Post Big Bang Holy Arrow question.

As the class-specific forums don't seem to get a lot of views...

My cleric was created back in '05 and was the first character I "stuck" with, after prior attempts on a bowman and a warrior. A friend of mine I'd met in KPQ had suggested I make one, due to them being the most useful mage class, and having the ability to both heal other players and attack monsters. As per his urging, and the recommendation of other clerics-to-be, I went along with the path of maxing Holy Arrow and keeping MP Eater at 1.

Years have passed, and with the general consensus that Holy Arrow is useless and MP Eater is important, I've long debated that decision.

With Big Bang's promised SP Resets, it seems I'll have a second chance, so to speak, at my cleric.
After all is said and done with the skill changes, is MP Eater still considered more important than Holy Arrow? Or will Holy Arrow finally be useful?

It's weaker than magic claw unless you are on a single target (pretty rare after BB) or you are up against a holy-weak monster.

Even then, training with heal should be faster than both other skills since it's just so fast and practical.

Thank you for the quick reply. I was leaning toward going the MP Eater route and not maxing Arrow, as I don't use it all that much anyhow.

It's weaker than magic claw unless you are on a single target (pretty rare after BB) or you are up against a holy-weak monster.

Even then, training with heal should be faster than both other skills since it's just so fast and practical.

Pretty much this. Heal is better because it hits multiple targets, is affected by mastery now, and on top of that deals holy damage instead of heal damage. It's still only able to hit undead though, but most of your training spots will consist of that still. The one thing about Bishops is that their builds change, but not the dump skills. It's the same rules as before:
Don't max Energy Bolt
Don't max Holy Arrow
Don't max Doom
Don't max Mana Reflection
There will always be conflict of what to max, but the vast majority of Bishops will tell you the prior.

Holy Arrow isn't useless; it does 380% damage, making it the most powerful 2nd job 1v1 magician attack. It's just not practical to get because it gets replaced by Angel Ray and you have to give up MP Eater to max it.

Yeah, MP eater during your heal-spamming days will save you buckets on cash. Holy arrow is 100% rotten stinking garbage the moment you get angel ray. Plus MP eater still helps (a little bit) during 4th job, so *shrug* MP eater all the way!

who needs mp eater when you can pot f3

Heal isn't meant to be a true attack skill as you will find plenty of places where there are not Undead monsters. Holy Arrow does have it's limitations but it does pack a punch and it is a bit stronger than Magic Claw.

who needs mp eater when you can pot f3

Who needs pots when you have MP Eater? More inventory room is always welcome.

Who needs pots when you have MP Eater? More inventory room is always welcome.

MP Eater did get dramatically nerfed in restructuring. I think it was changed to 20% proc rate to recover 10% of the monster's MP at max. It's hard to say how useful it is now, though, if it triggers with each strike (like Ice Strike, Thunder Spear, Big Bang, etc), it might be a bit more useful.

MP Eater did get dramatically nerfed in restructuring. I think it was changed to 20% proc rate to recover 10% of the monster's MP at max. It's hard to say how useful it is now, though, if it triggers with each strike (like Ice Strike, Thunder Spear, Big Bang, etc), it might be a bit more useful.

Didn't it always do this?

I remember when I still played my priest on GMS a couple years ago I would almost always be recovering MP as long as I was attacking more than 1 mob.

MP Eater did get dramatically nerfed in restructuring. I think it was changed to 20% proc rate to recover 10% of the monster's MP at max. It's hard to say how useful it is now, though, if it triggers with each strike (like Ice Strike, Thunder Spear, Big Bang, etc), it might be a bit more useful.

Mind you, it's still much more useful than MP eater now, just because monster's max MP is so much higher. Regular mob MPs right now barely get to 200; post-BB, i think they get up to 1000 by the mid third job. I read a post on the forum that while training, this person only used two MP pots per level. That saves a ton of money, especially compared to the current millions that at least I needed to level with ultimates.

Heal isn't meant to be a true attack skill as you will find plenty of places where there are not Undead monsters. Holy Arrow does have it's limitations but it does pack a punch and it is a bit stronger than Magic Claw.

Magic Claw is stronger than Holy Arrow if you have 2 monsters in front of you.

Also magic claw goes through walls/ground while holy arrow doesn't.

Mind you, it's still much more useful than MP eater now, just because monster's max MP is so much higher. Regular mob MPs right now barely get to 200; post-BB, i think they get up to 1000 by the mid third job. I read a post on the forum that while training, this person only used two MP pots per level. That saves a ton of money, especially compared to the current millions that at least I needed to level with ultimates.

Yeah, the average post-BB monster has well over 10x the MP of a pre-BB monster of about the same level, so MP Eater post-Restructure is still much better than it is pre-BB. Chief Oblivion Guardians have 18k MP. It's pretty ridiculous immediately after BB how little MP you need.

My bad to those that corrected me above. I didn't really bother to look at the monster's MP.

Hmm Big bang (the skill) is going to be crazy mana drain... Btw is Angel ray still nearly point blank range?