XILE-RO BATTLE PRIEST PvP GUIDE
by: HenHen
Introduction:
Survive, approach, kill. That’s how a battle priest rolls.
The battle priest is a very beginner-friendly class, simply because there is a comparatively large margin of error. If you use the proper build, and the right equips, it will be very hard for any classes to kill you. Make no mistake, however. The battle priest does take some skill and experience to play, and despite your preparations, a skillful opponent can still make holy pie out of you.
Now, I write this guide assuming your opponent is as good as or better than you. That’s why some of my strategies may seem extremely complicated and unnecessary. If you fight someone weaker, you can use simpler tactics, though the basic idea would still be the same.
Equipment Guide
Weapons
Book of Life [2 Hydra 2 Assaulter Cards]
Book of Life [2 Magnolia Cards + 2 Savage Bebe Cards]
Holy Flail [2 Hydra 2 Assaulter Cards]
Rod [Monkey Fist Card x 4]
Mace [3 Marina Card 1 Snake Card]
Alternatively you can have 2 maces, 1 with 4 marinas and 1 with 4 snakes
Long Mace
Shield
Buckler [Thara Frog Card]
Buckler [Maya Card]
Guard [True Golden Thief Bug Card]
Helm
1) Several 4-slotted helms of your choice (which includes LKH, DH, EQW, and Event Hats)
You don’t really have much of a choice here. The event hats have negligibly better stats, but +10 event hats are fairly hard to come across.
All of them, except one should be +10
One of them needs to be +4 or +5 so that you can slot them with Gibbet cards
2) wings of angel [1] / wings of demon [1]
You will need a bunch of these. Obtainable from an NPC in exchange for 3 Golds; the +1 str is desirable, but for aesthetic purposes you could also use elf ears [1].
3) Alpha wings [1] / Shadowcraft wings [1]
Luk and Int are the most important stats to a battle priest, so Alpha wings (15 int/luk/agi, 5 str/dex/vit) is your best choice.
Cards you will need
- Bloody Knight Cards (as many as you need)
- Evil Snake Lord Card x 1 (anti curse/blind)
- Orc Hero Card x 1 (anti stun)
- Marduk Card x 1 (anti silence)
- Giearth Card x 1 (anti chaos)
- Permeter Card x 4
- Gibbet Card x 5
- Maya Purple Card x 1
- Pharaoh Cards x 4
Anti-sleep isn’t worth it. Sleep lasts only a couple of seconds against BP’s.
Contrary to popular beliefs, anti-silence isn’t crucial either. Silence doesn’t last long against a battle priest, so against the less-damaging classes, you can ditch anti-silence as well.
Even though priests can use bless, it’s still best to keep ESL on against things like snipers, sinX, and professors, simply because there’s the danger that they’ll kill you with their massive crits before you can bless yourself.
Armor
Fire Armor [Ghostring Card]
Fire Armor [Orc Lord Card]
Fire Armor [Cornutus Card] – Keep in storage
Water Armor [Marc Card] - optional / keep in storage
Wind Armor [Marc Card]
Formal Suit [Nightmare Terror Card] – optional, but really helpful
Formal Suit [Killer Mantis Card] – Necessary
Formal Suit [Chimera Card] – optional, but really helpful
Saint’s Robe [Argiope Card]
Saint’s Robe [Bathory Card] - keep in storage
Silk Robe [Ghostring Card]
Silk Robe [Pasana Card]
Coat [Ghostring Card]
Coat [Marc Card]
All as highly refined as possible. Do not use valkyrie armor or glittering jacket. They weight too much and are generally too much of a burden.
You should hotkey as many of these as possible. Your standard armor will be the fire armors, seeing as fire/neutral damages are the most common. The benefit of using two fire armors is that you get the bonus of having 30% reflect anytime you’re on fire element.
Fire armor [Ghostring] = Ghost Element
Fire armor [Orc Lord] = Fire Element with 30% reflect
Garment
You’ll need several slotted mufflers, refined as highly as possible, carded with:
- Raydric Card (-20% neutral damage)
- Jakk Card (-30% fire damage)
- Dustiness Card (-30% wind damage)
- Isis Card (-30% shadow damage)
- Mars Card (-30% water damage)
- Hode Card (-30% earth damage)
- Marionette Card (-30% ghost damage)
You’ll also need a +10 ragamuffin manteau. Buy some from the mall for 40z each and then keep trying to refine them until +10. It’s quite imperative that you do.
Shoes
Sleipinir
Shoes [Cat O’ Nine Tails]
Accessories
Rosaries (Lust Card) x 2
Earring (Faith Card) x 2
Clip (Greatest General card)
Ring (Poison Spore Card)
Glove (Marine Sphere Card)
Megingjordes x 2 – optional
The build: There is a large degree of flexibility in one’s build. This is just a rough outline.
Str: ~100
Agi: Enough for 195aspd with no BKC
Dex: Enough for instant cast with no BKC
Int: At least 11k heals
Luk: ~200
Vit: Whatever’s Left
General Tips and Tricks
Heal-glide: This is a crucial technique to learn as a priest. The idea is to heal, then quickly click somewhere else to move. The move command will cut a portion of the heal delay. If you do it fast enough, you’ll actually heal quicker than if you were standing still. The true value of this technique, though, is to allow you to move and heal at the same time.
Kyrie-glide: Same concept as heal-glide. Extremely useful for escaping, because kyrie blocks you from being hit, which means you cannot be stun-locked while doing this. Just remember to rebuff yourself with assumptio afterwards.
Flash-heal: Not really a trick, just common sense. First of all, know that you cannot heal yourself while you have GTB on. This is a big incentive not to have GTB on most of the time. However, against some opponents, like a battle prof, you’ll need to keep a TGTB on yourself at all times to avoid being destroyed by magic spam. Well, if they know you’re keeping a TGTB on you, they won’t spam magic anymore. Therefore, you should take that opportunity to quickly switch off TGTB and heal once, and then quickly switch back to TGTB. If all goes well, your opponent will even waste time casting magic on you after seeing you heal yourself.
EZ-FrEEze: Kyrie someone, then attack them with the triple ice mace. Due to your own kyrie, you cannot break the ice. Therefore, it provides an easy way to quickly freeze someone. Once they’re frozen, you can use that time to heal yourself, or you can kyrie them and then hit them with a poisoning weapon.
Int-Stacking: When you heal yourself, it’s generally useful to do so with the 4-MFC rod if you can manage it. It’ll provide a nice heal bonus as well as HP bonus, which makes you harder to kill. Also, you should always holy light with the 4-MFC rod, just because it will probably double the damage of your holy light.
PvP Tactics
Moving on to the heart of the guide, which is the battle tactics against individual classes. Note that this guide cannot possibly cover all the scenarios in combat, it can only give you a rough foundation on which to build upon. Know that the actual battle tactics are much more intricate and rely on your personal experience more than anything else.
Lord Knight
Difficulty: 2/5
Equipment Notes: Wear 3 permeter cards, 1 orc hero card, and marduk. Switch between the two fire armors, and wear isis muffler. 2 faiths.
Comments:
One of the easier matchups for a priest. A LK literarily cannot beat a good priest, no matter how much he tries. This is simply due to the fact that the LK has no real way of killing a priest as long as the priest can match him in switching. Most LK will rely on bash-headcrush with exe spam to kill a priest. If you use 3 Permeter and also an Isis card, you get 75% resistance to shadow element. Combine that with fire armor and you have 75% resistance against both executioner’s default element (shadow) and the fire element after the LK magnum breaks. If the LK starts using spiral pierce on you or starts doing higher Bash-HC damage, it probably means he switched to a neutral-element weapon. In that case, just switch back to Fire armor [Ghostring]
Surviving against the LK is easy. The slightly harder part is actually killing the LK. If the LK has pharaoh cards prepared, then be prepared for a long fight. Hitting a Lord Knight isn’t an easy task; the LK can Bowling Bash you and then stunlock you with spiral pierce, making it virtually impossible for you to damage him without long mace.
You can try to holy light, but smart LK’s usually prepare holy armor when dueling high priests.
Speaking of long mace, against a LK playing defensively, long mace is incredibly useful because it’s a lot easier to enter long mace’s range than book of life’s range when you’re attempting to hit a spiraling LK.
Obviously, attacking the Lord Knight comes with some risks. A good LK knows this, and won’t try to kill a priest until the priest acts aggressive. This is just something all BP’s have to deal with, because you won’t be able to kill the LK by turtling all day.
Paladin
Difficulty: */5
Equipment Notes: Raydric muffler is a must. Swap between cranial buckler and reflect (maya) buckler, as well as occasionally TGTB. Full BKC’s; no need for anti-status against a pally. 1 lust and 1 meg. 2 Meg if you can manage not to go over 50% weight, but I doubt it.
Comments: Most likely, this will end in a stalemate unless one of you don’t know what you’re doing. The high luk will prevent repeated freeze + sac from achieving any real success, and he probably won’t be able to outheal you with bolts neither. On the other hand, your weak crits won’t really do much to the paladin, not to mention the paladin has all those shield buffs and smite.
The best thing to do against a paladin is to use the EZ-FrEEze trick and poison him repeatedly to reduce his HP without him being able to heal. This mike take a while but unless the paladin sports an unfrozen armor (he most likely won’t), you should be able to freeze him repeatedly. The problem is, poison stops working when their HP is below 20%, so in the end you still have to rely on a lucky status to win it. Wear 2 megs if you can do it without going overweight, otherwise you’ll just have to deal with 1 meg. You can’t afford to go over 50% against a pally or else pressure will destroy you.
Speaking of pressure, pallies will probably be spamming pressure on you, which drains you of your HP. Fine, no big deal since priests have insane SP regen especially with magnificat. However, pressure also can cause bleeding status, which stops SP regen. If you’re ever in a dangerous position where your SP is low and you’re bleeding, and they’re spamming bolts at you, that’s where the TGTB comes in. Otherwise, don’t bother with it.
Wizards
Difficulty: 5/5*
Equipment Note: Wear 5 gibblets, and the last slot can be anti-silence, anti-stun or BKC. Raggamuffin manteau, 2 megs are a must. Switch between the two silk robes.
Comments: This is an interesting match-up. The wizard has insane advantage over the priest IF the priest doesn’t have a +10 emperor set. However, if the priest DOES have a +10 emp set, then the tables are turned completely and advantage goes to priest (even if the wizard also has a +10 emp set).
Therefore we will discuss the match in two ways:
If you have +10 emp set: The emp set gives a huge amount of defense, HP, and mdef. With +10 emp set and 2 megs, a priest can easily get enough defense to shrug off Magic Crashers with decent amount of armor swapping, and instead focus entirely on surviving the magic attacks. Use dustiness (-wind) garment, and swap between water-element armor and ghost-element armor. The biggest advantage of this is: you can afford to be more offensive since, due to not fearing magic crasher so much, you can actually use TGTB and attack the priest much more often.
The basic strategy when you have +10 emp set is simple. Keep TGTB on most of the time, and just armor switch against the wizard while tanking those MC (which will be doing puny damage if you armor switch properly, due to your high defense. Just go up to the wizard and hit him with your Book of Life or Holy Flail, occasionally using pnuema or flash-heal, until the wizard is dead. Use decrease-agi on the wizard to either force him to use TGTB or take the speed reduction.
If you do not have +10 emp set: Prepare for a difficult match where one slip-up (and sometimes even if you don’t slip up) means you die. In order to fight a wizard without emp set, you need to stack up your magic defense (mdef) using the right equips:
10 mdef from helm
10 mdef from ragamuffin
10 mdef from sleips
14 mdef from 2 megs
10 mdef from silk robe
25 mdef from gibbet cards
Total: 79 mdef, which should be enough to allow a BP to out-heal any bolts they throw your way. This gives you the freedom to keep cranial shield on most of the time, which is the only way you have a chance to out-tank the magic crashers. Note, that since you’re stacking mdef and not def, you’ll want to keep cranial shield on most of the time.
One trick to fighting wizards is to bait it. Stay on the border of the wiz’s bolt range and heal-glide away from the wizard to try to get him to use magic on you, which you will reflect back to him. You won’t die to magic spam with 79mdef, so the only thing you have to worry about are magic crashers. Everything the wizard tries to use bolts, he’ll take some damage while you heal it off, so it’ll help shave off some much-needed HP off the wiz. When wizard starts to only MC you, that’s when you try to Kyrie-glide your way in while switching armors (kyrie is to avoid MC from impairing your movement). The natural response for the wizard is to use storm gust or JT to force you away. Try to guess which one. If he uses storm gust, then use TGTB and then nail him with a few crits from your long mace. If he uses JT, he risks the damage being reflected back to him. Keep chipping away at him and if you last long enough, you’ll win since he isn’t healing.
One recent popular trend among wizards is to use Frost-Diver and Magic Crasher spam. If this happens, just switch to reflect (maya) shield. They’ll reflect FD back to themselves and therefore freeze themselves. This gives you a nice little breather to heal yourself up, redo your buffs, and then poison the wiz.
Pnuema often. Very often. Pneuma blocks Magic Crasher, which will be the main danger. Wizards do have a skill that eliminates pnuema called Ganbantein, but it’s still worth using pnuema since it takes less time for your to set up pnuema than it does for him to get rid of it. One strategy you might entertain is simply to stall the wizard with armor switching and pnuema repeatedly to waste him of all his gemstones, since Ganbantein uses up all three, but this isn’t an ideal strategy.
If the wizard uses gravitational field, don’t panic. Just put up a pnuema and sit in it with reflect shield. The wiz can’t use ganbantein to get rid of your pnuema because that’ll get rid of the gravitational field as well. Note if the wizard takes damage, gravitational field is canceled, so this means if he spams magic on you, you’ll reflect some damage back and cancel the gravity field. If he uses Storm Gust, then it’ll knock you out of pnuema, but it’ll also probably knock you out of gravitational field, so you can just walk away and heal yourself while the wizard is stuck since he can’t move while using GF. If the wizard uses quagmire, same story. Put up pneuma and camp until he uses ganbantein or knocks you out himself.
Just like against LK’s, long mace will be extremely useful since you really can’t hope to get too close to the wizard. Also, you really don’t want to be point-blank range with the wizard, because there’s always the off-chance that they’ll stone curse you, which can really REALLY screw you over.
Professors
Difficulty: 4/5
Equipment Note: Keep TGTB on most of the time, flashing to maya shield occasionally only. Greatest General Card and 1 lust, switching to 2 lusts once you get at least 1 sphere with GG card.
Comments: This can be either very easy or very hard, depending on the level of the prof. The idea is to outcrit the prof. A competent prof will, for all intents and purposes, NOT let you use any skills the entire time using a comination of soul burn and killer mantis armor. They’ll also most likely dispel you the instant you take off TGTB. Therefore, the goal is to try and win using very little active skills.
Let’s evaluate the advantages of profs vs priests
Priests: have assumptio, Gloria (30 more luk), and can occasionally flash-heal.
Profs: can use cranial shield, has access to counter knife, most likely cannot armor switch much since they’re stuck on killer mantis, can use safety wall to gain critting advantage.
Try to break away from the prof using your superior speed. Once you’re at a safe distance, you can start heal-gliding away from the prof, who’s still probably chasing you. Breaking away from a prof isn’t easy, though, because the prof has access to a skill called spiderweb, which will immobilize you to a cell, and it’s quite spammable. Don’t heal IN the range of the prof otherwise you’ll get dispelled and then magic spammed on.
In the end, the idea is to attack the prof as often as possible, and force the prof to spam spiderweb and safety wall often. Use the fact that you have more liberty in armor switching to your advantage. Finally, keep looking to break away from the prof and to heal yourself.
I’ll leave you to figure out what the purpose of the greatest general cards is.
Survive, approach, kill. That’s how a battle priest rolls.
The battle priest is a very beginner-friendly class, simply because there is a comparatively large margin of error. If you use the proper build, and the right equips, it will be very hard for any classes to kill you. Make no mistake, however. The battle priest does take some skill and experience to play, and despite your preparations, a skillful opponent can still make holy pie out of you.
Now, I write this guide assuming your opponent is as good as or better than you. That’s why some of my strategies may seem extremely complicated and unnecessary. If you fight someone weaker, you can use simpler tactics, though the basic idea would still be the same.
Equipment Guide
Weapons
Book of Life [2 Hydra 2 Assaulter Cards]
Book of Life [2 Magnolia Cards + 2 Savage Bebe Cards]
Holy Flail [2 Hydra 2 Assaulter Cards]
Rod [Monkey Fist Card x 4]
Mace [3 Marina Card 1 Snake Card]
Alternatively you can have 2 maces, 1 with 4 marinas and 1 with 4 snakes
Long Mace
Shield
Buckler [Thara Frog Card]
Buckler [Maya Card]
Guard [True Golden Thief Bug Card]
Helm
1) Several 4-slotted helms of your choice (which includes LKH, DH, EQW, and Event Hats)
You don’t really have much of a choice here. The event hats have negligibly better stats, but +10 event hats are fairly hard to come across.
All of them, except one should be +10
One of them needs to be +4 or +5 so that you can slot them with Gibbet cards
2) wings of angel [1] / wings of demon [1]
You will need a bunch of these. Obtainable from an NPC in exchange for 3 Golds; the +1 str is desirable, but for aesthetic purposes you could also use elf ears [1].
3) Alpha wings [1] / Shadowcraft wings [1]
Luk and Int are the most important stats to a battle priest, so Alpha wings (15 int/luk/agi, 5 str/dex/vit) is your best choice.
Cards you will need
- Bloody Knight Cards (as many as you need)
- Evil Snake Lord Card x 1 (anti curse/blind)
- Orc Hero Card x 1 (anti stun)
- Marduk Card x 1 (anti silence)
- Giearth Card x 1 (anti chaos)
- Permeter Card x 4
- Gibbet Card x 5
- Maya Purple Card x 1
- Pharaoh Cards x 4
Anti-sleep isn’t worth it. Sleep lasts only a couple of seconds against BP’s.
Contrary to popular beliefs, anti-silence isn’t crucial either. Silence doesn’t last long against a battle priest, so against the less-damaging classes, you can ditch anti-silence as well.
Even though priests can use bless, it’s still best to keep ESL on against things like snipers, sinX, and professors, simply because there’s the danger that they’ll kill you with their massive crits before you can bless yourself.
Armor
Fire Armor [Ghostring Card]
Fire Armor [Orc Lord Card]
Fire Armor [Cornutus Card] – Keep in storage
Water Armor [Marc Card] - optional / keep in storage
Wind Armor [Marc Card]
Formal Suit [Nightmare Terror Card] – optional, but really helpful
Formal Suit [Killer Mantis Card] – Necessary
Formal Suit [Chimera Card] – optional, but really helpful
Saint’s Robe [Argiope Card]
Saint’s Robe [Bathory Card] - keep in storage
Silk Robe [Ghostring Card]
Silk Robe [Pasana Card]
Coat [Ghostring Card]
Coat [Marc Card]
All as highly refined as possible. Do not use valkyrie armor or glittering jacket. They weight too much and are generally too much of a burden.
You should hotkey as many of these as possible. Your standard armor will be the fire armors, seeing as fire/neutral damages are the most common. The benefit of using two fire armors is that you get the bonus of having 30% reflect anytime you’re on fire element.
Fire armor [Ghostring] = Ghost Element
Fire armor [Orc Lord] = Fire Element with 30% reflect
Garment
You’ll need several slotted mufflers, refined as highly as possible, carded with:
- Raydric Card (-20% neutral damage)
- Jakk Card (-30% fire damage)
- Dustiness Card (-30% wind damage)
- Isis Card (-30% shadow damage)
- Mars Card (-30% water damage)
- Hode Card (-30% earth damage)
- Marionette Card (-30% ghost damage)
You’ll also need a +10 ragamuffin manteau. Buy some from the mall for 40z each and then keep trying to refine them until +10. It’s quite imperative that you do.
Shoes
Sleipinir
Shoes [Cat O’ Nine Tails]
Accessories
Rosaries (Lust Card) x 2
Earring (Faith Card) x 2
Clip (Greatest General card)
Ring (Poison Spore Card)
Glove (Marine Sphere Card)
Megingjordes x 2 – optional
The build: There is a large degree of flexibility in one’s build. This is just a rough outline.
Str: ~100
Agi: Enough for 195aspd with no BKC
Dex: Enough for instant cast with no BKC
Int: At least 11k heals
Luk: ~200
Vit: Whatever’s Left
General Tips and Tricks
Heal-glide: This is a crucial technique to learn as a priest. The idea is to heal, then quickly click somewhere else to move. The move command will cut a portion of the heal delay. If you do it fast enough, you’ll actually heal quicker than if you were standing still. The true value of this technique, though, is to allow you to move and heal at the same time.
Kyrie-glide: Same concept as heal-glide. Extremely useful for escaping, because kyrie blocks you from being hit, which means you cannot be stun-locked while doing this. Just remember to rebuff yourself with assumptio afterwards.
Flash-heal: Not really a trick, just common sense. First of all, know that you cannot heal yourself while you have GTB on. This is a big incentive not to have GTB on most of the time. However, against some opponents, like a battle prof, you’ll need to keep a TGTB on yourself at all times to avoid being destroyed by magic spam. Well, if they know you’re keeping a TGTB on you, they won’t spam magic anymore. Therefore, you should take that opportunity to quickly switch off TGTB and heal once, and then quickly switch back to TGTB. If all goes well, your opponent will even waste time casting magic on you after seeing you heal yourself.
EZ-FrEEze: Kyrie someone, then attack them with the triple ice mace. Due to your own kyrie, you cannot break the ice. Therefore, it provides an easy way to quickly freeze someone. Once they’re frozen, you can use that time to heal yourself, or you can kyrie them and then hit them with a poisoning weapon.
Int-Stacking: When you heal yourself, it’s generally useful to do so with the 4-MFC rod if you can manage it. It’ll provide a nice heal bonus as well as HP bonus, which makes you harder to kill. Also, you should always holy light with the 4-MFC rod, just because it will probably double the damage of your holy light.
PvP Tactics
Moving on to the heart of the guide, which is the battle tactics against individual classes. Note that this guide cannot possibly cover all the scenarios in combat, it can only give you a rough foundation on which to build upon. Know that the actual battle tactics are much more intricate and rely on your personal experience more than anything else.
Lord Knight
Difficulty: 2/5
Equipment Notes: Wear 3 permeter cards, 1 orc hero card, and marduk. Switch between the two fire armors, and wear isis muffler. 2 faiths.
Comments:
One of the easier matchups for a priest. A LK literarily cannot beat a good priest, no matter how much he tries. This is simply due to the fact that the LK has no real way of killing a priest as long as the priest can match him in switching. Most LK will rely on bash-headcrush with exe spam to kill a priest. If you use 3 Permeter and also an Isis card, you get 75% resistance to shadow element. Combine that with fire armor and you have 75% resistance against both executioner’s default element (shadow) and the fire element after the LK magnum breaks. If the LK starts using spiral pierce on you or starts doing higher Bash-HC damage, it probably means he switched to a neutral-element weapon. In that case, just switch back to Fire armor [Ghostring]
Surviving against the LK is easy. The slightly harder part is actually killing the LK. If the LK has pharaoh cards prepared, then be prepared for a long fight. Hitting a Lord Knight isn’t an easy task; the LK can Bowling Bash you and then stunlock you with spiral pierce, making it virtually impossible for you to damage him without long mace.
You can try to holy light, but smart LK’s usually prepare holy armor when dueling high priests.
Speaking of long mace, against a LK playing defensively, long mace is incredibly useful because it’s a lot easier to enter long mace’s range than book of life’s range when you’re attempting to hit a spiraling LK.
Obviously, attacking the Lord Knight comes with some risks. A good LK knows this, and won’t try to kill a priest until the priest acts aggressive. This is just something all BP’s have to deal with, because you won’t be able to kill the LK by turtling all day.
Paladin
Difficulty: */5
Equipment Notes: Raydric muffler is a must. Swap between cranial buckler and reflect (maya) buckler, as well as occasionally TGTB. Full BKC’s; no need for anti-status against a pally. 1 lust and 1 meg. 2 Meg if you can manage not to go over 50% weight, but I doubt it.
Comments: Most likely, this will end in a stalemate unless one of you don’t know what you’re doing. The high luk will prevent repeated freeze + sac from achieving any real success, and he probably won’t be able to outheal you with bolts neither. On the other hand, your weak crits won’t really do much to the paladin, not to mention the paladin has all those shield buffs and smite.
The best thing to do against a paladin is to use the EZ-FrEEze trick and poison him repeatedly to reduce his HP without him being able to heal. This mike take a while but unless the paladin sports an unfrozen armor (he most likely won’t), you should be able to freeze him repeatedly. The problem is, poison stops working when their HP is below 20%, so in the end you still have to rely on a lucky status to win it. Wear 2 megs if you can do it without going overweight, otherwise you’ll just have to deal with 1 meg. You can’t afford to go over 50% against a pally or else pressure will destroy you.
Speaking of pressure, pallies will probably be spamming pressure on you, which drains you of your HP. Fine, no big deal since priests have insane SP regen especially with magnificat. However, pressure also can cause bleeding status, which stops SP regen. If you’re ever in a dangerous position where your SP is low and you’re bleeding, and they’re spamming bolts at you, that’s where the TGTB comes in. Otherwise, don’t bother with it.
Wizards
Difficulty: 5/5*
Equipment Note: Wear 5 gibblets, and the last slot can be anti-silence, anti-stun or BKC. Raggamuffin manteau, 2 megs are a must. Switch between the two silk robes.
Comments: This is an interesting match-up. The wizard has insane advantage over the priest IF the priest doesn’t have a +10 emperor set. However, if the priest DOES have a +10 emp set, then the tables are turned completely and advantage goes to priest (even if the wizard also has a +10 emp set).
Therefore we will discuss the match in two ways:
If you have +10 emp set: The emp set gives a huge amount of defense, HP, and mdef. With +10 emp set and 2 megs, a priest can easily get enough defense to shrug off Magic Crashers with decent amount of armor swapping, and instead focus entirely on surviving the magic attacks. Use dustiness (-wind) garment, and swap between water-element armor and ghost-element armor. The biggest advantage of this is: you can afford to be more offensive since, due to not fearing magic crasher so much, you can actually use TGTB and attack the priest much more often.
The basic strategy when you have +10 emp set is simple. Keep TGTB on most of the time, and just armor switch against the wizard while tanking those MC (which will be doing puny damage if you armor switch properly, due to your high defense. Just go up to the wizard and hit him with your Book of Life or Holy Flail, occasionally using pnuema or flash-heal, until the wizard is dead. Use decrease-agi on the wizard to either force him to use TGTB or take the speed reduction.
If you do not have +10 emp set: Prepare for a difficult match where one slip-up (and sometimes even if you don’t slip up) means you die. In order to fight a wizard without emp set, you need to stack up your magic defense (mdef) using the right equips:
10 mdef from helm
10 mdef from ragamuffin
10 mdef from sleips
14 mdef from 2 megs
10 mdef from silk robe
25 mdef from gibbet cards
Total: 79 mdef, which should be enough to allow a BP to out-heal any bolts they throw your way. This gives you the freedom to keep cranial shield on most of the time, which is the only way you have a chance to out-tank the magic crashers. Note, that since you’re stacking mdef and not def, you’ll want to keep cranial shield on most of the time.
One trick to fighting wizards is to bait it. Stay on the border of the wiz’s bolt range and heal-glide away from the wizard to try to get him to use magic on you, which you will reflect back to him. You won’t die to magic spam with 79mdef, so the only thing you have to worry about are magic crashers. Everything the wizard tries to use bolts, he’ll take some damage while you heal it off, so it’ll help shave off some much-needed HP off the wiz. When wizard starts to only MC you, that’s when you try to Kyrie-glide your way in while switching armors (kyrie is to avoid MC from impairing your movement). The natural response for the wizard is to use storm gust or JT to force you away. Try to guess which one. If he uses storm gust, then use TGTB and then nail him with a few crits from your long mace. If he uses JT, he risks the damage being reflected back to him. Keep chipping away at him and if you last long enough, you’ll win since he isn’t healing.
One recent popular trend among wizards is to use Frost-Diver and Magic Crasher spam. If this happens, just switch to reflect (maya) shield. They’ll reflect FD back to themselves and therefore freeze themselves. This gives you a nice little breather to heal yourself up, redo your buffs, and then poison the wiz.
Pnuema often. Very often. Pneuma blocks Magic Crasher, which will be the main danger. Wizards do have a skill that eliminates pnuema called Ganbantein, but it’s still worth using pnuema since it takes less time for your to set up pnuema than it does for him to get rid of it. One strategy you might entertain is simply to stall the wizard with armor switching and pnuema repeatedly to waste him of all his gemstones, since Ganbantein uses up all three, but this isn’t an ideal strategy.
If the wizard uses gravitational field, don’t panic. Just put up a pnuema and sit in it with reflect shield. The wiz can’t use ganbantein to get rid of your pnuema because that’ll get rid of the gravitational field as well. Note if the wizard takes damage, gravitational field is canceled, so this means if he spams magic on you, you’ll reflect some damage back and cancel the gravity field. If he uses Storm Gust, then it’ll knock you out of pnuema, but it’ll also probably knock you out of gravitational field, so you can just walk away and heal yourself while the wizard is stuck since he can’t move while using GF. If the wizard uses quagmire, same story. Put up pneuma and camp until he uses ganbantein or knocks you out himself.
Just like against LK’s, long mace will be extremely useful since you really can’t hope to get too close to the wizard. Also, you really don’t want to be point-blank range with the wizard, because there’s always the off-chance that they’ll stone curse you, which can really REALLY screw you over.
Professors
Difficulty: 4/5
Equipment Note: Keep TGTB on most of the time, flashing to maya shield occasionally only. Greatest General Card and 1 lust, switching to 2 lusts once you get at least 1 sphere with GG card.
Comments: This can be either very easy or very hard, depending on the level of the prof. The idea is to outcrit the prof. A competent prof will, for all intents and purposes, NOT let you use any skills the entire time using a comination of soul burn and killer mantis armor. They’ll also most likely dispel you the instant you take off TGTB. Therefore, the goal is to try and win using very little active skills.
Let’s evaluate the advantages of profs vs priests
Priests: have assumptio, Gloria (30 more luk), and can occasionally flash-heal.
Profs: can use cranial shield, has access to counter knife, most likely cannot armor switch much since they’re stuck on killer mantis, can use safety wall to gain critting advantage.
Try to break away from the prof using your superior speed. Once you’re at a safe distance, you can start heal-gliding away from the prof, who’s still probably chasing you. Breaking away from a prof isn’t easy, though, because the prof has access to a skill called spiderweb, which will immobilize you to a cell, and it’s quite spammable. Don’t heal IN the range of the prof otherwise you’ll get dispelled and then magic spammed on.
In the end, the idea is to attack the prof as often as possible, and force the prof to spam spiderweb and safety wall often. Use the fact that you have more liberty in armor switching to your advantage. Finally, keep looking to break away from the prof and to heal yourself.
I’ll leave you to figure out what the purpose of the greatest general cards is.
