Hello.Just awakened my dual, an Iss Hierophant but I haven't the knowledge of how to play him efficiently both solo and in a group.The pre-awakening game didn't help me understand the role of this class - as did in other classes I played.I haven't yet bought skills cause I wanted to know if there's any of the old ones worth keeping.Now for gear I wear my main's items who happens to be a tank, I hope I can do with a sword and shield and won't get loled at.:D
My main concern is the use of him especially in groups.I always want to play at my best for the group and don't stay passive.Also what are my chances doing some solo in that gear.I 'd highly appreciate some experienced ISS tips and any info that would help me play at highest efficiency for my party mates.
You can't compare pre-awakening and after awakening about most of the classes .. about all tbh :)
First of all you must know your place in the party. You`re support and your job is to debuff (mainly) every single mob that your group is fighting.
Being Hierophant makes that job little easier with the shorten reuses of skills, but only that :) You don't have the survivability of sword muse, eather the damage of spectral dancer .. or both if you're warcryer.
As hierophant you can try to use your skills more often, and with wizard harmony on (additional 20% CDR) .. and maybe uf you're lucky passive and/or active skill refresh.
About the items .. everything with health on will help you to survive more, and whyle you're alive mobs will be weaker. Heavy set+health wep+shield is usefull for strong mobs, or higher lvl ones. if you can afford light set - get one for the extra mana regen ... that means more skill to spam and without mana leak
Solo play - in aoe (if you can whitstand the damage from the mobs and keep yourself alive) use wizard harmony, for lower skill reuse, so you can aoe the mobs faster, also shorten cooldown and less mana for your self heal. TBH for me it's easier to make sos daily with iss than with tyrr :)
Solo on harder mobs - if you have enough deffence so you can survive on vamp, get slasher 2 sa or duals+haste (slasher is better imo because you get better crit rate and same atk speed as duals) and debuff and kill with normal hits (death stike for overhit). This is usefull (for example pagan) if you're even 96
Try to put the "OH SH*T" skills close to your hand, because you're squishy and one polymorph 1 second earlier can save your life ;)
if you dont take overlord as Iss
then iss prophet is the only choice, since you can spam skills more, especially at lvl 99, you will understand this
all these facts are for pve solo and group pve/pvp play
may be others iss classes are better in olymp, dont know, i dont care about oly
Just played him yesterday for the 1st time in group and as most was forgetting to refresh sonatas.:pNevertheless I have set 3 macros one for Melodies, one for Resistancies and one for Sonatas.Debuff wise I am spamming Crippling Attack (-P.Att/M.Att) and Shadow Blade (-P.def/M.def) or their Mass equivalents when group of mobs is in question.For solo purposes I find that after debuffs land Death Strike produces some nice damage.
About gear I wear my main's staff (Twilight Heavy, Apo Cutter, Shield) and so far in Swampland I could stand decently.The same could be said about going solo there.I am not killing that fast but I can at least do the Quest.:cool:
Forgot to say I am interested only in PvE, not PvP at all.So please give me any tips you might think is worth for group play.
based on your gear SwM-ISS would be good option, much more survivability due to their selfbuf & passives and else as said before PP-ISS with it's fastest skill re use is a fine 2nd option.
if you intend to solo a lot the SD-ISS could also be an option but I personally don't think a slight increase in dps warrants preference over better survivability
since you got good gear till 95 you'll enjoy the gamplay. you have lots of survival, but don't count on the shield block rate ... it's better to run aroud than to take hits (or block if you're lucky)
at 88 (or so) you can duo with any class in kamael zones, after 90 maybe solo
But since you got low dps weapon on normal hits you should be focused on skill spam
Actually I tested it in Swampland with Knight and Warrior harmonies.I can say with knight I feel pretty safe soloing but the dmg as you correctly pointed out is mediocre at best.But I can even gather 4~5 mobs together and mass debuff strike them which makes it kinda faster than killing them one by one.:)
I am considering duals in the future - blunts are cheaper than swords but are they close to efficiency? Also as I don't plan to solo much do you think it would be a move that significantly benefits teamplay? About dyes what would you propose?
A 2H sword, 'Slasher' are pretty cheap (at least on Shilen). You can put Haste + Focus on it and it's the best dps PvE for Iss. Dualswords are more expensive and don't have Focus option (but they do get +21 crit rate when +4)
Otherwise you seem to have it figured out. Enchant your sonatas as you go so you don't have to refresh them as often. Be sure to use your Polymorph and Quick Escape whenever you want to, since they have quick reuse. An Iss can rush it and get out of situations rather well, since it's not meant to try to tank.
There isn't a major difference between the Iss classes, any of the differences are 5-10% in patk, pdef, reuse etc. It doesn't drastically alter their playstyles, so when someone says a Heirophant doesn't hit as hard as a Spectral Dancer, or is softer than a Sword Muse, it's not significant. There are bigger differences among Iss's based on their gear!
Gear-wise there isn't much difference to make in party. The key is remember to buff and debuff! That's what Iss are for. If it's your dual, you don't need to be well-geared beyond heavy armor with element so you don't need heals all the time as a melee. No one will ever complain of an Iss with low DPS unless maybe you don't have a weapon equipped at all.
I am considering duals in the future - blunts are cheaper than swords but are they close to efficiency? Also as I don't plan to solo much do you think it would be a move that significantly benefits teamplay? About dyes what would you propose?
There are places without herbs dropping, and normal hits and crippling is the only way to keep your mana up. but the difference in damage of dualblunts and dualswords isn't big, but that are some facts:
-dualblunt+focus got the same crit rate as dualsword+4
-dualblunts doesn't have health SA
-haste SA helps you cast skills faster (and since you're hierophant you`ll cast them more times)
But that's if you want to solo faster. Best option for you is to get 1h sword health+haste so you can use it with both of your main and dualclass, and invest some adena for epics (new ones) ... istina neclace would be very good :)
Iss Hierophant is the ultimate Annoyer Class, specially regarding to single pvp/oly. The less mana consumption and the f c king less reuse makes him the best char to survive most of situations. For me, excellence on survivability is the ability to not take hits at all, and the Hiero Iss is da best on it, being capable to full disable enemies for entire minutes.