Cleric enhancement changes, a worked example

[Terebinthia]

I'm going to bug report this, too, but I understand through examples, so I decided to grab pencil and paper and try and convert my existing clonk, Terebinthia, into a similar build under the new alpha system. I've popped it in here in case it's useful to anyone else.

Right now she's a 18/2 wisdom based casting clonk with 3 feats invested in spell penetration, because I want my spells to land, dammit! I have no interest in TRing her whatsoever, so I need to make her work in the new system as is.

Her enhancements on live, in no particular order, are:

Radiant Servant I and II
Dol Dorn's Champion and Unyielding Sovereignty (because it's a prereq and sometimes US is very handy)
Charisma II
Wisdom III
Divine Vitality I (because it's a prereq)
Improved Turning (because it's a prereq)
Wand and Scroll Mastery I
Human Adapability (Wisdom)
Greater Human Adaptability (Con)
Human Improved Recovery III
Human Versatility I (to get AP requirements, although I also use it for UMD)
Way of Patient Tortoise I (HP but mainly filler enhancement)
Racial Toughness III
Improved Heal II (prereq)
Prayer of Life I
Prayer of Incredible Life I
Spell Penetration III
Smiting I (so 20 light spellpower on live)
Life Magic IV (so 80 positive and negative spellpower on live)

So.

What can be done under the new system?

I decided to tackle the Human tree first - 22 points to spend here if I want Human Improved Recovery III.
I went for
Human Versatility (skills and spellpower) - 1 AP - an improvement from live since spellpower isn't an option
Human Adaptability and Greater adaptability (as before) - 4 AP
The new action surge, in part because I needed the points, but also because it looked interesting - 4 points, needed to make the points allocations work.
Human Improved Recovery I and II - 4 AP

13 APs and so far so good - but I need 22 in total to get the third rank in Human Improved Recovery. That's 7 points of fluff to find to spend to get back to where I am on live. Not good. I would probably go skill focus of some sort and perhaps Don't Count me Out, but that's really not ideal. But 22 points is what's necessary so 22 points go in.

OK, on to the Cleric Enhancements - 58 points to spend. What's glaringly obvious is a) no spell penetration and b) you have to spend 42 points in the healbot domain to get aura. If anything the aura is even more important to a caster cleric as it's the way you have to make your spell points go further. You just can't leave efficiency like that on the table. I fully agree with the variety of posts that say this needs to be moved to be an ability all clerics can pick, or be made cheaper, or some blooming thing.

Anyway, I picked
Extra Turning III - no space for a charisma buff so my UMD gets nerfed too, boo. But the extra turning will help make up for it, plus an extra turn (although even as a charisma dumped cleric I rarely run out). 3 points
Wand Mastery III - need it for the 5 prereqs, and this is an improvement on live. 3 points
Efficient Empower III - I don't need this on live, but already I am struggling to find stuff to spend things on, and at least it helps with spell point conservation. 6 points.
Pacifism (picked because it's a prereq only, yuck - why would I want this? I struggle to think of even a raid scenario where I would want this) 2 points
Ability score increase (Wisdom) II - 4 points
Unyielding Sovereignty (I like that you can choose your faith via a feat at the start, I think that's much more logical. But where have the Silver Flame and Undying Court options gone? Far better to have this be one of these options depending on your faith choice, and make it part of the core cleric tree) - 2 points
Improved Empower Healing (was an OK choice, and I am really struggling to find must haves here) - 2 points
Positive Energy Burst, no brainer, 2 points
And of course the Aura - 2 points

That takes me to 26 points - but I need to have 40 points in the tree (42 once you have purchased the aura) so again, I am forced to spend a mighty 16 points on fluff that doesn't interest me to get to my previously core ability



I am also down by 1 wisdom point compared to live, and my Spell Penetration has gone the way of the dodo. I can't get the Spell Pen, but the ability point is available if I go to the protection domain and spend 10 points there (12 with the ability point). This will leave me with 4 points to blow in Monk.

All good, right? But sadly, there's very little to interest me in the Protector domain. I eventually plump for:
Toughness III - 3 points
Awareness I - complete junk, but it's the only 1 point ability
Close Wounds - potentially interesting SLA - 2 points
Efficient Metamagic, taken twice - 4 points (undecided which I'd choose)
Ability score - Wisdom - 2 points

So 4 points left - at the moment looking at what's visible I would probably go Shintao and take 2 ranks of the defensive stance.


So what's missing? I'm down 2 points of Charisma (annoying), 3 points of Spell Penetration (very annoying). I've had to spend a ton of points on fluff to get what I want.

Spellpower comparisons

Positive: Live - 80 Lama - 63 (Healing Domain) + 12 (USP from Protector Domain) + 4 (Shintao) + 17 (Heal skill wisdom mod) + 10 (3 ranks in Altruism, one of the fluff enhancements I'd take) = 106. I thought there was an additional boost of 25 from Improved Empower Healing, but that is just replicating the second tier of RS on live, if I have understood the comment below directly. Still a mild improvement without slotting in Heal or Spellcraft.

Light: Live - 20. Lama (42 (Healing Domain) + 12 (Protector Domain) +5 (Int mod for Spellcraft - is this right for Light damage?) = 69 - big improvement

Negative: Live - 80. Lama 12 (Protector Domain) +17 (Heal skill wisdom mod) = 29. Big drop. I almost never use inflict spells personally, but think it's worth flagging up.

Everything else: 12 (Protector Domain) +5 (Int mod for Spellcraft), apart from Sonic which is just 12 from the Protector Domain. Mild improvement.

Crits: I understand there's a generic autogrant feat for spellcasters which covers this, and on balance for me it probably works out better.

Overall that's positive, but the reduction to negative spellpower does bother me.

So, my final review is this:

1. Find a place to put back spell penetration, and divine might, while you are at it. The protection tree as it stands is horrible, if you are only going to have two paths, then the more martial / offensive caster aspects have to go in there. Get rid of some of the junk SLAs or something.
2. Stop making us spend lots of APs on fluff to get to the stuff we want, in particular the radiant servant aura is way too useful to leave on the table, and is useful to way more than healbots.
3. Stop pigeonholing the class. Clerics can do way more than heal and buff.

I've had to do this on paper (can't get into Lama so please do point out if I've missed anything in the spellpower calcs).

[Kalari]

Unfortunately unless you make your cleric an elf the only way to get spell pen is to have an elven cleric and even then its a costly investment to get arcanum. Right now I really am trying to think positive, they want our feedback on this, but I like others are not happy with this first roll out for clerics. It lacks versatility, takes custom builds and tells us "no no no, now you be a good little heal bot" because I can't take the duration on the Protection buffs seriously enough to complain about being a buff bot. Its really sad that this is what came out of years of planning for this class enhancement pass.

[Terebinthia]

I am not TRing this toon, I have too many projects and too little time to contemplate running through a TR 3 lifa, particularly as a cleric. I just have to make the best of things. But as it stands I am deeply underwhelmed.

[guardianx2009]

Spellpower comparisons

Positive: Live - 80 Lama - 63 (Healing Domain) + 12 (USP from Protector Domain) + 4 (Shintao) + 17 (Heal skill wisdom mod) + 5 (Int mod for Spellcraft) + 10 (3 ranks in Altruism, one of the fluff enhancements I'd take) = 111, with boosts of 25 from Improved Empower Healing.

FYI - Empower healing on live right now already grants additional +25 spellpower (total +100 from emp. heal) if you have RS.

[Terebinthia]

FYI - Empower healing on live right now already grants additional +25 spellpower (total +100 from emp. heal) if you have RS.

Hmmm. So the Improved Empower Healing is basically just taking that part of RS and splitting it out? That's not a benefit to live then and I should edit.

[Jingwei]

Does the universal spell power from the protection domain actually stack? I thought it was more like potency: take the highest of potency of specific spell boost.

[blerkington]

Hi,

Good post, OP, thank you for making it.

I am not certain that it will make any difference in the end. But you've shown a build which isn't just a healbot, and how it would be worse off under the new system.

Thanks.

[shadereaper33]

First of all, that is a very well-written writeup of the current state of the cleric enhancements, and I believe that is the kind of stuff the dev's are looking for as feedback about the enhancements, so hopefully this post, and others like it, will lead to some improvements in the system. I agree completely with your that the points-per-tier requirements are set far too high currently, and need to be either lowered or have the system reworked. A few comments about your writeup: silver flame should be an option for human clerics, if it isn't I would say that is definitely a bug. Undying court however requires you to be an elf. Not sure if it is there for elven clerics, I didn't check, but that could explain why you didn't see it. Your positive and negative spell power calculations seems a bit off. Not a huge deal, but it looks like you are accounting for the spell craft skill in both of them, which doesn't actually buff positive or negative spell power. That is only done by the heal skill now, which it looks like you don't account for in the negative spell power calculation.

[Flavilandile]

I agree completely with your that the points-per-tier requirements are set far too high currently, and need to be either lowered or have the system reworked.

Another problem to address if they lower the point-per-tier requirement is that for a pure cleric there is nothing to spend the freed points on... Protection is so bad it's not worth spending points on it beyond the 3 in Toughness.... unless you really want to get back those 2 Stat bonuses, the rest is not worth mentioning and is there as point count padding... ( like the jump from 30ish to 40 in the Healing tree right now you have to take about 10 points of padding to reach the aura )

Cleric really need at least 3 Trees ( all the classes need at least 3 trees, 4 would be better for diversity ) before this thing go live.

[aristarchus1000]

Nice write up. That said I think you could optimize this better. For example, I would not start with human recovery 3, since it is so expensive after tier 2, and spend those points in something else, perhaps Ina monk tree.

I think we are going to find new ways to optimize builds. This is a good first pass. I also think the optimum level splits will change, so I hope turbine has some plans to release LR+? For free with the update, because not everyone has the time or want to spend the money to fix their builds.

That said, you can't expect the exact same abilities on your character from the old system, particularly in a multiclass character. Hopefully the positives and negatives will be reasonably balanced, however, and turbine is asking for feedback to help make that happen.

[cru121]

( all the classes need at least 3 trees, 4 would be better for diversity )

The more trees you have per class, the more likely it will be that your favorite class enhancements are assigned to different trees. This will make multiclassing particularly painful.

[Terebinthia]

Does the universal spell power from the protection domain actually stack? I thought it was more like potency: take the highest of potency of specific spell boost.

I can't actually access Lama at the moment - I am interpreting this to stack, in order that you can choose to take aspects of each tree. Perhaps someone on Lama will confirm? I'm stuck at the Connect: Waiting issue ATM.

If it doesn't, and taking out the screwup with using the Spellcraft mod too, positive is I think 63 from Healing Domain, 17 from Heal mod from wisdom, 4 from Shintao, 10 from Altruism = 94, so an improvement of 14 on live. Big whoop. Light is 42 from Healing Domain and possibly 5 from the Int Mod to Spellcraft?

[Terebinthia]

First of all, that is a very well-written writeup of the current state of the cleric enhancements, and I believe that is the kind of stuff the dev's are looking for as feedback about the enhancements, so hopefully this post, and others like it, will lead to some improvements in the system. I agree completely with your that the points-per-tier requirements are set far too high currently, and need to be either lowered or have the system reworked. A few comments about your writeup: silver flame should be an option for human clerics, if it isn't I would say that is definitely a bug. Undying court however requires you to be an elf. Not sure if it is there for elven clerics, I didn't check, but that could explain why you didn't see it. Your positive and negative spell power calculations seems a bit off. Not a huge deal, but it looks like you are accounting for the spell craft skill in both of them, which doesn't actually buff positive or negative spell power. That is only done by the heal skill now, which it looks like you don't account for in the negative spell power calculation.

I can't actually access Lama ATM, so this is done off what's been posted on forums. However Kalari's been building elf clerics and reincarnating elf clerics and she can't see the Undying Court stuff there either.

Good catch on the spellcraft, I'll take that out - it affects everything apart from positive, negative, repair and sonic, right?

I would be more inclined to have fewer trees not more trees. Any more than two cleric trees and monk's right out for me. I would prefer not to see the stuff I want spread out so far, if anything - make the Healing and Protector trees part of a single cleric tree.

[shadereaper33]

Good catch on the spellcraft, I'll take that out - it affects everything apart from positive, negative, repair and sonic, right?

repair boosts repair and rust spell power
heal boosts positive and negative
perform boost sonic
spell craft boosts everything else

[Terebinthia]

Nice write up. That said I think you could optimize this better. For example, I would not start with human recovery 3, since it is so expensive after tier 2, and spend those points in something else, perhaps Ina monk tree.

I think we are going to find new ways to optimize builds. This is a good first pass. I also think the optimum level splits will change, so I hope turbine has some plans to release LR+? For free with the update, because not everyone has the time or want to spend the money to fix their builds.

That said, you can't expect the exact same abilities on your character from the old system, particularly in a multiclass character. Hopefully the positives and negatives will be reasonably balanced, however, and turbine is asking for feedback to help make that happen.

I looked at that, but didn't love any of the monk options that people had seen, really - Shintao seems the no brainer option although some Henshin Mystic stuff looked interesting, particularly if force damage improvements would impact on Blade Barrier, which I seem to remember they may do. But there was nothing that really reached out and grabbed me.

The main thing I am really irritated about is the lack of an ability to boost spell penetration. That's not some trivial little ability - going through the Cleric Spellbook it directly impacts on my ability to land all of the following spells:

Command
Cause Fear
Doom
ALL Inflict Wounds spells, including Masses and Harm.
Hold Person
Soundburst
Bestow Curse
Blindness
Dismissal
ALL Cures versus undead, including Masses and Heal
Greater Command
Slay Living
ALL Symbols (Pain, Persuasion, Fear, Stunning, Weakness, Death)
Banishment
Undeath to Death
Destruction
Implosion (tooltip in game is bugged)
Energy Drain

That's not a minor inconvenience, that's a nerf to half my blooming spellbook! I have a non spell pen specced divine caster in my FvS. I want to keep that option with my cleric - I've built for it.

[fink2008]

I think the 3 biggest issues with the cleric trees are this:

1. People are used to have the uber efficient healing aura. With it being 40 points deep into the tree, some people are thinking it's mandatory to go 40 points into the tree. You can make an awesome cleric without the aura, imo burst is a much stronger skill anyways. I do think there is an issue with some players mentality here. I say people complaining about being pidgeonholed into "hjealbots" yet they are complaining that it's difficult to access a really strong healing skill. So what is you want to do? Heal or not heal? Your not forced to get this skill and can still self-heal just fine and even heal 6 man and 12 man quests with no issues.

2. The protection tree is terrible. This is related to issue #1, since there is nothing in this tree that is going to make you not go 40 points into the other to take the aura. I mean blur as a tier 5? Really? Not only do alot of people have item that grant a static blur bonus, Nearly every arcane casts this for 20 minutes plus at the start of a quest. Same goes with the other SLA's, they are really bad spell choices. If this tree was reworked to be stronger, and offer good and useful SLA's, I think this might alleviate some of the frustrations.

3. There is no 3rd tree. With 1 entire tree being devoted to a role that some divines loathe and think of as a subpar role (healing), there aren't much options for these players to build their toons. The state of the protection tree further compounds this problem.

[Terebinthia]

It's got nothing to do with wanting to heal groups or even be an awesome healer for me. I usually solo or shortman with friends due to the way clerics can be treated by PUGGles, and I would want to take the aura in order to maintain my survivability and concentrate the more limited spell point pool I have available on the more fun stuff for me, which is offensive casting. It's pure spell point conservation strategy here. Heck, I've been known to pop a pocket healer to do the grunt work of red bar watching as far as it's able, in order to make my casting capability stretch further. This is also the reason I LRed from pure cleric to clonk - stunning fist allows me another CC option that's not spell point dependent. I also Torc a lot.

The only way I could see giving up the Aura is if there was genuinely an awesome sauce caster cleric domain with lots of stuff I actually want - but it would need to be pretty sexy to want to make that sacrifice. At the moment there is nothing appealing in the slightest in the Protection Domain.

I do appreciate you can heal perfectly well without it - I levelled Tere in her first life well before Radiant Servant was even a reality. As you can see on live my only concession apart from the prereqs and the prestige is life magic (the prayer of life / incredible life are filler options IIRC). I don't port a devotion item usually, and in fact am managing perfectly well with the rather pitiful Potency 48 from the heroic blue scale until I level into the epic version I have ready for her. Most of the time you simply don't need all these healing boosts anyway.

[Kalari]

Terebinthia is right outside being able to take Undying Court as your faith at level up (LR Kamari to find that out) there is nothing in the enhancement system towards Undying court currently, I lost my undying call, I am pretty sure my favored soul will lose her Undying court command undead abilities and my Paladin who duel wields scimitars is going to take a blow from the loss of this faith path

[Engoril]

Ability score increase (Wisdom) II - 4 points
Ability score - Wisdom - 2 points

Does taking 3 points of Wisdom work in the Cleric trees?

I've only tried it with Strength in the Fighter trees and it wasn't possible there. If you take Strength II in Kensai, then try to take Stength I in Stalwart Defender, it lets you click the choice but fails to select it. It remains greyed out.

So I would expect trying to do this in the Cleric trees would fail the same way.

[guardianx2009]

Hmmm. So the Improved Empower Healing is basically just taking that part of RS and splitting it out? That's not a benefit to live then and I should edit.

Yes, I am 99% positive this is the case on live. I've done extensive testing on the aura, burst and heal spell and have broken down the numbers into a spreadsheet.

The only way I could get the numbers to match what is shown in game is Empower Healing granting +100spellpower.