Priest Class - Strategy/Tactics Discussion

[marlowe221]

I find myself struggling with Priests and, while a new player like myself should probably be playing an easier class, I just cannot help myself!

So far, I think I understand the importance of getting Orb of Draining as quickly as possible and of getting a weapon that will hit as hard as possible while largely ignoring weapon speed/attacks per round.

But.... I have questions

First, how do I get Orb of Draining to have a lower fail chance? Just leveling up more?

Second, what is the area of effect of this spell? It seems to be able to damage more than one monster but it is not clear to me just how large (or small) an area is in my cone of fire...

Third, what determines how much mana I get when I level up?

Fourth, is INT a dump stat for a Priest? I know I want as much WIS as I can get and I guess I need a little STR and CON... Points seem spread kind of thin for Priests - what is a good initial distribution for attributes?

Other general Priest tips? I switched from Dunadan to Human and the faster XP gain does seem to help. My best priest so far has only made it to DL 7.

Thanks!

[Carnivean]

1. OOD and all spells reduce their fail rate by leveling up and increasing your casting stat (ie for priests WIS).

2. Up to level 30 it is a radius 3 ball. After that it's a radius 4 ball.

3. Casting stat determines mana.

4. INT is basically useless for priests.

As for tips, it might be worth looking at how you are dying. After playing warriors, you've probably gotten into the mindset of attacking everything, which is suicidal, even for warriors. Attack what you know you can beat. Leave clear escape options (clear paths, spells/scrolls, speed potions, healing potions, stairs) for any marginal situation. Know as much about where enemies are as you can at all times.

As a priest your damage per round is low, and until you can spam healing spells you aren't that resilient. If you can't finish them in a couple of rounds, then you're going to take a beating, often fatal. Don't allow yourself to get into fights with awake mobs, as that will grind you down, and as a priest almost all mobs will be awake.

[quarague]

Priests in general use battle of attrition strategies. Your damage per turn is low compared to others classes but you have lots of healing options. Cure light wounds is available almost from the beginning and is cheap and easy to cast for priests. So while a warrior will just bash down a tough opponent a priest will fight for a bit, phase door away, heal up, hit it a bit more, heal some more and finally take it down.
This also means that ideal target monsters are different. For a warrior, the various orcs and later trolls are great targets, they have lots of hitpoints and decent melee but mostly no other skills. A warrior has even more hit points and even better melee. For a priest, these can be more difficult.
The various mages, priests and similar spell casters on the other hand are easier for priests. The early ones mostly cast status ailments like blind or confuse where priests get a high saving throw, in return they have relatively fewer hitpoints and weak melee.

[Derakon]

First, how do I get Orb of Draining to have a lower fail chance? Just leveling up more?

More WIS, more levels.

Second, what is the area of effect of this spell? It seems to be able to damage more than one monster but it is not clear to me just how large (or small) an area is in my cone of fire...

Sounds like you need to go to the options screen (hit '=') and increase the delay factor. The game has animations, but by default they play so fast they're basically invisible.

Third, what determines how much mana I get when I level up?

Your WIS score. At any time your mana is a function of your WIS and level, recalculated whenever either changes.

Fourth, is INT a dump stat for a Priest? I know I want as much WIS as I can get and I guess I need a little STR and CON... Points seem spread kind of thin for Priests - what is a good initial distribution for attributes?

INT is your dump stat, yes. At the start of the game, focus on WIS and STR; you need STR for carrying capacity. Put any spare points into CON just to shorten the amount of time you have to spend searching for Potions of Constitution later on.

Other general Priest tips? I switched from Dunadan to Human and the faster XP gain does seem to help. My best priest so far has only made it to DL 7.

Play a Dwarf; they're much better priests than humans are.

Don't forget about attack wands. Even Wands of Magic Missile can come in quite handy early on, and most attack wands make good supplements to Orb of Draining.

[Estie]

The key stat for a pleasant midgame is stealth, for all classes. Just because youre a priest and your class bonus for stealth is horrible doesnt mean you cant get or shouldnt utilize it. The priest might need more of it than other classes, but if you can walk around without waking up the whole screen with every step, your ability to pick your fights goes up dramatically.

Evereything said by above posters is very true, and I wouldnt pick stealth over, say, wisdom (not that there is conflict in that regard). It is the next upgrade step after OoD has kicked in.

[marlowe221]

Hehehe... One person tells me to roll a Dwarf, the next person tells me to use stealth... Aren't Dwarves really bad at sneaking??? :P

Otherwise, thanks for all the tips! I will definitely be trying to incorporate them into my Priest runs (there are lots of those since they are so short...)

Generally, I think I am doing a little too much melee and not enough prayer-casting. This class certainly seems to play a bit slower than the Warrior, though that may just be my n00b-ness showing again.

Casting the spells/prayers is kind of clunky though. Does this game have a macro system that I am missing?

[Derakon]

Casting the spells/prayers is kind of clunky though. Does this game have a macro system that I am missing?

It does, though it's a bit manual. You can bind an input to perform a series of keystrokes for you. For example, I often bind ! to "target nearest enemy and cast a spell". For Magic Missile, that command would be "*tm1a" (assuming I have inscribed my first spellbook with "@m1" so I can select it using 1 instead of a when casting spells).

You can access this system from the = screen; they're called keymaps.

[marlowe221]

It does, though it's a bit manual. You can bind an input to perform a series of keystrokes for you. For example, I often bind ! to "target nearest enemy and cast a spell". For Magic Missile, that command would be "*tm1a" (assuming I have inscribed my first spellbook with "@m1" so I can select it using 1 instead of a when casting spells).

You can access this system from the = screen; they're called keymaps.

Wait... inscribed??? What does that mean? And what do @m1 and tm1a mean?

[Estie]

Hehehe... One person tells me to roll a Dwarf, the next person tells me to use stealth... Aren't Dwarves really bad at sneaking??? :P

Otherwise, thanks for all the tips! I will definitely be trying to incorporate them into my Priest runs (there are lots of those since they are so short...)

Generally, I think I am doing a little too much melee and not enough prayer-casting. This class certainly seems to play a bit slower than the Warrior, though that may just be my n00b-ness showing again.

Casting the spells/prayers is kind of clunky though. Does this game have a macro system that I am missing?

See, this is exactly why I posted: you seem to assume that just because youre a dwarf priest you cant or arent supposed to "sneak around". Nothing could be further from the truth. Dwarves get a small starting malus to stealth, but if you have +10 or so from gear, it barely matters. Youre still very stealthy and dont wake up monsters.

My OoD macro setup:

- check option "use last target by default".

- inscribe priest books with "@m1", "@m2" etc in ascending order. OoD is in book 3.

Assign keymaps:

F1: *tm3b
F2: m3b

Pressing F1 picks the closest target and casts orb on it. F2 orbs the last target, which can be a floor tile around the corner that you targetted manually prior to pressing F2.

[Nick]

Wait... inscribed??? What does that mean? And what do @m1 and tm1a mean?

Use '{' to inscribe something on an item - basically attach a label to the end of its description. You can inscribe whatever you like, but certain things the game will take note of, the main ones being

• @ followed by command key followed by number will mean that command followed by that number will apply the command to the inscribed object
• ! followed by a command key mean the game will ask for confirmation before you apply that command to that object

So if you inscribe @r1 on scrolls of Phase Door, you can type r1 to read one no matter where it is in your inventory.

If you have your first spellbook inscribed @m1, then m1 will cast from it. So if you have a keymap of *tm1a, hitting it will do those things in order - '*' to target, t to select the first target, m1a to cast spell a, which is Magic Missile if you're playing a mage.

Since you're playing priests, if you inscribe all your prayer books with @m1, @m2,.., you can map a single key to Orb of Draining with the keymap m3b, or *tm3b for automatically firing at the nearest target.

[Derakon]

See, this is exactly why I posted: you seem to assume that just because youre a dwarf priest you cant or arent supposed to "sneak around". Nothing could be further from the truth. Dwarves get a small starting malus to stealth, but if you have +10 or so from gear, it barely matters. Youre still very stealthy and dont wake up monsters.

Marlowe: it takes a lot of investment in stealth to get this far. I'm not saying that big bonuses to stealth aren't valuable, far from it; just be aware of what you're sacrificing to get that stealth. Being able to avoid fights because monsters don't wake up is a wonderful thing, but it's not the only way to play. In other words, Estie's preferred playstyle is not my preferred playstyle, and I don't think either is objectively superior.

[Estie]

Marlowe: it takes a lot of investment in stealth to get this far. I'm not saying that big bonuses to stealth aren't valuable, far from it; just be aware of what you're sacrificing to get that stealth. Being able to avoid fights because monsters don't wake up is a wonderful thing, but it's not the only way to play. In other words, Estie's preferred playstyle is not my preferred playstyle, and I don't think either is objectively superior.

The point is that the sacrifices are minimal. Given the choice between a wisdom weapon and a (blunt) defender, I typically pick the wisdom weapon. If I get an elvenkind armor, its most of the time superior even disregarding the stealth bonus. As for rings, there are so many good possibilities that its rare for me to use mouse, even though it has happened; so at worst, I sacrifice shard resist (cloak) and nexus (boots) for stealth. Does that qualify as a "playstyle" ? I doubt it, but if so, I am convinced that it is indeed objectively superior

[Derakon]

The point is that the sacrifices are minimal. Given the choice between a wisdom weapon and a (blunt) defender, I typically pick the wisdom weapon. If I get an elvenkind armor, its most of the time superior even disregarding the stealth bonus. As for rings, there are so many good possibilities that its rare for me to use mouse, even though it has happened; so at worst, I sacrifice shard resist (cloak) and nexus (boots) for stealth. Does that qualify as a "playstyle" ? I doubt it, but if so, I am convinced that it is indeed objectively superior

Well okay, yeah sure, if you're given the choice between magical boots (or Levitation or Stability boots even) and boots of Stealth you should take the Stealth boots. And ditto for the cloak slot, since basically all of the good ego cloaks give stealth anyway. I was remembering arguments held awhile back where someone was biasing practically every slot towards stealth (even at the expense of, say, +speed) and seriously jeopardizing their ability to survive fights to do so. I don't like doing that.

[marlowe221]

Use '{' to inscribe something on an item - basically attach a label to the end of its description. You can inscribe whatever you like, but certain things the game will take note of, the main ones being

• @ followed by command key followed by number will mean that command followed by that number will apply the command to the inscribed object
• ! followed by a command key mean the game will ask for confirmation before you apply that command to that object

So if you inscribe @r1 on scrolls of Phase Door, you can type r1 to read one no matter where it is in your inventory.

If you have your first spellbook inscribed @m1, then m1 will cast from it. So if you have a keymap of *tm1a, hitting it will do those things in order - '*' to target, t to select the first target, m1a to cast spell a, which is Magic Missile if you're playing a mage.

Since you're playing priests, if you inscribe all your prayer books with @m1, @m2,.., you can map a single key to Orb of Draining with the keymap m3b, or *tm3b for automatically firing at the nearest target.

So what is the letter "m" doing in these inscriptions/commands?

[Nick]

So what is the letter "m" doing in these inscriptions/commands?

Slight subtlety - 'p' is kind of an alias for 'm', so both can be used to cast any kind of spells, but you need to use 'm' in inscriptions.