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The Drunken Friar Guide
An experienced friar
From 45 to 50 and beyond:

Levels 45 - 50 : You have many choices on how to get through these last few levels, depending on what expansions you have available to you, and the server you have chosen to play on.

Labyrinth Mobs (Labyrinth) : In the upper sections of the labyrinth, there is a nice semi-safe area that has yellow and blue con mobs, and very few enemy players can reach these areas due to the guards. If you can manage to get into the labyrinth, this can be a great area to farm in. (On Gaheris, you can also get an occasional Glowing Dreaded seal up here.) The double experience bonus is in effect here, that is why it is recommended.

Commander Tasks (Darkness Rising) : These tasks are usually very easy to do, though a few of them are more difficult. A few just have you go talk to one npc or another, a few send you out into the frontiers (Easy on Gaheris, tougher on RvR enabled servers), and a few have you go down into the catacombs. (Gaheris Note: You can do all three realm's tasks seperately here)

Catacombs Tasks (Catacombs) : In the catacombs areas there are many npc's giving out fairly easy quests to complete. All of them give nice experience rewards. There are also named mobs such as Grubthor in the Lower Crypts that drop great friar equipment.

Trials of Atlantis : In the havens, you will find npc's giving out quests that usually reward you with equipment and experience. Some of these are easy enough to solo, a few will require a friend or two.

Shrouded Isles : There are many quests in Shrouded Isles, and you could go from 45 to 50 here fairly easily. At 48, the Stone of Arawn repeatable quest has some fine equipment rewards for friars, and the experience is great. You also have 'Free the Rogue' at Caer Diogel, which you can do at the same time as the commander task that sends you into Krondon. You can also gain faction in Little Haven, the Barbarian town and do the gathering quest that starts there. This area has an experience bonus in effect so that all mobs and quests give 150% of what they normally do, making it a fine area for leveling up in as well.

Classic Lands : Your epic quest gives a lot of experience as well as your epic armor set and some useful (at the levels they are given) jewelry. There are bounty item turn ins that you may be able to buy in housing, and plenty of quests. There is also a 150% experience bonus in effect here.

Darkness Falls : Darkness falls is an interesting place to gain experience for a friar, depending on your server type. If on Gaheris, the only enemy you face is the demons, but on other servers you will also have the enemy realm to contend with. The monsters drop seals that can be traded in for equipment, of which there are several nicer items available. You can also salvage the equipment here for high ammounts of materials, making it a good place to earn gold/platinum. The only issue on RvR servers is gaining entry to the zone, which is open only to the realm with the most towers/keeps. 200% experience bonus is in effect here. Frontiers : There are many places in the frontiers to hunt monsters or players, but most areas can be pretty dangerous for a sub-50 on the RvR servers. 200% experience is your reward though, as well as bounty xp items if you can find the camps.
Level 50+ : Okay, ding 50! Now what?

At this point, you have many options for what to do next. By the time you reach level 40, you should have an idea of what you want your final spec to be. There are many popular ways to specialize a friar, and advice aplenty.

Specs : What does what?

Staff : Your staff spec is what makes you powerful in melee combat. Several of your styles have healing procs attached to them, and the final style, excommunicate, has two effects, a direct group heal, and a damage effect (Energy). You also have the friar's boon/stunning wrath chain off of parry now, which can be very useful in PvP combat. Having Spinning Staff and it's followup available on your quickbar will let you stop runners for a very short time. The side style chain is also nice if you aren't the focus of a person/monster's attention, and has an area effect heal on it.

Enhancements : This should be your primary spec line while leveling up, and in the post-50 game, it is what makes each friar different. You should have at least 35 enhance by 50, but higher is recommended for the most powerful of the group and self buffs. You have endurance cost reduction, a defensive heal proc, and heat/cold/matter resists in various strengths, as well as your pbae heal offensive shout.

Rejuvenation : Depending on your play style, this may be an important or neglected spec line. The spec heals get progressively stronger and faster and require less power/cast time then the unspecced ones, and they always heal for about the same amounts (Barring critical heals). You also have a non-interuptible heal over time spell available in this line, which at it's highest level (44 spec) can easily change the course of a fight. The level 24 heal over time is overwritten by the Holy Staff effect at this point, so if you use holy staff a lot in fights, it doesn't make much sense to spec for this, except for times when you are in the healer role and can't fight, or for when you are between fights but can't stop to heal.

Parry : Speccing in parry increases your chance of blocking incoming attacks with your staff (or mace). Since parry received a boost in 1.87, getting a few points in parry might be a nice idea if you are fighting against multiple attackers on a regular basis.

Some Common (and uncommon) Specs :

50 Staff / 50 Enhance / 14 Parry / 3 Rejuve : Pure Melee friar, hits hard but has less direct healing power, you can expect wild variance in your baseline heals.
50 Staff / 50 Enhance / 13 Parry / 6 Rejuve : Pure melee friar basically, but with the first spec heal for downtime reduction
50 Staff / 46 Enhance / 18 Rejuve / 16 Parry : All around spec, can addapt to many situations
50 Staff / 42 Enhance / 25 Rejuve / 17 parry : Can switch to being backup healer in a pinch
39 Staff / 49 Enhance / 34 Rejuve / 10 Parry : Stronger healer type, can still fight fine, just doesn't have the high damage excommunicate, or stunning wrath for the friar's boon chain
15 Staff / 50 Enhance / 44 Rejuve / 23 Parry : Pure support friar, best of the buffs, last heal over time and spec heal, has enough staff to be able to still fight on his own, but will have trouble hitting anything with shields, evasion, or parry abilities due to lower weaponskill.
6 Staff / 50 Enhance / 44 Rejuve / 27 Parry : Bunker Spec... This friar is hard to kill, but likes to play with his opponents damage-wise. Best place for this spec is in a group. Battlemasters could also use this spec I suppose...

Other things to do : Okay, so I've got a spec...now what?

Trials of Atlantis : Friars have access to battlemaster and perfector master ability sets. Each has a different role to play. Battlemasters tend to be in combat more, while perfectors tend to stand back and help their allies. If you are a strong melee-oriented friar, you may want to choose perfector to balance it out, or help with your pve ability.

Champion Levels : Friars have an easy time in PvE, so you will probably have little difficulty in getting to champion level 10 quickly. Abilities to get include a self str/con buff, a spell or two to pull with, disease, debuffs, GTAE or bolts, a damage shield and add, and maybe some melee styles if you are a support-oriented friar.

Artifacts : Friars have access to many useful and powerful artifacts, like the Egg of Youth to the Croc Tear Ring. If you primarily engage in PvE combat, it might be wise to not use artifact armor in pve unless necessary, for the cost of repairs can sometimes outweigh the benefits of using this equipment. Any jewelry item that doesn't have +skills on it will never need to be repaired, for all other stats in the game never disable, even at 70% condition. I've been wearing some of my jewelry for over a year at 70% condition and their effectiveness is still the same as if it was 100%. Keep this in mind when choosing what you wear jewelry-wise.

A Home : Sometime in your late 40's, or after you reach 50, you should be able to afford your own home in the housing areas. This opens up a lot of opportunities for you to be able to sell drops, darkness falls seals, and get extra storage for your growing collection of items. It also makes a nice place to show off your trophies, or just have fun decorating it. It also makes a safe place to do item and cash transfers (Using the in-house store, you can buy and sell back furniture for the same values, letting you transfer cash quickly if you only have one account)

Crafting : Since 1.87, every class can take up every trade. Each one has it's use. Tailoring can be the most rewarding of the trades for a friar. With it, you can make your own armor (and cloth and studded armor in Albion). Fletching will allow you to make your own staves, and stuff your archer and caster buddies may use. Weaponcrafting can be slow, but useful for those who like swords and shields. Armorcrafting will let you outfit anyone that tailoring won't. Alchemy will let you make poisons, potions, dyes, and weapon/armor procs, something that can be very useful. And spellcrafting will allow you to tinker around with your player-made equipment by adding customized stats to them. All of these take time and money to develop, but you can craft at any level you want. In fact, I'd recommend picking up tailoring as soon as you can afford to work on it, since developing metalworking and fletching will let you salvage equipment drops you can't use and make extra money that way.

RvR : This one is a given.

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