First let me say that it is awesome to be playing this game again! I only played a little when I was in school (around 1995ish) and I never made it beyond my 15th training. It wasn't for lack of fun or disinterest, I just had too much going on back then. Then came the Army, Family, deployments, and life! I've always had very fond memories of playing clerics and sorcs back in GS3. My word, how things have changed.

Well I have more time on my hands these days and I'm jumping back in(prime). On to cleric business...

I really want to be a pure. I don't want to swing a sword and I'm not in a position to where wands will be something I can get my hands on. I'm prepared for a slow go of it in the beginning and I think I have read every post on the forums as well as most of the wiki. I still feel like I'm missing some larger truth or something.

When does life become easier? When can I expect to be able to fill my head off my own mana being a pure? I really want to join Voln and hunt undead as well. Do I have to worry about any undead creature gaps in the next 50 trains?

At level 4 I am very familiar with 1700 unfortunately. I don't like the hard RT, but it ultimately makes it possible for me to ignore weapons so it's a love/hate relationship.

Channeling can make 302 MUCH more effective. (up to 3 times as much damage from the average cast with typical low level training if used properly) This makes a huge difference to how effectively you hunt when mana is short.

Training differences (e.g. 2x harness or 3x spells) make differences around 20%. Channeling makes differences around 200%. Its the most important thing by far to get right at low level.

When a critter isn't going to be able to act on you for a while, put your runestaff away, stance offensive and channel.

>Will it ever be possible to hunt without a runestaff all together and just stance dance?

Yes. I do this with a mid level cleric most of the time (only getting a staff out if I lose track of the 319 situation). Its tougher to do it at very low level, at least if you aren't tanking with outside spells.

Some train brawl and never use a staff at all, but I suspect that's fairly tough to manage solo.