Boosting divine caster damage?

[MagicalDad]

My Clr19/Ftr1 RSII has been playing with the new Divine Punishment spell, and I am now considering redoing my enhancements, dumping Racial Toughness III and IV do pick up Cleric Smiting I, II and III and Cleric Prayer of Smiting I. I have 444 HP, and I can make up the 20 I will lose by reshuffling gear to pick up Minos.

What I wondering is - is there a way to boost damage from my other offensive spells - Blade Barrier, Cometfall, and the damage-on-save from Destruction? I have an Epic Cove Dagger, which gives me Superior Potency VII and Arcane Lore, but even with that + Empower, I find that my damage is pretty weak, when I am walking around Devil Battleground, I have to kite devils/orthons A LOT through my blades before they drop. Oh, and is Searing Light even worth it @ the upper levels?

(BTW, this is a 28pt toon that started with WIS/CON/STR of 16/16/16 for soloing, so he's not REALLY specced as an offensive caster. Just exploring my options)

[SirValentine]

What I wondering is - is there a way to boost damage from my other offensive spells - Blade Barrier, Cometfall, and the damage-on-save from Destruction? I have an Epic Cove Dagger, which gives me Superior Potency VII and Arcane Lore, but even with that + Empower, I find that my damage is pretty weak, when I am walking around Devil Battleground, I have to kite devils/orthons A LOT through my blades before they drop. Oh, and is Searing Light even worth it @ the upper levels?

I'd have taken Maximize instead of Empower if only taking one of them, and actually have both. Have you used your free feat swap, and do you have something you're willing to give up?

Xachosian Eardweller has a clicky (3x1minute) that will give double the boost that Superior Potency gives to your base damage.

You can upgrade that Arcane Lore to Greater Arcane Lore a few different ways: Blue dragonscale armor, Greenblade, Skiver. And you can make those crits a bit bigger with the Archmage set from ToD (Rahkir's Belt and Ring).

With Maximize, Empower, that gear on, and Eardweller clicky active, my base BB damage is around 400+, and 9% crits for 800+. Cometfalls are a bit higher, 550ish & 1100 crits, I think.

FvS can get even bigger numbers, with their PrE giving an extra 30% damage on those spells.

I don't use Cometfall much or Searing Light at all; one-time direct-damage just doesn't seem very efficient in it's use of SP. Searing Light might be OK on mobs particularly vulnerable to light damage; I haven't tried that yet.

[Habreno]

Question for you: What else are you doing with your APs? I can understand wanting Toughness enhancements, but what are your AP doing for you that you can't pick up most if not all of the smiting line?

Anyway.

I am running a full double-spec of healing and light damage (both entire lines, healing and smiting) with Radiant Servant II. Together, just those three take up 60 of my AP, so I can see if you're not taking the full lines. I'd go with 30% boost, 9% crit chance and 2.0x multipliers, pre-equipment. That cuts out 14 AP, about a quarter of the 60 on full lines + RS II, and a third of the pair of lines (44 AP on healing/smiting lines maxed), and still gets you most of the essencial goodies. Capstone is another 2 AP on Clerics with you won't be able to get, 4 points in Concentration you may or may not need, etc. See what you want, and you can pick it up. But plan your AP's out beforehand or be willing to make several resets and/or redos (post and pre-acceptance).

If you are Human, consider Human Adaptability/Greater Human Adaptability instead of Cleric Wisdom 3. It's less AP.

And Divine Punishment stacks are the best divine DPS you can do with SP's. I, being fully maxed for the lines, but still needing a few "twink" items, have my Divine Punishment ticking near 100, or over it, per tick, on a single stack. Triple stacked, it's my best DPS ever. 150 DPS not including crits may not be what a normal melee can do, but it's unaffected by DR and has very little enemies with resistance. In fact, it's got a nice bit of enemies with vulnerability (anything undead, certain others) and is very useful. With crits, you can near 200 DPS, or 400 average a tick, on triple-stacks.

[SirValentine]

And Divine Punishment stacks are the best divine DPS you can do with SP's. I, being fully maxed for the lines, but still needing a few "twink" items, have my Divine Punishment ticking near 100, or over it, per tick, on a single stack. Triple stacked, it's my best DPS ever. 150 DPS not including crits may not be what a normal melee can do, but it's unaffected by DR and has very little enemies with resistance. In fact, it's got a nice bit of enemies with vulnerability (anything undead, certain others) and is very useful. With crits, you can near 200 DPS, or 400 average a tick, on triple-stacks.

Divine Punishment is very nice for those tough single targets who won't chase you. But it still doesn't seem to compete with Blade Barrier for mobs that will follow you. With just 2 mobs, BB is more total damage, and even on a single mob, BB uses less SP for the same amount of damage.

[phalaeo]

What I wondering is - is there a way to boost damage from my other offensive spells - Blade Barrier, Cometfall, and the damage-on-save from Destruction? I have an Epic Cove Dagger, which gives me Superior Potency VII and Arcane Lore, but even with that + Empower, I find that my damage is pretty weak, when I am walking around Devil Battleground, I have to kite devils/orthons A LOT through my blades before they drop. Oh, and is Searing Light even worth it @ the upper levels?

(BTW, this is a 28pt toon that started with WIS/CON/STR of 16/16/16 for soloing, so he's not REALLY specced as an offensive caster. Just exploring my options)

Well, there are a few things you can do, but they work in different ways.

1. Boost raw damage output- If you only have Empower, go and pick up Maximize. You already have Superior Potency, so that's not an issue.

2. Boost damage by ensuring the mobs take full damage- You don't want the mobs taking half damage because they're saving. You said you started at 16 WIS-- not the best, but if you put all level ups into WIS, it's passable. The second thing you can do is get the feat Heighten. That should raise your DCs. You can also look into Spell Focus items.

3. Clicky boosts- The only one that'll work on the non-elemental spells that you mentioned would probably be the Eardweller.

4. Crit Chance- More crits = More Damage. See if you can fit Greater Arcane Lore in your gear set up.


The only other thing that I can think of (and I don't recommend it) is to take two levels Wizard for the Force line. It now affects untyped spell damage, and first tier gives a 20% boost.

[voodoogroves]

AP-wise, it's gonna be tight. FVS can get away with the line because frankly, they don't get RS. I know the FVS are all the rage now, but Radiant Servants in lots of content can be SP-less healers ... and even auto-pilot healers with that aura.

There's a thread I started a while back wondering if anyone has tested a Wizard 2 dip for Blade Barrier / Flame Strike boosting since BB should be boosted by the force line and Flame Strike by the fire. That may not be exactly what you're thinking of though.