Battle Cleric Build Help

[Sonolin]

Hello..

I currently have a dwarven battle cleric, who is currently level 3. I have put feats into "Quicken Spell" and "Dwarven Axe" (damage and coolness/rp factor). I don't care if this build is not a powerhouse in end game, or isn't wanted too much in raids (people don't like battle clerics I guess.. they are stupid). I just want to have fun

My stats: (roughly off the top of my head)

16 str
8 dex (I thought I put more here!! Is this really needed that much??)
12-14 con
8 int
17 wis (I think)
8 cha

(28 points)

What are some feats I need to get? I want to focus on healing, but have some melee capabilities in end game. I understand I won't heal the best, but I mainly want to be off-heals and dps.

Also I wanted to say I have rolled maybe 5 characters up to level 5 in the couple weeks I've had this game, and this is by far the most fun I've had so far. (Followed closely by my sorc, and by my bard IF he didn't have crappy mana/save dcs.)

[Lehrman]

Extend, Quicken, Toughness, power attack, Empower Spell, Maximize Spell--the last 2 can be swapped for empower healing if you never intend to cast a blade barrier.

[Sonolin]

Thanks! Should I get those feats in that order? And I will switch empower and maximize out - I'd rather have the boost in healing. I understand blade barrier is very powerful, but I'd rather have the healing honestly. (If in the end-game I find myself not healing much, I can always switch it back with feat replacements.)

[samho]

Thanks! Should I get those feats in that order? And I will switch empower and maximize out - I'd rather have the boost in healing. I understand blade barrier is very powerful, but I'd rather have the healing honestly. (If in the end-game I find myself not healing much, I can always switch it back with feat replacements.)

Maximize and Empower DO boost most of your healing spell (except Heal and Mass Heal, which is a good thing in my opinion). It may not worth it before you got your first mass cure spell due to the low sp cost of early spells, through -- but it certainly help if you want to burst down an vampire with your light-based damage spell.

Once you got blade barrier and mass cure moderate wound, You could pretty sure that Maximize (and Empower, not Empower Heal) did help boost both your damage output and healing effective.

[Lehrman]

Thanks! Should I get those feats in that order? And I will switch empower and maximize out - I'd rather have the boost in healing. I understand blade barrier is very powerful, but I'd rather have the healing honestly. (If in the end-game I find myself not healing much, I can always switch it back with feat replacements.)

For the order if using blade barriers, I would go:
1st: Extend
3rd: Toughness
6th: Power Attack
9th: Maximize spell
12th: Quicken
15th: Empower spell
18th: ?

If you swap out empower spell or power attack for spell pen1 and take spell pen2 at 18th, you can pretty much play a caster/healer or melee/healer build. The main difference is that the caster build puts leveling points into wisdom for better DC and the melee puts it into STR for a few more points of hitroll and damage.

If not doing blade barriers:
1st: Extend
3rd: Toughness
6th: Power Attack
9th: Empower Healing
12th: Spell Pen1 or Mental Toughness or another toughness feat or anything you want
15th: Quicken
18th: Spell Pen2 or improved mental toughness or another toughness feat or anything you want

After 12th, you can level yourself through just about any quest with the blade barrier spell. High wisdom melee builds tend to melee less as their level goes up over 12th--a max, empowered, crit blade barrier does ~500 points per pass, and mob AI has not been improved enough for them to understand the idea of chasing you around rather than through the BB.

Also, the previous poster is correct, Maximize and Empower spell both improve spells titles "Cure ... wounds" and do not affect the "Heal" or "Mass Heal" spells. The main difference between "empower healing" and the others is that the spell point cost is lower primarily because it will ONLY boost spells that are titled "Cure..." and "Heal". It is less versatile than the other two, but there is nothing wrong with that if you do not want to ever cast offensively.

[Sonolin]

I have kind of a problem in that I took Weapon Proficiency Dwarven Waraxe at level 3. Is this a major downfall? I also took quicken at 1, but I'm thinking of using a feat replacement to switch it out for extend or toughness (I never use it anyway) - whenever I get the feat replacement (how do you get these?? favor?). Or would it be more wise to use a feat replacement on the weapon proficiency (if its that detrimental)?

How much less dps do you think I would do if I didn't use blade barrier? I understand it will be a lot, but would it even be worth meleeing without blade barrier? And would I still be an effective healer if I used the blade barrier line? (Worried about sp mainly.)

I want to focus on healing in groups (while leveling to 20) first, then dps second (but want to have good/decent dps when there is another cleric in that case I would off-heal).

Thanks!

EDIT: I do not really want to focus on offensive casting at all, but blade barrier does sound appealing. If I can do decent dps without focusing on offensive casting, I'd rather take that approach. In the build guide at this URL: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=156683 - I'm mainly wanting to do a "Melee-Capable Cleric". Also, with the feats you recommended without blade barrier I can fit the weapon proficiency in that. Here is what I'm looking at (feel free to critique.. the out-of-order stuff is due to me messing up with feat selection):

1st: Quicken
3rd: Weapon Proficiency: Dwarven Axe
6th: Extend or Toughness (?) (probably extend here)
9th: Empower Healing
12th: Extend or Toughness (?) (probably toughness here)
15th: Power Attack
18th: Mental Toughness (much rather have this earlier, but my feat order is already messed up)

How would the DPS on this be, and would I have good off-heals for raids? Here is another one I cooked up, switching around empower healing:

1st: Quicken
3rd: Weapon Proficiency: Dwarven Axe
6th: Extend or Toughness (?) (probably extend here)
9th: Extend or Toughness (?) (probably toughness here)
12th: Empower Healing
15th: Power Attack
18th: Mental Toughness (much rather have this earlier, but my feat order is already messed up)


Once I get a feat exchange, what should I switch out? I really really really really don't want to reroll - I've rerolled a lot in the two weeks I've had the game, and my level 4 cleric is my lowest character (who hasn't yet been rerolled). If I have to do korthos and harbor again anytime soon I'm going to shoot myself. (My bard was rerolled at 5, then again at 3, then again at 3, now he's 5 again and I don't play him.. my ranger was rerolled at 4, and now he's ranger 4/rogue 2.. I leveled a barb up to 3 who I ditched.. and my sorc, amazingly, was only rerolled once at an early level because I messed up in spell selection and didn't want to wait 3 days to pick a new spell lol. That's within two weeks. ) If you seriously think it would definitely be worth it (but only if you are 100% sure that my current feat layout would mess me up more than just a bit) then I can reroll this guy, but I'd rather not. He's fun to level though so.. eh its not too bad.

EDIT: OK I've figured out feat replacements but need to know if what I should switch out right now (if anything) with my free feat replacement. Either Quicken or the Weapon Proficiency. Thanks!

[sirgog]

Quicken is an excellent feat, but not at low level. You will *need* it at high level on a battlecleric so you may as well keep it.

Trust me - bladebarrier *is* worth it. Your melee weapon is the best way to kill mobs when conserving SP - BB is the best way to kill them when SP isn't a factor, or when there's a lot of foes, or against foes that are hard to melee. At least take Maximize Spell so you have a good BB if not an excellent one. Plus Maximise helps you to heal at high level (with your Mass Cure spells).

[Sonolin]

Ok thank you for the advice.. yes that does indeed sound helpful (maximized mass cure spells :O).

Well here is what I am now looking at for feat arrangement:

1st: Quicken
3rd: Weapon Prof: Dwarven Waraxe
6th: Power Attack
9th: Maximize spell
12th: Extend
15th: Empower spell OR empower healing
18th: Toughness

Basically the same as the blade barrier build, but I have a weap proficiency stuck in there. Do you think I should switch that out for something.. maybe mental toughness or toughness? Or is it ok as is? I'm a little sad that I'm getting toughness so late but I'm really not sure where else I can put it... I could maybe swap it and power attack would that be better?

[sirgog]

Ok thank you for the advice.. yes that does indeed sound helpful (maximized mass cure spells :O).

Well here is what I am now looking at for feat arrangement:

1st: Quicken
3rd: Weapon Prof: Dwarven Waraxe
6th: Power Attack
9th: Maximize spell
12th: Extend
15th: Empower spell OR empower healing
18th: Toughness

Basically the same as the blade barrier build, but I have a weap proficiency stuck in there. Do you think I should switch that out for something.. maybe mental toughness or toughness? Or is it ok as is? I'm a little sad that I'm getting toughness so late but I'm really not sure where else I can put it... I could maybe swap it and power attack would that be better?

Power Attack is only useful when your attack bonus is higher than the foes' AC. This won't happen until about level 14 or 15.

Secondly, at high level (14+), you might want to swap out the weapon proficiency and start using a greataxe.

My suggestion:

Take Toughness at 6.
At level 14 or 15, swap out Weapon Proficiency and take Power Attack there.
At 18, seriously consider Improved Critical: Slashing .

[Sonolin]

Coolio I like the sound of that - a greataxe looks good on a dwarf too . (Well I guess you never know with DDO tho :P)

Thanks for the input and I will definitely go down that route.

Also, for DPS reasons, would Improved Crit be worth it over Empower Spell (for blade barrier)? Healing wise, the choice is obvious. I can't really think of anything else I can substitute out - maybe quicken but that sounds very useful.

[samho]

Just a question -- is there any reason you feel the need to keep your cleric pure?

If you splash a level on fighter (for example), you got all martial weapon proficency for free, and as a dwarf, you also gain access to Dwarven Axe. You can use Tower Shield as well (Hello Levik's Defender), you can use whatever non-exotic weapon without worry about proficiency (exclude Dwarven Axe, of course). You also get 1 extra fighter bonus feat which can spend on numbers of combat related feat (like Power Attack, Improved critical, and such). You also access to low level of fighter enhancement which can slightly boost your melee ability.

You are going to lost 1 cleric level and the infamouse cleric crapstone, you lost around 100sp (but you can take mental toughness if you really feel the need of sp. Since you save a feat from taking either Dwarven Axe or whatever martial weapon you choice, you could use it on mental toughness if sp is really your concern). You also lost 1 DC on spell penetration check ( more like 5% less chance to break target's SR if they have it), have the same DC on 95% spell (everyone able to cast level 9 spell have the same DC before their main casting stat), have slightly less effective mass cure (compare with level 20, the lost is less than 2%). You also lost 1 spell slot on level 9 / 8 / 7 (although you will find out that more than half of cleric's high level spell suck hard, not even worth to memorize it, so you end up with a lot of high spell slot unused)



Now if you take 1 fighter level and 19 cleric level for your carrier, you get 7 regular feat and 1 fighter bonus, so you could spend them on:

Quicken, Maximize Spell, Extended Spell, Thoughness, Empower Spell (or Empower Healing, again, your choice)
Power Attack (this one can be taken as fighter bonus feat)

And you got 2 extra feat compare with your level 20 cleric with a martial weapon feat spend!

[Sonolin]

That does sound appealing and I have considered this. I am mainly worried about the loss of SP and the slower rate of advancing in spells (I'd get each level of spells a level later than if I was pure).

I'm considering it, and might level next level into fighter (or maybe the one after that if I feel like I really need 3rd level spells). But I'm not 100% sure.

Also: aren't dwarven axes martial weapons for dwarves? I've heard they are from /a and they are in PnP as well.. but for some reason they still listed under the Exotic Weapon Proficiency list when I took the feat. If they are, this will most definitely seal the deal for me! But the extra feat is juicy.. its just that, if I get an extra feat, I'm going to probably end up taking Mental Toughness which basically cancels out the SP loss (according to you) with 10 + 5 x 19 = 105 which is 5 extra sp than going pure cleric without mental toughness. But yea the martial weapons could come in useful - which is another feat bonus if I switch out my proficiency, as you said.

EDIT: OH yes I'm going fighter. After some chatting, I guess fighters gain dwarven axes for free. After a feat exchange for the axes + fighter level I'll be a lot better I'm thinking. Can anybody give any reason to NOT go 1 level of fighter for a battle cleric? Well other than me progressing in spells a level behind.. but I'll live and just pretend I'm a favored soul with all spells and none of the sp bonus :P

[samho]

That does sound appealing and I have considered this. I am mainly worried about the loss of SP and the slower rate of advancing in spells (I'd get each level of spells a level later than if I was pure).

I'm considering it, and might level next level into fighter (or maybe the one after that if I feel like I really need 3rd level spells). But I'm not 100% sure.

Also: aren't dwarven axes martial weapons for dwarves? I've heard they are from /a and they are in PnP as well.. but for some reason they still listed under the Exotic Weapon Proficiency list when I took the feat. If they are, this will most definitely seal the deal for me! But the extra feat is juicy.. its just that, if I get an extra feat, I'm going to probably end up taking Mental Toughness which basically cancels out the SP loss (according to you) with 10 + 5 x 19 = 105 which is 5 extra sp than going pure cleric without mental toughness. But yea the martial weapons could come in useful - which is another feat bonus if I switch out my proficiency, as you said.

EDIT: OH yes I'm going fighter. After some chatting, I guess fighters gain dwarven axes for free. After a feat exchange for the axes + fighter level I'll be a lot better I'm thinking. Can anybody give any reason to NOT go 1 level of fighter for a battle cleric? Well other than me progressing in spells a level behind.. but I'll live and just pretend I'm a favored soul with all spells and none of the sp bonus :P

Couple thing to keep in mind if you are going to splash another class:


1) Any full BAB class will gain the access to martial weapon proficiency, which include Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin. I beieve that you could find a numbers of thread discuss about the different of splash, but here's the hint of some minor different:

1A) Fighter net you 2 extra hp, 1 fighter bonus feat, free Tower Shield proficiency (but keep it in mind, you still take -2 to-hit penalty by using tower shield. On the other hand, those who don't have Tower Shield proficiency will take-10 to-hit penalty when using tower shield.)


1B) Ranger doesn't net you any extra hp, but got bow strength as free feat and favoured enemy (one type as your choice) at level 1. They also get sp bonus from your wisdom (would be your wisdom mod * 10, so assume you got 36 wisdom at end game, you get 130 sp by ranger splash)

1C) Barbarian does net you 4 extra hp. You also have very limited Rage use per rest as well as famous barbarian running speed (so you are going to run slightly faster than other non monk/barbarian class)

1D) Paladin net you 2 extra hp and slightly better save. Limited use of Lay on Hand. You can also got the famous Paladin Aura which will net you a few extra ac. Paladin splash also have the same sp bonus as ranger do.


2) About Dwarf vs Dwarven Axe, here's what PnP say:

Weapon Familiarity: Dwarves may treat dwarven waraxes and dwarven urgroshes as martial weapons, rather than exotic weapons.

If you splash a single level on full BAB class -- since you are going to get martial weapon proficiency for free, you would gain access to Dwarven Axe as well. So even if you splash a paladin or a barbarian, you can still use dwarven axe without penalty, not just fighter.


3) Keep your cleric pure or not will always be a quite interesting question. But generally speaking, you don't need a level 20 cleric to be successful at end game (and the fact was, it never was) -- even a 15 level cleric could handle the tower raid (current end game) fine with some help of consumeable, you really shouldn't worry about MC your cleric will make it unplayable in the end. Ironically, sometimes a well build monk splash cleric do have slightly better offensive casting power than a pure level 20 cleric if the target doesn't have spell resistance (due to monk stance), they also got better save, ac, evasion and 2 extra monk bonus feat compare with pure cleric build. That's why you saw a lot of build on cleric forum contains 1 or more level splash on various class.

[sirgog]

Just a question -- is there any reason you feel the need to keep your cleric pure?
...
You are going to lost 1 cleric level and the infamouse cleric crapstone, you lost around 100sp (but you can take mental toughness if you really feel the need of sp. Since you save a feat from taking either Dwarven Axe or whatever martial weapon you choice, you could use it on mental toughness if sp is really your concern). You also lost 1 DC on spell penetration check ( more like 5% less chance to break target's SR if they have it), have the same DC on 95% spell (everyone able to cast level 9 spell have the same DC before their main casting stat), have slightly less effective mass cure (compare with level 20, the lost is less than 2%). You also lost 1 spell slot on level 9 / 8 / 7 (although you will find out that more than half of cleric's high level spell suck hard, not even worth to memorize it, so you end up with a lot of high spell slot unused)

...

I play a Clr18/Ftr1 as my main, thought I'd comment on this.

1) Your loss to mass cure spells is more than 2% if you splash one non-Clr level. Your Mass Cure Light wounds loses exactly 4%, your Mass Cure Critical Wounds loses about 2.4% (MCMW and MCSW are in between) and your Mass Heal spell loses 5%. The main endgame healing spells are Heal, Mass Heal, Mass Cure Moderate Wounds and Mass Cure Light Wounds (in that order of importance), which lose 0%, 5%, 3.125% and 4% respectively.
Noticeable, but not a deal breaker. (If you splash 2 levels, the percentages become 0, 10, 6.25 and 8% respectively).

2) The lost spell slots *hurt*. Whilst level 8 spells are mostly garbage, level 9 has several excellent spells. True Resurrection is great; Mass Heal is your most efficient healing spell per mana spent (albeit a spell that requires a lot of practice to use well); Implosion is phenomenal when soloing easier content, Summon Monster 9 has merit, and Energy Drain allows you to help another caster quickly kill dangerous foes like Air Elementals.
Although many players will tell you otherwise, Mass Heal is phenomonal once you learn to use it - the fact that I've learned to use it is singlehandedly responsible for me not needing mana potions in elite quests any more.
By going Clr18/Ftr2 at endgame (that's my planned build), I pretty much sacrifice Implosion and Summon Monster 9, the two weakest spells for my build. If I could cast them, I would.

In short - there is a price to a splash. However, it is often worth paying - only you can make that decision. Clr20 melee-capable clerics and Clr19/Xxx1 or Clr18/Xxx2 builds are all viable. The question is - how much will you be meleeing at endgame?

If you find the melee cleric playstyle a lot of fun, go with one of the splashes. You'll still be able to heal well when that's what the group needs, but you'll be a little behind a pure cleric. If it's not your style, stay pure and still melee on occasion.

[Sonolin]

I'm leveling in fighter right now - thank you for the great advice

I definitely find meleeing the funnest aspect of the cleric class, so I'd have to say the splash makes sense from my end at least. And if a level 15 cleric can heal in end game, I'm sure a level 19 one can.

Thanks for all the help

EDIT: well just great, I'm now not proficient in dwarven axes as a dwarf with a level of fighter.. can anybody explain how that makes any sense? Makes me want to not play this game - I guess I'll go back to NWN and Planescape: Torment for now

[samho]

I'm leveling in fighter right now - thank you for the great advice

I definitely find meleeing the funnest aspect of the cleric class, so I'd have to say the splash makes sense from my end at least. And if a level 15 cleric can heal in end game, I'm sure a level 19 one can.

Thanks for all the help

EDIT: well just great, I'm now not proficient in dwarven axes as a dwarf with a level of fighter.. can anybody explain how that makes any sense? Makes me want to not play this game - I guess I'll go back to NWN and Planescape: Torment for now

Are you sure you are not proficient in Dwarven axe even with a fighter level? Because all my dwarf cleric with fighter splash do have their Dwarven Axe proficient for free, without penalty, still.


Open your feat chart from character sheet, Under the Exotic Weapon Proficiency, you should have your beloved feat -- Proficiency: Dwarven Axe.


Just keep it in mind, if you are not proficient with a specific weapon type, you CAN STILL use it, but you will get a exclamation mark icon about "No Proficient" on your upper right screen. Check it out if you got that icon with holding your dwarven axe and (if there's chance) check could you use any other martial weapon as well as tower shield.


You can also open your inventory sheet, make sure the "detail" is opened, and check your primary hand bonus -- if you got proficiency with the said weapon, your bonus (to-hit) should be your BAB + Strength mod (assume you didn't take weapon fineses) + weapon enhancement bonus (and if you are wielding axe with Dwarven Axe Attack enhancement, add them up). Without proficient , you can still use whatever weapon you like -- just take -4 penalty on your to-hit bonus, you can still wield your weapon (unlike NWN). If you pretty sure you got the non-proficiency penalty, post your number here to let us know, as well as ready to submit a bug report.




On the other hand, does your weapon have some alignment or race restrict on it? If you are not the right race with the said weapon (i.e. the weapon has Race Required: XX on examination) , or was on the opposite alignment with some "true alignment weapon" (i.e. you are Chaotic Good alignment, and want to swing a True Law Dwarven Axe), you can't use that weapon unless you can bypass the restrict via UMD (use magic device). If you are opposite alignment with "aingment weapon" (for example, you are Lawful Good alignment but want to use an anarchic Dwarven Axe), you can use the weapon but have to take the Negative Level penalty due to opposite alignment. If what you encounter was the case I describe above, then it's nothing to do with you have proficiency or not, it's about your race or your alingment ( you will encounter the same problem even if you just want swing a dagger )

[Sonolin]

I am 100% certain that I am not proficient in dwarven waraxes - and it is not a race/alignment issue, either all it is is a keen dwarven waraxe. I WAS proficient in the weapon BEFORE I did a feat exchange with fred, but I have a level of fighter so it should not matter!

I have submitted a bug report, but still no response from turbine (and I am pretty sure this is not going to be resolved soon if at all). I am 100% certain it is a flaw in DDO's system - like I said I could use waraxes before I did the feat exchange.

I have already checked and I do not have the exotic weapon proficiency. I am thinking the reason is because I switched my exotic weapon proficiency out with fred, the system took it away from me when in reality I SHOULD have the feat (due to me having a level of fighter). I guess if I would've switched my feat before I leveled into fighter it probably would not have messed up, but I really did not take that into account before I did so.

I played my ranger some today but couldn't play him very long - I want to play my cleric . I just can't bear myself to play it knowing I can't use dwarven axes after going through the trouble of leveling into fighter mostly because of that fact.

In addition to the above, more support that I am indeed not proficient in the weapon - when I equip my dwarven axe the screen reads "You are not proficient in your equipment.".

And I understand I can wield it with a -4 penalty as per d&d rules... but then there's really no point to wielding it..

If anybody has VIP access, could they please contact a GM about this? I'm on Khyber server and my character name is "Balrak". I would but I don't have VIP and the game requires this to talk to a GM I guess . They'll probably just say "file a bug report", though, knowing how customer support generally works from experience.

Thanks for the help on the build tho... if my character is ever fixed I might be able to get around to playing it..

[Sonolin]

I have uploaded images for proof that I am not proficient.

Also in the images - I actually got a hold of a GM, and his "help" was pitiful... What kind of monkeys does turbine have running this place???

Images: (its only -3 on the waraxe because it has a +1 enhancement mod)

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/8801/balrak1.jpg
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/5270/balrak2.jpg

My hope is dwindling with this game after that gm convo heh.

(BTW the convo ended with him saying he "escalated the ticket for further research".. so the only thing I can do is wait and hope it gets fixed. I doubt you guys can help much.. but I'm posting in here just because :P)

[PurdueDave]

Try and go buy a regular old dwarven waraxe and the store and see if that works. Maybe the item is bugged or something.

[SlipperyPete]

Sorry if this has been mentioned but I didn't see it - a level of fighter will give you all the weapon proficiencies you'll ever need and it's a good idea for a BC in my opinion. My battle cleric has 2 levels of fighter (BattleDoc on Ghallanda) and I don't regret it one bit.

Looks like a good start for a BC and don't worry about what other people think of BCs, the ones that usually hate them are players who need constant baby sitting to keep them alive and we're better off w/o them anyway.

On the other side of the spectrum don't be afraid to heal when it's needed either. You'll find the medium that works for you.

Good luck!