Build advice for healer tank

[SylvanPhoenix]

I would love advice on building the best first life healer/tank. My prior characters have been casters or melee DPS. For flavor, I'd like to stick to part paladin and cleric, though I'm open to any build advice.

I originally thought the build would be a paladin/cleric split. I've read posts on splits such as 15 cleric/5 paladin or 17 favored soul/3 paladin. I've also seen the suggestion to splash fighter 4, warlock 5, or artificer 5 with the cleric and paladin levels (such as 11/5/4). Some of these posts are older so I'm not sure if those builds still perform well or if there are preferred approaches given the recent changes.

Oh, it's not vital that this build can solo tough content as I play with 1-2 others regularly (doing r4-6). I would love to tank higher reaper and raids but I'm not sure what's feasible as a first lifer so I'll ease into that. Thanks!

Cheers,
Sylvan

[unbongwah]

Do you have the Falconry tree? If so, you can play a WIS-based melee / healer cleric like Axel's build (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454776-Axel-s-THF-Melee-Cleric-Build). Note that the recent HP changes (https://ddowiki.com/page/Update_57_Release_Notes#Hit_Points) got rid of Epic Defensive Fighting while sprinkling more HP bonuses elsewhere, such as the combat-style feats and tier-5 Warpriest.

Usually the heavily-multiclassed builds are based on adding Enhancements from specific tree(s) E.g. paladin 5 / cleric 15 trades level 9 spells and the last two Cores from cleric trees for access to tier-5 Knight of the Chalice or Sacred Defender to up their melee DPS or tankiness, respectively. It's not something you should do without a specific build goal IMO.

[axel15810]

I would love advice on building the best first life healer/tank. My prior characters have been casters or melee DPS. For flavor, I'd like to stick to part paladin and cleric, though I'm open to any build advice.

I originally thought the build would be a paladin/cleric split. I've read posts on splits such as 15 cleric/5 paladin or 17 favored soul/3 paladin. I've also seen the suggestion to splash fighter 4, warlock 5, or artificer 5 with the cleric and paladin levels (such as 11/5/4). Some of these posts are older so I'm not sure if those builds still perform well or if there are preferred approaches given the recent changes.

Oh, it's not vital that this build can solo tough content as I play with 1-2 others regularly (doing r4-6). I would love to tank higher reaper and raids but I'm not sure what's feasible as a first lifer so I'll ease into that. Thanks!

Cheers,
Sylvan

Lots of options. 17 cleric / 3 pally is probably what I'd go with if I were to build a tanky healer. 17 cleric would allow full spells, most importantly you'll have level 9 true res. Plus divine grace and up to tier 3 in SaD tree from paladin for sacred defender stance goodies. I personally as a healer really like having quickened true res in addition to quickened regular res when healing raids but it's personal preference if you feel you don't need it you can splash further.

[SylvanPhoenix]

Do you have the Falconry tree? If so, you can play a WIS-based melee / healer cleric like Axel's build (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454776-Axel-s-THF-Melee-Cleric-Build). Note that the recent HP changes (https://ddowiki.com/page/Update_57_Release_Notes#Hit_Points) got rid of Epic Defensive Fighting while sprinkling more HP bonuses elsewhere, such as the combat-style feats and tier-5 Warpriest.

Usually the heavily-multiclassed builds are based on adding Enhancements from specific tree(s) E.g. paladin 5 / cleric 15 trades level 9 spells and the last two Cores from cleric trees for access to tier-5 Knight of the Chalice or Sacred Defender to up their melee DPS or tankiness, respectively. It's not something you should do without a specific build goal IMO.

I do have Falconry. My goal here is to experience more of a tank build but I wanted to pair that with healing. My thinking is to lean a bit more on tank vs healer but I'd like to be able to do both. I expect that I'll be an off tank in any harder raids so I'd only be a primary tank for easier difficulties as I'm figuring out how to be a good tank. I don't know if I can be a top tier healer but maybe that's not as critical. I've played healer many times years ago on my Fvs nuker build and it seemed fine but we weren't running super tough content often.

So one question worth exploring is how many levels of cleric will be sufficient (popular splits so far have been 11 vs 15 vs 17)? 17/3 and 15/5 seem the safer bet. I liked the look of this post on a 15/5 split (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/530109-Dex-tank-healer-Cleric-15-Paladin-5-Aasimar). I wonder if my intimidate and hate generation will be sufficient to hold aggro.

[SylvanPhoenix]

Lots of options. 17 cleric / 3 pally is probably what I'd go with if I were to build a tanky healer. 17 cleric would allow full spells, most importantly you'll have level 9 true res. Plus divine grace and up to tier 3 in SaD tree from paladin for sacred defender stance goodies. I personally as a healer really like having quickened true res in addition to quickened regular res when healing raids but it's personal preference if you feel you don't need it you can splash further.

Thanks! I appreciate the insight.

[Caarb]

17/3 is probably the most popular split before u57. These days you could go 20 cleric with T5 falconry or Warpriest for the hit points instead of SaD.