General

[quote=rosegirl163]IMO, if you are lucky enough to go against a damage reflecting boss, AR = instant death. Some people might be able to get out of AR's hyper indignant mode fast enough to use heal but why risk it? Recast = takes time and confuses me.[/quote]

"AR = Instant Death". But so is mist eruption, snipe, paralyze, octo punch, chain lightening, finishing blow, giga wave, dark impale, hurricane, arrow platter, and literally any other attack by any class.

Angel's ray auto heals too so what's this talk about turning off RI, healing, then rebuffing about? Besides, there's no practical point to tank DR so why would u bother?

[quote=xProHeal]Holy Fountain can be pretty useless. I hardly ever use it, but then again I hardly ever do anything that can actually use this skill. In places with pot lock I can heal party members faster by attacking them with Angel Ray instead of casting Holy Fountain and making them press up to heal themselves.
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IMO, if you are lucky enough to go against a damage reflecting boss, AR = instant death. Some people might be able to get out of AR's hyper indignant mode fast enough to use heal but why risk it? Recast = takes time and confuses me.

@Kiiori: I'm currently f/p for the time being for damage reasons (basically until I can do somewhere around 22m per line with AR on bosses) for the time being but I do main a bishop. I can tell you that I can see your logic on Shining Ray because for the longest while I never bossed either. That being said, Fountain in bossing situations is BEYOND invaluable to anyone else who goes with you because certain bosses force a cool down time for how often you can use a potion (ie Gollux, Cygnus, Magnus) and it gives everyone else the ability to stay alive much longer. The BEST use for it is doing Chaos Queen runs when someone has extremely low status resistance and gets slammed with Zombify AND the flames... Lets you have wiggle room before you have to run over and dispel them.

Also to clarify, Angel Ray is a bossing AND mobbing skill if you hadn't figured that out yet. It hits 4 lines normally and hits I can't even remember how many mobs off the top of my head, but when you use the level 150 active hyper it flips it into a 1v1 skill with 4 more lines and 1 more attack speed. As for HMS, "Time till next shield" means how long after it activates a guard it has to wait until it will do it again. When you/a party member with Shell on gets hit it triggers Shell to guard you with a shield, which at max level lasts 20 seconds or the next 10 attacks whichever happens first. After that the shield "breaks" and the next one doesn't go up until 30 seconds after the first one went up.

As for your 4th job skills and what order to max them I do suggest the guide from @lsGamer, I used it when I came back in like February and its what I refer people to when they have skill/hyper build questions.

[url=http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Guide-Cleric-Priest-Bishop-Guide-462.html]IsGamer's Guide[/url]

@xProHeal: Ok, I've reached 100 and the first 4 SP were used on AR, Genesis, Big Bang, and Enhanced Bless. A few things first.

"Holy Magic Shell, as it levels so does the duration, the number attacks it can absorb, and the time you have to wait to cast another shell"

- The problem I had with leveling Holy Magic shell was that each point didn't do all that much. I mean the heal is 100% throughout, cool down does not get reduced, and the Number of Attacks Absorbed went up by 5 over 19 Skill Points.
- I also don't understand what "Time till next shield" means. My initial thought was that at max level, I will gain another shield every 30 seconds, until the ability is off cool down. But this doesn't seem to be the case. So I have zero idea what this means.

In hindsight, I do see the values and benefits of Holy Magic Shell and Divine Protection. I didn't notice Divine Protection's resistance passive and thought the spell shield isn't that useful when I can just Dispel. Holy Magic Shell is OP, just hate how it spans over 20 points.

I was going to voice my disappointment for Big Bang's cast time but coincidentally, I was playing around with the abilities and I noticed Big Bang wasn't having a cast time for some reason. Then I saw your comment. Honestly, the way they word abilities is so confusing.

If you don't mind, can you tell me the general order I should be maxing my 4th job abilities in? I don't party at all and was planning to train at Evo Labs but apparently I have to be lvl 105. Thanks for the help.

@elevendays I mean, I now acknowledge that Holy Magic Shell and Divine Protection are definitely worth maxing. It's just that I would still max Shining Ray over Holy Fountain if I were to redo 3rd job. It doesn't make sense if I max something I'm never gonna use. Some people mentioned Mystic Door which would have been an option had not maxed it already. A lot of people who suggested to not max Shining Ray kinda just went with a general rule, like, "just don't max the attack and that's the way to go", which doesn't cater to my situation. And not to mention, I had already maxed Shining Ray.. So it wasn't even an option in the first place. lol

Just don't max door. I honestly can't think of that many situations in which a long duration door is necessary.

[quote=Kiirori]Holy Fountain is completely useless for me.[/quote]

Holy Fountain can be pretty useless. I hardly ever use it, but then again I hardly ever do anything that can actually use this skill. In places with pot lock I can heal party members faster by attacking them with Angel Ray instead of casting Holy Fountain and making them press up to heal themselves.

[quote=Kiirori]Holy Magic Shell would look good if extra ability points on it actually did anything[/quote]

Holy Magic Shell, as it levels so does the duration, the number attacks it can absorb, and the time you have to wait to cast another shell.

Level 01 Holy Magic Shell: MP -50, HP Recovery: 100%, Duration: 10 sec, Max Number of Attacks Absorbed: 5, Time to Next Shield Available: 90 sec, Cooldown: 90 sec
Level 20 Holy Magic Shell: MP -70, HP Recovery: 100%, Duration: 20 sec, Max Number of Attacks Absorbed: 10, Time to Next Shield Available: 30 sec, Cooldown: 90 sec

I don't know about you, but I can surely see a difference between level 1 Holy Magic Shell and level 20 Holy Magic Shell.

[quote=Kiirori]and then there's Divine Protection which seems to be the most practical and/or least useless spell out of the three.[/quote]

I hope you're kidding about Divine Protection. I would consider this the top skill out of the three you have listed since a bulk of a bishops status resist comes from this skill at max level:

Level 10 Divine Protection: MP -80, resist critical Abnormal Status once. Cooldown: 180 sec [b]Passive Effect: Increases Abnormal Status and all Elemental Resistances by 40%[/b]

At level 209, I easily have 85% status resist which I can get to 95% status resist with the HS hyper added to it. Once we get the remaining Cygnus Knights revamp I'll be easily over 100% status resist. Compare a bishops status resist to their arch mage counterparts, and this skill is godly.

[quote=Kiirori]I actually feel a pending disappointment knowing that Angel Ray will replace Shining Ray since AR it's only a line AoE. But someone mentioned that it's a bossing skill so I guess it'll be useful.[/quote]

Angel Ray doesn't replace Shining Ray in 4th job, Genesis and Big Bang replaces Shining Ray. In 4th job, when you cast Genesis it allows you to spam Big Bang which has a much larger range than Shining Ray and can also be casted while jumping unlike Shining Ray. Angel Ray is a bossing move once you get the hyper Righteously Indignant at level 150 I think.

If you're just going to argue against everyone trying to give you some genuine advice, why ask for it in the first place? </3

Shining ray is useless because of how Nexon shifted the leveling bonuses of skills. Now the skills start off very high and only get marginally better as you level them up. This is compared to way back when with the easiest example being old Savage Blow, a skill that starts off at two hits of 40% or something and eventually levels up to six hits of 80%.

Holy fountain is EXTREMELY useful in boss rooms with pot cooldown or if u find urself separated from ur party.
Holy shell actually increases in duration and blocks more hits when u put SP.
Divine protection is a MUST. U get 40% resistance to status and elements which is a game changer late levels.

So what not to max? Either shining ray or door. Shining ray is practically useless once u get genesis+big bang and teleport mastery can take over the stun. Besides, adding extra points only slightly increases the damage by a neglectible amount. Adding points to door only increases its duration. Ultimately, probably u would want to not max shining ray.

[quote=Kiirori]@UNfazed While I am aware that Bishop is a support class, I actually picked it for the free heal and exp. Like seriously, disregard everything and I still think those two abilities are completely OP given that no other classes have them (I think).

What I don't understand is why you guys all consider Shining Ray useless. I mean, post 4th job, obviously, it gets replaced. But during the 3rd job grind, it's such a good mobbing skill, from grinding at Jesters, to Drakes, to w/e I'm training on now. I actually feel a pending disappointment knowing that Angel Ray will replace Shining Ray since AR it's only a line AoE. But someone mentioned that it's a bossing skill so I guess it'll be useful.

I would've compromised with Mystic Door for sure, but I've already mastered it because I couldn't really understand what those 3 other spells do. lol[/quote]

You don't get it. When people create classes, they max out the skills that will help them in the future rather then the ones that will help you in the particular job. Focus on other skills before even touching shining ray. And the thing is, considering levelling is so easy now, it'll only take you a good 3 hours to get from level 60-100 anyway even without your attacking skill being maxed.

I train lots of characters up to fourth job and I can say for a fact that you should max out every skill before your attacking skill
most of the time it doesn't help you train as fast as a buff that increases attack by 30 or whatever
also I had a friend who didn't know how aran works so he maxed out his attack skill before his combo skill and had to remake it
I always train just as well without max attacking skill and I never kill myself for later on

Surprise, a mechanic appears!

Personally, training chars for link skills and what not...

I job advance-> place 1 point into new attack skill, place others into buffs and stuffs.

then i just dump all points into the attack skill BUT i stop at 19 out of 20 or something like that.

then i can train fast while still being able to max all of my SUPPORT SKILLS, which i'll use.

@UNfazed While I am aware that Bishop is a support class, I actually picked it for the free heal and exp. Like seriously, disregard everything and I still think those two abilities are completely OP given that no other classes have them (I think).

What I don't understand is why you guys all consider Shining Ray useless. I mean, post 4th job, obviously, it gets replaced. But during the 3rd job grind, it's such a good mobbing skill, from grinding at Jesters, to Drakes, to w/e I'm training on now. I actually feel a pending disappointment knowing that Angel Ray will replace Shining Ray since AR it's only a line AoE. But someone mentioned that it's a bossing skill so I guess it'll be useful.

I would've compromised with Mystic Door for sure, but I've already mastered it because I couldn't really understand what those 3 other spells do. lol

Shining ray is useless. Holy Fountain and Magic Shell are useful. If you're picking up Bishop you should at least be aware that its a support class, where a good 1/3 of your skills are catered directly to helping and healing instead of hurting.

If you absolutely needed those levels in Shining Ray, I would probably take away some from Mystic Door. Like the extra duration is nifty but hell 100 seconds off the door duration isn't going to kill anyone and you can just door again pretty fast...

@Kiirori: In that case don't max fountain and continue on until a reset happens to appear in the near by future.

@Kiirori AR (your main bossing skill in 4th job) heals you. What the appeal of fountain is that it helps out other members of your bossing party

@Newcomer @xxSab @AuraShade86 I assume you guys aren't joking around?... Shining Ray was the first I mastered. I know that it gets outclassed later on but it definitely helped me level up faster, I mean, I'm still lvl 91. If I had mastered the others, they'd just be sitting there not being used and I'd still probably be in the 80s.

I mean how is Holy Fountain useful (given that I don't really boss or party), does pressing 'up' not interfere with other commands? Cos at max level, each 'up' press heals a measly 40%, I'd rather just use Heal for 100% and be able to move around.

I don't completely understand how Divine Protection and Holy Magic Shell works but I think I'll max those two over Holy Fountain. And if Holy Fountain really is that useful, I'll just wait till the next SP reset once I'm 4th job. Thanks for the help guys.

Shining Ray. Big Bang outclasses it by far, and Holy Fountain is useful when doing bosses like Cygnus or Magnus

It may seem useless at the time, but think about it, in the future, would you be using shining ray or holy fountain. Holy fountain has more uses in the future than shining ray. Shining ray is outclassed by angel ray and big bang

Took this straight out of IsGamer post red bishop guide Max everything expect Shining Ray will not be maxed, it will be at 14.
[url=http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Guide-Cleric-Priest-Bishop-Guide-462.html] Here you go.[/url]