Well, that wasn’t going to be the title, but space limitations are the death of us all. The title was going to be…”Being A Cleric: A Guide For The Starting Healer”. Anyway, aside from that, some people have come to question me about making a Cleric Guide and me, being at level 50, should know something, right? Don’t answer that, for it is rhetorical.

Anyway, once you finally make it to level 30, go back to the hometown of mages and slightly cheaper Mana Elixers, Ellinia. Head to the very same place that you headed to at level 8 (here’s a tip: It’s at the top.) and talk to our old bearded friend, who is happy to see that you’ve grown quite a bit. He’ll then hand you a letter and tell you to find the 2nd job advancement guy. At this point, you might want to exit, drop down and stock up on some supplies; mostly White Pots and a few Mana Elixers. Then, head back up and go through the northern exit of Ellinia and continue along the path. Then, make your way up to the top, where you’ll see a guy sitting on a tree. Talk to him, in which he’ll steal you letter and you are now in the ‘Zone’, a place rampant with Curse Eyes and such. At this point, these monsters should be nothing before you, so just take them down and take the Dark Marble from their rapidly dead faded corpses. Once you get 30 of these marbles, leave out and hand them to the guy.

He’ll be so glad that you helped him collect his Marbles that he’ll give you a shiny gold medal. Shrug off that feeling of being patronized for now and head back to town to talk with our first job teacher who just floats there. He’ll then tell you to make a choice, and, for the sake of fairness, I have to talk about the other two classes.

Fire/Poison Wizard – These guys use the power of Fire and Poison…who am I kidding, it’s just fire. Or maybe it is Poison too, but I wouldn’t know. They also get Meditate, and Slow, just like their elemental rivals, Ice/Lightning Wizards. If you want the pure power of all-consuming flame, take this class.

Ice/Lightning Wizard – These mages have the power to freeze enemies with Ice and cook crabs with Lightniing. Good combo indeed. Like their Fire/Poison counterparts, they also come with Meditate and Slow, but since you can freeze pretty much every monster with the exception of bosses and maybe a few others, but still. If you want balance and a multi-hit skill, take this one.

Cleric – Ah yes, the core of the guide. If you chose one of the two before this one, you sir, are a fool. Clearly, if you read this far, then this is your choice: The lack of damage dealing, but just as cool, Cleric. As a Cleric, ultimately, you’ll eliminate the need for HP potions, but you still carry some. You also get a cool attack, which is debated upon to this day, and a skill to give everyone in the party 20 accuracy, which is also debated upon to this day. Aside from Invincible (which takes 30% off of physical damage when maxed) and Heal itself (300% HP restoration when maxed), and MP Eater (insert factual statistic here that has something to do with being maxed) most Cleric skills are debated upon to this day.

*ahem* Aside from that, make the obvious choice of Cleric and let’s get started!

Now, when you get that first shiny point, put it into MP Eater. It’ll help with the training and ultimately save money in the long run.

So, after that, let me show you some numbers, which is what the skill point distribution should look like:

31-35 Heal

With a half-maxed Heal, you can try your hand at Jr. Wraiths or Zombie Mushrooms. Heal at 15 is enough for you to restore your lost HP, but it will be a few casts before you restore your parties’ HP, if you choose to be in a party. At this point, at the wonderful level 35, the Ludibrium PQ (Party Quest) is open to you. What makes it so different from the Kerning PQ? For one, it’s at an incredible 8 stages and you fight a level 56 monster named Alishar, which looks like a fish that summons Platoon Chronos (gray that fights back) and Master Chronos (gray with a purple jester that also fights back). At this point, I wouldn’t bother with that just yet, that’ll come later.

36-40 Save SP and at 40, max Heal. Why save points, you may be wondering. Well for one, do you really want to pay 2x more MP for a skill that isn’t at its full potential?

Well, after all of that, here’s where it gets tricky: Like Warriors, Clerics themselves have three sub-divisions: Solo, Party and Hybrid. Let’s go over each one briefly:

[b[Solo -[/b] This is what I am, the Solo Cleric. A solo Cleric maxes everything on the list with the exception of Bless. If you gain more from individual effort than partying, this could very well be for you. Also, by maxing Holy Arrow right after heal, you can take down more diverse monsters, although a certain person from [Basilmarket] might feel inclined to disagree. Then again, 8 out of 10 people feel inclined to disagree, but if you see one and they call you a n00b, just keep walking. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll end up helping that same person down the road somewhere or something like that.

Party – This is the more common path taken among most Clerics today. This particular path involves maxing everything except Holy Arrow, which is left at 11. As the name implies, most of your journeys will come through the enslavement of Warriors with Bless. You’ll be getting some of that low-DEX pie, if you will. The main hinderance is that by taking this path, you’ll largely depend on parties later on. Countless people say that this is the case and I would rant about it, but this is a guide, not a rant box (yet).

Hybrid – Now, whoever first thought of this is pretty smart. Instead of hearing complaints about whether to max Holy Arrow or Bless, they decided to find the middle. This experimental path involves you maxing all the other skills, except MP Eater or Teleport, which stays at a lowly 1. What a lonely number indeed. Since this gives the Cleric a lot to work with, it’s like having a cake and eating it too.

With a maxed Heal at your disposal, feel free to try and take on Zombie Lupins although you may miss sometimes, so instead, why not regular Chronos if the misses get to you? They’re small, don’t fight back, and give 82 experience points, which is less than Zombie Lupins’ 90 experience points, but still good at the early 4x’s. You could also hunt for a Mystic Shield, which will make you look cool. It’s like a Panlid, but with Magic Defense and an INT bonus. They give out Gold ores here and there and also, you can collect the Cogs, which sell for 34 mesos a piece, so 34 x 200 = 6800, which adds up to a lot over time.

So basically, from 40 on up, if you want to either be Solo or Party, work on maxing MP Eater. If you want to be Hybrid, start working on Invincible, if you want Bless as soon as possible or Holy Arrow, if you want to go solo and diversify your training a bit.

Once you finally hit 50, things become awesome. A new hat, which is just awesome. Well, it’s not really a hat, but more like a Circlet. At 50, Zombie Lupins are cake. You can kill them all, get the dolls and sell them on Basilmarket for quite a bit of money. On the other hand, there are Wraiths, which give better experience and drop the ever popular Red Whip, which gives a decent speed boost.

While we’re at it and before I continue, I’d like to state the basic laws that Clerics should follow.

1. A Cleric, while selfless, is to place saving oneself at the highest priority.
2. When partied, it is important to save others, unless it conflicts with the first law.
3. When not partied, and someone comes to you asking for a heal, make a judgement call. 20% of the time, it’s worth it.

See, three basic laws. And NO, it’s not like that Asimov guy’s law.

Training at mid-5x and higher –

Yeah, I’m gonna be working on that.