Ragnarok Online 2 Priest Full Support In Depth Guide by synesthetic

Everyone loves you. The end.

0. Foreword
I. Acolyte Skills
- - DPS tree
- - Support tree
- - Healing tree
II. Priest Skills
- - DPS tree
- - Support tree
- - Healing tree
III. Stats
IV. Gameplay Advice
- - Basic Skill Usage
- - Managing Your Threat
- - Movement While Using Skills
V. Miscellaneous Information

0. Foreword

This guide provides an in-depth look at how to play a FS Priest.
There is no best build. I’ve provided a skeleton build with core skills under Gameplay Advice, but you won’t find complete builds here. FS Priests are tight on skill points, so there’s a fair amount of variation in builds. I encourage you to determine your own to suit your playstyle.

If you choose to be a FS Priest, you will be the strongest healer in the game, and wanted in every party.
Sorcerers (and later, Soul Makers) can also heal, but often can’t replace you.

Can you still solo monsters? Yes. You’re just slower at it. It’s not that bad, but if you find it unbearable, consider going hybrid by sacrificing points to invest in DoTs. Or you can often find someone willing to help kill for you.
Most of your experience will come from quests, so don’t worry about needing to grind.

I. Acolyte Skills

You have three skill lines. On the left are DPS skills, on the right are primarily healing skills, and in the middle are supportive abilities that benefit both DPS and healing builds. I’ll be referring to these three lines as DPS, Support, and Healing trees.

Note that you don’t have to spend all of your skill points before advancing to priest.

DPS tree

•  Holy Light
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Damage target by 27 / 30 / 33 / 36 / 39 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Next 3 Holy Lights will automatically crit.
  • Your basic attack skill. Well.. your -only- attack skill, if you’re really FS. You automatically start with it at Lv.1; leave it at Lv.1.
•  Lex Divina
  • Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
  • Lv 1 – Damage target by 22% of your magic attack.
  • Lv 2 – Damage target by 26% of your magic attack. If target has below 20% health, skill will crit.
  • Lv 3 – Damage target by 30% of your magic attack. If target has below 20% health, skill will crit. If target died to this attack, then regain up to 3 Holy Waters.
  • If you decide to go hybrid to help your leveling some, then leave this at Lv.1. Most of the damage DPS priests do come from their DoT skills and Genesis.
•  Oratio
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 20 sec duration
  • Damage target by 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
  • Some FS priests decide to spare 2 skill points to get this at Lv.1 to help them level a bit faster. If that makes you feel better, go for it. However, if you change your mind and decide to go hybrid/DPS, then consider maxing it.
•  Judex
  • Instant cast, 3 sec cooldown
  • Damage target and 2 nearby enemies by 14 / 17 / 19 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - All targets hit are stunned for 3 sec.
  • If you have it, leave it at Lv.1.

Support tree

•  Blessing
  • Instant cast, 3 sec cooldown, 30 min duration
  • Boosts maxHP by 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 % for party members in range.
  • Almost every class has a party buff. This is yours. Highly recommended that you max this skill since some bosses (especially at endgame) do high-damage burst attacks capable of one-shotting some people.
•  Increase Agility
  • Instant cast
  • Boosts movement speed by 40% for party members in range for 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 sec.
  • 260 / 240 / 220 / 200 / 180 sec cooldown.
  • Leave it at Lv.1. It’s only good for getting by some crowded rooms when you’re rushing through a dungeon. Otherwise, outdoors you’ll be able to ride a Peco once you’re Lv.15 (40% mspd), and people prefer to use Wind Elixirs in dungeons if they really need to run that far (60% mspd for 1 min).
•  Resurrection
  • 3 sec cast time
  • Revives target with full health and respawns them at your feet. Usable in combat. 50 / 40 / 30 min cooldown.
  • +Aspersio - Spell is instantly casted.
  • It’s recommended that you activate your Guardian before casting this, to further reduce the cooldown as much as possible. I feel it’s up to player preference on whether or not they should max this skill. I would imagine that if you know you run raids with exceptionally good players, then Lv.1 may be fine.
•  Aqua Benedicta
  • Instant cast, 1 min cooldown
  • Grants you 3 Holy Waters and restores your SP by 15%.
  • Because of this skill, you should not run out of SP. Ever. And don’t put stat points into Wis to take advantage of this; you will get more than enough SP through equipment and levels. Despite this being an instant skill, you’re actually locked in about 2-3 seconds of animation. Note that Holy Water does not take up physical space in your inventory. Think of them more as a maximum of 3 charges for you to use Aspersio.
•  Aspersio
  • Instant cast, 20 sec duration
  • Makes the next cast of certain skills have an additional effect. 60 / 40 / 20 sec cooldown.
  • Affects Holy Light, Judex, Resurrection, Heal, Highness Heal, Magnus Exorcismus, Ray of Genesis, and Sanctuary.
  • Max this. It is the bacon in your BLT.

Healing tree

•  Heal
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Restore target’s HP by 30 / 33 / 36 / 40 / 43 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Next 3 Heals will automatically crit.
  • Your basic heal. If used with Aspersio, the total amount done by 3 critical-Heals at Lv.5 would be 258%.
•  Renovatio
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 12 sec duration
  • Restore target’s HP by 16 / 29 / 22 % of your magic attack every 2 sec.
  • Total amount healed per level: 96 / 114 / 132 %
  • Max this. This should be your primary healing skill. If someone is hurt, you should always try to have this active on them. If someone is about to get hurt, it’s good practice to have this active on them, too. It heals a good amount and it makes your life as a FS priest immensely easier, even if you have a derpy party with four people splitting up and taking their own mobs. And as an instant skill, you can also move while using this, which is important as some boss fights will force you to kite but you still need to heal.
•  Meditatio
  • Passive
  • Increases the amount critical heals do by 3.4 / 3.8 / 4.2 / 4.6 / 5.0 times however much Hit Rate you have above 95%.
  • I highly recommend leaving this at Lv.1, as your skill points are better spent elsewhere. Through equipment, by endgame, you can eventually have over 100% hitrate. The highest I’ve noticed is 104%, so let’s use that as an example of how this skill works. You’d have 9% hitrate to apply to Meditatio, and crits naturally do double (200%) damage/healing. Lv.1 Meditatio would then make your crit-heals do 230.6%. Lv.5 Meditatio would make your crit-heals do 245%. You’ll probably have at least 2k magic attack around endgame, which would make your Heal do ~800 HP normally. With that Meditatio Lv.1 described, you’d heal 1844 HP. With that Meditatio Lv.5 described, you’d heal 1960 HP. That’s a difference of 116 HP, which doesn’t mean much compared to the 4-6k HP your average party members will have.
•  Highness Heal
  • Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown
  • Restores the HP of your target and 2 nearby allies by 44 / 49 / 54 / 59 / 64 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Increases amount healed by 50%, and applies a HoT that does the total amount that was healed over 10 seconds, to all targets.
  • Total amount healed per level w/ Aspersio: 132 / 147 / 162 / 177 / 192 % per target
  • Max this. You should be using this more often than you use Heal. You can also crit with it, so a Lv.5 HH with Asp would heal 384% per target. Note, I would have said “party members” instead of “allies” if it only hit party members; but this skill can also hit NPCs if they’re near your target, which means a party member may be left out. I’ve never encountered a problem like that, but the possibility is there.

II. Priest Skills

Priest skill trees continue off from acolyte ones.

DPS tree

•  Credo
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 30 sec duration
  • Damage target by 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 14 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
•  Adoramus
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown, 20 sec duration
  • Damage target by 10 / 11 / 13 / 14 / 15 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
•  Magnus Exorcismus
  • 1 sec cast time, 0 sec cooldown
  • Damage up to 10 enemies in target area by 24 / 28 / 32 % of your magic attack.
  • +Aspersio - Applies Oratio (whatever level you have it at) to all targets hit.
•  Ray of Genesis
  • 2 sec cast time, 20 sec cooldown
  • Damage target by 95 / 106 / 117 / 128 / 139 % of your magic attack.

Support tree

•  Gloria
  • Passive
  • Holy Light or Heal has a 5 / 10 / 15 % chance of making the next HL or Heal instant.
  • Generally recommended to max this. It may not be reliable at a 15% chance, but whenever it does proc, you’re thankful for it. I know of people who get by fine leaving it at Lv.1, so I have to say whether you max it or not is up to personal preference.
•  Recovery
  • 1 sec cast time, 10 sec cooldown
  • Removes certain debuffs from up to 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
    allies in target area.
  • The skill description may say it removes all negative status effects, but it doesn’t. So far, it’s only known to work on Immobility, Frozen, and morph. So if there’s a heavy DoT in effect, you’re stuck with it. Fortunately, most debuffs are short, and by the time you manage to cast this skill, they’re probably over already with negligible harm done. But there are some bosses for which this skill would save a person’s life. I don’t have enough raid experience, so I can’t confidently recommend how high to level it. If you are going to level it though, or if you’re uncertain, you can safely leave it for last.
•  Suffragium
  • Instant cast, 0 sec cooldown, 30 min duration
  • Boosts your Haste Rate by 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 %.
  • Haste Rate reduces cast time by the percent shown. This skill is up to player preference. Almost all of your skills are either instant or 1-sec casttime, and then you have unspoken casting delay from skill animations. Adamant supporters say that shaving that 0.1 sec off of Heal may save someone’s life. Some try to math and say that for every 10 Heals, you can throw in 1 more, but that’s erroneously ignoring casting delay which makes Heal closer to 2 seconds to cast instead of 1. Some say they can feel that 10% difference. I can’t, so I get by without it.
•  Angelus
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Boosts Defense of all party/raid members in range by 3 / 6 / 9 %.
  • Note, that’s Defense, not Defense Rate, so it’s not a direct 9% boost. It’s 9% of whatever it is you already have. For the most part, only tanks get any significant defense rate (~50% with good gear), whereas you’re paper (~10%). I would leave this skill at Lv.1, just as a pre-req for Archangel. I’ve two people swear this skill is awesome, but I don’t know why they think that. If someone can convince me with solid reasoning, please do.
•  Archangel
  • Instant cast, 90 sec cooldown, 30 sec duration
  • Increases your magic attack by 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 %.
  • It gives you shiny wings–I know that’s enough reason for some people to get it to Lv.1. If you max it though, it’s powerful for either burst DPS or healing.

Healing tree

•  Sacrament
  • 4 sec cast time, 3 sec cooldown, toggle ability
  • Increases your healing power by 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 %, decreases your damage dealt by 10%.
  • Gives you an aura that’s practically a healer badge. I recommend getting this to Lv.4-5. You can go without it, but your job is a bit easier with it on. I can feel it, some don’t.
•  Coluceo Heal
  • Instant cast
  • Completely restores target’s health. 300 / 270 / 240 / 210 / 180 sec cooldown.
  • Get at least Lv.1 of this. Leveling it higher is up to player preference.
•  Assumptio
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Decreases damage taken by target by 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 %.
  • Player preference, but generally recommended to max this. It significantly reduces damage when maxed, but due to its short duration, you don’t need it in most situations. Definitely useful if you know a target is about to be hit hard by a special boss skill.
•  Sanctuary
  • Instant cast, 2 min cooldown, 10 sec duration
  • Heals party/raid members within AoE by 59 / 66 / 73 / 80 / 87 % of your magic attack every 2 seconds.
  • Total amount healed per level: 295 / 330 / 365 / 400 / 435 %
  • +Aspersio - Buffs targets within AoE with a 15% maxHP boost.
  • Get this at at least Lv.1 for the maxHP buff for raids. If you only have it at Lv.1, don’t bother using it for healing. It’s a self-targeted, small AoE that leaves you unable to do anything else while the skill is going, and everyone has to move to you (or you move to them) to receive the effect. At Lv.2, you’re still better off using your core healing skills of Renovatio, Aspersio+Highness Heal, and Heal. If it’s an emergency, Coluceo Heal and Assumptio are “more” instant, since Sanctuary takes a couple of seconds for the animation to start up. I would say that it’s not effective for healing until it’s at least Lv.4. Lv.3 is iffy. But you should make sure your party is willing to run into it for healing.

III. Stats

Spend your points on INT, AGI, and/or VIT.
Please refer to my other guide for details:
Ragnarok Online 2 Stats Guide

Summarizing that thread with respect to priests specifically,
- VIT is a matter of player preference, get more if you want to be a little safer
- INT will overall give you more output than AGI will, but if crit’ing even the slightest bit more often makes you happy, then by all means prioritize AGI

IV. Gameplay Advice

Your core healing skills are all from the Acolyte section. It’s more than possible to level all the way to 50 as just an Acolyte. Priest skills just make it easier for you by either strengthening what you could already do, or handle emergencies better.

Here’s a skeleton build to start out with:
http://ro2base.com/b…1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0

From there, depending on your personal preference, you can figure out how much you want to focus on Suffragium, Archangel, Sacrament, Coluceo, Assumptio, and Sanctuary.
I personally max Archangel and Sacrament. After playing as two FS priests, I still can’t decide whether I like Assumptio or Coluceo better, and I want some points leftover just in case I find myself really wishing for more Recovery.

Basic Skill Usage

When you’re just starting out, get at least Lv.1 Renovatio immediately. It is your primary healing skill from beginning to end. Work towards getting Lv.3 Aspersio as your second priority, and then max Highness Heal after that.
These three skills are pretty much all you need to support your party in any regular dungeon. With the occasional Heal if those aren’t enough.

Use Renovatio on the tank or puller and anyone else who needs it, and then follow up with Asp+HH or Heal as necessary. Once you’re more familiar with some fights, you may want to pre-emptively cast it on targets at risk to make your life easier.

Try to always use Aspersio and Aqua Benedicta whenever they’re off cooldown. Asp+HH heals a lot instantly and stacks an HoT on multiple targets. Having Reno and Asp+HH is generally enough to keep everyone’s HP topped off. If it’s not, then casting Heal on top of those HoTs should be enough.

Managing Your Threat

The average tank can handle a mob size of about 3 or 4 before they start taking too much damage for you to keep up. If you’re fortunate enough to be in a party with a very good beefy tank, you may see mobs of 6+. (Fastest party I’ve had would pull ~10+.) If you’re not careful, however, all of the mobs may target you early on, and whether you survive or not, this warns the party to go slower.

Optimize your survival like so: use only Renovatio on the tank until he’s done mobbing and starts to AoE. After he AoEs, then you’re free to use other skills like Highness Heal.
If you use Heal or Highness Heal before that point, the entire mob will go to you instead.

The reason why this works is explained by Ryouichi’s breakdown of threat gain here.
Essentially, if a tank is pulling (without doing damage), he automatically has 3 Threat generated on every monster he’s aggroed. If he doesn’t AoE, then you’d need to generate 4 Threat to pull a monster off of him.
Using Renovatio generates only 1 Threat, and the HoT ticks from it generate 0 threat.
Using Heal or Highness Heal will generate as much Threat as the amount healed. (I suspect this applies to Sanctuary as well, even though it’s an HoT.)
Other skills like Aspersio and Assumptio should only generate 1 Threat, so those are also fairly safe to use during the pull.

If a monster is still attacking you even though it looks like the tank should have its attention already, try moving around a bit. Sometimes, a monster will be bugged into staying on a target until then.

Moving While Using Skills

For the most part, you can move while using instant skills–Renovatio, Aspersio, Highness Heal, etc. You -will- need to kite while healing for some fights.

An odd exception to Instant skills is Aqua Benedicta. It’s “instant”, but you’re locked into about 2-3 seconds of casting animation and delay, so normally you can’t move while using it. You can probably manage without this, but there is a way to move still. Auto-run + hold down the Right mouse button. If you do that before casting, you’ll keep on running as long as you’re still holding down the mouse button. It still works if you do it in the middle of the animation.

This does not work for Sanctuary, unfortunately. You can use it to prematurely cancel the skill though. Moving before casting gives you a warning saying you can’t move while using the skill. Moving after activating the skill cancels it prematurely.

You’ll probably want to change your key setup for auto-run anyway, out of convenience.
Esc > Shortcut Key
Click on “Custom Options” to make it so you can use your own preferences.
I have auto-run set to F, personally. It warns me that that conflicts with an existing shortcut, but it’s irrelevant. I’ve only seen F used for stuff like Rogue and Sorc skill procs, and they should have the relevant skills they need hotkeyed anyway.
(Be wary of one thing though. After you log out completely for the first time after setting custom keys, your Friendlist will be unbound. Just go back into Custom Options and put your Friendlist back on U. The problem won’t happen again after that.)

V. Miscellaneous Info

If you like using Alt-hotkeys, be aware of where your mouse cursor is. If your cursor is on top of any windows (Skill, Quest, Chat, Quest Tracker, the HUD in general, etc.), then Alt-hotkeys will be “sticky”. They can work, but you’ll most likely have to remash both keys a couple of times for them to register.

Four skills are related to Kharas. The first time you use Resurrection, you’ll unlock one hidden Khara mission.
The first time you use Magnus, Genesis, or Archangel, you’ll unlock another hidden Khara mission.

You cannot healbomb like you could in RO1.

Your DoTs and HoTs do not crit.