I been playing my oracle to around 217 and quite some people ask me about how they work and if it’s worth to play this path. Updated with pvp section.
Everything below is based on my experience. R7 is tentative based on what I feel will work with pvp from various people and dungeons I have access too. My current quest is at 215
I have been playing oracle for about 3 weeks. It’s my 2nd character that got pass 150. I started off with some equipment and items that I got off my ex-main swordsman.
My oracle build other then dungeon and Mission never parties anyone for quest or map exploration.
My classes go:
Cl1-Pr1-Pr2-Pr3-Cl2-Or1
Stats distribution:
30spr
4dex-1str-1con
Items:
Karacha Dagger
Petamion
And Ring with evasion/dex
Cafisun set (make your boots +7/8)
Personally I think my stats are suboptimal
4dex-1int-1con or 3dex-1con maybe better but I’ll just write base on my experience
So the question is why oracle with high dex and not just outright con. With that there will be a need to explain 2 core skills in oracle.
Counter spell
This spell is the most common question people ask me when I’m in Mission and dungeons.
Basically it does 2 things:
Nullifies all ground cast spells on cast. It removes cure, heals, ice walls, pirate flags, safety zones and traps with no hp. It does not remove summons or traps that have a hp bar. However once cast, everyone including your enemy can lay new ground spells.
The second major effect is total magical damage immunity. Any magical damage, be it spell or normal hits by mobs that are magic base will get nullified. However you can still get status effect (frozen by ice wall but takes 0 damage). Cool part is only allies are protected, you can still deal damage to enemies using spells under counter spell effect.
The coverage of this spell is quite large. About the size of a 16 square heal of a cleric 3. The tricky part is the target. I’ll rephrase as entries. Level 1 is 5 entries which means entering and exiting it 5 times. What happen after 5th time is counterspell will get dispelled. This is great for solo but in a 5 man party it’s useless as there are 5 members which instantly dispels it. Also bosses may knock you out of the circle and reentering will remove one count. Level 5 will give 13 entries.
The major disadvantage of counterspell is 90s refresh and last only 30s
Onto the second skill
Prophecy:
For every level in prophecy, you get 2 status blocking of rank 1 status. At rank 5 you block off 10 status. The skill last for 5+5*level and refreshes at 25s. At level 5 it will be 30s at 25s refresh with 10 blocks.
Rank 1 status includes most common ones such as stun, poison and freeze. Almost all incapicate debuffs that can be blocked are level 1. The rest such as telepath and hook can’t be blocked even by plague Doctors bloodletting so you won’t be losing out greatly.
So what’s so special about oracle is the combination of both counterspell and prophecy will gain your party near magic immunity to most damage and status for a period of time. This is essential in some area where mobs deal a lot of magical damage and you get swarmed by them. Usually those magic mobs will also carry with them status like freeze or petrification which prophecy will block off.
So back to the earlier part on why Dex. Dodging is much more efficient then soaking in damage. Also knockback effects only happen if you get hit. Dex is the only way to resist knockbacks. Safety zone counts are only reduced if you are hit which means higher Dex equates to longer safety. Most importantly why Dex is due to the priest skill monstrance: adds 30%+10 Dex. At 200 Dex you will get a buff of nearly 72dex. When dodging gets tough, there’s still stone skin to pad blocks. At 213 level, I can dodge most mobs in 215 map and when mobbed, a buff of monstrance will almost Ensure full evasion.
So the next question is now how to kill mobs. Other then cure and exorcism , there are no magic damage skill. The answer is to just hit normally with sacrament+cafisun set.
Sacrament adds an additional elemental Attack. So does cafisun set (lvl15). The major problem is at level 200 can this set hold up with its Low level defense. That’s why we go Dex. At 217 level, I have over 630evasion after buff which evades bulk of the physical mobs at 215+ maps. With this a total of 3 attacks is done everytime (1 physical 2 elemental).
To boost damage for the extra elemental, use bless, headgears with bonus elemental Attack and arde/karacha/venom dagger. This will add almost 400 more damage to each atk. Summing up will result in a average hit that does nearly 1.5k. At 170, if money permits get a Karacha which will add 11dex and on awakening another 10-40 more damage to each Attack.
to put everything together:
Kill mobs that deal physical damage with monstrance buff to prevent damage. When swarmed, use stone skin and safety zone which will hold out really Long with high Dex. Meeting magic based mobs, activate counterspell. Mobs that deal status, activate prophecy to prevent being disabled. Then just whack the mobs to death slowly. This works very well especially against all quest boss and even Mission boss.
Lastly, this build is still party friendly. Buff by priest skills. Heal by cleric 2/ priest mass heal. Damage absorption by 40 point safety zone. Counterspell for party protection against magic for 30s. Prophecy to prevent debuff status to entire party that can be refreshed constantly when needed.
PVP
PvP is a unique aspect. This build base on test is highly resistance to most physical damage character. Stone skin+high Dex/evasion from monstrance will Ensure anything but the most determined physical attackers to take on you. Base on initial testing, most characters whose stats do not have a ratio of Dex Str better then 2:1 will not be able to touch you. Stone skin will cover if they do and safety zone is the last resort.
Against magicians, the protection from lvl 10 prophecy is a necessary. It’s the next best thing after plague Doctors bloodletting. With divine might, 22 blocks is quite some bit and with a 25s cool down, it can be maintained most of the battle. The key to beating a wizard so to exhaust their magic cycle. The moment you feel that they will unleash most of their magic, a well timed counterspell will waste bulk of their charges. Safety zone can cover a small period where counterspell cools. Counterspell a do destroy ice walls so this is especially effective against cryo.
GVG, counterspell + prophecy pretty much makes enemy wizards impotent for a good 30s. Everything depends on your team skill and you are just mainly a support.
The only major downside: things get extremely boring at times since you can only normal Attack. The occasional cure and exorcism really don’t speed things up by a whole lot.
so for the dude I responded to, basically Oracle’s Counter Spell is working as intended, only the attribute isn’t.