Cleric @20

[jambajuicey]

So I've been 20 for awhile but ran little to no raids mostly because the game seems so mature and I have no real understanding of the raids and how they work. I think I have about the best I can get with regular instance drops (minus any devils battlefield stuff), but feel a little clueless what to focus on next. I tiered up the bp and orn dagger from cove and kept ring at entry, archmage hat. Hoping for a little direction in what I really should be pursuing next.

str: 15 +5enh
dex: 20 +6enh
con: 18 +2 tome +6 enh
int: 10
wis: 34 +2 tome +7enh
cha: 25 +2 tome +6enh

hp: 372 mana: 2073

Feat-wise, I feel the heal-bot term may suit my most - "i know there is so much more I could do' current feats are: extend, emp heal, toughness, mental tough, imp mental tough, spell pen, quicken
enhancements: pretty standard radiant soul build

I'm trying to find information about the entry shroud raid, what to do, where not to stand in encounters, etc as well as what to start building up - no idea? Any advice on what is next in the game? Thanks so much for any input!

[SetofBs]

Just an observation but the ornamental dagger isn't that great if you can't use the free maximize feature because you don't have the maximize feat. You should really have that feat.

[Mrmorphling]

Your next step should be flagging for Shroud (Vale of twilight raid) it's quite easy on a lvl 20 healer to find a spot and your job consist mainly of buffing and clicking massheal at every cooldown .p (A slight exageration here but it's not that tolling on healers).

With the ingredients dropped in this raid you can craft greensteel item (http://ddowiki.com/page/Greensteel) which can provide nice beneftis like stacking 45HP + chance of getting back sp/hp when it or stacking 150SP.

You should consider getting Sup brilliance V clicky (AH for shard or cannith craft if high enough) and superior ardor VIII (http://ddowiki.com/page/Amara%27s_Belt)

A very brief introduction to Shroud:

It is divided in 5 parts and you have a shrine at the end of each part

Part 1: Lots of portals to destroy and you need to keep the respawning mobs dead; if you let them live too long a Portal keeper will appear and threaten to quest failure arise; healer job is just to watch the landscape and pop the occasional divine punishment on the portals and keep teh aura up for those frenzied barbs )

Part 2: The goal here is to kill 4 Red named mobs (liutenants) at the same time thus lowering a barrier around a crystal (situated in the middle of the labyrinth) and making its destruction possible. Those liutenatns will not die when too close one to each other so a common tactic is to grab them all to SW corner then 'prep' aka down them to a sliver of life then separate and kill while another member is near the crystal ready to pop it when 4th liut is dead

Part 3: Puzzles! Your goal here is to light all the tiles of a puzzle, you can find online simulator to practice or just ask for help . Do not use summons here and do not fire at random purple crystals as it may lead to the loss of 2 chests; after you solved your puzzle you need to run to a fountain, click the head and collect a water, then pour the water in a SOLVED puzzle, do not put wateri n unsolved ones as it'll again cause the loss of 2 chests

Part 4: the fight begin, you'll face8 then 4 trashes and after those are disposed Arraetrikos will land; usual tactic is to fight him in hte middle; your job here is to mass heal (quickend) the sturdiest melee and to throw the occasional mass cure if you see squishy melee too close to death. If your party is really low DPS Harry might disengage and few trashes reapper, kill them them proceed like before (there will be gnolls too but they are usually ignored is boss hp is low enough or taken care by arcane/s)

Part 5: Harry again but before engaging him you need to kill his 4 liutenants again; you'l find 4 pools here that replenish your SP and HP when you walk across them; boss fight is a bit longer than part 4 but overall tactic doesn't change, mass heal ftw.

Hope it helps.

EDIT: Ornamental dagger T2 is excellent even w/o maximize you get sup potency 6 + 15 conc + arcane lore in a one hander, not easy to beat it

[jambajuicey]

I'm toying with dropping the imp mental toughness for maximize (good move?) - just had that as mana always seemed the mojo bar to keep high - though doing that would decrease my max mana pool and make me use loads more mana faster with BB and DP - guess thats what mana pots are for. Does spell pen do me any good w/o spell focus feats? could also drop extend for a spf:? I failed to mention I did get all the pieces for shroud doing the quests in vale, just trepidation to venture in as a n00b, thanks for the right up.

[zorander6]

I'd kill extend and improved mental toughness. Extend only affects buffs and a large majority of the time things are done or you hit a shrine within 20 minutes (since you are level 20.) As for the mental toughness the extra sp are nice but maximize, empower, and heighten will make your BB much more powerful.

Just my opinion, not level 20 but play a cleric regularly.

[umplehat]

just send a tell to the raid leader you've never ran it before & you want to learn it. if its on normal you probably wont have too much trouble getting in.

other than that here's a brief rundown of what happens (usually) on orien:

part 1: raid kills the scouts then move onto the portals. the arcane(s) run ahead to clear the trash that comes out, melee's beat down the portals. shrine before the next part.

part 2: raid usually meets in the southwest corner, someone usually brings the trash to you. clear it & move onto the your red names. usually a 5% health they're considered "prepped" and at that time they're split up & killed. at arcane usually breaks the crystal before they can resurrect.
- side note: in the corner, you will see some butterflies in the southwest corner of that room, if you jump continually in that corner you'll regain SP slowly

part 3: the puzzle rooms, either a 3x3, 4x4 or a 5x5, if you need help with it call out what it is & where, someone will be around to help out fairly soon. when you get out make your way to the center of the room, everyone will be running water back to the rooms, (if it takes too long or someone screws something up somewhere you'll get a rainbow wall of death. the only place you're safe from it is in the center)

puzzle solver: http://www.perfectweb.org/ddo/solver/vale_puzzle.html

part 4: once the trash is cleared you meet harry, what i usually do is keep you RS aura on & use mass heal on the melees, when it's needed & hit him with divine punishment, if it's taking too long he leaves & you get more trash to deal with, & go a second round.

part 5: those red named guys are back, raid to kills everything but an elemental. someone is going grab aggro from it & hide behind the altar (this is called parking) while everyone regains their SP. after the buffs are handed out (fire resist, freedom of movement, heroes' feast or neutralize poison,& greater heroism) you kill the elemental & harry shows up again. after he dies a dimension door is thrown up for those that aren't completing & want to farm for mats.

wiki link: http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shroud

[GoMeansGreen]

I am so over being a cleric

too bad, really, but it is what it is

on to paladin

[PNellesen]

@OP - If you haven't used your free feat swap yet, I would drop Extend and take Maximize.

In addition to the Greensteel items mentioned previously, you can farm Weapons Shipment (in Amrath) for the Mysterious Bauble. That's the equivalent of 1 free Major Mnemonic Potion between every shrine. It can take a while to get, but well worth the grinding.

With 2073 SP, you'll have no problems healing most Normal Shrouds, and also have fun with spells like Destruction/Implosion and of course, Divine Punishment (which is also affected by Maximize ) As others have stated, just let the leader know you've never done it, and maybe check with the other healer-type for pointers (if you're a first-timer I would recommend not trying to solo-heal it) Besides shards for greensteel items, the Shroud is a great raid to run due to the sheer amount of loot you can get out of it, some of which can bring some good plat on the AH.

[Such755]

Clerics are very good at soloing even with only blade barrier, other than that with your current build, I don't know if there's anything you can do but being a healbot.
If you can, do a lesser reincarnation and go with the following feats:
Empower heal
Empower spell
Maximize spell - Those three will boost the positive burst dramatically, will save a ton of spell points.
Heighten spell
Quicken spell
Toughness
Spell focus Necromancy \ Enchantment
Spell penetration OR Greater spell focus for whatever you chose (A hard choice, I wouldn't tell which is better.)

Mental toughness and improved mental toughness are pretty much a waste in my opinion. Without any of those I have just about 2k spell points which are just enough for everything I go through (Epics, solo healing the shroud...)

Extend is not that great, the only spell I find myself extending is holy aura and that spell for itself doesn't seem very useful. Might be better for melee clerics to boost their melee boosting spells.

The life of being a healbot will be over, of course you will need good gear to max out your wisdom for higher DC and spell penetration, if you achieve that you will be able to significantly help you party with crowd control or insta deaths. (Personaly I prefer crowd control on my cleric, up to you.)

[Meat-Head]

Always a good idea to tell the leader you're new.

Here's the thing, if you stay with melee using your aura and spot heal, no one will complain about anything you do basically. In other words, if you don't throw a single offensive spell in shroud, no one will notice or care. They just want the hjeals. Aka, play the healbot a couple times until you figure out what else to do.

In part 4/5 stand back and throw mass heals on a primary melee toon while keeping your aura on for yourself.

*Try to use mass heal (quickened with emp heal on) as much as you can INSTEAD of mass cures. Only throw mass cures once in a while in emergencies. This way, your mana will stretch. A squishie might die occasionally if you do this. This is 96.4% their fault. I mean, I don't wanna dumb it down too much, but if all you did was watch your mass heal button and throw it every time it was off cooldown, you'd be gold 90% of the time in part 4 and 5. Just make sure you're outside of the melee ball and not getting too ripped up by blades.

SLightly more advanced tip: If you can watch the other healer in part 4 and 5 and time your heals IN BETWEEN his/hers you'll stretch mana better AND prevent deaths better.


Final recommendations:

for a cleric caster/healer you want these feats:

Max
EmpHeal
Emp
Heighten
Toughness
Quicken

The other 1-2 are up for debate.


Eventually, if you got all the above handled, you can start stacking DPs on harry in addition to healing. Then you'll be a Shroud champ cleric.

btw, if you find yourself needing pots in normal raids you're doing something wrongly. Pick up stacks of heal scrolls for spot heals instead and/or use your aura/burst more. You should essentially never have to down a pot in a normal raid. ESPECIALLY normal shroud. You are NEVER required to do so. Anyone who tells you otherwise can either jump off a cliff OR provide you with those pots beforehand.

[somenewnoob]

(sends blind tell)

"Would you like to join for epic insert quest here"

[Pape_27]

So I've been 20...
<snip>
...Thanks so much for any input!

Okies, where to begin.

First, i took a look at your myddo profile. The most important thing you can do is get a heavy fortification item and replace the 25% fort item you are currently using. The easiest place to swap it into is your belt slot. You can live without the proof against poison (drink a pot, cast the spell, etc) and the lesser false life on your current belt is worthless because of the sus. symbiont.

Secondly, you can start working towards some better gear via the raids. As it has been mentioned, let the raid leader know you are new to the raid (of even after a few raids under your belt, let them know you are a little bit inexperienced). Its amazing how much help people will give if you are open and honest. When you have gotten a few raid quality items you can start to seriously address gear issues.

As for learning the raids, nothing beats experience. Believe me, when I first went into the shroud, I had no clue and thought "****, I will never finish this"... but as you gain a little more experience in running them it does become easier. Another thing you can do if you are in these runs is let the other healer know, and ask if they have any tips for you. Watch what they do, where they stand, etc. If you are paired with a melee oriented Cleric/FvS and they jump into the mix, maybe take a look at where the casters are standing until you feel more confident to jump into the battle.

As for the shroud the things that threw me at first were 1) the maze in part two 2) the puzzles in part three 3) the blades in part 4.

1) The maze - you teleport into a random corner. you want to work yourself south along the walls, until you can turn towards the south central section. Yes, its okay to follow others lol.

2) The Puzzles - some one has already posted the link to the solver on perfect web. practice using it.

or

learn how to solve the puzzles yourself. some good teaching threads on how to sove the puzzles:
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...15&postcount=1
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=314305

3) the blades aka, the newbish cleric blender of death. I died the first three times i went into part four because of these things. The best advice I can offer is to position your camera slightly above and behind you, wheeling out some range so you can see when the blades are closing in on your position. When they close in, step back thru them, dont just stand in them. Otherwise you will win the *ding* award and will get to watch your soul stone spinning. Remember, heal thyself. Keeping the aura going in part 4 is a good thing.

Hope it helps and good luck

_