Necro Cleric for new players

[EllisDee37]

My favorite piece of mid-level twink gear is a set of ML13 Ethereal Bracers. They have a green slot and a colorless slot. I put Heavy Fortification in the green slot and +20 Vitality in the colorless slot. They basically replace the old Minos, except that they also grant ethereal (no need for ghost touch weapons) and a stacking +1 insight bonus to saves. And they sit in the wrist slot, which I find a lot less use for than the head slot.

They are definitely nice, but I usually have ghostly by level 12 with the cloak of invisibility, which I don't equip until I can slot +4 resistance into it. (ML12) If you opt for heavy fort instead of resistance you can have ghostly by level 9.

I like putting blurry in the bracer slot, either with greensteel smoke bracers or with the ML3 (!) bracers of wind. It's almost comical that you can get blurry by level 3, but hey, I'm not complaining.

[Nodoze]

/signed

Hey Nodoze - are you the same Nodoze that frequents the ISboxer forums occasionally and also a LOTRO boxer? My screen name there (ISB) is Wanderlust and I think I still use one of your configurations for my LOTRO box teams, or maybe we just talked a lot about boxing DDO? Anyways... thanks for the kind words, you Sir, are also worthy of a +1 and a whoa.

Take care


EDIT: BTW Ellisdee, I just noticed that I also play your Evasion Paladin (favorite toon evar) and Tempest Trapmonkey builds... So yeah - what Nodoze said squared. You and other knowledgeable players like CardTrick and SirValentine sharing your experience with anyone who has eyeballs is just awesome and I appreciate it.

MacR

Yes that is me and I recognize your sign-on name when you mentioned it. I have at least boxed DDO, NeverWinter, WoW, SWTOR, LoTRO, Diablo (those are the ones that come to mind but I am tired and heading to bed)... I like the challenge of coding the keybinds and getting a party/raid to work together from one keyboard and I like that I can make a party of 4-6 (depending on the game) for me and my kids and keep the entire group together XP wise... I like the challenge playing them all at once when solo and mixing in 1 or more kids when I can... It is ironic that the game I like the most is DDO and of all the games it is the least multi-box friendly with no auto-follow...

I also like these forums the most because of gents/ladies on them... In addition to those we have mentioned above others come to mind (CThru, Unbongw, Ancient, Ron, Singular, SigT, etc and even teh Troll shares his nuggets of wisdom in a way that often makes me laugh)... Too many folk to list but you get the idea. Between EDs/Enhancements/splits/stats/gear/etc the combinations & permutations are endless and sometimes I think I like the forums & the Planner tool even more than actually playing as I like their creativity and trying to understand how their builds work and then they give me new ideas to try... Often it is the flavor ones I like the most.

Anyway, been a long week of travel and finally able to get back to my personal PC after getting home and putting everyone to bed but too tired to do much more. Night all and thanks for all the great ideas...

[pappo]

The only evocation spells to focus on are blade barrier and implosion. I prefer the necro spells you outlined.

If by endgame you mean the highest level content on epic elite, DC casting on a cleric likely won't work. For that, your best best is to go evocation specced and shoot for 70 evo DC.

I just took lvl 11 and cannot thank you enough for this build. I did a TR from a 16Cleric/4Ftr and this seems to do more damage than my previous life. Spamming light spells from lvl 1 - 10 has been awesome and my guildies were amazed at my turns in the undead quests... Delera's, Necro 1 etc..

Do I completely stop using light spells now? I still have searing light, but not as an SLA.
What did your spell list look like after the enhancement change at level 11 ? I took Blade barrier/Greater Command and also have enervation, slay living, blindness, and contagion.

+1 again for this build

Battlehealzu on Khyber

[EllisDee37]

You don't have to completely abandon the light spells, but for the most part your damage dealing will be with blade barrier and insta-kills. You should also be pretty effective with Greater Command against melee types.

Here's a typical example from my last cleric life, running in a pug through Gianthold elites for bravery:

You round the corner and come across a group of 3-4 melee mobs with two hobgoblin clerics behind them. Greater Command the three melee mobs (who are conveniently close together and have terrible will saves) then immediately jump over/past them (your party members can kill them) to get to the clerics. While in mid-air you destruct the first cleric, then close the remaining distance to slay living the second.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

In a nutshell, what I would do is look for groups of at least 3 melees to greater command while also scanning for any/all casters, who would get destructed with extreme prejudice. If there's more than one enemy caster, well, hey, we're not a lowly wizard, we have two fingers of death. hehheh.

That's for grouping. For solo, I would use blade barrier instead of greater command to slice and dice the melee while dealing with casters the same way.

[pappo]

You don't have to completely abandon the light spells, but for the most part your damage dealing will be with blade barrier and insta-kills. You should also be pretty effective with Greater Command against melee types.

Ok, thanks EllisDee37. I took my Necro Cleric on a Elite Shanti - Kor run. I know it was not at my level but just a test run. I did not use any light spells. I used enervation, contagion (blindness one), and then slay living. I used BB for big mobs.
The contagion worked from a long distance so it was great for casters. I can't wait for destruction.

I am having a lot of fun with this build, especially now that I got burst.

[Finn42]

EllisDee37, thanks for this post been very helpful, well written and informative.

My question is as follows:
once I switch over to the dark side, what +spell school weapons do I want to use?
before the switch I was running + light Spell power, and + light crit chance, + heal sp + heal crit chance.

I would think that I would want a +spell Penetration now, but I have no idea what I would want for the other '3 slots'?
advice would be appreciated, thanks
(I don't know how to make my BB do more damage, I would think the Force SP, as that also says untyped??)

Thanks, Finn.

[EllisDee37]

once I switch over to the dark side, what +spell school weapons do I want to use?

If you mean which spell power to select from the Divine Disciple tree, go with Universal on all counts. (Spell Power and Spell Critical, all tiers you take.)

Universal is best for the darkside because you get actual use out of three spell power types:

Negative (necrotic ray)
Force (blade barrier)
Positive (healing yourself and others)

[Finn42]

If you mean which spell power to select from the Divine Disciple tree, go with Universal on all counts. (Spell Power and Spell Critical, all tiers you take.)

Universal is best for the darkside because you get actual use out of three spell power types:

Negative (necrotic ray)
Force (blade barrier)
Positive (healing yourself and others)

sort of helpful, but was more asking about the items held in hands.
Meaning, I use 2 weapons in my hands, and that gives me 4 attributes to the weapons to select from.
So what type on weapons/off hands(shield?) would this build benefit from the most once going darkside?
thanks, finn.

[EllisDee37]

sort of helpful, but was more asking about the items held in hands.
Meaning, I use 2 weapons in my hands, and that gives me 4 attributes to the weapons to select from.
So what type on weapons/off hands(shield?) would this build benefit from the most once going darkside?
thanks, finn.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, you even explicitly said "weapons." Not sure how I missed that.

I like to use Scepter of Healing and Dalorent's Seal, slotting nullification in one and impulse in the other. That's not optimal in terms of giving no void lore, but I craft void lore on a trinket in the meantime. Then at 17 the yummy Darkstorm Helm.

[Caprice]

In more general term the specific "item labels" of interest are probably going to be:

• "Nullification" prefix = Negative Spellpower
• "(of) Void Lore" suffix = Negative Critical chance
• "Impulse" prefix = Force, Physical, and Untyped damage Spellpower
• "(of) Kinetic Lore" suffix = Force, Physical, and Untyped damage Critical chance
• "Devotion" prefix = Positive Spellpower
• "(of) Healing Lore" suffix = Positive Spellpower
• "Potency" prefix = Universal Spellpower

There are also items for increasing the DCs of your spells of a particular school. The effect when listed on the description of an item will say "<school> Focus", but on the actual name of a random item it will just be labeled with the school name. For instance bracers that add +1 DC to your Necromancy spells like Enervation and Slay Living will be named "Necromancy Bracers of <whatever else they happen to do>", and when you mouseover the item it will list it as having "Necromancy Focus". The main ones you might be interested in are:

• "Necromancy" (Focus) = Necromancy DCs (good for most of your negative & instant kill spells)
• "Evocation" (Focus) = Evocation DCs (good for Blade Barrier, and those Light side spells you don't use anymore)
• 'Enchantment" (Focus) = Enchantment DCs (good for Greater Command)

If you are doing most of your damage with are Blade Barrier kiting, then an "Impulse of Kinetic Lore" item will be your primary choice since BB counts as an "slashing/untyped" damage spell. Unfortunately Impulse & Kinetic Lore are both hard to find except on random loot weapon drops so I would suggest looking through the AH and "pawn" NPC vendors to see if you can find anything useful. Evocation is also useful for increasing BB's DC so enemies will save less.

Devotion and Nullification can be found on quite a few non-weapon items (e.g. see this list for Devotion), and Devotion comes on a few named shields. Impulse seems to be rarer to get except on random loot weapon drops. Lores are generally also harder to find on non-weapon items. Also note that you can find augments that increase spellpower or DCs, but I am not aware of any for increasing spell critical chance. CubicleNinja offers a decent item search utility that you can use to find named items which supply appropriate bonuses by searching on the above terms.

I don't know if it is still the case, but there used to be a case where bracers would spawn with two sets of DC bonuses, but only one would be listed. For instance you might find random bracers called "Conjuration Bracers" that actually have both Conjuration Focus and Necromancy Focus. It is worth mousing over such bracers to see if there is a concealed extra bonus.

Technically "Combustion"/"Fire Lore" may be of some use to you too for Flamestrike and Fire Storm, but I have never found them to be effective enough to really bother with them extensively. You can also use Cure and Heal to do damage to the undead, and specifically for using the Heal spell this way you might consider equipping a Conjuration Focus item to improve your DC since they can save against it for half damage.

[Doutrinador]

Since you put a lot of point into Intel, why not take Insightful Reflexes?

[EllisDee37]

Since you put a lot of point into Intel, why not take Insightful Reflexes?

Neither intelligence nor dexterity are invested in outside of things you can do the same for both, like use tomes, slot a stat augment, etc... So the only difference between them is that intelligence starts out six points higher, which translates into a difference of 3 mod.

+3 reflex saves isn't worth a feat since your reflex saves won't be great either way.

[Doutrinador]

Neither intelligence nor dexterity are invested in outside of things you can do the same for both, like use tomes, slot a stat augment, etc... So the only difference between them is that intelligence starts out six points higher, which translates into a difference of 3 mod.

+3 reflex saves isn't worth a feat since your reflex saves won't be great either way.

Thx for the reply, one more question: you said that the framework of this build works fine for an evo build instead of necro. But what would be a better light nuker: sun elf 18 FVS/ 2 cleric or sun elf 20 cleric?

[EllisDee37]

Thx for the reply, one more question: you said that the framework of this build works fine for an evo build instead of necro. But what would be a better light nuker: sun elf 18 FVS/ 2 cleric or sun elf 20 cleric?

Not sure, to be honest, since I don't know FVS very well.

[Caprice]

Thx for the reply, one more question: you said that the framework of this build works fine for an evo build instead of necro. But what would be a better light nuker: sun elf 18 FVS/ 2 cleric or sun elf 20 cleric?

Of your two choices I would pick pure Cleric but that may be a personal bias. I was running a Cleric 18/FvS 2 build (the reverse of your stated) a few months ago and decided that I would have rather stayed pure Cleric; SP is somewhat of a concern but I felt that the wider variety of spells from the Divine Disciple capstone would have made me stronger overall. I ended up preferring Radiant Servant for my tier 5 since the survivability increase was important to how I was playing, but I did sacrifice DPS for it compared to a more nuking focused version. The FvS is better for Blade Barrier kiting but that's not what you've asked for (although maybe you'd prefer it).

I am thinking that the min-max Light nuker is a Cleric 15 / Favored Soul 5, heavily invested into the Light side of Divine Disciple but taking the Angel of Vengeance tier 5 enhancements. Cleric gets more Light spells than Favored Soul after spending points in Divine Discple, and the SLAs are a major perk and SP savings - the free metamagic use on SLAs compensates for the SP pool size difference between the classes. Many Light spells have a fairly low maximum caster level (MCL 10 or 15) so you aren't losing too much by splashing, especially since FvS grants more CL/MCL bonuses than Cleric (+3 for tier 5 Angel of Vengeance vs +1 for Divine Disciple) so several bread & butter nukes are actually better on the 15/5 than on a pure Cleric. You keep level 8 spells (& the commensurate Heightened DCs are only -1 DC), get the flexible spell list of a Cleric, can combine the spellpower and critical enhancements from the two classes, get FvS temporary spell points on critical casts (FvS2), and your Shield of Condemnation (FvS3) can stack to up to +50% Light damage done to enemies that hit you, which is a solid DPS boost for when you most need it (i.e. bosses & champions) if you can survive the hits. But maybe I am overlooking something that would torpedo that idea.

[Doutrinador]

Of your two choices I would pick pure Cleric but that may be a personal bias. I was running a Cleric 18/FvS 2 build (the reverse of your stated) a few months ago and decided that I would have rather stayed pure Cleric; SP is somewhat of a concern but I felt that the wider variety of spells from the Divine Disciple capstone would have made me stronger overall. I ended up preferring Radiant Servant for my tier 5 since the survivability increase was important to how I was playing, but I did sacrifice DPS for it compared to a more nuking focused version. The FvS is better for Blade Barrier kiting but that's not what you've asked for (although maybe you'd prefer it).

I am thinking that the min-max Light nuker is a Cleric 15 / Favored Soul 5, heavily invested into the Light side of Divine Disciple but taking the Angel of Vengeance tier 5 enhancements. Cleric gets more Light spells than Favored Soul after spending points in Divine Discple, and the SLAs are a major perk and SP savings - the free metamagic use on SLAs compensates for the SP pool size difference between the classes. Many Light spells have a fairly low maximum caster level (MCL 10 or 15) so you aren't losing too much by splashing, especially since FvS grants more CL/MCL bonuses than Cleric (+3 for tier 5 Angel of Vengeance vs +1 for Divine Disciple) so several bread & butter nukes are actually better on the 15/5 than on a pure Cleric. You keep level 8 spells (& the commensurate Heightened DCs are only -1 DC), get the flexible spell list of a Cleric, can combine the spellpower and critical enhancements from the two classes, get FvS temporary spell points on critical casts (FvS2), and your Shield of Condemnation (FvS3) can stack to up to +50% Light damage done to enemies that hit you, which is a solid DPS boost for when you most need it (i.e. bosses & champions) if you can survive the hits. But maybe I am overlooking something that would torpedo that idea.

15/5 FVS would be a fun build to play, but its i am afraid that are not sufficient ap to spend in all good things (sun elf tree, DD, AOV, RS).

[Caprice]

15/5 FVS would be a fun build to play, but its i am afraid that are not sufficient ap to spend in all good things (sun elf tree, DD, AOV, RS).

That's the way it is these days, and a big part of building characters. You can fit in a lot still. 35 AP in AoV and 32 in DD gets you everything key, which leaves 13 AP left over to spend elsewhere or go for optional items in those trees. I'd probably go 11 AP into RS for Positive Energy Burst but 6 AP into WP gives +10 Light & Fire spellpower and DR5/- which is rather nice especially in heroic levels. I agree that it would be nice to go 16 AP into ML to get the full +30 Light spellpower from Light of the Sun God or 19 AP for that plus Feywild Tap, but I don't see that as make or break.

[Sanjinn]

I am looking to LR my level 11 Dwarf that I created way, way back when I first started playing. He was my second character I ever made so I would like to make him work. He is a 28 point build but I will change that to 32 with the LR. I could just start a new human at level 7 but I want to put this guy to use and not waste his faction rep I earned. So any and all suggestions on what to drop/change/adjust to make this build work with the Dwarf would be awesome. I duo with my wife and this build looks like it would be very fun to play with her Paladin we have just came back to DDO after an multi year extended break from the game.

Thanks in advance for any responses and suggestions.

[EllisDee37]

any and all suggestions on what to drop/change/adjust to make this build work with the Dwarf would be awesome.

I think I would do the following with the feats:

1 : Maximize Spell
1C: Follower of the Sovereign Host
3 : Empower Spell (becomes Empower Healing @ 11)
6 : Quicken Spell
6C: Unyielding Sovereignty
9 : Spell Penetration
12 : Heighten Spell
15 : Spell Focus: Necromancy
18 : Greater Spell Penetration
21E: Epic Spell Penetration
24E: Enlarge Spell
26E: Toughness
27E: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
28E: Guardian Angel

In the listed feat exchange at level 10-11, instead of swapping empower to spell pen you swap empower to empower healing.

For skills, I'd probably just drop Heal and do everything else essentially the same, or as close to the same as it ends up.

Enhancements would stay the same except for 5 AP spent in the human tree. Those can go wherever you like.

[Sanjinn]

I think I would do the following with the feats:

1 : Maximize Spell
1C: Follower of the Sovereign Host
3 : Empower Spell (becomes Empower Healing @ 11)
6 : Quicken Spell
6C: Unyielding Sovereignty
9 : Spell Penetration
12 : Heighten Spell
15 : Spell Focus: Necromancy
18 : Greater Spell Penetration
21E: Epic Spell Penetration
24E: Enlarge Spell
26E: Toughness
27E: Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy
28E: Guardian Angel

In the listed feat exchange at level 10-11, instead of swapping empower to spell pen you swap empower to empower healing.

For skills, I'd probably just drop Heal and do everything else essentially the same, or as close to the same as it ends up.

Enhancements would stay the same except for 5 AP spent in the human tree. Those can go wherever you like.

Thank you! I was at a loss with what to drop and rearrange. I had forgot that I had used a set of +2 tomes on him so that was a nice surprise seeing a +2 to all his stats. That let me put a few points back into heal which is nice. Thanks again.