1-hand sword and shield for "damage" and a cast speed robeset. If he/she buffs a lot and want to get some of the boring feeling out of that, go with an acumen weapon (homu) and +5WIT - I promise it's more fun to buff that way... and he/she gets to learn how to manage mp in bigger parties, which is always good! ;) (only twoboxed prophets use mana-up weapons ;p
go with an acumen weapon (homu) and +5WIT - I promise it's more fun to buff that way... and he/she gets to learn how to manage mp in bigger parties, which is always good!
and a tip if s/he chooses this route: staggering buffs helps MP regeneration in big parties... buff one person, then after 2-3min another, then another 2-3min and the next till everyone is buffed. this gives you a short time to regen MP used before you have to use more for the next person.
at lower levels, mp can be a little tough to keep up. you shouldnt have to do that at higher levels though, and if you already knew it great!
duals are no good for any class except those who have masteries for it.. realy..
better to get a 1-handed and a shield..
Prophets get "Weapon Mastery" and are therefore equally proficient with any weapon they choose to use. So, they should use either the highest damage weapon they can get their hands on, or use a cast speed (or conversion weapon).
and a tip if s/he chooses this route: staggering buffs helps MP regeneration in big parties... buff one person, then after 2-3min another, then another 2-3min and the next till everyone is buffed. this gives you a short time to regen MP used before you have to use more for the next person.
Very good tip, listen to the pro's :)
Staggering buffs are good to get to grips with, it makes your job a bit more complex but also more "fun" in fullsize parties, to keep track of stuff (boy did the buff icons on party members make the buffer's job less exciting).
The method above sounds sound but the method I used were to buff the entire party with half the buff set, like the most important offensive buffs... then after 10 min do the rest of the buffs on the entire party. Rince and repeat ever 10min. Battle-buffing is of course needed to prevent downtime, ie buffing while the party keeps fighing... something that also requires atleast a tiny bit of attention to not get too much aggro ^^
There is a few ways that you can play a prophet, you can DD them with disript undead on, undead mobs, like in EG and in AL ToI and in cata/necros, also in DEv castle to.
For that set up, maxing out cast speed and dmg is a must, so SA with M dmg would be good.a one handed sword incase you have to go meele (don't forget holy weapon, I tested it with my cleric in EG..I do 30 more dmg on meele atks with a staff of life)
if your planing to do large groups stagering buffs is the only way (it's how farmers to it). or else your not going to have MP.
Best set up for groups is a +0-3 [censored] with acumen, and karmain (to save money). if money is no proplem better robe is devine.the parts spoil and drop in EV.
Also make sure that buffs like BTS is the first one off on all classes like nukers and healers, then move into the other things.
be awear of where you are and the mob type, so you know what buffs to give, if someone says they need a buff then give them.
I have a lev41 Prophet in my clan. We need to know whats the best weapon an armor for him....thank you all.
Get him NG devotion set for cast speed and giv him the worst ng 1x bsps weapon possible, or even use a chrono. Then he can play afk untill he is lvl 78 o.O.
Anyway most prophets i see wear karmian + [censored] at C grade, as said it depends on his play style, DD or support healer or pure hardcore buffer. Or maybe...battle prophet o.O heavy armour & dual swords.
Its plenty to do for a duo or 3-4 man group, i use a SE in NG to buff-bot me and she always at full ;) anyway i was just jokeing. As i said, C4 is the rise of battle prophet, heavy armour & crit duals ftw.
He is my "slave" and thus second in line to get equipment, right after my main (a SH).
But I looooooove my battle-prophet that much, so I'v actually started equipping him with top B-grate over my main :)
I gave him Full Plate set + SLS (SA Fucus) to start with(lvl 40-52).
He also had a D-grade Mithril set to wear when he does the buff-cycle, so the buff times speeds up.
Now he is B-grade, I gave him SLS*Tsu +4 = SA Focus (Critical) and are working on collecting a BW Heavy set for him(get that later today :) ).
..... and my main... well he sticks to Demon set + Ghoul staff +3(Mana up) :)
God ****, a Battle Prophet WITH SLS*Tsu+4, Focus 3, Haste 2, Death Whisper 2, Might 3 and guidance 2 really does a lot of damage dealing.
If it continues this way, I end up making my main the "Slave", and my "slave" the main :) :) :)
duals are no good for any class except those who have masteries for it.. realy..
better to get a 1-handed and a shield..
Prophets get "Weapon Mastery" and are therefore equally proficient with any weapon they choose to use. So, they should use either the highest damage weapon they can get their hands on, or use a cast speed (or conversion weapon).
they could yes.. but i wouldnt do it..
shield is alot better since u can block attacks.. yes even healers block with shield
and u block arrows.. so archers do less damage
its a reason why most 2-handed "mage" weapons are cheap and all the 1-handed cost alot
Wearing a shield on a prophet would only be worth while when they got a high lvl blessed shield buff. Otherwise go for max damage, if you get hurt you can just heal yourself in a snap.
>>only twoboxed prophets use mana-up weapons
conversion is so much better for 2box.
---
to answer the OP:
there is no best weapon for buffer/healer:
it depends:
1. large parties: since no clear mind the prophet needs to sit down a lot. I'd advise conversion homu. and casting roobes. Buffing must be selective; just dont be miser trying to save from magic barrier. (conversion is no risk option w/ prophet return spell)
2. small parties where prophet deals dmg: any weapon w/ focus (dagger/duals/2h sword); robes.
3. Solo: heavy+focus sword (or dagger - depends on mobs; some has crappy evasion) + shield.
If whole clan participates on equiping prophet, then get him/her divine set and top C weapon, possibly with mana up (Ghoul's staff) to have enough mana for buffing and occasional heals or crowd control. Or some high patk weapon if you want your prophet deal some additional damage. For B try Blue Wolf and conversion weapon for example ...
Battle prophets are nice, but ... be honest, do you build the clan prophet for clan or soloing? If for clan, get him/her equipped for clan parties. And once your clan joins alliance (if you are not in one yet) and start doing raids etc., low mana pool can be a but confusing. If he/she has enough adena, no problem to get additional sets of equipment later.
shield is alot better since u can block attacks.. yes even healers block with shield
and u block arrows.. so archers do less damage
I have played a Battle Prophet with duals, two-handed sword, and single-handed sword w/ shield. Yes, prophets do block with their shield but it's not worth it. When my prophet hit 52 I grabbed my DA's Doom + Dama (focus). I too thought this would be best since I had Bless Shield. At about lvl 59, however, I was doing all my hunting in Forsaken Plains (so yes there were plenty of archers) and a friend offered to trade a set of top B duals for my dama. I took the trade and haven't regretted it one bit. I took more damage per mob but my XP/time went up a lot and I still had little/zero down time. If a battle prophet is fighting in an area where they need a shield, the area is too high level. Find some greens/whites to fight.
its a reason why most 2-handed "mage" weapons are cheap and all the 1-handed cost alot
Did I misunderstand you? Were you saying the prophet should have a mage weapon?
I'm level 68 Prophet using b grade gear. Been working on building my prophet to be battle worthy for a couple chronicles now. Currently I can solo yellow/light red mobs (level 72 range) in the Forest of the Dead with just a heal or two after each mob. This isn't even the best setup I could use as I blew my A grade weapon OE'ing it. I get about 13k exp per kill and kill reasonable quickly. (Quick enough not to die or have to stop and heal myself mid-fight.)
Point is, you can build a Prophet to fight and solo effectively. While I'll still die in PvP, I can hold my own now rather than 1 or 2 shot. I've done this without sacrificing my ability to buff an entire party every 20 mins, albeit my not using my battle gear. Just takes some time and effort to work out your play style.
I'm amazed, all these posts, and the only reference to a bow was in the olympiad.... Look at bow's people!! I'm a lvl 55 SE, that has a +3 DELB with Crit bleed; Now mind you, I almost always am in a party with another SE, and usually a bishop, so I don't have to do full party buffs, but even in a 5-6 person party if I'm by myself I have enough mp to buff, they just have to be careful for a few minutes. With my delb I can do maximum damage, and unless I crit a few times in a row, don't ever pull aggro, or take any hits.
For healers, the m atk on a weapon really isn't that important; At +3 my delb has an m atk of 115 if I remember correctly, and unless they are sleep or root resistant, I've never had a problem sleeping or rooting anything that is even light red to me.
I've used both a BoP w/ Accuracy and a Soul Bow w/ Cheap Shot. I wasn't impressed with either. I actually put out more damage over time with melee weapons than with a bow. Not to mention the bow sucks mp. However, like I mentioned before, it's all about panning out your own playing style.
For my own interest, I aught to encourage all Prophets to use bows in the Olympiad. I figure if I can defeat a 6x HE with self buffs plus Haste 2, I can take out another Prophet using a bow...
Ahhhh my mistake, I have just been informed that prophet's don't regen mp as fast as SE's do; I've never had a problem with mp regen, with my bw robes, I actually regen 3 more per tick than it takes me to shoot my bow; Plus I usually have bd dances also, making my dmg output much more with my bow than it ever was with my +5 Raids
Umm...just got here, and this kind of caught my attention:
you can DD them with disript undead on, undead mobs, like in EG and in AL ToI and in cata/necros, also in DEv castle to.
Prophets don't have Disrupt Undead, unless you're seriously suggesting using the level 35 Cleric spell to nuke his entire career :eek:
battle prophet, I remember killing them fast on the PTS.
cause they can't heal them selfs, they do get light armor mastories.
Battle Prophets wear heavy, not light. No wonder you were killing them fast, you weren't actually fighting a battle Prophet :p
...and they do heal themselves more than enough, given the heavy armor.
Frankly I don't know why a Prophet would ever be in light--robes are better for full parties and heavy is better for small ones.
Wow, so many people saying battle prophets are great.
i wanna ask though, if someone cares enough about thier clan prophet to post for them on forums about which gear to buy for him instead of making him do it himself, chances are that means they want to y'know group with him, right? that would mean he should be set up for groups and not solo ^^
if your clan is helping your prophet (and you most certainly should) with both gear and groups, i would DEFINITELY say robes over heavy, even though prophet gets masteries for robes, heavy AND light armors... that doesnt mean thier all a good idea to use. if you are grouping your prophet, stick with robes that have good healer stats on thier bonus, INT really isnt important at all, MEN is good, WIT is good... most prophets seem to favor WIT(castspeed) bonus over MEN(max MP and MP regen) for some reason, if it was me i would break it up and either use a castspeed set and a mana up or conversion weapon OR a MP set with an acu weapon. i would advise talking to someone who actually plays a buffer active in big groups as to which one is better for your prophet, that person isnt me, i play an EE with Tallum robes and +5 MEN <--best **** MP battery you ever had :p
Divine robes are great for a prophet during C grade, if they are enchanted they are good enough to tank greens in. The best weapon I had for my prophet is an overenchanted SLS, you get the high physical attack, but also nice MAtk for roots (and word of fear :D). Get it to +8 and you have a 1 more PAtk than a Dama and the same MAtk as a SoV.
Whoever posted going for DU, that would just not work well, although hunting undead melee with holy weapon is a nice bonus. DU is a fairly weak spell sucking up a lot of mana, it also starts to fail quite early after class change. I never got prophets with magic weapons that just buff and stand there, you can solo so of course bashing away a bit at a mob will help!
Investing in a BoP for my prophet was a mistake, she did very little damage with it really and it sucked up my MP even with cheap shot. Poles were a better choice for the root and distance kill method, but using a dagger or duals and healing after seems to be the best way to solo or assist parties - you always have haste and crit buffs so it is worth making use of them.
As I normally duoed with my prophet I went for BW light, cast speed about the same as divine, but nice defence and mana regen. Later on I got BW robes too, but I <3 the light more for its versatility.
I didnt read this entire thread but IMO a Crystal staff with MP SA. When she gets high enough lvl to maintain MP for a party of 9, most likely mid 50s, get a [censored] with Accumen SA. She is gonna need BW set for MP bonus also to do this.
If she plans to be a dmg dealer then I have no clue :)
i would advise talking to someone who actually plays a buffer active in big groups as to which one is better for your prophet
I probably didn't emphasize this sufficently. The evolution of my Prophet into something battle worthy was specifically done in a manner that did not interfere with my ability to buff a full party at as early of a level as possible.
While working on my gear, my first responsibility was to accomplish 2 things as a buffer: 1) Have enough MP to buff a full party of 9 at one time and 2) be able to regen the MP needed to buff a full party of 9 in 20 mins to avoid downtime for a party.
This really isn't an accomplishable goal until you hit your latter 50's. However, it is something to work towards while level'ing through C grade and into B grade.
With the 1st responsibility in mind, I then developed my ability to fight. For C grade, I found Divine and a Mana Up stick worked well for buffing. For fighting, I used Full Plate and an SLS w/ FP Shield. You could easily switch out the SLS for a pair of duals. Focus SA is the way to go as critical rate is where you will really enjoy putting down decent #'s.
B grade is Blue Wolf robes. No way around that for full party buffs. Although I am 68, I still am completely in B grade gear. (Working on a Majestic set, but the circlets are ridiculously expensive atm.) I use 2 mage weapons, both Homunkulus swords. One with Acumen, the other with Conversion. Switch between them as MP allows you too to either gain MP beyond that allowed with the Acumen sword equipped or if buffing, once you hit that same limit but on the way down w/ using MP, switch to Acumen to speed up the last half of the buffs.
This is a tricky part.. Keep in mind you are regenning MP while buffing at half the rate you regen while sitting. If you begin buffing too quickly, you will deplete your MP before done with buffs and end up having to either be recharged or sit to regen a bit more to finish. For each level, you have to feel out the point at which you can swap to the Acumen sword and still finish all buffs consectively.
As for the battle gear... Forget Doom. Doom is a bane to which will aggrevate the crap out of you if you are attempting to solo. Prophets already have crap for STR and Doom does nothing to help it out. Its great to have elventy billion HP's but it really doesn't matter if you can't kill anything.
Blue Wolf heavy is the answer. You can share the helmet between the robe and heavy set. It improves your STR and it's p.def is superior to Doom. Not to mention it improves run speed.
Tattoo's are the real key to fine tuning your ability. I'll leave that up to you to decide how it fits your build.