A little help on mah cleric, please.

[Lehmu]

Hello there forums.

After stalking Llama threads and reading U9 release notes, I came to the conclusion that my current cleric will probably become a healbot/symbol of stunning bot in epics, due to the removal of autocrit on helpless and no more woo-woo for me. In other words, I'll practically pike all the epic content when the party doesn't require a constant source of healing. Also, if the epic isn't a raid, Heystack could easily replace my cleric, as long as need for FoM is covered.

To me, being just about useful as a hireling is not fun, so I'll TR my cleric to another cleric build that can actually function outside healbotting.

That said, I see two ways I can go about this.

Firstly, I could try to achieve meaningful DC's in epics to make my CC land. This will be difficult, due to the increase to epic trash saves. I also don't want to TR more than once just to get my spells to land.

Secondly, I could go melee and do damage when healing is not needed. This option is more interesting to me, as I probably won't require amazing gear to function in my role.

This said, the build I have in mind is cleric X/Fighter Y, with as many levels of cleric as I can fit, and as few levels of fighter I require. Optimally I'd have no fighter in there at all so my sp pool would be enough to heal any of the content even if the group wasn't optimal.

Here comes the part I need help with. I've never built a battlecleric and I might have something in the build that's useless, or I haven't even noticed something that's important. Please tell me how I'm doing this wrong.

Feats I feel I need to have:
TWF
ITWF
GTWF - These are a flavor option more than anything, and I did grind myself a pair of scimitars in the event. Might be fun to test them out.
Power attack - If I'm going to do melee, might as well do some damage while I'm at it.
Toughness - dead clerics don't heal, dead characters don't dps.
Quicken spell - I consider this almost mandatory to heal when getting beat on or blasted.
Empower healing - The main reason I'm going cleric instead of FvS is radiant servant.

Feats I consider to be nice to have:
Maximize Spell
Empower Spell - maximize & empower boost mass cures, BB & radiant burst. Then again, I've pretty much only relied on (quickened) mass heals, heals & radiant bursts for healing when I play my cleric now. Then again, mass cures have a lot faster casting animation, so I'd get to swing more if I hjealed with them
Imp. Crit - More damage is always nice.
Extend Spell - The way I see it, the duration on divine favor/divine power/holy aura/recitation/prayer will suck without this. Additionally, extending the spells will probably save me spell points. OTOH, the 1 min/level spells shouldn't have to be extended at end game. If the party takes more than 18-20 minutes between shrines, I'm either running sands epics or something strange is going on.

To get all the feats I want, I'd need 4 levels of feater. This is unacceptable. If I skip one of them I could do with 2 levels of feater. If I skip two, I'd only need one. My current plan is to skip either empower, extend, or both of them and go with one or two fighter levels.

Since I have so many feats I feel I need or want, I'm thinking of going human. One extra feat never hurts, and neither do the human enhancements.

Planned stats: (1st TR, 34 points to spend)
STR: 15
Con: 15 - maybe have one less con & one more STR. Depends on how my endgame gear & ap stat enhancements play out.
DEX: 14 and a +3 tome for TWF requirements.
Int: 8
Wis: 14 - technically I could do with wis 10 in the beginning, +6 from conc.op and +3 from ToD ring allows me to cast my 9th level spells, but this will make my sp pool smaller and low levels awful to grind through.
Cha: 14: with a +2 tome this should be enough to get Divine Might II. If I dump AP into cleric charisma and/or human charisma, I should be able to get DM III.

Skill points: Max Concentration & UMD. I'll eat a +2 int tome at level 7 and get balance with the extra ranks.

Simple option for ability increases would be to put everything into strength. Another option would be to put some into Cha, for a better Divine Might. This would translate roughly into +1 damage, -1 attack, and I'd need to pay AP for the next DM as well. Is this worth it?

So once again, did I miss anything? Am I doing this wrong? If so, how?

tl;dr: DooooOOOooooooom + fix my build.

[Atree]

A few minor points:
You are forgetting enhancements to Wis that could add up to an extra 4 (on a human), so 8 base + 2 tome + 6 item + 4 enh = 20 Wisdom without requiring exceptional. Each +2 Wis will add about 25 extra sp which is rather insignificant. I'd use the extra build points on Str or Cha for more dmg.

Only base + tomes count for DM eligibility, enhancements and items do not count.

My cleric started with 16 Str and ended up with 30 at cap (16 + 5 lvls + 2 tome + 6 DP + 1 Litany). I still need to turn off PA in epics unless there is a bard along, and have serious issues hitting high AC foes such as Malicia.

If you don't invest into Str your DM will likely go to waste due to excessive misses.

[Ancient]

Based on what you say you want, consider a Clr 17/Fighter 2/Wiz 1 splash.

This gets you the last feat, keeps lvl 9 spells and a few arcane goodies to go with it.

[richieelias27]

Based on what you say you want, consider a Clr 17/Fighter 2/Wiz 1 splash.

This gets you the last feat, keeps lvl 9 spells and a few arcane goodies to go with it.

Splashing 1 level of Wizard on anything is considered "Epic quest and Raid repellant"

[Raoull]

Splashing 1 level of Wizard on anything is considered "Epic quest and Raid repellant"

I've seen that sentiment... and I don't see why.

It seems that splashing a lvl of WIz is the same to a caster clonk what splashing a lvl of fighter is to a melee clonk. An extra feat, and some goodies. In the Wiz case, the main goodie is psuedo UMD, whereash a fighter has a couple of useful enhancements at lvl 1., but still, it doesn't seem that different to me.

Perhaps I'm missing something....

[andreascott89]

splashing 2monk / 1 fighter would get you the 3 bonus feats you want plus have evasion as a bonus.

J

[Lehmu]

A few minor points:
You are forgetting enhancements to Wis that could add up to an extra 4 (on a human), so 8 base + 2 tome + 6 item + 4 enh = 20 Wisdom without requiring exceptional. Each +2 Wis will add about 25 extra sp which is rather insignificant. I'd use the extra build points on Str or Cha for more dmg.

I guess you're right, but I do need to figure out how to at least be able to cast my highest level spells when I get them. No fun leveling a cleric without spells. Also, I don't concider LR at cap to be an option.

Only base + tomes count for DM eligibility, enhancements and items do not count.

Interesting. I did not know this.

My cleric started with 16 Str and ended up with 30 at cap (16 + 5 lvls + 2 tome + 6 DP + 1 Litany). I still need to turn off PA in epics unless there is a bard along, and have serious issues hitting high AC foes such as Malicia.

If you don't invest into Str your DM will likely go to waste due to excessive misses.

Gotcha, to hit > damage. Especially now that hold isn't even auto-hit anymore.

Based on what you say you want, consider a Clr 17/Fighter 2/Wiz 1 splash.

This gets you the last feat, keeps lvl 9 spells and a few arcane goodies to go with it.

I tried a cleric X /sorcerer 1 when I first started playing. I began to regret that choice roughly by the time I got past level 10. If I took a level of wizard, I'd get one feat, the ability to use arcane wands without a UMD roll, and a chance to use arcane scrolls if I succeeded on a caster level check and an arcane spell failure check(assuming I'm wearing armor, of course). There's very few arcane spells that are worth casting at their minimum caster level in epics that aren't also on a cleric's spell list or available as clickies. I'm also planning to get actual UMD, so I should have little to no need for pseudo UMD.

So yeah, no wizard dip for me.

splashing 2monk / 1 fighter would get you the 3 bonus feats you want plus have evasion as a bonus.

J

This is an interesting idea and one I hadn't considered. I could even scrap one of my feats and go stunning fist to abuse U9 mechanics on it. The only thing I'm worried about with this is my reflex. If I don't have a high enough reflex save to actually save against anything, having evasion might make me believe I can play lazy around AoE effects, and gets me either a wipe or a backpack ride.

[Atree]

Reflex in the low-mid 30s is quite achievable on a Clogue/Clonk:

5 cleric
3 monk/rog
8 dex (15 base + 2 tome + 7 item + 1 enh + 1 exc/litany)
5 resist item (I have it on my DT armor)
4 GH
4 Holy aura (stacks at least for enemy spells)
2 Luck
--
31 self buffed

Can be buffed up to near 40 situationally (human save boost, bard song, Paladin aura)

Its not perfect, but good enough to evade a considerable amount of enemy spells.

Don't try dancing in elite/epic traps

Personally I took my 2nd rogue lvl at 18 for 3 reasons:
1. I did not want to delay spell progression
2. Quite a few of the bonuses listed above only become available on high min lvl items.
3. Being able to play catch-up with rogue skills (disabling epic traps, UMD and workable OL)

[PNellesen]

I feel your pain, OP, and have been asking the same questions myself.

I'm playing around with the idea of TRing my 19/1 Cleric/Fighter into a Helf Cleric w/ fighter Dilettante and 2 levels of Monk to get (among other things) Evasion and TWF (he's got both a Death's Touch and a Dream Edge in the bank). I'll have to plug it all into Ron's planner to see if I'll still be able to heal effectively, but like you I want to do a little more than just be a slightly less intelligent version of a hireling