 40 INT.


V. Miscellaneous Info

Four skills are related to hidden Kharas: Resurrection, Magnus, Genesis, and Archangel. Each one has their own Khara, I believe. Using the skills enough grants you weak titles.

You cannot healbomb like you could in RO1.

Your DoTs and HoTs do not crit.

Edited by synesthetic, 26 August 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[synesthetic]

The server isn't open yet, but the people at Roguard extracted the skill descriptions from the iRO2 client files (except for the Noel classes at the bottom; which are currently translated from kRO2).

1) Resurrection cooldown is 50/40/30 minutes as it is in seaRO2.
2) Highness Heal hits a total of 3 targets instead of 5, as it is in seaRO2.

I also fixed the numbers I had listed for Adoramus.

[Fold]

The server isn't open yet, but the people at Roguard extracted the skill descriptions from the iRO2 client files (except for the Noel classes at the bottom; which are currently translated from kRO2).

1) Resurrection cooldown is 50/40/30 minutes as it is in seaRO2.
2) Highness Heal hits a total of 3 targets instead of 5, as it is in seaRO2.

I also fixed the numbers I had listed for Adoramus.

What a shame :\

[saizo]

I truly hope Sact has a radius of 10m. In SeaRo it was what.....4m? make that shizz useless

[Lucentos]

http://ro2base.com/b...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0 - my WoE Support Priest skillbuild.

What a shame :\

This is made to increase the sales of Kafrashop ressurection items and Gear Refinement items as well.

BTW all game balance in F2P games is the subject of monetization - the better your gears upgraded and boosts used - the better chance to successful run of dungeon or defeat your PvP adversary.

Edited by Lucentos, 18 April 2013 - 12:53 PM.

[Fold]

I honestly get that. They're trying to make a profit off of it. But it doesn't make sense how it only applies to SEARO2 and iRO2.

[Lucentos]

I honestly get that. They're trying to make a profit off of it. But it doesn't make sense how it only applies to SEARO2 and iRO2.

I have more concerns about a price of gear refinement to moderate competitive PvE level. Will it require 100-200 bucks for this or will it require 1000-2000 bucks?

[ExeltusPendragon]

I honestly get that. They're trying to make a profit off of it. But it doesn't make sense how it only applies to SEARO2 and iRO2.

This. People are more inclined to spend when its a non-mandatory purchase. Nerfing/buffing certain aspects of the game, which are severly changed from the original version, to push and borderline force cash shop purchases on players is one way to quickly cause riots (as seen on seaRO2).

I am all for a cash shop, and am more than ready to contribute to it regularly but they're going about it the wrong way. I don't understand after all the flak that Asiasoft caught for their changes why WP would follow suit. I can only hope/assume that those things are here due to WP using a modded version of the seaRO2 client for this short beta.

[synesthetic]

Alt hotkeys aren't "sticky" anymore (how was something so basic wrong at Asiasoft?), so removing that random bit of advice.

Added in a section about movement during skill usage. There's actually a way to move while using Aqua Benedicta. Probably applies to other animation-locked skills, too, as long as there's no warning saying you can't move while using the skill.
Doesn't work for Sanctuary though. Trying to move before skill usage, you're warned you can't move. Try moving after starting the skill, the skill is prematurely canceled (which admittedly has its own value). Too bad. Would've been funny to see.


edit : Alt-hotkeys are still "sticky". Apparently, it has to do with the positioning of your mouse cursor. Having your mouse cursor on top of pretty much any window or the HUD makes Alt-hotkeys less responsive.

Edited by synesthetic, 19 April 2013 - 09:17 AM.

[leperkhaun]

thanks for this guide, its been a ton of help.

[Olga85]

2) Highness Heal hits a total of 3 targets instead of 5, as it is in seaRO2.

Are u sure it's 5 in sea?) mine says it's 3 and always did...

[Olga85]

I truly hope Sact has a radius of 10m. In SeaRo it was what.....4m? make that shizz useless

it was 10m on sea, but not radius like they say, it's diameter of a circle centered on your position) so we got like 5m to both sides

[synesthetic]

Are u sure it's 5 in sea?) mine says it's 3 and always did...

Poor grammar. I didn't mean for it to sound like it hits 5 in sea. It supposedly hit 5 in kRO2, and I meant to say it hits 3 the way it does in seaRO2.
I thought I got rid of every mention of seaRO2 already. Woops.

edit : Oh, I did.

Edited by synesthetic, 21 April 2013 - 12:16 PM.

[synesthetic]

Previously, I noted that when a tank is mobbing, it's only safe for you to be healing using Renovatio until the tank AoEs.
Ryouichi's breakdown of threat gain here explains why it works that way.

In case you don't want search through the length of my main post for it, I'm quoting myself here:

Essentially, if a tank is pulling (without doing damage), he automatically has 3 Threat generated on every monster he's aggroed. If he doesn't AoE, then you'd need to generate 4 Threat to pull a monster off of him.
Using Renovatio generates only 1 Threat, and the HoT ticks from it generate 0 threat.
Using Heal or Highness Heal will generate as much Threat as the amount healed. (I suspect this applies to Sanctuary as well, even though it's an HoT.)
Other skills like Aspersio and Assumptio should only generate 1 Threat, so those are also fairly safe to use during the pull.

I also forgot to note a bug that we may still have by the time the game launches. Setting a custom key will make it so that when you log out, your Friendlist will be unbound. This only happens the first time though. So just customize your Friendlist back to U, and you won't see the problem again (for that character).

[Fold]

Sanctuary doesn't generate threat, it works like Reno

[synesthetic]

Thank you for that confirmation. Edited, and I now have more reason to resent my first Merem party.

I've also added a subsection going more into how a pure INT build would compare to an AGI build, or why an AGI build would be appealing, since I've noticed people in several places either asking what's the point in getting AGI, or supporting AGI for no reason whatsoever.

[Renah]

Bless this thread. ^^
I used the auto-run+Aqua, and it totally had me still running. So cool!
xoxo

[Jargous]

Just to make note, Sanctuary is not a 5m radius, it's 4.5m. Tested previous and sent in SS to report the issue. You'll know the range of sanctuary in tests because it auto initiates "battle" on players.

[synesthetic]

The wall of text got even bigger!
I'm sorry for that; it's terrible for readability. (But there's still more I want to add eventually, too!)


I edited my opinions on several skills (same overall opinions, but either slightly clearer or more informative).

Added three sections to Gameplay Advice: Leveling, Lv.50 Gear Progression, and Colosseum.

[Qpax]

So are you saying that getting 5x STC cards ise more useful for your character than trying to get Poisona cards? I have completed all of RHD sets (Heart set) and I also have 2 Desperate Apostatle epic gear on me too. I put rune stones which gives +5 health to my character. So there are roughly 9 rune slots on them and it means 5x9=45 vit. So I recommend people at least use 2x Poisona card and 3x STC card which give you good stat boots in int/agi and /vit sense. And as for your rune holes please don't put any int or agi related stones in them. In my opinion it's a bit useless. Having more hp banuses with HEALTH stones is much more plausible than pumping your character with int stones. Anyways I still haven't been in PvE and Bapho Arena yet. Only attempted to join PvE Normal party but though we were 10 people we horribily failed to kill one robo-like monster so I ragequited and never been in these places before. I guess I'll start to go these place again.

Also I want to get that Necklace from making Colo points. But the problem is people are so stupid. So stupid to the point that sometimes 3-4 people gets together and tries to kill you together even though they waste time for the sake of getting eleminated from Colo. I always make it to the 3rd round but I always eleminated at this point. Seriously playing with FS priest at Colo is so sucks. You gotta pray and be paired with in experienced players so that you might be Champion of that round. And also the points you get from reaching round 2-3's are also low. I still have 42k Colo points lol and I heard that necklace costs around 160 point. It will take so while to reach to that point. *sighs* ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

I also wanted to ask this before so is +1'ing (enchanching) your equipments is plausible thing to do? I have never upgraded my weapons or gears before so after hitting lvl 50 is it necessary to upgrade your items at least to +4? Also when your items start to break? Like after +4 just like in the first game? Thanks for the answers in advance.

[synesthetic]

So are you saying that getting 5x STC cards ise more useful for your character than trying to get Poisona cards?

Personally, I feel that STCs are more useful than Poisonas if you're still trying to prepare yourself for raids. But I am biased in favor of VIT.

The difference between have 5 STCs and 5 Poisonas is about 210 HP, which is pretty big. The difference between 5 STCs and your 3STC/2P example is 84 HP, which is still significant, cumulatively. As much as I want to boost my matk higher, I'd rather have 84 HP than the 24 matk and 1% Crit Rate from slotting in two Poisonas.

Being a main healer, it's especially important to the party that you don't die, so having a buffer over that approximate 5k HP minimum is useful. I currently have about 6.4k HP, and I finally feel secure in PvE-Hard. I'll still die once in a while to crits, and that can't be helped. But I survive a lot more often when flukes happen, like if an AoE hits its upper damage range, killing DPS members in the 5k HP range.
And having a larger HP buffer also means that even if you are hurt, it's less likely to be crucial for you to heal yourself immediately, which saves you time. So you may be able to just pop a quick Reno on yourself and go back to healing the tanks.

But that's PvE-H, where massive AoEs are unavoidable and Sanc/Deluge rotations are important.
If I only wanted to do Baph-H, I could've swapped to Poisona cards long ago (if I could afford them).

I still stand by my statement that VIT is a matter of preference. If you're comfortable with your HP, or maybe your raiding party situation is lenient and there are members who can carry you through Normal modes, then getting STCs over Poisonas may not be so necessary. But for the average player who's not funded and has to rely on uncertain PUGs, I'd say the STCs are safer.

Seriously playing with FS priest at Colo is so sucks.

It does! But I also find it a lot of fun.
Whenever I reach Round 5, I just goof off, because I don't feel that trying to stay rank 1 is worth my effort. If I try, I'll hold rank 1 for all of about 3-5 seconds before everyone gangs up on me. And then I can't get it back.

I also wanted to ask this before so is +1'ing (enchanching) your equipments is plausible thing to do? I have never upgraded my weapons or gears before so after hitting lvl 50 is it necessary to upgrade your items at least to +4? Also when your items start to break? Like after +4 just like in the first game? Thanks for the answers in advance.

There is no safe limit to upgrading. You can fail in trying to reach +1. For blues, failure drops the refinement level to 0; but for epics, failure may destroy the gear entirely.

Upgrading weapons requires Oridecon, like before, and each + boosts the weapon's matk by 3%.
Upgrading armor requires Elunium, and each + boosts the armor piece's defense by 1%.
Max refinement level is +10 again.

It's not necessary to upgrade your equipment at all. But if you want to heal for a bit more, upgrade your weapon. And if it's an epic weapon, then always use Karnium with each attempt unless you have an extra epic weapon, and can thus afford to risk breaking one..

[Qpax]

Oohh I see. Thanks for the answers o/

[Atweig]

Thank you for this guide, it helped a lot.

Could you please give your own opinion on Archangel? Seems like a powerful skill. However I've read tons of posts, and people often say "Oh, it's a great skill! But I never use it". You'd think that if Archangel was that good, he'd be used quite a bit? I'm baffled!

[synesthetic]

It's all about preference. I love Archangel, but I can understand why a lot of people wouldn't go for it. Like how max Sanctuary is great too, but because we're so tight on points, it's a common choice to leave it at Lv.1.

Archangel is essentially another emergency skill you can add to your toolbox, and has the fastest cooldown, but highest skill point investment since the skills leading up to it aren't "required" the way Sanc Lv.1 is. And it has the least immediate impact. Coluceo, Assumptio, Sanctuary--all of them in the healing skill tree have very noticeable benefits the moment you use them, and are good when targets are critically low in health. Archangel is better used when you notice things are starting to slip out of control, or if you know tougher times are ahead.

At lower levels, the 25% matk bonus from a max Archangel isn't as noticeable. As you get closer to endgame though, you get better gear, and thus more matk to really see the difference. A new Lv.50 priest can have around 1.5k matk, giving them a Renovatio of around 330. Popping Archangel will boost that by ~82.

While raiding, if I see/hear the other priest pop their Archangel, I try to hold off on overwriting any Reno or Asp+HH HoT and focus on Heal-spamming to top people off, since I don't want to cover up a ~600/tick HoT with a 450 one. Healing is significantly easier during the 30-42 seconds you see its effects.
I'll pop my own Archangel if I notice damage is starting to exceed how much we're healing (like maybe adds were spawned), or if I know the other priest isn't in a position to heal as much. Like maybe they have to run, or maybe they can't afford to use their Aspersio freely since they need it on standby for Asp+Sanc.

Archangel is not essential to have, but it's a handy tool if you're comfortable with using it.

[Aleate]

Hey guys, I have a quick question!

Assuming I ever get a set of RHD equipment, should I put runes in them or hope I get even better equips to put runes in?

Edit: Got another question. So I spoke to another Priest who allocated his bonus points in AGI/VIT (no INT). Is this a good idea?

Thanks =)

Edited by Aleate, 24 May 2013 - 08:27 PM.