Arcane Cleric

[symin]

Please provide opinion on proposed build, trying too much?

Arcane Cleric
Cleric 20
Lawful Good Elf


Stats
. . . . . . . .28pt . . 32pt. . .34pt . . 36pt. . .Tome. . .Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . --------
Strength. . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . +1 . . . 4: DEX
Dexterity . . . 20. . . .20 . . . 20. . . .20 . . . +3 . . . 8: DEX
Constitution. . .6. . . . 8 . . . 10. . . .12 . . . +4 . . .12: DEX
Intelligence. . 15. . . .16 . . . 16. . . .16 . . . +2 . . .16: DEX
Wisdom. . . . . 12. . . .12 . . . 12. . . .12 . . . +2 . . .20: DEX
Charisma. . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . +1 . . .24: DEX
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28: DEX

Skills
. . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
Concent . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Spellcr . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Heal. . . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. . .22
Balance . 1. ½. ½. 1. 1. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. 11½
Jump. . . 1. 1. 1. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. 11½
Listen. . . . . . . . . .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ . 7½
Tumble. . 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Haggle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .½ . ½
UMD . . . ½. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ½
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .19. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6
. . . . .20. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6


Feats (Errors)

.1. . . . : Precise Shot
.3. . . . : Point Blank Shot
.6. . . . : Precision
.9. . . . : Shot on the Run
12. . . . : Power Critical
15. . . . : Improved Precise Shot
18. . . . : Manyshot
21 Epic . : Combat Archery
24 Epic . : Overwhelming Critical
26 Destiny: Epic Spell Power: Acid
27 Epic . : Epic Damage Reduction
28 Destiny: Doubleshot
29 Destiny: Deific Warding
30 Epic . : Master of: Earth
30 Legend :

.2 Cleric : Earth Domain

.1 Deity. : Follower of: Silver Flame
.6 Deity. : Silver Flame Exorcism


Enhancements (80 AP) (Errors)

Radiant Servant (44 AP)

• Healing Domain, Pacifism, Positive Energy Burst, Improved Empower Healing, Positive Energy Shield, Radiant Servant
  1. Extra Turning III, Divine Cleansing III, Altruism III
  2. Divine Healing III
  3. Intense Healing III, Unyielding Sovereignty, Charisma
  4. Incredible Healing III
  5. Positive Energy Aura, Cure Focus

Elf (19 AP)

• Elven Accuracy, Elven Dexterity, Elven Accuracy II, Elven Dexterity II
  1. Valenar Weapon Training
  2. Valenar Weapon Training
  3. Valenar Weapon Training, Arcane Archer
  4. Valenar Grace, Valenar Weapon Training

Elf-Arcane Archer (17 AP)

• Arcane Archer, Morphic Arrows, Metalline Arrows
  1. Conjure Arrows, Energy of the Wild III, Corrosive Arrows
  2. Corrosive Arrows
  3. Soul Magic, Corrosive Arrows, Dexterity

[unbongwah]

I've done a lot of AA cleric builds over the years, going almost back to when the racial AA tree first came out. So let's pretend that makes me the resident expert.

You definitely messed up your feats which is why it's giving you errors: e.g., Point Blank Shot should come before Precise Shot; Rapid Shot is a pre-req for Manyshot; Shot on the Run requires Dodge + Mobility.

I'm inferring you want an archer / healer. What you want is doable, but it requires narrowing your priorities, IMO, particularly if you're sticking with pure cleric (or FvS), as you don't have a lot of wiggle room with feats or APs. Though you should really consider MCing, if only for the extra feats.

[Enoach]

Not sure if you are stuck on the Earth Domain or not, but you could squeeze a little more spell power for your Acid Arrows going with the Magic Domain

Earth gets you...

+2 Acid Spell Power (Corrosion) per Cleric Level. (+40 at Level 20)
Your acid spells will use Light Spell Power if it is higher. Your light spells will use Acid Spell Power if it is higher.

Magic gets you...

Upon Turning: When you use Turn Undead your party gains a Divine bonus to Universal Spell Power equal to twice your Cleric level for 20 seconds. (So bursts to +40 at level 20 but also to all in party/range)
Level 14: You gain points of Universal Spell Power equal to your twice your Cleric level. (so another +40 at level 20)

The universal would apply to every damage type (Acid, Light, Devotion, Fire, Force), the earth would allow you to focus on Light damage only.

[Sunnie]

It doesn't look very powerful. Sorry.


Starting from the top, you should clean up your skills so they don't end with a half rank. Half ranks do nothing. You're dumping charisma, so unless you go all-in for UMD you won't be able to make use of it anyway.

You cannot take the "Shot on the run" feat unless you also take Dodge and Mobility, and there's no good way to fit all those in on a pure cleric. You need to take Point Blank Shot before you take Precise Shot, switch their order. You need to take the feat "Rapid Shot" before you can take Manyshot, take that instead of SotR I'd say.

The Radiant Servant tree is nice. If you were a caster I'd say go for it and be a great healer. But since you want to use bows and deal damage with those I'll say: Go all-in in Arcane Archer, grab all the corrosive arrows, go all the way to the final core. As a dex-based archer you'll want to spend at least 60 points in your racial tree and AA, but you'll still be worse at it than a Ranger.


I think I can see what you want to do, but there are a lot of factors working against you.
For one, bows are not the strongest ranged option atm. They're certainly playable and even enjoyable, but they need to be built for just-so.
You depend on too many stats, and you don't have nearly enough points to go around. You won't be able to cast spells effectively because of your low wisdom, you'll have fewer spell points because of it, too. Low wisdom also means your paralysing arrows (which you should take) won't be as effective. You won't be able to turn undead well because of your dumped charisma. Your constitution is quite low, making you squishier. Clerics get few skill points per level, and by trying to compensate with a higher intelligence you acerbate the problems I just mentioned. And finally, Clerics have no options for increasing their dexterity, which is the stat you depend on for your base damage.
Clerics are extremely feat-starved, you will probably be just barely able to fit in all the necessary ranged feats and then miss out on some of the ones that make life a little easier.
Clerics also get only 3/4ths Base Attack Bonus, so you get access to many feats later than if you were playing a martial class.


All in all, my opinion is that if you want to play a cleric with a bow you should take 6 levels of ranger (for free feats) and 6 levels of monk (for 10k stars). I played one quite some time ago now, and it was ok. If I were to make a divine arcane archer today, though, I would definitely go with Favored Soul over cleric. They get access to a feat called "Knowledge of Battle" which allows them to use Wisdom for damage. Then they take paralysing arrows and all the mobs turn into sobs

[Tilomere]

Please provide opinion on proposed build, trying too much?

I don't think it is trying enough things that synergy together.

Bow is a long ranged attack, that has weaker defenses for being in melee and fares poorly at short range. Healing aura is a short-range heal.

Healing aura builds are generally tanky melee builds, like Axel's THF build, or the reaper clonklock, or the pali/cleric tank builds.

[Selvera]

I have run 2 AA clerics to level 30 and plan to run more; I find the build fun! Your build has some optimization problems, and (errors) on the feat and enhancement lists are just some of them.

Do you need to multiclass? No, not really. People point out feats, but there's enough feats for a pure cleric to get the required feats for ranged and heal well. I did a solo-class cleric healer and a multiclass cleric-ranger and honestly, there isn't a world of difference between the builds. Pure cleric is a little more healing and might be able to DC cast better, multiclass might do a little extra damage, but since we're going for aura you can't pick up the huge 20% doubleshot from ranger, so it's not too much of an edge. Multiclass does give the option to respec to a higher damage build by giving up your healing role.

It appears that some people think that healing aura has anti-synergy with using a bow? This is false in most content, at least if you play well. Aura has a large enough radius so that you can be healing the tank with aura AND stay at a safe range from any melee-ranged mobs or bosses AND stay within point-blank shot range. But you do need to know if the boss cleaves (and how large) and if there are spellcasters dropping meteors on the tank (or others). In higher difficulties, a miscalculation like this can mean you die. Also, unlike a melee-aura cleric, you can stand back around your mechanic and artificer and have your aura healing them while you all shoot at the boss/mob at a safe range.

Now for the build:
You appear to be mostly focused on ranged dps in addition to healing. Which is one option with this split (the other option is to focus more on DC casting and para arrows). So if you want to do that I would recommend...

Clericarcher
Cleric 20
Elf


Stats
. . . . . . . .36pt . . Tome . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .--------
Strength. . . . .8. . . .+1. . . .4: DEX
Dexterity . . . 20. . . .+3. . . .8: DEX
Constitution. . 14. . . .+4. . . 12: DEX
Intelligence. . 12. . . .+2. . . 16: DEX
Wisdom. . . . . 14. . . .+2. . . 20: DEX
Charisma. . . . .8. . . .+1. . . 24: DEX
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28: DEX

Skills
. . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
Heal. . . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Spellcr . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Concent . . .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .2 .2 .2 .22
Jump. . . 2. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. . . . . .10
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .12. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4. 4


Feats

.1. . . . : Point Blank Shot
.3. . . . : Rapid Shot
.6. . . . : Precise Shot
.9. . . . : Manyshot
12. . . . : Improved Critical: Ranged
15. . . . : Improved Precise Shot
18. . . . : Empower Healing Spell
21 Epic . : Quicken Spell
24 Epic . : Combat Archery
26 Destiny: Epic Spell Power: Positive
27 Epic . : Blinding Speed
28 Destiny: Doubleshot
29 Destiny: Fount of Life
30 Epic . : Overwhelming Critical
30 Legend : Scion of: Celestia

.2 Cleric : War Domain

.1 Deity. : Follower of: Sovereign Host
.6 Deity. : Unyielding Sovereignty


Enhancements (80 AP)

Radiant Servant (35 AP)

• Healing Domain, Pacifism, Positive Energy Burst, Improved Empower Healing
  1. Extra Turning I, Wand Mastery III
  2. Improved Turning I, Efficient Empower Healing III
  3. Intense Healing III, Unyielding Sovereignty, Wisdom
  4. Endless Turning I, Incredible Healing I, Divine Health
  5. Positive Energy Aura, Cure Focus

Elf-Arcane Archer (25 AP)

• Arcane Archer, Morphic Arrows, Metalline Arrows, Aligned Arrows
  1. Conjure Arrows, Corrosive Arrows
  2. Force Arrows II, Elemental Damage
  3. Terror Arrows, Soul Magic, Elemental Damage, Dexterity
  4. Paralyzing Arrows, Elemental Damage

Elf (20 AP)

• Elven Accuracy, Elven Dexterity, Elven Accuracy II
  1. Aerenal Weapon Training
  2. Aerenal Weapon Training, Arcanum I
  3. Aerenal Weapon Training, Arcane Archer
  4. Aerenal Grace, Aerenal Weapon Training, Skill

Let's go over some differences:

Stats: You don't have the AP to spare for KTA, which means int is ONLY for skills, and IMO skills aren't worth all that much. So get more con and wis this way.

Skills: This split doesn't have 1/2 points being wasted; Listen and haggle aren't very useful, if you want you can easily take some points out of spellcraft and/or concentration and put them into tumble, balance or UMD.

Feats: I get all the required feats for being a ranged character and for a healer with this feat list. IMO this is the most optimal feat list for a cleric-archer and I'll challange anyone to try and get a better feat list while remaining pure cleric. (Ranger multiclass would have more leeway here).

You can switch out Blinding Speed for Epic Damage reduction IF you're using the Epic Sapphire Sting against pretty much all foes (Since the 25% ranged alacrity on the bow doesn't stack with the 22% ranged alacrity from the feat).

You can switch out the scion feat to Arboria or Earth; which will both deal more damage then Celestia, but reduce your healing and defenses somewhat.

Domain: Earth domain really only gives a cleric 2 useful things; first off it gives acid+light share spellpower and secondly it gives earthquake. However, neither are very good for this build.

You DO NOT get damage on your elemental imbues if you pump light spellpower, because your imbues are not classified as spells (I tested this as soon as it lamania and testified against this decision, but no change was made). So it would mean the only way you can make use of this is to pump your acid spellpower, and thus gain light spellpower on your light spells. But... light spells make up nearly no dps for you compared with what the bow can do, so taking the time to cast the spell is likely just a waste of mana.

As for earthquake; it is an amazing CC spell... but you don't invest very much into wisdom or evocation DC's in your proposed build. I improve on wisdom a bit, but even so I don't expect to have a good enough DC for earthquake without severe numbers of pastlives and gear optimization for it. So, without a good DC, earthquake isn't very useful.

So since earth domain isn't useful beyond 40 acid spellpower (which is not a very big bonus). You want to look for a different domain. I suggest war domain. War grants holy sword, which is a significant boost to your bow dps. And it also gives +damage with your bow. And also when you turn you give yourself and your party melee/ranged power. So basically it'll be a good overall boost to your dps. Other options you could consider is healing domain, protection domain or magic domain.

Deity: You'd think the bow deity would be good; but it's not. What it gives you is +1 to hit with bows and an active at level 6 which does about 10 damage every few seconds to a single target if it happens to be of a small subset of enemies that is effected by it. Even if you have no pastlives and terrible gear; you'll out-dps this active against all targets by just shooting it with your bow instead of wasting time to cast the active ability.

So since Silver Flame sucks, what other deity is good for bows? I recommend sov host. It gives you an active which is useful in some situations, and does not share a cooldown with the enhancement, meaning you have effectively 2 charges of it.

Enhancements:
I like my split for several reasons. It gives up divine cleansing and altruism from your list (both of which I do not think are very good), and instead gets more doubleshot (elf-skill), more imbue damage (+2d8 that also scales is better then whatever small spellpower boosts you had before), the option to switch to force-imbue arrows (which are very good against undead), and the option to switch to paralyzing arrows (if you find the DC is good, they can be awesome, if not, you got 4 AP you can spend elsewhere). I shave off some +max caster levels for spells that you have infinite max caster levels, and instead get regenerating charges of turn undead. And I manage to squeeze in all of the DR-bypasses from the arcane archer tree.

So yeah, that's just my 2 copper on a build I've heavily analyzed and played twice to cap (and at cap for a while).

[EllisDee37]

Enhancements:
I like my split for several reasons. It gives up divine cleansing and altruism from your list (both of which I do not think are very good), and instead gets more doubleshot (elf-skill), more imbue damage (+2d8 that also scales is better then whatever small spellpower boosts you had before), the option to switch to force-imbue arrows (which are very good against undead), and the option to switch to paralyzing arrows (if you find the DC is good, they can be awesome, if not, you got 4 AP you can spend elsewhere). I shave off some +max caster levels for spells that you have infinite max caster levels, and instead get regenerating charges of turn undead. And I manage to squeeze in all of the DR-bypasses from the arcane archer tree.

No AA capstone?

I tend to agree with you regarding the deity, but the value of the longbow deity is that it makes use of all the Righteous Weapons enhancements in the Warpriest tree. (Essentially the same thing and cost as Weapon Training in the Elf tree.) If we were going with the longbow deity, I see up to 14 AP worth spending in warpriest:
2 AP: First two cores
3 AP: Toughness III
6 AP: Righteous Weapons (Tier 1, 2 and 3)
3 AP: Wall of Steel III
----
14 AP

If we went for AA tier 5 and capstone that would be 41 AP minimum.

Then figure a bare minimum of 17 AP in Elf to unlock the AA tree, get dex to damage, and that 3% doubleshot for 1 AP is too good to pass up.

14 + 41 + 17 = 72

I'd probably then spend the last 8 AP on more dps, not spending a single point in radiant servant. As a pure cleric with no offensive spellcasting to speak of, you're pretty much never going to say to yourself "I wish this build had more healing."

For skills I'd max Jump and UMD (11 ranks each) and spellcraft (23 ranks), and then it's a toss-up whether I'd go with heal or concentration.

And since we have quickened and empowered (healing) heal for self-healing, I'd probably take Deific Warding instead of Fount of Life.

[unbongwah]

No AA capstone?

Not enough APs if you want tier-5 Radiant Servant like OP and Selvera's builds have. And if you give up Positive Energy Aura, is there much point in sticking with cleric in the first place?

Then figure a bare minimum of 17 AP in Elf to unlock the AA tree, get dex to damage, and that 3% doubleshot for 1 AP is too good to pass up.

This costs at least 20 APs:

• 14 to unlock AA
• 4 more for next two ranks of Aerenal Training
• 1 more for Aerenal Grace
• 1 final AP for Skill (+3% doubleshot)

[EllisDee37]

Not enough APs if you want tier-5 Radiant Servant like OP and Selvera's builds have. And if you give up Positive Energy Aura, is there much point in sticking with cleric in the first place?

For a cleric past life on the way to completionist?

Aura is nice and all, but it's not that great in reaper. As for healing in general, you'll have massive healing ability and thousands of spell points with nothing to spend them on except shrine buffs and heals.

I would wring every last bit of dps out of the build since healing is covered by the class levels alone.

[unbongwah]

For a cleric past life on the way to completionist?

If this was just for a cleric PL, I would do something like cleric 8 / monk 6 / rgr 6 instead. If this is a soloing toon, I definitely wouldn't do pure cleric.

OP provided no info on their build goals. As such, I can only try to infer what they're after from the build itself. I can tell what the tradeoffs are; I can't tell which set of tradeoffs is right for the OP.

I have no idea if they plan to run Reapers. I have no idea if this is intended to be e.g. a raid healer. Anything else is pure speculation without OP's input.

[Selvera]

No AA capstone?

There's pretty much 3 ways you can split the enhancements for a dex-based elf cleric archer; each has their advantages and disadvantages.

1) The way I outlined above; with heavy focus on the radiant servant tree and healing aura. This is primarily a healer spec with enough damage to solo if you're forced to. It (as you noticed) primarily spends its mana just on heals and buffs, so it rarely has mana problems (allowing you to give your DC casters those mana orbs).

2) Tier 5 Arcane Archer with the Arcane Archer capstone. This does more damage in general, and opens up the option to furyshot (although not as powerful as a ranger or monk furyshotting). But it has nearly no AP left over to spend in the radiant tree, so it's not really a healer spec, but more a generalist spec.

3) Tier 5 deepwood sniper with tier 4 arcane archer and barely any investment in racial tree or cleric trees. This is a multi-class setup (14 cleric 6 ranger usually) that will have higher consistent damage then either of the above, but doesn't have spike damage to take out bosses and shares the not-healing focus of the build. It's sort of a build for designed for soloing with a cleric AA.

Since the OP went with a rough option #1, I mirrored that choice and did it better (IMO). If you have 10+ racial AP, it opens up possibilities to get a capstone (either radiant or AA) without as much of a tradeoff. But the OP didn't include racial AP, so again I mirrored their setup.

Oh; and I do like healing aura on my healers, even if it's not all the time that you're actually healing anyone with it. It keeps empyrean magic maxed, and gives a useful use for spending Turn Undead on a constant basis; encouraging you to spam that party buff. And, then the healing it grants is useful sometimes.

For skills I'd max Jump and UMD (11 ranks each) and spellcraft (23 ranks), and then it's a toss-up whether I'd go with heal or concentration.

Maxxing Jump is not that important; which is why I stopped at 10. With cannith boots; ship buffs and potions you can pretty much be max jump with just 10 skillpoints.

UMD is a nice skill which I like and often invest in. If I had made the build for me, I would have included it at 11 points. OP didn't include it, and to be fair, UMD is only at half-effectiveness on a cleric anyways. Spellcraft is not a skill I value highly, as my math has worked out the +23 spellpower you get from it is less then 10 damage per arrow at cap with builds which heavily invest into arcane imbues.

But to be fair; I don't really consider heal or concentration all that good either. Reasons why I decreased the overly-high int the OP had suggested. (Again 23 spellpower just isn't huge, and concentration is mostly rendered obsolete by kiting and/or quicken spell)

Deific warding is a good alternative; I mostly like font of life because in theory you shouldn't be taking much damage; which both supports font of life (makes you more useful while not taking damage) and has anti-synergy with deific warding (no bonus stacks to prr/mrr from being hit). However, in general Diefic warding is a better feat, so it remains a good option.

And... as a pure cleric at cap when I was in this build I did think I wish I had more healing on rare occasions. And those typically were when a warforged joined the party.

[Canuck_]

3) Tier 5 deepwood sniper with tier 4 arcane archer and barely any investment in racial tree or cleric trees. This is a multi-class setup (14 cleric 6 ranger usually) that will have higher consistent damage then either of the above, but doesn't have spike damage to take out bosses and shares the not-healing focus of the build. It's sort of a build for designed for soloing with a cleric AA.

I really enjoyed reading your take on the AA Cleric. There are many good options including Radiant, Enchantment and Evocation. Burst heals are nice to save SP along with the Aura tick.

From the perspective of a new player leveling to 20 as a pure you dont get to use RS with AA until level 20+. The Clr14/Rgr6 option you can start at level 12. You miss out on Holy Sword because you wont have it until Clr level 14 which would be at level 20. Also, you are not bound to Elven Enhancement tree.

You have more options Feat wise as well and 2 often overlooked feats are: Beloved of the Silver Flame and Child of the Silver Flame both giving +2 Hit Damage.

With the use of Intense and Incredible Healing in Radiant Servant your healing ability is at par with a pure Cleric if capstones arent used anyways for level 20 build.The AA capstone is not available until level 25 i believe.

I would be interested to hear more about other AA builds that are unique such as a Tank Kensai Fighter AA or some variant if anyone has tried it. Paladin Fighter AA? Rogue AA? Fighter Bow with no AA?

[Coffey]

1) The way I outlined above; with heavy focus on the radiant servant tree and healing aura. This is primarily a healer spec with enough damage to solo if you're forced to. It (as you noticed) primarily spends its mana just on heals and buffs, so it rarely has mana problems (allowing you to give your DC casters those mana orbs).

2) Tier 5 Arcane Archer with the Arcane Archer capstone. This does more damage in general, and opens up the option to furyshot (although not as powerful as a ranger or monk furyshotting). But it has nearly no AP left over to spend in the radiant tree, so it's not really a healer spec, but more a generalist spec.

I could see Magic Domain being good for the overall character build either way. With Evocation you can do CC and then mow them down.

Inferno Arrows could be a big help with the Tier 4 set up.