cleric noob

[philo]

So I've been playing this game since early closed beta but I've always preferred to play damage dealing classes.

I recently talked a friend into playing and I figured I'd build a cleric so we could level together since you always need a healer.
The cleric is just going to be plain ole healing focused. I tend to be a min/maxer...I just rolled a dwarf. 18 wis/20 con rest base.

The question is, am I going to have enough feats to take everything I need and take toughness?...I like HP's on my casters

I figure I'll probably want: max/empower/empowered healing/ MT/IMT/Extend/Quicken/Toughness.
That's to many. Which of these should go? Did I miss anything important?

While I'm guessing I'll probably end up not having enough room for toughness...assuming I do take toughness, as a pure healer, what would you drop and why?

[Randolf_Drake]

1st thing I would drop is empower since only the empowered healing effects your healing.

[Phineasj]

if you are going to be a plain old healbot, no need to take maximize or empower, on my healbots ( i have 5 clerics BTW), i take empower healing, extend, and possibly quicken. (2 years and I finally took quicken) and a potency or devotion item, and honestly, i would put a little bit into charisma, for those DV's. with toughness, GFL and minos, my dorf cleric has 300 HP's, and same stuff on halflings, (280 HP's) Otherwise, if you are planning on playing your cleric like a caster, then stick with a caster, It is a whole lot less aggravation.

[philo]

if you are going to be a plain old healbot, no need to take maximize or empower, on my healbots ( i have 5 clerics BTW), i take empower healing, extend, and possibly quicken.

I was under the impression maximize increased mass cures? No? what about empower? I figured it would do the same?

[PurdueDave]

As a pure dedicated 100% healer I would consider...

quicken, emp healing & enlarge as metamagics because they all improve the heal (healing aspect only) spell in one way or another (imo, ordered from best to worst)

MT/IMT for more heal spells

toughness because you want it

[Phineasj]

I was under the impression maximize increased mass cures? No? what about empower? I figured it would do the same?

you may be be correct on that, at the very least, your blade barriers should rock after lv9!

guess what i am saying is, no need to take all of the feats, or take them all, try them out, then get yerself a few dragon shards, and swap them out. No big deal, you just gotta find out what makes things tick for you, as a cleric. For me, like i said, I choose empower healing, extend, and nowadays quicken, (which i only toggle on when things are tough) and a potency item. It was a long 2+ years of trial and error to arrive at that point though. The most important meta to take is the maximize fun one

[jmonty]

As a pure dedicated 100% healer I would consider...

quicken, emp healing & enlarge as metamagics because they all improve the heal (healing aspect only) spell in one way or another (imo, ordered from best to worst)

MT/IMT for more heal spells

toughness because you want it

i dunno about enlarge because i've never taken it but maximize is more than enough to take care of mass heals, and it does improve your damage spells. that seems like 1 more feat than you can have as a dwarf. with out enlarge though that is really all you need to be a great healer and caster.

maxing out con, esp on a dwarf, is over kill imo as well. my first cleric was human with base 12 con and about 280 hp at 16, i think, not meleeing or anything and that was more than enough.

my dwarf had a base 12 con, but a +2 con tome, toughness, dwarven con 2, and i think he has around 388 hp at 16, which has been more than enough even if i want to hop in with a heavy mace and tear some mobs up.

[Nyvn]

Max does indeed work on mass heals, with sup pot 6, maxed out enhancement, emp healing, and max my mass heals hit for about 180ish. IMO enlarge isn't needed. DV's are nice but they're not essential. Though they are handy. For a dwarf healbot, I'd recomend; max/empowered healing/ MT/IMT/Extend/Quicken. Max Extend, and quicken will help when you decide to throw down some BB's!

[Merkinsal]

Max does indeed work on mass heals, with sup pot 6, maxed out enhancement, emp healing, and max my mass heals hit for about 180ish. IMO enlarge isn't needed. DV's are nice but they're not essential. Though they are handy. For a dwarf healbot, I'd recomend; max/empowered healing/ MT/IMT/Extend/Quicken. Max Extend, and quicken will help when you decide to throw down some BB's!

I remembered the other day my sorc had some Greater Sup VII septers in the bank gathering dust. They aren't worth much and I was just keeping them in case of "some day." So, I equipped it and headed to the tavern and started comparing Mass Serious (lvl 7) and Mass Moderate (lvl 6) spells.

Mass Moderate in Nyvn's set up is 2d8+16 for an avg of (24)x(1.4 enhancements)x(1.5 empowered)x(2.0 maximize)x(1.5 superior pot 6) = 102 hit points of healing for a cost of 70sp

Mass Serious is 3d8+16 for avg of (28)x(1.4 enhancements)x(1.5 empowered)x(1.4 greater pot 7)= 82 hit points of healing for a cost of 50sp.

I noticed a few things. First. I noticed I'm getting good healing for the spell point spent without maximize but still getting very decent mass heals. Second, I saved a feat. Third, those Greater 7 septers are pretty cheap at the AH and I don't know why people often mention Mass Moderate when Mass Serious is so much better damage for the buck. I pulled two Greater Pot 7s in the last two weeks myself.

Of course if Nyvn used one of those greater pot 7 septers and mass serious, all those numbers above go out the window. Also, of course, I dont have great blade barriers but I put the saved feat into spell pen 1. I am not taking extend but putting that feat into spell pen II when I hit lvl 15.

ok, so I'm a noob and I don't know how this will turn out but at lvl 14 my symbols, debuffs, greater command, destruction, and sound blast work great. If my sorc is any measure, when I get to 36 Wis and 25 Spell Pen I'm going to be able to hit almost anything that has saves and/or spell pen. I won't have a blade barrier worth a damm but I will get alot of healing in.

I was hoping to get a healing, crowd control, instakill cleric. What kind of mass heals are needed out there in the End Game?

[Aranticus]

the main arguement i see in this thread is the selection of empower healing or maximise as the feat to take

empower healing
pros - cleric enhancements make it cheaper. cleric items have abilities to make healing cheaper as well (lorriks necklace). affect the HEAL spell. amount of healing is x1.5

cons - affect healing spells ONLY

maximise
pros - works on damage spells, ie searing light. caster items have abilities to make it cheaper (gloves of glacier). amount of healing is x2 (good vs undead)

cons - no cleric enhancements to make it cheaper (less effective when heal/sp is calculated). does not work on HEAL spell

so which to take?

pure healbot - empower healing. why? you are not going to cast damage spells, all you are going to do is heal and empower healing is much more efficient than maximise on SP

caster cleric - maximise. why? you are not concerned about healing but want mobs to die. maximise makes them die faster

[Lehrman]

1st thing I would drop is empower since only the empowered healing effects your healing.

Empower Spell and Maximize Spell work on cures, the Heal spell is unaffected by them.

[moops]

I wouldn't worry about toughness. . .I have 4 human clerics that started with only 10 CON and I do fine--All of them are casters of some sort, but, I also keep empower healing because I raid alot, or, run a lot of quests in which I prefer to us Mass Cure spells, as well as run with enough high HP/WF people to want an Empowered Heal Spell.

Like everyone said, you can switch your feats around, only prob I think that you'll run in to is if you want to be a Necro Focused caster--you might want to be human instead so that you get one more feat for high Spell Pen/Heighten, for end game content..

My 2 Main clerics Feats:
Hexxa- Empower Healing, Quicken, Necro Focus, Greater Necro Focus, Quicken, Spell Pen, Greater Spell Pen ( I have 25 Spell Pen with blue scale armor)

Hexanna - Empower Healing, Quicken, Maximize, Extra Turning, Heighten, Necro Focus, Enchantment focus