Early Priest Survival

[Monkey Face]

Originally Posted by Tregonsee

Check the difference in weight of the weapon. Heavier weapons count against your weight carrying capacity, but also have chances for a critical hit. I think that is level dependent, so maybe the lighter weapon is better at lower character levels...

Ball and Chain and Quarterstaff are both 15lbs.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Wraitheist

Hey guys, how do you survive long enough as a priest to get Orb of Draining?

This question is actually hard to answer (as you can see from answers) as most of the veterans here get past that point so fast that they don't actually need any specific strategy to do it. At least nothing they do consciously. It would be easier to analyze what you need by examining how you fail to get there.

So what kills you and how? Is there any commonalities between deaths? Reason why you just died? Reason why you were in that situation at the first place? Actually if you can answer those questions you are already more than half-way thru discovering how to avoid that yourself.

[Wraitheist]

I actually posted this in anticipation of making a priest, not from dying repeatedly. I actually have played a few priests that went pretty deep before dying, but that was a while ago and I couldn't for the life of me remember how I killed anything before OoD. This time, I used most of my starting $ to buy a long bow and some arrows and getting to lvl 9 was a piece of cake. Unfortunately, he died somewhere around '2200.

[Raxmei]

I usually rely on melee. The bonuses from Bless aren't bad early on and as long as you're careful (it strikes me that how this is done might not be obvious) you can often just spam CLW to simply outlast the opposition. Cure Light Wounds is a cornerstone of my priest strategy for a lot of the game. I don't really lean on Orb until several levels after I've learned it. The failure rate and my SP rating limit how much I can rely on it so there's some lag time before it becomes more efficient than bash & heal. Don't forget to carry the potions too, and phase door. Offensive magic devices are handy too, often just for finishing off monsters that run away because you can wear them down but don't hit hard enough to finish the job quickly.

[Wraitheist]

I never thought of that strat...I'll give it a shot.