Why are clerics a money sink in this game?

[Return_To_Forever]

I have never played a clr before, but I don't know wat the big deal is, look just heal me! keep it to your self do your job, I kill the stuff, you heal me, sheesh its not that hard! If you need to buy stuff and drink pots its prolly cause your not healing me enough.

Also FYI Sorcs can heal with wands too it might help if you help heal me too from time to time, maybe thats the problem Sorcs not helping you heal the person killing all the stuffs?

[Zenako]

mmmm

take a cleric and...

Run a quest with a bunch of "Heal me's" and you run out of SP, burn resources and maybe finish it.....

Run the same quest, same setting, just solo it and finish with SP to spare and all the mobs dead....

Not sure a good cleric really needs much in the way of melee support....they can tolerate the presence of them for fun and amusement...

Anyone who has played high end clerics can likely agree with this for 90% of the quests in the game.

[BlackSteel]

if you need money, jump in a VoD group and ask for donations. More often than not you'll come out ahead after the quest.

Not that I've ever gotten that desperate, but technically you could do it. Sadly I'm dumb enough to mail potions back on my cleric if I dont use them.

[Voalkrynn2]

I would love to be in any of the groups you've been in. I can blow through all my mana in one fight in something as simple as Trial by Fire on normal with a pug....

With an all guild group with all tweeked out toons, it can be easy. But I'm talking normal players who don't spend 40 hrs online and don't have the uber loot.

oh and also.

A barb, a pally, a rouge, a monk... a ..... still don't have to spend extra gold to do elite. a few deaths? ... Nothing in comparison to the cost of 20-50 heal scrolls. Be honest.

Here are my 2 cp:
Are you maxed out on all the heal paths?
What kind of gear do you use? I have blue dragon scale armor, a tier 2 heal scepter, and a potency item. With empower heal I had a crit heal on a wf for 1072 hit points one can infer a 2000 point heal on a fleshling when I crit.
Have someone with a good haggle buy the scrolls.
When short on cash or resources tell the party you are willing to use scrolls on a difficult quest but only if ppl share the cost.
Be selective of the pugs you join if you notice someone was a mana sponge last week then the will be one this week. Consider developing a handy list to remind you of the people that made your job tough. They typically have no AC, need heals like a baby needs a fresh diaper, and do not carry heal potions. I will forever remember the dolt that bypassed the inn, ran up to the entrance to a Necro quest with 25% of his health and he promptly demanded that I heal him before the quest started.
Practice triage keep the main killer alive and let others die if necessary to win the fight.
Don't wast mana topping ppl off between fights, party members need to use potions between fights.
A common misconception among tanks is that your mana bar is their health bar. Your job is to break them, painfully if necessary, of that notion.
Conserve your mana by waiting to cast 1 heal instead of 5 cure crits.
Do not use your hard earned mana potions except during raids unless these are given to you by a party member for the quest.

[GoldyGopher]

I have a level 16 cleric. I'll admit I don't play him as often as I used to, maybe two or three quests/sessions a week.

Since I bought my last set of heal scrolls in Mid October I have used maybe 70, give or take a few.
My Mana pots, I used two in an exceptional bad Pug shroud run ealier this week. Lag and oh yeah the server crashed around us. Other than that I can't think of the last time I used a mana pot. There is just no need.
I haven't had a cure anything wand in my inventory in maybe a year.

My advice, learn to let them die. If they die in battle rez them after the fights over.
Concentrate your heals on characters actually doing damage.

It is easy and fun experience. And your cleric too can become a money making machine.

[Junts]

I'm just going to be the naysayer here and say

I loathe empower healing and I think it generally costs more sp in wasted overhealing (due to its effect on the heal spell) than it saves you in cheaper mass heals; maximize is a superior feat in every way, shape and form at endgame, and I hit the point where my healing -bard- dropped emp heal for maximize; it's so much easier it makes my head spin; I'll gladly pay that extra 15 so for the mass cure toppingpeople from half instead of leaving them at 80%.

Low level questing is all about the quality of players and their preparation and self-sufficiency; most advice here is geared to high-levels for that reason.

[Boldrin]

How many mana pots have you sucked back?

I don't drink pots unless I want to(and I usually do, lol), and honestly.. what else would I use them for, sitting them in my backpack and getting them broken my fireballs sucks! Plus the Epic battle between Arri and My cleric on elite is the stuff of legends!! Was well worth 108 mana pots!

[Boldrin]

constructive.

LOL, I just read the question in the title and answered it.. didn't even read the post.

[Wizzly_Bear]

I don't believe I've had enough mana to heal the party during an adventure since lvl 1. Maybe 2 at the most.

one, or more, of the following is occurring...(a) your party is incredibly gimped, (b) your cleric is incredibly gimped, (c) your playing of your cleric is incredibly gimped. unless you've been playing in a static group, only one person has been in all of your groups...

bad Clerics have to soak up 90% of adventuring costs. If you are playing in pick up groups, that means you will likely be unable to be an effective cleric if you are gimped.

fixed for you

A barb, a pally, a rouge, a monk... a ..... still don't have to spend extra gold to do elite. a few deaths? ... Nothing in comparison to the cost of 20-50 heal scrolls. Be honest.

they may not be using heal scrolls (though a good rogue will be), but, unless they're very gimped and/or very lazy, they are using pots. they also have to have more weapons that are generally more expensive than what goes in clerics' hands, and they also generally have much more expensive repair bills.

[Wizzly_Bear]

mmmm

take a cleric and...

Run a quest with a bunch of "Heal me's" and you run out of SP, burn resources and maybe finish it.....

Run the same quest, same setting, just solo it and finish with SP to spare and all the mobs dead....

Not sure a good cleric really needs much in the way of melee support....they can tolerate the presence of them for fun and amusement...

Anyone who has played high end clerics can likely agree with this for 90% of the quests in the game.

i rarely bother to get a group for most quests when playing my cleric. usually much faster and easier to do it solo. also, i p!ss off fewer people since im not denying heals. well......sometimes i deny myself, but we work it out

[faldordadink]

my cleric is my 2nd richest toon behind my pali, cost very little to run a cleric at high level, you dont have to buy any uber weapons or equipement, most of what you wear/use is raid loot or crafted, on the rare occasion that I have to chug a pot (and to this day I have never had to buy any mana pots) its usually because the raid is going bad and people see that and usually donate a pot or 2. It was a pain to level up but hold tight and it will all pay off in the end.

[Kalari]

Seriously to the OP your not an infinite set of sp. You have to learn how to heal wisely. And you have to learn how not to heal stupid.

Examples

1. The caster who decides hes going to help by blasting a bunch of orcs/gnolls/insert random large mob..by launching a fireball that may get one or two but generally has ten after them and only has 100 hp if that much...this player type is definately going to keep doing that and you can insert any aggro spell but it generally tends to be fire based. (stupid dont constantly spam heal on them!)

2. Melee who decides to tank mobs with out proper protections, resist, and poison item or pot. That constantly gets cursed or cannot take a hit. They sometimes tend to rush ahead in battle ignoring stragetic plans to make things smoother, refuse to fight in crowd control and take a lot of damage and have a lot of hp to replace. (no spaming heal on them one full heal and if they really play stupid let them get as low as possible when they yell for a heal you can let them know how drainning they are.)


I know there are new players who dont know any better but youd be suprized at long timers who still wont take care of stuff. And its not your job as the cleric to keep stupid players up. Sure getting the quest completed is important, but I find the quests gets done even faster when the types listed above are soul stones instead of mana sponges.

My clerics favorite saying is "You cant heal stupid but you can laugh your arse off as it dings dead"

I know its hard for some people who play healers to get that you can only do so much I had to learn the hard way to (3 hr madstone crater on normal was my eye opener). Never again will I allow myself to be stressed out by bad players. If they use up my mana bar thats it till I get to a shrine. Unless they are friends cause those people I can cuss out if they play stupidly.

[TFPAQ]

The only cleric I have left is my Battle Cleric. Grinding Shroud cost my other clerics their sanity (ok, maybe mine...) I'm not going to get into how he is tricked out. It really doesn't matter.

What does matter is that my first three hotbar keys are:
1 - Greater Command
2- Sound Burst
3- Cure Critical (Mass)

You would be suprised how well those three will get him through the quest (with some buffing thrown it).

Oh, 4-Blade Barrier - He is a Battle Cleric after all ...

[Impaqt]

The only cleric I have left is my Battle Cleric. Grinding Shroud cost my other clerics their sanity (ok, maybe mine...) I'm not going to get into how he is tricked out. It really doesn't matter.

What does matter is that my first three hotbar keys are:
1 - Greater Command
2- Sound Burst
3- Cure Critical (Mass)

You would be suprised how well those three will get him through the quest (with some buffing thrown it).

Oh, 4-Blade Barrier - He is a Battle Cleric after all ...

Cure Critical Mass is a Waste of SPell Points. THe spell cannot be enhanced enough to make it more effective than Cure Mod Mass and it costs more.

Cure Mod Mass is the best bang for the buk healing in the game. Superio Potency 6 + Healing Enh give you more hp's per spell points used over any other spell.

The bes tyou gettin on Cure Critical Mass is +30% if y ou have the Leviks COmbo....

[Wizzly_Bear]

Cure Critical Mass is a Waste of SPell Points. THe spell cannot be enhanced enough to make it more effective than Cure Mod Mass and it costs more.

Cure Mod Mass is the best bang for the buk healing in the game. Superio Potency 6 + Healing Enh give you more hp's per spell points used over any other spell.

The bes tyou gettin on Cure Critical Mass is +30% if y ou have the Leviks COmbo....

as a battle cleric he probably isnt using any potency unless he's gotten the devotion on his armor which would affect critical mass.

[Lord_Legolas]

I have to agree with the Op. I know from having 3 clerics: 2 capped...

What about when the Shroud first came online? No one had any shroud crafted items... I spent my clerics' life savings on those runs, over 700kp. I've retired 2 of them because of that and only run my 'best' cleric at times.

Yes, you need to get like cleric life magic and others that I can't think of atm. Early on I get the SP ones, but dump them to make sure I have life magic and the ones for the scrolls/wands.

NOTE: Wands cycle faster than scrolls... In 'bad' situations I use: Spell, wand, scroll, spell, wand, spell, scroll; or use what ever combination works for you.

As for fighter types that zerg ahead... LOL Casters that don't know how to manage aggro? LOL Rangers that don't understand aggro? LOL!!!

Early on it's sound blast! Or command. Later it's greater command, and etc. Solid fog clickies do help too! Clickies are friends! Not foo!

[Impaqt]

as a battle cleric he probably isnt using any potency unless he's gotten the devotion on his armor which would affect critical mass.

Thats not Wise. There are several ways other than a weapon to get Superior Devotion 6, or at least Greater. and Sup Pot 6 items are crazy easy to get.

Just swap to it when ya need to heal.

All my clerics are "Battle Clerics" That doesnt mean I like to waste spell points when I heal.

[Pyromaniac]

Clerics are not a huge money sink as long as you don't join random pugs you don't know.

My last cleric I leveled was about 4 months ago, and it was expensive as anything in some groups. In total I think I blew about 1.5 million plat on leveling that toon. However I leveled without any guildees for the most part and met probably every terrible player on the server. My cleric wasn't a battle cleric, so it drove the costs up as I didn't spend as much time soloing.

I lost track of how many cure moderate wands I handed out to lowbie rangers and paladins so they could heal themselves. My hope was that they would learn that they could do that and not expect it to be done for them between battles.

I'm not sure the current situation is a good thing for DDO though, as unknown players are likely going to have a tough time getting healers.

Once you're at cap however, plat is plentiful so healing supplies really aren't that expensive as long as you don't chug majors like healing potions.

[Kalari]

I have to agree with the Op. I know from having 3 clerics: 2 capped...

What about when the Shroud first came online? No one had any shroud crafted items... I spent my clerics' life savings on those runs, over 700kp. I've retired 2 of them because of that and only run my 'best' cleric at times.

Yes, you need to get like cleric life magic and others that I can't think of atm. Early on I get the SP ones, but dump them to make sure I have life magic and the ones for the scrolls/wands.

NOTE: Wands cycle faster than scrolls... In 'bad' situations I use: Spell, wand, scroll, spell, wand, spell, scroll; or use what ever combination works for you.

As for fighter types that zerg ahead... LOL Casters that don't know how to manage aggro? LOL Rangers that don't understand aggro? LOL!!!

Early on it's sound blast! Or command. Later it's greater command, and etc. Solid fog clickies do help too! Clickies are friends! Not foo!

True when any high level content or raids first come out there is going to be a lot of expenditures. Sometimes your lucky and get to run with groups who appreciate your healing abilities and donate to the cause others times your not. New content asside there are seriously players out there that dont care about the party want to act as if they are uber and tend to be mana sponges. Ive run with them various times with my cleric and instead of getting myself worked up or over extending myself I do what I can and if they die from their bad playing habits oh well.

CC can help but if the players have no consideration for the party why should a cleric push themselves to keep a player like that up? As I said before its really the player behind the cleric that makes them a money sink. If you go in believing that you have to keep everyone up even if they are playing foolishly your going to be broke.

[Mindspat]

What does matter is that my first three hotbar keys are:
1 - Greater Command
2- Sound Burst
3- Cure Critical (Mass)

1: Cure Moderate Mass
2: Divine Healing III (17 Turns with current build)
3: Heal
4: Cure Light Mass