Clerics

Cleric
Able to heal multiple target's HP and remove stats effects, they are crucial to the party. They are the ones who keep the party alive.

While soloing they have their own ranged spells and are able to heal themselves. They are able to wear up to chain armor and can equip either a staff or mace and shield.

Clerics are focused to keep their party alive and protected. Most of their skills are those that either heal or remove status effects but they also have enough spells to protect themselves and cause satus effects on the enemy.

They can be called the 'moving potion'. As each skill has a different amount of MP used you must familiarize yourself with all the spells. Also as most spells take 1 to 3.5 seconds to cast, knowing the flow of the battle is crucial. An experienced cleric is capable of predicting the damage that his or her party is to take and cast their spells so that as soon as your party takes damage the cleric is able to heal you back.

As they are capable of wearing chain armor they have a relatively high defense.

Thanks to their offensive spells and ability to heal themselves they are able to hold their own in PVP. However their ability to hunt is admittedly slower than others.

Soloing
Clerics are relatively slower in leveling if soloing. Most of their offensive skills are ranged thus it is advisable to deal as much damage as you can from a range before engaging them with melee attacks.

Party play
It is advisable to level a cleric with a party. Their role is to be at the back, healing the tanks and the damage dealers. They can also revive party members, allowing fallen friends to join the battle once more.

Whilst it may seem that it is a disadvantage that clerics dont have as many offensive spells, it can be an advantage as there are not as many spells to clutter and confuse the beginner.

In 1:1 situations whilst clerics do not have a high burst capability as other classes they are quite stable. In 1:1 situations if both sides are equally skilled and gears are of similar level clerics are often stronger of the two.

Whilst clerics may be difficult to level at first, they are highly sought after at all levels so it may be worth the task.