Philosopher

Introduction

This page contains the Philosopher Class Guide. You may return to Classes when you are finished reading this page.

Philosopher Class Guide

Equipped with the power of intellect, you crush your opponents mentally leaving them in agony. Your enlightened mind can even grant healing powers.

Philosopher is a magical type class that works similarly to Asssassin. As a magic type class, Philosophers make poor use of melee which has no cost. Some of their abilities combine regular abilities with over time effects. They specialize in offensive aoe attacks with Supernova and Planetary Pain in their arsenals. Philosophers have the most talent abilities that require talent points to unlock. If you prefer to play a caster cast that works similarly to Assassin do not wish to play physical type classes, then Philosopher is a solid class.

Stat Breakdown

Strength- Buffs Melee :3
Stamina- Increases Health
Agility- Increases Dodge.
Spirit- Increases Dodge (absorb), Magic Crit and Health and Mana regen outside combat. Mana regen is half as effective in combat
Intellect- Increases Magic Damage and Mana

Stat Build

Your gear scales best with Intellect and Spirit

The weapon and offhand I have shown here are the best (aside from the premium ones of course)
Strength only buffs melee and agility is not worth building.
Stamina scales poorly but is needed. You need just enough to survive a few hits so you have time to heal yourself.

Training (activities > training)

• (2 or 3):1 split between Intellect and Spirit is a good ratio
  • Spirit is a power attribute as you can increase both your crit and regenerate.
  • It's healing is also vital to maintain the balance between offense and recovery.
  • But Intellect has greater priority as damage is what takes down enemies.
  • More mana also means better scaling with mana recovery items.
• Train enough Stamina to survive a few hits.
  • Early on the gap between health and mana is barely noticeable
  • Near the endgame you should have at least 6 times more mana than health
• Eventually the training gap between Intellect and Spirit may increase
  • Your healing will eventually catch up to your current health
  • Magic crit, like Physical crit, will become increasingly difficult to raise.
  • Your mana recovery items will eventually outscale regen as well.

Abilities

Melee- Deals minor damage

This ability deals little damage but has a 1 second cooldown and costs no mana. Since priests do not scale with strength, this ability will be useless fairly quickly. It's not worth investing strength to use.
Unlocked at Start and Rank increases every 15 levels

Cosmic Blast- Charges an attack that deals moderate damage

It's your primary ability and has a 2-second cooldown but requires 2 seconds to charge. That means it'll take a total of 4 seconds between attacks, which is longer compared to Assassin and Titan’s Stab and Bludgeon respectively. This can become a non-issue considering you have Mental Exhaustion and Mental Agony to cast as well. If you press another ability or move before the ability is fully charged it'll end the cast early. This means you'll have to be careful not to press anything else until Cosmic Blast completes casting. Mentioned that Philosopher is similar to Assassin in the sense that both have an Improved talent that increases crit chance.
Unlocked at Start and Rank increases every 20 levels

Mental Agony- Deals damage instantly and again over time

This ability has a 5-second cooldown and isn't an ability you should use on cooldown. To get your mana's worth, Mental Agony's Dot should wear off first. Mental Agony will deal damage 1-2 times (once every 5 seconds) and as with other dots only use it when you can't kill the enemy yet. This Should be a non-issue once you gain a higher mana pool, in which case you could potentially use it every time it's up.
Unlocked at Level 10 and Rank increases every 20 levels

Mental Exhaustion- Deals minor damage over time

This ability deals the same damage as Mental Agony and has a 2-second cooldown. You should definitely not use this ability until the dot wears off. You don't deal damage instantly as Mental Agony does. It deals the same damage as well since deals damage 2-3 times (once every 5 seconds). Time your dots well so you won't waste mana.
Unlocked at level 30 and Rank increases every 20 levels

Cosmic Energy- Charges a spell that recovers health and again over time

The heal is basically Mental Agony or a combination of a Priest's Salvation and Spiritual Rejuvenation. It's your only healing ability and can pose a problem as it also a combined cost of two different abilities. It's not an ability you can always use as recasting it resets and wastes your dot (heal over time). If you can afford the mana it should be no problem. Again, do not use any other ability or action while it is being cast or it will cancel it out.
Unlocked at Start and Rank increases every 20 levels

Supernova- Deals moderate damage to multiple enemies

A very costly ability with a 5-second cooldown, half that of Titan's Warstomp. Even with a second aoe ability, Philosopher should generally fight one enemy at a time. Even if it only targets 1 enemy it's very mana inefficient. This could work against multiple weaker enemies, taking them out in one hit. For example, farming bear/elk meat. Even if the enemies are a bit spread out you can farm them the fastest out of the other classes.
Unlocked at level 20 and Rank increases every 20 levels

Planetary Pain- Charges an attack that deals damage instantly to multiple enemies and again over time

Supernova, but the aoe version of Mental Agony. Same rule applies. Do not use any other ability or action while it is being cast or it will cancel it out.
Unlocked at level 40 and Rank increases every 20 levels

Balance- Lose health to recover mana

A talent ability that has a very short cooldown of 2 seconds. It's possible to never run out of mana. The health lost can be recovered by casting Cosmic Energy with the mana recovered. The higher the talent, the more percent of mana recovered.

Meditation- Double a target's mana/rage regen

A talent ability that has a long cooldown of 90 seconds. It's not an ability you should cast on Assassin/Titan as they have low spirit values in general. Casting it on yourself temporarily allows you to regenerate mana normally in combat.

Astral Projection- Hide from enemies

A talent ability that works like Assassin but has a very long cooldown of 150 seconds. It can hide you from enemies (as long as you don’t get too close) and can disengage you from combat. The aggro in this game only happens when you move so make sure you can reengage before leaving stealth.

Rotation

1. If you have the Meditation ability unlocked, use it on cooldown.
2. Begin the Attack by casting Cosmic Blast
3. Move in and follow up with Mental Agony and Mental Exhaustion
   • Move away from the enemy until Cosmic Blast can be cast again and repeat
   • Keep using Mental Exhaustion to refresh as long as you can’t defeat the enemy within 10-15 seconds.
   • By extension, keep using Mental agony (maybe wait for dot to wear off first) as long as you can't defeat the enemy within 5-10 seconds
4. Cast Cosmic Energy when you need health
5. If you have the Astral Projection ability unlocked, use it when you're low on health to disengage from a fight
6. Use Food if you are low on health or mana
7. If you have the Balance ability unlocked, use it after a fight to recover mana
   • Use Cosmic Energy to recover the health lost

Tl;dr Unless the enemy is a caster, try to kite your enemies as they usually halt after each attack, repeating Cosmic Blast, Mental Agony, and Mental Exaustion combo. (Forget using melee since it's close range)

Against Tough Enemies

1. If you have the Meditation ability unlocked, use it on cooldown.
2. Alternate between casting Cosmic Blast and Cosmic Energy
   • Make sure to also cast Mental Agony and Mental Exhaustion
   • Keep using Mental Exhaustion to refresh as long as you can’t defeat the enemy within 10-15 seconds.
   • By extension, keep using Mental agony (maybe wait for dot to wear off first) as long as you can't defeat the enemy within 5-10 seconds
3. If you have the Astral Projection ability unlocked, use it when you're low on health to disengage from a fight
4. Use Food if you are low on health or mana
5. If you have the Balance ability unlocked, use it after a fight to recover mana
   • Use Cosmic Energy to recover the health lost

The only difference is that you must always be alternating between dealing damage and recovering health, pre-healing so enemies don't shoot you down right away. Philosophers will use up more mana than priests since Cosmic energy has the combined cost of Salvation and Spiritual Rejuvenation.

Talent Tree Overview

This talent tree is the most unique of the classes since it has a single branch line rather than two separate ones. This makes decision making a lot simpler, both lines being your usual stat and stat training increase talents. At the same time, if you want tier 3 talents you'd have to max out your stat training talents first. I consider the left tree to be the recovery while the right tree is the offensive. Both trees have utility and talent-based abilities. You can reset anytime. but just note the cost to reset (after the first free reset) increases every time you reset.
You shouldn't worry about the Talent Tree early on as you only start with one point, gaining more every ten levels. There side quests near the second half of the game that rewards you with a total of 5 talent points. I will list all the talents you can learn and the order you should learn it.

Tier 1

In the first tier you have Improved Spirit and Improved Intellect which increases your stat. You need all 3 points in this in order to learn a second-tier talent called Spirituality and Pure Vision respectively. At max level, you can gain up to 10 percent more of a stat through training. While both are equally important, Intellect has a slight advantage as damage is what takes down enemies.

Next, you have Infusion and Holy Prescence, both of which are healing talents. Infusion is the healing equivalent of Assassin improved sever, extending your Spiritual Rejuvenation and Restoration heal over time by up to 3 ticks (15 seconds). Holy Presence on the other hand increases all healing by up to 10%. Again, both are important but Infusion has slightly more importance. Spiritual Rejuvenation on its own only heals for 1 or 2 ticks. So having at least 1 point in Infusion will make the heal over time more worthwhile.

You have Intervention which is your typical armor increase talent. The gain is up to 20%, which is more than Assassin but slightly less than Titan. Either way Priest (and by extension Philosopher) is a squishy class. So the damage mitigation will be negligible. Even as a filler talent to unlock tier 2 talents, Intervention isn't really worth building.

Finally, you have Excommunication which reduces the chance for enemies to absorb (magic dodge) your attacks by up to 15%. So the equivalent of Titan's Precision talent but slightly more effective (10% vs 15%). You'll only need 2 points of this to access the tier 2 talents of the right tree. While missing attacks can be costly, the chances they will are slim enough that it doesn't matter as much. Max points in Improved Intellect and 2 points in this talent should be enough. Interestingly enough, it mimics Assassin with it's 2 point investment in Improved Sever.

As for what tree you should invest in first, the left tree (healing) appears to be more useful over the right tree (offense). That's only for tier 1 though. Again you can reset your talents anytime, so investing in tier 1 healing talents early, and then switching to tier 1 and 2 "offense" later on is an acceptable choice.

Tier 2

To reiterate, You need all 3 points in either Improved Spirit or Improved Intellect in order to learn a second-tier talent called Spirituality and Pure Vision respectively. At max level, you can gain up to 10 percent more of a stat through training. Intellect (Pure Vision) has a slight advantage preferred over Spirit (Spirituality).

The reason you should switch to the right tree is Wrath and Holy Vengeance. While each class has a talent that increases overall crit, Priest has a unique damage increase (up to 15%) talent. Priest has a talent that increases overall damage and healing, hence the balance between them. You should play this similar to Assassin, upgrade Wrath first. This talent is by far the superior talent, especially since the tier 3 talent isn't that great.

A sleeper talent, Improved Protection is a negligible talent that buffs a somewhat useless ability (for the priest itself). If it were a tier 1 talent, you could take it temporarily to buff a Titan you might play with. So overall not worth building.

Similar to Improved Spirit/Improved Intellect, you have Conservation and Holy Vengeance, which I mentioned earlier. Conservation lowers the mana cost of your healing abilities by up to 10%, similar to Assassin Focus but more limited. Holy Vengeance, again, increases damage by up to 15%. You must max either talent (Conservation or Holy Vengeance) to be able to unlock the final talent. Both Tier 3 talents aren't very good though so Holy Vengeance by default is the superior talent.

Tier 3

Omnipotence has a 10% chance on any cast that COSTS mana to replenish 5% mana. It's identical to Titan's Rampage talent and equally not that great. You get an overall .5% mana recovery on each cast but it costs mana to gain mana. Like Titan but better, Priest should focus not build any tier 3 talents.

Finally you have Soul Purge which more or less does the same thing of regaining mana, with a 25% chance to regain 50% mana after each kill. On average that 12.5% mana for each kill. This is slightly better, even by rng standards, as each proc will give you half your mana bar back. It doesn't require mana to proc either. Regardless tier 3 talents aren't worth investing into.

Talent Order

This is, therefore, the order in which you should level your talents

Infusion to 2
Holy Presence to 3
Talent Reset (once you have 6/7+ total points)
Improved Intellect 
Excommunication to 2
Wrath
Holy Vengeance
Infusion to 2
Holy Presence
Conservation
Improved Spirit
Infusion to 3

I have stopped here for several reasons. Pure Vision and Spirituality can be upgraded at essentially any time. If you want to invest heavily into increases your attributes the 10% boost is nice. I would recommend doing this after you have max points in Wrath and Holy Vengeance. Again I have mentioned that the tier 3 talents aren't really worth building into. By that extension, Improved Protection, Intervention, and subsequent points into Excommunication are equally not worth building into. It's a free for all what order you upgrade those talents in.