Tsalinx (prime)/Tsalinx's Cleric Guide
WORK IN PROGRESS - updated September 6th, 2025
Clerics are my favorite class. Since the class received a "review" in 2019, they have become extremely powerful, versatile, and fun to play. In 2022 we received a class service, Sanctify, that made playing a cleric extremely lucrative. We are also sought out for rescues since we can bring dead adventurers back to life, providing cleric players with a sense of value and importance. Overall, if you choose to play a cleric, you can't go wrong. Here I will use my experience to provide some advice to help maximize your powers and reap the rewards of the holy (or unholy) life.
My experience: I played a cleric named Tsalin in the 1990s up to roughly level 160 - I believe I was the highest level cleric in the lands when I quit. I returned in 2017 and rolled up a new cleric, Tsalinx, who I capped in about a year. In 2021 I started another cleric, Tsalyn, who I capped in 7 month's time. I have another cleric in his 60's as well. Point being: I have a ton of experience leveling clerics and I hope this guide helps you or someone you know!
First Things First
If you're brand new to the game, make sure to check out the New Players' Guide to learn the basics.
I also recommend you read my Pre Level 20 Leveling Tips for some more general advice, although I will cover some of that here where pertinent.
Using a Training Spreadsheet can be very helpful for planning your skills and stats. Many of my screenshots below will come from this spreadsheet.
Pre Level 20 Decisions
Choosing a Race
Gemstone is a roleplaying game - so first and foremost, if that matters to you at all, you should choose whatever race you want to be. No race is bad - they all have their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is to have fun...so pick something fun!
That being said, if you're like me and you think you'll have fun playing any race, here are some considerations:
- Many attacks/setups that clerics use are CS-based. Our CS is modified by our wisdom bonus, and there are only two classes that have a bonus to wisdom: dark elf and forest gnome. Many people choose dark elf because they don't want the -10 strength bonus that forest gnomes receive. All of my modern clerics are dark elves.
- Historically, two other important attributes have been sought after in clerics: being strong for dragging dead bodies and having a high spirit generation rate for Raise Dead. This meant that dwarf and giantman were common cleric races. While they are still excellent choices, dragging dead bodies is less of an issue/concern these days and spirit regen, while helpful, is no longer of huge importance.
- While we do have a diverse set of bolt attacks, which are improved with dexterity, I find them to be the weakest part of our overall toolkit. I would not highly prioritize a dexterity bonus when choosing my race, but if you want to use bolt spells as your primary attack (it's still decent!), you may want to take that into consideration. I'll discuss bolting more below.
- If you're rolling up a cleric primarily to sell the Sanctify service, you might be interested in a race with a nice influence bonus.
Setting Your Initial Stats
Let's talk about the importance of each individual stat for clerics pre-20:
- Wisdom - increases your warding CS and gives double training points benefit
- Intuition - gives double training points
- Dexterity - increases your Bolt AS and reduces melee roundtime
- Logic - increases the rate of experience absorption
- Strength - allows you to carry more and improves melee/brawling attack strength (AS) if you choose that route
- Constitution - allows you to carry more
- Agility - increases brawling Unarmed Attack Factor (UAF) and reduces melee roundtime
- Aura - increases spirit points which is useful when you reach level 18...not so much before then unless you join CoL
- Influence - not very useful early on
- Discipline - not very useful early on
Clerics have wisdom and intuition as their prime requisite stats, which grant double the training points. Wisdom is key for improving your casting strength (CS) as well. I'd set both of these to 100 to start. After that, it depends somewhat on what strategy you want to use (see below). Other things aside, we favor the mental stats over the physical ones, because these grant mental training points (MTPs) that we need for our magical training. It is normal to quickly run out of MTPs and have to use PTPs instead, which requires 2 PTPs converted for each 1 MTP.
Note: you get 5 “free” stat changes that you will lose when you hit level 20. After 20, you have to buy (with silvers, simucoins, or bounty points) a FIXSTATS potion, which is rather expensive. You can use these by checking in to the local inn. When you adjust your stats, you are adjusting your level 0 stats, which will then automatically "grow" to your level when you're done.
Early on, set your stats to give you the best combat effectiveness. If possible, I also like to make sure Logic is 100 to maximize EXP gain, though you may have to settle on 90. You might want to change your stats to accommodate different builds as you get closer to 20 and test out your strategy options. When you’re about to hit level 20, use one stat change to lock in your long-term plan. This means you need to save one for your "final" stats change before you hit level 20. More on this below.
Here's an example of how I would start a new dark elf cleric at level 0. Note that if you choose a different race, you may want to compensate in different areas. For example, if you choose a forest gnome, you may want to increase strength some more to make up for their -10 bonus.
Statistics Level 0 Setting Strength 70 Constitution 70 Dexterity 30 Agility 30 Discipline 35 Aura 35 Logic 100 Intuition 100 Wisdom 100 Influence 90
- This is just until level 19 - see below.
How to Train a Young Cleric (Skills)
Clerics have a diverse toolkit with many options for how to hunt. It's often better to focus on one strategy rather than to be a jack of many trades (you can't do them all!), but this comes down to your playstyle and preferences.
Condemn (309) Build
This is my favorite strategy: it uses Condemn (309) as your primary attack spell (until level 9 you cast Smite/Bane as you would with a pure warding build). It really takes off at level 20 when you learn Ethereal Censer (320), but is also strong pre-20. The game plan is to bind them with Prayer of Holding or Web and then cast 309, giving you a +100 bonus to the end roll and practically guaranteeing huge damage. You can also use Smite/Bane or Unbalance to set up 309 if needed. Note: Web is a level 18 spell so you won't really get to use this early on...but you have other options.
- Armor Use: two ranks at level 0 and wear full leathers. Get 4 more ranks at level 4 and wear double leathers.
- Physical Fitness: train this 1x per level basically - it gives you health points.
- Harness Power: train this 2x per level basically - it gives you a lot of mana! Stop at 30 ranks (diminishing returns) and you won't train it again until level 31 usually.
- Spell Aiming: this is the main difference with this build - as this gives a bonus to 309's effectiveness.
- Spirit Mana Control: 24 ranks needed at level 18 to Raise Dead.
- Major Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Shield. The third rank is marginally useful for Manna. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS.
- Minor Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Barrier. The third rank is another useful defensive spell: Spirit Defense. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS. The tenth rank will give you Unbalance which is a good option against living targets. It also gives +1 CS per 3 ranks, as long as you keep it below 2/3 of your level.
- Cleric Spell Ranks: Besides the useful/required spells, this is also our main source of CS. Every rank above your level gives +0.75 CS until 20 ranks. At 21 ranks above level, you gain +16 CS, which is very helpful for casting Prayer of Holding and Smite/Bane. Getting 40 ranks at level 18 will upgrade your Raise Dead that you just learned so you never have to use the weakest version!
Pure Warding
This used to be how clerics had to level before we were given Condemn. You will pretty much do nothing but spam cast Smite/Bane (302), which is fairly boring. It is, however, effective early on with the right training, and has improved with the lower mana cost and cast time for Interference.
- Armor Use: two ranks at level 0 and wear full leathers. Get 4 more ranks at level 4 and wear double leathers.
- Physical Fitness: train this 1x per level basically - it gives you health points.
- Harness Power: train this 2x per level basically - it gives you a lot of mana! Stop at 30 ranks (diminishing returns) and you won't train it again until level 31 usually.
- Spirit Mana Control: 24 ranks needed at level 18 to Raise Dead.
- Major Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Shield. The third rank is marginally useful for Manna. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS. The 12th rank gives you Interference which can be used to lower your enemy's Target Defense.
- Minor Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Barrier. The third rank is another useful defensive spell: Spirit Defense. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS.
- Cleric Spell Ranks: Besides the useful/required spells, this is also our main source of CS. Every rank above your level gives +0.75 CS until 20 ranks. At 21 ranks above level, you gain +16 CS. Getting 40 ranks at level 18 will upgrade your Raise Dead that you just learned so you never have to use the weakest version!
Bolting Build
I'm not a big fan of bolting clerics, but early on against undead it can be strong. At higher levels, I think it clearly becomes weaker than Condemn (309) builds. Similar game plan as above: set up with Prayer of Holding then bolt. Note that your Holy Bolt is not very strong against non-undead until you unlock the Plasma version, which you probably won't do pre-20 since it requires an expensive 30 ranks of Religion Lore.
You will also want to adjust your stats to put Dexterity to 100 since it adds to your bolt AS. This will detract from some of your other stats, of course. Here's an example of how I might do it for pre-20:
Statistics Level 0 Setting Strength 50 Constitution 50 Dexterity 100 Agility 30 Discipline 30 Aura 30 Logic 90 Intuition 100 Wisdom 100 Influence 80
- Armor Use: two ranks at level 0 and wear full leathers. Get 4 more ranks at level 4 and wear double leathers.
- Physical Fitness: train this 1x per level basically - it gives you health points.
- Harness Power: train this 2x per level basically - it gives you a lot of mana! Stop at 30 ranks (diminishing returns) and you won't train it again until level 31 usually.
- Spell Aiming: this is the main difference with this build - as this is the source of your Bolt AS.
- Spirit Mana Control: 24 ranks needed at level 18 to Raise Dead.
- Major Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Shield. The third rank is marginally useful for Manna. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS. The 11th rank gives a Bolt AS buff in Bravery and the 15th rank gives another Bolt AS buff with Heroism.
- Minor Spirit Spell Ranks: The first rank gives +1 CS. The 2nd rank gives a useful defensive spell: Spirit Barrier. The third rank is another useful defensive spell: Spirit Defense. The 4th rank gives another +1 CS.
- Cleric Spell Ranks: Besides the useful/required spells, this is also our main source of CS. Every rank above your level gives +0.75 CS until 20 ranks. At 21 ranks above level, you gain +16 CS, which is very helpful for casting Prayer of Holding and Smite/Bane, which are needed to set up your bolts.
Melee or Brawling
This used to be the most common method for almost everyone to get to level 20, mostly because young casters didn't have enough mana to hunt effectively until later in life. Years ago, however, changes were made to how Harness Power provides mana at lower levels, granting lowbies a much larger mana pool.
I won't spend much time on it here because I don't think it's fun or necessary, but in general you're going to train once every level in physical fitness, combat maneuvers, harness power, and whatever weapon skill you choose to focus on (generally either two-handed weapons to use a claidhmore or brawling to do unarmed combat). The rest of your points should probably go into spells, with a priority towards learning the spells that provide +AS/UAF: Benediction (307), Bravery (211), Heroism (215). Remember that you can change your spell training at any time, so feel free to focus in one area and then completely change it at level 7, 11, and 15 when you are able to cast those spells.
Join a Society
Joining a society is an important decision for roleplay, hunting power, and utility reasons. Each society has its own benefits, but in general it's best to join early so you can start using those benefits to help your hunting. It may also affect your strategy decisions: for example, if you join the Order of Voln you will likely hunt mostly undead.
Personally I think Voln has the best utility and synergizes very well with clerics, given our powerful Prayer of Holding (301) spell that only works on undead and our ability to get undead-only holy fire flares for free. However it provides a number of benefits that are redundant with our profession abilities (preserving corpses, group teleportation, blessing weapons, etc.). Voln also requires ongoing undead hunting, because killing undead earns favor, which is required to use your symbols. The biggest draw here, personally, is the use of Symbol of Seeking which provides amazing utility and costs no favor to use.
CoL is also a strong choice, mainly due to Sign of Wracking. While you won't NEED this ability, it is very strong and useful. You will want to make sure you have enough spirit points to use it. The main disadvantage is the risk of having low spirit, which includes spirit death and reduced defensive ability. CoL is also the most boring society...but the signs you use are fairly cheap (mana and spirit) and last a long time. Mastering CoL is the fastest/easiest of the three societies.
The Guardians of Sunfist is probably the least popular society, although it has strong utility and sigils. This is probably because it's the most difficult to master; you'll really want to complete it before you hit level 20. The sigils cost mana and stamina. You get access to your own personal hunting areas called warcamps. To me this is the least attractive society but some swear by it!
This debate about which society to join is heavily debated and it comes down to your personal preference and roleplaying decisions. The above are just my personal opinions.
Before You Hit Level 20
When you get close to 20 it’s time to consider your long-term stats and skills. After you hit 20, you won't be able to change these easily anymore. When you are 1000 exp away from level 20, the game will pause your experience gain until you CONFIRM that you're ready to proceed...so that's a great time to make these changes. Hopefully you already tested out different strategies and know what you want to focus on!
Locking In Your Level 20+ STATS
Now that you've chosen a strategy for go forward with, you will need to set stats that are best for that strategy. The main decision, in my mind, is whether you want to put extra points into dexterity so you can use BOLT spells. I capped Tsalyn in 7 months using mostly 309, and never needed bolts, so you're ok skipping them...but many people enjoy the diversity.
There are generally two schools of thought with regards to level 20+ stat allocation:
- Optimize for cap: set your stats at 19 such that you will have “perfect” stats at cap (level 100). While this can be rewarding later on, it makes the leveling process much more difficult. You will be weaker in key stats for a long time, and you’ll have less training points to use. Also, you can't actually get perfect stats, so in this case I try to get as close as possible. Not recommended for new players.
Here are examples for a level 19 dark elf cleric - again you may want to adjust based on your race choice:
Statistics Level 0 Setting Level 50 Results Level 100 Results Strength 71 86 99 Constitution 67 81 94 Dexterity 76 86 95 Agility 71 86 99 Discipline 58 78 95 Aura 77 87 96 Logic 62 83 100 Intuition 62 83 100 Wisdom 49 80 100 Influence 67 83 96
- This gives fewer 100s but makes it easier to get to all 100s with Ascension
- Optimize for level 50 (ish): set your stats at 19 such that your most important stats will hit 100 at level 50. This is a good balance and will not greatly hinder you early on, yet you will still have fairly good stats at cap. At some point after you cap, you can invest in a FIXSTATS potion to achieve perfect stats. If you do bounties throughout the process, you can usually afford to buy one with bounty points you’ve earned along the way.
Here are examples for a level 19 dark elf cleric - again you may want to adjust based on your race choice:
Statistics Level 0 Setting Level 50 Results Level 100 Results Strength 58 75 90 Constitution 62 77 90 Dexterity 63 76 86 Agility 55 73 88 Discipline 47 71 88 Aura 62 74 85 Logic 84 100 100 Intuition 84 100 100 Wisdom 80 100 100 Influence 65 81 94
Locking In Your Level 20+ SKILLS
What I recommend at level 19, just before you hit 20, is a little different than most...and may seem a little odd...but hear me out: those utility skills (perception, first aid, survival, MIU/AS) still do pretty much nothing. The only exception is SMC, which is now useful for raising the dead. Practically nothing at level 20 is doing anything where you need perception to defend against it...maybe this will change, or you're in some area where the level 20 enemies are particularly ferocious, but I advocate that you continue to maximize your power and deal with defense/utility just a bit later.
You continue to have three basic routes, as discussed above: 309 build, Pure CS, bolting. You can, of course, mix and match, possibly watering down one build in favor of more options - and that's fine - but here I'll provide a recommended early training plan for all three...and then discuss later what to do next!
Condemn (309) Build Post 20
See above for more details regarding this build - but here we continue with the plan: +21 CS, catch up on other circle spells, and maintain spell aiming to buff 309. Once caught up and as we approach 30 where things get a little more dangerous, we catch up on the utility skills. NOTE: the choice between going up Minor or Major Spiritual spell circles first is up to you. Choose Minor Spiritual if you want to get Web (118) first to help against living enemies, as 118+309 is similarly effective to 301+309 as a combo (if you do this, just pause after learning Lesser Shroud (120)). Choose Major Spiritual first if you are in Order of Voln and only hunting undead, because personally I'd rather have access to Interference (212) and Minor Sanctuary (213) first.
Pure Warding Post 20
Here we have some extra points because we don't need Religion Lore for bolting, nor do we need Spell Aiming. As such you can see we can get our secondary circle spells faster and we start having extra training points before 40.
Bolting Build Post 20
See above for more details regarding this build - but here we start off with 30 Religion Lore ranks, which slows us down on everything else. Also starting with spells 211/215 for the added AS. Then we try to catch up on the +21 Cleric Ranks goal and Minor Spiritual spells. Once caught up and as we approach 30 where things get a little more dangerous, we catch up on perception, followed by utility skills a little later.
You will also want to adjust your stats plan to put Dexterity a little higher since it adds to your bolt AS. This will detract from some of your other stats, of course.
Leveling from 20 to 100
Using the above plans will get you started. Once you reach about level 40, I recommend you tailor things to suit your style. There are a number of different options for things you can use your extra training points on, which I will go over here. Keep doing the base stuff (for example, 1x perception, harness power, Cleric spell ranks, etc. every level).
At some point you will want to go above +21 Cleric Spell Ranks to push your CS even higher...I wouldn't wait much longer than around level 70 to do that as things do get harder. You can do it much earlier too if you don't want to add any other skills and just want to focus on being a better hunter!
- 2x SMC: details to be added here, coming soon!
- First Aid:
- Survival:
- Lores:
- Climbing/Swimming:
- Secondary circle spell ranks:
- Cleric circle spell ranks: