The Path to Enlightenment

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Originally Posted by Skillless

I am wondering how you are doing this. I have played my cleric off and on since 06, he is just a 28pt build lvl 18, and I haven't ever built him any greensteel items (was considering waiting until I hit the lvl 5/7 on your chart and deciding on FS or staying cleric), also need to find a decent build as this guy was rolled straight healbot, no strength. Otherwise he is ok with loot, Lorricks, DT armor, ring of thelis and a few others. Is it gear I'm missing or what, normally on part 4 of shroud I find myself running almost out of mana after the first round (lately one round is enough, lol). I do run maximize/empower both on all the time and I have quicken, but that is only for solo runs. I cast mass cure during part 4 and may use it too much, as I heal off the person taking fastest damage.

As a second question, I do have 32 pt builds, and wondered if you have any recommendations on a new cleric build that is more balanced. And do you recommend staying cleric or moving to FS? Thanks!

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Its easier to solo heal a raid if you are also leading it (or if the leader often plays a cleric). I think VoD becomes very manageble for a single cleric if the melees stay close together, and observe crowd control and mob cleave radius' (which they seem to need constant reminder of). I preferentially burn scrolls whenever possible to keep people up, and don't concern myself if a person has to remain at less than full health for awhile. People don't generally need to be "topped up", and I think this is where alot of mana gets wasted. I try and use mass cure scrolls for this. I think you don't shouldn't need to touch your mana bar much until the first wave of bats come out, at which point you can drop a blade barrier or two (which I view as mana saving, if it prevents the bats from exploding on the party).

I use to be a great cleric (healbot anyway).
Back when the cap was 10/12ish. I could keep anyone alive and never bought scrolls or even held onto pots.

But then something changed in DDO.
Raids became the only thing anyone runs, and all raid tactics evolved into throughing more DPS and more heals to keep people alive. And the more heals meant scrolls and pots....and lots of them.

Well that's a game I've refused to play. My Cleric has been Shroud ready for a very, very long time, but I have yet to run a Shroud with her.

Somewhere a long the way many clerics got bored with being healbots and decided that Blade Barrier makes tham a Battle Cleric.
I think they took inspiration from the Firewallling mages.
Where the best tactic in the game is drag as many monsters through a persistant damage-dealing spell area.

On my other chars, I've become very self-sufficient.
I do not enjoy Ftrs and Brbs mostly because they are not self-sufficient.

I also have learned to avoid taking damage in the first place.
But this is also difficult for Ftrs and Brbs.

I learned a lot from my cleric. Every one of my chars who can heal others does so quite often.
I watch red bars constantly.
I watch blue dots constantly.
It always amazes me that 95%+ or the DDO players seem completely oblivious to the red/blue bars and blue dots on their screens.

It amazes that other players take absolutely zero responsibility for keeping themselves alive.

I have some of the squishiest chars out there, yet if allowed to play using my prefered tactics, take much less damage than most other players I see.
And heal myself when I do take damage.....

Whenever I take my cleric off the shelf and dust her off in a quest, I immediately remember why I had her on the shelf to begin with.

Using my own CC helps. It helps a lot.
But it doesn't help enough.

People's ability to take damage has exceeded my ability to keep them up.

It saddens me......I use to be a great cleric. I used to be praised.
But something changed.

And it's been a very long time since I enjoyed playing my cleric. :(

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Originally Posted by Talon_Moonshadow

I use to be a great cleric (healbot anyway).
Back when the cap was 10/12ish. I could keep anyone alive and never bought scrolls or even held onto pots.

But then something changed in DDO.
Raids became the only thing anyone runs, and all raid tactics evolved into throughing more DPS and more heals to keep people alive. And the more heals meant scrolls and pots....and lots of them.

Well that's a game I've refused to play. My Cleric has been Shroud ready for a very, very long time, but I have yet to run a Shroud with her.

Somewhere a long the way many clerics got bored with being healbots and decided that Blade Barrier makes tham a Battle Cleric.
I think they took inspiration from the Firewallling mages.
Where the best tactic in the game is drag as many monsters through a persistant damage-dealing spell area.

On my other chars, I've become very self-sufficient.
I do not enjoy Ftrs and Brbs mostly because they are not self-sufficient.

I also have learned to avoid taking damage in the first place.
But this is also difficult for Ftrs and Brbs.

I learned a lot from my cleric. Every one of my chars who can heal others does so quite often.
I watch red bars constantly.
I watch blue dots constantly.
It always amazes me that 95%+ or the DDO players seem completely oblivious to the red/blue bars and blue dots on their screens.

It amazes that other players take absolutely zero responsibility for keeping themselves alive.

I have some of the squishiest chars out there, yet if allowed to play using my prefered tactics, take much less damage than most other players I see.
And heal myself when I do take damage.....

Whenever I take my cleric off the shelf and dust her off in a quest, I immediately remember why I had her on the shelf to begin with.

Using my own CC helps. It helps a lot.
But it doesn't help enough.

People's ability to take damage has exceeded my ability to keep them up.

It saddens me......I use to be a great cleric. I used to be praised.
But something changed.

And it's been a very long time since I enjoyed playing my cleric. :(

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Trust me there are times when playin my cleric isn't the most fun.....in a really bad PUG it can be a huge headache. But the whole myth about having to use tons of resources in a raid is just that a myth. The issues with those type of runs are cause the group as a whole is A) not listening or B) not listening.

People who talk about having to use alot of scrolls or pots in general has nothing to do with the group though....it has to do with the cleric. People tend to panic when red bars go down a bit and start spamming heals.....to top that off they have quicken on(when it isn't needed) and thier other meta magic feats going too. If instead the watched how damage is progressing.....who might need to be watched a little more(or told to either back off combat...or let them die) then playing a cleric wouldn't be an issue.

It is other peoples job to be able to take care of themselves......but I've seen tons of clerics who can't even take care of themselves...I worry about those people more.

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Originally Posted by Talon_Moonshadow

I use to be a great cleric (healbot anyway).
Back when the cap was 10/12ish. I could keep anyone alive and never bought scrolls or even held onto pots.

But then something changed in DDO.
Raids became the only thing anyone runs, and all raid tactics evolved into throughing more DPS and more heals to keep people alive. And the more heals meant scrolls and pots....and lots of them.

Well that's a game I've refused to play. My Cleric has been Shroud ready for a very, very long time, but I have yet to run a Shroud with her.

Somewhere a long the way many clerics got bored with being healbots and decided that Blade Barrier makes tham a Battle Cleric.
I think they took inspiration from the Firewallling mages.
Where the best tactic in the game is drag as many monsters through a persistant damage-dealing spell area.

On my other chars, I've become very self-sufficient.
I do not enjoy Ftrs and Brbs mostly because they are not self-sufficient.

I also have learned to avoid taking damage in the first place.
But this is also difficult for Ftrs and Brbs.

I learned a lot from my cleric. Every one of my chars who can heal others does so quite often.
I watch red bars constantly.
I watch blue dots constantly.
It always amazes me that 95%+ or the DDO players seem completely oblivious to the red/blue bars and blue dots on their screens.

It amazes that other players take absolutely zero responsibility for keeping themselves alive.

I have some of the squishiest chars out there, yet if allowed to play using my prefered tactics, take much less damage than most other players I see.
And heal myself when I do take damage.....

Whenever I take my cleric off the shelf and dust her off in a quest, I immediately remember why I had her on the shelf to begin with.

Using my own CC helps. It helps a lot.
But it doesn't help enough.

People's ability to take damage has exceeded my ability to keep them up.

It saddens me......I use to be a great cleric. I used to be praised.
But something changed.

And it's been a very long time since I enjoyed playing my cleric. :(

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Well, there is alot there to respond to. You covered a great deal of ground. I'm going to stick to two related on-topic points which I think will help the most.

First, you don't enjoy your cleric anymore and haven't for a long time. I know that being stuck in the healbot stage often causes many people to stop playing their cleric. This sounds like what has happened to you. As Impact has said, you haven't made the revelation that it isn't your fault that people die when they play badly or have poorly built toons. Is it your fault that a necro specced sorc with 200 hp runs ahead and gets agro and dies? Is it your fault that the squishy ranger built for DPS can't handle the agro he generates at 320 hp? The problem here is that people like this love to have a mommy healbot that makes it ok to play the way they do. They load praise on these type of clerics. You have to break the cycle and say "NO", I'm going to have fun playing my cleric, not sacrifice my play so you can play badly. You'll have alot more fun playing your cleric because of it.

Second, the related topic of being praised for being a healbot. The general praise for being a healbot and enabling poor play, is self-defeating. To advance, you need to take a hard look at how you play, and realise that it isn't the optimal way of playing a cleric. YOU are choosing how you play your characters. The truth is that you won't be as popular of a cleric for playing this way at first, and probably never. However, once you go through the learning curve you will be one of the best ones out there and people that know the game will respect your abilities. The players that play badly and need someone to babysit them won't rank you highly, but who really cares? These are the same guys that brag about their characters, while everyone in our guild is tearing the playstyle apart in Vent or private chat channels and putting them on the DNG. Don't let popularity (peer pressure) ruin your fun. You'll be a better cleric because of it.

Saw some posts that might benefit from this, so BUMP

As a SS Bard who has often has to be a fill-in Cleric, I buy everything the OP is selling. I came late to the healing game and was an advocate of damage prevention through buff and CC long before I could heal worth a ****. I've never had Quicken, so I was weaned off that before I ever started. However, everything else applies to healing Bards even more than it does to Clerics. With a much smaller mana pool and no Heal outside of scrolls, we're either forced to make our group mates take a bit of care in how they fritter away HP, or be doomed to consuming scrolls, potions, and wands like they're going out of style. Over-healing is anathema to a Bard trying to main heal, and the hardest hurdle for me to leap.

I've almost no raid gear, so I suppose I'm stuck at Level 5 for the time being, but the road to here has been very much as Samulas described it.

Just one thing to add. I had to become the advocate for driving my group into spending more build and gear resources on HP. Working on your regular group mates to take some strategic actions to improve their survivability (i.e. adding HP, getting the Sorc to acquire a defensive buff or two, etc.) may make the tactical side of keeping them alive much easier.

Bravo sir...nail on the head, smashing and all that jib jab. :D

Why hasn't this been stickied yet? :D Now I have to bump it to keep it at the top.

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Originally Posted by Skillless

I am wondering how you are doing this. I have played my cleric off and on since 06, he is just a 28pt build lvl 18, and I haven't ever built him any greensteel items (was considering waiting until I hit the lvl 5/7 on your chart and deciding on FS or staying cleric), also need to find a decent build as this guy was rolled straight healbot, no strength. Otherwise he is ok with loot, Lorricks, DT armor, ring of thelis and a few others. Is it gear I'm missing or what, normally on part 4 of shroud I find myself running almost out of mana after the first round (lately one round is enough, lol). I do run maximize/empower both on all the time and I have quicken, but that is only for solo runs. I cast mass cure during part 4 and may use it too much, as I heal off the person taking fastest damage.

As a second question, I do have 32 pt builds, and wondered if you have any recommendations on a new cleric build that is more balanced. And do you recommend staying cleric or moving to FS? Thanks!

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One thing I noticed in your post was that you tend to direct heals on the person taking the fastest damage. Do you mean that you are targeting that person for mass cures? If you are, and they die, you've lost your targeting, and that's a recipe for wipe.

Also, it's noble and all to keep everyone standing, but if there's a DPS character in there with less than 300 hp's or so, they're a liability. Anyone who rolls up a tank and doesn't plan for enough hp's needs to rethink their playstyle. Time being dead makes for a LOT of thinking... I always target whoever I KNOW has the most hp (myDDO helps with this). If one or even 2 low hp DPS'ers go down through the course of the fight, it's not really that big a deal.

You can't control how others decide to build and play their character(s). You can only control how you decide to build and play your character(s).

Was in another thread that had link to this one - I'm really enjoying what I'm reading and it's given me a few extra things to think about.
I def play healbot syle and get really frustrated when people die (even though it's almost always because of their playstyle) so Im definitely going to work on making some adjustments and keeping a few CC spells handy.

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Originally Posted by Newtons_Apple

I always target whoever I KNOW has the most hp (myDDO helps with this).

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Checkin another persons HP on MyDDO is pretty weak IMO. ohhhh and free bump to keep the thread alive!!!

This thread is also really useful for bards! Thank you.

Also don't forget there are some that want to super specialize in one of the stages.

For example I have the clr that is the more rounded stage 7 clr. And he could be really great if I took time to equip him over others. But Gs items are not found on trees anymore.

And I have my super healbot, that was made to be a healbot and that is all he does. Runs the raids for my guild/ friends in the heal slot so we have all the heals covered no mater what. He is my money maker and my bio does say I take donations, just so if some one feels overly generous and grateful they know who to mail plat too. But mostly he uses no scrolls or pots or anything and life is good. So super specialize is ok as long as your not in a rut.

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Originally Posted by Samiusbot

Also don't forget there are some that want to super specialize in one of the stages.

For example I have the clr that is the more rounded stage 7 clr. And he could be really great if I took time to equip him over others. But Gs items are not found on trees anymore.

And I have my super healbot, that was made to be a healbot and that is all he does. Runs the raids for my guild/ friends in the heal slot so we have all the heals covered no mater what. He is my money maker and my bio does say I take donations, just so if some one feels overly generous and grateful they know who to mail plat too. But mostly he uses no scrolls or pots or anything and life is good. So super specialize is ok as long as your not in a rut.

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I've run with alot of the people on the server who are considered "The Best" cleric on my server. What they all have in common is they are all diffrent in builds....but they are all good at is multi tasking. I had a healbot....that's all she did....she was good at it.....but it was boring as hell. I think what Sam is trying to get people to see is that there is way more than healing....and being a parties saftey net.

A great cleric can throw buffs,fight with a weapon,throw CC,Blade Barriers and heal...all with no extra mana usage or resources. Playin a healbot is fine if that's what ya want to do.....but I'd rather be doin stuff other than just watching bars. And in the long run I don't think thier really is a specailized Healbot.....it's just a Healbot.

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Originally Posted by Samiusbot

Also don't forget there are some that want to super specialize in one of the stages.

For example I have the clr that is the more rounded stage 7 clr. And he could be really great if I took time to equip him over others. But Gs items are not found on trees anymore.

And I have my super healbot, that was made to be a healbot and that is all he does. Runs the raids for my guild/ friends in the heal slot so we have all the heals covered no mater what. He is my money maker and my bio does say I take donations, just so if some one feels overly generous and grateful they know who to mail plat too. But mostly he uses no scrolls or pots or anything and life is good. So super specialize is ok as long as your not in a rut.

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Healbots can be a way to relax when playing. I don't think you need to specialize at all to be awesome at healing. If you wanted to be THE healbot for some reason (I think most players would make this toon a bank eventually), I would be a halfling favored soul, not a cleric. Of course, this is a fairly new option, but if you have a healbot I would resurrect him if that's your deal. You will miss out on the cleric capstone, which is quite important in endgame content atm. The whole thing about a cleric in my view is the amazing versatility and unique mix of abilities that is unparralleled in other classes. You don't take advantage of this with a healbot.

*bump*

OP has some nice points to think about.
That being said, sometimes, just to relax, I go into full healbot mode and simply follow the group and keep everyone alive. It's a very relaxing playstyle compared to keeping an eye out for your squishies and the tank that is being critted, as well as throwing spells against casters and doing some crowd control.

As to raids and ressources: Alternating wands, scrolls and your own spells is doable and lets you avoid those costly mana pots.

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Originally Posted by Danmor

*bump*

OP has some nice points to think about.
That being said, sometimes, just to relax, I go into full healbot mode and simply follow the group and keep everyone alive. It's a very relaxing playstyle compared to keeping an eye out for your squishies and the tank that is being critted, as well as throwing spells against casters and doing some crowd control.

As to raids and ressources: Alternating wands, scrolls and your own spells is doable and lets you avoid those costly mana pots.

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I agree going into healbot mode can be a relaxing play style, especially when you are with a group where they don't really need you to go full tilt to succeed. Conversely, I also enjoy going full tilit on my cleric and pushing everyone to keep up. Blast a group of mobs with CC, then engage the next group or two while they are taking care of the first and all that. Versatility is very nice.

I agree with the use of all resources that are easily purchased, before going to mana pots.

Very informative and Greatly apreciated! Here is a bump since I dont want this post going anywhere.

I was looking for exactly this kind of information trying to get ready to build a Hopefully good Cleric myself. From the information here I know that I have more reading and lots of play time to really get this down, which is a good thing since I am walking into this eyes wide open. The fact that you point out what all goes into a Good Cleric actually made me want to try it more since it seems more of a challenge.

Just in case you see me out there please know that all mistakes are mine and are in spite of your best efforts!

I had a level 1 warrior/fighter once run into the Korthos Collaborator quest on elite and started it without waiting for the rest of our party so it was just him and me (L1 cleric at the time) and it was like are you serious? His idiocy got us both killed because I could not keep aggro off myself, heal him, heal myself, fight, offensive cast/buff at the same time. In any other situation with a party of at least 4 on elite it would have been simple.

So yeah, for new players I would say don't jump into the game expecting it to be impossible for you to die with a cleric at your side.

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Originally Posted by The_Great_Samulas

7) Great Cleric
You can actually do all three aspects of the cleric very well – fight, heal, and offensive cast. You have stopped wondering why other people play other classes, because you don’t group with them anymore because you don’t need them. I say that in partial jest because it is still a MMO and most of the fun is still in grouping. You rarely run out of mana, because monsters are so kind to give it back you when it’s needed. You solo end game content on normal with little issue, and you do some of it on elite. Weapon shipment is a nice loot run when you want to take it easy.

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Pray, how does that part happen?