Cleric

Weapon: mace. Role: main healer. The Cleric keeps five-player dungeon groups and raid parties on their feet with heals over time, chargeable AoE heals, damage-absorbing shields, debuff cleanses and resurrection. Community guides report healing here is AoE-focused with little to no cast time — you triage the whole party at once instead of spamming one target. A real damage build exists too: NC built improved damage into this version, and community skill trees support an offensive stigma setup for solo play and fast dungeon runs.

Pick the Cleric if you like being wanted. In the early post-launch meta, healers are the most recruited role going, and the Cleric is the only true main healer of the eight classes. You will get groups. In exchange you accept responsibility: when the healer falls or runs dry, the run usually ends.

• The only true main healer — every dungeon and raid group recruits one first, and healers are in constant demand in the October 2026 meta
• A complete recovery toolkit: AoE heals, heals over time, shields, debuff cleanses and resurrection in one kit
• Chargeable heals — tap for a quick spot heal or hold the button for a bigger, wider burst, so one skill covers both triage speeds
• A legitimate damage build — NC improved Cleric damage this version, and community guides run offensive stigma setups for solo and speed runs
• Accessible to pick up: community playtest feedback praises healing with little to no cast time and strong solo AoE damage

• AoE focus trades per-target punch — community guides note the wide healing footprint comes with lower single-target potency than a dedicated spot healer
• You are the wipe button: fall, get caught out of position, or run dry on MP and the group folds with you
• Charging heals costs time and MP — a greedy charge against a boss mechanic gets you or the tank killed
• Personally squishy — the Cleric survives by positioning and dodging, not by brawling

Solo, community guides run the Cleric as a holy damage dealer with an infinite reset loop. The engine: guaranteed critical hits make your nuke reset its own cooldown, so you spam it for the whole debuff window. The loop, as described by community build guides:

1. Apply your crit-guaranteeing stigma (Earth Punishment, per community builds) and Chain of Torment for the debuff window.
2. Spam Condemnation — the guaranteed crits keep resetting its cooldown through the debuff duration.
3. Fill cooldown gaps with Earth's Retribution to recover MP and keep pressure on.
4. Charge Bolt during boss mechanic pauses; unload Lightning Strike Scattershot in Stagger phases.
5. Top yourself off with the base healing kit between pulls — your sustain means near-zero downtime.

In a group, you switch from rotation to triage. Community healer guides describe the loop as: keep Light of Regeneration rolling on whoever is taking damage, spot-triage dips with Healing Light (tap for speed, charge when you have a safe second), drop Summon: Holy Breath for sustained damage phases, and answer debuff waves and post-AoE recovery with Radiant Recovery. Pre-cast mitigation — a shield or a damage-reduction stigma like Yustiel's Power — before known burst windows rather than after them. Hold one emergency button (community builds name Absolution or Salvation) for genuine wipe moments. When the party is stable, weave damage: every nuke cast in downtime is mana and time recovered through Earth's Retribution.

You are the group's life support in five-player dungeons and larger raid content — the one role no serious group skips. Healers are the most-demanded slot in the young post-launch meta, which means fast groups and a permanent place on friends lists. Your job is bigger than refilling bars: you control when the group can greed on mechanics and when it must play safe.

• Dungeon job: keep the party topped through AoE damage, cleanse debuffs fast, resurrect casualties, and add damage in calm windows.
• Positioning: mid-range and mobile. Community guides stress that your heals are radius-based, so stand where the most people are covered, and keep dodging — a dead healer heals nothing.
• Synergy: you pair naturally with a Chanter, but watch aura conflicts. Community guides report Light of Protection does not stack with a Chanter's Undefeated Mantra — the higher-rank buff wins. Coordinate before the run and swap the overlapping slot.

Honest answer: a healer levels slower solo than a damage class, but this is the most solo-friendly Cleric the community has seen. NC built improved damage into this version, and playtest feedback described accessible soloing with good AoE damage and self-healing — you will kill slower than a Gladiator but almost never stop to rest. The Season 1 cap is 45, and your Stigma slots open at 22, 27, 32 and 37 — the first real fork between healer and damage builds.

• Early levels: run the campaign as your spine and grind with damage skills; your self-sustain means near-zero downtime between pulls.
• Power spikes: each Stigma slot (22/27/32/37) and key skill upgrades. Community guides flag the mid-rank upgrades of Absolution and Yustiel's Power as the big healer milestones, and Condemnation's crit-reset specialization as the damage build's turning point.
• Group up when you can: healing dungeon runs beats slow solo grinding for XP, and your queue is instant — groups take the first Cleric they see.
• Plan for 45: endgame is where the class pays off — Nightmare Dungeons, Transcendence, the Ascension Trial and Abyss PvP all want healers.

In the Abyss you are the priority target — enemy divers and burst classes hunt the healer first, and a fight is usually decided by which healer falls first. Community PvP builds trade healing throughput for personal survivability and crowd-control answers. In Arena and smaller formats, groups with a healer outlast groups without one; expect to be both the reason your side wins and the reason the enemy trains you. All of this is a community-meta snapshot from October 2026 and unconfirmed.

• Community PvP builds lean on Salvation as the panic button — guides report its upgrades extend immunity to the lowest-HP ally and let it be cast through stuns and knockdowns.
• Hold Defiance to break hard crowd control (stun, knockdown, fear); community builds treat it as your one get-out-of-jail card.
• Peel for yourself: Debilitating Mark cuts an enemy's damage, and Chain of Torment marks focus targets for your group.
• Buff coordination matters more in group PvP — your aura conflicts with a Chanter's mantras still apply in war groups.