Making my first ME High Priest. Any advice? (equips/leveling/monsters)

[Leamee]

Hello everybody,

I feel like I'm getting more confident with my Sniper so I think it's high time that I took care of my High Priest. I'd like to thank all the people who are helping me with the Sniper job on my other thread. I really really appreciate it.
I heard that good ME High Priests can be very powerful and can even solo Cursed Abbey level 3 if they know what they're doing.
Doppelganger-killing is apparently also an option.
I know that ME Priests can be expensive because of the blue gems but I've always liked killing demons and undeads and sadly enough Sniper isn't the best job to do that. It seems like the new Morroc Shadows are basically anti-Sniper monsters since they auto-cast pneuma as soon as you touch them.
I've got a few questions. Again, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to ME Priests so I apologize if my questions seem silly.

What are the best leveling spots? I'd like to avoid heal-bombing removers and TU-ing undeads if possible. I have nothing against that leveling path, it's just that I'd like to learn how to be a good ME Priest and TU-ing / heal-bombing monsters won't teach me a thing, I'm already good at doing that.
For example, would GH chivalry/ castle be a good leveling spot for a low-level ME Priest?
I'm planning on solely using ME once I get the hang of it. I'll keep TU hotkeyed if things get complicated though.

Also, does anyone think that killing the Morroc Shadows (not the Valk lookalike of course) would be a reasonable long-term goal?

How should I use my stat points? I know that int is a must but I'm torn when it comes to dex, vit and possibly agi (for skill delay). If I'm honest, I might even put some str for gem-carrying. So yes, I need help with that one  

What equips should I try to drop/buy?
I'll probably be on a tight budget but don't let that stop you from suggesting high-end items. I'd be really grateful if someone could post a low-cost *and* a high-end equip set for ME Priest. Not everybody can afford the rosary/spiritual ring combo on a midrate.
I'm also clueless when it comes to rods/ staffs.

Which "bigger" monsters would I be able to kill? (demons/ undeads obviously)
I know that Priests can be awesome farming characters. I got my first pair of +7 tidal shoes thanks to my old TU/FS Priest.
Would Necromancer be killeable with average equip? How about anything in GH? I also heard that some ME Priests solo Bio 3 (demons) and TP but don't necessarily get the drops since they are gone before the monster is dead.
Would Skogul and Frus be a piece of cake to ME?

Last question (the one that will probably make everyone laugh but who cares  )
If I use cursed water, does magnus exorcismus become effective on Angel monsters?
I guess not, but I'm just asking, so please don't get offended. Eh, I'm just a novice trying to kill porings ~

[Viewer]

Unless you're in a party don't even bother to ME alone. You'll be dead before you even cast and if you go abbey they will probably wan't you to support.

[Leamee]

Unless you're in a party don't even bother to ME alone.

I'm sorry, but that can't be true. I found many guides on how to be a good ME Priest but these guides didn't answer my questions, hence the new thread. Reaching 150 dex isn't that hard and I'm pretty sure that someone who's a good priest will back up my theory.
Unless several knowledgeable people tell me to give it up and stick to heal-bomb/ TU, I *will* give ME Priest a try.

It was a toss-up between an ME Priest thread and a Sin X thread as I do want to play Sin X at some point but since I'm not into EDP farming/ ice pick hunting I thought that starting off with a Priest thread would be better.

Anyway, I'm convinced that some nice people out there will be able to help me or at least clarify things 

[kolela]

Necromancer Hunting Setup
Munak Hat[1] + Isilla
Holy Robe[1], Orlean's Uniform or any + Bathory Card (preventing you to be undead)
Stone Buckler[1] + Teddy Bear Card
Tidal Shoes[1] + Green Ferus Card
Wool Scarf[1] + Raydric Card
Spiritual Ring + Rosary[1] + Phen Card if you don't use orlean's uniform
Any strong rod probably +9 lich's bone wand[2] + ehm... dex cards.

Have some vit not just 25.
If you want to bother with phen or any simlar cast penalty, you could equip non-phen accesory first and try not get hit, cast, immediately switch back to phen accesory.
Aftercast delay equipments or bragi would save you alot btw.

[Usagimimi]

99.9% sure that Cursed Water doesn't affect magic skills.

S'like asking if it'll turn Fire Bolt into a Shadow skill instead of Fire

[Jolrael]

this is a very good example of a magnus type priest doing solo at necros

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3akC2q3Y0Y

as for equips:

headgear: circlet [isilla] or for high end use ulles [vesper]
armor: orleans uniform [evil druid]
weapon: overups staff of piercing or any weapon with high + MATK% mod
accessory: 2 nimble gloves or 2 orleans gloves
shield: stone / orleans server / valkyrie shield [teddy bear]
shoes: tidal shoes [green ferus]
robe: wool scarf [raydric]

i really dont know about the stats but i guess you have pump up your dex because ME's casting is very slow...

[Leamee]

First of all, thanks a lot for the replies, you're all very nice and helpful. I knew that playing an ME Priest was an option.  
I have a couple more questions that I forgot to ask yesterday.
Can someone suggest a good skill tree for an ME Priest? For example, I don't know if I should sacrifice angelus or not. I've always maxed it out as a TU because it turns you into this crazily strong tank if you also assumptio, but I'll probably run out of skill points before I can put angelus. I've never used Safety Wall but again it might be an option if you're ME, I don't know.
Oh, and thanks for the vid - fell in love with it!

99.9% sure that Cursed Water doesn't affect magic skills.

S'like asking if it'll turn Fire Bolt into a Shadow skill instead of Fire Tongue

Eh, you never know, but thanks for the answer  

Necromancer Hunting Setup
Munak Hat[1] + Isilla
Holy Robe[1], Orlean's Uniform or any + Bathory Card (preventing you to be undead)
Stone Buckler[1] + Teddy Bear Card
Tidal Shoes[1] + Green Ferus Card
Wool Scarf[1] + Raydric Card
Spiritual Ring + Rosary[1] + Phen Card if you don't use orlean's uniform
Any strong rod probably +9 lich's bone wand[2] + ehm... dex cards.
Wouldn't verit for shoes and khalitzburg for shield (-30% demon) also work? Sure I'd have to practice using BM some more but Khalis are more readily available than teddy bears.
Oh, and

armor: orleans uniform [evil druid]

the only problem with that card is that you cannot heal yourself anymore.
It's a good card to use when you redemptio though, as I heard that if you're undead using redemptio leaves you with 1HP and then you can switch armor and heal. But I'd have run some tests.

weapon: overups staff of piercing or any weapon with high + MATK% mod

Lich's bone wand and staff of piercing will be a piece of cake to drop if I have a sniper + a priest. Overupgrading is another story.

It seems like even the cheapest priest equips are still quite pricey (orlean's gloves for example). I could easily get the first 2 items for the combo but getting 1 orlean's glove would be very difficult.
I like the Munak hat [1] idea a lot. Munak hat without any card would still be pretty cool, especially at the early levels.

Please feel free to post a stat/ skill build or more suggestions when it comes to equips.
I'd also like to know if anyone tried to kill morroc shadows/ skog/ etc with an ME Priest.
Any extra advice regarding when to cast ME/run/heal would be welcome  

Again, thanks a lot, I've already learned a lot and will test the builds out on RMS!

[Symbol]

99.9% sure that Cursed Water doesn't affect magic skills.

Make it 100%. Element fixed skills can't be changed with Elemental Scrolls.

armor: orleans uniform [evil druid]

Not being able to heal yourself doesn't quite help here. Switch it for a Bathory.

I'd also like to know if anyone tried to kill morroc shadows/ skog/ etc with an ME Priest.

Seems like your main goal is Morroc Incarnation huntings and since no one's given any advice, I might help you out.


Yes. I made myself comfortable for the testings wearing a Mistress carded Ulle's Cap and using a +10 Piercing Staff. Other than that the equips are normally obtainable.
It is possible to easily solo them IF (and only if) you can maintain Safety Wall up to mostly ALL THE TIME. The Valkyrie being an Angel and the Ghost being a.. uh.. Ghost, you can't damage the first, and you'll reach 1k damage on the second. That means the only viable ones are the Golem and the Creep.
Strategies? Make sure you have AT LEAST 3 backup Safety Walls, in case you can't re-cast the main one (Delay ftw), the simply cast 1 or 2 MEs and keep Lexing them and switching Safeties. With the +10 Piercing you can reach Over 30k Damage on the Golem and 26k on the Creep. Since they both don't have any real powerful skills, even if you don't manage to get into the SW in time, you'll take about 1k damage per hit, which is completely healable. Just bring some Royal Jellies for the Creeps, since they can silence you. And make sure you warp the moment you spot a Valkyrie.

Would it be a reasonable long-term goal? Comparing to Champions: NO. Why? As said, you can only effectively kill the Golem and the Creep ones, rewarding possibles Cross Shields and Cursed Hands. However you'll be loosing the main drops of the Incarnations, aka Diabolus Manteau/Ring.

Well I hope it could help you in any ways. :3~

Edit 1: I'm still working on some farming strategies and when stuff goes wrong I'll update this.
The Golem Stuff can actually be a pain if it's on a 2+ mob. From time to time he'll Magnum Break you out of the SW, so make sure your backups are close. When you see him casting for too long, Teleport Away. It's earthquake. If you don't die, you'll probably lose more than Half of your HP Bar. :#
Edit 2: I've tried killing the Ghost Incarnation but you simply can't. When you reach 100k HP his Lv11 Heal is triggred, making it impossible to get lower than the said 100k. You can't even try to LexDivina him because of his huge INT.
Edit 3: You can further switch the +10 Piercing Staff to a more likely +9 Double Strouf Carded Lich's Bone Wand. The damage get slightly lower but you can still reach 25~30k with Lex.

[kolela]

Khalitzburg would be useless if the only monster you meet is necromancer which is undead. Banshee is rare in third floor. Check monster database, if they only reduce demon race, they really is. Yeah sure whatever works for shoes like verit.
I recommend munak hat because it adds another 10% with a total 40% reduction to undead race monster.

On that video, what he/she did was....
MPPPPPXOOOS (count one letter is one tile)
M = where he casts ME
PPPP = the direction mobs are coming, make sure they only comes in one direction so you are not surrounded.
X = you + safety wall
OOO = empty space
S = where he cast sanctuary so only you inside sanctuary, not monsters hence sanctuary could lasts long
His setup would tolerate more crappy equipments though you are using more blue gemstone.

[Leamee]

Wow, I'm speechless. Thank you *so* much guys.   Your tests and advice are so comprehensive! Plus I really like your equips. I also thought that bathory and khali were better cards, especially against morroc incarnations. However, I totally agree with kolela when it comes to necromancer. I'll need anti-undead equipment too. Your posts helped me a lot!
I'll definitely have to run some tests myself.

The video description was also really helpful. I'll have to give this setup a try.  

Would [morroc incantations] be a reasonable long-term goal? Comparing to Champions: NO. Why? As said, you can only effectively kill the Golem and the Creep ones, rewarding possibles Cross Shields and Cursed Hands. However you'll be loosing the main drops of the Incarnations, aka Diabolus Manteau/Ring.

Thanks for the warning, I'll have to take that into account. I mean, I wanted to kill Necromancers but the Morroc incarnations' drops are very interesting and even if I probably wouldn't have used a diabolus manteau for one of my own characters it would have been a good way to make money. That said, Champions can't farm Necromancers / etc as well as Priests because they need truckloads of SP items to do it. Given that Sins and Knights aren't very good "bigger monsters" killers (unless they're with a party) I'll probably have to make a compromise and ideally level up a Sniper + HP (FS or ME, maybe both with resetter) + SL (optional, mainly for fun and Abyss 3) + Champion + Merchant/WS.

To be honest, I think that most people go for Champion + Snip + HP + Merchant for farming and WOE purposes, though Sins, Knights and WS are the ultimate emp-breakers.

If I can DA I will probably leech myself with my HP and Sniper. I know how to make a reasonably good battle WS (basically you just need an ice pick and the money) but I'm clueless when it comes to Champions.

Seriously, I can't thank you enough. I've never been a big fan of Champions because leveling them is quite tedious but I'm pretty sure that with some good advice I'd find a solution to that problem. I'd still rather MVP with my Sniper though (low-tiers anyway) because Snipers don't need any pots to kill most low-tiers and IMO are about as fast as Champions who need to tp back to town to heal.

I'll definitely make a Priest on RMS as it's a class I'm familiar with and to be honest I can't imagine playing solely Sniper on a server when Priests can kill so many monsters so easily. RO is all about having fun and Priest is one of my favorite classes  

Being able to solo Cursed Abbey 1, 2 and 3 as an ME would already be great, as I don't have any char to efficiently kill banshees right now. Sure, a full agi snip can do quite well in Cursed Abbey 1, but when you chain-kill you're usually looking for the best-suited character for the dungeon you're trying to farm in.

I'll probably start a thread about champions soon, though I'd like to improve my sniping skills first. I'll also make a Priest on RMS to see if soloing the 3 levels of Cursed Abbey without awesome equips is possible. Wool+Tidal is still a very good combination and being able to farm those items + lich's bone wand would be reason enough to make a Priest for me.  IMO making a Champion would in fact solve most of my stronger MVPs/mini-bosses problems. (I'd have to learn how to use one first and that's the hard part).

Edit: I tried champ and out of all the classes I've ever played, it's the one I hate the most. I'm not fast enough to play champion. I don't think I'll ever be. But that's okay, because it's official: morroc incantations can't all be soloed by a champion, so it's more of a party dungeon anyway.
The ghost incantation morroc is immune to asura, so with a champ you could only kill the creepy one and the golem, and possibly valk.
I successfully killed the golem and the creep but I wasn't on the actual map so I suspect that without a party (prof, PriestS, champ), leveling or farming there would be almost impossible.
Actually, I wonder who could kill the ghost incantation since its immune to asura. Maybe a sin in a SW.

[kolela]

err I don't recommend ME priest on banshee. They have huge mdef.
Most likely you hunt like this... if you only care about solo-ing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_zOu0Y0u0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt8aYo5xcCI

ghost morroc is pretty easy because they always cast heal when they lost hp.
You just need dps it as fast as possible to interrupt their heal cast.

[Symbol]

ghost morroc is pretty easy because they always cast heal when they lost hp.
You just need dps it as fast as possible to interrupt their heal cast.

Getting that huge DPS it's EXACTLY the problem. HPriests ME delay is ridiculous and since it spams Pneuma the second it's hit by a Sniper, I really can't see your dps coming. Maybe a SD Cross with Bragi and all that stuff but I still have my doubts you can solo it at normal settings.

Edit: I tried champ and out of all the classes I've ever played, it's the one I hate the most. I'm not fast enough to play champion. I don't think I'll ever be. But that's okay, because it's official: morroc incantations can't all be soloed by a champion, so it's more of a party dungeon anyway.

I simply can't play champions. Too low solo/leeching leveling, takes lots of time to settle with the right stuff and can only deal one single hit before dyeing to a MVP. Indeed I can and enjoy playing it in a party but it gotta be a pretty decent one.
However, if you take have the right equipment and take into account the time you take to kill the Incarnations, farming them as a Champion is highly profitable (You can sell lots of diabolus manteaus). You might probably be able to 1HKO them, needing no strategies AT ALL.

[kolela]

If ghost morroc get close enough so you are in his attack range, he won't cast pneuma.
old video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Lf6d5zoPg

another options are CT whitesmith (costly), berserk LK (can't really move well)

[Symbol]

Yeah. Just tested it and actually works. I can see trouble with a simple mob. Anyways thanks for the tip :#

Edit: Just saw your edit. The same mob on the video happened to me. Seems it's possible to work it out.
Thanks for remembering the WS I completely forgot about it since I don't play them for a long time. And I've indeed watched some old videos of a WS being a reliable farming source. You just need the stuff :#

[Leamee]

Thanks a lot for the advice and videos, guys. They really help

I simply can't play champions. Too low solo/leeching leveling, takes lots of time to settle with the right stuff and can only deal one single hit before dyeing to a MVP. Indeed I can and enjoy playing it in a party but it gotta be a pretty decent one.
However, if you take have the right equipment and take into account the time you take to kill the Incarnations, farming them as a Champion is highly profitable (You can sell lots of diabolus manteaus). You might probably be able to 1HKO them, needing no strategies AT ALL.

I hear ya. Leveling a champion is the most boring thing ever when you're alone, even on a midrate. Champ equips are also very pricey and farming them is not necessarily cost-effective as on populated servs with convex mirrors implemented there's not much you can do really.
Champs can only 2 hit kasas and incantations, even with dreamy equips. I ran some tests with my friend on RMS and Kasas will OHKO you more often than not after the second asura, and that's if you have Ygg and enough space to body relocate. As for the incantations, they're easier than kasas (alice card+ bathory works well) but you still need 2 asuras to kill them. Alone and with a Ygg, they're doable, but on the actual map, I don't know. Bringing a friend (priest, professor) or 2 would make it so much easier!

Priests have been nerfed big time. On RMS, you can't zoom/un-zoom on the abbey maps anymore, which makes killing ANY mob near-impossible as you don't see what's running toward you. A single necromancer is a piece of cake to kill but you need dreamy equips again (holy stick + sacred scripture at least, I didn't run tests with spiritual ring.)
Moreover, Priest solo-MVP days are over. I got the hang of ME-ing/SW-ing/healing pretty fast for once but all the MVPS killed me because they now have knockback skills/ skills that manage to hit you even when SW is on.
Basically, if you want to farm, I don't know, anubises *-* a solo ME Priest may be useful. Wait, that's what TU Priests are for.
Incantations aren't doable. The Creep's critical wounds lowers your heal and stuns you, and even with vit and anti-stun gear you're looking at a 10-minute battle at least, if you manage to live through it.
The Golem has a knockback skill => enough said.

I think that Priest is now officially a support job. You can still level up freakishly fast like a Sniper or an SL, though not that fast, but once you're 99 you're pretty much forced to party with someone else to be useful.
I might make a Priest for fun but if I can zoom/un-zoom on the abbey map I don't really see the point of making an ME one. A TU one would still work I guess.