To Radiant Servant or not?

[Tummada]

In lay-mans terms what are the real pro's and con's to going RS?

[Saiyren]

well the first radiant servant works nicely to semi heal group and take away any negative stuff on them, plus if you use RS it'll come back over time.
I'm waiting until I get to level 12 to do the Aura healing. That aura healing has saved me so many times playing my other characters. plus it regens over time as well.

[rexservorum]

There is pretty much no reason not to. I sort of had to rack my brain to come up with the con list. Even many battle cleric builds, some of which multiclass heavily (Bear Shaman comes to mind), will take RS.

Pros:
- Burst (lvl 6) is equivalent to a Mass Cure along with a Mass Restoration, is affected for free by metamagics, powered by your turn undead (which with RS will regenerate over time), harms the undead on top of everything.
- Aura (lvl 12), more "free" turn-powered healing which has the side benefit of encouraging your group to stay close.
- Empower Healing feat becomes more potent to preserve your SP bar by boosting heals.
- You gain caster levels when using certain spells (i.e., they do more damage or healing).
- You probably want the prerequisites, Empower Healing and one of the "Divine xxx" enhancements, anyway.

Cons:
- You have to take the Empower Healing feat to qualify for it; maybe you would not otherwise want this.
- You may wish to put points into Charisma or even take the Extra Turning feat to give yourself more Turn Undead uses. (The usefulness of this is debated. Most say you don't need Extra Turning, a smaller but not insignificant number will still dump Charisma.)
- It costs AP. I guess some people may find their enhancements to be too tight.

[Tummada]

well the first radiant servant works nicely to semi heal group and take away any negative stuff on them, plus if you use RS it'll come back over time.
I'm waiting until I get to level 12 to do the Aura healing. That aura healing has saved me so many times playing my other characters. plus it regens over time as well.

So it auto heals, while taking away negative effects AND it regens! Does my character need to be charisma based? I'm lvl 16 w/a 17 ch but my wis is 35 will this hurt my RS ability?

[Saiyren]

The first RS takes away negative effects. The second RS is the aura healing. Both do regen over time (1 or 2 minutes I believe) It all depends on how many "turns" you can do and that is CHA based. I think you would have at least 4 turns at 17 CHA so that means you could use the ability up to 4 times without having to wait for it to regen though I know you can get extra turn abilites through feats. If you only use your turns to do the 2 RS's I think you will be okay since it sounds like you have a lot spell points with that high of WIS.

[ToKu]

RS1 works as a burst heal and restoration, it uses a turn undead.

RS2 works as a HoT for 1:30ish at max level.

Your turns recharge at a 2 minute rate so if you used RS2 on CD you'd slowly run out of turns, faster if you used the bursts. You do not need to put anything into cha or take extra turns to make use of it, they will simply give you more uses of both between rests.

The hardest part of it is you must waste 2 AP on heal enhancements and must take the empower healing feat which may be rough on some builds as clerics do not get alot of feats to start off with.

RS2 is affected by Emp Healing meta, RS1 is affected by more, prob maximize and empower.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

My base cha is 8 and at level 12 (9 cleric/3 monk) I have 7 turns - I rarely have to cast actual healing spells outside of super crazy fights.

A better question is why NOT get RS?

The amount of SP it would take you to duplicate the healing my dump stat cha clonk gets from using the turn powered heals is ridiculous. 7 regenerating aoe heals that can crit for around 100 points of healing and a restoration effect? Yes, please! Not to mention they make a pretty potent weapon against undead as well.


If I am running with a cleric and find out he doesn't have it, I make it my mission to convert him to the Way of the Radiant Servant.

[Flavilandile]

If you remove Roleplay reasons from the list, there is no reason at all not to go the RS way.

From an European Refugee point of view, I can tell you it changed my life clericing at high level when I respeced for it.

Now unless I'm on dedicated healing, I just turn on the Aura, and run for the melee, I know I won't have to
worry about mana usage any longer... The aura will take care of 90% of the healing, I just need to
help it from time to time with a mass something...

And I won't even start on the now you can use your turns on something useful to all instead of wasting them in DV on the wiz/sorcs. *grins*

[FuzzyDuck81]

i think the majority of clerics will take it, use it, love it

If you're a dedicated healer cleric (aka nannybot.. though y someone would want to play it i dont know) you get more healing - and with empower healing granting +75% rather than +50% healing, you can save SP by using the lower tier mass cures in most situations.

If you're a more offensive-casting based cleric, you can use RS for the healing & more SP are freed up for your other spells

If you like to melee, just stick the aura on and wade into combat, it'll give you a nice amount of regeneration and you can just cast mass cures etc. without the hassle of targeting the group seperately since you'll be nearby anyway

A lot of people initially complained when RS was changed after its introduction - originally it gave the aura at level 6 & the burst at level 12 - however i think having them the other way round is actually a lot better, as at that low level the aura wouldnt do much, whereas now it lets you get a mass burst healing as low as level 6, where normally you'd have to be at least level 9 for MCLW, and it can restore multiple negative levels - for comparison, Restoration is a level 4 spell (so minimum level 7 to cast from memory) and only gives back ONE negative level, to ONE target... in some areas, a cleric can potentially end up losing his/her entire SP pool casting that after one fight that goes badly, or having to spend a small fortune on scrolls.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Actually there is a reason not to if ur making an evocation Cleric.....even on a human there is not enough feats to fit in Empower Healing....even on a Human.

Toughness
Hieghten
Empower
Maximize
Quicken
Spell Focus: Evocation
Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Extend.

I'm unwilling to give up any of those.......altho I have contemplated dropping toughness....but if I do it won't be until level 20 and I have my tier 3 GS HP item done.

That being said if ur just making a non-specific all around cleric... Radiant Servant is great....I also have a cleric that has the PrE.......I don't think it's worth it tho if you're going for maximum BB efficiency...but I'll have to see if I can afford to lose the 40 HP at level 20 to make that decision for sure.

[silvertrit]

I use it for hurting all those bad pepole pvping as Necromancers.

[wolflordnexus]

Actually there is a reason not to if ur making an evocation Cleric.....even on a human there is not enough feats to fit in Empower Healing....even on a Human.

Toughness
Hieghten
Empower
Maximize
Quicken
Spell Focus: Evocation
Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Extend.

I'm unwilling to give up any of those.......altho I have contemplated dropping toughness....but if I do it won't be until level 20 and I have my tier 3 GS HP item done.

That being said if ur just making a non-specific all around cleric... Radiant Servant is great....I also have a cleric that has the PrE.......I don't think it's worth it tho if you're going for maximum BB efficiency...but I'll have to see if I can afford to lose the 40 HP at level 20 to make that decision for sure.

meh if your just looking for max BB efficiency and are willing to give up a few SP take monk level grab ocean stance for another +1 DC and free toughness take 2 and add in evasion and another free feat. Either way nets you freebie healing. and with max emp emp heal bursts heal very well.

[vVAnjilaVv]

meh if your just looking for max BB efficiency and are willing to give up a few SP take monk level grab ocean stance for another +1 DC and free toughness take 2 and add in evasion and another free feat. Either way nets you freebie healing. and with max emp emp heal bursts heal very well.

I like pure builds.....I really for the most part like the challenge it brings...I don't like making multi-class just to try and squeeze in every little thing you can have.

Plus I still like to cast some spells that have Spell Pen check...2 monk levels will cost me an additional 2 points of an already low Spell Pen. With an improved Shattermantle it's doable, losing an additional 2 points of Spell Pen makes it that much harder.

Bestow Curse is still an awesome spell...as well as quite a few other cleric offensive spells aside from Blade Barrier.

My healing now works well enough.

[wolflordnexus]

I like pure builds.....I really for the most part like the challenge it brings...I don't like making multi-class just to try and squeeze in every little thing you can have.

Plus I still like to cast some spells that have Spell Pen check...2 monk levels will cost me an additional 2 points of an already low Spell Pen. With an improved Shattermantle it's doable, losing an additional 2 points of Spell Pen makes it that much harder.

Bestow Curse is still an awesome spell...as well as quite a few other cleric offensive spells aside from Blade Barrier.

My healing now works well enough.

Spell penetration is an issue I just kinda skip it on clerics honestly though as I can't fit in the feats. If it weren't for BB having a low duration I'd drop extend on a caster cleric just to pick up some spell pen as the only buffs you need extend for are melee buffs.

Regardless a Lot of classes need some more PRE love so there can be some option for everyone. Right now the only place I can see not picking up RS is your specific build. Much like Barbarian and FB.

War priest is going to have to bring some serious DPS or something to the table to make Battle Clerics give up their auras though, I'd Like to see a caster PRE for the cleric before giving us Battle Clerics another toy.

[PNellesen]

I just can't imagine a cleric NOT wanting RSI and II, with possibly the exception mentioned by vVAnjilaVv, it's just too useful and powerful. It's to the point now on my main Cleric that he pretty much uses RSII for healing, and the majority of his SP for buffs and offensive casting (unless he's in a raid specifically to play healer.) In fact, I think it's even MORE important for a "Battle Cleric" to have it - pop your aura, wade into the fight, heal WHILE fighting without having to think about it. Think of it as a kind of DR: [Radiant Servant Aura]/- every tick.

[Sani_Medicor]

There is pretty much no reason not to. I sort of had to rack my brain to come up with the con list. Even many battle cleric builds, some of which multiclass heavily (Bear Shaman comes to mind), will take RS.

I'm using it on my heavily multiclassed battle cleric and love it! I think it's hilarious that everyone is all about empower healing now. I got in quite a few arguments back in the day with people about the value of empower healing. lol The power gamers thought it was a waste.

[bryanmeerkat]

RS is the only reason I roll cleric over FVS , and I am happy with the trade off .
Empower healing was a waste but RS makes it a nessasary evil .

[wolflordnexus]

I'm using it on my heavily multiclassed battle cleric and love it! I think it's hilarious that everyone is all about empower healing now. I got in quite a few arguments back in the day with people about the value of empower healing. lol The power gamers thought it was a waste.

Honestly if Empower healing weren't required I'd probably shelve it. The only thing making it truly use full is the PRE honestly I have seen very few people that aren't over healed by a non crit heal spell. I tend to use mass heal and heal mostly as I don't like toggling max and empower as they make bursts nasty.

[Pape_27]

take it...

pros
1) free healing
2) free healing
3) free neg level removal w/burst
4) free healing
5) the burst is a great weapon against undead
6) not sure if i have mentioned it, but you get free healing

[ToKu]

take it...

pros
1) free healing
2) free healing
3) free neg level removal w/burst
4) free healing
5) the burst is a great weapon against undead
6) not sure if i have mentioned it, but you get free healing

At least mention the cons:

Your required to take a feat that may not be otherwise taken on a feat starved class.
8AP you may not have otherwise spent (cleric charisma 1/2 and improved heal 1/2)

That said, if your rolling a generalist or a primarily healing cleric, or your build has enough free AP and you can take emp healing feat then there is absolutely no reason to not have RS.