Pure cleric battle cleric? Is it doable?

[aavah]

Just posting for a bit of advice, I currently have a lvl 7 cleric, 28 point build that's human, I was wondering, it it possible for a newish player to make a pure cleric a good fighter without any splashes? My main character is a lvl 25 cleric with 1 fighter lvl, I just wanted to try something different, any advice and help would be great!

[Vellrad]

Humm Humm lets see....

Level 18 gives only haste and one spell slot to take resurrection

Level 19 gives absolutely nothing

Level 20 gives lacking capstones.

Cost of going 20- 2 feats vs 18 version, 3 vs 17 version, not to mention acces to fighter or monk or whoever enchancements.

IMO staying pure is not worth it.

Is it possible?

Sure, but its going to be very hard with 28pt build.

[Charononus]

Possible sure, but there is no good reason for it.

[aavah]

Thanks for the advice, guess my thoughts on being able to do it were silly, still got my free LR if needed but with the advice given, I will probably either splash 1 fighter lvl or 1 paladin lvl.

[Charononus]

Thanks for the advice, guess my thoughts on being able to do it were silly, still got my free LR if needed but with the advice given, I will probably either splash 1 fighter lvl or 1 paladin lvl.

Go 2 pally if you don't need the feats from fighter, your saves will thank you and saves are a big part of not getting dead.

[aavah]

Go 2 pally if you don't need the feats from fighter, your saves will thank you and saves are a big part of not getting dead.

Good point...I'd rather not end up a soulstone, I've actually never played paladin...though as far as I've seen, they are great fighters, get a bonus to AC due to aura and anything that helps my saves, is a great help!

What would be the best lvls to take paladin at? I'm already lvl 7 but as I still said, I can easily LR. I'll probably go down the warpriest path on enhancements, good idea or bad?

[Charononus]

Good point...I'd rather not end up a soulstone, I've actually never played paladin...though as far as I've seen, they are great fighters, get a bonus to AC due to aura and anything that helps my saves, is a great help!

Pure pallies aren't so great to play, but pally splashes are awesome. (Problem with pure pallies is that they have very poor enhancement tree's in comparison with other dps trees)

[aavah]

Pure pallies aren't so great to play, but pally splashes are awesome. (Problem with pure pallies is that they have very poor enhancement tree's in comparison with other dps trees)

Glad I chose cleric over paladin then :) I thought I wanted to be more of a support role, though since playing my lvl 25, all I seem to do is heal ( playing on epic H) and is kind of boring so a change of pace and actually dealing some damage is fun :)
Will be fun to see what it ends up like at the higher heroic and epic lvls

[Yaga_Nub]

Yes it's very doable. Don't let everyone else talk you into a splash if you don't really want to do it. If you haven't planned for having a good CHA then splashing the pally levels don't really matter. You can do clonk easily enough but you still have to make sure your stats are set up correctly. Just play it to 20 and if you don't like it TR. :)

[aavah]

Yes it's very doable. Don't let everyone else talk you into a splash if you don't really want to do it. If you haven't planned for having a good CHA then splashing the pally levels don't really matter. You can do clonk easily enough but you still have to make sure your stats are set up correctly. Just play it to 20 and if you don't like it TR. :)

My charisma is not the best, as I did plan on the more fighting aspect of things...as of now, 7 turns is more than enough and I really only use my sp for self healing, I do toss a heal at those party member in severe need though, other than that though...I'm not sure a cleric/monk splash is something I'd enjoy, though a pure light monk I have (lvl 16 currently) is a really good fun to play build.

[Dandonk]

Is a pure cleric battle-divine doable? Yes, IMO. No, it's not super-uber-optimized-selfsufficient-can-do-everything-and-look-great-doing-it, but it'll do just fine even so.

[LOOON375]

yes it's doable. I have a first life, Halfling pure Cleric that uses mauls.

It is very doable.

I dumped wisdom in favor of jacking up my strength. Kept my con to a decent level and made sure my Cha got some love for the Aura and bursts.

He does decent melee DPS and has 2000 SP and can heal the entire party if need be.

[aavah]

yes it's doable. I have a first life, Halfling pure Cleric that uses mauls.

It is very doable.

I dumped wisdom in favor of jacking up my strength. Kept my con to a decent level and made sure my Cha got some love for the Aura and bursts.

He does decent melee DPS and has 2000 SP and can heal the entire party if need be.

Ah, so you dumped a fair amount of wis? Mines got a fair amount for healing ability (mainly for myself but also for party members in trouble)

Base stats are:

Str 16
Dex 9
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 11

Not got any tomes on me as of yet but shouldn't be hard to find a few +1s on AH

I will make sure I get the positive energy aura, it's the 1 true thing I miss at the low lvls

[mobrien316]

A battle cleric with no splashes is very doable, though it will be tough on a 28 point character.

My dwarven battle cleric is 36 point build with the following feats: Toughness, Dwarven Waraxe Proficiency, Empower Healing, Power Attack, Improved Critical: Slashing, Quicken, and Maximize. He maxes concentration and heal, and puts any extra points into balance.

My reason for staying pure is simply that is how I envision the character. With his dwarven waraxe, shield, and heavy armor, with Power Attack going, and sometimes a Heroism pot and Divine Favor going, he is good at melee. Not great, but good. He is also an excellent healer.

If you want to play a pure battle cleric, go ahead and do so. You don't need to min-max every character and go with the optimal build all the time. I think it's actually more fun and challenging if you don't.

[aavah]

A battle cleric with no splashes is very doable, though it will be tough on a 28 point character.

My dwarven battle cleric is 36 point build with the following feats: Toughness, Dwarven Waraxe Proficiency, Empower Healing, Power Attack, Improved Critical: Slashing, Quicken, and Maximize. He maxes concentration and heal, and puts any extra points into balance.

My reason for staying pure is simply that is how I envision the character. With his dwarven waraxe, shield, and heavy armor, with Power Attack going, and sometimes a Heroism pot and Divine Favor going, he is good at melee. Not great, but good. He is also an excellent healer.

If you want to play a pure battle cleric, go ahead and do so. You don't need to min-max every character and go with the optimal build all the time. I think it's actually more fun and challenging if you don't.

You have a fair few extra build points compared to me, I do have 32 point build access (through favour) though the cost of reincarnation to upgrade the build points to me seems somewhat expensive. I wanted to stay pure because I've already done a cleric with 1 lvl fighter splash, good at healing and I wanted to get the weapon proficencys sadly though, after update 19, had to LR my main and my str suffered as a result so it's more a caster type/ healbot.

As for my feats so far on my lvl 7

Emp healing
Emp spell
Heroic durability
Imp heroic durability
Had to take greatsword proficency as it's my weapon of choice AC suffers though :(
Mental toughness

I don't mind a challenge...though I think your right about it being a 28 point build

[firemedium_jt]

You have a fair few extra build points compared to me, I do have 32 point build access (through favour) though the cost of reincarnation to upgrade the build points to me seems somewhat expensive. I wanted to stay pure because I've already done a cleric with 1 lvl fighter splash, good at healing and I wanted to get the weapon proficencys sadly though, after update 19, had to LR my main and my str suffered as a result so it's more a caster type/ healbot.

As for my feats so far on my lvl 7

Emp healing
Emp spell
Heroic durability
Imp heroic durability
Had to take greatsword proficency as it's my weapon of choice AC suffers though :(
Mental toughness

I don't mind a challenge...though I think your right about it being a 28 point build

Your feats need work and there are plenty of builds on here.

Heroic durability
Imp heroic durability
Had to take greatsword proficency as it's my weapon of choice AC suffers though :(
Mental toughness

These should be dropped.

for

Maximize
Power Attack
for heroic Keen Falchions are better. You can get long sword prof with Follower of the Sovereign Host, and swap out Falchions later if you want. Maybe even take Great Axes. This is assuming you are a Melee Cleric because Battle Cleric can be casting or melee.


With the new SLAs going Pure is nice. You get all SLAs that way. I like that now.

As minimum feats you probably need

Empower Heal
Maximize

I also like Empower.

All these feats make your SLAs and your Burst healing awesome and these feats cost nothing in spell points to add them to your SLAs and Radiant Servant Burst.

These feats also help with you DOT Divine Punishment which is your Boss weapon if you hang back and heal which may be your job sometimes even if you are a melee Cleric.




As another option I usually run my Clerics as CLR17/WIZ1. WIZ1 is for a meta feat and umd for stoneskin and displacement scrolls and teleport scrolls. I usually splash WIZ1 at character level 2.
WIZ1 gives you Master's Touch spell for weapon prof in any martial weapon I hold.

There are so many ways to raise saving throws now with gear that I don't see a need to splash Pally. That also means you need to raise CHR too much for that which can be better used elsewhere. You don't need the saving throws by the time you get them because you will be almost lvl 20. You should not splash too much on a Cleric, so you get your level 9 spells ASAP. Unless you deep splash melee of more than 3 levels, and are just a self healing Melee with some nice casting.

[ThePrincipal]

I have a first life 28 pt dwarf pure cleric who is now lvl 26 and farming LD currently at tier 3.

stats - 16 str, 8 dex, 16 con, 12 wis, 12 cha, 10 int. skills intimidate, balance, heal (+2 int tome at 7). You can LR and dump wis and put more into cha.

feats - toughness, empwer heal, quicken, greataxe, power attack, cleave, great cleave
epic feats - overwhelming crit and improved crit

once I hit 27 i'm going to switch toughness for maximize. i'll be sitting at about 750 hp unbuffed so wont need it.

with headman's chop from LD, i'll be doing x6 crits on normal attacks. I farmed Angel and Sentinal to tier 5. Both are fun but if you want to melee in EE, LD is the way to do it. I'm so far twisting in the 10% sp reduction and 10% turn recovery speed.

My only weak point is reflex save. I can mitigate DFB with fire shield cold guard but Chain Lightning is a beast. The war priest aoe buff has a 15% elemental damage absorb affect but it's so buggy right now.

Still a work in progress. Still playing with the specs. Very fun. Go pure.

[axel15810]

You can stay pure with a battlecleric, but it is not optimal.

If you don't care about min/maxing then go for it. The real winners in this game are the ones who have the most fun anyways :D

Your melee DPS won't be as good as a splash, but you'll have more spell points than those who splash pally or fighter levels.

You'll also have access to the Implacable Foe enhancement on the Warpriest tree unlike other battle clerics, as it requires 20 cleric levels. The cooldown on it is way too long...I've never used it but the +10% damage to party members looks like it would be a nice boost on raids. I have no idea if it stacks with other buffs though.

The big problem with pure is the lack of feats...you'll get 2-3 less feats than a splashed battlecleric. I strongly recommend going Human to help with this. You'll still have to give up something as far as feats go.

For feats absolutely take these without question -

Empower heal
Maximize
Power attack
Improved Critical
Quicken (unless you don't want to heal raids ever)

Rest of the feats are up to you and debatable and depend large part on your playstyle, if you are going THF or TWF and how much you like to use your turns to heal. THF will be much easier feat-wise but TWF would allow you to get more benefits out of the Warpriest tree if you plan on going for it. You'll have to do something to get weapon proficiencies unless you want to carry a shield and be a cleric tank (you'll lose a lot of DPS though).

Toughness is very popular but I don't think it's mandatory anymore now that it's not a prerequisite for toughness enhancements. And if you're going sentinel or fury of the wild you may not need the extra HP. Empower would be good for better bursts and better Blade Barrier/Divine Punishment, cleave/g cleave/overwhelming critical is awesome if you can fit it in. If you want to be more of a tank you could go for epic toughness and take the sentinel destiny. All up to how you want to play the character. There's lots of ways to do that, good luck and have fun.

[aavah]

@firemedium I'll probably swap my mental toughness out as well as heroic durability and imp heroic durability. I'm guessing taking greatsword proficency was a bit of a feat waste too. I already have maximise and emp healing, find those to be the most useful, will probably take quicken after if I do end up needing to heal in raids ect. I like the idea of getting proficency with those via the religious feat. No really in it for the SLAs so those to me would be a nice extra.
Have to say, my favorite spell of all time is divine punishment lol! A cleric just isn't a cleric without it :)
I'll probably stick more to melee fighting than spells, as on a 1st life it's kind of hard to affect the mobs as much as I'd like :(


@theprincipal seems like your stats are quite similar to mine...on my main character (lvl 25 cleric/fighter I've already got my lvl 5 unyielding sentinel, favorite stance- vigor of battle for the extra AC ect, 87 AC fully buffed on it. Onto my 2nd destiny which is exalted angel, which is an ok destiny...though I'd prefer the AC and protection over more sp.

I'm thinking with my lvl 7 cleric, I'll probably do a LR, swap a few feats, drop a few points in wis and put some more into charisma and stay pure cleric. So far, I am liking pure, can only get better the higher I lvl, the low stuff is a right pain sometimes lol

Just want to say thanks for all of your ideas and thoughts, I love to learn all the different things that can be done in game :)

[aavah]

You can stay pure with a battlecleric, but it is not optimal.

If you don't care about min/maxing then go for it. The real winners in this game are the ones who have the most fun anyways :D

Your melee DPS won't be as good as a splash, but you'll have more spell points than those who splash pally or fighter levels.

You'll also have access to the Implacable Foe enhancement on the Warpriest tree unlike other battle clerics, as it requires 20 cleric levels. The cooldown on it is way too long...I've never used it but the +10% damage to party members looks like it would be a nice boost on raids. I have no idea if it stacks with other buffs though.

The big problem with pure is the lack of feats...you'll get 2-3 less feats than a splashed battlecleric. I strongly recommend going Human to help with this. You'll still have to give up something as far as feats go.

For feats absolutely take these without question -

Empower heal
Maximize
Power attack
Improved Critical
Quicken (unless you don't want to heal raids ever)

Rest of the feats are up to you and debatable and depend large part on your playstyle, if you are going THF or TWF and how much you like to use your turns to heal. THF will be much easier feat-wise but TWF would allow you to get more benefits out of the Warpriest tree if you plan on going for it. You'll have to do something to get weapon proficiencies unless you want to carry a shield and be a cleric tank (you'll lose a lot of DPS though).

Toughness is very popular but I don't think it's mandatory anymore now that it's not a prerequisite for toughness enhancements. And if you're going sentinel or fury of the wild you may not need the extra HP. Empower would be good for better bursts and better Blade Barrier/Divine Punishment, cleave/g cleave/overwhelming critical is awesome if you can fit it in. If you want to be more of a tank you could go for epic toughness and take the sentinel destiny. All up to how you want to play the character. There's lots of ways to do that, good luck and have fun.

Personally, I'd rather go down the 2 handed option rather than 2WF, as as far as I've read you can never totally get rid of the penalty for doing so. I'd rather not splash cause as much as it adds to my DPS, it means I couldn't get the capstones. Plus if I stay pure cleric, I could be a healer if really, really needed in a raid as backup. Not that it's my favorite role. Just a shame I'll have less feats, guess for every positive Thing there's a neg lol. Looks like I'll be having a lot of fun with this build :)

[TheGardes]

Yes it's very doable. Don't let everyone else talk you into a splash if you don't really want to do it. If you haven't planned for having a good CHA then splashing the pally levels don't really matter. You can do clonk easily enough but you still have to make sure your stats are set up correctly. Just play it to 20 and if you don't like it TR. :)
This is what I did. You'll learn a lot by doing this, and then you can have more information available to you for what you'd like your next life to be.

Sometimes all the planning of the next life is as much fun as the actual life itself.

[aavah]

I've sort I decided on my 2nd life already....getting my main lvl 25 up to 28, saving up the tokens for a free TR :) it's cleric and I want to play it as a 2nd life cleric. My guild is sort of low on them lol, mainly monks and rogues in mine so they do appreciate a healer in raids ect

[axel15810]

Personally, I'd rather go down the 2 handed option rather than 2WF, as as far as I've read you can never totally get rid of the penalty for doing so. I'd rather not splash cause as much as it adds to my DPS, it means I couldn't get the capstones. Plus if I stay pure cleric, I could be a healer if really, really needed in a raid as backup. Not that it's my favorite role. Just a shame I'll have less feats, guess for every positive Thing there's a neg lol. Looks like I'll be having a lot of fun with this build :)

Not trying to convince you to splash or anything but just FYI splashes have no problem healing raids so don't think you have to stay pure to be a raid healer. 17 cleric levels is all you need to heal raids as that's what is required to get the Mass Heal spell. You will have a few hundred more spell points than fighter/pally/monk splashes though so you'll be able to heal a little bit longer.

[aavah]

Well, more sp is always good...especially with those quests on elite with just 1 shrine, could always get sp pots though I guess but they don't come cheap exactly. Wanting to stay pure cleric for the capstone also, which I've not had before though it's a while before I get to 20

[ValariusK]

The new battle cleric enhancement line is kind of odd. The way the procs work, like ameliorating smite, it favors high crit weapons dual wielded. But the righteous weapons line, which can give you effectively +5 to hit and +5 to damage for 10 total points, works only on your religiously favored weapon, which is a longsword for melee oriented human priests. Elves get scimitars, which are probably optimal for that purpose. So two weapon fighting with oversized weapons? My existing priest is a Two Handed weapon user. So is the new war priest supposed to be an Elven dual scimitar user? They can get dex to hit through their racial tree I suppose, and the +2 dexterity makes the necessary two weapon feats easy to qualify for.

[axel15810]

The new battle cleric enhancement line is kind of odd. The way the procs work, like ameliorating smite, it favors high crit weapons dual wielded. But the righteous weapons line, which can give you effectively +5 to hit and +5 to damage for 10 total points, works only on your religiously favored weapon, which is a longsword for melee oriented human priests. Elves get scimitars, which are probably optimal for that purpose. So two weapon fighting with oversized weapons? My existing priest is a Two Handed weapon user. So is the new war priest supposed to be an Elven dual scimitar user? They can get dex to hit through their racial tree I suppose, and the +2 dexterity makes the necessary two weapon feats easy to qualify for.

Yeah it's very weird. I personally think the warpriest tree should favor THF since it makes the most sense for most feat starved battle clerics. I don't think the devs really thought this through. I seriously doubt it was their intention to encourage TWF battle clerics.