Silkroad Online Forums

Why a hybrid cleric and not a pure?
The reasons for your choice really comes down to personal preference. In saying that, I will give my reasons for picking the Hybrid Cleric.

1) If it can't 1 hit you, you can kill it: Sure, it takes a hell of a long time to kill a giant of your level, but you have a lot better chance of surviving than say a wizard. When soloing as a cleric never forget you can heal yourself. This will make you last through any battle that isnt a 1 hit. Being a hybrid means this rule applies for more monsters.
2) Dont be the first to die: There are a lot of factors that can help this, but being a hybrid helps. Clerics will later have access to that nice group rez. However if your one of the first people in the party to die, that skill is practically useless.
3) I have trust issues: Dont get me wrong, I have a fantastic tank in my guild. But when you get in a party with a crap tank and no other healers, your going to need all the health you can get. Sooner a later a monster is going to come after you. "If you want to get a job done, do it yourself".
4) So far, my healing is fine: I am completely satisfied currently with the ammount of healing I can do. As long as you can keep your party alive your stats are ok. I will only put more points in int when I think my heals arnt powerful anymore.

How many points do you put into str and int?
Again, personal preference. I put 1 point into strength every second level.


Character Development

What gap should I have? Do I need to SP farm?
As a standard pattern, I build my gap up to 3, then once I reach a gap of 4, I max out my mastery, then repeat the process. This has provided sufficient SP for me. The reason why I SP farm in this manner is to gain access to new spells once my level allows for it (eg Bless). New useful skills come every 4th level, so thats when you want to increase your mastery. This makes character development fun and should allow you enough SP for a pure cleric. If you have a subclass, you may need more farming.

What sub-class should I have?
If healing and supporting bores you, be a wizard. Wizard is one of the fastest leveling classes in Euro and is nice when you are tired of being support. Good for when you are soloing mobs with lower level than you.
If you love support, take bard (I took this path). When you are in a party with more than one cleric, chances are you will be bored. When there is an overabundance of healing I switch to my harp and start healing MP. Oh, and Moving March is nice too.

What skills should I get?

A warrior concentrates his skills on what weapon he uses. A Cleric concentrates his skills on what armor he uses. I can hear you asking, "Which armor then is best?" which is wrong. Ask yourself which armor suits your needs.

Robes - linked to the Faith skill
- Boosts the amount you heal for, and slightly reduces status effects with each heal.
- Fastest armor. Combined with Moving march, your really fast.
- Reduces mana consumption. Obvious advantage for a spellcaster.

Light Armor - linked to the Charity skill
- Boosts the effectiveness of your buffs.
- Has higher PHY armor than robes
- Boosts your armor level through passive skills

This may sudgest that you get either Robes or Light Armor related skills. This is not true, and only states what your focus will be when wearing armor. Using my SP farming method stated above, I can aford both skill trees with no problem.

Still dont know what to get? Well you should probably go with Robes by default. As a hybrid, your health is making up for your lack of defence.
I believe that the usefulness of Robes increases at a linear rate, while the usefulness of Light Armor increases exponecially. In saying this, I will be wearing robes untill I can put points in Favor Armor, then I will switch to Light Armor.


Playing a Cleric

Solo Play
Despite popular opinion, clerics do fine at solo play. Using Trial Cross and Healing, they can kill most mobs. As a hybrid, you can survive most battles. There are a few things you should avoid when playing solo.

- Monsters with high HP: Clerics kill very slowly, dont make it any slower by fighting monsters with high HP (eg party mobs). Your a hybrid, go for the more squishy monsters.
- Players that can deal more damage then you: They can and most likely will try to KS your giant. They usually get the monster to be tanked by you while they KS. Teach them a lesson. Run away from the giant and get it to kill that pesky wizard. He may deal more damage, but he certainly cant survive like you can.

This is up to argument, but I prefer soloing for completing quests. I find that the quest item drop rate is higher.

Group Play
You excel in a party. This is where being a hybrid cleric excells, as you dont need a high int to do damage, thats the wizard's job. You have the health, and you can survive.

Who should be my priority to heal?
Generaly defensive classes should be your priority over offensive classes. A good cleric heals with this priority.
1) YOU - If you die you cant heal, and you cant rez. Another good reason to be Hybrid.
2) Other Clerics - Ok they can heal themselves as well, but sometimes they get in to trouble and need help. Plus if they die, its more pressure for you.
3) Tanking Warriors - They keep mobs off the weaker classes and give nice defensive buffs to the party. They are the reason why other classes are lowest priority.
4) People with Cleric as a sub - They probably have reverse.
5) Everything else

Don't forget to use all your buffs. They only work in a party. Use them when in a party.

If things are looking grim, run. Even if the rest of the party is dead, you can still res them. You cant if your dead. Wait for enemies to scatter a little before you res. Res in the healing priority order given above.

I prefer partying for just gaining raw XP and for having fun. Soloing is boring compared to a good party. It is VERY easy to find a party as a cleric, so look for one.

Final Comments

I wrote this guide as a level 24 cleric/bard, trying to stay away from mentioning any specific skills and instead sticking to abstract playstyles. As I discover more ways to play the hybrid cleric I will update this guide. I have based this guide purely out of personal experience.
If you have any questions please ask in this thread and I will try to answer as best I can.

silverhawk282 wrote:
Robes - linked to the Faith skill
- Boosts the amount you heal for, and slightly reduces status effects with each heal.
- Fastest armor. Combined with Moving march, your really fast.
- Reduces mana consumption. Obvious advantage for a spellcaster.

Light Armor - linked to the Charity skill
- Boosts the effectiveness of your buffs.
- Has higher PHY armor than robes
- Boosts your armor level through passive skills

I am almost sure I read on the silkroad official page or this forum that there is no advantage in speed at the europeans... (Any others can confirm that?) But then, Nice guide xD

I am almost sure I read on the silkroad official page or this forum that there is no advantage in speed at the europeans... (Any others can confirm that?) But then, Nice guide xD

Trust me, try a race between characters with heavy armor and robes, robes are faster
I looked on the official website to source this, but I couldn't find anything that agrees or disagrees with my argument.

in robes u are faster.. my brother has a char with heavy armor i always walk faster-.-

silverhawk282 wrote:Who should be my priority to heal?
Generaly defensive classes should be your priority over offensive classes. A good cleric heals with this priority.
1) YOU - If you die you cant heal, and you cant rez. Another good reason to be Hybrid.
2) Other Clerics - Ok they can heal themselves as well, but sometimes they get in to trouble and need help. Plus if they die, its more pressure for you.
3) Tanking Warriors - They keep mobs off the weaker classes and give nice defensive buffs to the party. They are the reason why other classes are lowest priority.
4) People with Cleric as a sub - They probably have reverse.
5) Everything else

If you use party heals or lvl30 heal ("Recovery") you don't have to worry about healing yourself.. Those have very nice reflect..
150% for party and 300% for recovery if i remember correctly.

Marduuhin wrote:

silverhawk282 wrote:Who should be my priority to heal?
Generaly defensive classes should be your priority over offensive classes. A good cleric heals with this priority.
1) YOU - If you die you cant heal, and you cant rez. Another good reason to be Hybrid.
2) Other Clerics - Ok they can heal themselves as well, but sometimes they get in to trouble and need help. Plus if they die, its more pressure for you.
3) Tanking Warriors - They keep mobs off the weaker classes and give nice defensive buffs to the party. They are the reason why other classes are lowest priority.
4) People with Cleric as a sub - They probably have reverse.
5) Everything else

If you use party heals or lvl30 heal ("Recovery") you don't have to worry about healing yourself.. Those have very nice reflect..
150% for party and 300% for recovery if i remember correctly.

I cant go in game now to confirm this, but doesnt Recovery's healing apply gradually over time? similar to a healing potion I presume. Even so, taking care of yourself should still come first.

Party heals do not apply to this list as they have no priority.

silverhawk282 wrote:

Character Development

What gap should I have? Do I need to SP farm?
As a standard pattern, I build my gap up to 3, then once I reach a gap of 4, I max out my mastery, then repeat the process. This has provided sufficient SP for me. The reason why I SP farm in this manner is to gain access to new spells once my level allows for it (eg Bless). New useful skills come every 4th level, so thats when you want to increase your mastery. This makes character development fun and should allow you enough SP for a pure cleric. If you have a subclass, you may need more farming.

[...]

I use a similar approach. Since I play a cleric/bard and try to get as many skills as possible or bearable, I had a three level gap so far that I closed upon reaching level 20 and 30. Sadly this doesn't even cover my most fundamental needs, so I'll most likely build up my gap once again and mix in some actual farming.

silverhawk282 wrote:
[...]

Playing a Cleric

Solo Play

[...]

- Players that can deal more damage then you: They can and most likely will try to KS your giant. They usually get the monster to be tanked by you while they KS. Teach them a lesson. Run away from the giant and get it to kill that pesky wizard. He may deal more damage, but he certainly cant survive like you can.

This is up to argument, but I prefer soloing for completing quests. I find that the quest item drop rate is higher.

[...]

Yes to the getting rid of KSers. I just did the hungry ong quest and some wizzard decided it was a good idea to start blasting at my quest mob. I drew out of the battle and some seconds later you saw him running.

Concerning the quests I'd say, that it's a good idea to do all those collecting quests solo but to look for parties once a quest entails hunting something stonger than champions. The next step of the said ong quest is to beat some guardian that you have to summon. I tried to kill him alone, which didn't seem to be much of a problem, even with him hitting half my hp every hit, but I simply ran out of time and the darn thing disappeard with 2/3 of his hp gone.

On the last entry that I now see in the topic review window: Healing Cycle heals over time, Recovery looks like a buffed up and very mana intensive version of the normal healing spell. Haven't gotten that one yet because of my SP-Issues.

*edit 08/13*

Since you might add some subclass and jobbing info into future versions of your guide:

For cleric/bards:

Sub level 40 trading: Activate Noise to get rid of most mobs attention. For low thief spawns use the cleric subclass, for high thief spawns use Bless, switch to harp, cast Temptation and take them out one by one as either cleric or bard.

Thiefing: I just tried out Discord Wave on normal mobs and met someone who said something about dirty thief tricks in connection with that skill. After thinking about it, that might be true I guess. A possible course of action: Find an unguarded low level 1* trader without Noise. Circle around him, find agressive party mobs (Kokuros for example), cast Bless and attract a ton of them to yourself, while blessed run up to the trader, cast Discord Wave on yourself. The mobs should do the rest if he is low enough in level. Right now I'm a trader myself and cant try out how hard this tactic is.

keep it updated.

stickied in chars n skills sticky. <3

I would consider warlock-sub... most spells do not rely on Int for damage, its a 1 hd weapon like cleric, and the de-buffs can both increase the cleric's nuke power and decrease the mobs atk power.

I would never suggest someone scrap a char, but I would ask that it be included in the guide

I usually dislike bumping old threads, but as a hybrid cleric myself, finally getting up in level, I thought I'd ask for feedback and provide a bit of my own.

1. Survivability. I put 15 str points into my build which at level 66 still means a magical balance of about 99%. The 15 str honestly does not make a HUGE difference, but it can make a difference in PVP about 50% of the time. I've also been down to 200 hp many times - there is a difference.
2. Damage output. This is the offset of being hybrid. I definitely do not put out as much damage as other clerics I have seen, probably about 1000-1500 less at level 66.
3. Buffing. Since most of the buffs aren't dependent on total int or MP, I haven't noticed any difference. I also still have more than enough of a mana pool to constantly throw healing cycle and other skills, not to mention plenty to attack occasionally when required (yep, it's rare)

This build is mainly for support, so the lower damage output doesn't concern me all that much, I can still occasionally throw a Healing Cycle on myself followed by a group heal to aggro monsters, followed by Offering...it's nice for a quick kill if there are too many mobs on me while grinding.

My sub is Bard and currently stuck at level 50 due to need for lots of SP. However, it's nice to have Moving March at 60%, as I move as fast as a level 40 Chinese with grasswalk

Anyone else? There should be more than a few cleric/bards or cleric/warlocks running around by now.

Very nice guide, I myself play a Hybrid Int Cleric/Bard at lvl 74, and I do it the same way as you do ^^
My build is 1 str 2 int, wich I find very good. I never run out of mp to heal, and I can survive hits from mobs 10 lvls higher.

I always had gap 3 and that's also enough sp for me, altough I am now going to make a 9 gap and farm for lvl 90. These high lvl skills require tons of sp and I want a 0 gap from 80 to 90.

Also some things I should say when fighting in an 8 man pt, you don't have to use recovery division. It's good because it heals automaticly, but it aggros mobs as hell. Also watch out with group heals and other heal spells, as most of them will aggro mobs towards you. Usually I just use Healing Cycle when people need it, and sometimes a group heal when it's urgent.

Good job

one question
with that gap you also buy the atack spells right?