Lineage II/Shillien Elder

Shillien Elders are generally seen as healers and also have all standard buffs as well as two exclusive (and very good) buffs.

The first one is Vampiric Rage which gives the player healing from the melee damage they deal; this spell is naturally especially interesting for classes which deal a lot of melee damage, but have not many hitpoints and relatively bad defense (for example, Tyrant or Treasure Hunter). In any case, this buff saves mana otherwise needed for healing and makes up for the lack of the Greater Battle Heal of the Bishop.

A likewise effect to Vampiric Rage is available for level 74 bladedancers and level 44 to level 74 warcryers; still the shillien elder gets this buff much ealier (level 30) and masters it first (level 72). I don't know how good the buff is in comparison to the dance.

The second buff is Empower. This spell causes nukers (Sorcerer, Spellsinger, Spellhowler) to make more damage in their offensive spells. It can be combined with the prophets Berserk and Acumen as well as the corresponding Bladedancers dances to max the damage of nuker spells.

Too, like Elven Elders, Shillien Elders get the special wizard buff Wild Magic and can give other players Mana by using the Recharge spell.

Buffs

 * Death Whisper – Increases critical damage
 * Empower - Increases m.atk.
 * Focus – Increases critical rates
 * Greater Concentration – Decreases chance that the magic will be canceled due to damage
 * Guidance – Increases accuracy
 * Mental Aegis - Increases defense against a large range of attacks (dryad root etc)
 * Might – Increases P. atk.
 * Resist Wind – Resistance to wind attacks
 * Shield – Increases P. def.
 * Vampiric Rage - Converts part of the damage dealt into healing for the character
 * Wild Magic - Increases chance for critical magic (this buff is next to useless as magical crits are very seldom)
 * Wind Walk - Increases moving speed

Other Spells

 * Disrupt Undead - Attack on undead, no longer updated after Level 35
 * Dryad Root - Disables the movement of the victim
 * Greater Group Heal – Stronger version of Group Heal
 * Greater Heal – Stronger version of Heal
 * Purify – Removes bleed and poison
 * Recharge - Give another player from the own mana pool (nukers get a special skill which will give them a lot more mana than other classes from a recharge)

Equipment
Like all other clerical classes, Shillien Elders get a skill for using both robes and (magic) light armor and get a generic weapon skill which works for all weapons equally good (or bad). Naturally, the way to play this class vary a lot. Like the other clerical classes, it is quite popular to wear dual swords and light armor. Alternatively, one can also use a bow in combination with Dryad Root. Simply wearing wizard outfit is also very popular.

The best c-grade cloth is probably the Karmian robe set. A Shillen Elder needs spellcasting speed more than anything else. On b-grade the light Blue Wolf armor is a good choice, as is the Avadon robe. On a-grade, Tallum Robe is maybe best, with Dark Crystal a very close second and Majestic thanks to its mana regeneration not bad at all either.

M.atk. is quite useless to Shillien Elders, as none of their spells (except the wizard damage spells of the starter class dark mystic and the no longer updated spell Disrupt Undead of the Shillien Oracle) are improved by it, for healing spells only marginally get better with high m.atk. Still Shillien Elders still often will prefer mage weapons on higher levels as those can have special abilities like UpDown, Mana Up or Acumen, which greatly increase the party value of this very party dependend class.

A Shillien Elder will want to sacrifice Men for Wis to speed up the very slow spellcasting. Also, lowering the Strength by 8 to increase both Dex and Con by 4 will help a lot with more hitpoints, faster running, better evasion etc. As others can make a douzen times more damage anyway, sacrificing strength doesn't change much anyway.

Playstyle
Shillien elders are harder to solo as prophets, as they can't buff themselves as well, and harder to solo as bishops, as those at least get an ambundance of good spells against undead, and are still worse than elven elders, who also get at least a specialized damage spell against undead that is still getting updated. Therefore shillien elders are even more dependend upon getting a good party as the other clerical classes.

The best party for a Shillien Elder is a combo with prophet and a couple of melee high damage dealers and/or nukers. Together with the prophet, a SE can buff such a party much faster (if the prophet has a clue which spells the shillien already has, so he can concentrate on the rest) and to the maximum possible effectivity level (except for the buffs Agility and Resist Shock, which are exclusive to Elven Elders). Too, a Shillen can heal quite well, even if not as fast as a bishop, but as a replacement at least the SE will potentially be longer able to heal (the Vamp Rage already gives healing without any further doing of the SE, plus the SE can't waste any mp through the expensive Greater Battle Heal, plus unfortunately dark elves are the slowest of all casters).

On higher levels, the SE becomes the dreampartner of nukers, because the high level spells are very mana expensive and the SE can give them lots of Mana; for one point spend by the Shillien the nuker gets four points back into his mana pool.

For raids, SE's is not as good as a bishops, as they can't heal as fast as the later, while raid bosses usually deal huge amounts of damage that can't be healed up just with Vampiric Rage. But in dungeons, SE's shine, especially if the warriors of the group use polearm weapons. With the Vampiric Rage, such a warrior can fight a large group of opponents at the same time with the pole, and still need no (or much less) healing.