How to tank. As a Cleric!

[Kholai]

Well, as many should know by now, I spend all my time hanging around with the famous Maiya, who is of course, a mage supreme, and, for the longest time, wanted to tank.

Then, we started going to places like Vine Tomb and Collapsed Prison, and suddenly, Maiya didn't want to tank anymore. So I had to learn how to not only take hits from red, red monsters, but to stop them from hitting Maiya too. Since I've seen a lot of people saying that clerics can't hold aggro, I'm going to share this knowledge with you all, to show how to handle yourself to best protect your parties.


First of all, what are the benefits to cleric tanking?

1: Duoing becomes much easier.
If you can cleric-tank, you only need a damage dealer to keep you company.

2: Being secondary tank becomes much easier.
Even if you have a tank, fighters are a finicky lot when it comes to their taunts, so you might still have to take that monster's attention quickly.

3: Fighters become unnecessary.
If there's no tank around, no need to worry if you have a cleric. In fact, if you get good at it, you can tank most anything that can't kill you in one or two hits just as well as a fighter.


So, now I've talked about the advantages, what does one need to get tanking?

1: Max tier heal. Ideally with max cooldown, and max SP-consumption empowerments.
2: Enough hitpoints to take at least three hits from an enemy (two hits if the enemy hits slowly, but three hits gives you that little buffer).
3: A team that knows what you're doing, and how to do it.

A preferable max-party involves two clerics and three damage dealers. Cleric buffs work best with a crowd, and, since all tanking is risky, you can always use someone to keep you alive.


So, all set. You're ready to start tanking.


First off, to start tanking, you will need to get attention of the monster.

For lone monsters, this is simple. Just run up, and hit it with your beat-stick. All other members in your party need to withhold from attacking until two things have happened: One, you've been hit by the monster. Two, you've used your max level heal on yourself.
Once this has happened, you simply continue to use your max level heal on yourself as much as physically possible. All other moves are secondary, including attack. The damage dealer should be the one concentrating on killing it, as the Cleric-tank, your primary job is to take the damage.
Why constantly heal? First off, you should be using this technique in an area that is too dangerous for a mage to tank, so healing will keep you alive. Secondly, the way the game works to punish clerics is that each heal generates aggro from the monster, so, as long as you continue healing yourself, the monsters, enraged by your one-man hippy-love festival, will ignore your allies in order to hurt you more. A disadvantage you can turn to your advantage. So long as your damage dealers are the same level as you, the only person you should lose aggro to would be a fighter, which works out well. It doesn't matter how much damage you take, it doesn't matter how much you heal, the top tier healing spell (and the restore spell as backup) should serve to keep enemy aggro on you and off the squishies.


Now, more complicated is when an enemy needs luring. So, first of all, you'll want your damage dealing mage (or archer, if you're desparate) party member to shoot the target just enough to aggro the monster (obviously using whatever they use best to lure). Once they've done so, as cleric-tank you heal them. It doesn't matter if they've taken no damage, you simply heal the lure constantly as they retreat back towards you.

Note: Importantly, no other character should deal damage during the lure phase. Cleric-tanking can maintain aggro, but taking aggro off a character who is dealing constant damage is difficult (though very much possible).

Once the enemy reaches you, bash or attack normally (bash has a higher success rate). If you hit the enemy, they should, nine times out of ten, turn their attentions from the damage dealer onto you, at which point revert to spamming heal on yourself and attacking them, and all your allies can now attack.



So, finally comes the emergency time, what happens when they don't drop the lure?

This can happen because you miss, or because for some reason, the monster is not quite so offended by your hippy-love clerickness as its brethren. It does happen, and you will need to deal with it as you cleric-tank.

Well, first of all you need to hope for a competent lurer. With constant max-level healing, the lurer should be able to survive several hits without danger of dying, so they should have time to "run between the legs" of a monster, heading back to you. During this time, you should never stop healing the lure, nor should anyone else attack the monster. Once the monster gets close again, once more bash/attack it.
Due to the constant heal-spamming and damaging, it should never take more than three passes to take aggro from any monster, saving your party-mates and preventing tankless combats from devolving into a disorganised scramble.


So, now you know how to tank with a cleric, abusing heal to take aggro and keep it. Finally, the disadvantages:


1: SP.
Don't be surprised if tanking costs you a massive proportion of your SP. Constantly spamming heal as long as it takes to kill a monster can drain more than 50% of your SP reserves against non-boss monsters.

2: Stun and bosses.
Boss monsters frequently stun, and deal freakishly large amounts of damage. Unless you have an awesome team, who knows to stop attacking when you are stunned and give you time to recover, you will most likely lose aggro quite quickly when stunned. Equally, boss monsters deal freakish damage, often more than clerics' HP can handle. Both situations tend to make fighters more useful.

3: Clerics are not fighters.
It's important to remeber this fundamental truth. Clerics can't tank two (okay, maybe two, but not three) red monsters like a fighter can. They don't have the hitpoint reserve. Don't try, you'll die horribly, and so will everyone else.

4: Resources.
Since you're taking all the damage from a target, and spending all your heal spells on yourself to maintain aggro, it's hard to rescue your allies if another monster starts attacking them from behind.


So long as you keep your limitations in mind, you should be able to tank anything that can't kill you.

That's all, and have fun tanking!

[Liala]

I resent that statement! :mad:

I still tank in VT!!! :D:cool:

[AdamWest]

you say archers if you are desperate, but archers are much more suited for cleric tanking.

nature's protection is MUCH more reliable than running back and forth waiting for heal and bash to build up agro.

[Liala]

^ Batman has a point ;)

[Tylur]

^ Batman has a point ;)

...Lmao.

I thought Bruce Wang was the actor for Batman? xD.

[Kholai]

I beg to differ, archers are much less suited to teaming up with a cleric.
Whilst archers may be better at switching aggro over to the cleric, they deal, for the vast majority of their lives, less damage than the mage, making for a longer time in which the cleric must spam heal.
Secondly, archers lack the one ability that makes mages fit so well with a mage, life tap, which lets them keep on ticking like the Energiser Bunny.

Since it rarely takes more than one pass to snare aggro, any increase in speed (there is no such increase in safety, as the lure should be constantly healed) with nature's lure, is offset by the subsequent speed in which a well-built mage can output damage.

Given the choice between an archer and a mage, I'd choose a mage every time.

[cryragon]

I think an archer is more suited to lure a mob than a mage, because an archer can easily avoid getting mobbed in the first place (Nature Protection). Archers also naturally have better HP and defense than mages, so they can survive more hits. I don't think archers horribly lose to mages in the damage department, archers could outdamage mages of equal level in the higher levels, especially against elite/chief/red-named mobs because of poisons. Life Tap is too dangerous to use during a fight, the party will need to stop a lot to allow the mage to do Life Tap between fights.

It's too arrogant to say there's no increase in safety by having an archer...
In the high spawn rate areas, your party'll get mobbed sooner or later, a good archer can help to focus aggro on you.

Archer-cleric duo makes a good defensive party, while mage-cleric duo makes a good offensive party.

Sorry if this sounds rude, but I find you're rather biased toward mages, maybe because of someone.

[MissusDolly]

This is a very nice guide, let's all fighers know that they aren't the only ones that can tank. But mages aren't the only ones that can lure well, archers can too. I've lured red boss monsters and never had to be healed one because it lost my attention fast and quickly switched.

[Liala]

I think its quite obvious that Archers are better at luring. I don't think anyone would argue that. ;)

[Kholai]

You are quite correct, and I agree. An archer is the best class to lure, I do not dispute this fact. Simply that they lack the synergy of a mage/cleric. Especially since curses are the one thing that clerics can't shift.

With life tap, I would disagree that it is always for use outside of combat, if a mage is not targetted, why not tap? However, it does have its primary use outside of combat in reducing down-time to cleric-only.


Sorry if this sounds rude, but I find you're rather biased toward mages, maybe because of someone.

I do indeed confess a slight bias, but not so much towards mages as against archers, partly because of the players who I've met playing them, partly because of the design of the class itself, which does not quite suit my need for carnage.
In duoing, as opposed to multiple member partying, I do consider damage far more important than defensiveness, I won't duo in a place dangerous enough to make me worry constantly for my pair's safety. Perhaps this will change at higher levels - I hear archers become much sought after around level 47?

Finally, in high spawn areas of sufficient danger enough, I do not believe that you should use this method of cleric tanking without a large party of at least two clerics. Clerics do not have the hitpoint reserves of fighters to take all the damage themselves (unless the monsters are a low enough threat anyway), nor can they afford to break off self-healing to heal other characters.
The best use for cleric-tanking is in an area without frequent adjacent mob spawns (the entrance area to collapsed prison, for example), where they can hold the attention of one or two monsters in peace.


However, if anyone would like to write up how they fare with the cleric-tanking method duoing with an archer, and if anything needs to be done differently, I would be glad to put it into my first post. I'm sure there are many clerics who love to party with archers, and they deserve(?) to tank too.

[babykitt10]

This is good ^_^ gud gud~

[tingrui22]

you say archers if you are desperate, but archers are much more suited for cleric tanking.

nature's protection is MUCH more reliable than running back and forth waiting for heal and bash to build up agro.


Dun change the subject go talk abt archers somewhere else...

[Chriszed]

Archers
- lvl 1-20 SUCK!!!!
- lvl 20-30 SUCK!!
- lvl 40 however. AWESOME!!!

Why because they have 3 poisons. Each do around 30 damage every second. That's about 100 automatic damage every second. Doesn't matter if it's slimes or boss monsters. That plus taking into consider regular attack and power/aimed shot. Dead in 7 seconds or your money back!

And at lvl 51 they get another DoT. But it's AoE. Can't tell if that's good or bad.

[Game_Hermit]

...Lmao.

I thought Bruce Wang was the actor for Batman? xD.
Not on the old ghetto 60's show where batman wore spandex panties and had these freaky white eyebrows painted in a look of permanent shock on his mask.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6497/greyghstry1.gif

[ghent]

Kholai,

Thank you for the excellent information. Would you perhaps post some information concerning your preferred stat buildout for a tanking cleric? Would it be the standard 2:1 SPR/END or something different?

[Kholai]

In all honesty, I believe that for the most part, stats are irrelevant. I had a 1:1 Endurance:Spirit ratio at one stage in development (24: 20 at the moment, going to be 30:20, then finish at 30:25 and go pure endurance) and I've never had any trouble.

This is because survival for a cleric comes from heal, rather than endurance. If a cleric can't outheal the damage of a single monster, they shouldn't be there at all. They won't need more much more HP than their highest level heal, because they'll be using heal so much they should never be below full health for long.

In fact, the only popular build I'd say was worse suited to tanking than Full endurance and 2:1 End:Spr would be Strength using builds, and even then, they have increased aggro from the damage they deal. Higher endurance reduces the damage taken, letting you tank slightly stronger monsters notionally, but since you'll be using Heal, Bash and the like whenever possible (heal, restore, heal, bash works rather well in stealing aggro, but costs 150 SP), a higher spirit will increase the time you can spam, and let you stand up to magic enemies better (and the critical damage will help things along too).

So, rather than stats, I'll suggest that your empowerment skills be put into, in the order I found most useful:

Heal
SP Consumption - 5 points (I found the cheapness of heal in lower levels to be more useful, since a rapid heal isn't too important early on when one heal can fill your health bar)
Cooldown Reduction - 5 points (By level 11 you're well ready to tank, if needed)

After the big 10, your only other skill worth empowerment is Bash until much later on. It's a toss-up between increasing cool-down, which allows bash to be used more frequently to help shore up your aggro level and deal damage faster, or increasing damage. I chose to increase damage, and am just starting to reduce cooldown, but your mileage may vary.

Glad you liked my guide. Have fun tanking! =)

[AdamWest]

Dun change the subject go talk abt archers somewhere else...

i'm not changing the subject, smarts. if you are using a cleric-tank, an archer is a much more reliable puller than a mage and a valuable asset to the party.

[lazirusienca]

...Lmao.

I thought Bruce Wang was the actor for Batman? xD.


I can't tell if this is a joke or not but it adds nothing to this discussion and me replying to his joke also adds nothing. But I myself have never used a cleric to tank xD. yay heal monkeysss

[Eliasj]

Kholai, you have no idea of the power of an archer. At lvl 42, not only was I dealing more damage then one of my friend mages (Not including poison), but I was tanking orcs better then the cleric, because of my high dex, with a evasion scroll, orcs were missing me. Now, at lvl 51, I am able to AoE orcs, king mushies, and orc hunters, poison them all, and kill them all, with only a cleric healing. AoE poison is a wonderfull thing, and thanks to it, by the time I am done one mob while AoEing, the others are at half HP, which are easy kills. The thing, is you don't know how to take advantage of the features of the archer while tanking, since you've probably never been with one considering your always with Maia or however you spell her name.Not only do I dps for around 120 damage per second, but I have power shot, and it is quite powerful. Good thing about it, thanks to the DPS archers don't really have to use power shot and aimed, since it causes a lot of aggro, and we can still do decent damage without it. I always duo with clerics (even though I am usually the tank), and if you want, I will give you the names of the clerics, and oyu go ask them how it goes. One of this days, try tanking a mob with an archer. Then if you still disagree with what I am saying, i will shut up.

[academics03]

I didn't know that about clerics, that explains why in a party, mobs would sometimes change their focus from everyone else to me even if I wasn't hitting them. Now I know how to keep mobs focused on me when I'm in a duo with one of my mage friends (or archers if I had any).
Maybe you already answered this and i missed it in the post but, high SPR affects how much sp you have and magic defense, but does anyone know if it affects anything else?

[Psylent]

Maybe you already answered this and i missed it in the post but, high SPR affects how much sp you have and magic defense, but does anyone know if it affects anything else?
High SPR also increases your Crit rate, which is great when you're not using STR (which the majority of clerics shouldn't be) since it gives you an occasional 200% damage hit.

Btw, good guide Kholai... I feel all the wiser for reading it.

[Darknives]

Very useful, thanks.

[Tyris]

Against a single red target, archers outdamage mages.

[Celtic_Princess]

Excellent guide, and I'm looking foward to trying some of the things you've recommended in your guide that I didn't know about. However, I have noticed that this seems to have started a small class arguement between mages and archers. My standpoint is this, each class has its own strengths and weaknesses and every member is useful in a party. One class is not better than the other overall, but better in specific areas. I've seen level 51 archers in action and they're awesome. And I've seen high level mages that are just as good. Part of it depends on how you build your character and how well you know how to handle yourself on the battle field.
Nice work Kholai- hope to see you in game sometime :)

[ninica91]

Tnx for the info.. its whay much betta now.. nd its usefull to.. tyvm... hugs...

[mavricgabriel]

Wohoo!!! Another great guide, nicely done kholai:D

And with regards to the duo part... I'd take an archer as a partner rather than a mage (sorry kholai but im very comfortable with them), we all know that mages are very good DD but they are glass cannons and simply because archer has more survivability than a mage. Plus, they dont use the hit-and-run technique, which is in my opinion, dangerous to both because it tends to attract other monsters around the area making more possible mob problems.

I have tried and tank a lot of times with an archer and find no problem in dealing with 3 weakened ogres and a king coll. If ever my archer attracts attention, he simply just make a nature protection or i make a heal on myself regaining aggro, then my archer uses AOE skills to finish the mobs off. And there is no problem in luring coz i myself is the lurer:D, just make invincibility & regenerate...

just sharing my opinion.. No offense on mages coz lots of my friends are of different class.:D

But all in all, thanks for the great guide and info:cool:

[skskfallen]

ty 4 this, but i dissagree with the three red monster max thing i can solo 4 or 5 red monsters with my 5X cleric :)






Well, as many should know by now, I spend all my time hanging around with the famous Maiya, who is of course, a mage supreme, and, for the longest time, wanted to tank.

Then, we started going to places like Vine Tomb and Collapsed Prison, and suddenly, Maiya didn't want to tank anymore. So I had to learn how to not only take hits from red, red monsters, but to stop them from hitting Maiya too. Since I've seen a lot of people saying that clerics can't hold aggro, I'm going to share this knowledge with you all, to show how to handle yourself to best protect your parties.


First of all, what are the benefits to cleric tanking?

1: Duoing becomes much easier.
If you can cleric-tank, you only need a damage dealer to keep you company.

2: Being secondary tank becomes much easier.
Even if you have a tank, fighters are a finicky lot when it comes to their taunts, so you might still have to take that monster's attention quickly.

3: Fighters become unnecessary.
If there's no tank around, no need to worry if you have a cleric. In fact, if you get good at it, you can tank most anything that can't kill you in one or two hits just as well as a fighter.


So, now I've talked about the advantages, what does one need to get tanking?

1: Max tier heal. Ideally with max cooldown, and max SP-consumption empowerments.
2: Enough hitpoints to take at least three hits from an enemy (two hits if the enemy hits slowly, but three hits gives you that little buffer).
3: A team that knows what you're doing, and how to do it.

A preferable max-party involves two clerics and three damage dealers. Cleric buffs work best with a crowd, and, since all tanking is risky, you can always use someone to keep you alive.


So, all set. You're ready to start tanking.


First off, to start tanking, you will need to get attention of the monster.

For lone monsters, this is simple. Just run up, and hit it with your beat-stick. All other members in your party need to withhold from attacking until two things have happened: One, you've been hit by the monster. Two, you've used your max level heal on yourself.
Once this has happened, you simply continue to use your max level heal on yourself as much as physically possible. All other moves are secondary, including attack. The damage dealer should be the one concentrating on killing it, as the Cleric-tank, your primary job is to take the damage.
Why constantly heal? First off, you should be using this technique in an area that is too dangerous for a mage to tank, so healing will keep you alive. Secondly, the way the game works to punish clerics is that each heal generates aggro from the monster, so, as long as you continue healing yourself, the monsters, enraged by your one-man hippy-love festival, will ignore your allies in order to hurt you more. A disadvantage you can turn to your advantage. So long as your damage dealers are the same level as you, the only person you should lose aggro to would be a fighter, which works out well. It doesn't matter how much damage you take, it doesn't matter how much you heal, the top tier healing spell (and the restore spell as backup) should serve to keep enemy aggro on you and off the squishies.


Now, more complicated is when an enemy needs luring. So, first of all, you'll want your damage dealing mage (or archer, if you're desparate) party member to shoot the target just enough to aggro the monster (obviously using whatever they use best to lure). Once they've done so, as cleric-tank you heal them. It doesn't matter if they've taken no damage, you simply heal the lure constantly as they retreat back towards you.

Note: Importantly, no other character should deal damage during the lure phase. Cleric-tanking can maintain aggro, but taking aggro off a character who is dealing constant damage is difficult (though very much possible).

Once the enemy reaches you, bash or attack normally (bash has a higher success rate). If you hit the enemy, they should, nine times out of ten, turn their attentions from the damage dealer onto you, at which point revert to spamming heal on yourself and attacking them, and all your allies can now attack.



So, finally comes the emergency time, what happens when they don't drop the lure?

This can happen because you miss, or because for some reason, the monster is not quite so offended by your hippy-love clerickness as its brethren. It does happen, and you will need to deal with it as you cleric-tank.

Well, first of all you need to hope for a competent lurer. With constant max-level healing, the lurer should be able to survive several hits without danger of dying, so they should have time to "run between the legs" of a monster, heading back to you. During this time, you should never stop healing the lure, nor should anyone else attack the monster. Once the monster gets close again, once more bash/attack it.
Due to the constant heal-spamming and damaging, it should never take more than three passes to take aggro from any monster, saving your party-mates and preventing tankless combats from devolving into a disorganised scramble.


So, now you know how to tank with a cleric, abusing heal to take aggro and keep it. Finally, the disadvantages:


1: SP.
Don't be surprised if tanking costs you a massive proportion of your SP. Constantly spamming heal as long as it takes to kill a monster can drain more than 50% of your SP reserves against non-boss monsters.

2: Stun and bosses.
Boss monsters frequently stun, and deal freakishly large amounts of damage. Unless you have an awesome team, who knows to stop attacking when you are stunned and give you time to recover, you will most likely lose aggro quite quickly when stunned. Equally, boss monsters deal freakish damage, often more than clerics' HP can handle. Both situations tend to make fighters more useful.

3: Clerics are not fighters.
It's important to remeber this fundamental truth. Clerics can't tank two (okay, maybe two, but not three) red monsters like a fighter can. They don't have the hitpoint reserve. Don't try, you'll die horribly, and so will everyone else.

4: Resources.
Since you're taking all the damage from a target, and spending all your heal spells on yourself to maintain aggro, it's hard to rescue your allies if another monster starts attacking them from behind.


So long as you keep your limitations in mind, you should be able to tank anything that can't kill you.

That's all, and have fun tanking!

[saskue5660]

im a cleric and i beleive that archers are not the best for lure clerics can upgrade there stats more then a archer can with there skills iv tanked for many arhcers and im only lv21 and all they do is mees things up they do deal damage but not enough as a fighter they can deal massive amounts of damage iv based my stats around defensive were archers they are more into dexterity and speed clerics without using stat points already get alot of hp/mp which makes them good for tanking and buffing amd when you add the stats there just alot more powerful plus wheni do kq i notest that most archers have to make there own parties to get into a team people prefer clerics over archers and its just a simple fact:) and when a cleric can use invincablethere more enough a perfect tank becasue they cant be hurt even though clerics can also use this skill on other people it takes too much time and the cleric can get behind in whatever there doing or die trust iv died lots of time because of this the guide that the (GM) postedputs perfectly clear when choosing between a archer and cleric always choose cleric because there the best for your party.

[ichigohollowglen]

I think this is a very good party plan, the cleric and mage duo seems very practical to me. Actually, im gunna try it right now ^^:D

[briancleric97]

kholahi i could tank like 5 enemies even more so the **** is u talkin about >:^(

[mavricgabriel]

kholahi i could tank like 5 enemies even more so the **** is u talkin about >:^(

Son, u replied like 3 YEARS LATE... Like SUPER NECRO:rolleyes:

[char_family]

Son, u replied like 3 YEARS LATE... Like SUPER NECRO:rolleyes:

owned.....