The Disciple is a martial healer, who utilizes harmony and balance to heal allies. It shares a fighting style similar to that of Monks incorporating a mixture of Jin, Endurance, and Energy to perform attacks, bolster the party, weaken the enemy, and heal allies. Class Specialist at VG Ten Ton Hammer now give us a creation guide and Level 1-10 Tactics. Let?s check it!

The Disciple looks and feels like a martial artist but the Disciple is first and foremost a healer. Her weapon and armor choices resemble that of a martial artist. The Disciple can use her inner energy to form powerful bonds with her allies and enemies. The Disciple uses her melee attacks to heal her allies and replenish energy. The Disciple is the most melee orientated of the healer classes and is the only healer class that has counter attacks and a counter spell.

Wisdom, vitality, and intelligence are the Disciple?s primary attributes. Wisdom gives the Disciple a large pool of energy to cast healing spells. Vitality provides a bonus to healing spells and increases in-combat regeneration. Intelligence makes it harder for enemies to counter a Disciple?s heals and allows the Disciple to counter the spells of enemies easier. Strength could be a good attribute for a Disciple since some heals are based off of melee blows.

Building a good Disciple takes some careful planning at the character creation screen and requires you to learn a handful of tactics in the lower levels.

Selecting the Right Race

Disciples of all races start with the same attributes, but the choice of race can affect how many points the Disciple automatically gets placed into its prime attributes.

Starting attributes:

STR	CON	DEX	VIT	INT	WIS
35	30	25	35	35	50

Each character gets 20 attribute points (AP) per level, starting at level 10. 6 of your AP are placed for you automatically–one per attribute (STR, CON, DEX, VIT, INT, WIS). 4 points are assigned to attributes based on your race if you are not a human (humans are kojani, mordebi, qaliathari, and thestran). You can place 10 (14 for humans) wherever you want to within soft caps of 5 per level.

Additionally, characters get racial bonuses to their soft caps. These are called preferred stats and allow characters of a race to flesh out in a way that reflects the traits of the race. Non-human races get 4 bonus points to soft caps (usually two or three attributes only) while human races get 6, 1 for each attribute. Thus, a human can be more balanced, while a non-human becomes more specialized.

The table below shows the attribute scores at level 50 before gear and buffs for the Disciple based on the race selected. We?ve highlighted the best results for each of the primary attributes for you. It is possible to reach the soft cap for three attributes as a human, but those soft caps may be lower than those attainable by other races.

Racial Abilities

The other important factor to consider when picking the race for your Disciple is racial abilities. With their short durations and long recasts, racial abilities are less important than attributes in the selection process, but they can be used to pick between races that are otherwise equal. The racial abilities are listed below.

Kojani: Spirit of Jin
This ability will immediately restore 45% of energy and hit points to the target. This ability has a diminishing effect on any target that has benefitted from this ability (used by another player) in the last 10 minutes. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking

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Goblin: Hex of Ghalnn
Whoever is afflicted by this hex will return 3% of the mana and hit points for every hit that is made on them. The effect lasts for 60 seconds. Recast is 15 minutes.

Small Race: 2% bonus to evasion
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Mining

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Half Elf: Symbol of Jin
This ability will apply a rune to every member of the group for 60 seconds, which will mitigate damage by 15%. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity: + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

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Orc: Fury of Ghalnn
For the next 5 attacks after this ability is activated, you will receive a 10% increase to damage and 50% of all the damage you do will return to you in the form of hit points. Recast is 15 minutes.

Large Race: 2% bonus to mitigation
Crafting: +10 Problem Solving
Harvesting: +5 Quarrying

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Raki: Planar Shift
While this ability is active, you will gain a 50% mitigation to all spell damage. Recast is 30 minutes.

Animal Reflexes: 10% bonus to run speed.
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Reaping

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Qaliathari: Swiftness of the Sands
For this next 10 seconds, you will evade all melee attacks and spells. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Ingenuity
Harvesting: +5 Lumberjacking

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Dark Elf: Spawn of Haelufir
This ability allows you to summon forth a small drake for a short duration. The type of drake you summon will be based on class and level. Each type of drake will have a variety of effects at their disposal, ranging from group auras, to breath attacks. The higher level drakes will also learn spells that are sympathetic with their associated class. Recast is 30 minutes.

Elven Wisdom: 2% reduction in mana cost
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

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Kurashasa: Symbiotic Armor
When this armor is active you will be protected by a proc (a process that fires under certain conditions). In addition to a rune that mitigates 25% of all types of damage, you have a chance to apply an effect to all enemies within a 20 meter point-blank radius when you attack, cast a spell, or receive damage. Anyone affected by this debuff will become snared and slowed. Recast is 30 minutes.

Animal Reflexes: 10% bonus to run speed.
Crafting: +10 Reasoning
Harvesting: +5 Skinning

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Mordebi: Curse of the Ancients
This ability stuns the target for 8 seconds, and reduces the aggro range to 0. The target will not assist/aggro while stunned, and the effect does not generate any aggro. Recast is 30 minutes.

Human Ingenuity + 10 bonus to all weapon skills, and dodge.
Crafting: +10 Finesse
Harvesting: +5 Reaping

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Level 1-10 Tactics

Like most classes, Disciples will probably find themselves soloing throughout their early days.  At these levels you¡¯ll want to grab all the quests you can to help you gain more experience.  You¡¯ll find the Disciple class very capable of soloing.  From the very start, you will notice that you have very little downtime in between kills, in order to really take advantage of this you want to be in a fight as often as possible.

Unlike the healers you may be used to, the Disciple not only wants to be engaged in up close combat; they need to be to reach their fullest potential.  This is not your typical healbot. While healing is the Disciple¡¯s primary focus, we have a wide range of skills and abilities that allow us to do much more than just that.

At level 1 you start with two abilities and the tactics will be fairly straight-forward.  Void Hand will be your primary attack; a few of these should bring down anything this level.  You¡¯ll notice that as you use Void Hand you will be accumulating Jin.  Your second ability, Loa¡¯Jin Flare, requires two Ji. This is a fairly small instant cast heal.  At these levels you will probably not find yourself using the heal that much.  But it is important to remember that Loa¡¯Jin Flare does have a short cool down attached to it, so be careful that what you¡¯re fighting is not killing you too quickly.

At level 2 you should head over to your trainer where you will get new abilities every 2 levels from now on.  The attack you get at this level is called Blessed Wind.  This is a fairly high endurance attack that will also put a small heal over time on your defensive target.  At this point you may want open combat with this attack for the HoT (heal over time) and continue to use Void Hand as your main attack.

By level 4, perhaps you¡¯ve noticed that you always have close to a full stock of Jin.  Don¡¯t worry: your new attack, Cyclone Kick, should undoubtedly help you with this.  This is a moderate damage attack that requires 3 Jin to use.  With this attack, you will also be able to use your first endowment.  These are not listed in abilities until you discover them by doing your attacks in a certain order.  The Endowment of Life is a healing effect you will get from using Blessed Wind>Cyclone Kick>Void Hand in that order.  You also get a new heal, Breath of Renewal.  This is a fairly quick heal to cast and will be more than enough to keep you alive.

Now level 6 is where you should notice an increase in your ability to kill things.  With the new finisher Falling Petal, you will be able to down things much quicker.  Falling Petal is only useable after you get a critical strike with one of your other abilities. You will want to use it whenever possible to maximize your damage output.  The other ability you receive this level also adds to your damage and is your first Focus Bond.  Like most focus bonds, Touch of Woe requires 2 Jin to use.  When you have this maintained on the enemy, it will take a small amount of damage whenever it attacks.  This can be very useful for creatures that are higher in level and harder for you to hit.

There is another aspect of the Disciple that will first become available when you reach level 8.  Counter Attacks are useable after a dodge or feint.  Dodge is a defensive maneuver that when used successfully will open up the counterattack Kiss of the Slug.  This combination will not be very useful against most 2-dots in your level range.  However if you are pulling for your group it can be a very good opener to ensure you don¡¯t take much damage right at the start of a fight.

Soul Cutter is another ability that is more useful for groups than solo play.  This attack doesn¡¯t have amazing damage but it reduces the aggro you have on a creature, meaning he will want to attack you less.  In a group situation, this attack is best used before the creature is already attacking you.  This level also brings with it a slower but more powerful heal called Astral Wind.  When using this, you want to make sure you or your target have enough life to survive the 3 second cast time.

You have achieved level 10!  You will now have the solid foundation to what the Disciple class is all about.  At this level, you get a few new things that will make you all the more valuable to a group.  While this class can solo very well, you will almost always find grouping to be the best XP and loots.  Astral Walk is an ability that can only be used while in a dungeon and will bring your groupmate directly to your location. Reincarnate/Awakening are both spells to resurrect your friends if they happen to fall in battle.  Awakening may be used in combat while reincarnate can not.  You?ll also want to use Summon Symbol of Unity, which places a stone in the pack of an ally that can be used to resurrect the Disciple if she happens to die.  You want to put one on all of the group that doesn¡¯t get its own resurrection spell.

This is the level where you get your first buff, Wisdom of the Grasshopper.  This increases the damage you will put out, so you want to have it on you at all times.  You also get your new group heal, Celestial Breeze.  This is a very situational heal that has a high mana cost and longer casting time.  This is good if your group is fighting a creature that uses area of effect spells, but this early on you will probably not need this often.

Also pay attention to the new focus bond alled Kiss of Heaven.  Defensive focus bonds do not seem to be working properly at this point in time.  The healing portion of the bond does work; however the bond seems to be breaking when the person is hit.  So at the moment this bond has very limited uses. It may become very useful in the future.

Jin is a staple of the Disciple class.  How you manage this in tougher fights can be the difference between victory and death.  Out of combat you will lose 1 Jin every 30 seconds.  You want to remember this incase you want to make a quick pull with a focus bond with only a couple Jin in your pool.  The more you level up the more uses you have for Jin, so try to learn what you can in the early stages.

As healers, there is always the added pressure of holding the group?s life in your hands.  As a Disciple you will need to learn to pay attention to a lot of things–more than just the life bars.  For endowments, be sure to check that the creature you¡¯re targeting has enough life for you to successfully do it. You don¡¯t want to realize you¡¯ve had a corpse targeted for the last few seconds as a group mate dies.  But at the same time, good healers are easy to recognize and always sought after by guilds and groups.  When the fighting gets tough healers (more than anyone) need to have a cool head and quick reactions. And this only comes with experience. So good luck and happy hunting!