Sith's Comprehensive Guide to Priests

[sithewarrior]

Welcome to Sith's Comprehensive Guide to Priests. This guide is (mostly) up to date as of 27-05-2014 (Unless I've forgotten to update changes)

If you see this elsewhere other than R2games forum and I have not changed in this header where else it should be posted, please report that guide.

As a priest user who owns both a holy and blood dps priest, I've experimented and discussed priest builds with many people while developing my own.
Throughout the guide, I will cover as many builds as I can including various holy/support, balanced, pure dps, dps/support, etc builds at each plane,
as well as skill explanations and equip guides.

*UPDATES*
27-05-2014 - Updated minor details on magic blast and typos. Now included a "This guide is up to date as of" edit near the top when I feel like it
12-11-2013 - Sorry for the delay with updating skill builds to include improved holy light. This won't be in until I'm done with my exams for this semester! Until then, you guys will have to figure out the least useful skill that you'll be willing to sacrifice for holy light!
11-07-2013 - Updated Improved Holy Light notes, builds to include IHL in due time. Blood Beam hp modifier updated.
10-03-2013 - Added Soul Section, Sperion Section and bold formatting
10-03-2013 - Added Additional Information on Note About Curses
09-24-2013 - Added Sacred Totem

Table of Contents

[SEC00.0] Int vs End/Blood Beam vs Light Beam

[SEC01.0] Skill Explanations (Holy)
[SEC01.a] Note about disregarding bonus damage
[SEC01.1] Holy Tree
[SEC01.2] Note about Light Beam
[SEC01.3] Heal Tree
[SEC01.4] Blood Tree
[SEC01.5] Note about Blood Beam
[SEC01.6] Note about Tenacity and Crit def
[SEC01.7] Curse Tree
[SEC01.8] Note about Curses
[SEC01.9] Scion
[SEC01.10] Eidolon
[SEC01.11] 130/140 skills

[SEC02.0] Builds
[SEC02.1] Support Hybrid Mortal (1-80)
[SEC02.2] Support Hyrbid Scion (1-100)
[SEC02.3] Blood Focus Hyrbid Scion (1-100)
[SEC02.4] Support Hyrbid Eidolon (1-120)
[SEC02.5] Blood Focus Hyrbid Eidolon (1-120)

[SEC03.0] Afk Mode

[SEC04.0] Equipment
[SEC04.1] Fragarach X Skill - Sacred Totem

[SEC05.0] Gems

[SEC06.0] Soul
[SEC06.a] Doom's In Depth Soul Guide URL
[SEC06.1] Ice
[SEC06.2] Brilliance
[SEC06.3] Void
[SEC06.4] Light
[SEC06.5] Heart
[SEC06.6] Immortal
[SEC06.7] In General
[SEC06.8] Immortal SS Cost

[SEC07.0] Sperion and Sperion Weapon System Guide URL

First and foremost is the Int Vs End debate.
I personally have not used an end build because of the minor impact it has on hp and def in the long term versus the amount of m.atk/heal/mdef provided by pure int.
And until I go through with my own experimenting with that area, I will not go into further detail and proceed as pure int builds.

Secondly is Blood Beam vs Light Beam.
The game has evolved to the point where it's all about the fastest hits and most hits per second due to all the procs we can get such as frost, blood cry, bloodlust, stun, sperion, and more.
Due to the fact that you'll NEVER beable to cast more light beams than blood beam, blood beam is the winner in speed, dps, hpm, and whatever else.
Light Beam is purely the strongest hit but not meant to be spammed. My builds will use and recommend blood beam for default but you're free to use otherwise.

[SEC01.0]
Skill Explanations (HOLY):
[SEC01.a]
My builds WILL disregard bonus damage for the most part due to the fact that they stay fixed and will not increase with your stats.
THEREFORE, my builds will employ and highly recommend the use of basic counterparts in order to save points for higher priority needs

[SEC01.1]
Holy Offensive - These attacks work in the following manor, your magic atk is increased by the % shown for atk while adding the ratio of your heal and NOT increasing your heal by the % and adding to the damage otherwise we're missing out on a lot more damage than the description says.

Light Beam - basic/improved/master --> Lv5 - Magic atk increased by 61% - Additional damage Heal ratio 59% - cast time 1 sec - duration 1 sec
There are many reasons why you should not use this in default and a few cases to use it.

[SEC01.2]
As far as afk mode is concerned, light beam will slow grinding and there are three reasons to this.
The first being that you can cast 2 blood beams in the time it takes to cast one light beam. (under 100% atk/cast speed, ratios may vary with cast/attack speed but number of blood beams vs light beams per min or sec is always higher than light)
Secondly, often light beam may near kill a mob while your pet finishes it off. But during this time you're already in the process of casting another atk which wastes time.
Third, I'm not sure how often this happens but sometimes there's a minor delay with afk mode's ability to cancel casting after a mob dies, causing you to do a bit more casting for the next atk rather than target a new mob then atk. Though it doesn't seem like much, grinding for hours will show a difference.

In pvp, you CANNOT hit a moving target with this, and by that I mean, you won't be able to catch up to a target and hit them with this due to the cast time. The major weakness of this skill, despite its higher hit than blood beam, is the fact that if the target moves out of hit range, light beam will stop casting and attempt to follow the target until you are back in range. Especially with near death player, you will likely lose them unless you're significantly fast enough to close a gap for light beam to finish the job. Another issue is being killed before you can cast. I do note however, this skill is perfect for initiating an attacking but not to be set on default attack should you have points in this skill.

Not recommended for low cast/atk speed users in pvp. Not recommended in pve. Not recommended in default.

Spirit infusion - basic/improved - Lv 5 - m.atk ratio: Magic atk increased by 28% - Heal ratio 38% - 0.5 duration - 7sec cool down
In my opinion, a great skill to have because its a strong hitting skill. This and blood pact are pretty much your only burst skills and do hit harder than blood beam and light missile.

Highly recommended if skill points are available.

[SEC01.3]
Heal Tree:

Light Heal - Lv 5 - Heal ratio 187% - 1.5sec cast time - 0.5 duration - 0 CD
This will pretty much be your primary heal, no explanation needed really and a must have in order to access the rest of the skill tree.

Holy Light - basic/improved - static heal every 2 seconds for 12 seconds/improved 5% per 2 seconds at lv 5 - 0.5 duration - 2sec CD
UPDATE 11-07-13
Improved holy light now heals a percentage of targets HP per two seconds equal to 1% per level.

It is now a highly recommended skill.
This skill will be integrated in my builds in due time


Saint's Strength - Lv 5 decrease m.atk by 50% - increase heal by 30%
This is a toggle buff and mainly for use when you're acting as support.

Recommended for support priests of course.

Healing Wave - lv 5 - heal ratio 140%(?) - duration 0.5sec - 12sec CD
This is your only instant cast heal and its aoe. Highly recommended.

Grace - Lv 5 - heal ratio 261%(?) - 3sec cast time - 0.5 duration - 6sec CD
Do not add beyond 1 in any build if you want to get circle of healing later. The reason for that is because light heal is superior in every way. There are only two cases which this skill could be considered "useful" and both cases are extremely difficult to achieve. The first is when being targeted by mobs that can aoe stun. Heal skills continue to cast if activated before being stunned. The second case is targets that are tanking but already have full hp and you're just waiting for the hp to drop. In either case, unless you've got millisecond timing to make this useful, you could just cast light heal twice In the time it takes to cast this skill, not to mention 2 light heals will out heal 1 grace. It's cooldown makes this skill even more useless.

Not recommended.

Circle of Healing - Lv 5 - heal ratio 127%(?) - 1sec cast time - 0.5 duration - 4sec CD
Your second aoe heal should you choose to get it. It is still a recommended heal both in pve and pvp especially for parties.Sometimes you can just set this for healing in pve because its slightly faster and heals you sufficiently between cool downs.

Recommended.

Support Tree (The skills listed here CANNOT be used at the same time as the blood middle tree):
Guardian Protection - Lv5 - additional 25% def and m.def for 30minutes to allies and self.
Like any buff, this is a must max.

Pure in Heart - Purges negative status ailments (ie debuffs) Recommended Level 2 for effect of maximum 5 targets CD 14sec (2 more targets -2sec CD per lv)
If you're supporting your ladder group, you'll want lv 2 so you can get all party members. Becomes obsolete when debuffs aren't an issue though.

Resurrection- Lv 5 - Cast time 2 seconds, Revives with 40% hp/mp. Cooldown 10sec.
Max for obvious reasons. The difference in cast time will determine whether or not that priest lives to res another member.

Angel's Blessing - Lv 5 - Heal 10% hp/mp every 10seconds
Highly recommended for all priests to boost survival and decrease need to constantly heal self.

Circle of Power - Lv 5 - additional 25% atk and m.atk for 30 minutes to allies and self.
Like any buff, this is a must max.

Goddess' Embrace - Lv 5 - purges debuffs and grants temporary immunity to incoming debuffs for 10seconds, CD 60sec.
At lv one, this skill will only last for 5 seconds and a CD of 1min 40 sec. The benefit to this skill is of course, being immune to debuffs like stun but keep in mind it cant be used while being stunned.
You'll have lots of skill points end game and its a nice skill to have with low CD. Great for pvp esp in hellstorm to prevent getting meteored or silenced or stunned by various classes.

[SEC01.4]
Blood Tree:

Blood Beam (Basic/Improved/Master) --> Lv 5 - Atk ratio 80% m.atk + 4.5% (Fixed) of CURRENT HP.

[SEC01.5]
There are two things about this skill that must be kept in mind.
1: This skill is currently glitched and does MORE than intermediate and master blood beam. I've come to the realization that it does as much as blood pact so they probably have the hp bonus effect from blood pact under basic blood beam hence the extra damage.
UPDATE: The hp modifier is back to 4.5% at level 5. I still recommend using basic to save points because the only difference between master and basic is the bonus attack.
2: Light Missle (the default basic attack) may do more damage if your hp does not compensate the 20% m.atk that isnt used in the damage calculation.
End game it's assumed you will have more than enough hp to make this skill worth using.

Life Drain (Basic/Improved)- lv 5 - Increase your magic damage reduction by 10% for 4sec and decrease target's magic reduction by 10% for 4 sec. CD 6sec. duration 0.5sec.
This is mainly a pvp skill because I've determined that mobs don't actually have reduction. But you can still boost your reduction against magic mobs like on 66 phoenix.
This is just one of those skills you dump points in because you probably got nothing else to max.

NOT recommended at low lvs.

Blood Pact (basic/improved) - lv 5 - Atk ratio 80% m.atk + 6.7% of CURRENT HP, bonus dot 2% of targets hp/sec cap 600 (2000 cap for improved)
The dot damage lasts for 5 seconds so for basic blood pact, you'd do an extra 3k and for improved, you're looking at 10k.
Honestly, the improved blood pact dot is great when you're at low lvs because youll always get in an extra 10k dmg on most mobs but the dot becomes insignificant as your damage increases.

Middle Blood Tree (The skills here CANNOT be used at the same time as the holy support tree)
Tenacity - lv 5 - Reduces incoming crit damage by 20% (ADDITIVE).
[SEC01.6]
From this skill, you'll notice you actually gain 10 crit def per level which elads me to believe that you can gain 4% reduction per 10 crit def.
The actual reduction effect is actually insignificant though because of how much you're still taking.

Crit reduction actually caps at 100% based on some tests we ran in my server so you only need 250 crit def.
That aside, since the effect is only additive, you're still taking the blunt of the crit dmg.

Let's say in a pvp situation most players have 200-250% crit dmg. If you had max tenacity, you're still taking 180-230% crit dmg.
Skill points better spent else where.

Not Recommended.

Bloodflow - Lv 5 - Increases m.atk by 15% as long as hp is above 70%
Must max for more damage of course.

Highly Recommended.

Enhanced Circulation - Permanently increases Magic Damage Reduction by 15% (And some hp regen which is negligible at high hp values)
Must max for increased survival.

Highly Recommended.

Bloodguard - lv 5 - Permanently increases hp by 2929 hp. This value is static but is affected by multipliers.
Up to you if you have sp leftover but I find the hp boost is quite negligible.

Not Recommended.

Bloodfog Totem - lv 5 - For 20 seconds, receive stealth for 2 seconds every 3 seconds. CD 45sec
Like any stealth effect, you won't be seen but you can't attack and stay stealthed.
THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR PVE SOLO. I say this in all seriousness because this skill causes mobs to reset if they're after you. It can also delay attacks when using afk mode attacking for some reason.
This is a GREAT skill in pvp though if you want to give yourself the element of surprise or your being attacked by multiple targets.
The beauty of stealth is canceling out being targeted. And when trying to escape, plant a totem to cover your tracks and from being target chanced by someone.
Up to you to have sp in this if you have leftover sp

Demon's Grasp - Stuns a target for 8 seconds Cooldown 3 minutes. While stunning a target, you will not be able to attack.
This is one of the best support skills in a party vs 1 situation for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, I believe it's glitched in that the cast time is affected by cast time meaning you lose stun time.
The cooldown is unfortunately unreasonably high.
Highly recommended.

[sithewarrior]

Sacrifice - Lv 5 - Deals damage to a single target and heals 100% of the damage inflicted. Damage is assumed to be 100% of your magic attack.
Great skill, it can basically heal you back to 100% from near death simply by taking someone elses hp AND dealing damage at the same time.
Also affected by crit. Must max for blood focus priests.

Highly Recommended.

[SEC01.7]
Curse Tree

Curse Mastery lv5 - Max hp increased by 10%. Allows use of Lv5 curses.
Must max for two reasons: the ability to use lv5 curses and the passive 10% hp boost.

Curse of Weakness lv5 - decreases enemies atk/m.atk by 25% for 2 seconds and deals 35% magic attack per 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
The debuff effect refreshes every 0.5?sec as long as they are in the radius of the curse. Must have to reduce incoming damage.

Ring of Decay - lv5 - Decreases enemies def/mdef by 35% for 2 seconds and deals 35% magic attack per 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
The debuff effect refreshes every 0.5?sec as long as they are in the radius of the curse.
I do not recommend maxing this skill and I will explain in the following section after the next skill.

Phlegmatic Curse - lv5 - decreases enemies move speed by 65% for 2 seconds and deals 35% magic attack per 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
The debuff effect refreshes every 0.5?sec as long as they are in the radius of the curse.
Recommended for kiting and pvp.

[SEC01.8]NOTE ABOUT CURSES -
In pve the only curse that doesn't appear to have an effect is ring of decay.
I have gone to attack various mobs and bosses and have not noted a difference in my damage between mobs before and after the skill is applied.
If someone can prove to me otherwise or show that there is a significant damage difference, I will note it, but my guide will not endorse the maxing of this skill.

In pvp these skills only affect BASE stats so you will not literally decrease your targets overall atk by 25% or def by 35%. The actually value is much less as the targets have more multipliers.
Endgame pvp, useless for reducing stats.

ALL CURSES bypass defence and reduction of players.

UPDATE 11-08-2013 - R2 has acknowledged curses aren't meant to be affected by critical

[SEC01.9]
SCION (HOLY) - Heavenly Protection - Lv 5 - grants 40% stat boost to all stats to allies and self for 30 minutes.
Like any buff, max it.

SCION (BLOOD) - Death Cometh - lv 5 - Increases hp and magic attack by 24% and gains drain coefficient of 64% for 10 seconds. Grants daze immunity for 10seconds. CD 30sec
Let me just say that THIS is the holy grail for priests in pvp. Unless you're getting 1-2 shotted in under a second, this skill makes you a god so long as you're attacking.
The large drain coefficient will allow you to keep healing the damage you take and you can't be stunned so as long as you're targets not running, you're good.
PVE + Frost is truly god mode. It can allow priests to tank 66 if they have enough hp to survive the initial attacks and give them enough time to cast/group/attack the phoenixes.
A MUST max skill.

[SEC01.10]
Eidolon (HOLY) - Sacred Space - lv 6 - Heal ratio 175% - 10sec cast time - 0.9sec duration - 10sec CD
This skill is a channel heal, meaning you will stay in casting to heal, and canceling the channel will stop further healing. Assuming you cast for the full 10 seconds, you still have to wait 10seconds to use this skill again. Highly recommended heal for parties and not suitable for solo healing because light heal can and will out heal this. This skill, if casted before being stunned, will continue to channel and heal.

Eidolon (BLOOD) - Bloody Acres (AKA "Cage") - Traps a random target in an enclosed area. Enemies/allies nearby of the random target will be enclosed with it. Allies, enemies, and attacks cannot go through or between the barrier. Lasts 13sec CD 45sec.
This skill is very difficult to use but has a wide range of applications.

This skill is difficult to use because it will target a random target. BUT if there's only one target in the cast radius, it WILL get him.
However, due to the fps limitations on the game and how high move speed can get, you may miss a target and cast cage onto an empty area if there's enough delay between your casting and how long it takes the server to get that.
In other words, if you lag and cast this, it might appear 3 seconds later where the target was at the time you casted it but the server didnt get it until after target moved away.
The other scenario is where the target's movespeed is high enough to trick the servers. You could cast it but while it looks like theyre in one spot on your computer, their computer shows theyre in a completely different area and the server takes their location over yours.

Another good thing about this is being able to randomly target a stealthed target (this may often cause you to think you casted on a random plot but when theres no target available, this skill will just take your hp away.)

Finally, the third application is splitting mobs. This is difficult to do because of resetting mobs. But in pvp its not an issue and can grant you and whoever nearby, sanctuary (lol).
Hell, you could defend your enemies crystal from being destroyed by all your allies when theres no one on the other team to defend.

This skill's application is only limited in your own ability and knowledge on how to use this skill. IT IS NOT USELESS.

[SEC01.11]
NEW SKILLS (HOLY)

Magic Blast (lv 130) - lv 5 - Deals damage and heals equal to 130% of your healing to 13 targets in a range of 300. 0.5sec duration, 2sec CD.
This skill, when dealing damage can crit, but healing does not crit still. AOE effect is rather small and possible smaller than it says it is. It can proc passives.
IT IS CURRENTLY GLITCHED see: http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....0-skill-BUGGED
UPDATE - (Date needs confirmation) Skill is no longer glitched. It does not activate passives anymore such as debuffs. Cannot self proc frost anymore if there are no mobs to hit. Need confirmation if it procs on mobs (sorry guys no sots).

Virtues (Lv 140) - lv 5 - all attacks deal 15% extra dmg as splash damage (150 range). (Passive) When hp is less than 50%, increase attack speed by 100% for 3 sec, 15sec CD.
This 15% is not affected by crit damage in otherwords it's equivalent to just adding 15% crit dmg. Splash damage radius is rather small and may proc frost (hard to prove).

NEW SKILLS (BLOOD)

Blood Blade (Lv 130) - lv 5 - deals magic damage equal to 140% of your magic attack. 50% chance to increase attack speed, hit rate, crit rate, and dodge by 15% for 3 seconds. Duration 1sec, CD 1.5sec.
Great skill to add for dps, I wouldn't put this in default attack though because theres still a CD which becomes significant with greater attack speeds. (E.g. if you had 300% atk speed you could cast 2 blood beams after a blood blade vs only casting blood blade when all other attack skills are on CD)

Blood Pool (Lv 140) - lv 5 - prevents enemies from using any skills and causes them to lose 100% reduction for 5 sec in a range of 300.
This skill's description is not entirely correct. I've changed "additional damage dealt" to "reduce reduction" in my description.
You cast this skill like using curses, pick and place.
GMs have not acknowledged whether this is a typo but currently it does exactly how I've described.
It will not give targets negative reduction but I do believe its possible for players to still have reduction after this skill is used if they're able to accumulate over 100% reduction or in the case of knights with 75+ reduction, using titan's guard shortly before/after blood poool is casted on them.
While reduction is capped at 0 and 75%, I believe that they only round after adding/subtracting stats.
In anycase, it's really fun to destroy a 75% reduction tank in seconds because of this skill AND it silences them.

UPDATE 11-08-2013 - Radius was increased (or fixed) and silences all skills properly.
Note about new skills: You cannot learn both blood and holy trees like in scion and eidolon.

[SEC02.0]
SKILL BUILDS

Builds are seperated into two categories (in my builds anyway): support and blood focus, but both builds are hybrid nonetheless

[SEC02.1]
Support Hybrid Mortal (1-80):



In my opinion, there's no benefit as a blood focus until you have the skill points to get the skills needed to effectively be one, so I won't go into details unless requested to post one.
Not to mention the buffs are very beneficial as a beginner with minor modifiers.

[SEC02.2]
Scion:
Support Hyrbid (1-100)



[SEC02.3]
Blood Focus Hybrid (1-100)



You might be wondering why 5 in basic blood beam but not in master. I've said it before in the skill analysis section but here's a reminder, it's glitched and does more damage than improved and master.
As for why their are dividers in the blood attack section, I provide a choice of two alternatives. You can max improved blood pact which is extremely beneficial for dps when you don't have a lot of m.atk. Reason being that the dot under the best circumstances, is worth 10k damage over time while basic is only 2k. Pick the 2nd path of using just basic blood pact to save 3 points put elsewhere if your magic attack is high enough to make the difference in damage over time negligible.

Reminder note about death cometh: It's not a dps skill, its more about its survival capability. You should consider using Heavenly Protection until you need to use death cometh more like for tanking in ladder. Heavenly protection will also help more for leveling faster and dealing more dps when no buffs are actively available. You may want to start out as a support hybrid and switch into blood focus at a certain level.

Eidolon:

I won't cover the sps used between 122-150 because its just 2 new skills you will likely max + 5 left over so it's really up to you. At this point you have more than enough experience to make the judgement anyway.

[SEC02.4]
Support Hybrid (1-120)



Note: Pure in Heart 2 is optional so you can purge all your allies at once but you'll need to take 1 sp out from somewhere else. Also keep in mind you have maxed goddess embrace which is what you're more likely to use anyhow.

[SEC02.5]
Blood Focus Hybrid (1-120)



I'm sure you have lots of questions this time.
In this case, the dividers indicates optional choices of SP.
The bonus of being a blood focus is having a lot of extra SP due to having fewer necessary skills.
So I'll leave it up to whether or not you want dps, pvp versatility, or survival, etc.

Another note about spirit infusion and why I included its improved counter part: The cooldown is likely glitched and they can be used independently of their cooldowns. This means that you don't have just one hard hitting skill, you have TWO! Isn't that awesome? For a short time, the basic version was also hitting more than improved yet both were still stronger than basic blood beam so no hard done.

If you need to figure out how to spend the rest of your sp, read back on my skill analysis section to give you a better idea on how you want to build yourself.

Reminder note about death cometh: It's not a dps skill, its more about its survival capability. You should consider using Heavenly Protection until you need to use death cometh more like for tanking in ladder. Heavenly protection will also help more for leveling faster and dealing more dps when no buffs are actively available. You may want to start out as a support hybrid and switch into blood focus at a certain level.

130/140/150 Skills and SP

After the 10 skill points going into 2 of the 4 new skills, you'll be left with 5 sp. Do as you will because you already maxed all the necessary skills awhile ago so have fun.

[SEC03.0]
AFK MODE

When grinding, only have NON curse skills in the afk skill slots. Curses slow your killing. Why attack a mob for one attack and a third of an attack and another attack to kill when you can use two attacks to kill?

When in av, same as above. Curses do not crit and do not proc frost so why waste the chances of procing crit or frost on your regular attacks?

When in dungeons/training ground, blood pact + Curse of weakness (Only while damage is an issue)
When in training ground, it's optional to use all three curses if your frost proc is weak, but you'll likely be kiting, curses, and blood pacting if you're too squishy to spam heal to survive.

When in ladder, blood pact + curse of weakness + phlegmatic curse + aoe heals available.

As for healing, use one of the following combinations:
potion + heal skill
Use light heal when you need to spam heal, otherwise healing wave or circle of healing if you can survive between heal cooldowns
heal skill with longer cooldown + heal skill with shorter cooldown
Always have light heal in the 2nd slot when spam healing is needed to survive at times like tg
If this is the case, you may set healing wave in the afk skill slots so that it always casts when its available but keep in mind if you're attacking a ranged foe from afar, you may not get healed.
Set hp value as approprite to the situation.

For blood users, sacrifice + death cometh should satisfy your needs most of the time. Set hp to 70% because you always need 70% or more hp to retain the 15% extra magic attack from your passive skill.
You may put sacrifice to the afk skill slots and set death cometh to the first slot and a heal in the second slot if for some reason the heals from the two skills are not enough such as when fighting Exerlorn boss Sin without the drain and anti-debuff totem.

Switch to manual play on levels that require more focusing on healing and rooting.
You want to manually cast curses for three reasons:
1 - timing, so you can root mobs longer
2 - timing, so you actually root all mobs
3 - agro, you don't want your first move in ladder to take agro off the person tanking who hasnt proced a frost or aoe yet.
Never switch to afk mode for any reason when you start manually playing because it's crucial to time your heals, res, and curses.

In summary, never use curses for the purpose of dps or grinding, they're meant to improve your chances of survival.

[sithewarrior]

[SEC04.0]
Equipment:
A lot of people will tell you to use full saints set when starting out. I say NO to that because its not the optimal idea.

You can actually improve your survival significantly without sacrificing a lot of magic attack/heal by using half sets.
Use saint ring, necklace, and glove
Use savior chest, helm, and shoes (optional is savage/slayer for speed reasons)
When you need survival, using half a savior and a half saint will give you a lot of defence and hp for a minor loss in magic attack and heal.
for dungeon runs, use saint set with slayer/savage shoes for faster movement.

You might be thinking what happens with gems if you keep a full saint + half a savior, keep the defence stuff on the savior stuff, if you're wearing savior, its probably because you needed the defence.

[SEC04.1]
Fragarach X Skill - Sacred Totem
Place a totem to deal 150% magic damage to 20 enemies in a radius of 500 and stun for 3 seconds.
Every 3 seconds, up to 20 enemies recieve damage equal to 40% of your magic attack and 80% of your heal.
Totem lasts 15 seconds.

[SEC05.0]
Gems:
Helm - Saphire
Armor - Amber
Shoes - Amber
Gloves - Topaz
Offhand - Garnet/Opal (when you have some more crit rate %)
Main hand - Topaz / Garnet (when you can start getting these as soon as possible)
Necklace - Kyanite (not a priority for blood focus)
Ring - Pink Diamond (priority after reaching eidolon 80+)

Zodiac
Sword - Topaz
Armor - Garnet
Charm - Don't remember if you could use jades and/or amber
Shield - Don't remember if you could use jades and/or amber

Past 5-10k def, defence/hp gems are EXTREMELY irrelavent so don't invest too much on them later on.
In fact, you should just be focusing on attack speed and crit rate/crit damage when the stats from other gems become insignificant.

Focus on frag upgrades before gems, you ideally want to hit perfect I before using gems on armors.
Keep in mind you can't socket rings and necklaces that aren't lv 81+ (slayers ring and necklace cannot socket sadly)

[SEC06.0]
Soul - THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

My soul guide emphasizes on damage but will give an alternate route for support priests who want to maximize healing.
In general, approaximately, the first two nodes in each area of soul should be maxed after reaching 3, 5, or 7 in other nodes.
One thing to note about soul is how soul development works. You can either level them all gradually or prioritize certain nodes to reach 10.
A HIGHLY recommended soul guide to look at so you can plan your own development is this guide:
[SEC06.0.a]

http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....pth-Soul-guide
Use this guide to know exactly what nodes will give what stats as I will not be explaining every node.

If you level several nodes gradually, you will get benefits sooner and cheaper.
If you prioritize a node to reach 10, you get greater benefits later but more expensive.

You just need to balance out whether or not you're looking for long term or short term benefits.
As a player starting out, you generally want to get all nodes to 3 or 5 (depending on nodes) before you start prioritizing certain nodes to go to 7 or 10.
However, you also want to max the first one or two nodes in each soul to maximize on some def to allow yourself to solo dungeons sooner.
I will now list nodes and what levels I recommend reaching.
Note that nodes are listed by priority, Just because some nodes have the same level recommendation, does not mean they should be equally prioritized unless I have listed them in the same line.

[SEC06.1]
Ice
Toughness, Preciousness (10)
Stability, Flexibility (5 or 7)

Recommended to get 5 in each first. Nodes beyond that are expensive and recommended to be upgraded later due to ss cost vs benefit
After reaching the recommended levels you can go into the rest of the ice tree or focus on particular nodes.

[SEC06.2]
Brilliance
Vulgarity, Rage (10)
Ferocity (5)
Madness (10)
Cruelty (10) This can be done much later. The only benefit to this is really when you have enough crit to make crit damage significant. In my opinion, if you're pushing 40%+ on crit rate, you should get this soon.

Recommended to get 5 in each first. Braveness and Dominance serve little benefit compared to other upgrades of equal cost and so don't bother unless you got nothing else to upgrade (endgame).
You should be leveling Vulgarity and Rage in tandum with Ice nodes Toughness and Preciousness when you start going for 10.

[SEC06.3]
Void
Simplicity (10)
Deftness (5)
Forgiveness (5) (after reaching scion)

There's not much benefit to this tree in general. You just need those two nodes to get to 5.
When you have some crit rate % (about 40 or higher), you can start leveling this and Brilliance Cruelty beyond 5.
Forgiveness isn't that useful unless you're pvping or soloing ladder, which as a mortal, is not that helpful if you're dying too fast anyway. But when you're scion, it'll be more helpful when you can pvp, start reaching ladder stages with stunners, and start farming nm psych.

[SEC06.4]
Light
Warmth (10), Numbness (5)
Power (5 or 7), Wisdom (10)
Kindness (8), Intelligence (8), Wisdom (7)

Ideally, you want to reach 7 in everything. SS cost wise, the upgrades are under 128 for what I've recomended (except wisdom).

[SEC06.5]
Heart
Patience (5, 7 or 10)
Vitality, Longevity (5 or 7)
Fortune (5)
Harmony (5)
Recovery (5) only if you need the heal stat and after you've rebirthed into scion)
Motion (not until you've developed endurance and leveled enough to have enough base endurance to make this skill worth it)

This is a medium priority soul for two reasons: From the lower nodes, you should have developed defence already, this would just be stacking more if you really needed it. The second is the hp benefit, you can choose to maximize on this at lv 7 or leave things at 5 to focus on other things.
Try to get longevity to 5 or 7 before rebirthing though because you might not be back there for awhile if you're a slow leveler.
Motion and recovery are very low priority because of the benefit from them as a scion and mortal are fairly minimal.

[SEC06.6]
Immortal
It is HIGHLY recommended to reach atleast 5 7 or 10 in recommended nodes before attempting to max nodes in here.
But you're free to get lv 1 in everything before you rebirth the first or second time around. To be honest, my immortal isn't that developed yet either because I've chosen to max nodes in other areas.

Light 10

The rest, do with consideration of the development of other nodes you have.
Immortal tree is very oriented towards maximizing stats you have already been focusing on.
Light being your highest priority because by 150 eidolon, this will give the greatest benefit.
By this point you should be experienced enough to make your own choices.

[SEC06.7]
IN GENERAL
starting out, you will want to get nodes to lv 3 or 5 In nodes I have listed except immortal.
Getting to lv 3 in them shouldnt cost many ss as a whole and will give quick boosts for helping you level and survive for dungeons.
Focus on level 5 in particular nodes for w/e purposes you need (more damage or more defence, etc) before getting all to lv 5.
When you start focusing to level 10 on the ones I have listed, I highly recommend Brilliance Vulgarity and Void Simplicity because they will give a combined boost of 25 movespeed and 20% crit rate (Plus rating)
After that, prioritize def or attack nodes as needed.
Focus on Light when you want to maximize magic attack and heal in the long run. Switch to immortal when you feel the boost for cost is more effective or if you want to plan long term.

[SEC06.8]
The following is the SS cost on light immortal:

28 36 47 62 80 104 135 176 228 297

[SEC07.0]
Sperion

For an in depth guide on sperion and combo's, see Virtue_Sigil's guide:

http://forum.r2games.com/showthread....l=1#post257908

Attack or defence sperion is a preference but looking long term, the defence boost is negligible.
Leveling - use Beast Heart
PVP and survival - 3D Defense or Liturgic Elemental
DPS - Demonic Gift or Blood Breaking Kill (Only while you don't have perfect frag and are not in Avernal Realm)

Please inbox or whisper me in game on corrections on my guide otherwise post

I will add more to the guide when I think of other sections or upon request and I feel it is worth adding.
Questions made in the thread that are relevant to certain sections of the guide will be reposted under said sections.

[weizheng23]

Nice lengthy guide =)

[ShadowDg]

Regarding the Ring of Decay: the maxed 35% def debuff does not persist the whole time. It comes into effect about every 1.4 seconds. Attacks that do damage during these brief intervals get the damage boost.

[sithewarrior]

Regarding the Ring of Decay: the maxed 35% def debuff does not persist the whole time. It comes into effect about every 1.4 seconds. Attacks that do damage during these brief intervals get the damage boost.

My tests show otherwise.
Ring of decay on main, lv1 30% +91 dmg, magic attack: 97671 --> 29392.3 dmg with ring
damage recorded: 29392 every attack on varying mobs
as long as target(s) are on the curse, the buff will continuously rebuff per second, at no point does the target lose the debuff while on curse radius
test2: priest alt with lv 5 ring of decay: 35% + 122 at 10803 magic attack resulted in 3903 damage = 10803*.35+122

[TpstT]

Hi, its very detailed and well thought through, so first off thanks, I just wanted to ask, you wouldn't happened to have any info on Sacred Totem would u?

Thanks

[sithewarrior]

Hi, its very detailed and well thought through, so first off thanks, I just wanted to ask, you wouldn't happened to have any info on Sacred Totem would u?

Thanks

Added under [SEC04.1] Fragarach X Skill - Sacred Totem

[kimmarcos_]

wow wow wow wow wow wow

[TpstT]

Added under [SEC04.1] Fragarach X Skill - Sacred Totem

Thanks

What's ur opinion on this skill?? Any good? Not as good as the description says or, its good but the 5 minutes CD makes it bit useless etc. I just wanted other priest's opinion >.<

[sithewarrior]

Thanks

What's ur opinion on this skill?? Any good? Not as good as the description says or, its good but the 5 minutes CD makes it bit useless etc. I just wanted other priest's opinion >.<

Personally, I tend to forget I have it because of the CD. Nonetheless, quite helpful for adding stun time.
Pet+Demons grasp+pet+sacred totem+ blood pool+pet is a good 25 seconds of stun/silence time if you time it well. That 3 seconds helps with the delay towards another pet switch.
hilarious to cast in seng or iob
Damage is alright. First hit is equal to a blood blade with aoe dmg stun and the following hits are decent finishers

[TpstT]

Personally, I tend to forget I have it because of the CD. Nonetheless, quite helpful for adding stun time.
Pet+Demons grasp+pet+sacred totem+ blood pool+pet is a good 25 seconds of stun/silence time if you time it well. That 3 seconds helps with the delay towards another pet switch.
hilarious to cast in seng or iob
Damage is alright. First hit is equal to a blood blade with aoe dmg stun and the following hits are decent finishers

Wow 25s is quiet long XD, but yea the 5 minutes CD would be quiet annoying.

Thanks for the description and your opinion, I'll give it a try once i get my frag X.

[Zuzap]

Thank you sithewarrior, your guide is purely the best i have ever seen. *bows down to the priest god*

Sections I think could be added though is sperion: Attack or defence? and which sperion combo is best? And soul (although this could be quite extensive it would clear up a lot of my doubts and questions) ^^

But once again, thank you! I have almost lost faith in the priest class and your guide has inspired me to d some of my own experiments

[sithewarrior]

Thank you sithewarrior, your guide is purely the best i have ever seen. *bows down to the priest god*

Sections I think could be added though is sperion: Attack or defence? and which sperion combo is best? And soul (although this could be quite extensive it would clear up a lot of my doubts and questions) ^^

But once again, thank you! I have almost lost faith in the priest class and your guide has inspired me to d some of my own experiments

Thank you and you are welcome!
Added Soul and Sperion sections.

[Witch_s65]

How current is this guide?

Its a nice guide, and given its post just under 2 years ago, i was wondering if anything has changed and/or its kept up to date?