I have no clue on how to play a Cleric. I am an old D&D tabletop player with only rogue and barb experience in DDO. It's hard to choose if I want to melee or cast, because I can't imagine what I can do with spells in DDO. At the top of my head I can say I like to hit stuff with a sword, and I really like the shield idea, because to be honest, I think it looks cool, and I am a fan of fighting scenes where the character uses shields to attack. I am reconsidering both the split and the shield. But I have no ways of comparison, so let me ask you a question. What is the best way for me to try different styles? If I wanted to try a S&B, a S&O, and a THF Cleric, what would be the best approach to do it?
a) build 3 different toons and try them out - not sure I have the time to do that, playing alone, it's hard to level up, and to be in Korthos with almost nobody around 3 times, one for each char seems to not be productive.
b) build 1 toon and try the 3 ways with it - not sure there is a build to do that, and needing different weapons and feats to each one I don't know how I could get them.
I am nonetheless trying my best to try out different classes, like the Paladin, and the Bard. The only thing that I can think off is to buy veteran status, just to build different chars and try them out, but in my heart for me it's almost like cheating, I enjoy to deserve what I get. I would like to see the animal domain cool animation, to see how well the air domain maximize electric damage (although I have no clue about how important electric spells are gonna be), and I would also like to try a split to see if can get pass my close mind on the purist side.
What you advise?