Feedback: Cleric 101 (Work in Progress)

[justagame]

Understanding that this is a beginners' guide, and not a guide for someone who is going to be spending 98% of their time running epics, I'd offer the following:

On a generalist cleric, I'd put at least a couple more points into STR, take them from INT. As someone else pointed out, you can have at least acceptable self-defense or contributory melee capability in the early levels.

I'd second the recommendations for a section on the uses for turn undeads:

Turning undead (can sometimes be useful in the early levels, depending on CHA and enhancements)
DV's
Divine might (useful to enhance melee ability, but need to mention the base CHA requirement)
RS Bursts
RS Aura
Other (divine cleansing, healing, light) -- much less useful than the other uses these days, but having niche usefulness (e.g., divine healing being able to heal through obstacles)

I'd also devote some wording to RS abilities, what modifies/ehnances the burst and aura, and the prereqs.

[dragonmane]

Clerics are many things, when you roll a cleric make sure you know what you are wanting to be. There are battle clerics, healbots, mixed and there are clerics out just for fun.

Oh, Turning undead is great for any undead that is lower than you, but Divine Vitality is actually nice to have.

[darkrhavyn]

My one liner:

Every cleric should know: while you can and should contribute DPS, whether by spell or melee, any cleric CAN heal, and should be prepared to do so when the kobolds hit the fan!

General thoughts:
Overall its a pretty decent build for a basic beginner healing specd cleric. Everyone has made some great points about things like not needing quicken until end game, can drop int to 8 and forgo diplomacy, but most of those are tweaks to the character imo.

I would suggest that for healing a base 16 wis is enough and using the extra points in either CHA or STR. CHA, imo,may be better for one reason....turn undead, which is what is consumed with the radiant servant PRE for healing auras and bursts, are determined by the CHA score, not the WIS. A beginniner will get more and be more helpful to a group with more auras and bursts than the +1 to their DC's and the < 40 sp that an 18 wis over a 16 wis will give them. Yes, your turns regenerate with time, but having a couple of extra can be lifesaving, literally, in some quests.

To me, the feat selection is reasonable....lots of people forego Mental Toughness on their clerics to up spell pen, add greater spell focus.....and they have very good points. But for a healing spec'd cleric, most of your crowd control hits just fine without the added feats and having an extra 105 is probably about the same usefulness. As well, at higher levels the feat can be easily swapped out for spell pen, etc if people find that with their play style, they dont need the extra sp, but would like the spell pen etc

[Jubbers]

It's been said a few times and as a cleric player I'll post my observations.

My current feat list is:
Empower, Empowered healing, Maximize, extend, mental toughness, quicken, toughness and heighten

I find that heighten is more or less useless, yea the couple of pts in DC are great, but at end game spell pen is where I suffer. Couple of wiz past lives an item and some AP would fix that, but I'm not willing to have my primary character TR'ing till the cows come home.

From my feat list:
Toughness: is a great feat make sure you have it as a dead guy can't heal or raise.
Empower/Maximize: useful for damaging spells and while solo I love these feats, well that and on bosses too.
Extend: becomming more and more useless great at low levels, but at cap it's really lame except for VoD and that raid isn't all that tough.
Mental Toughness: taken before the pre existed, the extra 110SP on a cleric is nice. 3 more heal spells ect...
Quicken: Totally required, mass heal is so slow and this makes it usable and non-interuptable
Heighten: Figured I would need the DC's but not really worth it.

If I was going to redo my cleric here is how I would take the feasts and when.
H - Toughness (more HP = good)
1st - Extend (needed as ever lvl you add your buffs last 2 more min)
3rd - Mental Toughness (more SP are good)
6th - Empowered Healing (prereq for the pre)
9th - Empower (at this lvl empowerd healing is better and cheaper, but BB is comming)
Feat Swap - around 10 or so I would swap out extend for Extra Turning (+4 turns are great for bursts and auras are comming)
12th - Maximize (I would take this before quicken as the dam at this lvl can be overcome by concentration)
15th - Quicken (dam is getting bigger and 2 lvls you get mass heal)
18th - this is the wild card I would get imp mental toughness as I like more SP, but more turns again is an option as well as spell pen and evocation DC's or augmented summoning if you like pets

Skills are more or less unimportant - having tumble at 1 when in armor and shield is nice (or robes)

Attribute layout - as a 1st life cleric without hgih lvl twink and support and a 28pt build I would do this:
Str 14
Dex 8
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 14

it'll give you turns that can help through the low lvls and a str that you can easily melee with. If you have 32 pts then drop str to 12 and increase wis to 18, but at 28 pts this is very viable.

Good guild over all and nice posts.

[PNellesen]

Some comments/suggestions:

Howdy! Our next 101 class guide is for the cleric, and we'd love to hear your feedback.

Notes of Interest:

• We have yet to add a robust "Enhancement" section to the template. If you've got a personal load-out for healing/cc clerics that you've found useful, feel free to share that as well -- and thanks in advance!

Since it looks like you're focusing this guide on Healing/CC clerics (not a bad idea for a new player, imo) I just want to reinforce what others have said:

1 - Drop INT, Up STR. At low levels, you don't get much in the way of CC, and you solo a few things. Need to be able to do some melee, at least early on.
2 - I would probably swap the order of the feats around a bit, put Maximize (or maybe Empower) at level 6 (since it affects RSI Burst, which you can also get at level 6), Spell Pen. at level 9, and Quicken at level 12 or 15. Save Heighten for level 18.
3- Explain the free feat swap, how to obtain it, and why you would want to swap Extend for another feat at some point (I would suggest some time after level 15 or so).

One-liner: Learn to use wands and scrolls for single-target healing early on, save SP for crowd control, damage spells, and mass cures/heals (when you get them)

[Partydeluxe]

Number one tip for any healer, newbie or more experienced:

You can't heal stupid.


For an official guide perhaps better stated by Phidius:

Tips
Use the buddy system when you're starting out - at the start of each quest, pick a "buddy". If things start to go pear-shaped, focus on keeping that person up, and let the rest go to hell (fend for themselves?). As you get better, add in more people until you can keep the entire party standing.

If your "buddy" keeps making himself unavailable, feel free to choose a new "buddy".

[dennison_brillo]

do let anyone tell you how to play your cleric. Any well built cleric can deal damage and heal.

[Morlen]

Further comment on Feat:Extend Spell.

It's hard to say not to include this feat in a beginner's guide for cleric. During the early levels having your resists and other buffs doubled in duration is an incredibly useful tool. Once you are around level 10, usually the need for duration to be longer starts to dwindle. As a pure 20 cleric, there is almost no reason to keep extend in your feat selection.

Since this IS a beginner's guide I can understand the need to have extend in the list, and I am not sure if putting a note mentioning that it would be a feat to use as a swap out later on would be practical advice for a beginner's guide either. (Feat swap isn't exactly an important part of learning to play the game/play a class.)

I'm not sure if that input is really helpful in any way, but I figured I'd through my 2 cents in there.

[MoonRunner]

* Now that extend no longer extends the good offensive spells it is useless. There are few instances were a 20 min buff isn't long enough and extend just seems to be a waisted feat for those few instances it is actually helpfull. At best this feat might be usefull at lower levels but talk to fred to fix this b4 it gets too expensive.

* Diplomacy IS your friend. If you are new enough to need to read this than you will most likely benifit from Diplomacy. My personal experiance with this is when I did a lesser resurection about level 14 or so. I removed the 2 rogue levels making it pure cleric and adjusted Stats and added Diplomacy. Before I did this I could stand back while the group went in and do nothing but think small and would still pull agro. After the resurection I can be the first one in and still seldome pull agro and I don't even click the Diplo button.

* Fortification, false life, Potancy, spell pen and devotion are items you want to Constantly be looking to upgrade.

* the Con in this build is really higher than it needs to be. You can get by with 12 though might be a little better with 14. This gives you some points to go to Dex to help you reflex save so you don't take as much damage in the first place. Save the 16 con for a 36 point build or a battle cleric.

[Saaluta]

Cleric wisdom from one of the original Khyber clerics:

Extend Feat is now useless past level 10, if you get it at level 3, plan to exchange it with Fred at this level.

Clerics are not nannybots, you can command things, you can do great damage to undead and other creatures with light spells, you have cc spells, damage spells, and healing spells...use them all to help yourself and your party to best advantage.

Saal

[JollySwagMan]

My basic play tips for Clerics:

Spells must be prepared by going to the Character sheet, selecting the Spells tab, dragging spells to the prepared spell list, then dragged down to a hotbar slot for use.

F1-6-12 keys for targeting party members. You can also click on players names' on the player list if using free mouse.

Press T to toggle, or hold R-Mouse between Free Mouse vs Mouselook. (I prefer using Mouselook 90% of the time, but switch to Free Mouse when buffing at the start of a quest, or when raid healing from outside of the combat)

Jump before casting a spell while on the move, this helps you to avoid having your spells interrupted by enemy attacks. It also slows you down less than casting a spell while running. Having a friendly Wizard/Ranger prepare the Jump spell for you helps immensely, or if you have 75 House P favour there is a 30 minute buff available.

Spells that have multiple options such as Resist Energy can have their individual options dragged to hotbar slots to make casting the appropriate resist less cumbersome.

Heavy Armor provides great AC in the lower levels, but around 10-12 onwards it won't provide much protection without heavy investment into all the obscure AC bonuses - switching to robes will make it easier for your character to dodge attacks and use spells such as Blade Barrier. I highly recommend the Elfcrafted Robe from Gianthold

Take the Archivist's Necklace from Misery's Peak! The Devoted Heart set is outdated as soon as the player leaves Korthos.

Use appropriate spells depending on the enemy you are facing. Eg. most melee types have horrible Will saves, so Command/Hold/Curse type of spells work well. Casters tend to have low Fort saves, so Soundburst tends to be effective. Clerics don't get many good Reflex save type of spells until Blade Barrier/Cometfall though. The Curse spell has had its spellpoint cost reduced to 10, and is pretty versatile.

Communicate with party members to ensure that your buffs aren't redundant.

When shrining, try to use up any extra SP/turns you have first by healing/buffing players that have already/aren't going to shrine. I prefer to shrine after Wizards that buff party members, using up the last of my Divine Vitalities on them.

When raid healing in laggy situations, you might try turning your back to the boss, reducing the amount of data your client has to handle.

---

Build tips:

16 Wis is plenty for a starter Cleric, allowing more points into Charisma/Strength. For a 28 point human build who wants a solid support build capable of soloing quests at level I would recommend the following:

True Neutral, or Neutral Good - True Neutral allows use of all Cleric spells, Stability items and less damage in later stages of the game. Neutral Good is handy for allowing use of items with a Good requirement, such as Pure Good weapons.

12 Str - sufficient for decent melee in low-mid levels, and makes the character less vulnerable to Trips/str damage
8 Dex - try and group up with Rogues to disable traps, they can also gain sneak attacks from some of your spells
15 Con - Human Con enhancement opens Racial Toughness III
10 Int - Max Concentration, 2 points into Tumble at creation, and half points into Jump/Balance while levelling.
16 Wis - plenty for most divine offensive casting, provided that one uses appropriate spells.
12 Cha - Turn enhancements provide a Cleric with various support abilities that don't depend upon spellpoints/wands. Also turning undead is awesome in the lower levels.

Levelups into Wis, using Cleric Wisdom/Human Wisdom enhancements to correct an odd Wis score.

Feats: Toughness (1), Least Dragonmark of Passage* (1), Extend* (3), Empower Healing (6), At level 8 pay for a feat swap (1 Imperfect Dragonshard, 5k plat) and swap Extend for Empower, Maximise (9), Quicken (12), Heighten (15), Spell Pen (18). Do the Lockania quest for a free feat swap and swap out the Least Dragonmark when the character has 30% Strider boots.

Skills: Max Concentration, 2 points into Tumble at creation, and half points into Jump/Balance while levelling.

[DoctorWhofan]

Clerics roles change from group to group and from solo to group. Mostly, you will be asked to heal. Doesn't mean that is all you do. But it is your primary job. Just keep some SP just in case yuou have to save the party.

Clerics are the best healer AND buffer class in the game, hands down. Expect that people will want you to do just that, heal/buff.

42, with radiant servent, the CHA needs to be a little higher. A 14 CON on a 28pt. build newbie cleric is fine.

[SirValentine]

• STR … 10
• DEX … 8
• CON … 14
• INT … 10
• WIS … 18
• CHA … 10

• Ability Point Buys: Every four levels put your ability point buy into Wisdom (WIS).

This is spot on, maximum Wis, 6 points in Con, the rest to taste. I can see good arguments for slightly increasing or slightly decreasing all of Str, Int, and Cha.

At character creation, max out Concentration and Diplomacy, then put two points into Tumble (netting you a 1.0 rank). Use the remaining two points on Jump. At each level-up, keep Concentration and Diplomacy maxed, using the remaining points to get Jump to rank 10. Once Jump is at rank 10, or while you're getting it to rank 10, show some love to the Balance skill.

Maximum Concentration and a full rank of Tumble are both exactly right.

Diplomacy? Really? What for? Having aggro is fine, you can heal yourself a lot more easily than just about any other class! And Jump is okay if you have extra points to toss around, but Balance is far more important. Between Str-boosting and skill-boosting buffs, spells and items, your Jump will be fine. But being knocked down will kill you fast, you need to be able to get up quickly.

• 1) Toughness – Increases Hit Points (HP) at first level and provides additional HP for each new level, allowing a player to take the Racial Toughness enhancement. Taking Toughness results in such a significant HP boost that it's practically mandatory.

• 1) Empower Healing Spell – While this metamagic feat is active healing spells are 50% more effective, but consume 10 additional Spell Points (SP).

• 3) Extend Spell – While this metamagic feat is active, spells with durations last twice as long, but they consume 10 additional Spell Points (SP).

• 6) Quicken Spell – While this metamagic feat is active, spells cast twice as fast and cannot be interrupted by enemy attacks, but they consume 10 additional Spell Points (SP).

• 9) Maximize Spell – While this metamagic feat is active, damage (and healing!) spells deal double damage (and healing!), but they consume 25 additional Spell Points (SP).

• 12) Heighten Spell – While this metamagic feat is active, your spells are raised to the highest spell level your character can cast, making them more difficult to resist, but increasing their Spell Point (SP) cost.

Your feat CHOICES are good here, but your feat ORDER, not so much.

Empower Healing is not cost-effective at level 1. Move it to level 3 or level 6.

Extend is a better choice at level 1, to make those 1 min per level buff spells be more useful.

Quicken is very important to have by mid- to high-level, but level 6 seems early. I'd say 9 or 12.

Maximize (and/or Empower) are good to have earlier, to power up the Positive Energy Burst acquired at level 6 with Radiant Servant I.

Heighten is another must-have for end-game, but not as useful early. I'd push it to 15.

• 15) Mental Toughness – Increases your maximum spell points by 10 at first level, and 5 Spell Points (SP) for each additional level.

• 18) Spell Penetration – Adds +2 to your caster level check for defeating spell resistance.

Okay, here's where I have to disagree with your choice. Mental Toughness? On a feat-starved class like Cleric that doesn't need it as a pre-requisite for anything? I think you'd be far better served with either Empower (taken earlier, with Quicken & Heighten shifted later), or Greater Spell Penetration (at 18, with Spell Penetration at 15).

For enhancements, you are missing Radiant Servant! This is so powerful, it's a must-have for every Cleric, at least until other Cleric PrEs get released.

Also, at least the first rank of Wand and Scroll Mastery enhancement is a no-brainer. +25% for only 1 AP? Yes, please! Some people like to take even more ranks, but they get more expensive for less payoff. The first rank, though, should be a given.

[siver]

A few things I think are worth mentioning:

First, even with a 10 strength, a cleric can still contribute in melee combat at low to mid levels. So, find a nice longsword, use the Sovereign Host enhancement for proficiency (and here you said it was useless), and swing it a little. This will allow you to save the spell points you might have used zapping things dead. Just remember to keep an eye on the health bars of the party members (or you, if you are alone) and heal whenever needed. This can also teach you how to do multiple things at once, which is always helpful for a cleric.

This cleric is built to focus on spellcasting, so a brief discussion of the useful spells might be helpful. Command (and later Greater Command), Soundburst, and Cometfall all stop enemies from attacking, so you have less healing to do. Divine Punishment and Blade Barrier are currently the two best damage spells in the game, but most other cleric damage spells tend to be less impressive when compared to wizard/sorcerer spells. Buff spells worth mentioning are: Resist Energy (every class capable of casting this should have it prepared), Freedom of Movement (immunity to holds, webs, grease, and other things, but not trips) Deathward (No more instant death or level drain, but watch out for beholders) and Prayer (+1 to just about everything is nice, but the duration is short).

I personally would avoid discussing items, beyond mentioning a devotion/potency or ardor item (which can be crafted rather easily now, if you want to include a shout to the new crafting system) and a power/wizardry item. I'd rather teach how to manage your SP bar before mentioning there are bunches of items that can be used to supplement or replace it.

[sirdanile]

Honestly i'd bump quicken spell up to 15 or 18, drop extend for Shield Mastery because a percent-based reduction on incoming damage is extremely useful for survival, and put mental toughness down closer to the beginning.

[Enoach]

Tips:

1. Never chase someone to cure/heal/buff
2. Do not use SP to cure/heal between fights - Turn-ins and found wands work for this
3. Spells and Wands/Scrolls have seperate timers
4. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
5. Extended Buffs are not always necessary

Note on the Extend Feat:
Clerics only have one offensive spell that Extend did work on that now it does not, that was Blade Barrier. Extend's primary use for clerics was to buff once and be done, or for the 3 short term buffs generally used for melee focused clerics. If Extend was taken only for Blade Barrier then the feat was already a waste to the build.

[dejafu]

Honestly i'd bump quicken spell up to 15 or 18, drop extend for Shield Mastery because a percent-based reduction on incoming damage is extremely useful for survival, and put mental toughness down closer to the beginning.

I'd second this. Shield Mastery is great for clerics of any level - it's easy to lose track of your own health when you're focusing on the rest of the party, and you'd be surprised how often mob AI goes into "gank the healer!" mode.

Taking shield mastery is almost as good as Toughness in terms of hit point conservation - sometimes even better, especially since clerics don't get class-specific Toughness enhancements.

Plus, at low levels, many useful spell modifiers come on shields, and taking this feat makes a shield useful even if it's not giving you the best possible AC for your level. Keep a tower shield handy for those times when you're going into full-on caster mode - the non-proficiency penalty doesn't matter much if you're not using a weapon, and the boost to both AC and damage mitigation can be a lifesaver.

Remember, you're one of the only classes in the game that can use normal shields and isn't always expected to melee. Make the most of it!

[BattleCircle]

Velah's Law.

Anything that can go wrong will,

And it is ALWAYS the Clerics fault.

IOW Have a thick skin.

[Kourier]

Fordy Two,

I have not appreciated your character build posts because they usually detract from the very class that you advise building. That said, in three sentences, let me say the following:

A) My favorite character to play is the Human healing Cleric, which is why I only put points into Wisdom (18), Charisma (16), and Constitution (14) at creation.

B) People who do not like playing healing Clerics always gimp their character with non-class Skills, statistics, Enhancements, and Feats. This is why they do not put points into the aforementioned statistics nor into the Diplomacy and Heal Skills (which are class Feats for the Cleric), nor build on the spells, Feats, and Enhancements that lend directly to healing the party and helping to carry them through quests and raids.

Healing Clerics are absolutely required for parties to be successful in nearly every single quest in this game, Fordy Two. Please do not provide yet another "official build guide" that caters to the DPS-worshippers and the zergers in this Community, who are the minority. To benefit new players, for example, speak to the class they are interested in and not to the strategies that seldom work in most parts of the game. If you are going to provide a "solo quest guide" for newbies or "how to zerg with a Cleric," then please differentiate clearly for the reader. The healing Cleric should not be watered-down, regardless of the harsh words used against this vital contributor to any party.

Thank you.


Snootch

I don't see how this cleric is incapable of healing. The only feat missing that could possibly add healing capability is extra turning, and that just increases duration, not intensity. Empower, Quicken, Maximize, Empower Healing are all there. Even mental toughness, which is newbie friendly and can be used for casting anything.

The heal skill affects only how much hp you regain at a shrine. This does not seem useful to me when instead I could put points into balance which allow me to get up and continue healing the party. If a fellow member is incapacitated as a cleric I hope I am prepared to heal 10 hp at any time.

Diplomacy is situationally useful but if we have 2 skills I would rather have concentration (a class skill! make sure your heals work!) and balance myself.

So, Snootch, I would like you to tell me why this cleric can't heal.

[Woody00]

Fordy Two,


Healing Clerics are absolutely required for parties to be successful in nearly every single quest in this game, Fordy Two.
Snootch

False.

Healing clerics are not required for a majority of quests. They are fun to play and a benefit to have around but can be easily replaced with bards or favored souls. Or even none of those with well thought out toons and a game plan.