Charmander's Priest Guide

A Charrific Priest Guide

Why to choose Ragnarok Online 2 Priest :
Maybe you are the type to enjoy playing support or you don't enjoy the other classes. Or maybe you don't know what to pick.
Well, here are reasons WHY you should go Priest:

1. Priests are the main healer class in this game. Which means YOU have a big impact on whether your team succeeds or fails.
2. Raids require at least 2 priests. (There are cases where 1 priest is enough but that is already for a geared party.)
3. Potions are not as ridiculous as in RO 1, potions in this game have cooldown. Hence, YOU are needed.
4. Priests are team players, your teammates need you while you need them.
5. Priests are awesome, unless you have mephobia, then you should totally go for this class.



Being an FS Priest is a tough job and is probably the most difficult to level if you're going solo. You may experience bumps here and there but the end is fruitful and rewarding. After having read this, and you still want to continue then...

"Let's start the journey now........together."

I. Stats
Int/Agi Build
INT: 40
AGI: 40
VIT: 8

Int is considered the "primary" stat for Priests because it increases the output of your skills. (Heal, Holy Light, Highness Heal, etc.)
Having 50 int instead of 40 int doesn't have much difference because you will be getting your int mainly from your gears.
Agi gives you the critical chance you might want for your skills. Priest gears do not give much agi and this is why stat points are alotted here.
You will be left with extra stat points, proceed to place it in Vit. Having extra vit will definitely help you as boss monsters can one-shot you if you have few hp.


INT/VIT Build
INT: 40
VIT: 40
AGI: 8

This build is for those who want to be tankier and while this build won't give you as much crit as the Int/Agi build, it'll help you get into raids faster (Baphomet Garden requires you to have a minimum hp of around 4000+). You don't have to worry much about crits if you plan to invest more stat points in Meditatio. Only go this build if you can afford to buy stat reset. End game, AGI is still better than VIT. This build is for those undergeared and want to join raid faster.

STR: The strength stat increases ATK and since you're not going to be smacking monsters anyway, do not put points in this stat.
WIS: The wisdom stat increases your overall SP, you will rarely run out of sp, and even when you do, a single sp potion can overcome this problem. There is also the Aqua Benedicta skill that restores a portion of your SP. Do not put points in this stat as well.

Note: These builds are not the only way to play the Priest class, you might want to experiment with the stats that are suited for your playing style.

II. Skills

Refer to these links for skill description:
www.roguard.net/?m=classes&class=Acolyte
www.roguard.net/?m=classes&class=Priest

Heal
Heal is your primary healing skill. This is your best friend, you will literally spam this skill over and over again until you're sick of it. If used with Aspersio, your next 3 heals are critical hits. It is recommended that you max this skill.

Holy Light
This is your primary attack skill. You should only get lvl 1 of this if you don't want to spend money on a skill reset. Otherwise, feel free to spend as much skill points on this as well as Lex Divina, Oratio, Judex, etc.
Note: Aspersio makes 3 of your next Holy Lights critical hits. (Useful for leveling)

Blessing
Blessing is self explanatory. At max level, it increases your party's maximum HP by 15%. This buff should be on ALWAYS. Also recommended to get max of this skill.

Renovatio
Also a very useful skill. This skill heals the person every 2 seconds for 12 seconds. The good thing about this skill is the instant cast time so you can place it on party members (or on yourself) quick then proceed to healing the tank again. Recommended to get max of this skill.

Increase Agi
This skill only increases your party's movement speed, and has a very long cooldown. Only get lvl 1 of this skill.

Resurrection(New 30 minute cooldown has made this skill debatable whether to max or not)
This skill is a must get and recommended to get max level for raids. Often, there are bosses who can one-shot members and death is unavoidable hence this skill is needed. As for leveling though, it's not used much so you can put off getting max of this skill until you reach level 50.
(It has been said that the resurrection for RO2 SEA is 30 mins cooldown at max level. I will update this after having confirmed so.)

Aqua Benedicta
This skill restores 15% SP and gives you 3 Holy Water charges. 1 Holy Water is needed to cast Aspersio. Get this skill.

Aspersio
Aspersio improves one skill and uses a Holy Water charge. You will mostly use this skill with Heal, Resurrection, Highness Heal and Sanctuary.
Heal: The next 3 Heals are critical hits.
Resurrection: Resurrect is instant and the target will be resurrected with full HP.
Highness Heal: Increases the healing effect of Highness Heal and gives them a Renovatio-like (Heal over Time) buff for 10 seconds. (Only the target will receive the HoT buff)
Sanctuary: Increases the heal done by Sanctuary.
Recommended to get max of this skill as you will be using this everytime it's off cooldown. By the time you have used up all the charges, Aqua Benedicta will be off cooldown.

Meditatio
This skill is said to increase your critical hit and is a very vague skill for me.
Please refer to this thread for further discussion of this skill.

Highness Heal
This skill is your pseudo-AoE heal (Heals the target+2 others near the target), it does better than Heal but has a 10 second cooldown as well as costing more SP to use. Highness Heal is situational (Do not use this skill at situations where simply using Heal is enough), only use when needed, e.g. multiple members are damaged, monster used aoe skill. (As there are times when you might suddenly need it and it's on cooldown.)This skill is very strong with Aspersio, recommended to get max of this skill.

Gloria
Another useful skill for spamming Heal. At 15% chance, makes your next Holy Light or Heal spell instant. Heal has a 1 second cast time, this makes it difficult to get multiple people to full health, especially on cases where there are 2-3 tanks (One for boss and others for kiting mobs). Gloria helps you with that. Recommended to get max of this skill.

Sacrament
Increases the power of your healing skills by 10% while decreasing your offense by 10%. Pretty self explanatory. This buff stays on you until you turn it off (Casting it again) or your character dies. Recommended to get max of this skill.

Recovery
This skill removes negative status effects from a player in the area, at higher levels increases the number of players recovered. As far as experience goes, this skill hasn't seen much use, and there hasn't been a time where I was needed to use it. Take note that I have only played until Garden of Baphomet and PvE Arena so I don't know for Abyss Dungeon and Abaddon of Despair.

Coluseo Heal
This skill instantly gives full health to the target. This is a very useful skill for tight situations but not recommended to get more than lvl 1 as getting higher levels only decreases the cooldown. If your raid is executing the strategy flawlessly then you might not even get to use this skill at all.

Suffragium
A 30 minute buff that increases your cast speed. Helps with your Heal spam. Take note that only Heal and Resurrection benefit from this as your other spells so if you find that you have more important skills to place your skill points on then do not max this skill. I have maxed this skill though.

Angelus
Used if you're expecting all party members to get damaged, but since it only increases defense for 10 seconds and only gives +9% defense at max level, I have only placed 1 level on this skill. If you find that you're not maxing your Suffragium then you can place them on this skill.

Assumptio
A very strong skill for keeping your tank/party member alive, though the cooldown is 120 seconds, it only lasts for 10 seconds. But that 10 seconds can help you in situations like: other party members are low and you need to cast heals on them, place Assumptio on tank then proceed to heal others; you are expecting a very strong skill from the boss monster. By having that 40% damage reduction on the tank, you don't have to spam your heal on him for 10 seconds. Recommended to get max of this skill.

Archangel
This skill increases your MATK for 30 seconds and has 90 seconds cooldown, and is dependent on your play style. I am the type to just spam heal so I did not max this. Feel free to experiment on this skill, you might like having this on you while healing. (Animation gives you small wings for 30 seconds)
I feel that there is potential in this skill.
Imagine you have 2000 MATK, +25% of that gives you 2500 MATK which results to a lvl 5 Heal amounting to 1075 as opposed to a lvl 5 Heal without Archangel amounting to 860. That is a huge difference, whilst only sacrificing Suffragium. I have posted an alternate build below with lvl 5 Archangel.

Sanctuary
This is your ultimate AoE heal. It has 120 seconds cooldown so it should be casted situationally. This is mostly used when boss monsters use AoE dps skills. Having lvl 1 of this skill is sufficient in most cases and is up to you should you wish to place more skill points in Sanctuary.

It is advisable that you try out a skill build of your own depending on your play style.

Charmander skill build
Charmander alternate skill build

III. Getting There

The road to being a level 50 Priest is tough. You will get smashed by monsters here and there, and it will take you a considerably longer time to finish quests than other classes if you're doing it solo. You may at times find that you don't want to deal with it anymore and just go play another game. But do not fret, this is why parties are made.

RO2 is made so that you don't have to do everything alone. By the time you get to unlock Wolves Caves, you are required to go in a party to clear the dungeon. There is a party finder in the game, use it. You should also try to make friends with others.

Share your food. Have fun. You have a profession inside the game, whether you choose to be an Artisan, a Chef, a Blacksmith or an Alchemist, you may want to give some to others.

Make friends. Having friends will make your game experience better, trust me. They'll also help your journey be more fun and tolerable.

And at the end of the day. You'll find that getting to level 50 isn't all that taxing as long as you enjoyed the journey getting there.

IV. Acknowledgements

This guide wouldn't be here if not for Patootsie, Solthos, Skwyr, Valeraine, Kardianna, Swamp, Fold, Skank, Alucaster, Ayeth, Gardosen, Flash, the whole ROGuard Team, the whole Supremacy guild, the whole Best in Slot guild, and many more. for imparting their knowledge unto me and cultivating my RO2 experience. I would also like to thank Google for the Charmander images, these do not belong to me and are belongings of their respective owners.


V. References
Ngo et. al. (2012). How to not suck at raids (1st ed.)
Sy et. al. (2011). Raid like a machine (4th ed.)

[Source1]
[Source2]