Help With An Offensive Caster Cleric

[samthedagger]

I won't lie. I hate playing clerics. I feel like clerics often have the worst job in the party. Not only do people expect them to babysit their characters, the cleric is the first one to be blamed if something goes wrong. I try to support clerics whenever I can by giving them stuff, even if it's just plat, because quite frankly, my experiences playing a cleric in DDO have really turned me off to the class and I want to show my appreciation.

So I've thought about a build that might be a little more fun to play than a nanny. I've known for a while that clerics have some nice offensive spells. And I've been percolating the idea of an offensive caster cleric for a while now. I read the cleric build catalog and took some tips from there. I think I have a fairly solid idea, but since I haven't leveled a cleric any higher than 8th yet, I wanted to get some feedback from the cleric gurus.

A few words before I begin. I do not want to play a radiant servant. I looked at it and it just doesn't look like it would be any fun, not to me anyway. Fun is subjective and the abilities of the radiant servant, while very cool, are not up my alley. So don't suggest it. I also couldn't care less about being the best healer in the world. I plan to put some investment into healing, of course, and want to be able to heal in epic when necessary, but I would rather play a character that can cast offensively and buff as the primary focus. I don't want to spend all my time babysitting the health bars. So while I have put some thought towards my healing (it is something clerics do well, after all), my emphasis with this build is on making the most of cleric offensive casting. So here it is.

True Neutral Human Cleric
Str 10, Dex 8, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 8
All level ups into Wisdom

Concentration 23, Diplomacy 23

Human Bonus: Toughness
1st: Extend Spell
3rd: Empower Spell
6th: Maximize Spell
9th: Quicken Spell
12th: Heighten Spell
15th: Spell Penetration
18th: Greater Spell Penetration

Cleric Divine Intervention (2)
Cleric Improved Spell Penetration III (12)
Cleric Life Magic IV (10)
Cleric Prayer of Incredible Smiting III (6)
Cleric Prayer of Life I (1)
Cleric Prayer of Smiting III (6)
Cleric Smiting IV (10)
Cleric Wand and Scroll Mastery IV (10)
Cleric Wisdom III (12)
Human Adaptability Wisdom I (2)
Follower of the Sovereign Host (2)
Racial Toughness II (3)
Unyielding Sovereignty (4)

I chose True Neutral because it seems the best alignment for avoiding damage from alignment-based effects. It will also let me cast all of the alignment-based cleric spells (if I'm not mistaken).

I chose human for the highest possible Wisdom. For an offensive caster, this seems the best choice.

My early feats are chosen for survivability. I selected as many metamagics as I could and still put in Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. The metamagics will allow me to cast powerful blade barriers later on. I can also extend short duration cleric spells like recitation, prayer and so forth. Heighten Spell is a must-have for this build to get the most out of powerful low-level spells like sound burst.

I took the full line of enhancements for smiting. Searing light seems like a good nuking spell based on the fact that it is light damage. It also enhances my alignment-based damage spells which I have had good results with when playing my cleric. I don't know about the long-term viability of these spells, but the secondary effects of spells like holy smite seem well worth it, especially with Heighten Spell. Spell Penetration enhancements help these spells hit against opponents with SR.

Unyielding Sovereignty is too good to pass up. Wand and Scroll Mastery IV seems a no-brainer. And my heals will still be decent with Cleric Life Magic IV. That plus potency/devotion should make me a good healer when the need arises. I could easily shift a few points around for Racial Toughness III, but I think two levels will suffice.

Skill choices are tough. I only get two points per level. Concentration is a no-brainer. Since I am a cleric, Use Magic Device doesn't seem very necessary, but I could be persuaded. I know Heal isn't that useful, but I don't know where else to put the points. Balance perhaps?

So any thoughts on this build or suggestions? I am in fairly unfamiliar territory here.

Edit: Swapped out Heal for Diplomacy. Swapped out Empower Healing for Quicken Spell.
Edit2: Fixed wording concerning Spell Penetration.

[EKKM]

It looks pretty good for an offensive caster cleric. Because you asked, I won't mention that Radient servant would allow you to save more SP instead of using it for healing.

As to skill points, diplomacy and balance are really your only options IMO. I don't like UMD on a cleric, especially a low chr one. Heal is only useful if you are a newbie or play hardcore/PD style.

My preference would be diplomacy, as you will be generating aggro it will be worthwhile.

[nbennet]

If you intend to be more of an offensive caster than a nanny-bot, may I suggest dropping Empower Healing for Quicken. I do not advocate keeping Quicken on at all times, but it is situationally *very* useful. Especially for those Maximized, Empowered Blade-barriers. Yum!

A suggested feat order would then be:
Toughness
Extend (useful at lower levels, when durations are short)
Empower / Maximize
Quicken
Heighten
Spell Pene./ Greater Spell Pene.

Also, as noted, you need to drop the Heal skill. Diplomacy, Balance, Jump are all more useful choices. You may want to have a single rank of tumble to enable the ability.

I have no experience with the Smiting line of enhancements, but everything else looks decent.

[samthedagger]

Thanks a lot for your insight.

I don't know how I overlooked Quicken Spell. Thanks for picking that up. I'll swap Empower Healing out for that.

Taking Diplomacy sounds like sage advice. I will swap Heal out for that. I am a little hesitant to give up Concentration, although I suppose eventually I will be running around with Quicken Spell up most of the time. I'm just concerned that without Concentration I might lose a spell at a critical moment when I don't have Quicken Spell up.

Anyone have any insights on whether or not this build will be viable in epic?

[Daggaz]

I would take empower heal over empower, personally. Maximize is more than enough for most situations, and frankly, most cleric offensive spells dont roll damage dice anyways, its just save or die. Blade barrier is nice but I dont have any problems really at all without empower on it, especially with extend going.

Empower heal, on the other hand, I never turn off. Healing for 200 hps is just not good enough period for high end content. Nothing at all to do with "nanny bots" or whatever, you simply need to heal more than that period, no matter what your role is in the party, also for self heals.

You definitely want quicken tho. Rest of your feats look fine.

[samthedagger]

I'll have to think about this then. I freely admit the main reason I want Empower Spell is because of blade barrier. But because blade barrier is such an integral spell to offensive casting clerics, it is a core part of my mid-high strategy.

And 200 hp may be the cap of heal, but that isn't the whole story. Life Magic IV will bump that up to 280. Mass heal will be limited there, but heal will not. Heal can benefit from Superior Potency/Devotion/Ardor VI to the tune of an additional 100 (pot/dev) to 150 (ardor). At least that is the way I understand it. If the spell enhancers don't work that way with heal, I'd like to know.

If it does become absolutely necessary, I can always swap out one of my feats for Empower Healing. Since most of my other feats seem solid, I can always just do this with the free feat swap token.

[gott_ist_tot]

My early feats are chosen for survivability. I selected as many metamagics as I could and still put in Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration. This will allow me to cast powerful blade barriers later on.

Afraid not. Spell Penn does nothing for blade barriers as these are not a subject to spell resistance. If anthing SF, and GSF if you really want highest possible BB DC (not worth 2 feats for me anyway). SP/GSP will help your implosion though, if you intend to cast it.

[samthedagger]

Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out. My brain did a hiccup. I meant powerful blade barriers because of the metamagics. Ending the sentence with a word on Spell Penetration was admittedly poor choice of words on my part. It's corrected now.