Staff for a Cleric?

[Lad-DN]

From what I've seen, a staff is mainly a Chanter's weapon since it has high parry and a lot more crit strike than a mace and no casting speed.

 

But it also has really good magic boost and magic accuracy and can be combined, so is there any way with combining and mana stones a cleric could use a staff?

I would be using it for PvE, probably solo stuff. Is it true you also need a cloth set to dps? 

Would Apollon be the best for the armor/staff? (I'm currently level 69)

 

Someone told me to socket everything with HP for group healing, if I do get a dps staff/armor, what would I socket? 

I don't really plan on being a dps in group instances, would I really need a separate armor set to out-damage my current mace and shield?

[KallSu-KT]

Clerics can use the staff (and usually do it) to dps. Sometimes their staves are called "cane" (the staff version with more MB/MAcc). You'd fuse it with another (pvp) staff with MB/MAcc.

Cloth set could be also used to increase the MB, since they have more MB/MP than the chain set. This ofc, if you can keep yourself alive even in cloth set.

 

Socketing HP is indeed good for group healing, since you don't need MB/Acc but just to stay alive. Hence, a staff is not good for group healing. You'd better use a mace+shield, to have more block/defense (and chain, not cloth). So a staff with HP is pointless, since you shouldn't use it for group healing, but only to dps.

But if you want to play as a dps in group, then yes, a staff would be better.

[Aly-DN]

On 4/11/2018 at 2:26 AM, Lad-DN said:

From what I've seen, a staff is mainly a Chanter's weapon since it has high parry and a lot more crit strike than a mace and no casting speed.

 

But it also has really good magic boost and magic accuracy and can be combined, so is there any way with combining and mana stones a cleric could use a staff?

I would be using it for PvE, probably solo stuff. Is it true you also need a cloth set to dps? 

Would Apollon be the best for the armor/staff? (I'm currently level 69)

 

Someone told me to socket everything with HP for group healing, if I do get a dps staff/armor, what would I socket? 

I don't really plan on being a dps in group instances, would I really need a separate armor set to out-damage my current mace and shield?

There are chanter's staffs and cleric's staffs. It's pretty easy to tell which is which. The chanter staff will have physical bonus stats. (Attack, crit, acc, etc.) A cleric staff will have magical bonus stats. (Magic boost, mag acc, etc.) When you are slotting a dps set as a cleric, you will slot MB or Knowledge. That will give you not only magic boost, but also magical critical hit.. which is very important at end game.

No. There is no reason to go with cloth once you reach endgame. Long ago (and at low levels) a cloth set would give you a larger mana pool and often more magic boost, but that is no longer so. Stick with chain. It will have similar stats to the cloth and will give you more survivability. 

When you heal at end game, you will indeed want a completely new set of armor with a cast speed mace and a shield. That will all be slotted with HP or Health. 

As a cleric, I have 5 sets of armor. For PvE, I have a heal set and a dps set. For PvP, I have a dps set and an agility set for going against physical and a magic resist against magic.

[Hinotori-DN]

Nothing wrong with using a cloth set for pve, you get a higher mp pool, you can opt for SW gear if you want some HB too (though I prefer to just macro to my HB set when I need to heal), you have heals on demand and multiple shields to stay alive. Mages can only use cloth and unless they're retarded, they stay alive just fine in pve, so can you.

[Vantheria-DN]

I did an AoE with a cleric who was in songweaver cloth gear. She/he was very squishy. Nearly died several times. I was on my sorc and wishing I had all my chanter shields to throw out for her/him lol. I don't play cleric though, so I don't really have a valid opinion, but just thought I'd throw that out there.

[Hinotori-DN]

My pve dps set is mythic AC cloth, which doesn't even have pve defense. I've ran all instances including FM/BoS on it. If that cleric was squishy, rather than blaming it on cloth gear, I'd check if his gear was even enchanted (as it's a free source of HP) or if he had a bad plume, cuz even if he was wearing plate, if he's chilling at 15k hp or something of course he'll be squishy.

[Aly-DN]

Was the cleric healing or dpsing? Was the tank any good? As in.. could they keep agro? If they were healing in cloth and overhealing or having to heal a lot (generating tons of heal agro) and the tank couldn't keep the agro off of them, that could explain the damage they were taking.

Really surprised anyone is using ancient coin gear for anything for end-game instances, but I guess anything is possible.

[Vantheria-DN]

1 hour ago, Aly-DN said:

Was the cleric healing or dpsing? Was the tank any good? As in.. could they keep agro? If they were healing in cloth and overhealing or having to heal a lot (generating tons of heal agro) and the tank couldn't keep the agro off of them, that could explain the damage they were taking.

Really surprised anyone is using ancient coin gear for anything for end-game instances, but I guess anything is possible.

He/she was healing. I honestly don't remember a lot about the run in regards to the other people in the group. I think we had a glad, but I don't remember what level, how good he/she was, etc. Yeah, idk. I find Aion mechanics to be very interesting sometimes anyway in comparison to other MMOs.

[Aly-DN]

Healing in cloth set isn't the smartest idea. Heal agro can be nasty.

[Lad-DN]

On 4/13/2018 at 4:08 AM, Aly-DN said:

There are chanter's staffs and cleric's staffs. It's pretty easy to tell which is which. The chanter staff will have physical bonus stats. (Attack, crit, acc, etc.) A cleric staff will have magical bonus stats. (Magic boost, mag acc, etc.) When you are slotting a dps set as a cleric, you will slot MB or Knowledge. That will give you not only magic boost, but also magical critical hit.. which is very important at end game.

No. There is no reason to go with cloth once you reach endgame. Long ago (and at low levels) a cloth set would give you a larger mana pool and often more magic boost, but that is no longer so. Stick with chain. It will have similar stats to the cloth and will give you more survivability. 

When you heal at end game, you will indeed want a completely new set of armor with a cast speed mace and a shield. That will all be slotted with HP or Health. 

As a cleric, I have 5 sets of armor. For PvE, I have a heal set and a dps set. For PvP, I have a dps set and an agility set for going against physical and a magic resist against magic.

Thanks, I really appreciate the info!

 

Is there a decent staff I can get at level 69? Or one worth aiming for to use at higher levels?

Is Knowledge like a trade off of less MB, but also having the magical critical hit?

Is there anyway to get casting speed on a staff?

Also if I combine 2 of them, if I enchant them first then combine, will the new staff be stronger than if I combine them both first, then enchant? Or does it scale the same either way?

 

(Sorry for the question vomit)

 

 

[Zombiex-DN]

Most DPS top clerics I know use baton and cloth set with healing boost (I'm one of those TOP clerics  >. <). you can use the apollon set to start and then purify it to Master Harvester

https://aioncodex.com/us/item/110102188/ 

[Neleth-KT]

15 minutes ago, SValentina-DN said:

Most DPS top clerics I know use baton and cloth set with healing boost (I'm one of those TOP clerics  >. <). you can use the apollon set to start and then purify it to Master Harvester

https://aioncodex.com/us/item/110102188/ 

I'm sorry I can't help it when I see someone saying top....

[Zombiex-DN]

haha is my fault I should calm my ego

[Aly-DN]

12 hours ago, Lad-DN said:

Thanks, I really appreciate the info!

 

Is there a decent staff I can get at level 69? Or one worth aiming for to use at higher levels?

Is Knowledge like a trade off of less MB, but also having the magical critical hit?

Is there anyway to get casting speed on a staff?

Also if I combine 2 of them, if I enchant them first then combine, will the new staff be stronger than if I combine them both first, then enchant? Or does it scale the same either way?

 

(Sorry for the question vomit)

 

 

You won't be level 69 for long. I think the mythic Ancient Coin staff would good for you sub 75. It is an actual cleric staff, which are sometimes hard to come by.

Knowledge stones (use at least +6s) are going to give you both MB and magical crit. Better to fill up with those rather than normal MBs.

There is no cast speed staff. 

When you combine staffs, only the enchant on the top staff will matter. No need to ever enchant your bottom staff.

[CosmoSkyMaster-KT]

what are the objective differences between cloth (SW) and chain (cleric) gear?

[Azzmaria-KT]

3 hours ago, CosmoSkyMaster-KT said:

what are the objective differences between cloth (SW) and chain (cleric) gear?

thinking in the same sets (like both apollon as example). 

Cloth will have MP. Wil also have better magic resist and magic suppresion. Will increase a little more HP if you enchant it. And if you use a SW´s version you may have some healing boost similar to the cleric´s one. Chain gear will provide more physical defense, sometimes can have block included (yet most of the best sets do not have it). And will have the healing boost. 

So the the big difference is about being more resistant to physical hits ), and being totally sure of having healing boost if you use chain. But if you use cloth you will have aditional mana and better magic resistance that sometimes could be nice. 

but in both situations you must understand that clerics are not supposed to tank things. We are squishy. You have to try to avoid the mobs all the time. Even if you are supporting try to find a safe place. And if you are doing DPS try to kite things. Do not let them hit you. 

About Staff vs Mace + shield:

some time ago people used staff for DPS gear and Mace for supportive gear. 

why?

staff can be combined and usually the final MB is higher. So that means better hits. Staffs also provide attack speed instead of casting speed. But a lot of cleric DPS skills have no casting time. So casting speed do not improves them. But attack speed makes faster the animations. Also for clerics is hard to take agro doing DPS. We need to do so much DPS or have a really bad tank to do that. Is not like other classes with burst damage followed by low damage. We have steady damage. And we already have some heals so we can take more damage than other dps classes. 

mace and shield tends to give more resistance. Shield provides block and sometimes physical defense. Mace usually have casting speed. Most of the healing skills have casting time. So that improvement is really usefull. And we sometimes need to make many healings in few seconds. So everything that make us cast faster is better. When we are healing our weapon is just reduced to casting speed and some HP. So having more MB has no meaning there. (never enchant a supportive mace  ) 

yet, some people say that now Aion is going to just mace + shield for every situation on clerics. I have to say that I saw fewer magical staffs lately, but I think there are some options. 

finally, to be honest, you can do DPS with both options. If you really want one instead of the other, take it. If you learn how to use your skills and take some practice, you can have a huge DPS on both. Be happy  

[CosmoSkyMaster-KT]

but physical defense works by substracting 1 physical damage for every 10 phys. def. I'm not sure that mobs in pve hit quickly, they are rather slow and do huge hits. Also from what I have saw bosses now deal more magical damage to the non aggroed chars. so i dont see a drawback by using cloth (SW gear has the same amount of healing boost as cleric chain). If you have @Azzmaria-KT an insight about it, I would love to hear you out. I know that clerics shouln't have mana issues but i have an easier time managing my mana now that i have a bigger mana pool.

[Hinotori-DN]

 

On 11/4/2018 at 3:26 AM, Lad-DN said:

From what I've seen, a staff is mainly a Chanter's weapon since it has high parry and a lot more crit strike than a mace and no casting speed.

 

But it also has really good magic boost and magic accuracy and can be combined, so is there any way with combining and mana stones a cleric could use a staff?

I would be using it for PvE, probably solo stuff. Is it true you also need a cloth set to dps? 

If you will just do casual grinding (and most 5.x  pve group instances for that matter), you can get by with pretty much anything that gives you decent mb/crit spell, be it mace/shield or staff. A cheap starter cleric staff is the spinel coin one (you can get the L70 version -> Royal Archon Sentinel's Penitent Staff and later upgrade it to the 75 one ->Elite Royal Archon Sentinel's Penitent Staff). 

For most pve content, you only need around 4800 MB to get capped against mobs, with a few exceptions like Bastion of Souls where you'd need 6200 MB (these numbers are not random, it's based on the amount of magic suppression each mob has, your MB needs to be 3400 points higher than the mob's magic suppression. You can check mobs' magic suppression on sites like aioncodex.com, or aionpowerbook.com)

Crit spell wise, try to reach at least 800, ideally 1k or more.

As for Magical Accuracy, 2k ~ 2.2k is enough for most content, a notable exception is Frozen Monolith where you'd need 3k to not get resisted by the boss.

Another stat you have to consider is pve attack. A pve staff will always have higher pve attack than an equivalent mace (say, harvester staff vs harvester mace). The highest pve attack weapons are master harvester / harvester (you get a harvester weapon, then you need to run Bastion of Souls to upgrade it to master harvester. There's many lfg groups that do 1-boss BoS runs for upgrade mats, so it's not too hard to get it).

Fun fact: a master harvester staff, in spite of having stats for chanters (crit / accuracy / parry) has higher MB than any cleric pve staff (ancient coin / spinel coin), even after factoring the bonus MB on the cleric staves. So if you went with a master harvester staff the only real thing you'd be losing on is around 100 ~ 150 MA and 130 crit spell compared to using a double spinel coin cleric staff:

Some clerics simply re-use their pvp staff (which also has a cleric-specific version with mb/ma/crit spell bonuses) for pve, it doesn't have pve attack and you waste augment using it, but for people who don't pve enough to justify a pve-only weapon it may be worth it.

To better illustrate this, here's a sample build using +10 coe gear (knowledge +6 stones, free from doing luna weekly)/ +10 master harvester + harvester staff / +5 pure plume / grey wolf accs (these accs are basically free by running Evergale Canyon, the level reductions can be costly though) / 60 essence in knowledge -> http://aion.mouseclic.com/tool/gearcalc/93422 (mind you that since the accs/weapon are  L75,  you won't get the full stats until you reach 75, though leveling these days is quite easy with the amount of exp events we've been getting. And, regarding gloves, I rather use attack speed gloves for dpsing, this is just a basic example).

That will put you at over 30% pve attack, you'll have enough MB for running anything other than Bastion of Souls, decent crit spell after factoring idian/scroll (you'd need better manastones to push it further), and enough MA for anything that's not Frozen Monolith (if you wanted to run it, you could still reach 3K MA by putting essence in Precision and using food/candy/idian/sacrificial power). 

That being said, you don't need max pve attack (or max anything, for that matter) to pass pve content, you'll want some amount of pve attack for last floor in Crucible Spire since it's timed, and that's it, anything else can be winged even with non-capped stats, as long as you know your class.
 

[Azzmaria-KT]

11 hours ago, CosmoSkyMaster-KT said:

but physical defense works by substracting 1 physical damage for every 10 phys. def. I'm not sure that mobs in pve hit quickly, they are rather slow and do huge hits. Also from what I have saw bosses now deal more magical damage to the non aggroed chars. so i dont see a drawback by using cloth (SW gear has the same amount of healing boost as cleric chain). If you have @Azzmaria-KT an insight about it, I would love to hear you out. I know that clerics shouln't have mana issues but i have an easier time managing my mana now that i have a bigger mana pool.

Physical defense sometimes is usefull and sometimes is not. It is true that usuallly hard instances have less mobs but they hit stronger. So the damage reduction from Physical defense is not really significant. More if we take into consideration that we are not using Power manastones. But we also have some instances with so many mobs with small hits. If you think in something like FP probably you saw the difference between having chain or cloth (sorcs and SW tends to have it harder). 

I also find in the past some info that said that some of the important bosses, even if they seems to be magic and do a lot of magic skills, their hits land as physical damage. To be honest I am not totally sure about this. I always remember TS and the last boss with all that fire skills. In that place cloth classes received so few damage compared with chains or leathers. So apparently that extra MS was important. 

I wanted a lot of times to make my own cloth set for DPS or for magical resistance in support mode. But usually some update came out and made it outdated. (I Collected my Forgotten Siel in cloth). In my harvester I do not remember why I picked chain, but it was a good reasson (porbably something related with the stats or something that I found better for defensive pourposes). But I think Is a totally good option. Even when now is easier to avoid mana issues, magical resistances are what I find more interesting. 

But I guess you can start thinking about using cloth if you already have some practice using your cleric and you know how to stay alive, to avoid extra agro, to kite big things. For new clerics who are still learning in easier instances with many mobs and lower stats it is probably better to start with chains. 

Also there is one aditional issue by using cloth. Some of the gears have class restrictions. So sometimes you have so few choices on that type of gear. Sometimes you find a good option there, but sometimes all the nice cloth sets can not be used as cleric. 

[Hinotori-DN]

23 hours ago, Azzmaria-KT said:

I also find in the past some info that said that some of the important bosses, even if they seems to be magic and do a lot of magic skills, their hits land as physical damage. To be honest I am not totally sure about this. I always remember TS and the last boss with all that fire skills. In that place cloth classes received so few damage compared with chains or leathers. So apparently that extra MS was important. 

 

Your magic suppression does nothing against mobs, because mobs have no magic boost (MS counters MB in a 1:1 ratio, MB cannot go lower than 0, so if your enemy -mobs in this case- is already at 0 MB then your MS does not reduce their damage). I did personally test this with Sauro bosses (tanking them using a regular set vs magic suppression set).

What mages have is a passive that gives them 100 elemental defense ( <Raise Elemental Defense I>), which is roughly a 10% reduction in magical damage taken (similar to elemental scrolls). Elemental defense does work against mobs' damage.

[Azzmaria-KT]

Yes. I know that about 0MB from bosses. But I do not know if that started at 4.0 or was the same all the time. What I remember healing in the last Boss in TS is that some cloth´s classes got like 10-20% of the damage compared with rangers, chanters, dps clerics. So was something else than those 100 fire resist. But maybe was just the higher MR that cloth armor also have. On that version we did not have a cap on MR. Maybe they just resisted more hits like we (clerics) did with our MR gear. 

[CosmoSkyMaster-KT]

That's the best answer about cloth wearing cleric's I've ever heard @Azzmaria-KT, I completely agree with your opinion. I hope that most ppl would be as open to opinions as you are.

[Decalcomania-KT]

If you have access to master harvester gear and gray wolfs, don't bother with HP stones.

 

socket Kn+7 all the way and dps with with ur dots (double summons, chastise, erath wrath) while healing. works fine everywhere.

you will have a noticable impact on your groups speed

[Decalcomania-KT]

http://aion.mouseclic.com/tool/gearcalc/93816

http://aion.mouseclic.com/tool/stigma

 

If you want to spend a bit more kinah, you should consider a dedicated dps double master harvester staff +20 , as its a noticeable increase in pve attack % (and thus dmg) but that staff is, as mentioned before, not as good for healing as mace+shield

[Nyali-DN]

Since I've been reading about staff vs. mace+shield. I've also been told to stick with my master BoS mace and shield, although I have a master BoS staff which I just got recently. What stones would you socket the mace and shield then? Full knowledge stones +10s just like the staff?

I'm currently running on a master cloth set as support on my cleric although I've also been told that I could just change the stones from HP to knowledge stones and I should be still good and use one set for support and DPS. Although I feel a bit uncomfy with this since I really love my HP +30k. What do you think? I mean I wouldn't mind to get a 2nd cloth set as a DPS, but tbh, it's a hell of a lot work and resources...