Healing Wands

[SanguineDarkness]

do you carry around wands? Most clerics do now, do your alts [including cleric alts] carry around potions? Many characters dont and if they do, they run out most of the time during the adventure.
Then the cleric runs out of SP and they have to shrine or get a DV before healing again... if they have no wands.
I have just started my first cleric when I earned enough favor for Drow, so I rolled a Drow Cleric
So far I'm level 5 and am kind of worried about being a money sponge to myself from buying wands, so far I have not needed them. But when should I start getting wands? I do not have much money to start with, but I'll spend it all if I have to do that to keep the party alive.

[Strakeln]

I have a couple of wands on my cleric, but they're really only there for when I'm out of mana and heal scrolls aren't quite cutting it.

If you can afford it, life is much easier with a few stacks of heal scrolls at level 9.

[Spisey]

I have a couple of wands on my cleric, but they're really only there for when I'm out of mana and heal scrolls aren't quite cutting it.

If you can afford it, life is much easier with a few stacks of heal scrolls at level 9.

/Agreed

[Arnya]

The best way to get wands when pugging is to mention politely that you accept donations as a newish player...

That and whip out a mace or rapier (drow are proficient with rapiers as a racial bonus) and start attacking stuff when you run out of spell points...

If anyone complains, see first paragraph...

[Uska]

When I can afford it I carry wands, potions or whatever I can to help myself and party members, but on one server I am very broke and cant even afford wands for my cleric right now, but will buy them for her as soon as I can.

[Uska]

I have a couple of wands on my cleric, but they're really only there for when I'm out of mana and heal scrolls aren't quite cutting it.

If you can afford it, life is much easier with a few stacks of heal scrolls at level 9.

Key words but so very true and I do carry them when I can

[Blazer]

do you carry around wands?

Not cure wands, no. I carry remove curse, disease, and the like. I can't honestly remember the last time I had a cure wand on my cleric.

I do not have much money to start with, but I'll spend it all if I have to do that to keep the party alive.

I appreciate your sentiment here, but honestly, do yourself a favor and break free from this mentality right the hell now. It's noble of you to want to keep your party alive, but there is no need for you to break the bank to do so. If the party can't handle a quest using whatever supplies they bring to the table coupled with your SPs, they either need to change tactics or find a different quest to do.

[Arianrhod]

cheap way to get wands (not nearly as many as you want, but it helps) is to pick up collectibles. Wavecrasher Cargo Manifests give cure moderate wands, House-sealed letters give cure serious, and Khyber prayer pamphlets have a chance of giving cure light.

[Inspire]

Whats A Wand?

My Cleric Only Carries Majors And Heal Scrolls :P

Same Goes For Alts Who Can UMD Heal Scrolls With A 85% Sucess Rate Or Better, If Not Then Yes, Wands Or Pots.

[Strakeln]

Whats A Wand?

My Cleric Only Carries Majors And Heal Scrolls :P

Same Goes For Alts Who Can UMD Heal Scrolls With A 85% Sucess Rate Or Better, If Not Then Yes, Wands Or Pots.

That's going a bit far.

IMO, every character should be carrying cure potions, wands (if they can use them), and scrolls (if they can use them). Yes, I am actually advocating carrying Cure Serious potions on your cleric. For one thing, they're the only way to heal yourself under water. For another, they're on separate timers from scrolls, wands, and spells.

Here's a cleric example: you're out of SP on Harry, alternating scrolls and wands while the scroll timer is up. You take 50 points of damage from a blade. Using a scroll or wand whip on yourself may result in a tank dropping. So while the scrolls and the wand is on timer, chug back a potion real quick. Two rounds later, you're back at full health, and it's like you never stopped healing the party.

For wand-whipping types like rangers, alternating between wands and potions (and possibly spells) is the fastest way to self-heal. This method still comes in handy on my sorc, who can use heal scrolls without fail. For one, the scroll timer is horrendously long... on top of that, you have to overcome concentration checks - potions and wands do not.

[Zenako]

cheap way to get wands (not nearly as many as you want, but it helps) is to pick up collectibles. Wavecrasher Cargo Manifests give cure moderate wands, House-sealed letters give cure serious, and Khyber prayer pamphlets have a chance of giving cure light.

ditto this. As a new character, look up the collectible tables and figure out what turns in give you good stuff. When running tangleroot, pick all the flowers, 3 lily petals turn into a Cure Mod Potion - for free. Lots of ways to augment your gold this way.

As a cleric, as I mentioned in another thread, do you have things like Divine Healing yet? Cheap healing, costing only Turn Undead slots and a few actions points. DH1 will do 30 points of healing, DH2 will do 60 points and DH3 ends up doing 90 points of healing a pop.

Look to what spells you are casting. Are you just being REACTIVE and healing, or are you being PROACTIVE and taking out the enemy BEFORE they cause hurts to your party members. COmmand them to the Ground, Stun them (via Soundburst) so your allies can hit them hard (crits while stunned). A few of those might cost a lot fewer spell points than 10 cure spell after the fact.

Everyone should be somewhat responsible for healing themselves, between battles to some degree. Do not worry about topping everyone off when spell points are tight. Use wands and scrolls if you WANT to, but do not feel you HAVE to do so.

[Sindaleus]

do you carry around wands? Most clerics do now, do your alts [including cleric alts] carry around potions? Many characters dont and if they do, they run out most of the time during the adventure.
Then the cleric runs out of SP and they have to shrine or get a DV before healing again... if they have no wands.
I have just started my first cleric when I earned enough favor for Drow, so I rolled a Drow Cleric
So far I'm level 5 and am kind of worried about being a money sponge to myself from buying wands, so far I have not needed them. But when should I start getting wands? I do not have much money to start with, but I'll spend it all if I have to do that to keep the party alive.

I had the same rising concerns. I have found that once I've hit level 7, I found the need to have a CSW on standby. I would normally let the party know 'healing resources low' so they know to be more careful on how to approach mob agro.

I have found that getting a Greater or SUperior Potency item for your CMW and CSW helps quite abit on managing SPs in that level range. It boosts it from +40-50%, in addition, to your +10-20% from enhancements.

Being a new player I did not have a sugar-daddy character to fund my healing supplies, so I made due with my SP pool the best possible way. The 30-50k spent on a Potency or Devotion item gradually saves you funds in the long run of those levels, IMHO. Potency items improves your offensive spells, in addition, to your healing effects so you get a double bonus from them.

In consideration with all the advice given to me, I would let the party know 1/2 through your SPs what your heal resource status is e.g. only 8 CSW casts left. Sometimes, often the Wizard that takes agro from AoE spells, pipes up strategy because that means their ghost watching the next time they cast an AoE while the fighters aren't able to hold all the agro.

I was never a fan of DVs. I do not have any. I focused my enhancements 100% into my casting ability than the Divine enhancement options. My philosophy was to heighten my spell since it costs me more using meta feats to increase them than enhancements and equipment choices.

You may come across someone who will buy you a wand to use, thank them when gifted with it and use it during quests. Some of the more experienced players understand the cost needs of clerics when its necessary to wand / scroll heal on certain quests.

[edited] There are collectables that reward healing wands. I can't recall which ones right now but it may be worthwhile to research them out and keep an eye out for those collectables to pickup the free wand, here and there.

[Zenako]

I was never a fan of DVs. I do not have any. I focused my enhancements 100% into my casting ability than the Divine enhancement options. My philosophy was to heighten my spell since it costs me more using meta feats to increase them than enhancements and equipment choices.

Well I would suspect you could find just one AP that would be available for DHI. Even without extra turning feats or turning enhancements, you probably have a handful of Turn Undeads available. If you have only 5 turns, (And the number of turns is based on current CHA at the time of rest/shrining.) that would still give you 5 DH1's for 30 each. That is a decent amount of healing. Equivalent of 7 CSW pots or charges. In addition you can cast DH on people where spells cannot reached or would be blocked. (ie thru gates, and many barriers.)

[samho]

Err wrong post, my mistake

[geoffhanna]

My cleric is only level 9 (Ive kept him that way for a long time so I have someone to run with guildies in that level range). So I am not an expert. And what little knowledge I do have will not apply to capped chars with many hundreds of HP.

But I always have wands with me:

• I like having the extra cooldown timer - I can cast a cure spell and then wand-whip another one really very quickly
• Pairing up a wand cure with a spell cure aoows effective use of lower level cure spells and stretches my mana
• When I do run out of mana I can still help

I like to use some of my mana offensively so any little mana-saving edge I can eke out is a big plus.

YMMV obviously but with all the enhancements and equipment; even when unempowered and unmaximized a cure light spell plus a cure serious wand charge takes about the same time as one heal scroll, does a significant amount of healing, costs really a lot less, and often is enough to get the job done.

[Varr]

For fun, I rolled an untweeked character on Thelanis and one of the things I learned was that thru level 11 I had earned a total of 56 k plat and by level 13.2 a total of 110 k plat. Now that is with using the ah to sell items I could not use and not buying a single anything but spell ingrediants and inscription items. So a total of 56 k by level 11, most would have 10k into 5th back back and 2 k into second bankslot takes us down to 44 k plat of disposable funds. Many would spend 10 k or so on a moderate selection of potions from healing to fear removal. That takes our standard player (using the ah and selling to the right vendors) down to 34 k plat. This is 8 rez scrolls and 30 csw wands taking us to 0 plat. As long as I have not been unusually unlucky, and if my toon was in the ball park of a standard looter.........This put a whole new realization to the hurdles a first time players has as a cleric.

My first toon forever ago was a human cleric, but this 28 pt reroll has shed some light to me on a couple of suprizing things like this. Just sharing my experiance and shock as to the plat accumulation thru level 11 without finding a super rare item I probably would not sell anyway.

[Talish]

My cleric carries wands such as remove disease/curse, neut poison, lesser restore etc. so I can load other spells into my spell slots and still help those who have run out of potions. I carry two cure serious wands at all times. If I have more than that they were given to me by someone else. Heal scrolls and raise dead I have only when given or I can afford to purchase a couple. (I'm not a rich cleric)

My FIGHTER always carries 5 raise dead scrolls and two cure serious wands at all times. My guild mates and those I travel with regularily know this. If during a quest supplies are low, cleric(bard, ranger etc) is out of spell points, or for some strange reason I've required more than my share of healing, a wand and some scrolls are passed to the cleric. It's cheaper for me to give the cleric a cs wand than to constantly be buying tons of potions. (I still carry potions so I can heal quick when needed) It's not uncommon for a healer to ask my fighter if I have a spare wand when resources are low.

My fighter carrying these items helps the group so I will continue to do so. It's also infectious, several of my guild mates who play melee have also started doing the same thing. The burden of keeping an entire group on it's feet should not belong only to the cleric but should be shared. It also allows the cleric to spend more time on crowd control and offensive spells which in turn also help lower the amount of healing needed. I love clerics who play an offensive game as opposed to a heal bot and will do eveything I can as a fighter to insure the cleric gets the chance to do so.

[Sindaleus]

Well I would suspect you could find just one AP that would be available for DHI. Even without extra turning feats or turning enhancements, you probably have a handful of Turn Undeads available. If you have only 5 turns, (And the number of turns is based on current CHA at the time of rest/shrining.) that would still give you 5 DH1's for 30 each. That is a decent amount of healing. Equivalent of 7 CSW pots or charges. In addition you can cast DH on people where spells cannot reached or would be blocked. (ie thru gates, and many barriers.)

I have not totally discounted the divine enhancement choices, I found it necesary to keep up on my Life/Smite +%, Crit Chance%, and Crit. Mod# to be added to any +% item equiped. Of course, this was my preference. I have plans to include DH in the future. I would have to admit this is probably the more useful party divine one available, IMHO; using available turns into healing power.

[plotdevice]

I carry a couple of cure wands, but not to excess. Because it's fun to be able to cast my other spells, by saving spell points on heals, and I play the game to have fun, not to gather gp. So I have my top cure on my hotbar, and a couple different tiers of wand, and a bunch of other spells.

[Phidius]

I don't play clerics much (my one cleric is level 6), but I've always felt bad for them. Too often it would seem that clerics are used to support poor strategy (kill count race) or to take on a quest that should be beyond the party's level. Yet while they struggle to keep the party alive, they seldom get kudos for it, and rarely get reimbursed for the cost of wands/scrolls/etc...

I have seen more and more people being generous with their funds, though. As a rogue/wizard, I had a party member offer me platinum to recompense me for the wands I was using the keep the party alive. Wish I had added that person to my friends list - not for the potential plat, but because I respected their level of awareness.

My advise would be to avoid joining those groups who are only waiting for a cleric, and look for the ones that say "Be self sufficient", "BYOH", or the like. I would think a cleric would have more fun in a quest with people who could take care of themselves. Granted, there are some quests where a cleric can be the difference between a party wipe and completion, but in general I've found that clerics are optional (though always welcome).