what good is symbol of death?

[ToKu]

As others have mentioned, dont dismiss that air ele, he is pretty good at CC'n a good range of monsters. I use him in a few Amrath quests and he trips just about everything. Pretty satisfying to see a Betherza (sp) being chain tripped.

[Bogenbroom]

Brennie's list is a good starting point, but I wouldn't agree with some of it. Mass buff spells can be useful for non-character allies. Contagion *used* to be decent before it was merged to remove max/emp effects... When you could hit 15+ stat damage in one cast.

But yeah, anything with a hp or hd cap could use a review.

[ToKu]

Brennie's list is a good starting point, but I wouldn't agree with some of it. Mass buff spells can be useful for non-character allies. Contagion *used* to be decent before it was merged to remove max/emp effects... When you could hit 15+ stat damage in one cast.

But yeah, anything with a hp or hd cap could use a review.

I still use mass bulls and bears for HoX, thats about it.

[EKKM]

I appreciate your thoughts and agree with most, but just a few comments in green - edit - just noticed the red, white and green fonts are kind of festive.

In alphabetical order:

Bane - Whoopedee do, some enemies have -1 to hit now. And they'll all be dead in 10 seconds anyway.

Bear's Endurance, Mass - By the time you can cast this, just about everyone should have a +4 or better Con item anyway.As noted, usefull for buffing puppies, also good as a noob check at higher levels

Blindness - If there is an enemy that is a big enough threat that you want to cast a single-target only blindness spell on it, chances are it's immune.At level there are a few orange named that this is useful on, the other than those 2-4 levels, I agree.

Bull's Strength, Mass - By the time you can cast it, anyone that cares about strength probably aready has a +4 or better item.Puppies

Cause Fear - A front runner for uselessness. Single target, won't work on bosses, and the best part is anything over 6HD is flat out immune. Classic.

Close Wounds - I cannot think of a single situation where quick-spamming a low-healing spell would be preferable to simply cycling different levels of cure spells. Cure Light Wounds is a superior spell in all aspects.

Contagion - Short range, single target, barely discernible initial effect, with secondary effect damage only happening 60 seconds after initially cast. Have you ever seen a non-boss mob last 60 seconds? I haven't. The best part is the sub-menu that give you disease choices, usually confusing you enough to let your target get out of that very short range before you can pop off the spell.

Create Undead - Its like a summon (and we all know how useful those are), except it gets to try to turn against you every 15 seconds AND it requires its own, unique, slot-filling expensive material component. This, i think, is the trifecta of uselessness for Cleric spells (Useless, potential harmful to its caster, AND expensive!). This is my top nominee.

Deific Vengeance - Small amount of good damage. And since no cleric in the history of ever has specced for "Good" damage (And there no such thing as "Good" lore items), it will never do anything more than pitiful damage.I like it in its level range for clerics with no strength, take some enhancements and with a potency item it isnt useless

Doom - -2 to saves and attacks, while not shabby, simply doesn't bring enough to the table to make it worth a spell slot. Also note, it is a fear effect and thus more easily resisted by enemies (And bosses, as always, seem to be immune).

Eagles Splendor, Mass - Like the other mass stat buffs, anyone who cares about Charisma will have a +4 of better item by the level you can cast this.

Find Traps - *Maybe* if you're some kind of rogue splashed cleric who somehow manages to keep their trap skills maxed out, this coudl give you a great boost to your search checks. But in all likelyhood, at it will do is give you a moderate boost to your Search check (Which won't matter at all, since you can't disable anything without a rogue anyway!)As you noted, only few builds will use this but it usually essential to those builds

Glyph of Warding/Greater Glyph of Warding - Slow cast, tiny damage, not worth slotting.

Harm - One of the most overpowered spells from 3.0 PnP D&D is one of DDOs least powerful. Single target, very small range, and does "up to 150 points of damage". So does 3 rapid hits from a barbarian, in just about the same time frame, without costing any spellpoints.Useful for high reflex opponents when doing explorers, smack them with harm, than a low level inflict to kill them.

Inflict X Wounds - Low range, extraordinarily low damage. Useful for pale masters and their pets, but that's about it.As above, use after harm

Nimbus of Light - You'd do more damage with an Ember Heavy Mace.

Obscuring Mist - 20% miss chance is nothing to sneeze at. However, it works for the enemies too. Better, actually, as they don't end up bumbling around, completely blind, trying to figure out where the enemy lightning bolts are originating from.

Owl's Wisdom, Mass - I think you get the picture by now.

Poison - All the same problems as contagion, save the pop-up submenu. Short range, barely noticeable effects, doesn't work on anything that would survive long enough to matter.

Seek Eternal Rest - Most clerics can't turn worth a darn passed the harbor anyway, even with a +4 bonus. There are notable exceptions (I actually have a friend who is a double cleric TR who gets 4x the killcount as a well built/geared barbarian in Delaras), but in most cases this spell just doesn't cut the mustard.With more clerics including CBHR in thier builds, the usefullness of turning has been extended a few levels, good in its level range and much farther for those builds that incorporate turing to level 12-14.

Spawn Screen - A buff with such an utterly narrow focus that is hardly ever prepared. And even if it is, its only useful if someone dies.

Symbol of Death - As described, the hitpoint cap makes this useful for favor farming... and that's about it. Makes Haverdasher a breeze, though.This spells pwns kobald assault

Symbol of Flame - Not enough damage to even remotely be worthwhile.

Undeath to Death - 9 HD cap makes this spells useless from the moment you get it.

Unholy Blight - Might be slightly useful for the one and only quest that has mutiple enemies that are good aligned. But all things considered, bladebarrier is still a better choice.

Word of Recall - Useful for turning in Relic of a Sovereign Past. Perhaps also for getting from the boonies to house D to broker some weapons too, i suppose. The biggest downside of this spell is that no one woudl ever have it on their spell list for any part of a quest, because it doesn't have any effect on the quest whatsoever.

Honorable mention to the other "Symbols", though some have some interesting strategic uses, as well as any cleric spell whos primary purpose is damage (with the exception of bladebarrier, of course). Stunning, persuasion and even pain are useful

[selutha]

My Harms hits for 370-800ish prob about 70% of time depending on what Im using it on--somethings I hit 100% of the time in that range, more with Eardweller. Ive seen 1100pt Harms.

TO OP : Many Cleric spells can be boosted with gear, For instance Im a pure offensive necro cleric and I can even boost my firestorms to hit for 300i+ as well as my cometfalls without eardweller--higher if I run content that is a bit lower than my level, or with certain mobs etc.. I also took full line of Light/good damage and have some nice Searing lights to alt with Harm. However, yes this costs alot in Action points, but I am not an RS cleric as I don't need to be for the crowd that I run with. And in many of our raids one Divine will heal, and the other will use all their SP for DPS spells if they are set up for it, or melee. The great thing about being a cleric is that you can try all these things out as you get more gear for them. This is why I prefer my Cleric to my FVS.

Blade Barrier is of course awesome, but if you solo alot, you'll find that not all bosses move--or take forever to get to move----as well as one can take down bosses quicker if one throws a ton of DPS at them.

I also think that a thing to remember with some of these spells is that not everyone plays the same way--ie DPS and kill as fast as possible. Many roleplayers in the game do use things like Doom and contagion, etc, because it fits their storyline.

I did spec for emoting for some time and I find the smite spells useful, I even find the symbol spells useful too, but most teams are much to impatient to give the time to lay down two symbols, ( I didn't have thicken till after 12) as for harm I use that to heal a pm m8 I run with. I don't cast heal much but I think the most use it saw was in mad creator on the giant skellies. One cast and the barb says over voice "***... Stop doing that it is making me feel useless!" as he kept trying to out run my spell range.

But comparing flame strike to fire storm, I can't remember the dps or sp cost but are they not close? Could u slot flame strike and repurpose firestorm? I don't think I had enough slots for firestorm.... Can't remember inlaws eat brain cells I guess.

[selutha]

That's the point at no time should a spell you get at level 15, symbol of death, find it's use in kobalt assault, a level 2... Or 4 quest. I actually did that quest much earlier I kinda enjoy the defense quest.

[moops]

I did spec for emoting for some time and I find the smite spells useful, I even find the symbol spells useful too, but most teams are much to impatient to give the time to lay down two symbols, ( I didn't have thicken till after 12) as for harm I use that to heal a pm m8 I run with. I don't cast heal much but I think the most use it saw was in mad creator on the giant skellies. One cast and the barb says over voice "***... Stop doing that it is making me feel useless!" as he kept trying to out run my spell range.

But comparing flame strike to fire storm, I can't remember the dps or sp cost but are they not close? Could u slot flame strike and repurpose firestorm? I don't think I had enough slots for firestorm.... Can't remember inlaws eat brain cells I guess.

Firestorm was changed from its original in carnation, I was quite surprised when I was on my Cleric's last life and tried it out again. IIRC Flame strike still sucks for me ( just tested without eardweller but with Sup Potency --70-120 on vale mobs, Flame strike was 198 - 350--I tested Flame Strike with out any potency/efficacy 8 item since many new divines wont have this yet. Well worth the extra 15 sp to me.). Also Firestorm is LVL 8 and there arent that many spells competing for a slot at level 8, while Flame Strike is Level 5 and I have no room for it atm.

Symbol of Stunning and Symbol of Persuasion ahve the best uses for me, both which I can land in Epic content.

[Iwinbyrollup]

Wait, Holy Aura blinds enemies? Or is everyone just talking about the similarly-named Holy Smite, which is a level 4 spell that blinds enemies and does a little damage? I thought Holy Aura was just a party buff.

[Wurmheart]

nah holy aura blinds enemies caught in the radius when cast, (no save)
wouldnt call it super tough as most tougher bosses are simply immune to it


flamestrike is junk, lower average dmg of 2 portions of which 1 alot of enemies have resistance against..

firestorm however can deal 300 ish dmg pretty easily against anything not fire immune,very resistant
and because of the limited dmg spells clerics/fsv's have it isnt so bad, especially considering there is no save to lower dmg
but targeting and hitting enemies with it can be tricky at times, often missing when there's a hight difference and mobs easily walk out of the area before it hits

[erikbozelie]

I just hit 15 and like usual I was jonesing for the new spells. Ran to the trainer and leveled my little cleric, ran to the tavern to slot...

Is it me or do most of the spells at level just suck? This might be my limited experience in the game so let me try to elaborate:

Holy Aura - better saves and deflection. Though nice it is very short lived. So another combat casting like Recitation ok not bad.
The nicest buff there is for alot of save situations, it doesnt gives an resistance bonus to saves atm, but something else, stacking with Greater heroism, resistance, and recitation. nice to get an roque through epic traps.

Cure Critical wounds Mass - cool another heal, but i rarely cast cure serious wounds. I don't raid that much and think I will see this spell used much more there. In teams for quests with empowered healing on serious wounds gets people full and I use burst/aura to top off the team or burst to heal spikes. It has worked so far...

agreed, spell points using healers be damned! (fvs), who needs sp anyway?

Summon Monster VII - COOL love the air elemental another cc to control incoming damage. Could scroll it right?
air elemental is 8, not 7... scroll level 8th's are hard to come by, and this guy works like an charm, even in shaverath / hard to kill monsters.. even knocks down bosses.

Fire storm - tired it looks like a higher save flame strike and blade barrier seems work better for me.
heighten, besides.. you cant make an reaver omelet without raining some holy fire. (unlimited sp in reavers fate.)


Death Pact - this one looks very nice. If I go down, I get up. Costs me 2 con when I have it so my hp/fort saves are lower though.

immortality!. who needs hp if you can rez yourself... btw.. one full life isnot better then 2 abit lesser live.. use when there is no one to raise you. 90% of the idiots fall into this category.

Inflect critical wounds mass - this could be useful for healing spike damage to PM wizards. Wouldn't BB work better?

inflict rulez!. only usable in an 11 pale master group / 1 cleric(you). otherwise dont take it.

Symbol of death - O.k. I need some help here. What good is a spell that will drop any mob or mobs that don't have more than 150 COMBINED hit points. Did we not pass the 150 mark level 9 ish? its expensive to cast stays in the air once activated lasts 20 seconds and will kill anything with low hp when I am level 15. I am not seeing a use of this someone help me out. Thought about using it at the end of a line of spells laid as a trap. ex: ward a door way, flame strike the mobs in a room they get hit by the ward that i laid at the door way and drag any stragglers to the symbol of death... why not cast 2 bb?

ABONDEN SHIP!. this spell sucks harder then an over clocked Dixon's vacuum cleaner on drugs.

Death ward mass - ok good use gives Death ward to everyone in area cool...


so useful spells : death ward mass/summon monster/death pact mass/cure critical wounds mass

everything is ok but nothing really amazing and no real decisions to make as I have more slots than useful spells.


All in all level 8 was kinda a let down... BUT... what good is Symbol of death with the inflated hp in ddo? PNP sure its nice and very powerful. DDO... as I am reading it. does anyone even slot this spell?

doubt it, i sometimes rarely use symbol of persuasion to charm monsters.

in it as blue