New Cleric Questions

[taytay1225]

Hey guys and Gals, I just started a Cleric with my brother and Friend. I cant remember the server but its the one without newbie armor. I just wanted to ask is there anything I do besides stand there and be worthless? I am level 5 and so far, I just stand there and do nothing. My spells cost way to much, auto attacks miss and when they do hit they are ass. I can barely solo a yellow mob ( I know they are harder than white ones). It just seems worthless that im standing there doing nothing, armor sucks weapon sucks. So any tips on how to improve this would be amazing!

Ps. Sorry if my spelling sucks at work on phone.

[Raavak]

You basically battle cleric until you are past level 10 or so... melee with the occasional nuke.

[diplo]

go kill some blue mobs. qeynos is a good area...you're going to suck until you can kill some undead and heal yourself.

[taytay1225]

You basically battle cleric until you are past level 10 or so... melee with the occasional nuke.

So I basically tough it out at 10 then I become usefull? Im with a pally and a magician

[M.J.]

If you're playing on a classic like low population server that doesn't have books I'd say you need to completely change your set up. Druid because the boats probably don't work, something other then a mage because if those boats don't work then he's not getting his pet spells from OoT, and a bard or enchanter for mana regen and CC.

Ports / Heal + CC/mana + ???

Or just come play on p99.

[taytay1225]

If you're playing on a classic like low population server that doesn't have books I'd say you need to completely change your set up. Druid because the boats probably don't work, something other then a mage because if those boats don't work then he's not getting his pet spells from OoT, and a bard or enchanter for mana regen and CC.

Ports / Heal + CC/mana + ???

Or just come play on p99.

We are on P99, thats out set up, Like i said i just sit here doing nothing lol

[Aborath]

Didn't want to start a new thread, but I did want to ask:

On live I played a monk, and then a wizard during my first excursion into P99. After a six month break, I'm back, and I've got a cleric who's rolling along nicely. My ultimate goal with this guy is to become an asset in groups and raids. Could any long-time clerics offer tips on being an effective healer/cleric, or point me to a good guide?

[Estu]

Hey guys and Gals, I just started a Cleric with my brother and Friend. I cant remember the server but its the one without newbie armor. I just wanted to ask is there anything I do besides stand there and be worthless? I am level 5 and so far, I just stand there and do nothing. My spells cost way to much, auto attacks miss and when they do hit they are ass. I can barely solo a yellow mob ( I know they are harder than white ones). It just seems worthless that im standing there doing nothing, armor sucks weapon sucks. So any tips on how to improve this would be amazing!

Ps. Sorry if my spelling sucks at work on phone.

Clerics don't really take off until level 8 when you get Meditate, which lets you regain mana a lot faster while sitting. Before then, in a group setting you can melee and heal or you can sit and let mana regen at 2 per tick instead of 1 per tick standing and heal. Once you hit 8, you shouldn't be meleeing anymore - meditate all the time, and use your mana for heals/buffs/lulls/roots and if you have extra mana, nukes. Also, you should never count on being able to solo white or yellow mobs; only very powerful solo classes can handle that.

Didn't want to start a new thread, but I did want to ask:

On live I played a monk, and then a wizard during my first excursion into P99. After a six month break, I'm back, and I've got a cleric who's rolling along nicely. My ultimate goal with this guy is to become an asset in groups and raids. Could any long-time clerics offer tips on being an effective healer/cleric, or point me to a good guide?

First, always be meditating, unless you're doing something important. Nothing more annoying than seeing a caster class trying to melee something or standing for no reason when they could be getting more mana to do much more useful things.

Second, in terms of healing, one way I've found is useful to regulate your mana is to only heal someone if their HP is proportionally less than your MP (e.g. they have 60% HP and you have 65% MP). This way, people get the idea not to go pulling more monsters if they've just finished a battle and are still sitting at 40% HP and not being healed since you're meditating. It lets you get around having to constantly ask for meditate breaks in group chat - people know you're low on mana because they're not being healed. This method also lets you keep mana in reserve for emergencies.

Third, make good use of your crowd control abilities. If you're targeting blue mobs or lower, Lull is a great tool to help your puller get single pulls (and can still be useful to try on higher level mobs, though you should expect it to fail a lot). Root is always useful. In general, your group should only be taking melee damage from one monster at a time; any more and you are going to have to heal more than is necessary, and it will slow down your EXP as a result.

Fourth, use your buffs. The big ones are the Courage line and the Symbol line, which give boosts to max HP - these are good to throw on the tank and anyone else who may be in danger of taking a lot of damage at once (e.g. the puller, the enchanter). The Holy Armor line is also useful. Finally, Divine Intervention is a great tool in an emergency, but be advised that once it wears off monsters will go right back to attacking you unless people have actively done work to take aggro off you.

Fifth, if you are ever full on mana, as in 100%, you're wasting your meditation ticks. Prevent this from happening by nuking when you have spare mana and/or encouraging your puller to pull more often.

Finally, be careful as to when you heal someone. If a puller is bringing in a group of four mobs and you heal him right as he arrives in camp, you can bet that you're going to get targeted by those mobs immediately. If you wait a bit for the mobs to get CCed (and/or help with the CC) before starting on heals, you'll be in a lot better shape, assuming that no one dies before this happens.

[phacemeltar]

the more you attack with weapons, the better your skill will become. you might hit for nothing now, but with a nice one handed weapon you should be able to kill most anything.

[Daldaen]

Finally, Divine Intervention is a great tool in an emergency, but be advised that once it wears off monsters will go right back to attacking you unless people have actively done work to take aggro off you.

Nice stuff here, but quick fix. He means Divine Aura (level 1 spell). That spell will make you invulnerable to all spells and attacks for 18s (at the cost of you not being able to attack or cast). It is a quick 1s cast but a long 10min recast. You should always keep it up for whatever you are doing though.

Divine Intervention (level 60 spell) is a save on death-blow spell that costs 2 Emeralds as reagents. Primarily useful on raids.

[Aborath]

Thanks Estu. I'm still working out how to be more mana efficient. Right now, I'm healing with Center unless the target is losing HP quickly or is down more than 50%. Then it's time to use Heal. I do keep Divine Aura memorized, but I tend to forget about it more often than not :p.

On the topic of Lull: is there any reason to use Soothe over Lull? Since Soothe costs 20 more mana for improved duration. But duration is irrelevant after the pull, right?

[Danth]

Soothe will work better than Lull if the creatures are closely packed.

In general the hardest part of playing a Cleric is maintaining attention. Some folks find group healing dull as a role. If it suits you, it's a fairly straightforward class. As far as most groups care, the difference between a mediocre Cleric and a good one amounts to how busy the Cleric keeps himself when he has mana to spare. Lazy Clerics just sit there and do nothing when their healing isn't needed. Good Clerics help out with rooting, or damage, or whatnot.

Danth

[Estu]

Nice stuff here, but quick fix. He means Divine Aura (level 1 spell). That spell will make you invulnerable to all spells and attacks for 18s (at the cost of you not being able to attack or cast). It is a quick 1s cast but a long 10min recast. You should always keep it up for whatever you are doing though.

Divine Intervention (level 60 spell) is a save on death-blow spell that costs 2 Emeralds as reagents. Primarily useful on raids.

Whoops!

[StinkyGreenBud]

Is waiting to heal the tank when he is only below 50% correct? Was told that on my noob cleric. Or does this only apply to lower levels?

[Danth]

That only really applies to after level 39 and when you're using Complete Heal. Complete Heal always uses 400 mana but how much it heals for depends entirely on how much health the target has when it lands. Hence a Cleric improves his efficiency by waiting as long as possible before casting it. Prior to using Complete Heal, you achieve full efficiency so long as the heal lands for its full value, which will typically only be a small fraction of the target's total health. For example, in the low 20's a non-twink tank might have about 700-800 hit points, while your best heal only heals for 100.

If you want to absolutely min/max, don't quite ever heal the tank to 100% (this doesn't apply to using Complete Heal) so that natural regen (or better, spell regen if available) can continue working.

Most the time the difficulty from playing a Cleric on Project 1999 comes from the Warcraft-like mindset of the modern player base who wants to keep pulling nonstop whether the healer is at full mana, half mana, or entirely out of mana.

Danth