I've been at the game all of two weeks so I'm feeling my way through it. At this point - based on what I've read the following classes have appeal to me for various reasons:
Dark Avenger (tank/damge w/ panther sounds pretty neat)
Orc Mystic (the more melee style - cant remember which)
Dark Summoner/Spellhowler (not sure which, need more research)
Prophet - DD build sounds sort of hybridish and I like the idea.
For this thread, I'm looking for advice on the Prophet specifically. I'll be going a more DD route with soloing and of course PvP, once I find a clan to join up with that isn't at the 3rd grade mentality :) With that in mind:
1. What skills to invest in 1- 40
2. Where to hunt (are some places more mage/cleric friendly?)
3. What equipment to save for (this game has a whacked economy... I think its gonna take a long time to get cash =( )
4. Hmmm how to make cash? I've heard there are quests that are repeatable - I'll have to look for some that pay out- in the meantime, let me know how to make some early on.
I'll probably be soloing alot - I don't have anyone I know in the game and I play spotty hours so its best for me to be self-sufficient.
1. I'll tell you what not to get for skills. These are useless for a Cleric / Prophet:
Curse: Poison (7)
Curse: Weakness (14)
Vampiric Touch (14)
Sleep (it stops leveling at level 35)
Light Armor Mastery (you are better off waiting for Heavy at level 40)
Also, your heals stop at level 35, so I would only invest in Battle Heal. Group Heal is useless since you will be soloing. I wouldn't waste any SP on it. You do not get Battle Heal until level 14, so you should get at least 1 rank of Heal. A Blessed Spiritshot will make it so it heals you quite sufficiently until you can get Battle Heal.
Ice Bolt is something you'll have to decide on. With Wind Strike you can 2 shot quite a lot of mobs, so you really don't need Ice Bolt. It does slow down mobs, but not a lot of damage is dealt. There are a lot of mobs with Wind Weakness so Wind Strike is your most powerful weapon pre-20.
I'm quite the miser with my SP so I do not spend SP on anything I don't absolutely need.
2. Levels 1 to 20 on Talking Island aren't as easy as they would be somewhere else. Dark Elven Village has a lot of bats that are wind weak that will make your life much easier. At level 20, even though you get no further ranks in Wind Strike, you can briefly use it versus the Hungry Eyes (wind weak) on the most southern beach of Aden. Just port to the Southern Wastelands. At level 21 you can get a quest from one of the vendors that are right there. You will get a small reward for killing eyes. And later Basilisks . . .
Once you get Disrupt Undead you can fight in areas with Undead. But if if you are going to be a DD with dual swords (best choice IMO), then Disrupt Undead is a waste of SP (except you need at least 1 rank of it for your level 40 quests). If I had my choice I would have taken no ranks of it. It stops leveling at level 35. Bishops and Elven Elders get Might of Heaven to replace it at level 40.
Basically for a Prophet, spell-based combat is not in your future. The only real useful offensive spell is Dryad Root which you could use a lot if you were using a bow. And its also useful if you are attacked by multiple mobs.
They'll work far up into your 50ies, with sps/bsps... and the normal heal costs half of what a battle heal does in mp, but heals for more... don't want to be without that one for tuning uptimes.
I took sleep off my hotbar at level ~55 on my prophet... both heal and battle heal are still on it.
SP will not be a problem, get everything if you want...
My advice comes from experience of leveling a level 61 Prophet. I'm sorry, but I don't find Sleep 9 all that useful at my level. Also, at higher levels, Heal is a waste. Battle Heal costs so little compared to what your total mana is, it is silly not to just spam Battle Heal.
Dryad Root is just as much of a life saver as Sleep. Root the mob. Walk out of range.
If you are really finding yourself in a situation where you need to root or sleep a lot, you are probably fighting beyond your capabilities. A Battle Prophet in heavy armor who is soloing is going to be most successful fighting nothing but greens.
My real question is why you are leveling a Prophet just to solo anyways. Leveling will be slower than even a tank with self buffs and potions.
This entire game involves a SP crunch and always coming up short unless you decide to delevel your toons to gain extra SP. Without deleveling, you need to eek out every useful skill that you can with the limited SP you have.
If you want your skills immediately at the level they are available, be conservative.
Sleep is better than root in some situations and that is the key for me. Sleep mobs that will nuke you or continue to shoot you if you root them. I'm currently leveling a Prophet, just got through the 30s I found both root and sleep to be good.
Sleep is better than root in some situations and that is the key for me. Sleep mobs that will nuke you or continue to shoot you if you root them. I'm currently leveling a Prophet, just got through the 30s I found both root and sleep to be good.
Of course it's useful at 30 to 40. You have the right ranks of sleep for the levels of mobs you are fighting. Try and use that Sleep 9 in Dragon Valley when you are in your 50s.
By all means - if you are fighting mobs that are going to get you killed if you don't sleep, then get Sleep. But there are a lot of places to level where sleep really isn't critical.
I have Sleep 9. Looking back, I just wish I had saved the 42,000 SP it cost me. In aggregate with all the other skills I wish I hadn't leveled, I'd have an excess of 100K in SP I could have used on something else.
If your fighting style dictates that you must have some of the skills I dismissed as useless, then of course, ignore my advice.
Honestly, of his choices, I think the OP would be better off with a Dark Avenger soloing with self-buffs and potions (but not using the Dark Panther).
There's very little point skipping any skills until you're 40+.
First of all, you MUST level sleep. I don't care that you stop leveling it after level 35, I use it all the time on level 65-68 mobs. With BSPS it's still works most of the time and it's often useful in places where root isn't.
Curse: Weakness...
Well, arguments can be made that you don't need this one but it IS useful. If you plan to solo as a prophet, you'll want a spell to use as an agro/pull tool. Curse: Weakness is better than any other prophet spells because, 1) it has the longest range, 2) it casts VERY fast and has a fast reuse speed, and 3) It only costs 3 MP to use.
Light Armor Mastery...
If you plan to solo then you'd be better off not getting Robe Mastery. As a Battle Prophet from lvl 20-40 you want light armor. But then you can stop leveling it after Lvl 40 when you start getting Heavy Armor Mastery. Post 40, I don't level Robe or Light mastery, only Heavy.
Heals...
Again, you want both regular and batle heal (skipping group heal is a valid option). They ARE VERY USEFUL even at Lvl 65.
Honestly, of his choices, I think the OP would be better off with a Dark Avenger soloing with self-buffs and potions (but not using the Dark Panther).
Unless you have a trailing buffer, you solo better as a Prophet IMO. I was a level 58 DA and got annoyed at my solo ability and rerolled to prophet. It's more fun now, more versitile, and small groups I form are better.
To the OP: DA's shouldn't solo with their panther if they want to make any money. 12 C crystal per 20min (plus potions) is just too expensive.
Unless you have a trailing buffer, you solo better as a Prophet IMO. I was a level 58 DA and got annoyed at my solo ability and rerolled to prophet. It's more fun now, more versitile, and small groups I form are better.
Well, this I wouldn't know. Never played a DA. The only tank I've played is a SK which does pretty well solo, even at high levels.
Looking back at the OP, he also talked about PvP. So now it seems the obvious choice would be either the summoner or SH. The Spellhowler has nice offensive spells other than its main nuke.
There's very little point skipping any skills until you're 40+.
Now this I disagree with because SP is even a bigger issue at the lower levels. If you want to get Curse: Weakness later on for the purpose of pulling, then don't get it at level 14. Get it at level 40 (or whatever). That 2100 SP is enough for 3 ranks of Battle Heal.
Instead of spending 4200 on Heal and Group Heal at level 14, you can immediately get your Anti-Magic, Armor, and Weapon Masteries.
As to your point of skill point shortage... I didn't find this to be the case but it does depend on personal play style.
As a <20 human mage, you should be using wind strike to nuke and you shouldn't waste MP on heals. I agree with that. But after level 20, I didn't use my nukes any more. When fighting mele, prophets' MP is only useful for buffs and heals so you might as well use it. If you only have Battle Heal you'll be wasting MP and thus increasing your rest time. Also, until level 45 or so, clerics have the best heal of any class.
Weakness not worth it at first? Well honestly, I think I did wait until my 30s or so before I started using Curses to agro. But, SP really isn't that scarce. At each new level I always got my Weapon and Armor masteries immediately, followed by heals, then root, then Anti-Magic then sleep. I didn't find anti-magic to be all that useful until I was in my 40s. The only skill I ignored was robe mastery.
As I've said I'm still feeling my way around, so maybe I've read some overly optimistic viewpoints on the Prophet in terms of what they can do!
Its not that I necessarily want to solo, I just know what my time constraints are. I know this game is a huge time sink and alot of people devote a tremendous amount of time to it. as a result, I often find that people level a bit quicker than I, so keeping a group together can be difficult.
I've played both EQ and EQ II as well as many other games and this game seems about in line with EQ in terms of time put in - we'll have to see as time wears on whether it will steepen later on.
That's my primary concern. So that's why I was looking for a melee-ish character that was soloable, yet still ok with Pvp... to much to ask for huh? If you see my list above its chars that sort of dance on that line of melee and spell-like utility.... so given that I would like to have survivability, be more fighter than finger-waggler, and not embarrass myself at PvP what does everyone suggest?
I've heard Warcryers do ok in this regard, and DA still holds my interest (the panther is more for my vanity, so if its not viable to use so be it). Any other classes that would fit the bill? I'm open to nearly all playstyle - I played a druid in WoW so I did it all ;-)
Well, Warcyer or one of the Summoners might fight what you are looking for. The Warcryer has a fair amount of versatility. You would be good for parties if you have friends to level with but you can solo very well with the right armor setup.
Summoners are more party friendly than they used to be and they are excellent soloers.
Check out this recent thread I posted in concerning creating a battle Prophet... May provide a bit of light on what you want to work towards at high level.
1. I'll tell you what not to get for skills. These are useless for a Cleric / Prophet:
Curse: Poison (7)
Curse: Weakness (14)
Vampiric Touch (14)
Sleep (it stops leveling at level 35)
Light Armor Mastery (you are better off waiting for Heavy at level 40)
Also, your heals stop at level 35, so I would only invest in Battle Heal. Group Heal is useless since you will be soloing. I wouldn't waste any SP on it. You do not get Battle Heal until level 14, so you should get at least 1 rank of Heal. A Blessed Spiritshot will make it so it heals you quite sufficiently until you can get Battle Heal.
Ice Bolt is something you'll have to decide on. With Wind Strike you can 2 shot quite a lot of mobs, so you really don't need Ice Bolt. It does slow down mobs, but not a lot of damage is dealt. There are a lot of mobs with Wind Weakness so Wind Strike is your most powerful weapon pre-20.
I'm quite the miser with my SP so I do not spend SP on anything I don't absolutely need.
2. Levels 1 to 20 on Talking Island aren't as easy as they would be somewhere else. Dark Elven Village has a lot of bats that are wind weak that will make your life much easier. At level 20, even though you get no further ranks in Wind Strike, you can briefly use it versus the Hungry Eyes (wind weak) on the most southern beach of Aden. Just port to the Southern Wastelands. At level 21 you can get a quest from one of the vendors that are right there. You will get a small reward for killing eyes. And later Basilisks . . .
Once you get Disrupt Undead you can fight in areas with Undead. But if if you are going to be a DD with dual swords (best choice IMO), then Disrupt Undead is a waste of SP (except you need at least 1 rank of it for your level 40 quests). If I had my choice I would have taken no ranks of it. It stops leveling at level 35. Bishops and Elven Elders get Might of Heaven to replace it at level 40.
Basically for a Prophet, spell-based combat is not in your future. The only real useful offensive spell is Dryad Root which you could use a lot if you were using a bow. And its also useful if you are attacked by multiple mobs.
4. Manor System.
Just stop. SP Doesn't matter in low levels, and at those levelsl some of those skills actually do help.
I would not worry about the SP at low levels. Ask a friend or clannie for a high SP scroll and you can buy everything without worry. It's what I do for my alts.
When you get higher level and have oodles of skills in the window those low level skills that cost basically nothing that people tell you to skip for no good reason will clutter the **** out of your screen.
Just buy them. If they are useful, good. If no, then then didn't cost much, anyways.
I'd also consider what Nya said. WCs and OLs got boosted heavily this update, and it's a significant setback for prophets that NCSoft did that. Can't say I'm mad, though....
I understand what you are saying about soloing a lot - many of us are in similar situations. This is not a good game for soloing at high levels. But, if you want to give it a try, I would recommend:
1) One of the three summoner classes. You buff and heal your DD servitor; these classes are the most capable of soloing.
2) An Orc Warcryer. Your DD capabilities are a bit modest, but you do carry all your own buffs and you have at least some healing capacity. This class really starts to shine at higher levels and is very much in demand.
3) A Shillien Knight, Gladiator, (or to a lesser extent) Tyrant or Destroyer. These all have a good combination of melee DD and ability to take some damage. (Actually, the Tyrant is Light Armor, but kills fast enough to minimize damage in many of the solo-friendly hunting zones.) If you go this last route, do some research before choosing among the 4 classes.
All of this applies to PvE.
I haven't played since just before the combo buffs were going to go live. Did they fix all that was messed up about the PP since then? I mean they gimped my class so bad back then that I had to quit. The PP was my main.
I haven't played since just before the combo buffs were going to go live. Did they fix all that was messed up about the PP since then? I mean they gimped my class so bad back then that I had to quit. The PP was my main.
Thanks.
PP are now the worst buffer in game, so don't come back. Your choice was correct :D
fortune seeker? (I don't even think gracia mobs have spoils, but I dunno. I've only killed birds so far)
They can spoil sigil parts :p Plus, there's some items used in one of the seeds (don't remember which one) are class specific, and there's one only usable by Dwarfs (either BH or WS) :O Don't know how well the item will help in the seeds, but it's definately dorf specific :p