Aika Online Cleric Guide

Aika Online Cleric Guide by frznvimes

“ I was originally planning to make this a guide for new players which focused on how different powers are more or less useful as a cleric progresses through the game. In trying to write about the various uses for each power I realized I would also need to describe the associated tactics, which is why this ended up being so long. Anyway, I hope new and experienced players will find this guide useful. If nothing else, I’ve got a neat quote for each section. I think the screenshot’s pretty good too. =D

“ Because there are so many threads about cleric builds floating around on the forums I have purposefully avoided putting any in this guide. I would like to request that others do the same and not use this thread to request reviews of their build or to ask others to give them a build. The reason for this is simply to promote people to ask specific questions and give answers that will be useful to as many people as possible. However, do feel free to post them if it’ll help you pose/answer a question.
“ Please do use this thread to pose and answer questions, share tactics and strategies, and point out places where you disagree with this guide. Try to be as specific, informative, and courteous as possible when posting.

“ Be advised that I stopped playing Aika shortly after the level cap was raised to 60, and this guide is no longer being maintained. If/when the game changes enough to warrant rewriting this guide, and someone feels up to the task, please feel free to borrow from this as you see fit (a nod of acknowledgment would be nice though ). I wish all you future clerics good luck and all your prans a bountiful harvest of disgusting fish roasts.
…
“ Well, who says the sexy pran has to be everyone’s favorite?

Index
What’s it going to be then, eh? ~Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

I. How much do you heal?
II. Other equipment bonuses of note
III. Why monsters hate clerics
IV. Who to heal first
V. Dead Paladins
VI. Running
VII. The little things that count
VIII. Paladin skills
IX. Cleric Skills
X. After 50
XI. After 60
XII. Things to consider when designing a build
XIII. Prans
XIV. PVP
XV. Exceptions
XVI. Dealing with bad teams
XVII. Sources and acknowledgements:

I. How much do you heal?
I want to nurse the sick, so much that I annoy them, ~César Vallejo, Me viene, Hay Dias

“ Accurately calculating how much a spell will heal for is not always easy, but it can be done. The main thing to figure out is how different types of bonuses (mostly coming from equipment) will change how many HP a spell will heal. These bonuses work the same with all spells with two exceptions. Heal level does not add the same amount to each spell, and rejuvenation divides any healing it receives from equipment over all 5 of its ticks of healing (so an extra 100 healing will add 20 to each tick).

Heal Level — equipment or skills (see Exalt) that add to a cleric’s heal level are deceptive and depends on a spell’s cast time. Instant cast spells gain 30% (see Holy Intervention and Rejuvenation) , 1 second cast spells gain 50% (see Cure), 2 second cast spells gain 65% (see Revelation), and 3 second cast spells gain 80% (see Healing Corona). An item that says it adds 80 Heal Level will actually add 40 HP to each cast of cure and 52 hp to each cast of revelation.
Skill Attack Max — this adds a variable bonus (from 0 to X, X being the indicated amount) to the amount a spell heals. A piece of equipment that adds 80 skill attack max will add between 0 and 80 HP to a spell each time it is cast. Skill attack max adds to attack spells in the same way that it does to healing. The skill attack max mount stone does not effect healing.
Magical Attack (mattack) — this usually adds directly to the amount you heal. Unfortunately there are some things that add mattack do not effect healing at all. Yes, this is stupid and confusing. Pieces of equipment (wands, bonuses from accessories, etc) and most skills do add to healing but pran skills, some player skills (see Bless), mattack mount stones (thank you Caleia for bringing this to my attention), and mattack relics do not. An item with +80 Mattack will add 80 HP to each cast of a heal spell, but a +80 mattack pran skill will add 0 HP to each cast. Mattack from equipment also adds a slight amount of variation in how much you heal, on average about 5% (which isn’t very significant but explains why there’s variation in how much you heal). Mattack adds to magical attacks in the same way that it does to healing, but all mattack (including pran skills) is added.
Intelligence — Each point of the intelligence stat adds to a character’s mattack and heal level (the actual amount isn’t entirely clear but I estimate it’s somewhere around 3 to each). Characters will be able to spend stat points after level 50, but until then there are few ways to obtain intelligence points (mount stones and a certain warrior skill).
Criticals (crit rate)— Heals can crit for around 40% extra healing. The % bonus amount can be modified, but for a cleric there are not many ways to do so (see Archangel’s Blade). How often one gets a critical heal is based on their crit rate, which is the % chance to do so. A cleric with a crit rate of 10 would get a critical on 10% of their heals. Attacks crit in the same way as heals. Note: perfect criticals (pcrit) are something different. It’s a chance to do double damage on basic attacks (physically hitting people with one’s wand) and is calculated entirely separately from regular criticals (crit rate doesn’t add to pcrit rate). Pcrits are not very useful to a cleric as it’s most effective for them to attack with spells.

II. Other equipment bonuses of note
”My briefcase,” Rick said as he rummaged for the Voigt-Kampff forms. “Nice, Isn’t it? Department issue.”
“Well, Well,” Rachael said remotely.
“Babyhide,” Rick said. He stroked the black leather surface of the briefcase. “One hundred percent genuine human babyhide.” ~Philip K. D*ck, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

“ In addition to the above bonuses from equipment, there are a few other bonuses that can be helpful to clerics even though they do not help with healing.
+% damage versus demons/undead — This is a great mod for increasing your damage in pve. We get a team buff to increase people’s damage against demons/undead (see Archangel’s Light), our attacks have large damage bonuses against these types of enemies, and we also get a skill to change enemies into demons/undead (see Holy Signet). Finally, these bonuses are multiplicative (if you have a 16% versus undead weapon, a 10% vs. undead buff, and a 150% vs undead attack you’ll do 191% damage). It is not useful for pvp.
+ move speed — Moving quickly is one of the best ways for a cleric to stay alive in pvp (see Haste and PVP), therefore items with + move speed are very useful to a cleric. They also save time when moving around, which is nice.
+ HP — A cleric with more health will live longer, giving them more time to heal themselves and their teammates.
+ MP — A larger mana pool will let a cleric cast more spells. However, if a cleric is not having problems with running out of mana this bonus will not be useful.
Defense (pdef, mdef) — For every 8 points of defense a character has all incoming attacks will be reduced by 1 point of damage. This is mostly useful in outdoor pve where average mobs have smaller, more frequent attacks. Players, bosses, and dungeon mobs tend to use fewer and larger attacks, meaning defense is of less value against them. Cleric armor comes wthl less defense than that of the other 5 class.
Refining Items — When a piece of equipment is refined it gains bonuses to its primary attributes (mattck/pattack for weapons, mdef/pdef for armor). A piece of armor refined to +4 or above also gives bonus HP/MP and absorbs a small % of incoming damage. Weapons refined to +4 or above will glow a little bit. This is very useful, but also somewhat risky. Refining equipment past +3 (+4 for superior items) has a chance of destroying or weakening it (lowering the level of refinement). This chance increases with every level past the safe level.

III. Why monsters hate clerics
There was an old person of Calis,
Who lived in a blue marble palace;
But on coming downstairs, he encountered some bears,
Who swallowed that person of Calis. ~Edward Lear

“ Here’s the rule for teaming: Mobs Make Clerics Dead.
“ Every player in a team needs to understand the basic mechanics of mob aggro in order to work together, but this is especially true for the cleric. To start with, here is a basic hierarchy of who a mob will choose to attack:

1) Paladins have certain skills (provoke and challenge), indicated by crossed red swords over the mobs’ heads, that draw the attention of mobs away from other players and onto themselves. With some particularly powerful mobs, or paladins who have not put enough skill points into their aggro drawing skills, it may take several applications of these skills before they gain the full attention of the mob. Warriors have a skill that does this too (taunt), but it’s not as powerful as the paladin’s versions. These types of skills can also miss.
2) Mobs primarily attack whoever is doing the most damage to them.
3) Mobs will attack clerics who are using their healing, buffing, or damage shielding skills (the range for this appears to be slightly larger than a mob’s aggro range).
4) Mobs will attack the first player to enter their aggro range, which I estimate to be around 10 meters. The final boss of a dungeon will have a larger aggro range.

“ #3 is bad news for the unprepared cleric! In a team, groups of mobs will usually be pulled by the paladin entering their aggro range. This will cause the monsters to cluster around and attack the paladin, at which point the paladin will use provoke. After the paladin does this the other team members will start attacking the mobs without drawing their ire. If a player attacks a mob before the paladin uses provoke they will draw the attention of that mob. If a cleric uses a heal/buff/shield before the paladin uses provoke, they will draw the attention of all the mobs. The result is usually a dead cleric. So, no matter how badly a paladin is getting hurt it’s usually best to refrain from healing them until they use provoke.

“ Every cleric is occasionally going to make the mistake of drawing aggro. Sometimes it happens because provoke misses some of the mobs, or they were out of range when the paladin used it. Sometimes a heal gets used too early. It’s just how things go and there’s no sense in feeling too bad about it when it does happen. If a teammates notice a mob charging toward you they’ll usually try to attract the mob by attacking it. For this reason, you should not attack the mob as it will become more difficult for teammates to draw it away. If nobody notices that you’re being attacked, or if several mobs are attacking, run toward the tank. This may feel counterintuitive, but it will help the paladin in drawing aggro off you (paladins can’t draw aggro from range). If you try to run away you’ll A) abandon you teammates B) run into another group of mobs or C) run away from everyone who can save you and die alone in a corner. Remember: run toward the tank.

“ You’ll probably be spending your time at the edge of the party and focusing on your teammates’ health bars. You should try to stay aware of the surroundings at all times so that you don’t accidentally enter the aggro range of another group of mobs. If you do this, run toward the paladin and shout “ADDS” (because mobs are being added to combat). Hopefully things will turn out okay.

IV. Who to heal first
”After all, Watson,” Said Holmes, reaching his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.” ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

“ Most dungeon teams consist of 1-2 clerics, a tank (usually a paladin but sometimes a warrior can fill the role if everybody if cautious), and 3-4 damage dealers (warlocks, riflemen, dual gunners, and warriors). Because of how the heals available in this game work, it is easier for clerics to heal one person taking more damage (the tank) than an entire team taking less. This will become apparent to you the first time your tank loses control over the mobs. If the tank dies, the mobs will scatter and start attacking multiple people at once. Trying to heal everybody will often result in either A) people not getting enough healing and dying or B) running out of mana, and then they die anyway. Therefore, the main job of a cleric is to keep the tank alive. If the tank dies, you should resurrect her (paladins are female) while the mobs tear the other teammates to shreds. This may seem cruel, but things will turn out better that way.

“ If you are the only cleric on the team (which works perfectly fine with good players), you are your own top priority. You need to stay alive under all circumstances. If the cleric dies there is nobody to resurrect them and then the team doesn’t have a cleric. Teams without clerics don’t complete dungeons (except for superfantastic paladins, but they don’t let their clerics die anyway).

“ After yourself and your tank, a your third priority is to keep the other cleric alive. If you die, the other cleric can heal the tank and resurrect you. The other cleric is your friend, not your rival.

“ Finally there are the other people on the team. They are expendable. It’s nice to keep them alive if at all possible, but if one of them dies the team can go on. Maybe there will even be time to resurrect them, but one shouldn’t let the tank die while making the attempt.

V. Dead Paladins
When midnight mists are creeping,
And all the land is sleeping,
Around me tread the mighty dead,
And slowly pass away. ~Lewis Carol, Dreamland

“ All hell breaks loose when the tank dies in a dungeon. Mobs charge towards the other team members, some of whom stand and fight while others flee for their lives. As the one responsible for keeping the paladin alive, you’ll probably know when the paladin is going to die a few seconds before everybody else does. That means it’s up to you to salvage the situation.

“ In the best case scenario the mobs charge after one of your other teammates and completely ignore you, in which case you should ignore your teammates and resurrect the paladin. The paladin can then take the aggro and save the day. Hooray!

“ When it rains it pours, so it’s more likely that you’ll have at least some of the mobs chasing after you. You should try to act as you would if you got aggro before the paladin used provoke. Run towards the most aggressive/intelligent/cleric loving teammate in the hopes that that person will draw the mob’s attention. Then go resurrect the paladin. Do not attack the mob and be careful not to aggro any additional mobs. If the teammate is trying to pull aggro off you and is having trouble, you’ll probably have to kite the mob by running around the room and staying out of its attack range while keeping it within the attack range of your teammate.

“ If that doesn’t work you need to run away. Head back the way the party progressed through the dungeon until the mob resets and teleports back to its starting location, then run back to the paladin and give them cpr. Or, even better (but less exciting), resurrect them.

“ If you can’t bring your paladin back to life that doesn’t mean the team can’t keep going (although they might choose not to and simply retry the dungeon). A warrior can act as a tank if necessary, and warlocks are decently tough if they have a high enough mana shield (their yellow buff icon). The team could also try to get through the dungeon by kiting mobs, with the person the monster is attacking running away while everybody else attacks the mob until it changes targets (then its new target runs, and so on).

VI. Running
And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas

“ Sometimes you’ll be in a party and the decision will be made to run through part of the dungeon rather than fight through it. As a cleric you will be expected to cast the movement speed buff (see Haste) on everybody in the team. The paladin will run in front of the team so that they will attract the attention of all the mobs (to keep the other team members safe) by entering their aggro range first. It is important not to run in front of the paladin. It is also important that everybody keeps in a relatively tight group. Running works because the mobs will, after reaching a certain distance from their spawn point or falling far enough behind the person they’re chasing, teleport back to where they started. If people are too far behind the paladin they will draw the aggro of monsters who have teleported back to their starting points (the mobs will attack the player and follow them farther if the player isn’t moving quickly enough for the mob to lose sight of them).

“ Using skills while running (such as healing yourself) will draw the aggro of the monsters chasing after the paladin. If you need to heal, use a potion. Do not heal your allies. There are a few buffs available to clerics (See Angelic Armor and Holy Intervention) which are useful to cast before the group starts running (you can cast Holy Intervention while running without drawing aggro, but only if it doesn’t heal immediately). Use these on yourself and the paladin.

“ Sometimes running gets you into a tight spot. You and/or the paladin may be at low health. If you use a heal, you will draw the aggro of whatever mobs are chasing you, yet if you don’t you and/or the paladin may die. If you have the short term invulnerability spell (see Desperate Prayer) you can use the biggest heal at your disposal on the paladin and then make yourself invulnerable for a few second while they gather aggro. The spell will then end and you’ll be back to healing as usual. If you don’t have this spell you’ll have to wait until the paladin uses provoke and then heal them as quickly as possible before healing yourself. If you panic and heal too early it is very likely that both of you will die. If you wait too long the paladin will die (see Dead Paladins). It’s a tough situation, but your best shot at winning is to remain calm and pay very close attention to what the paladin is doing.

VII. The little things that count
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. ~H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

“ Knowing more about the game can be tremendously helpful to a cleric because you have more to keep track of than the other classes. You need to keep track of your teammates health bars and any negative debuffs that have been inflicted on them (try to learn to recognize the icons). You need to know what your tank is doing so that you don’t draw aggro. You need to know where the mobs are so that you don’t walk into them. You need to know what the mobs are so that you can predict what they’ll do. Finally, you should know how your teammates’ classes work so you can predict what they may do. Most of these things you’ll learn from experience, but for the last item I recommend browsing the other classes’ forums and getting an idea of what skills they have and tactics they use. Especially paladins.

VIII. Paladin skills
Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy. ~H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“ This is not an explanation of how paladins work (you should still read their forum). This is a cursory list of their powers that a cleric should learn to recognize.

Provoke This is a paladin’s main aggro drawing skill, an aoe centered around the paladin. Mobs that have been provoked will briefly show a pair of crossed red swords floating above their head.

Vanguard This is a long duration buff that increases the paladin’s defense. A paladin that doesn’t have this will take more damage from groups of mobs.

Transference This is a short duration buff with a long recharge that gives the paladin back a % of the damage they do as hitpoints. When a paladin has this up they are much tougher as long as they are not stunned.

Perseverance This is a very short duration buff with a short cooldown that reduces the next 3 attacks the paladin takes by a large % (30 to 60). A paladin that doesn’t have this will take MUCH more damage from bosses.

Divine Ward This is a long lasting and very slowly recharging buff that negates a number of skill attacks used against the paladin. This only has a certain number of charges (the max with the current level cap is 10), but they are not consumed by regular attacks.

Aegis A short duration buff with a long recharge which adds a large amount to a paladin’s defense and heals them for a small amount every 2 seconds. Boss mobs can still hurt them but normal mobs will not pose much of a threat.

Deliverance This is a skill which consumes all of a paladin’s mana and turns it into hp for their target (usually themselves or a cleric). If a paladin uses this they will be completely drained of mana and be unable to use their defensive skills.

IX. Cleric Skills
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right! ~William Shakespear, Hamlet

“ To those who are planning to read only this section of the guide: please go back and at least skim the rest. This section may help you make a better build, but the rest will help you be a better player (and that, dear reader, is much more important).

“ I’ve color coded the various skills a bit. Orange skills improve by the same amount with each point you add past the first (they improve linearly). Purple skills gain more benefit with each subsequent point added (they improve exponentially). Skills that are neither are… quirky. Most skills linear ones improve by an extra amount when they reach their maximum level.

“ If you are attacked while using a skill, there is a chance you will be interrupted. If this happens the skill will go on cooldown and not execute its effect. Skills that have no cast time can occasionally be interrupted during their animation, but this doesn’t occur very often. Skills that have no cast time can usually be used while moving if you hold the move key (you’ll stop if you’re using autorun). You can cancel the animation of some instant cast spells (saving you about half a second) by activating other animations, but this is a gray area as to whether or not it is an exploit so you’ll have to figure it out yourself if you decide to use it.

Format:
Icon
Power name
“Official Description”
Target, cast time, recharge, duration, level available
Table of data that changes by level (bold entries are available with the level 60 cap, others will be available after the cap is raised)
Thoughts and advice.

Insight
“Illuminates the selected 6 meter area and reveals hidden enemies.”
Manually targeted aoe, instant cast, 6s cooldown, 10 mana, available level 1 (starts maxed)
“ All clerics start with insight at level 1, for free. It remove stealth from invisible enemy dual gunners and riflemen in pvp. It casts instantly, costs virtually nothing, and recharges quickly making it easy to cast around randomly when defending a choke point during a relic raid or at a specific location after seeing an enemy turn invisible. It is also useful in pve as a pulling/mobbing tool because it’s a quick way to draw aggro from range without spending mana. Since it basically counts as an attack, it removes a charge of divine ward on enemy paladins too.

Purify
“Cancels one harmful curse on an ally.”
Single ally, instant cast, 1s cooldown, 50 mana, available level 1 (starts maxed)

“ There are many wonderful things about this skill and you will use it from your first dungeon until the day you stop playing Aika. All clerics get it for free at level 1, it casts instantly, it recharges almost instantly, and it’s cheap. It is one of the few skills we have that does not draw aggro (meaning you can safely use it on a paladin when they’re trying to pull)! Hooray! There are a couple of downsides one should be aware of however

1) Some mobs apply status effects very often (bana’s poison, white lion gunner’s slow, etc) and trying to keep these debuffs off yourself and your teammates is simply an effort in futility. Fortunately the more harmful debuffs (stun, silence, etc) come about less often. Learn to recognize the icons and decide what’s worth removing.
2) Only one harmful effect is removed at a time. This isn’t usually a problem in pve as you rarely get more than 2 debuffs on an ally at a time, but in pvp it’s not uncommon for somebody to suddenly get half a dozen at a time. When that happens, you have another tool (see Revelation).
3) Not all debuffs can be removed. Removable debuffs have a red outline while others have a purple outline (such as dismount debuffs and guard slow). There’s simply nothing you can do about these.

Holy Arrow
“Deals X damage. Y% damage to demons and undead.”
Single enemy, 1.5s cast time, 2s cooldown, available level 1 (starts with 1 point)
Skill Level—Damage—Undead/Demon Multiplier—Mana
1—53—150%—33
2—65—152%—41
3—87—154%—56
4—111—156%—70
5—139—158%—88
6—173—160%—109
7—209—162%—132
8—255—164%—161
9—308—166%—194
10—373—168%—235
11—450—170%—284
12—530—172%—334
13—626—174%—394
14—725—176%—457
15—841—178%—530
16—966—180%—609
“ This is your basic magic attack and it comes with 1 innate point. The damage multiplier is a fairly straightforward bonus where enemies that are classified as demons or undead (as opposed to humanoid, structure, plant, animal, etc) take significantly more damage.

“ Since whacking people with your magic wand is both slow and vulgar, although funny at times, you’ll be relying on this spell when solo until you get your second, and last, attack at 27 (see Holy Tempest).

“ There are several reasons to replace this power once you reach level 27. The first is that it has a cast time and tends to get interrupted (see Angelic Armor). The second is that it only targets one enemy. The third is that it takes a lot of skill points. And the fourth is that it does less damage than your other attack.

“ I recommend you keep putting points into it until level 27, at which time you’ll want to use holy tempest instead and use these points elsewhere.

Cure
“Heals the target for X.”
Singly ally, 1s cast time, 1s cooldown, available level 4
Skill Level—Heal Amount—Mana
1—93—46
2—124—61
3—155—77
4—190—94
5—235—116
6—280—139
7—337—167
8—404—200
9—484—240
10—579—287
11—676—335
12—789—391
13—907—449
14—1039—514
15—1173—585
16—1316—651
“ Cure is the cleric’s core heal. It has a moderate casting time, low mana cost, and moderate heal amount. Up until level 40 (see Revelation) it’s pretty much mandatory for healing a team through a dungeon. After 40 it’s still an excellent option. Over time this spell will put out more healing over time than any other available (this may change when the level cap is raised), but at a higher mana cost as well. However, no skill is without its own limitations. 1) It is not very good for healing oneself as it can be interrupted while under attack. 2) If multiple teammates are taking damage it will take some time to cast it on all of them. 3) In pvp you have to stop moving to cast it, which can be dangerous.

“ Every cleric should have at least 1 point in cure. At 1 point you still get the full healing bonuses from your equipment (with ok equipment at level 50 this is around 500, 1k with great equipment) for a miniscule amount of mana. However, having a 1 point cure means you need to have those large bonuses from equipment for it to heal a significant amount. Therefore the 1 point cure character is a late game build. Even with equipment, at 1 point it will lack the oomph to handle more dangerous situations and so should be combined with a more powerful heal (see Revelation).

“ I recommend continuing to put points into it until level 40 if you want to play on a team. After level 40 either keep it high or reduce it to 1 point and use the level 40 heal (see Revelation). If you’re not going to play on a team (and why did you make a support character if you’re not going to team?), skip it.

Angelic Armor
“Absorbs X physical damage for a maximum of 1 minute. Reduces area physical damage by 25% and absorbs the rest.”
Single ally, instant cast, 15s cooldown, 60s duration, available level 6
Skill Level—Absorption Amount—Mana
1—258—103
2—336—134
3—420—168
4—522—209
5—642—257
6—774—310
7—936—374
8—1134—454
9—1374—550
10—1632—653
11—1926—770
12—2262—905
13—2616—1046
14—3018—1207
15—3432—1373
16—3858—1543
“ Angelic Armor will change more than any other skill as you level up. Early on it is your best skill, providing a hefty hp buffer against physical attacks (it does not work against magical attacks) while preventing you from being interrupted while casting Holy Arrow or Cure. This buffer also prevents attacks from damaging your equipment, something that’ll save you (and your teammates, if you’re nice) a bit of money for a while. It also casts instantly, making it a very reliable spell to cast while you’re being attacked.

“ As you level up, this skill will start to feel weaker (after level 30). This is because the damage buffer it provides does not take your pdef into account (see Other equipment bonuses of note). Early on you have very little defense and so the fact that Angelic Armor doesn’t take it into account does not matter very much, but by level 30 you’ll have enough to appreciate the loss. Fortunately by this time you’ve traded in Holy Arrow for your second attack (see Holy Tempest), which doesn’t have a cast time and so doesn’t get interrupted. This second spell is also an aoe attack, meaning you’ll want change to fighting several enemies at the same time rather than killing them one by one. This will cause Angelic Armor to go down faster, and you’ll start to notice that it’s less mana efficient than healing. You’ll start running into enemies who deal magic damage, which Angelic Armor does not defend against. In dungeons, enemies will do enough damage to take it down in 2-3 attacks. Finally, Angelic Armor does not improve with equipment at all and will always protect you for the exact amount listed by the skill. Basically, you’ll need to start relying more on other defensive spells.

“ Angelic Armor does have a second redeeming effect that may make it worth keeping for you. Any physical aoe attack against the player will first have its damage reduced by 25% before it counts against the shield. Many enemies in the late game have highly damaging aoe attacks and it may be valuable to keep just for that purpose. Bosses in particular have very long ranged aoes that can reach players standing far out of melee range. Angelic Armor will go down quickly against these attacks, but having it as a low or moderate level will still significantly reduce the amount of healing you need to do thanks to the 25% aoe damage reduction.

“ Finally, Angelic Armor is very important to a cleric participating in pvp. Four out of the six classes deal physical damage, and three of those classes deal enough of it to kill the unprepared cleric in a matter of seconds. Riflemen in particular can kill a cleric with 1-2 powerful attacks. Angelic Armor provides a buffer against these players, giving you time to defend yourself (heal or run). It is particularly good against warriors because they have a lot of aoe attacks, which are reduced by 25%.

“ I recommend putting as many points as possible into it until you reach level 34 (see Holy Intervention), at which point you will probably want to keep it at a low to moderate level (or drop it entirely) to free up skill points for other powers. If you decide to participate in pvp you’ll want to put as many points into this as possible.

Bless
“Increases physical attack by X and magic attack by Y for 10 minutes.”
Single ally, 2s cast, 2s cooldown, 10 minute duration, available level 8
Skill Level—Physical Attack—Magic Attack—Mana
1—13—17—98
2—16—12—122
3—20—25—151
4—24—31—190
5—28—37—236
6—34—44—285
7—40—52—342
8—48—61—409
9—56—72—497
10—64—83—598
11—74—96—708
12—86—111—834
13—98—127—965
14—111—143—1109
15—124—160—1262
16—145—187—1429 Note: at level 16 bless becomes an aoe buff centered around the cleric with a range of 20 meters.
“ This is your first, and weakest, team buff. The mattack bonus from this spell is the kind that does not effect your healing. The bonuses it provides are fairly small, but when used on an entire time the damage adds up. It’s also better in the early game because players have fewer skills to use and so will be relying more on their basic attacks, which are faster and deal less damage. Later on the bonuses from this spell will become mostly insignificant (paladins are the one exception as they rely on their basic attack for most of their damage, even at the end of the game). At level 40 you get another spell (see Archangel’s Light) that fills the same role more effectively for fewer skill points.

“ If you play on the pvp server (which I recommend), there is no reason to invest in bless as you can get a free 1 hour lvl 11 bless any time just by visiting town. To get a better version you’d have to be at least level 52 and investing 12 skill points for an extra 15 damage (47 at 14 skill points and level 60). If you play on the pve sever I recommend putting a few points into it early on, but by the time you reskill at 27 you’re pretty much done with this spell.

Rejuvenate
“Heals the target for X every 2 seconds for a total of 10 seconds.”
Single ally, instant cast, 2s cooldown, 10s duration, available level 10
Skill Level—Heal Amount—Mana
1—42—103
2—52—134
3—63—168
4—77—209
5—92—257
6—111—310
7—133—374
8—159—454
9—187—550
10—219—653
11—254—770
12—291—905
13—331—1046
14—374—1207
15—417—1373
16—463—1543
“ This healing spell is quirky, and you’ll either love it or hate it. This is not a primary healing spell. It is a secondary healing spell. It may be able to keep a good paladin alive against average mobs, but it will not keep the paladin alive against a boss. When you cast it on a player it will instantly heal the target twice, and after that once every two seconds for ten seconds. Any healing bonuses from equipment that you have will be divided by five and added to each tick of healing. This spell heals more slowly than cure, costs more mana, and does not stack with itself (even if two different clerics cast it).

“ There are several nice things about Rejuvenate. First and foremost is that it casts instantly. It’s also a fire-and-forget spell because once you cast it on someone there’s no reason to cast it again until its duration runs out. Finally, one cast of rejuvenation heals more than one cast of cure. These three features add up to it being a good secondary target heal. If multiple teammates are taking damage you can focus on one of them while rejuvenation slowly heals up the others (this works well against boss aoes which hit hard but infrequently). It is also good for a solo cleric because it casts instantly and so will not be interrupted. For that same reason, it is also good for pvp.

“ This spell is optional. If you want to use it you need to put a lot of points into it or else it won’t do much good.

Resurrect
“Resurrects target with X% of his/her HP and MP.”
Targets a dead teammate, 5s cast, available level 12
Skill Level—% Mana/Health—Cooldown—Mana Cost
1—10—33s—222
2—20—30s—274
3—30—27s—359
4—40—24s—429
5—50—21s—518
6—60—18s—621
7—70—15s—744
8—80—12s—943
9—90—9s—1103
10—100—6s—1286
“ Sometimes a teammate will die. When somebody dies in a dungeon they have 60 seconds to be resurrected before they are automatically kicked out of the dungeon and can no longer participate. To return to the dungeon and keep helping their team they need to use a cash shop item called a dungeon recall. You should not expect players to have or to buy a dungeon recall because most of them won’t. For this reason, clerics need resurrect.

“ Resurrect is a straightforward skill. It brings a dead teammate (you can’t use it on people who aren’t in your team) back to life with a certain % of their maximum health and mana. It has a long cast time so think about when to use this skill. If you’re under attack it’s very likely you’ll be interrupted before you finish, and because you only have 60 seconds to bring your dead teammates back to life you don’t have a lot of room for error. With one point in this skill, you’ll have at best two chances to cast it on a dead teammate before they disappear. When they come back to life they’ll have very little health and mana so you’ll need to heal them quickly. Resurrected teammates start out with no aggro though, so the only thing likely to kill them immediately is an aoe attack.

“ If at all possible, it’s best to put several points into this spell (I’d say 3-5 for general use). This will give the resurrected person a decent chunk of mana to work with and protect them against aoes. The cooldown reduction is also very useful if multiple people die. Maximizing this skill, however, is usually overkill (see Exceptions).

Haste
“Increases target’s move speed by X for 10 minutes.”
Single ally, 2s cast, 2s cooldown, 10 minute duration, available level 17
Skill Level—Move Speed—Mana Cost
1—5—159
2—6—208
3—7—248
4—8—297
5—9—358
6—10—429
7—11—521
8—12—625
9—13—734
10—15—891 Note: at level 10 haste becomes an aoe buff centered around the cleric with a range of 20 meters.
“ This is the signature cleric buff. Each point of move speed makes people run about 2.4% faster. It’s purported that different classes have slightly different base movement speeds (Dual Gunner>Cleric>Warrior>Paladin>Warlock>Rifleman) which become noticeable with high move speed bonuses, but this requires a lot of movement speed from equipment as well. Few players aside from paladins who plan on carrying relics in pvp spend the money to maximize their speed (they also have an additional piece of equipment, their shield, on which they can have move speed bonuses). Moving faster is still very nice for everyone though. In pve, mobs who are chasing after players will return to their spawn point after running a certain distance from it or losing sight of the person they’re chasing. If your team decides to run through part of a dungeon rather than fight through it (see Running), it is important to have haste so that you can outrun the mobs. Running faster also gives your team an edge if something bad happens (see Dead Paladins). In pvp your best survival tactic is to run away from an enemy and stay out of their attack range, and haste is critical for this purpose.

“ With the addition of the free 1 hour lvl 6 haste buff on the pvp server there is no point in investing in haste before level 41 (when you can get level 7 haste). A high level haste is still nice for pvp (the free version is enough for running through dungeons), but it’s optional now. If you play on the pve server you’ll probably want to get it up to around 6 for running through dungeons.

Holy Signet
“Inflicts X magic damage every 2 seconds and causes vulnerability to holy magic on all enemies in 4 meter radius for 12 seconds.”
Enemy targeted aoe, instant cast, 12s cooldown, 10s duration, available level 19
Skill Level—Damage—Mana
1—36—108
2—44—133
3—53—160
4—65—194
5—78—234
6—95—284
7—112—335
8—132—396
9—154—461
10—178—534
11—204—612
12—232—696
13—261—783
14—293—879
15—329—987
16—365—1095
“ Don’t be fooled: Holy Signet is an aoe debuff spell, not a damage spell. It is a pve only spell. It is also a very important spell. Enemies struck by Holy Signet take a very small amount of damage every two seconds and have their racial type changed to demon/undead. This is very powerful because cleric attack spells have a large % bonus to damage against demons and undead. Unfortunately, players don’t have a racial type at all and so the debuff will not work on them, making it useless in pvp.
“ You receive the full benefit of this spell with 1 point, so that’s all you need.

Exalt
“Increases cure level by X and decreases the MP required for a cure skill by Y%.”
Passive skill, available level 21
Skill Level—Heal Level—Discount
1—30—10%
2—60—12%
3—90—14%
4—120—16%
5—150—18%
6—180—20%
7—210—22%
8—240—24%
9—270—26%
10—300—30%
“ The description of this skill is misleading. It effects all of your heals (cure, rejuvenation, revelation) and not just cure. It adds heal level (see How much do you heal?), so each point in this skill adds 9-24 health to your heals. Exalt’s appeal comes mostly from the mana discount, which starts out at a good 10% and slowly increases to a hefty 30% (available at level 57, which we can’t get to yet).

“ There are two good reasons not to put more than 1 point into this skill. The first is that each subsequent point only adds a 2% discount, which is quite small. It takes a lot of points for this to matter much and you have other skills that could use them. The second reason is that Exalt doesn’t matter if you’re not running out of mana. Therefore, what you do with Exalt should be a personal decision based on experience rather than something planned in advance.

“ Everyone will benefit from 1 point in this skill. You do not need more points unless you are truly struggling with your mana supply.

Shroud of Turin
“Increases buff duration by X and decreases the MP required to cast the skill by Y%.”
Passive skill, available level 23
Skill Level—Duration—Discount
1—+2 min—10%
2—+4 min—12%
3—+6 min—14%
4—+8 min—16%
5—+10 min—18%
6—+12 min—20%
7—+14 min—22%
8—+16 min—24%
9—+18 min—26%
10—+20 min—30%
“ This is a skill made purely for convenience. It extends the duration and decreases the mana cost of your long duration team buffs (Haste, Bless, etc). Since they already last 10 minutes and should not be recast during combat, this skill only serves to reduce the downtime caused by rebuffing a team (it may seem more useful for pvp where you may not be around somebody when their buffs run out, but it’s more likely they’ll die before that happens). The discount scales the same way as with Exalt. The discount is kind of nice for pvp because you will inevitably die sometimes and come back to life with very little mana, so it’s handy to be able to rebuff for less. However, it’s not actually important.

“ This is purely a skill of personal convenience and is entirely optional. You probably have better places to spend the points.

Healing Corona
“Recovers the HP of all targets within 6 meters by X.”
Self targeted aoe, 3s cast, 3s cooldown, available level 25
Skill Level—Heal Amount—Mana
1—441—103
2—530—134
3—638—168
4—764—209
5—900—257
6—1053—310
7—1229—374
8—1407—454
9—1613—550
10—1820—653
11—2027—770
12—2256—905
13—2510—1046
14—2766—1207
15—3039—1373
16—3339—1543
“ Healing Corona has two serious flaws which essentially ruin it. First off is its long cast time, making it easily interrupted and slow to react to somebody suddenly taking damage. Second is that the 6 meter range is somewhat short, making it completely unsuitable for healing the tank in a boss fight (bosses have highly damaging long ranged aoe attacks which often have a stun or silence effect. Ranged characters, and especially the cleric, should stand as far away as possible to avoid getting hit). It does have some value in that it’s the most efficient heal available (even on a single target), but Healing Corona doesn’t save lives. It’s just too slow.

“ It also has two smaller flaws in that it draws an incredible amount of aggro and it does not work on players in your raid group, only players in your party.

“ You many want a single point to use it as a downtime reducer, but it’s not worth investing more than that.

Holy Tempest
“Inflicts X magic damage on all enemies within 4 meters of the target. Deals 150% damage dealt to demons and undead.”
Manually targeted aoe, instant cast, 3s cooldown, available level 27
Skill Level—Damage—Mana
1—284—213
2—344—258
3—416—312
4—504—378
5—596—447
6—702—527
7—820—615
8—948—711
9—1088—816
10—1236—927
11—1390—1042
12—1562—1171
13—1750—1312
14—1944—1458
15—2160—1620
16—2398— 1798
“ Holy Tempest is awesome and completely replaces Holy Arrow. It does more damage, takes fewer skill points, casts instantly (so no interruptions), and is an aoe. Like Holy Arrow, it gains a damage bonus against demons and undead. Unlike Holy Arrow, this bonus is a static +50%. It burns quite a bit of mana, but since it’s an aoe it’s actually very efficient if you hit several enemies at once with it. Making the switch from Holy Arrow to Holy Tempest means changing your pve strategy from attacking single targets to gathering groups mobs (typically of 3-6). This can be a difficult adjustment, but give yourself some time to get used to the change and you’ll be a more powerful character for it. This spell does not, however, transform you into a damage dealing goddess.

“ Holy Tempest has some serious idiosyncrasies to deal with. The main one is that you have to actually click on the ground where you want to cast it rather than on a mob/player or else it won’t cast. Sometimes this also occurs if you click the ground too close to your target without actually touching them. Holy Tempest also has some minor accuracy issues and will regularly miss a couple of times when attacking a group of mobs (it calculates a hit against each enemy separately though, so you won’t miss all the mobs). It also takes a moment to animate, so if you’re attacking a moving target you need to lead it by about half a second plus any lag time from your internet connection (this is mostly a pvp issue). These are things you’ll just have to get used to.

“ You don’t need to max holy tempest for pve, but clerics don’t gain a lot of damage from equipment so you’ll want to put whatever you can in. If you want to kill people in pvp, every point matters even more because you can’t get your +50% damage bonus against demons/undead on other players.

Rapture
“Recovers the mana of all party members within 6 meters by X per second for a total of 10 seconds.”
Self targeted aoe, 2s cast, 3 minute cooldown, 10s duration, costs 10 mana, available level 32
Skill Level—Mana Restored
1—109
2—130
3—165
4—193
5—225
6—274
7—314
8—367
9—409
10—455
11—506
12—575
13—632
14—694
15—762
16—881
“ Rapture is good but not great. It ticks 10 times, but takes 3 minutes to recharge and so isn’t fountain of endless mana. The first few points you can add scale rather poorly, but the later points improve it quite a bit. It does not improve with equipment and so will always restore the exact amount stated in the skill description. It only works on players in your party and will not work on other players in your raid group.

“ There are several things to think about when using this skill. First is its short range. You want to hit as many allies as possible so it’s best to tell your teammates before you use this skill (they may even get annoyed if you fail to warn them). The second thing is when to use this skill. If even are proceeding smoothly, it makes sense to use Rapture as often as you can to decrease downtime. If you’re coming up on a boss fight you will probably want to save it until you’re actually fighting the boss and people are running out of mana. Finally, if your team is struggling you should feel no guilt in saving it to keep yourself and/or the paladin from running out of mana. When clerics don’t have mana, people die.

“ Definitely get 1 point in it, more than that is probably a waste due to the long recharge but if you are going to add more points you should max it.

Holy Intervention
“Activates when the caster’s HP drops below 50% or after 1 minute to recover HP by X.”
Singly ally, instant cast, 20s cooldown, 60 second duration, available level 34
Skill Level—Heal Amount—Mana
1—663—292
2—797—351
3—936—412
4—1094—481
5—1272—560
6—1457—641
7—1659—735
8—1871—824
9—2084—917
10—2315—1017
11—2570—1133
12—2831—1246
13—3111—1369
14—3419—1504
15—3755—1652
16—4121—1815
“ This spell is amazing. It casts instantly, restores a large amount of hp, doesn’t cost a lot of mana, and it’s a buff. It creates a blue glowing ball (it’s actually a cross but it glows so much it looks more like a blob) over the target’s head, and if that target is reduced to less than 50% of their maximum health the buff ends and they are instantly healed for a hefty amount. If you cast it on somebody who is already below 50% health, they get the health instantly. So, you can use it as a buff or as a large instant cast cure. The only shortcoming in pve is that the 20 second recharge prevents it from being spammable, meaning this is a supplementary tool. For solo pve it can fill the same role Angelic Armor did in earlier levels. In pvp, it has an additional shortcoming in that you might go from over 50% health do dead with one attack. That’s why Holy Intervention doesn’t replace Angelic Armor for pvp, but it does supplement it nicely.

“ I recommend putting as many points as possible into this skill, for every type of cleric build, because it’s so flexible.

synessa wrote:an additional information on holy intervention would be that it causes no agro. it helped me tons of times in lm when pally’s pulling some sharpshooters since it heals a hefty amount and i’m untouched at the end of it.

The caveat it that if it heals immediately when cast (ie, the target is below 50% health) it can draw aggro.

Desperate Prayer
“Immune to all attacks for X seconds but cannot use skills.”
Self Buff, 1s cast, available level 36
Skill Level—Duration—Recharge—Mana
1—3—180—372
2—3—170—473
3—3—160—552
4—4—160—643
5—4—150—487
6—4—140—897
7—5—140—1049
8—5—130—1168
9—5—120—1299
10—6—120—1446
“ Desperate Prayer is an emergency spell. It provides complete immunity to attack (including any effects such as stunning) for a few seconds while preventing you from using any skills (you can still use potions and be healed though). For pve it’s not a terrific spell, but it’s occasionally useful. It has a cast time, which is a major flaw for an emergency skill. It has a long recharge, preventing you from using it regularly. It has a short duration, basically just long enough for a paladin to use provoke or for you to start running. And while you’re using it you can’t heal yourself or your teammates because you can’t use skills.

“ For pvp, it’s awesome. Riflemen do huge amounts of damage with a single skill attack, but those attacks take 2-5 seconds to use. Desperate Prayer only takes 1 second to activate. If you’re quick and you see a Rifleman pointing at you and charging up a big skill you can hit Desperate Prayer and block it. Desperate Prayer will have ended by the time they use a second attack however so you’d better be prepared to deal with it. Against other classes you just kind of have to guess when they’re about to use a stun skill and hope you get the timing right (see PVP), or just use it to run away.

“ I recommend 1 point. For pve, this is optional. For pvp, it’s highly recommended. It scales poorly beyond one point, gaining very little effectiveness.

Penance
“Removes up to X helpful spells from the enemy and deals Y magic damage per spell removed.”
Single enemy, 1s cast, 40s cooldown, available level 38
Skill Level—Buffs Removed—Damage—Mana
1—2—360—162
2—2—428—193
3—3—504—227
4—3—593—267
5—4—686—309
6—4—792—357
7—5—900—405
8—5—1011—455
9—6—1137—512
10—6—1278—575
“ This is a pvp spell designed to strip buffs off of a player. With the current level cap there are few monsters with strippable buffs, and those that do exist are not worth removing. Because it’s situational (the target needs to have buffs you want to remove) and has a longish recharge, penance is not very useful as a damage spell. Interestingly enough it appears to ignore its target’s defense and the caster’s mattack.

“ It removes an additional buff at every odd level, so be sure to keep an odd number of skill points in it. It has a long recharge, so after the initial point it’s not critical to keep leveling it up (there’s also no benefit in having it strip 3 buffs if your target only has two). Do not take this spell if you are not planning to pvp.

Archangel’s Light
“Charges weapon to deal X% additional damage to demons and undead.”
Single ally, 2s cast, 2s cooldown, 10 minute duration, available level 40
Skill Level—Damage—Mana Cost
1—10—519
2—12—607
3—14—708
4—16—834
5—18—965
6—20—1109
7—22—1262
8—24—1424
9—26—1591
10—30—1807 Note: at level 10 archangel’s light becomes an aoe buff centered around the cleric with a range of 20 meters.
“ This is the improved version of Bless. It adds a % damage bonus to all attacks against demons/undead. To make this skill work, you either need to be fighting against demons/undead or have used Holy Signet on the mobs. Because players don’t have racial types, it does nothing against them (see Holy Signet). It scales in the same way as Exalt, but unlike Exalt you don’t need to have mana issues for additional points in Archangel’s Light to matter. They all help, a little bit.

“ Recommended 1 point for pve builds, more if you feel like it and have the spare points (when the level cap is raised it would be a very good skill to max). Do not take it on a pvp build or on a pve build that doesn’t have Holy Signet.

Revelation
“Recovers the HP of self or an ally by X and cancels all curses and spell diseases.”
Singly ally, 2s cast time, 3s cooldown, available level 40
Skill Level—Heal Amount—Mana
1—1737—764
2—2028—892
3—2367—1041
4—2721—1197
5—3117—1371
6—3519—1560
7—3948—1737
8—4389—1931
9—4887—2150
10—5403—2377
11—5937—2612
12—6522—2870
13—7149—3150
14—7791—3464
15—8799—3803
16—9201—4079
“ This is the big heal. From level 40 on up you are free from the tyranny of needing Cure to heal your team and may choose between Cure and Revelation! Revelation takes twice as long to cast, but it heals a lot. Because it casts slowly you’ll keep your team safer if you try to predict when somebody is going to need it and start casting it before their hp actually drops rather than waiting until they actually get hit. It also comes with a very large mana cost, so keep an eye on your mana pool when you use it. Because it’s such a large heal it’s very easy to overheal your target, which wastes mana. Try asking people how many hp they have to help you estimate when to use it.

“ Besides being a large heal, revelation removes all debuffs on its target. In pve this doesn’t mean much as people rarely get more than 2 debuffs at a time, but in pvp your teammates may suddenly receive half a dozen debuffs at once. Therefore, even if you decide not to use revelation as your main heal it’s worth having 1 point in it to remove debuffs if you plan on doing pvp.

XI. After 50
“I think you ought to know I’m feeling very depressed,” it said. Its voice was low and helpless. ~Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“ At 51 you get your first class promotion to Saint. This comes with increased HP, 2 skill points per level, and stat points to spend. It also comes with large gaps between available quests where the only way to level up is to kill lots of mobs. The good news is that clerics are very good (probably the best) at grinding solo and in teams of any size. Since you’ll be spending so much time grinding you may even want to make a build specifically for that purpose and then reskill when you’re at the level cap.

Archangel’s Blade
“Increases target’s critical rate by x and critical damage by y% for 10 minutes”
Single Ally, 2s cast, 3s cooldown, 10 minute duration, available level 51
Skill Level—Critical Rate—Critical Damage—Mana—Pieces of Caelium
1—2—10%—833—1
2—4—12%—954—1
3—6—14%—1092—2
4—8—16%—1233—
5—10—18%—1389—3
6—12—20%—1549—3
“ This spell is be good to use on a dg or rm as they typically have high critical rates from their own skills (the warlock skill fireball also has a high critical rate). Most other characters will have fairly low critical rates however and so this spell will not help them out very often. Eventually though (like if you can ever put 10 points into it at level 87) this spell will give a high enough crit rate that the critical damage bonus can be taken advantage of by most characters. If you and the people you play with can stack enough crit rate from equipment to get a fairly high chance (I’d personally say over 20%) this spell might be of interest to you.

Iron Will
“Increases chance to resist stun and shock effects by x% and y% respectively.”
Passive, available level 55
Skill Level—Stun Resist—Shock Resist
1—5%—3%
2—10%—6%
3—15%—9%
4—20%—12%
5—25%—15%
“ To stay alive and keep healing teammates a cleric needs to be constantly activating skills, which is why being stunned is so devastating. The passive resist this skill adds is small, but with enough points it could be very important in pvp (and possibly pve if more aoe stuns appear in the later levels). At level 60 it simply adds too little to be of much benefit, but at some point in the future (lvl 91, if it ever happens) we’ll be able to put 10 points in this for 50% stun resist!

Aika’s Grace
“Recovers HP and MP of the target by x and makes the target immune to all attacks for y seconds.”
Single ally, instant cast, 2 minute recharge, available level 59
Skill Level—HP/MP—Immunity—Mana—Pieces of Caelium
1—5750—5s—1898—3
2—6410—5s—2115—3
3—7130—6s—2353—4
4—7930—6s—2617—4
“ This spell costs a lot of mana. As a result it’s probably best not to use this skill unless you really need to. Aika’s Grace is remarkably powerful however, instantly providing a huge amount of mana and hp as well as immunity to attacks (which, like desperate prayer, prevents effects such as stun). There isn’t really anything else that can match up to it in an emergency.

“ Compared with Desperate Prayer it cools down 1 minute faster, lasts longer, casts instantly, and doesn’t prevent skill use. However, you may wish to have both so that you can save Aika’s Grace to use on teammates in pve and to have 2 immunity tools in pvp.

XII. After 60
My poem
Is finished and I haven’t mentioned
Orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
It ORANGES. ~Frank O’Hara, Why I Am Not a Painter

“ After the level cap is raised (70 is the current max in other versions of Aika) there will be even more skills!

Holy Shield
“Absorbs x magic damage and reduces magical area damage taken by the party by 25%. Lasts 1 minute.”
Team buff (?), instant cast, 3 minute recharge, 1 minute duration, available level 61
Skill Level— Absorption Amount—Mana—Pieces of Caelium
1—4194—2097—4
2—4716—2358—4
3—5304—2652—5
4—5964—2982—5
“ Similar to Angelic Armor except that it works against magic damage, possibly effects the entire team, and has a long recharge.
See feonirgod’s post below for more info.

Penance
“Increases healing done by spells with a 1 second or greater cast time by x%”
Passive, available level 65
Level—Boost
1—20%
2—23%
3—26%
“ This would effect Cure, Healing Corona, Revelation, and Divine Sermon. This is a huge buff and will significantly help pretty much all clerics who plan to team.

Divine Sermon
“Recovers the HP of party members within 10 a meter radius by x every second for 10 seconds. Also removes one harmful effect.”
Channeled self targeted aoe heal, 11s casting/duration, 5 minute recharge, available level 69
Level—HP—Mana—Pieces of Caelium
1—752—2482—6
2—836—2736—6
“ This sounds like a very situational spell, but it would be useful if the tank dies and everybody in the party (except the cleric casting it) got aggro from mobs. If it works like Healing Corona, it will only heal players in your party and not those in your raid group.

XII. Things to consider when designing a build
Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made. ~Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West

“ This is a comparison tool for excel that I made a while ago to look at the relative maximum amounts different combinations of Cure, Rejuvenation, and Revelation could heal per second at level 60. Exalt is included (x axis) and on “data” page there is space at the top for you to enter your mattack and +heal level (don’t include exalt). Playing around with it a bit may help you decide what build you want to make.

“ Think about how many points you’ll be putting into a skill. Many skills gain more power from equipment than skill points, but some gain nothing from equipment. Some skills increase in a linear manner, while others give more and more benefit from each point you add. Look at the mana cost of a skill and decide if you ultimately benefit more from having more points invested in it, or by having to cast it more often for less mana each time. Inspect your completed build and assess what situations it will thrive it and what situations it is not equipped to handle (and how often you’re likely to encounter each of them).

“ Consider what you’ll be doing with your character when making your build. Reskilling is cheap (if you don’t do it daily), so don’t be afraid to change your build and try different things. You’ll probably have to change your build several times as you level up, or if you just decide to do something different in game. Most cleric builds fall under some of the following categories:

(Pure) Support Cleric — This is a cleric which has taken no offensive powers at all in order to maximize their ability to heal and buff their teammates.
Battle Cleric — Being a “Battle Cleric” doesn’t mean very much. By getting Holy Tempest, Holy Signet, and Archangel’s Light a cleric has just about maximized their personal offensive potential in pve (I don’t include Bless because it is of little value to an individual Cleric. It is absolutely a team buff). This leaves a lot of points free to spend on defensive powers, so there is no reason for a “Battle Cleric” not to have decent team healing abilities as well as offensive ones.
Solo Cleric — a Cleric which has avoided the skills necessary to support teammates.
Pvp Cleric — a Cleric who has chosen abilities for their usefulness in pvp (Angelic Armor, Holy Inspiration, Penance, Rejuvenation, Revelation, Haste) and avoided ones only useful in pve (Holy Signet, Archangel’s Light). Usually, this kind of build can still support a team in pve.
Multipurpose Cleric — This is what most clerics are. It means having a mix of abilities that can be used for both pve and pvp, killing and defending, soloing and teaming. Most builds without a very specific goal will end up being fairly flexible.

I’ve had several people ask, so I’ll add that my personal preference has been to use maxed cure as my main heal until I got about 700 healing from equipment, then I switched to using maxed revelation and level 1 cure. I believe most people would be happier sticking with maxed cure as it casts faster for a smaller amount and so is a bit more forgiving in terms of when you use it and how quickly it drains your mana pool.

XIII. Prans
I’M A HYPER PRAN, IN A WORLD OF PRANS~
LIFE IN SLAVERY, ITS JUST GRAVY~
YOU CAN STYLE MY HAIR, UNDRESS ME ANYWHERE~
GEE-POTATOES, THEY PAY FOR MOAR CLOTHEZ~ ~blade_tsukasa, maintenance thread 4/14/10

“ Which pran should you choose? Probably the air pran.

“ The air pran in nice. It gives you a dodge bonus skill which helps reduce the amount of damage you’ll be taking when things go bad and avoid attached debuffs/ccs (which is effective even if you don’t have much dodge to begin with) and it gives you the skill tailwind, which is very nice for saving mana if you suddenly have to spam your heals.

“ Fire prans increase your damage. For whatever reason their bonuses to mattack do not apply to your heals. When you’re attacking as a cleric it’s going to be slowly, so the extra damage isn’t going to do a lot for you offensively (prans don’t give very large bonuses). Criticals are nice, but that’s something you’re not really built to take advantage of. Fire prans are best left to damage dealers and fast attackers.

“ A water pran is going to be very similar to an air pran, but probably less effective for a cleric. The amount of defense it adds is pretty small, the damage shield doesn’t absorb very much, and the mana regain skill is going to be less effective than a % based discount when things go bad. The status resist can be nice, but it’s pretty small. They are most suited for paladins.

XIV. PVP
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. ~Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“ In pvp, you are not a fierce lion who will be swatting enemies left and right. You are not a helpless infant who can’t contribute to your team. You may be a cuddly bunny for a brief period of time, but that’s only because a warlock used polymorph on you. Don’t worry, it breaks on damage.

“ No, what you are is a hasted hyena, a sneaky snake, and a circumspect crow. You’ll stay at the edges of combat, hasted, Holy Tempest at the ready. When you see a severely wounded enemy you can pounce in, attack once or twice, and then jump back with a medal of “honor” in your pocket.

“ It works like this because, even in pvp, you are still a support character. Most of your powers are defensive and will be used to keep yourself and your teammates alive while they dish out the damage. You are the only class in the game without even a single crowd control power (all the other classes have at several), so you can never disable an enemy and attack them safely. You also have a fairly low damage output (Holy Tempest is nice for pve, but for pvp it’s not impressive) and so it will take a long time to whittle an enemy down from full health. Finally, all of your defensive abilities are things you’ll need to be activating constantly. Other classes will be able to kill you in seconds if they manage to get you in a situation where you can’t use your powers. Knowing how to deal with each specific class is going to be necessary if you hope to survive.

Clerics — Ok, so you’re a Cleric too. You know all the tricks in their book and they know everything you could possibly do. You can outheal the damage they can do to you, and vice versa. This is a contest of endurance, and the one who runs out of mana first loses. Try to run around and make it hard for them to hit you with holy tempest. It’s pretty easy to run away in this situation as well because they have no crowd control powers with which to stop you.

Paladins — You’ll probably survive this fight, but probably won’t win as well. Paladins have tons of defensive abilities , one slow casting ranged slow ability (which you can remove with purify), one melee stun which lasts 3 seconds and recharges in 12 (which you can stay out of range of), and one melee silence ability which lasts 3 seconds and cools down in 12 (which you can also stay away from). To kill you they’ll need to get you in melee range and keep you there long enough to whittle you down with basic attacks. If they have very good equipment, this is actually a danger. Many paladins get as much + move speed equipment as they can, which can total higher than maximized Haste. They also try to get highly upgraded swords (you can tell by how strongly and what color they glow) which can do an appreciable amount of damage over time. If you can’t stay out of melee range, just run away. If you can stay out of melee range, you still probably shouldn’t bother trying to kill them without somebody to help you inflict enough damage.

“ After 50 they get more dangerous, getting a big aoe immobilize and a large damage temporary damage buff. If you get caught they’ll have a decent chance to keep you stunned/silenced long enough to inflict some serious damage. Both of these powers have long cooldowns however (40s and 3 min respectively), so if you get caught in the immobilize you may want to cast Aika’s Grace or Desperate Prayer (if it looks like they won’t interrupt it) just before the duration runs out (3-5 seconds) to block their next cc power (probably the stun to keep you immobile) and escape. They still may not be doing enough damage to seriously threaten you though, in which case it may be prudent to save your immunity powers for a more dangerous opponent.

Warriors — Warriors are actually pretty easy to survive against. Many of their damage skills are aoe attacks, which Angelic Armor defends particularly well against. They have a charge skill that stuns for 3 seconds (max range 12 meters), a small movement speed buff, a 6 second silence, and another 1-4 second stun. You’ll notice they have a lot of stuns that they can chain together. In mass pvp they probably won’t use more than one crowd control power against you and so you don’t need to worry about them very much if you have Angelic Armor, but in smaller venues they will (in which case it’s best to try and block their initial cc attack, charge, with Desperate Prayer/Aika’s Grace and run away). It’s best to just stay out of melee range against them and keep throwing tempest at them. It’ll be easier if you have a teammate.

“ After 50 they get a long duration aoe fear and another high damage aoe, both with long cooldowns. This doesn’t really change anything in terms of what they’ll do to you (chain cc or not) or how you should handle them.

Riflemen — Riflemen are your main reason for having Angelic Armor. They can kill you in 1-2 hits without it up but they may take 3 attacks or more to kill you if it is. They have a 3 second silence (instant cast), a 6 second silence (3s charge), a 5 second stun if they attack from stealth (instant cast), a powerful slow (instant cast), and a long lasting melee range stun (if they hit you with it you’re pretty much dead). They can also stealth. Fortunately, you can counter most of their moves. Their high damage attacks have casts times of 2-5 seconds, so it’s pretty easy to tell what they’re doing. If they start charging up an attack, use Desperate Prayer to block it and then run away. If (when) they break your Angelic Armor, refresh it asap. If they turn invisible, quickly cast insight on where you last saw them. If they hit you with their slow, remove it with purify. You have haste, and so you can outrun them. Do so. They can do enough damage to keep breaking through your defenses and kill you before you can kill them with tempest, so it’s best not to stand and fight with them.

“ After 50 they gain the ability to attack from stealth (they lose stealth on attack but can recast it instantly) and an instant cast fast recharging 3s stun. Insight still works against them but the instant stun makes them much more dangerous. They now have a lot of ways to instantly cc you, making it more likely they’ll get off a charged attack without you being able to block it (although they may make the error of not using a cc against you since you can’t cc them back). Using an immunity spell and running away becomes even more important than before.

Dual Gunners — Dual Gunners have some nasty tools against clerics, and all of their skills cast instantly (so you’ll just have to guess what they’re going to use next). They have an attack that will grey out your screen for several seconds, making you unable to see anything. If they use this on you, do not heal yourself. Cast Angelic Armor or Desperate Prayer instead. Or use purify. Or just run away without being able to see where you’re going. The reason for this is that they have a debuff which makes your next few heals deal damage instead of healing. Once you can see again you can be sure that this skill hasn’t been used on you. They also have a root (get rid of it with purify), a couple of high damage attacks, a 10s sleep, and a 10s debuff that makes all critical hits against you stun for 3 seconds (They have high critical rates). They also have a skill which instantly recharges all their other skills. They can stealth too. Your best bet is to cast Desperate Prayer and run away as soon as possible (they have a run speed buff but it’s still slower than a high level haste) because the longer the fight goes on the higher the chance they’ll get you with debuffs and damage.

“ After 50 the only useful skill they gain is a 3s paralyze with a short cooldown. This doesn’t really change anything as you should be immune and immune and running away no matter what they’re doing.

Warlocks — Warlocks are very nasty. They can kill you in 2 attacks and there’s nothing Angelic Armor can do about it because they don’t deal physical damage. They have a shield that absorbs up to 50% of all damage they take into their mana (removing this with penance should be your priority if you’ve got teammates with you). They have a highly damaging 3 second stun, an aoe sleep that can last up to 16 seconds, an aoe and single target slow (purify these off), a silence that can last up to 22 seconds (5-12 seconds is more common though), and if given enough time to set it up a high damaging aoe attack that stuns for 5 seconds. They can even turn you into a bunny. And, to reiterate incase you forgot, they can kill you in as few as 2 attacks. Use Desperate Prayer and run away. That’s the entirety of your strategy.

“ All they gain after 50 are a couple of attacks. This doesn’t change anything from your perspective.

XV. Exceptions
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;~E.E. Cummings, since feeling is first

“ The advice I have given is general but not universal, and there will be situations when it doesn’t apply. For example, certain dungeons require very specific skills and tactics (for example, a high level resurrect is very valuable when doing a dungeon in hell mode), and there are other guides available to help you figure them out. There is also no accounting for the individual player. What works for most people may not work for you, so don’t discount your personal experience for advice that others give. Try things out, see how they work, and do what feels best for you.

XVI. Dealing with bad teams
“So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,” Said Dorian Gray, half to himself—“murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden.” ~Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“ Sometimes when you’re playing with a team, you kind of want to let them die. When this happens just try to remember that this is a game and that people are playing to have fun. Try talking to them politely and giving them advice to help them improve. Everybody makes mistakes, so try to be patient and give them another chance. If the problem is more social, so to speak, you can ask them to modify their behavior or simply chat block them (right click on their name in the chat box and select block. When your block list appears, press the block button to add them to the list).
“ If all else fails though, it is just a game and it’s fine to up and leave the party. You don’t need to be friends with every single player.

XVII. Sources and acknowledgements:
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.” ~Stephen Crane, A Man Said to the Universe

“ I would like to thank the following entities. Without them, this guide would not have been written. Or, at least, it would have been a lot more work.
Aika (the game)
Aika Wiki
Aika Online Database
Official Aika Forums
And players like you!