Radiant Servant and Divine enhances

[goliath422]

The Radiant Servant PrE, which uses Turn Undead attempts to power its main features, also requires that the cleric have one of the following TU-based enhancements as a pre-req:

- Divine Cleansing, which removes poison, disease, and at higher levels other status effects
- Divine Healing, which restores hit points over time
- Divine Light, which damages nearby undead
- Divine Might, which adds a +2 Sacred bonus to damage
- Divine Vitality, which restores some spell points

Now, my healer cleric originally had taken all of the above except Divine Might (which I think might be a relatively recent addition?). But since she went Radiant Servant, I've been confused about how they overlapped with her RS burst ability, and began to realize I wasn't using most of them. So today I've been resetting her enhancements.

I'm still kind of confused, but mostly I'm just looking for other opinions. Which of these enhancements do you still use on your RS? What are your thoughts on each of the following musings?

It seems to me that Divine Cleansing still has a place, as none of the effects it covers are part of the RS burst. But I also find myself using Panacea on that sort of thing, especially since it can heal me, which the Divine enhancements can't.

Divine Healing seems almost totally redundant once you have the RS aura. I assume it's not subject to Maximize and Empower the way the RS features are, but that's just an assumption. That means the only advantage I can see to it is that it can be used on people who can't be bothered to stick close to your aura.

Divine Light also seems largely redundant. However, at the II and especially III levels it seems like it ought to do more damage than the RS burst.

Divine Vitality seems like a wonderful thing, on the surface. Spell points are the most sought-after resource in the game, as far as I can tell. However, the number of SP this one gives back are so low it hardly seems worth the effort most of the time.

Divine Might I is almost a no-brainer, it seems, provided that your cleric has the required CHA of 14. Since you have to take one of these enhancements anyway to get RS, why not this one?

But I do have another cleric, an early build, with a CHA of 8, so I suppose the question there is, which of the other four should he take?


Signed,
"Hoarders Anonymous"

[susiedupfer]

I played strictly healbot clerics, so take this info with that firmly in mind.

I only took Divine Vitality. I had to take one. True, it only gives a little sp back, but you don't want to be someone's mana battery. On the other hand, it sure is nice to be able to give the arcane enough sp to DDoor everyone back to a shrine.

[Standal]

I have taken DV on all my clerics to date. I have never been able to fit Divine Might (not at all new) on any of my builds. Either the cleric is an offensive caster/healer and will not be doing a lot of melee, or it's a melee cleric who only has enough charisma to keep the aura up at all times.

I view taking any of the listed stuff except DM as a cost of Radiant Servant. It's not very useful in game, it's just what's required. Improved heal II is what's really irksome. If I'm not directly looking at the RS requirements, I have no idea why I took that garbage.

[guardianx2009]

Divine Cleansing
Could've been Fantastic because it now grants immunity to poison/disease for a short period. But it's fantastically useless because you can't use it on yourself.

Divine Healing
Nice to use running around low levels. But fantastically useless because:
1. You can't use on yourself.
2. It stops working once maxed HP is reached.
3. It doesn't scale well. (Don't heal very much/tick)

Divine Vitality
Nice to have around to pass out SP. End game, casters have so much SP and mana pots plentiful. They don't need you to spend 2 minutes spamming DV to give them, at best, the equivalent of a mana pot. Take this if Divine Might is useless to you.

Divine Might
My L20 Cleric uses Divine Might 4. But if your cleric isn't built with any melee capability, this isn't worthwhile.

[axel15810]

DM is nice for melee clerics...rest are basically useless IMO. Just take DV unless you melee. If you have turns to burn you may as well give an arcane a little mana back occasionally.

Divine healing is ok below level 6 because there's nothing else to use turns for unless there's undead to turn.

[goliath422]

Thanks for the responses.

Improved heal II is what's really irksome. If I'm not directly looking at the RS requirements, I have no idea why I took that garbage.

Yeah, I've noticed this is true of a lot of the PrEs, requiring pre-reqs that aren't things you'd really choose to spend your precious enhancement points on.

But the Heal skill is such a disappointment overall in this game that having it as a pre-req is much more wasteful than the other examples I'm thinking of.