Cleric Build without Holy Arrow

[Dokken]

This guide is basically a persuasion to convince Clerics not to max Holy Arrow. You should consider following this guide if your are looking for the most appropriate skill build. Please take note that there is not an exact skill build for Clerics in this guide.

The main advantage of clerics is the ability to do extremely well in a party. Every Cleric should be able to use this advantage. The most ideal Cleric will party with other classes to hunt monsters. For the time you do not party, you can heal zombies to train. Some people say that training with Heal is slower than training with Holy Arrow. This is not true as Coolie Zombie is the best monster to train with from level 60 to 80 for all classes. Coolie Zombie can be affected by Heal, so a Cleric can efficiently train on various types of zombies.

When you become a Cleric, you should understand the fact that a Cleric does not really aim for massive damages. When you plan on maxing Holy Arrow, you are trying to seek to inflict higher damages. Thus, why don't you choose to become a Fire/Poison Wizard or a Ice/Lightning Wizard if you are aiming to become stronger. Holy Arrow is obviously weaker than Fire Arrow and Cold Beam, because a Fire/Poison mage can inflict more damages on a Jr. Yeti with Fire Arrow than a Cleric inflicting damages on a Dark Jr. Yeti with Holy Arrow. Please note that Jr. Yeti and Dark Jr. Yeti both have around the same amount of magic defense. Hence, you will still be weaker than other classes. It is very true that Holy Arrow can do more damages than Magic Claw, but the difference, in terms of base attack, between Fire Arrow/Cold Beam and Magic Claw is much drastic than the difference between Holy Arrow and Magic Claw. Therefore, it makes Holy Arrow not worth to max. Holy Arrow is an overall weak skill that is not worth to be maxed by any Cleric. It is created just because every mage in 2nd job has to have two offensive skills.

Most official guides recommend u to only put 11 Skill Points into Holy Arrow. They are mostly written by experienced players in Japanese Maple Story or Korean Maple Story. They are obviously more experienced and wise in determining the most appropriate skill build for a Cleric. As a result, it is more reliable to trust the official guides than to trust other people who tell you to max Holy Arrow.

Even though Clerics are really made to party, you will not party 100% of the time because leveling will be slower since you may not have a decent party to gain fast experiences. If you party to fight tougher monsters, such as Tauromacis, Taurospear, Werewolf, and Bain when you are only about level 40 – 60, you will struggle too much since they deal massive damages on you. For the time you do not party, you should heal various zombies. An ideal cleric should party about 20 – 25% of the time and solo, meaning to fight zombies with Heal, about 75 – 80% of the time. If u never party, there is no point to become a Cleric (A Cleric cannot deal massive damages with Holy Arrow); as you can become one of the two other wizards to inflict more damages and use potions when you get hurt to replace Cleric's Heal.

Holy Arrow is only good against dark monsters. You should waste 30 Skill Points to max Holy Arrow just for dark monsters when there are many zombies out there to heal. Zombie Lupin and the two weaker types of Cronos are definitely the best monsters to train from level 40 to 50. Wraith is the fastest leveling monster for a Cleric from level 50 to 60. Coolie Zombie is always recognized as one of the best monster to level up from level 60 up until level 80 for all classes. This is really true because you can always see many stores selling Zombie's Teeth in Free Market, but you will observe that there are less stores selling the monster pieces of dark-type monsters. As a result, most ideal Clerics will train on Coolie Zombie from level 60 to 80.

If u are bored training at zombies, you can always party to hunt monsters for variety, including dark monsters. Some people claim that training on the undeads with Heal is quite boring; however, most players of other jobs who get past level 50 will find training to be really boring as well. If you cannot stand the boringness of training, you will still feel bored even if you use Holy Arrow to train or if you start all over again using another class.

Some people say that Cold Beam and Fire Arrow get replaced by skills in 3rd job advancement, so there is no point to max them if Holy Arrow gets replaced by Shining Ray as well. That is not true. Fire/Poison Wizards must max Fire Arrow simply because they become Fire/Poison wizard for more potent attacks. Ice/Lightning Wizards must max Cold beam and Lightning in order to train efficiently to level 70. Both wizards tend to not max Slow, as it is the least useful skill in 2nd job. To determine which skill to not max, one looks at the skill that is the least useful to them but not the skill that will be replaced later on. For Clerics, you do not max Holy Arrow not because it is useless, but it is considered to be the least useful of the six skills of a Cleric.

Now lets take a glance as to why you should max other skills instead of maxing Holy Arrow.

Heal (the most important skill):
- You should not become a Cleric if you do not max Holy Arrow.

Invincible (the 2nd most important skill):
- It is very useful when u get to very high levels and fight monster that inflicts massive damage on you. For example, Crimson Balrog inflicts 2000 weapon damages on you. Maxed Invincible can decrease the weapon damages by 30%, hence, you will only receive 1400 damages.

MP eater (the 3rd most important skill):
- It is a common mage skill, which means all types of mages need it.
- There is a 30% chance of absorbing 40% of the enemy's max MP, which means it often works per every 3 - 4 hits.
- It works extremely well with mob attack skills, such as Heal, Ice Strike, Shining Ray, Thunderbolt, and Poison Myst. It works most of the time when you attack four or more enemies per every cast.
- If it is not maxed, lets say its at level 10, then the skill won't be as effective, hence u wasted this great skill.
- It is passive so it will help u no matter what level u are.
- Some people say clerics don't need since they party and use Heal, but if they party all the time they really don't need Holy Arrow, so MP eater is still more useful than holy Arrow.
- In the future, you gain more MP from the monsters as their amounts of Max MP increase.

Teleport (4th most important skill):
- It is a common mage skill, which means all types of mages need it.
- It provides a great advantage of mages over other classes, since mages generally deal the least damages of all the classes; thus, they need teleport to make up the weakness. Clerics have less HP so they need to run out of monsters to avoid getting more damages.
- Some players say that 60 MP is not much when u hit 3rd job, thats not true if you use teleport frequently, it will drain your MP very fast. If you don't use it often, then you are missing the chance to gain a good advantage of mages.
- Leaving Teleport at level 10 is not good, because 33 MP still consume too much MP if you use Teleport frequently.
- You can prevent from getting kill-stolen by other players with ranged attacks, which really applies to the maps full of Coolie Zombies.

Bless (5th most important skill):
- Bless can increase up to a huge bonus of 480 points (Avoid +20, ACC +20, W.DEF +20, M.DEF +20 *6 party members) Bless definitely not useless, it still strengthens your party even if is not really obvious to you.
- If you think that you don't need Bless as you reach 3rd job because u have Holy Symbol, you are wrong. There are many Priests out there, players will choose a Priest with maxed Heal, Holy Symbol, Bless over a Priest with only maxed Heal and Holy Symbol.
- Many Clerics argue that Bless is useless to mages. This is true, but most players of other classes still want Bless, so thats why Clerics should max Bless as it can allow a Cleric to be easily accepted into a party and be appreciated.

Holy Arrow (least important skill):
- It can do a bit more damage than Magic Claw on normal monster, because monster's defense is calculated only once whereas is the monster's defense is calculated twice for Magic Claw. However, this is not a good reason for you to max Holy Arrow.
- It has a better Knock Back rate than Magic Claw, but it is not a adequate reason for you to max Holy Arrow
- Its Base Attack is 120 against dark monsters. Why do you max Holy Arrow only because of its elemental advantage? Why don't you choose Fire/Poison Wizard or Ice/Lightning Wizard if you are so desperate for a strong attack skill?
- It has more range than Heal and Shining Ray. However, in this case, Holy Arrow serves more like a back-up skill, so Magic Claw can replace Holy Arrow since its just used for backing up.
- It consumes less MP than Shining Ray. However, MP eater works a lot better with Shining Ray (because Shining Ray is a mob attack skill) than Holy Arrow so there is a higher chance of gaining MP back.
- It has faster cast time than Shining Ray, but Shining Ray can attack up to 6 monsters, so 1 cast of Shining Ray is definitely faster than 6 casts of Holy Arrow.

Conclusion: A true Cleric will max all the support skills in 2nd job advancement, which means one will never max Holy Arrow. The Cleric will get offensive skills, which are Shining Ray, Summon Dragon, and Doom, that will really strength a Cleric not in terms of damage, but in terms of the actual Cleric build.

Guide Written By: jock
Guide originally Posted At: Basil Market
Guide Edited By: Dokken