Caster Cleric

[Habreno]

I use both Destruction and Slay Living. Just keep the shorter range in mind.

[Impaqt]

And the range on implosion or BB isn't too short?

this. VV

Same here. It's all too easy to end up with the annoying "you are not facing the mob" problem, even though you were facing it when you started casting. This is even worse with lag.

BB and Implosion are not single target directional spells. THe always cast regardless of what you may have targeted and always do what they are designed to do.

[good_ole_corwin]

Nope, sorry Impaqt, cant agree with you in the slightest.

Implosion is nice. Is cool. Is fun. Is practical? Not most of the time. Untargeted, not actually "insta" killing, but rather 5 kills within 8 seconds make it very impractical.

When do you need to cast instakills? When you cant kite the targets through BB efficiently, meaning ranged or caster mobs. There are rarely large groups of arcane mobs or of ranged mobs that pose a significant threat, more often than not these are either solitary mobs or worse (for implosion) yet, mixed in with groups of either melee mobs or weakly hitting ranged, which are a low priority. Meaning targetting and instantaneousness (is that an actual word? You know what I mean) of the kill are most important, the two things implosion cannot offer.

When do you need high BB DCs? Eh, never really, IMHO. If it saves, kite it again, if its got evasion, meh, it either cant be kited (ranged) or is rather rare and can be dealt with in other manner and in either case at endgame will most likely have high enough saves to have a distinct possibility of evading the BB even when heightened. Do those instances pose a serious threat to you? Not really. I have heighten inherently turned off on my BBs and Im doing fine.

Slay living has a short range, yes. Indeed. So... Get Morahs belt from Shavarath so you can always have high enough jump to move around even in crowded situations and be able to use SL almost (yes, misfires happen, yes, mobs move sometimes - but I personally hit with SL much, much more than I miss) as easily as destruction.

When talking about necromancy, lets also not forget Bestow curse and Symbol of pain, which many people frown upon, Ive even seen them on one of those "useless spells" lists. Enter house C where a significant part of your opposition is WF and thus cant be neglevelled and curse+instakills suddenly start to be a viable tactic, if you have the DCs to land the curse/symbol.

All in all, necromancy has IMHO more to offer a divine caster than evocation. Not in the "Its not worth playing an evo-specced divine" way. Just in the "necro DCs offer somewhat more value if you learn to use them right in most situations than evo DCs" way.

[Impaqt]

Nope, sorry Impaqt, cant agree with you in the slightest.

Implosion is nice. Is cool. Is fun. Is practical? Not most of the time. Untargeted, not actually "insta" killing, but rather 5 kills within 8 seconds make it very impractical.

When do you need to cast instakills? When you cant kite the targets through BB efficiently, meaning ranged or caster mobs. There are rarely large groups of arcane mobs or of ranged mobs that pose a significant threat, more often than not these are either solitary mobs or worse (for implosion) yet, mixed in with groups of either melee mobs or weakly hitting ranged, which are a low priority. Meaning targetting and instantaneousness (is that an actual word? You know what I mean) of the kill are most important, the two things implosion cannot offer.

When do you need high BB DCs? Eh, never really, IMHO. If it saves, kite it again, if its got evasion, meh, it either cant be kited (ranged) or is rather rare and can be dealt with in other manner and in either case at endgame will most likely have high enough saves to have a distinct possibility of evading the BB even when heightened. Do those instances pose a serious threat to you? Not really. I have heighten inherently turned off on my BBs and Im doing fine.

Slay living has a short range, yes. Indeed. So... Get Morahs belt from Shavarath so you can always have high enough jump to move around even in crowded situations and be able to use SL almost (yes, misfires happen, yes, mobs move sometimes - but I personally hit with SL much, much more than I miss) as easily as destruction.

When talking about necromancy, lets also not forget Bestow curse and Symbol of pain, which many people frown upon, Ive even seen them on one of those "useless spells" lists. Enter house C where a significant part of your opposition is WF and thus cant be neglevelled and curse+instakills suddenly start to be a viable tactic, if you have the DCs to land the curse/symbol.

All in all, necromancy has IMHO more to offer a divine caster than evocation. Not in the "Its not worth playing an evo-specced divine" way. Just in the "necro DCs offer somewhat more value if you learn to use them right in most situations than evo DCs" way.

We are apparently playing a different type of game...... different strategies..... Different content.....

While the Cooldown on Implosion is annoying, I find it incredibly useful around evasion/High reflex mobs who generally have poor fort saves.

I, Of course, still use destruction as well. I have just found that the extra 2DC you pick up from spell focus is not a difference maker.

You can pick and choose your targets with Destruction. AS long as you know your enemies, the +2 DC is easy to work around.

WHen BB Kiting the +2 DC (ANd +3 from heighten) can make a world of difference in how fast you can cut down high fort save mobs(Who, often have a solid reflex save as well)

In the end, there are more spells that benefit from an Evocation focus than there are spells that benefit from a Necro focus.

[Habreno]

In the end, there are more spells that benefit from an Evocation focus than there are spells that benefit from a Necro focus.

Evo spells:

Implosion
Blade Barrier
??

Necro Spells:
Destruction
Slay Living
ANY Harm/Inflict
Bestow Curse
List goes on.....

Two right there benefit MUCH more from 2 DC, right on the top. A further one benefits quite much. Implosion is nice, but 60s cooldown. Blade Barrier is quite useless in group content.

Do you play solo, Impaqt?

[Impaqt]

Evo spells:

Implosion
Blade Barrier
??

Necro Spells:
Destruction
Slay Living
ANY Harm/Inflict
Bestow Curse
List goes on.....

Two right there benefit MUCH more from 2 DC, right on the top. A further one benefits quite much. Implosion is nice, but 60s cooldown. Blade Barrier is quite useless in group content.

Do you play solo, Impaqt?

I solo sometimes for sure..... But I've never had an issue dropping a BB in a group.... I dont understand why people say it doesnt work. Yes, sometimes melees will take a whack at a mob I hit with BB.. but seldom do they actually take the aggro off my BB. and when they do, Rest assured they can handle it....

Harm/Inflict? Useless spells. Bestow curse can sometimes be benfitial, but I've never extensively used it.

Holy Smite, Chaos Hammer. Both very handy Evocation spells. Soundburst; Quite handy Heightend and Focused. Flamestrike and Firestorm can actually do more damage than the average harm/Inflict.... (Fire immune mobs excluded obviously). Unholy Blight and Orders wrath have situational usefulness as well.

[good_ole_corwin]

We are apparently playing a different type of game...... different strategies..... Different content.....

Ditto on the strategies, thats kinda obvious since we prefer different spells. And Im referring to the so-called "endgame" content - lvl18+ quests/raids and epics, I thought that was implied since were talking about implosion here.

While the Cooldown on Implosion is annoying, I find it incredibly useful around evasion/High reflex mobs who generally have poor fort saves.

WHen BB Kiting the +2 DC (ANd +3 from heighten) can make a world of difference in how fast you can cut down high fort save mobs(Who, often have a solid reflex save as well)

So what youre saying is that high reflex mobs usually have poor fort saves, but high fort mobs usually have high reflexes? I love the smell of contradictions in the morning, I really do.

Anyway, time spent killing mobs with a BB is non-issue. The longest part of the BB killing process is rounding all the mobs you want to kite up, the actual kill then takes a minute, minute and a half tops, sure I could bring that down with heighten and evo focus by 15-30 seconds, but what would be the point? And thats talking about epic mobs with their billion HPs, non-epic trash is not worth mentioning, unless we are worrying about powergamers for whom doing a quest in 15 minutes rather than 14 is fail.

I, Of course, still use destruction as well. I have just found that the extra 2DC you pick up from spell focus is not a difference maker.

You can pick and choose your targets with Destruction. AS long as you know your enemies, the +2 DC is easy to work around.

2 DC is easy to work around on any spell, be it destruction, slay living, implosion, BB, holy smite or command. Personally Id take spell pen feats over focus feats on a character with 0 wiz and fvs past lives anyday.

In the end, there are more spells that benefit from an Evocation focus than there are spells that benefit from a Necro focus.

Yes, holy smite and chaos hammer are nice. But honestly, at endgame I use them very rarely, since greater command is longer-term CC and mob sitting on the ground > blind or slow mob. Obviously Im not advocating using ench focus feats on a divine, but will save is usually the lowest on mobs anyway, which cancels it out. Soundburst is backup for when CC is desperately needed and mobs save on the command, but you also have cometfall for that and honestly, how often do you need to do that?

I've never had an issue dropping a BB in a group.... I dont understand why people say it doesnt work. Yes, sometimes melees will take a whack at a mob I hit with BB.. but seldom do they actually take the aggro off my BB. and when they do, Rest assured they can handle it....

Yeah, except the problem isnt really melees stealing your aggro (even though I had a guy jumping in and intimming 10+ epic wolves I was kiting in eProblem once, but apparently tankz gotta tank), its about arcanes immobilizing everything in sight (or leaving just one or two stragglers, in which case BB is a waste of SP anyway).

[domandi]

So what youre saying is that high reflex mobs usually have poor fort saves, but high fort mobs usually have high reflexes? I love the smell of contradictions in the morning, I really do.

Dude, a square can be a rectangle but a rectangle can't be a square. A ranger will have high reflex but low fort, where a fighter will have high fort and moderately high reflex.

[-Zephyr-]

Just popping in to give my opinion as well :
Both necro and evocation seem pretty equivalent to me, except that evocation spells will face many more saving throws. One cast of implosion = multiple mobs affected. One cast of BB = up to 15-20 damage ticks on a single mob with good kiting, on multiple mobs at once.
On the other side, all divine necro spells that matter are single targets, making them both more SP intensive and target-selective (you won't try to destruct an epic orthon without debuffing it before, will you ?)

Now, my opinion may be biaised because I took the time to take 3 sorcs lives for the bonus evo DCs, and not all the wiz lives for spell pen yet (relying on evocation caster level bonuses for implosion), but I really feel evocation spells will get more from the spell focuses than necro spells. Especially as a cleric, you can't afford trying curse 3 times before debuffing *a bit* a mob to try to destruct it twice after - that's just too much SP wasted.

Evocation spells for much everything when off-cooldown, necro spells for low fort casters/debuffed archers (energy drained mostly, sometimes cursed) is what I do, and it works fine. Since necro spells are used for weak/debuffed mobs, evocation is the one who got the spell focus. (No greater spell focus in my build but I'd take it if no wiz PL).

[Sarisa]

I personally don't bother with either spell focus feat, and instead invest in Spell Pen. I do, however, carry and use Evocation, Enchantment, and Necromancy greater focus items (Epic Robe of Fire and Staff of the Petitioner for me, Dreamspitter, Xachosian Eardweller, upgraded Death's Touch, upgraded Regalia of the Phoenix, and Epic Spectacles of Spirit Sight are all good alternatives).

Blade Barrier in groups depends on the group. It just heavily depends on what you're running, who you're running with, and how much you need to keep heat off the group. Mindsunder's end fight, for instance, is one place where a caster and divine kiting the trash while the melees beat down the crystal, then peel off one trash mob at a time is a great use. I've done no-arcane Epic Fathom the Depths where I kept the mudman's attention while all the other trash was being taken out, while keeping the group healed.

Archers in game should have low fort saves, moderate will, and high reflex, but they tend to have moderate to high fort saves as well. I have more difficulty with archers than just about any other mob. I'd leave them alive as Torc batteries in most cases, but their crippling proc on epic is insanely annoying, even in non-kiting situations.

Harm can be a useful spell, I just personally hate it for direct damage. Searing Light in my experience does just about the same, has no save, casts faster, has longer range, and only one mob in the game is immune (Crateos), and few type resistant (Iron Golems, Lord of Blades). Immunity or high will saves to reduce the damage Harm does is incredibly common.

Slay Living I would use more, but the "Not Facing" bug that's present now makes it more frustrating to use than it's worth.

[mute_mayhem]

On the other side, all divine necro spells that matter are single targets, making them both more SP intensive and target-selective (you won't try to destruct an epic orthon without debuffing it before, will you ?)

Well if you have a 44* self buffed, sustainable necro DC like my FvS does, then yeah, I would destruct/slay an epic orthon (or any epic trash mob for that matter) without debuffing it first. If I really, really felt the need to debuff first, I'd just hit it with an unheightened, unquickened bestow curse (38* DC) for 10 spell points first.

*number includes my FvS aura...seeing as I use slay living constantly, enemies are almost always within range of my aura.

Edit: By sustainable, I mean just a ship buff and a yugo pot...I could certainly get it higher with more consumables, but it's hardly ever necessary.

[-Zephyr-]

Well if you have a 44* self buffed, sustainable necro DC like my FvS does, then yeah, I would destruct/slay an epic orthon (or any epic trash mob for that matter) without debuffing it first. If I really, really felt the need to debuff first, I'd just hit it with an unheightened, unquickened bestow curse (38* DC) for 10 spell points first.

*number includes my FvS aura...seeing as I use slay living constantly, enemies are almost always within range of my aura.

Even my wiz with 44 necro DC (45 next life, all that before any FvS aura, without store or cookies) doesn't try to finger epic orthons without debuffing them first, but I guess it's just a difference of playstyle at this point.
When fully geared, my evoker will be at 42 necro, 46 evocation (including aura this time, as you did). Implosion and BB for most everything, and necro for easy single targets, as I do now.

[Impaqt]

Ditto on the strategies, thats kinda obvious since we prefer different spells. And Im referring to the so-called "endgame" content - lvl18+ quests/raids and epics, I thought that was implied since were talking about implosion here.

you dont have to be playing different content to use different strats.

So what youre saying is that high reflex mobs usually have poor fort saves, but high fort mobs usually have high reflexes? I love the smell of contradictions in the morning, I really do.

Or maybe I realize different mobs have different save structures?

Anyway, time spent killing mobs with a BB is non-issue. The longest part of the BB killing process is rounding all the mobs you want to kite up, the actual kill then takes a minute, minute and a half tops, sure I could bring that down with heighten and evo focus by 15-30 seconds, but what would be the point? And thats talking about epic mobs with their billion HPs, non-epic trash is not worth mentioning, unless we are worrying about powergamers for whom doing a quest in 15 minutes rather than 14 is fail.

There is no limit to the number of mobs you can kill with BB in that 1.5 minutes. WIth Destruction and Slay living, there is a hard limit. Mobs can still make their saves, and you will end up using a lot more spell points.

2 DC is easy to work around on any spell, be it destruction, slay living, implosion, BB, holy smite or command. Personally Id take spell pen feats over focus feats on a character with 0 wiz and fvs past lives anyday.



Yes, holy smite and chaos hammer are nice. But honestly, at endgame I use them very rarely, since greater command is longer-term CC and mob sitting on the ground > blind or slow mob. Obviously Im not advocating using ench focus feats on a divine, but will save is usually the lowest on mobs anyway, which cancels it out. Soundburst is backup for when CC is desperately needed and mobs save on the command, but you also have cometfall for that and honestly, how often do you need to do that?

Both focus's can use Greater Command equally well.....

Yeah, except the problem isnt really melees stealing your aggro (even though I had a guy jumping in and intimming 10+ epic wolves I was kiting in eProblem once, but apparently tankz gotta tank), its about arcanes immobilizing everything in sight (or leaving just one or two stragglers, in which case BB is a waste of SP anyway).

If you have an arcane immobilizing everything in sight, thats another strategy.... Has nothing to do with what focus the Divine is at all.

Yes, its more difficult to play an evocation specced build. You need to be able to assess the mobs your facing, calculate risk, and kite. But overall, it can do more damage.

[CanuckWisdom]

For those who were wondering earlier in the thread, yes I do have superior ardor clickies set up. Running out of mana was not from over healing, it was from casting offensive spells while I was running around solo in slayer area trying things out. Healing myself with aura.

[CanuckWisdom]

Too bad there wasnt more of this debate before I LR'd haha, but I was joansin' for it anyways.

I dont expect to have the same DC's as you guys are talking about on my first life, alternative character cleric with low gear priorities, but Im hoping that the Necro spell focus' were a good idea still.

Anyone willing to post their DC breakdown (maybe wis breakdown included)? Im sure its elsewhere, but a roadmap to high DC's would be nice.

[mute_mayhem]

Too bad there wasnt more of this debate before I LR'd haha, but I was joansin' for it anyways.

I dont expect to have the same DC's as you guys are talking about on my first life, alternative character cleric with low gear priorities, but Im hoping that the Necro spell focus' were a good idea still.

Anyone willing to post their DC breakdown (maybe wis breakdown included)? Im sure its elsewhere, but a roadmap to high DC's would be nice.

Here are my breakdowns for Wisdom and DC's (necro is listed, evocation is 2 lower)

Wisdom- 18(base) + 5(level ups) + 3(tome) + 3(enhancements) + 3(exceptional) + 7(item) + 1(Litany) + 2(yugo) + 2(ship buff) + 2(alchemical) = 46 easily sustainable (+18 mod)

Necro DC's- 10(base) + 9(spell level) + 18(Wisdom mod) + 2(Greater necro focus feat) + 2(Greater necro focus item) + 1(Wizard past life) = 42 + 2(aura) = 44

[CanuckWisdom]

Cool thanks.

Pretty self explanatory I guess.

[Faent]

I'm planning my next TR build, and I've settled on a Necro-focused FvS. How it performs after 20 is not an issue, since I will be TR'ing again immediately.

It'll be a Human FVS (with a possible splash). Feats are planned to be:

Toughness
WIZ Past Life
SF: Necro (if splashing, also: GSF: Necro)
SF: Evocation
Empower Heal
Quicken
Heighten
Maximize

I have +6 Spell Pen from Wizard Past Lives, and so don't expect to need to take those feats. I expect it to be an engine of death and destruction.

[Meat-Head]

might be crazy, but I find DCs more important than spell pen UNLESS you're going to be really investing in spell pen. Plenty of mobs don't have spell pen. If they do, blade barrier or divine punishment is your friend.

SO, I would go MAX dc unless you're doing past lives to get spell pen.

Here's a thought:

18/1/1 Cleric, Monk, Wizard HUMAN = 10 feats


-Toughness
-emp heal
-empower
-maximize
-heighten
-quicken
-sf necro
-gsf necro
-sf evo
-gsp evo
-Epic Feat1: Epic evo
-Epic Feat2: Epic Necro

Start 18 wis, all levels up+human adapt

Stay in water stance for +1 DC

Level 25

wis= 18+6 levels+8item+2insight+1exceptional+2ship+1human+2t ome+2waterstance+3 enhancement

=45 wisdom (doesn't include yugo, +3 insight(1 more), littany, alchemical +2 wis, OR +3/+4/+5 tome etc..)

+5 wis angel destiny

=50 wis. (+20 mod)

General DC buffed: 41 (10+spell+ level9+20 modifier+2 spell focus item)

Necro dc: 44
Evo dc: 44


This will land reliably in Epic Hard.

Want higher? A little gear and destiny work will get 1-7ish more.


DETAILS:
(add +4tome (2more) +3insight(1 higher)+1littany+2yugo+2alchemical+1 exalted destiny+1twisted from GMOF)

60 wis (+5 DC)
Magister twist (+3 to necro)
Draconic twist (+2 to evo)

+3 spell focus item. (net incease of 1)

New General DC: 47
New Necro: 50
New Evo: 49

First life epic dcs? No problem.

(Higher if you do a wiz life and/or 1-3 sorc lives)


Wait... Why were we arguing about evo vs necro again???






EDIT: Here's a similarish build I just saw on forums: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=401045

[goldgolem]

Range is too short on Slay living to be useful. I generally dump it right after I get Destruction.

OMG are you kidding?? I destroy with a combo of slay living + destruction. Implosion and BB work well enough without needing to be maxxed.

I have played a necro cleric then FVS since forever. Its awesome - max, empower, extend (maybe Ive ditched this by now), quicken, spell pen, necro x2 = awesome combo.

Dont waste a slot on heal boost feat. I have never had it on any FVS or cleric and never needed it.

I don't have toughness, never needed it - take another necro or spell pen feat :P