Cleric Equipment

Armor Types and Builds
Armors are among the most heavily debated subjects when it comes to choosing the best type for each class. Although magic robes are the most obvious path for casters, light / heavy armor has shown some benefits in wizards and support clerics as well. But is it really an option for a Full Attack Cleric? The most notable benefits of these alternative armor builds undoubtedly lie in their higher physical defense, which might let you survive a bit longer in AoE parties or in duels against physical characters like archers. Since they can also switch to magic robes whenever necessary, they can perfectly adjust to any situation requiring the one or the other type of defense. Now for the bad news, most people are completely unaware of the actual damage loss you will suffer after sacrificing so many of your precious MAG stats for STR and DEX to be able to equip these armors in the first place. Let me show you the statistics of a sample Pure MAG, Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Pure VIT and Full Heavy Armor build on a worksheet I created in Microsoft Excel:
>>> Full Attack Cleric statistics <<<
Just see a bunch of numbers? No worries, I’m going to explain this statistic in detail now.

Heavy Armor – Full

Heavy Armor obviously has the lowest magical and highest physical defense, but in order to equip it, you’d need so much STR and DEX that you wouldn’t have left enough MAG to carry your latest magic weapon anymore. That’s what the Full Heavy Armor build is about – totally ignoring damage and going for a hardcore physical defense. You could tank any physical mob without problems, but well, that’s it. Your abnormally low magic attack would not only prevent you from killing the mobs in an acceptable timeframe, but combined with equally low HP and magic defense it would get you killed at every single magical enemy, be it in PvE or PvP.

Heavy Armor – Minimal

So, people have come up with a better solution. Instead of restricting the MAG to wear their heavy armor, they’re now restricting the STR and DEX to at least be able to equip their latest magic weapon. The highest possible heavy armor they can wear at level 70 for example, would be the level 40-46 set, which still has slightly more physical defense than light armor. But again it comes at a great cost, namely a loss of 17.1% of their potential damage. Due to their slow killing speed, they’ll also have to take a few more hits before their enemy dies, so their higher physical defense is practically nullified again. Not to mention they’ll now have the magical defense of a level 46 blademaster. Hence both Heavy Armor builds are absolutely out of question for any serious Full Attack Cleric.

Light Armor

Light Armor would cover exactly that low magical defense problem. While still having a nice physical defense, this would seem like the ideal all-round armor – if there wasn’t this damage loss again. The slightly higher critical rate unfortunately doesn’t make up much of the huge MAG loss, so you’d still be stuck with a mere 84.8% average of your potential damage. Just like Heavy Armor builds you wouldn’t be able to kill your enemy fast enough before getting hit yourself. None of your defenses is high enough to efficiently protect your equally low HP; so yet again, this alternative option too is doomed to fail.

Pure VIT Magic Armor

Then how about increasing your VITwhile simply keeping your magic armor? It gives 10 HP per point, which equals about 1100 more HP than a Pure MAG at level 70. Protecting you from both physical and magic attacks at the same time, this is clearly the best defensive build for squad-oriented people. However, it’s a contradiction to the very nature of a Full Attack Cleric to play defensively. Just like Heavy and Light Armor builds, VIT builds can only reach 79.8% of their damage potential, which is totally unacceptable for this specific type of cleric. Your job is to kill enemies in 1-2 hits by debuffing and dealing great damage, so 1100 HP is no reason to give up the very purpose why you created this kind of character.

Pure MAG Magic Armor

Yes, this leaves just 1 viable option. To maximize your damage to the fullest extent, every build other than Pure MAG is a waste. Your low physical defense and HP will not be a problem here, because unlike the wizards, the cleric’s protective skills can let you survive easily on a purely offensive build. What’s more, by skipping all heals you’ll have saved enough SP to max these skills at a very early level already. In grinding, no mob is strong enough to reduce your HP fast enough before your massive HoT kicks in again – in PvP, you can easily sleep the enemy and take your time to debuff before smashing him with full power – and in dungeon parties, you can simply put up plume shell when the situation gets critical. If played correctly, this is the only build that has virtually no weaknesses.

Jewelry
Since your choice of rings is pretty obvious, I will just concentrate on the magical and physical defense enhancing kind of jewelry here. Their benefits are strongly dependent on which armor you’re wearing, and for which purpose you intend to use it for. Please note that the defenses are percentage based, so the higher your defense is, the less damage reduction you will receive when equipping additional jewelry of that type. Physical defense: Overall, this is the better choice for robe users, as only very little additional defense is required to get a huge increase of damage reduction. The bad thing is that physical defense type jewelry usually comes coupled with HP bonus stats, which isn’t the ideal choice for a Full Attack Clerics in the later levels.
Magical defense: If you already have high magical defense, more of this jewelry will probably give you no more than a 1% or 2% higher damage reduction. The reason why some players still prefer it over the physical defense jewelry is because it often has higher values of MAG as bonus stats, which can prove very useful in grinding. If you can’t decide, you can also buy 1 of each type and switch them as necessary, if your cash agrees with it.

Bonus Stats
Bonus stats, not stars, are the most important factor to consider when buying equipment. First of all, if you don’t plan on switching equip on every second mob, make sure that no piece of armor lacks any of the basic elemental defenses. The more elements are missing, the higher the remaining elemental defenses will be, but you’d have a hard time fighting against mobs of these specific elements since your overall defense would be much lower.
The options of bonus stats are:
For higher endurance:
+ HP or VIT: Probably the most common bonus stat. Since you can get a very high amount of HP from it, most players consider it as their main choice for improving their survivability.
+ Physical Defense: You can get a fair amount of it to profit from the huge damage reduction until the percentages become inefficient compared to VIT. Remember that HP increases the numbers of hits you can take from both physical and magical mobs, while + physical defense is only limited to physical damage. In later levels, most of the mobs are magical, so I’d advise you to never choose physical defense over HP, except for PvP purposes.
+ Elemental Defense: Not what you should look for. HP/VIT is much more valuable. For higher damage:
+ MAG: Quite rare, and comes in very low values compared to HP/VIT. Mostly + 4 or + 5 MAG is the highest you can find, while HP goes easily over 80 at a cheaper price. If stacked, the difference can be even higher. But if you’re looking for even more damage instead of HP on equip, + MAG is your best option in the lower levels.
+ Magic Attack: Mostly comes in rather low amounts compared to MAG. To find out which one gives more base magic attack, refer to my formulas in the Questions and Answers section.
- % Casting Time: Very rare, will increase your damage per second by a small amount, but overly expensive for what it’s worth. Even when stacked at 30% or above, you almost can’t tell the difference, especially if you’re lagging.
+% Critical Rate: Very rare and expensive, rises in effectiveness over the levels as your damage output increases. Its efficiency compared to + MAG strongly depends on how much an attack is based on magic attack instead of a fixed value. For example:
To outdamage 1% critical rate on average:
As Pure MAG at level 50 (wearing average 3 star equipment), your equipment will need at least + 6 MAG when using great cyclone level 10. As Pure MAG at level 80 (wearing HH80 sword + average 3 star equipment), your equipment will need at least + 10 MAG when using wield thunder level 10. Seeing that +1% critical is much easier to get than +10 MAG, +% Critical Rate as bonus stat actually proves to be more effective than + MAG in the higher levels.
Other:
+ MP recovery: Unless it’s heavily stacked, you’ll be burning through your MP way too fast to notice the recovery.
+ HP recovery: Comes in too small amounts to be useful.
+ STR / AGI: No need for additional STR/DEX over the minimum requirement for armor.
+ MP: No use in adding even more MP as a pure MAG build.
+% Experience: The available +% of Experience are too low to make any real difference while grinding.
+ Movement Speed: Became totally useless since the Forest Ruin was closed.
+ Evasion Rate: Due to high accuracy of your enemies, + Evasion Rate barely has any effect.
+ Accuracy: Magic attacks never miss, no need for any accuracy at all.