cleric rogue build

[1cebeast]

working toward completion and only a few classes to go, cleric is one of them. so, when I start my life as cleric I should have all past life feats, minus monk and artificer.
I run in PUGs, solo, and with some dedicated friends and guild mates. there are many times when we don't get the 15% trapper bonus.
so, I am looking to build a cleric that can pull off traps. I am also just looking to get through the heroic levels, and not worried about playing end game with this class.
I am not afraid of reading so posting links is great.. but I have spent a couple hours on the forum page and there are just sooo many links.. I am not finding what I need.

[Thalone]

This is a good thread for you to read.

I can say from personal experience that you can get every trap that matters with a one-level splash of rogue or arti. My cleric life was /1 arti. The Find Traps spell will make up for Search, so you don't have to top it up with skill points every level.

[Certon]

working toward completion and only a few classes to go, cleric is one of them. so, when I start my life as cleric I should have all past life feats, minus monk and artificer.
I run in PUGs, solo, and with some dedicated friends and guild mates. there are many times when we don't get the 15% trapper bonus.
so, I am looking to build a cleric that can pull off traps. I am also just looking to get through the heroic levels, and not worried about playing end game with this class.
I am not afraid of reading so posting links is great.. but I have spent a couple hours on the forum page and there are just sooo many links.. I am not finding what I need.

Cleric builds are skill point starved. To make an effective one, you'll need to put a lot of points into INT. That being said...

Go human. 16 INT. 2 levels of rogue so you can have evasion. Use an INT tome at 3, 7, and 11, and at level 4 put one point into INT. Insightful reflexes is a good feat for this build, but you'll probably want the dragonmark of finding instead for the +3 search bonus in the human enhancement tree--

On the human tree, you can raise search/spot/disable by 4 with just the skill bonuses, and at rank 0 human, your first point will get you a 4 point boost that you can use on the traps you NEED to disable If you REALLY want to get your skills as high as possible, you can get get the human ability greater heroism for a stacking +4. You can use the mechanic tree to raise search/spot/disable by another 3...

So,

+4 search/spot/disable from human skill enhancement tree
+4 Greater Heroism from human enhancement
+3 Mechanic

= +11 boost to search/spot/disable for prestige enhancement tree abilities

+3 Search for Dragonmark enhancements

= +14 search

And, as was pointed out, you can use the Find Traps spell to add to your Search. At 18 CLR/2 Rog, it will add 9 more to your Search skill, but I'm assuming at level 20, you'll be TR'ing, so this is just for reference.

Keep in mind, this is a best trapper build for a ROG/CLR.

[mna]

working toward completion and only a few classes to go, cleric is one of them. so, when I start my life as cleric I should have all past life feats, minus monk and artificer.

Cleric builds are skill point starved. To make an effective one, you'll need to put a lot of points into INT. That being said...

Go human. 16 INT. 2 levels of rogue so you can have evasion. Use an INT tome at 3, 7, and 11,

Well, since this would be a multi-TR (36 points too unless drow), probably something more like, make sure you have a hefty INT tome before TR'ing into this thing.

BTW, this kind of a thing could be made to use some of the drow advantages too, and I mean that it apparently works even as a first life drow without tomes (see Phidius's 12/6/2 build, I have one of that up to 25 currently - works fine with the new enhancements too). After all, 11 levels of cleric is going to get you that past life in any 2-class build, and possibly as low as 7 levels in some 3-way splits...



And in a 2-way, I'd look at 3 rogue levels, for more skill points (don't have to delay Evasion as much for optimum skills, either) without losing level 9 spells.

and at level 4 put one point into INT. Insightful reflexes is a good feat for this build, but you'll probably want the dragonmark of finding instead for the +3 search bonus in the human enhancement tree--

On the human tree, you can raise search/spot/disable by 4 with just the skill bonuses, and at rank 0 human, your first point will get you a 4 point boost that you can use on the traps you NEED to disable If you REALLY want to get your skills as high as possible, you can get get the human ability greater heroism for a stacking +4. You can use the mechanic tree to raise search/spot/disable by another 3...

So,

+4 search/spot/disable from human skill enhancement tree
+4 Greater Heroism from human enhancement
+3 Mechanic

= +11 boost to search/spot/disable for prestige enhancement tree abilities

+3 Search for Dragonmark enhancements

= +14 search

And, as was pointed out, you can use the Find Traps spell to add to your Search. At 18 CLR/2 Rog, it will add 9 more to your Search skill, but I'm assuming at level 20, you'll be TR'ing, so this is just for reference.

Keep in mind, this is a best trapper build for a ROG/CLR.

... then again, some other races can get plenty of + search and spot... but not disable. (Spot may not be as relevant for experienced players though.) Skill boost up to +6 can be had from the rogue mechanic tree anyway (2 class levels required), but boosts are all temporary. Or ranger (DWS tree, 2 levels) if you go for a 3-way. Greater Heroism can also be had without human enhancements, so...

Oh and Warpriest's Awareness is better than Mechanic's (by all of +1 saves vs traps, but anyway) and they're not supposed to stack. Still, in Mechanic it counts towards qualifying for that +6 Skill Boost...



Of course something like a Cleric/Monk/Rogue could be fun too... assuming the OP has Monk, possibly not due to specifically mentioning not having a Monk past life. Just, saw someone playing such a thing the other time... and another weird thing could be a 15/3/2 with both Rogue and Artificer (skill points, stacking +3 disable, repeaters and rune arms, 1 extra feat, no level 9 spells), but Artificer's same as Monk here.

[Inoukchuk]

I had a gimpy first life drow 15 cleric that I recently LR'd to un-gimp her and here is what I ended up with:
12 cleric / 6 rogue / 2 paladin
I had to be drow, so with that in mind I made an acrobat (dex based) taking advantage of dex, int, and cha bonuses from drow. She's currently holding level 27 and can solo EH content with minimal gear, modest tomes, very little EDs, and a gimp race, so I'm calling it a win. Since she was an LR I took my rogue levels at 1/5/9/13/17/20 to max skills (this would be rough if leveling since you wouldn't get staff specialization until 17).
Saves: Her saves are in the 50's (reflex is 57ish self buffed) thanks to 2 pal
Skills: her rogue skills are barely adequate since I screwed up skills leveling her (I planned on using 'nothing is hidden' and read that it worked on spot, so I dumped search, which I had to catch up at 20), but that said she gets EH traps with gear swaps. Epic spyglass (stole from another of my toons) and gloves of forgotten craft (ditto) help alot.
Healing: Ameliorating strikes + cocoon + quickened heals + 2x unyielding sov amount to plenty of healing, even with limited spell points. Scroll cast GH and displacement help a lot when needed.
Melee: Staff spec + high dex + divine favor is pretty decent melee damage (nothing like my 4th life ginsu, but hey, can't have it all)
Weaknesses: If you forget to scroll cast/refresh blur/displacement her survivability plummets due to low PRR and lowish HP. And she has no ranged attacks at all except for a weak DoT (weak due to no meta and low spell power)


Looking at the link above to "traps made easy", Permabanned seems to forget that you can't take 23 ranks on a splash toon since your non-rogue/arti class levels have it as cross-class and max at .5 ranks/level, so even if you could afford to invest 6 skill pts/level you would max at 13 ranks on a 1-rogue splash.

Anyway, it's a build to consider since you wanted a cleric/rogue melee build (pretty unconventional, but I just happen to have one!). Here's a link to the build, though it's been revised some in implementation (though it's pretty close to as written except I swapped in 6 rogue at 20 instead of 13 cleric):

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...my-gimp-cleric

[mna]

Looking at the link above to "traps made easy", Permabanned seems to forget that you can't take 23 ranks on a splash toon since your non-rogue/arti class levels have it as cross-class and max at .5 ranks/level, so even if you could afford to invest 6 skill pts/level you would max at 13 ranks on a 1-rogue splash.

Um. That's just not so. A 18 Ranger/1 Rogue/1{Ftr, Wiz, whatever} can put 23 ranks into Disable just fine. (Rangers have plenty of skill points anyway.) A mostly-cleric just needs more +Int for bonus skill points to do that. (For 6 skill points per level, a Cleric needs 18 Int, base + tomes, or 16 if Human.)


My senior newbie-f2p-firstlife drow cleric trapper now at epic levels has 21 ranks in Disable, Search & Spot, and 23 in UMD. And that's with level 20 being Cleric. (In retrospect, should've put those last two into Disable rather than UMD -- oh well, I could've gotten a few more points anyway if I'd put the Mabar tome into Int and LR'd.) Of course the 6 Ranger levels help quite a bit, especially in Search & Spot that are class skills for Rangers, but anyway. Saves are quite a bit less than yours though, but 6 Ranger gets Manyshot for a ranged option, and 90% offhand for Ameliorating Strike.

[Inoukchuk]

Um. That's just not so. A 18 Ranger/1 Rogue/1{Ftr, Wiz, whatever} can put 23 ranks into Disable just fine. (Rangers have plenty of skill points anyway.) A mostly-cleric just needs more +Int for bonus skill points to do that. (For 6 skill points per level, a Cleric needs 18 Int, base + tomes, or 16 if Human.)


My senior newbie-f2p-firstlife drow cleric trapper now at epic levels has 21 ranks in Disable, Search & Spot, and 23 in UMD. And that's with level 20 being Cleric. (In retrospect, should've put those last two into Disable rather than UMD -- oh well, I could've gotten a few more points anyway if I'd put the Mabar tome into Int and LR'd.) Of course the 6 Ranger levels help quite a bit, especially in Search & Spot that are class skills for Rangers, but anyway. Saves are quite a bit less than yours though, but 6 Ranger gets Manyshot for a ranged option, and 90% offhand for Ameliorating Strike.

That has not been my experience. My experience has been 1 skill pt/level except 1st, which if it's a cross class skill is .5 ranks. I'll test it tonight to verify if I get a chance and remember.

[mna]

That has not been my experience. My experience has been 1 skill pt/level except 1st, which if it's a cross class skill is .5 ranks. I'll test it tonight to verify if I get a chance and remember.

Yes, well, it is .5 ranks per skill point for cross-class skills, but if you have a level in a class that has that as a class skill, you can thereafter raise it eventually up to 23 if you can find the points for that.

A whole lot of builds work on that. Not just trappers but also dragonmarked halflings (splash something with Heal as a class skill), warforged sorcerers (Repair), ...