July 13, 1999
A Few Thoughts on the Cleric Class as a Hero - By Ihvon
People say Clerics are the most powerful class in Medievia at the moment.
Remember this though: Clerics may be hard to kill but to kill another
player as a Cleric you have to rely on the opponent to stay long
enough so you can use a couple of hundred points worth of mana in the way
of attack spells on him. Compare that to a triple backstab with 80damage
roll and a 6d6 backstabber. There are ways to lessen
the impact of course but Clerics have nothing except Malediction to even
get near that amount of damage per round, and Malediction carries severe
drawbacks.
I have played this game for some time now and have gone through every
class more than once. Right now I play the game as a cleric hero. Ah, you
think, he wants the most powerful class in Med. Let me set you straight
right there. Cleric is a good class to play whether it is currently the
most powerful class or not. I dare say it all depends on your link and
style of playing if you agree. I like cleric because
I have a somewhat great distance to med's rl location. That means that at
times most players(and mobs!!) run around me in circles while I try to get
my commands thru to med. Here's when Cleric becomes a nice change of pace
for me. I can stop worrying so much about pinning people to the ground
with backstabs that more often than not miss their targets because the
player simply moved on to another room. Instead I can wait (or go about my
business) for the backstab/spell to hit me and rely on
my Images to negate the first attack, whether it comes from a player or a
mob. If you add Sanctuary and Protection from Evil/Good to the protection
is very satisfactory. Then if you get attacked you can deal with that in
various ways.
Cleric is a defensive class, there's no two ways about it. Yes you have
Malediction, Hammer of Faith and Harm(lets not forget how sweet Call
Lightning is when the weather is right). But Malediction
negates your Images and as a Cleric you live and die with Images (be very
careful with Malediction). Hammer of Faith is nice if your opponent has
-1000/+1000 alig. If he doesn't you've lost your most
effective attack spell. In most fights you end up dealing out medium to
low damage while taking medium to heavy damage yourself. The trick, as
always, is to avoid the heavy damage so you can use
your mana to inflict some damage of your own. As a Cleric it is my firm
belief that you should strive for 700+ hitpoints and only worry about mana
if it is lower than 700. I won't say that nice mana equipment
is east to get, it takes either gold, knowledge or good friends/clannies
to get it. But it is definatly easier to get than good hitpoint equipment.
That's why you should concern yourself with hitpoints first. I have
seen many a cleric with 500hp/1000mana die to a timely(or untimely) rock
in the Catacombs or pinned to the ground by a nasty lil backstab and
belive me it's no fun to suddenly stand there as a tank without
the support you expected. You can plan and prepare for it but it's never
fun (the occasional exception to the rule of course "xxx tells the form 'I
DO have enough hp!' CRACK!...... [CLAN] xxxx Has been KILLED!!!").
A few words on PK
When fighting a Thief/Warrior Hero you can expect a backstab sooner or
later. Try to keep your Images and Fireshield up at all times. Many a
player thinks twice before backstabbing that combination. They
will most likely try to dispel or use Magic Missile, some may try to use
an orb or cast Sanctuary before they hit you with the backstab. Careful
timing is of the essence here, you need to figure out when it is
time to flee and re cast Fireshield/Images or when you can stay and duke
it out without Images. Again with your ability to heal yourself effectivly
there is a very real option to fight with Fireshield only. Let
me say, that makes for a very fast fight from the Cleric's point of view.
Especially if you intentionaly use a low -ac so your opponent can hit you
with melee attacks. If you have a lot of hitpoints chances are that
your opponent will suffer greatly from hitting your Fireshield with melee
attacks while you toss an occasional Heal at yourself between
hammering/harming your opponent. Here is when you can not
afford to spam. The urge to spam Hammer of Faith/Harm/Heal may be strong
but you mustn't succumb to it. If you do chances are that your opponent
will flee and you're left standing there trying to cast while
your opponent is off in (relative)safety healing up. Embarrassing to say
the least. Another danger with spamming is fumbled spells. If you spam a
bunch of attack spells and an occasional Heal and it is the
Heal that goes wrong you're in for a nasty surprise. One heal is
suddenly a huge difference between death and victory.
Not much to say about fighting other spellcasters except here you can
afford to take the time to be creative with your spells. Try Color Spray,
Sandstorm(Fun !), and Curse. Beware of the sneaky mage
that might try a Malediction on you though. Other than that it will be a
tiny war of math as the player who has the most mana/hp will win. There
is not much room for chance in these type of fights. If you fight a Mage
you can try to get his Manashield to suck up his mana and then hunt him
down when it runs out. Because with Sanctuary and your own healing the
Mage will end up using more mana than you.
Some thoughts on soloing as a Cleric.
What can I say ? I don't really miss the Mage mana bonus when he kills a
mob. The spells that are affecting me run out too fast anyways. I tick
often, I recast the spells often. I HATE it when spells run
out in the middle of a fight. It feels safer to solo as a Cleric because,
yes again, the amazing healing ability we have. Combine that with the use
of traps, doors and the spell Shield Room, then most zones
are a pretty comfortable place to gain your eggs/gold/eq/. A word of
caution on your road to glory, never ever use Harm on undead mobs. You're
better off using Shockwave even though you might not get those 2 - 3
spells per round.
Running a trade run alone is less of a challenge as a cleric (exception is
when Firestorms cross your path) than any other class. You don't have to
worry as much about surprises when your Images are up. It just
takes a little longer to kill things. But hey, you'll live to finish the
trade run and get the millions of gold you desired. Remember to cast
Images and refresh your spells often so you don't get caught with your
pants down. Nothing as horrid as flashing a couple of Troll Captn's
without your -ac or Images.
Running through DarkWoods with a few choice items (40hp legs/50hp arms and
such) that are relatively easy to get isn't a problem as a cleric, you
can handle most attacks easily as long as you don't happen
on a large form of players that manage to keep you down. But hey, that's
why you only used a few items, no point in risking your best eq when you
aren't there for the purpose of cpk. Let the fellows cry if
they want to. You still have your valued stuff and so what if you can't
run DW in the immediate future, there's always another day.
Your job in a form.
Again it depends on your link. Generally the player with the best link
should do the healing. If you're stuck with a bad link as a cleric you can
assist the healers in an emergency, but other than those
instances you can concentrate on dispelling, plagueing, cursing, chilling,
weakening and blinding your opponents. If you fight evil/good mobs use
your Hammer of Faith/Harm to it's fullest. Another option if
casting Firestorm if there is two mobs in the room and you are fighting
both. Remember Shared Life if things get out of hand. Your place in the
form should be in the center or back row. Personaly I prefer
center row because my weapon of choice is the Hammer of Conviction, smite
evil, not much damage but as my ex once told me, a little gets more in
time, and in general Clerics have better hr than Mages.
Healing your fellow form mate.
Can't stress enough how important -ac is. A Cleric's job is healing, no
doubt about that. But at the same time if he doesn't need to use every
round of the fight to heal his tank he can be very useful in assisting
the tank in killing the mob/player. As a rule you should always heal in
columns, it makes it easier to keep track of who's healing who even if the
form isn't used to fighting together. Don't forget to crossheal, that
means that you Clerics or healers heal each other. You might be the lone
Cleric in the form and still be comfortable with healing yourself, but if
you have a Mage or a tank in mana mode you might opt to crossheal anyway
because that is most often what your mate will expect from you. It is a
tad straining on the mana to heal yourself and your fellow healer.
The use of staffs, staves, orbs etc.
Just leave that to the mages. You will often be too busy healing to have
time to use that kind of eq. But, if you fear your mana will run out I can
recomend lugging around some rentable healing equipment such
as soulkeepers, red and white staffs, staff of healing. You might consider
making a habit of carrying staffs of sight as means to help your unlucky
tanks if need be. For your own amusement you can collect
throwing stars to toss around when you are saving mana for important
healing. A word of caution here. If you miss your toss, don't forget that
you will get lag for a little bit. If your tank gets hurt badly he
might want to have a bit of talk about that decision to toss things.
Closing words.
As a Cleric in general things take a little longer to die, but then again,
you live alot longer...in general.
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