Silkroad Online Forums

This is only what i think.

Clerics

-Good Buffs for PVP & PVE
-Good Skills for party play (heal & ress)
-Bad for solo play (Heal and Ress is useless for solo play)
-Bad with stealth because speed will be highly reduced (Stealth is important for rogues, no matter crossbow or dagger)

Bards

-Good for PVP and PVE
-Good skills for party play (speed & mp recovery)
-Good for solo play
-Not as good as clerics in party play
-Speed is good because it increases the speed when using Stealth (Stealth decreases speed greatly)

Thanks for your input, nphillip.
Anyone else have any thoughts or comments to add?

Bard has nothing to offer. Someone mentioned better MP but a rogue hardly uses any MP and as for speed you can just buy a potion. I'd rather spend a bit of gold on a pot to run fast than invest hours of gameplay to get SP and then get 1 shot whenever you go to PvP

At first, I thought that I would switch to cleric sub once I reach the cap, but since I'm currently farming sp anyways, so I decided to get lvl 24 cleric sub, with lvl 1 bless spell.

Frankly speaking, bless spell is useless in pvp unless you don't use crossbow extreme/dagger desperate. Why?

Example:
At 80 cap w/ full blues, you would have around maybe...1.5k phy.def (my estimate, not too sure about this). Lets assume that 80 cap's bless spell adds another 1.2k phy.def. See, you will now have 2.7k phy.def for 45 secs! Chinese str chars hardly do any damage!

But once you use dagger desperate, that 2.7k phy.def becomes 675 phy.def. A bard sub dagger rogue of the same equips would have...375 phy.def. Yep, Bless spell gives you 300 more phy.def. But guess that? Its still less than 50% of your original phy.def, so you will still die VERY easily anyways. 300 phy.def...yea, big deal (considering your unbuffed def).

Crossbow extreme? Then you'll have 1620 phy.def. Wow, big improvement, but you still suffer the 50% hp reduction penalty. That means that you can survive as well as a 1:7 int hybrid spear (w/ armor) - but you can't spam pots AND you don't have snow shield.

Recovery division? Again, quite useless in pvp with CE/DD on, because:
1) It only heals 1.2k hp per 5 secs at cap, because daggers/crossbows don't have any mag.atk, it only heals the minimum.
2) In pvp, with CE/DD on, even with bless spell, a Chinese str char can still easily do 3-7k non-crits to you (for each skill), and
3) unlike warlocks, you don't have any other hp-healing skills, so essentially, it will only let you survive 1 more hit. Again, big deal.

The only thing I find remotely useful in pvp from cleric sub is holy word/holy spell - because it gives you freeze immunity. But considering how 90% of chinese chars use fire imbue...yea, no need to worry about that. Also, pills don't have delay for euros, so holy spell is kinda useless in PvE, unless the monster freezes ALOT. Rogues already have curse immunity, and hardly anyone uses the restriction skills (bind).

On the other hand, warlock seems MUCH better for pvp. Start with casting slumber. Now, I'm not too sure if casting a debuff will wake the person up, but if it doesn't, just use physical ravage/combat raze/courage raze, switch back to daggers, use desperate, then stealth and prick - instant death for most chars.

Of course, that only works if you can debuff a person who is under sleep.

Overall, I would still go with bard, because I rather be able to stand around a bunch of general/party general mobs and train with ease. Giants are not a problem once you get the KD skill for crossbows anyways, so the only real thing to worry about are party giants - and chances are, even with bless spell/recovery division, you WON'T be able to kill it within 45secs anyways - unless its like 10-20 lvls below you.

If I really want a sub for pvping, I would rather choose warlock than cleric.

Warlock is a great sub if you want offensive capabilities but the point of using bless is the nullify the the penalties of DD and EX....once you activate bless your defense will be normal instead of extremely low and normal HP+normal defense+Recovery Division= STR build with Int damage.....

@nphillip- don't hate the sig and avy...learn to love it

I'm going with Bard. Some people obviously think Cleric is better sub, but I don't really care if I die a couple ore times because I don't have some Bless spell...
When I'm a hunter I'll be able to outrun all of you rogue/clerics even if you have a speed potion. But people can keep posting their opinions here. I'll have another character in the future more than likely...

XemnasXD, learn to love the avatar? Or learn to love homo-ness?
(hey, you brought it back up...)

Seeing as im Bi i've got no problem with a little guy on guy action so once again you've only made yourself look like an idiot, keep it up your on a roll you only make yourself seem more and more noobish. I can tell i hit a nerve with my other comments cause i see you've changed your avy .


And for the record i don't know what kind of PvP involves running away from your enemy but it won't win you the battle....

Erm, it will only help bring your def to normal if you are using EX. Like I said, Bless spell is relatively useless for DD, because even if the Bless spell adds 1.2k def, it will be reduced to 300, which is useless for a DD rogue.

375 phy.def vs 675 phy.def at lvl 80...both won't let you survive more than 2-3 hits.

It definitely helps if you are using EX, but like I said, you aren't gonna last very long even with recovery division, because you have around the same HP as a int spear hybrid, but with pot delay. Pots > recovery division, unless you use a magic weapon (which is why it works better for warlocks).

EDIT: Heres a test on bless spell (lvl 1)

Before DD:


After DD:


Before DD with bless spell:


After DD with bless spell:


I REALLY don't see how cleric sub would help a dagger rogue at all. It's only useful for EX.

XemnasXD, Etrad has pretty much proven the point with his screenshots.

and ty Etrad for spending your time on those screenshots xD

@ Etrad your Bless spell is lvl 1 and your lvl 39.....maybe if you raised it you'd see better results. Heres how i saw it

Def Normal - 176
Def DD - 44
Def Bless - 291
Def Bless+DD- 72

Even with a Lvl 1 Bless spell your defense is higher than it would be if you were just using desperate dagger.

Lvl 1(24) bless spell gives +115 Phy Def and +183 Mag Def
Lvl 3(36) bless spell gives +202 Phy Def and +322 Mag Def

With that math You'd end up with a Phy Def of 95 at your lvl....Which does make a difference whether you believe it or not especially because blesses buffing strength get extremely overpowered in the later lvls. This is coming from my own person experience i was using a Lvl 6 Bless spell and it saved my life on more than one occasion. If you want proof of how well it works go geta friend to buff you while you PvE and you'll see a significant drop in the amount of damage you take while using DD or EX.

Factor that in with recovery division which is basically auto pot and last 5 min I know i can survive better than a Bard rogue. If i Ever get KD or KB the battles not over i casn just get up and keep going and i can survive 2-3 chinese nukes depending on the nuker and the type of nuke.

I prefer to use daggers so what does bard do for me during PvP...nothing that a potion can't do. Im not afraid of aggro mobs while im thiefing im more concerned about dealing with Bladers and Nukers in PvP and the only way to last longer against them is to use a Cleric subclass.....the new Chinese speed boost goes almost as high as the bards from what i've heard so its not like you'll be out running anyone...

This is a matter of playing styles but i'd prefer to last longer and have auto put for 5 min than just run faster.....but thats how I liked to play the game.....

As far as im concerned Etrad put forth a good argument against cleric sub but i'd still rather have extra defense in PvP even if its not alot then just being able to run faster....

well...92 def? Without bless, EX gives me 105 def, and even with 105 def, a giant 2 lvls below me crits for 1.2k (max hp with DD = 4.1k), so yea...its not going to help much in PvE. o_O

Yea, Bless spell helps if you are using EX...but like I've posted, the amount of def you can get from Bless spell with DD is too low that I don't think it helps much at all anyways...

Like you've seen in Juey's "PvP" job video, once he fails to kill, or is seen by others, he dies almost instantly vs 2-3 sun chinese hitting him at once. If let say that 80 cap BS adds 1600 phy.def, you will only get around +400 extra phy def, making it around 750 total instead of just 350. Recovery division heals 1.2k (for rogues) every 5 secs(correct me if I'm wrong), and 5secs = enough time for ANY char to use at least 2-3 skills - against a same lvl player at lvl 80, each skill will do AT LEAST 3k, up to like 12k (euro char) even with BS + DD. Recovery Division serves as a VERY good auto pot, but only in PvE.

Also, most of the time rogues will use stealth to sneak up and use prick for extra damage. If for example you go out theifing, you will first have to find the target, then run far enough to cast bless, switch back to dagger to cast DD then stealth - by the time you reach the target (slower moving speed), almost 10-20secs will be gone already. In this case it would be much easier to just ask a cleric to buff you with BS.

If you have BS on, and you fail to kill the target, the +def won't let you run away in time unless you quickly remove DD, because even if you buy the 100% speed pot, you still don't have ghostwalk that a chinese would have. During jobbing, its either do or die - theres no such a thing as running away for a rogue, unless you are just beside town or have warlock/wizard buddies to sleep/stun/bind the chaser for you.

Also, I agree that bard does nothing for a dagger rogue in PvP, but it's still more useful for normal grinding, especially in places like caves and Ongs, since its very mobby. But I think that if you want a sub to give def to rogues, why not use warlock's combat raze? Reduce damage taken by opponent, while also having other -def skill to increase your damage. 20% damage reduction > 400 def IMHO.

My personal conclusion:
Crossbow PvE (overall): bard
Crossbow PvE (giant, party general/champion): cleric
Crossbow PvP (cape): cleric
Crossbow PvP (theif/hunter): bard, cleric

Dagger PvE (overall): cleric/bard (they are equal to me...75% less mag/phy def -> more than 3 mobs hit you at once -> dead unless with BOTH BS and RD buffed at the same time)
Dagger PvP (cape): warlock
Dagger PvP (theif/hunter): warlock, cleric (for holy word/spell)

continued...
-Dagger is best for cape PVP
-Crossbow is best for PvE (dagger skills have long cooldowns, especially before getting lvl 40 skills to chain)
-Crossbow is best in group vs group job war/guild war (no time to sneak up with dagger...unless every one of your jobmates is a wizard/rogue -_-)
-In busting small-time trade runs (less than 3 hunters+traders combined) Crossbow slightly > Dagger, but also depending on jobs of hunters/traders. All nukers/bowmen = Crossbow. All melee = dagger (you need the extra damage to kill).

Thanks for taking the time to get those screen shots, Etrad!

imo, if you make ur roque to pvp / war / job = cleric.. If you just like to solo grind and not involve in wars / pvp and jobs then its bard..

The only time i break out my crossbow is to kill multiple low lvl opponents but if im going to fight someone my or higher i use my daggers and i find it much more useful in PvP this is a matter of opinion and playing style but



With Bard subclass the only thing you get is Moving March and Noise. Moving March is for speed and you can get a potion for that without wasting SP. Noise wards off aggro mobs which is useless in PvP. So what it comes down to is Bard doesn't have any special skillz that help in PvP

You can try and point out flaws in cleric sub all you want but the fact remain tha Extra defense + Recovery division is a greater PvP advantage than ANYTHING bard sub can offer....

I was just wondering if anyone used DD then got bless spell cast by some1 else? The def might not get reduced if it was added after DD took effect. If the code was doing current def x 0.25 and did not self update afterwards, you might end up with all of the bless spell defense.

Oh and by the way, I would not use DD or CE if I am using bless spell. With the double defense I can afford to wait for a crit, and I think joey didn't use DD or CE. If you would have noticed how he got hit a few times by sun people without dying because he had full hp and enough defense to survive a hit from sun users. And he still won. With Bless spell, he might have killed 3 of them before he had to run.

.....but yeah, go bard because you can solo better....that makes perfect sense, since everyone grinds for the sake of killing higher level monsters.....NOT

I will have to admit cleric is more useful to int based chars, but don't cry when you get manhandled by the effects because people started freezing you.