Runes of Magic Priest Class Basic Guide

Basic Guide To The Priest Class

Ok i’m going to make a short guide for you guys. And i’ll explain my guide as i go on.
Attack Skills:
Do not level Rising tide. It sucks (It has high damage but i just simply don’t like 2 second cast spells. In PvP 2 seconds of standing still for me = death.). If you want to level your attack skills, level Bone chill and Stream of light. These two spells have decent damage. Bone chill is basically a dot. You can easily go around dotting several mobs at once.

So once you get to level 8, start maxing out Bone Chill. You’ll kill mobs 10x faster. You’ll love it.

I will also recommend Ice fog. In CB it was a much higher cast time spell. Seems it got reduced to 1 second now making it a decent spell to use.

Going back to the rising discussion:
Rising tide is by no means a bad spell. But standing still for 2 second isn’t my game style. Otherwise i completely recommend it. IF you choose to level Rising tide, you shouldn’t level 1 of the other 2 spells (Bone chill or stream of light) I would recommend not leveling stream of light due to how easy it is broken (it’s a stream spell).

Why pick between 2 out of 3 spells? Because if you level all your attack spells you’ll be gimping your priest from healing power. Your TP is much better used on spells like Faith(Healing % level rise skill at level 24).
Again, i don’t choose rising tide because i prefer kiting mobs and enemies. So i spam bone chill and i get a good distance to throw stream of light. Therefore i have no use for a 2 second cast time spell (This decision is my personal preference. It can be argued that rising tide is better than stream of light).
A good combo is rising tide and bone chill.

This recommendation is for starting levels. I started raising my rising tide at level 35 as i have a lot more free TP that i can spare.

Healing spells:
Instant heal and Regenerate are your primary spells you’ll want to level. The next spells (going by order) would be Heal and Group heal. Why is Heal and Group heal on the last of the list? Because these two spells are basically for end game. Starting in your early levels from 1-35 you’ll want to use mainly Instant Heal And Regenerate. Believe me.
Once you’re over level 35 Heal becomes your main spell.

Be sure to max Faith once you’re level 24 and continue to have it maxed. This will help your healing by a lot.

Defensive Spells:
You’ll definitely want to level Grace of Life. Clothe classes (Priest/mage) are very weak in pdef and have low hp. So all the extra HP you can squeeze in will definitely help you out.
Wave Armor: Great spell since the wave armor patch.

And while you’re at it, be sure to also max your "P attack" buff. While this doesn’t really benefit us much, it will benefit parties you join. And everyone will love your HP and attack buff.

Gear:
You’ll want to mainly pick up gear with HP, Wisdom and P Def bonuses. This brings me to my next topic, stats.

Stats:
As a priest you’ll definitely need stam/Wisdom/hp/Pdef. If you’re playing one right now, you already know why. So i won’t go too deep in to it. You can easily farm MA with your friends/guild for great stam/hp/def/wisdom stat drops.

Survivability:
As a priest, you already know you’re very squishy. So, instead of a 2H staff, i would recommend you use 1h and shield. In CB i played around with this a lot, and found that 1h/shield is just a lot better. Sure using a 2H you kill faster, but you’ll also be dying much faster.

Remember, using a 1h/shield you have 2 items you can throw stats in to. So you can be more buffed than using a 2h item. So add magical attack power to your 1h/shield and you can compensate for losing some magical attack over the 2H choice. And you can throw all the good stats on both items. So 1h/shield = pro.

Class Combos:
Well, this class combo is my personal opinion. I found Mage to be the best match for a priest primary. Why? Because your priest will benefit from your mage stats. Such as a larger mana pool. More wisdom. And you don’t have to switch gear/weps between both classes. Because they both use the same items. This is also known as the "Battle Priest" and probably the most popular combo of all.

And since you’re squishy, you really don’t wanna walk up to a mob and start using rogue skills on it, do you? You want to keep your distance, throw a few magic attack spells (like fireball/lightning/etc). You’re basically a long range fighter because your HP/PDef is the weakest amongst all classes. But believe me, this combo is by far the best in my opinion. And works very well.

Second combo i would recommend would be Priest/Knight.
Why? Because your priest will benefit from higher HP stat bonuses and p def. Along with the knight skills having many shield spells you’ll be able to use with the 1h/shield combo i mentioned above.

Third combo i would recommend is Priest/Rogue. I know what you’re thinking.. Weird combo, right?
Well you’d be surprised at how much Damage this combo has through dot spells etc. My guild mate made this combo, and now a few of my guild mates rolled alts/new mains to play this combo. Seems to be very strong in damage. For example one of my mates is able to kill mobs 10-15 levels higher than him. Through dots alone. Bone chill and rogue dots = big dmg. And is able to kill people 5-8 levels higher than him. Seriously. Personally, it’s not my game style. But definitely worth updating this topic to mention it.
So basically this combo can be considered the Warlock (WoW reference) of RoM.
Although do note that this third combo will NOT have as high healing abilities as the other two.

This is really personal preferrance. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’m very knowledgeable about the priest class.


Priest Elite Skill

Elite Skills Priest


Priest/Knight

Enhanced Grace of Life
Your Grace of Life also increases the maximum MP.

Life Link
Your Urgent Heal now also heals you.

Last Prayer
Your next spell's casting time is reduced to 1 second.

Divine Incarnation
By transforming into a Divine Incarnation the effectiveness of your heals is increased by 15% and the MP cost is reduced by 30%, but magic attack also decreases by 50%.

Calm Heart
Cast on a friendly target making it resist Fear for 10 seconds.

Sacrificial Cure
Sacrifice your own life energy to restore a party member's HP by 30...99.

Holy Power
Temporarily increases your wisdom by 30...480 for 20 seconds. Effect disappears once 3 healing spells have been cast.

Light Fairy
Summons a light fairy to assist you.

Priest/Rogue

Snake Curse
Your curse inflicts 16...224 points of Dark damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds on your target.

Infectious Wound
Infects target's wounds, causing 30...405 points of Dark damage and lowers the effectiveness of heals received by the target by 2...52%. Lasts 12 seconds.

Quick Spellcasting
Uses your Nimble Hands for greatly increased spell casting speed.

Purge
Removes all beneficial effects on target.

Lure of the Snake Woman
Lures the target into a poisoned dreamland for (Buff-Time-502906) seconds. Inflicts 10...160 Dark damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.

Shadow Fury
Increases the whole party's magic crit rate by 10...130 for 600 seconds.

Snake Spirit
Replenishes your mana when the effect of your Snake Curse wears off. (This effect can only be used on one target at one time.)

Shadow Fairy
Summons a shadow fairy to assist you.

Priest/Warrior

Battle Monk Stance
When activated, physical attack is raised by 30...330 points, defense is raised by 4...44%, but healing effectiveness is reduced by 3...33%. This stance lasts 600 seconds.

Explosion of Fighting Spirit
Mana is converted into fighting spirit to charge the target and inflict 80...280% main hand weapon DPS. (Requires the Battle Monk Stance)

Fighting Spirit Combination
Releases two successive bursts of fighting spirit, that cause 90...315% main hand weapon DPS. (Requires the Battle Monk Stance)

Ascending Dragon Strike
By transforming rage into the dragon form, you inflict 180...540% main hand weapon DPS. (Requires the Battle Monk Stance)

Power Build-Up
Converts Mana into fighting spirit, which accumulates in you. Your next physical attack inside 15 seconds does double damage. (Requires the Battle Monk Stance.)

Vindictive Strike
Inflicts 300...1200 DPS on the target, inflicting, and Stuns it for 5 seconds.

Condensed Rage
Instantly gain 45 rage and lets you enter Condensed Rage state for 10 seconds. When attacked in this state you recover (DMG-503301) HP.

Fire Fairy
Summons a fire fairy to assist you.

Priest/Mage

Freeze
Frost roots your target for 10...30 seconds. (Effect is removed when target receives damage.)

Remove Curse
Removes curse from target.

Angel's Blessing
The Angel's Blessing grants your party restoration of additional 10...50 MP every 5 seconds. Lasts 600 seconds.

Angel's Carol
Angels appear among the group and all party members regenerate (DMG-502064) MP every 2 seconds. Lasts 10 seconds.

Lightning Rod
If Bone Chill is on the target, striking it with Lightning will also cause an Electric Shock, which raises suffered Water and Wind damage for 20 seconds.

Enlightenment
When you use Heal, there is a chance to temporarily increase your Wisdom.

Icewind Blade
Water and wind energies combine to form a sharpened blade that inflicts 30...480 Wind damage and 30...480 Water damage to the target.

Wind Fairy
Summons a wind fairy to assist you.

Priest/Scout

Embrace of the Water Spirit
Your prayer for the blessing of the water spirit raises your and your party's magic attack by 20...620 points for 1800 seconds.

Throat Stab
Increase the range of Throat Attack.

Enhanced Wave Armor
Your Wave Armor now also increases defense.

Tide Control
Rising Tide now additionaly causes ranged weapon damage.

Curing Shot
Shoots an arrow filled with the power of Light on 5 friendly targets within reach, healing them for 20...170 HP and additionally restores 10...85 HP per second for 10 seconds.

Ice Blade
Turns magic into a knife blade to attack the target, causing 25...400 points of water damage.

Saint's Blessing
When you cast a Heal on a friendly target with HP lower than 30%, the healing effect is enhanced by (Buff0-503283).

Water Fairy
Summons a water fairy to assist you.

----Update---

* Regeneration while not casting (outside of the “five second rule”) will be decreased. We think that (1) the ability to cast heal over time spells and then sit back and (2) benefitting from a clearcasting proc that also gets you out of the five second rule both provide too much mana regeneration, even over short time periods.
* To make this change, we are reducing mana regeneration granted by Spirit across the board. However we are also boosting the effects of talents such as Meditation that increase regeneration while casting. The net result should be that your regeneration while casting will stay about the same, but your not-casting regeneration will be reduced. This change will have little impact on dps casters, since they are basically always casting.
* The specific talents and abilities being boosted are: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac and Spirit Tap. Yes this makes these “mandatory” talents even more mandatory, if such a thing is possible.
* Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
* In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.
* We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.
* We balance around the assumption that even 10-player groups have someone offering Replenishment. To make this even easier on players we are likely to offer this ability to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable.
* These changes are ultimately being done to bring the different healing classes more in line with each other as well as to give the encounter team more leeway when designing encounters, who can balance with these new mana regeneration numbers in mind. In a world with infinite healer mana, the only way to challenge healers is with increasingly insane amount of raid damage, so that global cooldowns become the limiting factor since mana fails to be. An example is the Eredar Twins in late Sunwell. We weren’t necessarily happy with that model, and this change hopefully allows us to move towards giving healing a more deliberate and thoughtful pace rather than frenetic spam.

PRIEST
Divine Spirit – this spell is now a core ability available to all priests.
Discipline has access to a new talent, Power Word: Barrier. (Think of it as Power Word: Shield for your whole group).
Several area of effect (AOE) heal spells have been improved: Prayer of Healing can be cast on any groups in your raid party. Holy Nova’s mana cost has been reduced. Circle of Healing now heals for more.
Shadow priest PvP survivability has been improved: Shadow Form now reduces magic as well as physical damage. Dispersion now removes snares.
Penance – this spell can now be targeted on the priest.
Serendipity – this talent now reduces the cast time of Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing when Binding Heal or Flash Heal are cast.
We are also working to give Holy additional PvP utility.

From Tankspot forum[Suelyn]