The Path to Enlightenment

[The_Great_Samulas]

Thank you. I am quite pleased that it has been able to help the number of players it has. You'll find one of the secrets of implementing advance cleric play in DDO is the ability to multitask and your awareness of the environment around you. Reflexive crowd control is a good habit to develop. This idea is simply that if you are unsure of what is the best course of action, you throw your most powerful crowd control to give yourself a few more seconds. This can be contrary to what the reflexive action of a beginner cleric will be, which is to heal a low hp target.

Those that see clerics as one dimensional typically come from other MMOs, where this is the case. They think they can apply their formulas from these games to DDO. This is complicated by the fact that to some extent these formulas of rigid class roles will "work" in DDO. This blinds them to the fact that there are actually things that work better - A) roles not defined by class but by build and desire to fill that role, B) decreasing a toons dependence on others such that all can increase offensive capacity, and B) some builds have enough versatility that their role can actually be fluid such that they fill a primary role but as time allows they fill secondary roles as well. Skill level of play and knowledge of the game are very potent in DDO, they open up alot of power in a character which can make a much more potent toon than rigid class roles will allow.

[Natashaelle]

We had a session in the Academia di Curatio awhile back where I went over "Dealing with Problematic PUGs". One aspect I wanted to pass on to those here is the development of the triage list. This is basically a working order on who to heal first. It can help you tremendously in dealing with pick up groups, because it insulates your spell points from bad players. This will allow you to do more fun things with your mana.

Hmmm ... I agree with this advice for determining player quality, but with my Battle Cleric I tend to do things the opposite way in terms of what to do about it. Athough THIS :

Your triage list should start with squishies (rouges and arcanes) at the top of the list and warforged at the bottom (you still heal them, just not as a priority), then be evaluated as you progress.

Is just SPOT ON.

You should look for the signs of good players and bad players:

Damage mitigation: Are arcanes using crowd control? Are tanks using trip/stunning blow/flanking motions? Are rouges flanking opponents?

Group tactics: Do players mass their offense together or fight by themselves? Are players aware of their agro and control it so they don't get more than they can handle? Are they using advanced agro mechanics, e.g. gaining agro then mitigating its effects (intimitanks, terrain)?

Damage level awareness: Do players top themselves off between fights? Do they back off out of a fight when at 20% and start healing or just keep fighting and die?

If you watch out for these signs you can put people that were at the top of the list on the bottom, the reverse, and identify one or two tanks that are your priority candidates if things get bad. It is a great way to adjust your healing strategy for a new group. Identifying the good players in your group can save you from a party wipe.

OK, what you have been suggesting along the lines of who to heal first and who last is clearly the best advice for a *Primary* Healer in a party. But I often find myself, when in a *secondary* healer rôle, healing people sometimes in a kind of reverse order, except that as above : arcanes etc are always top priority, WF last (sorry!).

A less skillful/more inexperienced/poorly equipped player for example will typically be less effective, and I know from other posts that you have been advising against prioritising healing for such a player -- but if you're battle cleric or other secondary healer in a group including a primary healer, then it can be a good idea to make healing these guys more of a priority -- because the better characters and your main healer will be taking care of the more important quest completion tasks, including the most important healing tasks for the group, so that providing a crutch for these people by using your non-essential healing can increase party effectiveness, increase the effectiveness of these players, and can hopefully teach these people something about group play -- of course I'm usually battle cleric, so that if I see that mêlée or ranged will be more useful than healing them I will choose that option instead ; and of course one of your jobs as secondary healer is to take over if something happens to your primary healer, or he's not being played that well, or he just vanishes away his blue bar in 10 seconds, or whatever ; but there's also the option of healing them as long as worthwhile, then switching to DPS (no real loss to myself or party, and better overall DPS produced as a result -- always assuming that it's a strong enough party otherwise).

Oh ! and one more person to heal when you're secondary healer -- the primary healer !

[JollySwagMan]

Bumping this for the benefit of new players whom I refer to this thread. How would I go about requesting a sticky..?

[Senshock]

....Oh ! and one more person to heal when you're secondary healer -- the primary healer !

I usually find them in my backpack for quite some time

Not that I am a awesome cleric - It's just - I seem to remember I can heal myself

(Fvs are my favorite for this btw - hehehe!)


As to the OP - good advice is what I'd call that - as opposed to a progression - in my case anyways (see above)

[epicmadnessosity]

I wanted to make a non-niched cleric, so I posted this on another site.

Dwarf cleric (lvl 1) (32-pt.)
Str 14, dex 12, con 16, int 8, wis 16, cha 12
Put all additional points into wis.
Equip a wis item instead of a dex item (to get to +1 dex mod)

and was unanimously shot down by a bunch of rude people giving no reasons.

I wanted a cleric that could rock the big boys, hold his own in melee, and then step back and heal when necessary (but not TOO much healing).
Likely won't be too great at DV or cc.

Is this such a bad build? Any suggestions for what to keep/change? and more importantly, why?
I posted on this forum because you guys seem like you can appreciate the "I want to do what I want, when I want, and your cries for a nannybot are falling on (mostly) deaf ears" mentality AND get away with it.

also, are summons that bad for clerics? I have only played to a lvl 4 cleric, but even his celestial dog is not too bad compared to some stupid players I have seen. (he gives AND soaks up damage? yay puppy!)

[The_Great_Samulas]

A less skillful/more inexperienced/poorly equipped player for example will typically be less effective, and I know from other posts that you have been advising against prioritising healing for such a player -- but if you're battle cleric or other secondary healer in a group including a primary healer, then it can be a good idea to make healing these guys more of a priority

Sounds like an alright strategy, with the only downside in that these targets are usually very heal intensive, requiring continual babysitting. This will detract from the battleclerics primary role of offense, when you are probably better off doing that with gusto. The other drawback is the bad player may not even realise the aid you are giving, and not learn to become better.

Bumping this for the benefit of new players whom I refer to this thread. How would I go about requesting a sticky..?

I have no idea about stickies. I have emailed devs and so have others, with no reponse.

I wanted to make a non-niched cleric, so I posted this on another site.

Dwarf cleric (lvl 1) (32-pt.)
Str 14, dex 12, con 16, int 8, wis 16, cha 12
Put all additional points into wis.
Equip a wis item instead of a dex item (to get to +1 dex mod)

and was unanimously shot down by a bunch of rude people giving no reasons.

I wanted a cleric that could rock the big boys, hold his own in melee, and then step back and heal when necessary (but not TOO much healing).
Likely won't be too great at DV or cc.

Is this such a bad build? Any suggestions for what to keep/change? and more importantly, why?
I posted on this forum because you guys seem like you can appreciate the "I want to do what I want, when I want, and your cries for a nannybot are falling on (mostly) deaf ears" mentality AND get away with it.

also, are summons that bad for clerics? I have only played to a lvl 4 cleric, but even his celestial dog is not too bad compared to some stupid players I have seen. (he gives AND soaks up damage? yay puppy!)

I would caution you against making an advanced cleric (which incorporates healing, fighting, and offensive casting) until you have levelled at least one to level 20. I would stick to a healing cleric that either fights or offensively casts, with the offensive caster being the easier one to play. The build you are planning looks like an advanced cleric in that it is balanced for all three duties. Build includes feats, skills, and enhancements as well, which you don't include.

Dex is on the high side. People often recommend dumping dex, but I don't agree with this (you may have gotten some grief over a 12 Dex). Dex only gives you extra points into your reflex save, so it isn't a good buy overall. However, reflex save is a clerics weak spot that is one of the few things that can get an experienced cleric killed. I would start with a 10 or 12. Your int could be raised to 10, and lower dex to 10 (that way you can buy concentration and balance as skills). A charisma of 12 will enable divine might I (with a +2 tome), and a few extra turns for radiant servant, but this is not often done with Dwarves, because they have a penalty to charisma. I would recommend dump stating charisma, and funnelling these points into int/str. Your con is where I always put it for non-tank toons (6 build points), especially for a cleric that can heal themselves.

Where you put your level up points really depends on whether you want to offensive cast (wisdom) or fight (strength). The fact that you are planning to put your level ups into wisdom, with a starting 16 wisdom indicates an offensive casting oriented build. You don't need a high wisdom to heal at all. The points you get to your mana pool are fairly minimal. If you are going to fight, I would start with a 14 wisdom and a 16 strength.

If you really want an advanced cleric build use the following (lower dex if I figured wrong):
Str 14, dex 10, con 16, int 10, wis 18, cha 6, putting level ups in wisdom

There are many builds on the forums you may want to look at. I would try one of them for your first cleric.

[Arachidamya]

Dex is on the high side. People often recommend dumping dex, but I don't agree with this (you may have gotten some grief over a 12 Dex). Dex only gives you extra points into your reflex save, so it isn't a good buy overall. However, reflex save is a clerics weak spot that is one of the few things that can get an experienced cleric killed. I would start with a 10 or 12. Your int could be raised to 10, and lower dex to 10 (that way you can buy concentration and balance as skills). A charisma of 12 will enable divine might I (with a +2 tome), and a few extra turns for radiant servant, but this is not often done with Dwarves, because they have a penalty to charisma. I would recommend dump stating charisma, and funnelling these points into int/str. Your con is where I always put it for non-tank toons (6 build points), especially for a cleric that can heal themselves.

Adding a thought regarding higher Dex -

The Quicken feat is very popular for faster cast time and uninterruptable casting; this can be fabulous in many situations, but it encourages SP bleed. For the price of two feats instead of one, I find Mobile Spellcasting much more efficient and effective. The prequisate Combat Casting feat boosts your Concentration, which (when combined with Concentration skill) guards against interruption very thoroughly. Mobile Spellcasting, which requires min Dex 13, allows you to cast while moving at almost normal movement rate. This includes popping Radiant and Aura. Since Quicken doesn't affect spell cooldown, effectively multitasking with offensive spells, crowd control, and party maintenance spells / turns while managing spell range, etc is priceless because it comes at no added SP cost.

This may be less feasible with non-human races, and capitalizing on it requires practice, but the first time your party splits up and wipes, leaving you to contend with their aggro -- and you find yourself kiting safely as you cast res, trailing a wake of healing aura -- it's worth 2 feats, imo. Food for thought...

[Natashaelle]

Sounds like an alright strategy, with the only downside in that these targets are usually very heal intensive, requiring continual babysitting. This will detract from the battleclerics primary role of offense, when you are probably better off doing that with gusto. The other drawback is the bad player may not even realise the aid you are giving, and not learn to become better.

I don't mean to suggest that people who are *bad players* should have any sort of priority, just those who are still learning and/or gearing up.

Also, it's something to do with the backup healing -- it should quite rightly not detract from the primary battle cleric rôle.

Concerning the other drawback you mention, well, there's no question but that this is a toughie ... but I still think that showing newer players that they can benefit from cooperation is important ; but as you have suggested several times, leading them to treat it as a given is unhelpful in the longer term.

So OK, it's another balancing act ... but I think we've heard about those already in this thread

---

I had an experience like this in a WW yesterday actually, someone was playing a S&B halforc, and I thought eh ? that's weird.

So he seems to play badly, takes way too much damage -- I think ; but heal him anyway (*after* everyone else).

But then he changed style -- seems he wasn't keen on all the damage either -- to block+intimi, then all problems with him simply vanished. The rest of WW was a breeze after that.

So seems he was an intimi playing about with DPS to see if he could get away with it or not. Apparently not ... but if I hadn't healed him at all, the party could have failed, if he ragequit or whatever.

It's experiences like these that lead me to want to continue giving people benefit of the doubt

[The_Great_Samulas]

Adding a thought regarding higher Dex -

The Quicken feat is very popular for faster cast time and uninterruptable casting; this can be fabulous in many situations, but it encourages SP bleed. For the price of two feats instead of one, I find Mobile Spellcasting much more efficient and effective. The prequisate Combat Casting feat boosts your Concentration, which (when combined with Concentration skill) guards against interruption very thoroughly. Mobile Spellcasting, which requires min Dex 13, allows you to cast while moving at almost normal movement rate. This includes popping Radiant and Aura. Since Quicken doesn't affect spell cooldown, effectively multitasking with offensive spells, crowd control, and party maintenance spells / turns while managing spell range, etc is priceless because it comes at no added SP cost.

This may be less feasible with non-human races, and capitalizing on it requires practice, but the first time your party splits up and wipes, leaving you to contend with their aggro -- and you find yourself kiting safely as you cast res, trailing a wake of healing aura -- it's worth 2 feats, imo. Food for thought...

While I agree with your viewpoint on quicken, I can't agree with your solution. Quicken can be instrumental in saving a bad situation or in certain encounter types (many epics). Clerics are extremely feat starved (especially on more advanced cleric builds), so devoting another feat to produce a situation that is not as useful as quicken (compare faster uninterrupted casting to increased movement and slightly more resistance to interuption) doesn't seem that good of a choice. Your point about the effects of quicken on your mana bar is well taken. However, I would instead restrict your use of quicken and develop techniques that protect you from interruption without its use. Don't forget, that there are many ways to get back mana in the game. As long as you don't need to use them on a regular basis, they will be plentiful (this is largely reliant upon your skill at healing and metamagic useage). Here is my view on quicken:

Quicken is a powerful feat that can greatly reduce your reaction time and save characters from catastrophic damage. Because of this, many actually use it constantly, as has been mentioned. The down-side of this is healers actually become reliant upon it and never grow out of its use. You don't need it on almost all of the time once you are experienced (and provided you have concentration). People get used to it though and decide they can no longer keep people up without it. Quicken doesn't help you with interruption on heal scrolls, so if you have no concentration you can be interrupted by just about anything, when scrolling (a big mana saving technique). Quicken itself wastes tons of mana (15-20% of your mana pool will go to quickening on proficient caster, more if not). On an end stage cleric with 2100-2300 mana this is 315-460 mana just to quicken things. Basically a mana pot. Not to mention the fact that it actuallly can kill mana saving healing techniques you can use, because only big heals are actually feasible with quicken. And what about actually being a cleric and not a healbot? You going to quicken all your offensive spells too?

There are techniques to prevent interuption of spells that you will never learn if you don't try to wean yourself off the quicken crutch. You can't even try them if you don't get concentration. One of the biggest mana saving things a caster of any type needs to learn is the proper use of metamagics. You can always spot the cleric relying upon quicken - he's the one with no mana...

[I_Bob]

Bump.
Still a great thread. Thanks.
Maybe sometime you could post one or two of your favorite builds.

[The_Great_Samulas]

I have let the thread languish a bit, largely due to prioritizing my time. I'll try to keep posting once every other week as long as interest is present.

As far as builds, I don't really believe in them as a way to build your toon other than a guiding framework. I see a toon as a personal exploration of what fits your play style and what you find fun. The only really time I have followed a build is in building a rather one-dimensional DPS toon. Even then I changed it somewhat to add a degree of survivability.

With such a perspective I will post a build philosophy that I go by with clerics. My current incarnation of my cleric is available in this thread. I am currently evaluating TRing into half-Orc or half-elf for increased DPS or survivability. The build philosophy points below are aimed at building my vision of an advanced cleric. This is a stage seven cleric that is designed to deal well with healing, melee, and offensive casting. It is my view that a cleric that specializes in only one (the usual being healing) is a healbot that are relatively easy to play and don't really need to be optimized to function extremely well. Those specializing in two roles can be much more potent in melee or offensive casting but must degrade their third role into non-functional status to accomplish this. This is to me a mistake as I believe the most potent aspect of the cleric is versatility. If you don't have this the favored soul class is equal to or more potent in some ways (although clerics are probably better with a melee focus). A cleric is much more potent than the favored soul when they have all three of these aspects because of this versatility. This versatility allows you to attack a quest objective with the most powerful strategy, rather than using the same strategy on all objectives. It also livens up the play, allowing you to change things up to keep things entertaining. Allowing you to switch roles also is important in stage seven advancement as it allows you to strengthen weak aspects of your group by filling the needed role.

1) devote maximum build points to wisdom. The core attribute for offensive casting (other than blade barrier, which also benefits, but not as much) is your spell difficulty checks. It is amazing how much one point matters here.

2) do not devote more than 6 build points to constitution. Many builds overly emphasize this stat. While hit points are important, once you devote six build points the cost goes up to a two for one ratio. Hit points are not this important UNLESS you don't have a viable option for them. This is because you will be able to hit around 500 hit points with six build points and are capable of healing yourself to maximum near instantaneously and capable of bringing yourself back from the dead.

3) do not neglect dexterity. As an advanced cleric you will not be able to achieve effective AC. Although monk splash builds can achieve it, my philosophy is these are more for solo work. Thus, build point here only give you reflex save. Not particularly attractive usually, but to a cleric it is. Reflex save damage can be enough to take you out in two shots. Your protections will be enough to keep you up from the first shot, but if this is combined with other damage it can take you out. This situation is one of the few that can kill an experienced cleric. It is worth a few build points (2-4).

4) strength is the core of your melee capability, but you can significantly augment this through items, enhancements, and spells. You should devote 4-10 build points here.

5) intelligence is also important to not neglect. It's importance is in skill points, which are particularly useful on an advanced cleric. Core skills to max are concentration and balance. Maximum balance will allow you to get up from most stuff fast. Getting knocked down stinks as it interrupts your spells, but not getting up again quick enough will kill you. Useful other skills are UMD and intimidate.

6) charisma is mostly important for divine might. This is a potent enhancement that allows a cleric with less than stellar strength and class benefits to have worthwhile damage/second. You will need a 16 in this for divine might two (with tomes-nothing else counts other than level ups). It also helps with radiant servant, but even with a base six charisma you have enough of them with enhancements and stat buffs.

7) core healing feats are maximize, quicken, and empowered healing. This leaves four others to tailor your build. I prefer extend, toughness, spell penetration, and heighten. I take improved crit slashing as my bonus for human, though power attack is also good.

8) you should maximize the healing amplification enhancements and buy either level two or three in wisdom enhancements. Get the prereqs for radiant servant and both ranks of it using divine might as your choice. The rest you should not over specialize in. Get two or three ranks in wand/scroll mastery to augment manaless healing. Do not buy mana bonus enhancements other than the first rank, as these are lackluster compared to you total pool at cap. Get divine might 2 or 3. The rest will determine the flavor of your cleric.

9) all level ups into wisdom. You have to do this for effective offensive casting.

10) gear is too extensive to go into. Suffice it to say you will want a set up designed for balance between offensive casting and melee with two to three items that you swap in when going heavy one way or the other. You should rely upon the two Amarath belt clickies to augment your healing.

Hope I didn't forget anything too important, but I have to go.

[Impaqt]

I agree witheverything except #3.

+1 or +2 Reflex save means absolutely nothing end game for a cleric. waste of build points.

[The_Great_Samulas]

I agree witheverything except #3.

+1 or +2 Reflex save means absolutely nothing end game for a cleric. waste of build points.

Sounds like we have similar viewpoints on builds of this type. As far as point 3, I already stated my reasoning for it, which I believe is sound. However, if you look at my build listed, I also used dex as a dump stat. So, in the end I guess I didn't follow my own advice and found better places to put those points, which means I followed your advice rather than my own. I think if I had 36 points I would have put one in there with a +3 tome then one more in charisma with the hopes of a +4 tome. There are only so many build points it seems <scratches head>.

[Seladon]

hi

very nice post.
helped my cleric playing allot.

also reminds me of the 10 Bulls of Zen:

http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/10bulls/tenbulls.htm


Cheers.

[ktb]

First of all, this is the best thread I have ever seen on this forum. Aside from it being insightful, the OP has done an astounding job on monitoring it and expanding it. While I’ve played on and off since DDO launched, I started my first cleric 1 week ago. This post has been incredibly helpful.

I will also say that with a few exceptions, PUGs have been great. They monitor their own health and manage agro.

Right now I am a level 10 “poor” healbot. However, I am finding that there a major challenge with advancing on the path to enlightenment. I have too much mana. I assume this means I am doing something wrong. I’m feeling like an accidental piker. My main contribution seems to be dropping DVs on the arcanes.

1. While I use wands when I am out of mana, I am rarely out of mana. I have about 750 sp. I do make use of the twisted talisman and archivist necklace (starter). I generally find that I shrine to “top off” after burning my remaining mana on buffs.
2. I routinely apply mass aid and mass Shield. Resists generally get handed out by the rangers. What are the other useful buffs that groups expect?
3. I’ve started using flamestrikes to try and use mana more productively, but it does a trivial amount of damage. My greater command doesn’t seem to do much. My wis is 24. Does it need to be higher for mobs to miss saves?

I’m considering taking the following steps but would love some feedback:
1. Swap mental toughness for Maximize.
2. Swap my devotion item for a potency one
3. Reset enhancements to lose SP increases in exchange for more wis.

In the short term I would like to have offensive casting as my secondary role. Longer term I will work on adding melee.

Thanks again.

[The_Great_Samulas]

hi

very nice post.
helped my cleric playing allot.

also reminds me of the 10 Bulls of Zen:

http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/10bulls/tenbulls.htm


Cheers.

I'm happy you enjoyed it and it helped. I read your link. Thing that strikes me about zen is it seems a philosophy of a) go out in the world and discover, b) find out that it isn't the way it should be, c) try and change it, d) give up and accept the way things are and become passive. I much prefer to read the thoughts of people that have continued to strive to change our world into a better place like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Of course, their tales ended abruptly, but I believe they ended successfully. Of course, this is way off topic and i did enjoy reading the link, just got me thinking, which is always good. Thanks.

First of all, this is the best thread I have ever seen on this forum. Aside from it being insightful, the OP has done an astounding job on monitoring it and expanding it. While I’ve played on and off since DDO launched, I started my first cleric 1 week ago. This post has been incredibly helpful.

I will also say that with a few exceptions, PUGs have been great. They monitor their own health and manage agro.

Right now I am a level 10 “poor” healbot. However, I am finding that there a major challenge with advancing on the path to enlightenment. I have too much mana. I assume this means I am doing something wrong. I’m feeling like an accidental piker. My main contribution seems to be dropping DVs on the arcanes.

1. While I use wands when I am out of mana, I am rarely out of mana. I have about 750 sp. I do make use of the twisted talisman and archivist necklace (starter). I generally find that I shrine to “top off” after burning my remaining mana on buffs.
2. I routinely apply mass aid and mass Shield. Resists generally get handed out by the rangers. What are the other useful buffs that groups expect?
3. I’ve started using flamestrikes to try and use mana more productively, but it does a trivial amount of damage. My greater command doesn’t seem to do much. My wis is 24. Does it need to be higher for mobs to miss saves?

I’m considering taking the following steps but would love some feedback:
1. Swap mental toughness for Maximize.
2. Swap my devotion item for a potency one
3. Reset enhancements to lose SP increases in exchange for more wis.

In the short term I would like to have offensive casting as my secondary role. Longer term I will work on adding melee.

Thanks again.

You are a piker. PIKER ALERT. Danger Will Robinson. lol. Thank you for the kind words.

As far as being a piker, you should aim at getting to a shrine with 0-20% of your mana if you know the dungeon. The level you arive at is dependent upon needing to buff others before shrining. If you have more than this you are wasting mana. As far as your specific points:

1) Too much mana - This is the double edged sword of the good group. When true reincarnating we rarely bother to get a dedicated healer up to level 12, and we don't worry too much about it after that most of the time. Veteran players typically don't need a babysitter to zerg quests on normal and hard difficulties (elite either on level 10 and lower dungeons). This is a good driving force for healbots to become something more. They realize that they just aren't needed in most situations, so they look to other things to do with their mana. Sounds like what is happening to you.

2) Mass buffs are the way to go. They are fast and mana efficient. Using rangers and paladins to assist the buff process is a great way to go. Other good buffs when appropriate are death ward, freedom of movement, mass protection from evil, mass protection from elements, prayer and recitation.

3) Your flamestrike will not do decent damage unless appropriately augmented. This is one thing most arcane casters learn early. You should get a superior inferno V clickie to appropriately increase the damage by 75% of flamestrike, in addition to metas like maximize. Your wisdom is about right. Make sure you are casting greater command on groups of melee type monsters. It works great on ogres and earth elementals. Remember you have to target a particular mobs weak save. Casters should be targetted with fortitude save spells - soundburst and slay living. Melee types with will save spells like the commands. Cometfall is great because it works well on most stuff and makes the ground shake with your power (the best aspect!).

Digression on clerical nuking: In general, clerical mana is more useful on crowd control, healing and instant death spells rather than nuking. If you are going to nuke you might want to experiment with clerical smiting spells and buy the enhancement line (get out of it once you hit level 16 or so). I never found these all that rewarding myself since I melee as well with vorpals and other power 5 weapons (paralyzers, smiters, vorpals, banishers, disruptors). You get the dismissal spell and slay living at level 10. I would concentrate on these instant death spells. Both have higher level version with increased power (dismissal becomes multiple target and slay living becomes a ranged spell).

Comments on your steps:
1) You are getting out of the usefulness range of mental toughness. It sounds like you definately don't need it. Maximize will greatly augment the damage of flamestrike and other spells. I consider maximize a core healing feat as well, because you need huge quick cures in some raid situations.

2) At your level range I would use a wearable devotion item of the appropriate type, but use ardor clickies to increase your healing on a regular basis. The devotion is just in case your ardor clickie runs out and you don't notice it right away. FYI - devotion/potency adds 10% amplification per level, ardor and inferno adds 15% per level to each appropriate spell type. This is 50% vs. 75% for superior. Keep ardor effects up all the time (have 2 items with clickies), and use inferno clickies if you anticipate using flamestrike. Once you get bladebarrier you should start equipping a superior 6 potency item when doing that.

3) The spell point bonus enhancements diminish in usefulness as their relative ratio to your total mana pool declines, i.e. as you gain levels and your mana goes up the few points you get from these becomes more and more meaningless. I would recommend only taking the first level of them.

[Adrian99]

Great thread. Not to interrupt it, but this comment resonated highly with me:

3. I’ve started using flamestrikes to try and use mana more productively, but it does a trivial amount of damage. My greater command doesn’t seem to do much. My wis is 24. Does it need to be higher for mobs to miss saves?

I always had this same problem, but ultimately found that the problem wasn't the save (which is related to Wisdom), but the spell resistance check. At first my cleric had Wisdom maxed (got it to 32) but didn't take any spell penetration feats or enhancements. I found that my Greater Command, Banishment, and other spells with an SR check would fail more than half the time. It was very frustrating. So just for fun, I lesser reincarnated and took the Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration feats, and spent the AP on all 3 spell penetration enhancements, and made sure I was always carrying a Greater Spell Penetration VI or VII item. The result was staggering. Now my Greater Command, Banishment, Implosion, etc. hit almost all the time and are extremely fun to work with, particularly when used in proper combination with Blade Barrier and Cometfall. Ok, I'm done interrupting, thanks again for the great thread

[Natashaelle]

I have let the thread languish a bit, largely due to prioritizing my time. I'll try to keep posting once every other week as long as interest is present.

Another amazing post !!

As usual, your advice is spot on, though I do have one or two comments, from the (minority) mêlée-focused battle cleric point of view.

3) do not neglect dexterity. As an advanced cleric you will not be able to achieve effective AC. Although monk splash builds can achieve it, my philosophy is these are more for solo work.

Whilst I completely agree with these comments for a full cleric, it's just spot on ... fighter-splash and other strongly mêlée-capable builds can achieve good AC, with no need for a monk splash. The basic and most drastic drawback of this is the amount of grind required to accumulate enough gear to achieve it -- whereas the monk splash option provides a quicker and easier path.

There are really four tiers of AC -- non-existent ; useless, except for some soloing ; middling, helping to improve survivability ; good.

Achieving AC better than useless requires some serious dedication, and requires equipping some gear which will hinder your other cleric attributes, by virtue of taking up equipment slots that could otherwise be used to enhance them. Therefore, good AC should only be pursued as a goal, ideally speaking, if a) it's achievable and b) as a specific choice of playing style. b) is the more important of these two factors.

Having said that, simple blind luck can dump enough AC gear into your sweaty palms to reach a middling AC level. In such a case, I would personally advise just accepting the luck, and accepting some AC for your cleric. Survivability will improve, and therefore provide increased party survivability, as well as some increased versatility.

9) all level ups into wisdom. You have to do this for effective offensive casting.

Unless you are a mêlée battle cleric, in which case raising STR can be your priority instead. This depends greatly on build options though, so that this is just to mention the existence of some non-standard build strategies.

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If OTOH you are a mêlée-capable offensive caster type, relying on blade barrier and whatnot for most of your DPS rather than mêlée, then by all means ignore ALL of my above comments, and listen to Samulas instead

[ktb]

Natashelle,

Is there a rule of thumb for what constitutes good/middling AC by level? I've started meleeing more with my noob cleric (lvl 11) and am not sure if decent AC is far enough out of reach not to care (as with my arcanes).

Along the same lines, what kind of dps should I expect? I have gone with a holy/good weapon over vorpal because I do not have any "seeker" enhancements. Is that a decent trade off or is it offset by the greater "hate" I might receive?

Samulas,

I took your advice and saw a significant improvement last night. I picked up better melee weapons and an efficacy clickie. In addition, I was alot more liberal with my buffs, made better use of greater command and didn't worry about keeping reserves to "nanny" the group. The result was faster runs, a lot more fun, and frequent deaths for the zerging mana-less wizard

I can't wait to start using blade barrier tonight.

[Natashaelle]

Natashelle,

Is there a rule of thumb for what constitutes good/middling AC by level?

Not really, because the AC requirements advance in fits and starts.

At endgame, 50s and below are in the non-existent range, 60+ is useless, 70-75 middling, 90+ good.

From there, you grade down according to whichever questing you're doing -- for example if you're favour grinding in lower level Qs, 90+ will be "insanely high", 70-75 good, etc...