Guides:Priests - Nappy's observations

Priests - Nappy's observations

Important Note

This article is very much still under development. If you identify an area which is incorrect, needs expansion or in some other way can be improved please drop a forum note to Nappy or place a comment in the Wurm forums\Wurmpedia so that this article can be improved

The different feeling of the priests

On the Freedom Isles, with the exception of Chaos, there are three types of white light priests available to play. Each type of priest plays remarkably differently. If you have only tried one type (most people seem to only try Vynora) then I strongly encourage you to try at least one of the other types.

Vynora

Vynora is, for me, the cold and bitter priest type. While often desired for their ability to put some fantastic enchantments on tools like circle of cunning (skill gain) and winds of ages (speed gain) or awesome weapons enchantments like nimbleness (chance to hit), mind stealer (steals body characteristics from animals) and self-healers demise (helps increase chance to hit against trolls etc) this is a priest that has a terrible attitude especially at the lower levels of channeling where they are known to have an almost permanent frown faced expression occasionally enhanced by the shattering of items as their temper flares up.

Fo

Fo priests by comparison are the spreaders of love and happiness. Frustration is minimal and the ability to complete good deeds is unprecedented amongst all of the priest types. Popular and fun spells include Wild growth (can rapidly grow a forest in an extremely fast time), Humid drizzle (tends to animals instead of you grooming them) and a huge variety of healing related spells to help you cure badly hurt comrades or animals.

Mag

Mag priests seem to be devoted to mining and hunting. Once again the feeling is different when playing this priest type. Going on a hunting trip even at lower levels of fighting skill you feel like you are almost invincible to the monsters all around you. For mining one handy spell is the light token. Often used for increasing channeling ability at the lower levels, it is also very helpful when exploring or working in a very dark mine.

Dark Light

I haven't had the opportunity to play a Dark Light priest yet so unfortunately no observations to report.

Key skills for priests

Primary skills

Faith

Faith controls the amount of favor able to be provided by a priest and also impacts what spells they are able to try casting. A 100 faith priest has more spells available then a 50 faith priest and can also cast for longer before needing to recharge.

Channeling

Channeling represents how closely focused the cast is. Casts can range from an intensely negative value (which leads to shattered items) to intensively positive values (which leads to great casts). The channeling skill level seems to help keep the cast focused to a more narrow range. General thought seems to be that once a priest reaches 70 channeling then the odds of a shattered item are greatly reduced.

Ranges:

70+ - Chance of shatter greatly reduced
80  – 85 – Considered to be a good range for most priests
86+ - Considered to be very high quality of priest with shatters being extremely rare and unusual. 
      Generally it should be easier to attain good casts (70+) without significant difficulty 
      provided soul depth is also high.

Soul Depth

Soul Depth seems to impact the amount of power a cast can attain. The higher soul depth levels allow for much higher powered casts. A popular "good" value to have for soul depth is 50 – 55.

Soul depth is heavily used for enchanting tools and weapons by Vyn (circle of cunning, wind of ages, mind stealer etc) and Fo (Life Transfer is the most common).

Ranges:

50 – 55 – Considered to be a good range for most priests
56 - 69 - Great
70+     - Exceptional 

Soul Strength

Soul strength appears to be heavily used by Mag priests and to a more limited degree by Fo priests (genesis, wild growth, humid drizzle etc for items that are not enchantments of tools or weapons)

Main or Alt?

Follower versus priest

Gaining Favor

In order to cast spells favor is required. Three ways exist to gain more favor that I am currently aware of.

Batteries

The first option is to use priest "batteries". These are priests that typically only have high levels of faith allowing them to hold large amounts of favor. If you link these batteries to your primary casting priest then you can draw on the favor of the primary priest and any linked batteries when casting. You may add one linked priest for every 10 levels of channeling ability. Linking priests seems to increase the level of difficulty when casting. I have not yet been able to verify that this is indeed the case although it is very commonly mentioned and there is the feeling that this is true.

When using linked priests you can often just click the casting button from time to time after favor has regenerated enough to do so. The number of linked priests directly impacts how often you can click that button. Six linked priests make it very possible to skip sacrificing items entirely for favor gain without having to wait an extremely long time between casting attempts.

Favor gain is always faster when it is at its lowest storage levels. This means that you will be able to cast more if you cast as early as possible rather than waiting until the batteries are all full.

The trade off with using batteries is that you require premium for each one.

Sacrifice

A second way to gain favor is to sacrifice items. Commonly used is cordage rope. 10 cordage ropes at 70 ql will often fill a 100 favor bar fully. Things to consider include the difficulty of producing the higher ql levels of cordage, the need for high ql wemp, requirement for a good rope tool, your rope making skill and the actual time it takes to create the cordage in the first place.

Each priest type has double favor item as well at various difficulty levels. This means that when sacrificing those items you are granted double the usual amount of favor.

Regeneration

Another option for favor generation is just to wait while the favor regenerates. Two additional things to consider are that if you do stuff while waiting it significantly slows down the regeneration process and if you pray, occasionally your god will grant you faster regeneration.

Skill grinding

Using batteries

Using Fo as an example, it is possible to vessel < 10 ql gems non-stop using two Fo batteries to draw upon. By doing this you eliminate the requirement to either sacrifice gems or spend time waiting for favor

Why grind?

Sometimes the more enjoyable way to gain skill is to just keep working on deed projects where casting plays a strong support role.

Example 1 – Wild growth for hedges

If your deed needs hedges, plant a 3 x3 or 5 x 5 square of the desired hedge type (camellia shrubs for example). Cast Fo wild growth and pick the spouts until you have the numerous sprouts required. In this way you achieve the goal of gaining channeling skill while also building those new hedges for the deed

Example 2 – Going hunting

Take your Fo priest hunting either as the main participant or in a support role for someone else who is hunting. Make it the priest's job to heal any damage that occurs. Bring a bag of prefilled gems along to make this an exercise that can occur numerous times during the trip.

Example 3 – Mining party

Help a neighbor expand their mine using your mag priest and a pickaxe. This will help you gain soul strength and if you cast light tokens as each tile is cleared then you can also work on your channeling while providing needed lighting.

Example 4 – Warm hot food

Use your Vyn priest to make some hot meals for the neighborhood. Add salt to make the meals resist decay longer. Once made cast opulence on the food so it will also go further in feeding your neighbors. This will help you build mind logic, soul depth and channeling.

Example 5 – Go hunting

Use you priest to do some hunting while on horseback – put them in studded leather (no casting penalty), equip them with a good Life Transfer weapon and send them out hunting. Perhaps start the attack by using a combat spell on the target giving you some channeling. All priest types receive fighting skills and Fo will receive channeling by casting healing. Keep a close eye on damage levels and retreat early when required. If you hunt as part of a group then it is even easier to ask someone to heal you (if non-fo) or for you to gain channeling experience (as Fo) doing healing casts on the hunting party as required.

Vynora

Low  = bless
Med = opulence
High = Gems or Lurker on Seryl pendulum

Fo

Low  = bless
Med = heal/dirt
High = Gems or Lurker on Seryl pendulum

Mag

Low  = light token
High = Gems or Lurker on a seryl pendulum

Seryl pendulum

Create a seryl pendulum. Usually quality of the pendulum is unimportant because seryl rarely shatters when casting. Once the pendulum is created cast Lurker spells upon it (Lurker in the dark, lurker of the deep, lurker in the woods etc). Dispel occasionally to start cycle again. This technique avoids the need to obtain and manage gems while also providing skill gains right into the highest levels of channeling. At lower levels of channeling casting vessel on gems seems to provide better skill gains. At the higher levels of channeling this changes.

Using Gems

For Channel grinding

Using < 10 ql gems for channel grinding

< 10 ql gems do not store power when vessel is cast upon them. This is an advantage when trying to quickly improve your channeling skill because you are able to cast multiple times in quick succession on a gem without needing to worry about removing stored power between each round. Each cast causes damage to the gem so eventually it will disappear.

Using 10+ ql gems for channel grinding

When you cast vessel on gems that are 10+ ql power is actually stored in the gem for later use. This means that before you can do a second vessel cast on the gem you must first "use" the power that has been stored in the gem. The most efficient way (albeit time consuming) to use 10+ ql gems is to drain your favor until it is at 7.5. Each time the favor reaches 7.5 cast vessel on the gem. You will actually store 2.5 power because the spell itself uses 5. Use the power and then recast again and again until the gem becomes < 10 ql.

For Casting

When you cast "vessel" on a gem it stores power in the gem. When you withdraw that power from the gem you receive double the amount of favor that was stored. For this reason a good strategy to follow when casting enchantments is to sacrifice items to create favor, vessel the favor into 10+ ql gems and then use the gems to provide the power for the casting. Favor will go a much longer way using this strategy plus you also achieve more skill gain due to the extra casting involved.

This strategy is also recommended if you are going to go into combat where quick access to spell casting is required and time to wait for link recharging etc will be too long to positively impact the battle.

To transfer favor between religions

A priest is unable to directly link with a priest from a different religion. It is possible to have a priest from one religion store favor in a gem and then have a priest from a different religion use the stored power.

General prices for purchasing

Current market rates seem to be as follows:

< 10 ql = 2.0 to 2.5 copper per ql
10+ ql  = .8 to 1.2 copper per ql

This pricing reflects the current bias towards using gems for channel grinding. As noted above using gems as part of the casting process for non-channel grinding can make a significant difference that is not reflected in the price differences shown.

Settlement Info bonuses

The information in this section can be located by right clicking on your settlement deed and selecting settlement info.

Village bonus

Village bonuses are enhanced by performing sacrifices. These sacrifices can be made by both followers and priests and can be made by all religions (so you could sacrifice from Fo altar and Vyn altar with characters of the appropriate faiths and all will contribute to the village bonus). This is important because you can leverage the double favor items for each faith to enhance the bonuses with less time and effort. When you perform sacrifices using a follower, everything they sacrifice goes directly into the village bonuses since followers have no way to spend favor. If you use a priest output from sacrifices will fill the priest's favor bar first. Only when the favor bar is full at the start of the sacrifice will the results add to the village bonus.

Rare bonus seconds

This increases the number of rare seconds. Maximum possible is 10 seconds currently. Sacrificing beyond this level will not increase this number

Enchantment bonus

If performing enchantments on deed this value provides an additional bonus to make your casting that much better. Maximum possible value appears to be 30%.

Number of people on deed matters?

I've heard rumors that the number of citizens on a deed greatly impacts how quickly the deed bonus declines. This is something I plan to look into at some point.

Gaining faith

Prayer

At lower levels of faith (< 60) the best way to gain faith appears to be to pray five times per day at 20 minute intervals. Sermons do provide you with more opportunities to pray provided you preach once every three hours. The skill gained from preaching at the sermon is less than the amount gained from each prayer at these lower faith levels.

Sermons

Preaching sermons provide the best way to gain faith and correct alignment at the higher levels of faith (60+). When you preach a sermon it also resets your prayer counter so that you can once again pray five times at 20 minute intervals. Sermons require seven premium characters in attendance and it is equally important that non-of these characters have had an alignment changing event in the previous 30 minutes. Non-premium characters do not count towards the seven character requirement. Characters must be disembarked from large carts and wagons as well.

Sermons generally provide between 0.01 and 0.02 faith per person involved in the sermon.

You can sometimes find a sermon group on your server by asking in Freedom and/or Freedom-GL or by searching the forums.

Gem Farming

Gem Farming relies on your Wurm God providing you with occasional gems when praying constantly. These gems will range from low to high ql gems and, as noted in the gem section above, they carry a value, play a significant role in channel grinding and are very useful to provide favor for casting.

Conversions

Conversions are surprisingly uneventful considering the importance of either the decision to become a follower or a priest. It is important to note that the preaching level of the converting priest divided by 5 becomes the starting faith level of the converted.

Confessions

Improves preaching skill which in turn increases the initial faith level of the converted (see conversions section)

Purchasing a priest

What to look for in a high end priest

Channeling – 80+
Soul Depth – 50+ (Vyn and Fo (if planning to do life transfer casts)
Faith – 90 – 100 with 100 being preferable

Some type of favor support skill like rope making (All), cloth tailoring (Fo) or lock smithing (Mag). Other key skills include animal husbandry, farming and meditation. The choice of meditation path and level on the path is also important.

Looking for a high end priest (Fo) however can only find Vyn. What to do?

Faith is one of the easier items to rebuild from zero if required especially if you can use a combination of sermons and praying sessions. An option often overlooked is to obtain a priest with high channeling and convert it to Fo. This would require you to rebuild faith from zero back to the 100 desired. Same applies for converting a high end Fo or Mag priest to Vyn.

Soul Depth is often the other consideration especially for Vyn priests. Pan filling is currently the fastest way to raise soul depth. While expensive there are panfillers who will assist you with gaining soul depth. Alternatively you can do the work yourself although it is very time consuming and requires great focus.

PVE Combat support roles

Priests can play essential combat support roles for major undertakings like removing 34 trolls from an island or assisting with the slaying of a dragon. Some spells that make a difference are listed below. Many of these spells are area of effect spells that cover a certain area around a casting focal point. To help as many people in combat as possible it is important to either pre-define where the focal point will be and/or have some sort of communication about when/where the spell is going to be cast during the battle

All comments below are from a PVE perspective initially. PVP perspective is welcomed and will be added to a following section if reader feedback is forthcoming.

Fo

Light of Fo provides healing to the entire combat group usually within an area of the casting focal point

Mag

Mass Stamina provides a stamina refresh to the entire combat group within an 3 x3 area of the casting focal point

Vyn

Please provide feedback

To dispel or not to dispel?

Sometimes enchantments like circle of cunning or life transfer seem to get stuck at a certain level and despite repeated casts the value does not improve. Each additional improvement cast seems to run a risk of shattering the item being improved.

My 85 chan/51 soul depth Vyn seemed to have a point around 55 – 60 where it was generally better to dispel an enchantment then to attempt more than 2 or 3 improvement casts.

The same dispel tipping point for my 94 chan/76 soul depth priest seems to be around 75. Higher then 75 and I am better off dispelling and recasting. In the case of this priest there is far less chance of an actual shatter however favor is still being lost on the repeated casts

Battery quality

One question under investigation is if the quality of the actual battery priest makes a difference. For example if you use a priest with high faith but non-existent channeling and other skills does it make a difference?

Armor bonus and penalty

When casting it is important to consider the armour you are wearing. Metal armour including plate and chain imposes a 30% casting penalty. Studded leather does not impose a penalty. Wearing cloth or nothing at all provides a 30% casting bonus. It is important to note that the special +30% bonus symbol only rarely appears on its own even when wearing cloth or no clothes. In order to encourage it to appear, put on an item like a studded leather cap and then remove it. Following the removal you will see the bonus symbol appear.

Choice of meditation path for a priest

This is very much a personal decision. I will share the choices I made with my priests.

Vyn

Vyn priests will spend an incredible amount of time increasing channelling and soul depth knowledge. In many cases far more time then the other types of priests.

For this reason I chose the Path of knowledge since it contains bonuses from faith level and if you reach a high meditation level you also gain an additional 25% permanent skill gain. This path also protects against skill loss on death.

Fo

Fo works with animals and crops. For this reason I chose Path of love for Fo priests. The ability to enchant grass is a very useful one that comes at a relatively easy meditation level to attain.

Mag

Mag is about mining. Path of power provided the ability to turn a tile (even an ore I believe) into lava and then later freeze that tile back to rock. This is a great option to have if you will be mining tunnels, cave canals etc.

Some people choose path of insanity for more warlike Mag priests. I understand Shield of the Gone is a very compelling reason for choosing this path.

Time to usefulness

From least time required to be useful to most time required.

Mag

Can make light tokens right away and after a relatively quick ascent to 70 faith can also do strongwall

Fo

The most common uses for Fo priests seem to be genesis, wild growth and courier. All of these are available at low levels of chan and faith. Life Transfer is popular for weapons. It takes a Fo priest a long time to become Life Transfer effective compared to genesis effective.

Vyn

Vyns like to shatter things at lower levels and for this reason can be quite frustrating. Opulence does make meals last a lot longer giving them some usefulness at a lower level.

The primary focus for people who own Vyn priests seems to be to be able to do high level casts of Circle of Cunning and Winds of Ages. To be truly effective with 70+ casts will take a lot longer.