Need Help with a cleric

[rootbeer]

Any one have a good guide to playing a cleric Like what feats to take what stats should kinda be. I am mainly looking to be a healer/spell pen. Just wondering.

[Habreno]

Well, this may end up opening the can of worms fully instead of just a crack as you have unknowingly done. Not saying that's bad.


If you want a healing/casting Cleric, the question then becomes this:


How many past lives are you willing to obtain?



If the answer is 9 or more, then it's a fairly simple build. Pure Cleric*, maxed Wisdom, with 3 Wizard PL, 3 Soul PL, and 3 Sorc PL as the base 9. Add 3 Cleric if you want, or whatever else at this point. Bard, Rogue, etc... nearly anything is beneficial.

Max your WIS, every levelup point going into Wis. Active Wizard Past Life, Spell Pen/Greater Spell Pen feats make three of 8 (you are a Human) non-epic feats. Empower Healing is still mandatory, but I'd stay away from Maximize or Empower. Heighten makes 5, Quicken is a sixth. Toughness is 7 feats. Since we get two epic feats, we can then do the following for an entire breakdown.


36 point Cleric.

STR: 8
DEX: 8
CON: 18
INT: 8
WIS: 18
CHA: 12

The alternative is 10/10 in INT and CHA, allowing Concentration, Balance, and UMD to be maxed.

H1: Empower Healing
1: Toughness
3: Wizard Active Past Life
6: Heighten
9:
12: Spell Penetration
15: Greater Spell Penetration
18: Quicken
E1: Epic Spell Penetration
E2: Great Wisdom

The feat at level 9 is intentionally left blank. I don't have a good idea of what would be best in that slot now, since it really depends.


* Some would suggest a 19/1 or 18/2 Clonk. I personally prefer the pure 20, but would then go with an 18/2 simply for feats, enabling the following build:

STR: 10
DEX: 8
CON: 16
INT: 10
WIS: 18
CHA: 14

Seems odd. I know. But STR, INT, and CHA are really open for debate.


Feats:
M1: Toughness
M2: Stunning Fist
H1: Empower Healing
1: Mental Toughness
3: Wizard Active Past Life
6: Improved Mental Toughness
9: Heighten
12: Spell Penetration
15: Greater Spell Penetration
18: Quicken
E1: Epic Spell Penetration
E2: Epic Mental Toughness


Mental Toughness alleviates the SP problems. Stunning Fist is going to have a rather high DC because it's based on Wisdom. Cleric must be first level since Monk first makes any feat distribution impossible, since you can't take MT and Empower Healing without being a divine casting class at level 1.



Personally, I would run an entirely different build, which incorporates melee. HOWEVER, and this is my personal disclaimer: SUCH A BUILD TAKES GEAR TO WORK, AND IS BEST RUN AS A CASTING BUILD UNTIL SUCH GEAR IS ACQUIRED. So despite a bias, I actually do know what I'm talking about since I ran a casting build and geared him out, then acquired gear for melee. It is a major difference.


I don't have time to post a non-TR build, but the general concept is that its going to be very difficult to get your spell penetration up for Epic Elite.

[PNellesen]

OOH! This thread is gonna be fun!

I've had good results playing a max-STR melee focused Cleric with one level of fighter, and I've also had good results with a max-WIS caster Cleric as well.

What I've found with clerics is - once you've taken care of buffs and healing, you need something to do the other 75% of the time you're in the quest or raid

If you're new to playing a cleric, and you have Half-Elf, max-WIS with Fighter Dilettante covers a lot of ground for you. You have plenty of SP, and you can also mix it up on the front lines with a nice greataxe like Carnifex at low levels.

There's tons of builds out there you can look at to get an idea of what feats/enhancements to take, but regardless I would recommend a CON of 14 in addition to whatever other stats you select. Clerics are meant to be in the middle of the fight (they can wear heavy armor with no casting penalties) and if you're doing it right, you WILL be getting hit. Often

[Habreno]

If you're new to playing a cleric, and you have Half-Elf, max-WIS with Fighter Dilettante covers a lot of ground for you. You have plenty of SP, and you can also mix it up on the front lines with a nice greataxe like Carnifex at low levels.

I can fully second this. I have a pure Cleric at cap now who melees and offensive casting. Going to be sick when he gets his SOS shard, swinging that thing while casting offensive DC based spells. Still sick swinging the EAGA that's been +7'd while doing the same.

[Kinerd]

Even without the past lives, do the first caster build. Take Maximize in the level 9 feat slot; you'll always have DP. If you reach cap you'll have enough know to make your own plan.

[axel15810]

lol @ this thread...the guy has 1 post and immediately you all start hitting him with multi TR endgame focused cleric builds/advice.

My advice, do a google search. You'll find tons and tons of builds. Caster cleric builds are on here all the time. Good luck.

[Habreno]

lol @ this thread...the guy has 1 post and immediately you all start hitting him with multi TR endgame focused cleric builds/advice.

My advice, do a google search. You'll find tons and tons of builds. Caster cleric builds are on here all the time. Good luck.

First post means squat, I had a character at 20 for months when I made my first post. Would have had several if I didn't take a half year break.

[unbongwah]

Pretty straight-forward to do a pure caster cleric:

• Race: I'd go human for the extra feat and +1 WIS from Adaptability; a rank of two of heal amp is also nice tho not necessary
• Stats: max WIS, good CON (6-10 build pts), maybe some CHA for extra TUs, the rest don't really matter
• Feats: ideally you have Toughness, Emp Heal / Max / Emp / Quik / Heighten, Spell Pen / GSP / ESP, Spell Focus/GSF/ESF:Evo (Blade Barrier, Implosion); but that's 12 feats out of ten total (base 7 + 1 human + 2 epic), which means either splashing something for extra feat(s) or dropping a couple
• A wiz splash is a good idea: trade 1 Spell Pen and capstone (which does nothing to up your DPS) to add a feat, Force & Fire enhs (boost BB & Fire Storm), lvl 1 arcane buffs & wands as a perk. I would either take it early to get the bonus feat ASAP; or backload until after you have, say, lvl 6 spells. [cleric 18 / wiz 1 / monk 1 could actually get all of the feats I listed]
• For enhancements, once the Radiant Servant pre-reqs are out of the way, max out your WIS, caster DPS, heals, Spell Pen; some or all the Wand & Scroll Mastery enhs are a good idea too, as a "serious" healer knows when to whip out a Heal scroll to save SPs. What's left can go into Toughness & heal amp; don't expect much left after that.

[firemedium_jt]

Take the Wiz lvl early because

You can use Master's touch spell for martial weapon prof... with Divine Power item you can melee especially if you do not dump STR even if you do. Helps a lot at low lvl with some melee.

Spell points from INT items

amoung the rest mentioned.

[Noobian]

This was my first 28 Point melee capable cleric:

Human, Male, AL NG
Cleric 19/Fighter 1 (Radiant Servant II)

STR 16/26 (+2 Tome, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
DEX 8/12 (+2 Tome, +2 Ship)
CON 13/24 (+2 Tome, +1 Human, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
INT 8/12 (+2 Tome, +2 Ship)
WIS 17/36 (+2 Tome, +1 Human, +3 Cleric, +5 levels, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
CHA 8/20 (+2 Tome, +2 Cleric, +6 Item, +2 Ship)

Feats were:

1 Toughness, Empower Heal
2(F) Power Attack
3 Extend Spell
6 Cleave
9 Maximize Spell
12 Improved Critical Slashing
15 Quicken Spell
18 Spell Penetration

Something along those lines.

He was fun to play solo or could heal a group. He was melee capable but all level ups went into WIS so he was a wisdom build. His casting was somewhat gimped but he could land destructs and implosions on heroic normal and hard for the most part. Melee capable meant he could whip out the trusty Falchion and play 3rd or 4th Melee in a group with his Aura going, if things got nasty he could step back break out a heal stick and scrolls. He could raid heal as well the only real limitation there was me ;-)

Once you get Blade Barrier you keep the Aura cookin' switch on maximize and have fun in the blender.

Hope this helps.

[rootbeer]

Thank you for the help. I am going to try some of the idea yall presented

[firemedium_jt]

This was my first 28 Point melee capable cleric:

Human, Male, AL NG
Cleric 19/Fighter 1 (Radiant Servant II)

STR 16/26 (+2 Tome, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
DEX 8/12 (+2 Tome, +2 Ship)
CON 13/24 (+2 Tome, +1 Human, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
INT 8/12 (+2 Tome, +2 Ship)
WIS 17/36 (+2 Tome, +1 Human, +3 Cleric, +5 levels, +6 Item, +2 Ship)
CHA 8/20 (+2 Tome, +2 Cleric, +6 Item, +2 Ship)

Feats were:

1 Toughness, Empower Heal
2(F) Power Attack
3 Extend Spell
6 Cleave
9 Maximize Spell
12 Improved Critical Slashing
15 Quicken Spell
18 Spell Penetration

Something along those lines.

He was fun to play solo or could heal a group. He was melee capable but all level ups went into WIS so he was a wisdom build. His casting was somewhat gimped but he could land destructs and implosions on heroic normal and hard for the most part. Melee capable meant he could whip out the trusty Falchion and play 3rd or 4th Melee in a group with his Aura going, if things got nasty he could step back break out a heal stick and scrolls. He could raid heal as well the only real limitation there was me ;-)

Once you get Blade Barrier you keep the Aura cookin' switch on maximize and have fun in the blender.

Hope this helps.

I like the way you think.

If you like Cleave with another lvl of FTR you get Great Cleave too to stack with cleave.

I know you like Extend for melee, but you seem to still have melee as a third option. Extend after lvl 6-9 is not needed for most buffs except the 2 melee buffs. When you step back to raid heal I like to have Divine Punishment stacked on a boss too, so Empower helps with that. Also empower helps your burst healing for free. You could also drop the Spell Pen feat for Great Cleave. Epic Spell Pen is +4. You need Greater Spell Penetration for that too, so all in or all out. So actually splashing WIZ lvl gives you another meta feat for that. Your net gain in Spell Pen is more that way. I get by with 2 lvl 9 spells. True res and Mass heal or Neg energy drain and implosion. Depending on the party make up and my roll as a raid healer or Solo/Generalists respectively with other Divines in party.

You can mix it up how you want.

I usually have enough Divine Power items to get me to the next rest shrine. 3 or 4. For my WIZ/SORCS too. I rarely use the spell on my Divines except for some boss fights with a rest shrine right before them.