Healbot with some offensive potential please?

[Varashad]

I plan on TRing my melee favored soul(He's boring now since WF keep getting shafted) into a healbot. I'd like him to be able to do more than heal though, since I'll get bored otherwise. What feats should I take for this sort of a cleric? I expect Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Empower Heal, Toughness, Shield Mastery, and Improved Shield Mastery to be useful, but what else?

Maybe more Toughness? Epic Toughness if I can get to 21 con? Heighten for better Blade Barriers and Comet Falls maybe? Spell Focus isn't worth it on a build that's not pure offensive caster. Meh. Forum people, halp me! And please don't tell me to get more than two past lives. I have one Favored Soul life and plan on doing a Cleric past life too, just to enjoy those free healing bursts.

[SeltarisTsurinato]

Give me some more info here... Are you thinking pure healbot with just a smattering of melee? If so, pump wisdom cha and con, get enough str to swing power attack by level 12 or so, and go half elf with fighter dilettante for weapon proficiencies... You'll have good SP, bursts from radiant servant ,and can swing a greataxe or maul to do a bit more damage. If you keep Divine Power running while you fight, you shouldn't have any to-hit problems.

If you want something more in depth, dwarven fighter-splashed builds can be fun as well. they also toughen up clerics, who tend to be a tad squishy by fvs standards, with Fighter toughness and extra con, at the expense of a few less RS auras

[Varashad]

I was going to go pure human cleric, primarily a heal bot for end game epics and raids which always seem to take ten years to fill. I don't have any desire to do melee or what not. The primary focus of the toon will be healing, and I simply wanted to know how best to do more than heal; it gets boring just hitting a key every time it comes off cool down. I wanna hit 10 keys!

[SeltarisTsurinato]

Okay, so more of a caster focus than a melee one? In that case, divine punishment and the Exalted Angel ED are your best friends... it's not that hard to throw heals, stack up Divine Punishment, and if everything's on cooldown or spot heals aren't needed, spam Avenging Light, which does solid DPS for a trivial SP cost. At higher tiers of the destiny, you can stack up Divine Wrath in a hurry for a nice blast of AOE heal for friends and 1k damage or so for enemies. Get a Lolth Holy Symbol for Light/Force/Negative Spell Power, a Wall of Wood for devotion, and put your choice of weapon or a heal scroll in your main hand...

[guardianx2009]

I plan on TRing my melee favored soul(He's boring now since WF keep getting shafted) into a healbot. I'd like him to be able to do more than heal though, since I'll get bored otherwise. What feats should I take for this sort of a cleric? I expect Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Empower Heal, Toughness, Shield Mastery, and Improved Shield Mastery to be useful, but what else?

Maybe more Toughness? Epic Toughness if I can get to 21 con? Heighten for better Blade Barriers and Comet Falls maybe? Spell Focus isn't worth it on a build that's not pure offensive caster. Meh. Forum people, halp me! And please don't tell me to get more than two past lives. I have one Favored Soul life and plan on doing a Cleric past life too, just to enjoy those free healing bursts.

Heighten: take it and never turn it off. It boosts Destruction/Slay living/Banishment/Command/etc DCs, not just Blade Barrier/Comet Falls.

Shield Mastery/Imp. shield Mastery: Meh.. unless you are pairing it with Unyielding Sovereign ED to get PRR, etc. IMO If you want survivability, load up on healing amp items. Your healing aura ticking for 70+hp every 2 seconds far outweigh the cost of two feats and the need to wear a shield full time.

Toughness: one is generally enough.

Extra turning: Take it for 4 extra bursting/aura/turning goodness. The healbot side of your cleric will thank you.

Spell Pen/Epic spell Pen: Spell Pen feat is only good when paired with the epic version.. which, I understand grants +4 spell pen? This maybe desirable to get past some (not all) mobs with SR.

[Kinerd]

You can drop SM/ISM and never know the difference, which is good because you can then pick up Spell Pen, GSP, and ESP and notice a big difference. Negative levels are brutally effective and have no save. The 29 base spell pen puts you very close to the old benchmark of 30, so if you ever fight anything from the 90% of the game that isn't epic drow you'll be in good shape. Plus you could go 2 gear, 5 from being in the right ED, and 3 from enhancements and you're knocking on 40. Spell Pen really isn't all or nothing, there's plenty of content outside of EE drow priestesses.

Even if you don't go human (although human is a very strong choice for cleric), you still have one feat slot left to pick up Heighten, and again, not having absolute no fail on the toughest target isn't the same as being completely useless. I still would stay away from (any) Spell Focus just because you have so many schools to spend it on and therefore get so much lower relative worth from it.

[SirValentine]

I still would stay away from (any) Spell Focus just because you have so many schools to spend it on and therefore get so much lower relative worth from it.

I used to completely agree with this, and still mostly agree with this...except that you need Spell Focus to qualify for the DC-boosting Destiny abilities that you might want to twist in. A feat for +1 to DC to one school? No thanks. A feat for +3, +4, or even +6 to DC, though? That sounds a lot better! (1 from the feat itself, 3 from Magister twist, 2 from Draconic twist.)

[Uma-Quixote]

Okay, so more of a caster focus than a melee one? In that case, divine punishment and the Exalted Angel ED are your best friends... it's not that hard to throw heals, stack up Divine Punishment, and if everything's on cooldown or spot heals aren't needed, spam Avenging Light, which does solid DPS for a trivial SP cost. At higher tiers of the destiny, you can stack up Divine Wrath in a hurry for a nice blast of AOE heal for friends and 1k damage or so for enemies. Get a Lolth Holy Symbol for Light/Force/Negative Spell Power, a Wall of Wood for devotion, and put your choice of weapon or a heal scroll in your main hand...

yep, go light-based evoker...max out wisdom (50 isn't too tricky with ED)
You should be able to get your light sp up around the 250 mark without too much trouble
Then you can do some decent DOT damage, which would fit if you are aiming for a raid healer, and still be a decent healbot

[PNellesen]

Heighten: take it and never turn it off. It boosts Destruction/Slay living/Banishment/Command/etc DCs, not just Blade Barrier/Comet Falls.

Shield Mastery/Imp. shield Mastery: Meh.. unless you are pairing it with Unyielding Sovereign ED to get PRR, etc. IMO If you want survivability, load up on healing amp items. Your healing aura ticking for 70+hp every 2 seconds far outweigh the cost of two feats and the need to wear a shield full time.

Toughness: one is generally enough.

Extra turning: Take it for 4 extra bursting/aura/turning goodness. The healbot side of your cleric will thank you.

Spell Pen/Epic spell Pen: Spell Pen feat is only good when paired with the epic version.. which, I understand grants +4 spell pen? This maybe desirable to get past some (not all) mobs with SR.

Just going to second these suggestions, based on the OP's stated goals.

[Varashad]

Thanks for the tips guys, they sound pretty good! Based on your advice, here is my current feat plan.

Toughness
Empower Heal
Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Quicken
Spell Pen
G. Spell Pen
E. Spell Pen
Extra Turning

Okay so I got my ten feats! Now, as for the order, I'm kinda stumped. I would take Toughness and Empower Healing early on, and Extra Turning at level 6 just in time for my bursts... But the rest I have no idea. Thoughts?

[SeltarisTsurinato]

Personally, given you're wanting healbot first and offense secondary, I would go Toughness and Empower at lvl 1 (assuming human cleric since you said 10 feats), as Empower punches up both your cures and your offensive spells, while Empower Heal only makes your cures stronger at that level. (If you're confident in your SP management, Maximize works too, but you'll burn mana like a blowtorch), Maximize or Extra Turning at 3 (depending on whether you'd rather have harder hitting spells or more RS bursts at 6), Empower Healing at 6 (in time for RS I), Maximize or Extra Turning at 9 (whichever you didn't take before), Quicken at 12 (so you have it by the time you're raiding,) Heighten at 15 (when saves start scaling up hard), SPen at 18, GSPen at 21, and ESpen at 24. But your mileage may vary

[Mubjon]

As you are planning to TR have you set yourself on being a pure cleric? The best part of being a cleric is the fact the capstone is situational at best and that leaves the door wide open to splashing.

If you were to splash 1 monk and 1 wizard you would free up two of the 10 feats you have there and be able to add in 2 others that you might like.

Monk level you can take toughness (probably level 1)
Wizard level you can get a magic meta feat like Quicken, SF, Spell Pen

This means that you could take SF: Evocation and GSF: Evocation or mental toughness and improved mental toughness (although if you are not taking epic mental toughness I would not recommend these two).

You could drop extra turn feat as it is not that useful, you will have plenty of turns with even a dump stat Charisma and you could fit in the mental toughness lines to add 400+ Spell points to the build, or the to evocation feats to help with blade barrier, implosion especially with the spell pen feats.

Lots of ways to go here to make a raid heal capable cleric and still have some offensive punch.

[jamvaru]

____________________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by guardianx2009
Heighten: take it and never turn it off. It boosts Destruction/Slay living/Banishment/Command/etc DCs, not just Blade Barrier/Comet Falls.

Shield Mastery/Imp. shield Mastery: Meh.. unless you are pairing it with Unyielding Sovereign ED to get PRR, etc. IMO If you want survivability, load up on healing amp items. Your healing aura ticking for 70+hp every 2 seconds far outweigh the cost of two feats and the need to wear a shield full time.

Toughness: one is generally enough.

Extra turning: Take it for 4 extra bursting/aura/turning goodness. The healbot side of your cleric will thank you.

Spell Pen/Epic spell Pen: Spell Pen feat is only good when paired with the epic version.. which, I understand grants +4 spell pen? This maybe desirable to get past some (not all) mobs with SR.
__________________________________________________ _________

Just going to second these suggestions, based on the OP's stated goals.

I agree with this one, but I have to say, i just like Augmented Summoning. It just does it for me. I like my pets, i suppose. Anyway, level 1-6, Aug Sum, Extra Turning, Empower Healing ... the rest is gravy, get stuff for requirements like the DC stuff:

"you need Spell Focus to qualify for the DC-boosting Destiny abilities that you might want to twist in. A feat for +1 to DC to one school? No thanks. A feat for +3, +4, or even +6 to DC, though? That sounds a lot better! (1 from the feat itself, 3 from Magister twist, 2 from Draconic twist.)"

whatever... i just like Augmented Summoning

oh, with heighten, so you can summon whatever mob you want for whatever situation

i don't have the need for any others, you can spam all your heal buttons, they are on separate cooldowns

[guardianx2009]

Thanks for the tips guys, they sound pretty good! Based on your advice, here is my current feat plan.

Toughness
Empower Heal
Empower
Maximize
Heighten
Quicken
Spell Pen
G. Spell Pen
E. Spell Pen
Extra Turning

Okay so I got my ten feats! Now, as for the order, I'm kinda stumped. I would take Toughness and Empower Healing early on, and Extra Turning at level 6 just in time for my bursts... But the rest I have no idea. Thoughts?

I would arrange those in this order:

1 Toughness
1 Extra Turning
3 Empower Heal
6 Maximize
9 Empower
12 Quicken
15 Heighten
18 Spell Pen
21 G Spell Pen
24 E. Spell Pen

Extra turns early on will help you through early undead content. You want empower heal/maximize by the time you get your burst. Quicken by mid levels as the damage spikes start piling up. Heighten as at 15ish (can consider taking it even earlier, in place of empower) when your lower level spells (ie: grtr command) start to lose their effectiveness.

Stat-wise not sure what you had in mind, but don't gimp WIS. I assume you're taking human? I recommend going 17 WIS (all level ups here) and 14 CHA, distribute the rest in whatever. You can make up that 1 WIS via the Human Adapatability skill. High Wis will satisfy the caster side of your cleric, high cha will statisfy your healbot (and undead nuking) side.

[Wipey]

Heighten as at 15ish (can consider taking it even earlier, in place of empower) when your lower level spells (ie: grtr command) start to lose their effectiveness.

15 is too late if you are caster and want to reliably cc higher fort mobs ( and frankly, the most dangerous ones , giants, scorps, ogres, hobgoblins ) in elites at level. Heightened sounburst+holy smites ( maximize, empower off, you don't have SP to waste as cleric ) can keep whole groups stunned and blinded infinitely for melees to kill quickly.
As soon as 6 if you want soundburst, commands, holy smites make a difference.
I have 38 wisdom at level 12 and still see saves sometimes without heighten. But at this point blade barrier is better answer to everything of course :-D

[yawumpus]

Question about melee effectiveness. I took a break from DDO around U14 and need to LR my TWF FVS. Is there any point to swinging a melee weapon anymore? I've noticed that a huge source of spellpower is through potency weapons (likely a quarterstaff), so I suspect that the greatsword wielding WF FVSs are taking a huge healing/DOTing hit and everyone else is either avoiding melee/hitting like a limp noodle/swapping weapon sets like crazy.

Luckily said FVS is high enough that becoming an evocation FVS won't be an issue, but I am wondering how the lack of clickies changed the game.

[Mubjon]

Extra turning is a waste honestly, especially if all you want is a raid capable healer that can offensive cast.

My casting cleric has 16 turns and I never run out, I do not have the extra turning feat and have yet to wish I had 4 more turns. I have only had maybe 3 or 4 times wish that I had more turns at a specific time and then I realized I had 85% of my blue bar yet.


Augment Summoning is a wasteful feat on a cleric as well. We just do not need to rely on the pets to do the killing for us.

I am not sure if this is a 34 pt or 36 pt TR build, but I will share with you my feats and stat points. If going human

Str - 10
Dex - 8
Con - 16
Int - 10 (I like extra skill points)
Wis - 16
Char - 16

This is a TR and 34 pt build, with a past life cleric. I do have +2 tomes for all stats.

Feats this life

Level 1 - Wizard

Toughness
Maximize
Empower

Level 3 - Cleric

Empower healing

Level 6 - Cleric

Quicken

Level 9 - Cleric

Heighten

Level 12 - Cleric

Spell Pen

Level 14 - Fighter

Shield Mastery

Level 15 - cleric

SF: Evocation

Level 18 - Cleric

Greater Spell Pen

Level 20 - Fighter

Improved Shield mastery

Level 21 - Epic

Epic Spell pen

Level 24 - Epic

Greater SF: Evocation

This character will be able to heal just fine in all content as well lay down some hurt with Divine Punishment, Blade Barrier, decent enough CC with Comet Fall.

I did go Neutral on this one, but if you went Lawful Neutral or Lawful good and instead of 2 fighter levels went one monk level you would lose out on 2 of the shield mastery feats, but be able to select your extra turning instead and stay with 18 levels of Cleric.

[guardianx2009]

Extra turning is a waste honestly, especially if all you want is a raid capable healer that can offensive cast.

He wants to be a healbot with offensive potential. For healbots, the extra 4 turns is a nice luxury. He can always swap the feat should he feel the need to with his free feat swap from fred. For levelling, it helps quite a bit.

[Mubjon]

He wants to be a healbot with offensive potential. For healbots, the extra 4 turns is a nice luxury. He can always swap the feat should he feel the need to with his free feat swap from fred. For levelling, it helps quite a bit.

With the feat layout I gave him he would be a healbot, with much much greater offensive potential. By level 20 with a +2 shrine on his ship for Charisma he would have 20 turns, or 30 minutes of continuous healing aura goodness.

I have not seen many quests at all go 30 minutes before a shrine. For leveling purposes the feat layout given would be more beneficial to him and by level 12 he would have 15 to 16 turns, that is without the extra turn feat.

Plus there is no reason right now to go pure Cleric, that might change come enhancement pass. But, honestly when is that going to come to pass? Better now to make a character for the current game, than hope that it will be awesome come sometime in the future.

[guardianx2009]

With the feat layout I gave him he would be a healbot, with much much greater offensive potential. By level 20 with a +2 shrine on his ship for Charisma he would have 20 turns, or 30 minutes of continuous healing aura goodness.

I have not seen many quests at all go 30 minutes before a shrine. For leveling purposes the feat layout given would be more beneficial to him and by level 12 he would have 15 to 16 turns, that is without the extra turn feat.

Plus there is no reason right now to go pure Cleric, that might change come enhancement pass. But, honestly when is that going to come to pass? Better now to make a character for the current game, than hope that it will be awesome come sometime in the future.

His original post implies he wants healbot and offensive casting. I'm sure your build is great and has it's merits, but he didn't say he want a battle cleric. Why are you forcing fighter levels on him? Suggesting splashes are fine but perhaps he's not looking to splash. Not everyone wants to splash for various reasons.

Yes, generally by mid levels you'll have a lot of turns thanks to +6 CHA items, etc. The extra turn feat helps quite a bit at low level quests where undead are plentiful.