new player looking for party friendly heal and buffs build

[wrath-z]

I have been playing for a few weeks and decided to give a cleric a try. I know what I am looking for in a cleric

good buffs
is there a particular enhancement line I should be looking at? I (briefly) looked in to the different trees but didn't find anything that looked like it would improve buffs but there were plenty of options to improve healing. Does that mean that the only way to improve buffing would be to select the correct metamagic feat?

good healing
as I said, seems plenty of options to improve this which I think I can figure out. but I would still like some advice. is the divine servant tree the best tree to spec in for improving healing?

survivability
the defense system is complicated but im getting a handle on how it works. should I just be maxxing AC bonus over anything else? do I need to try to raise things like dodge chance and deflection and the other aspects of the defense system?

my account currently only allows for the standard races and 28 point builds.
I most likely will start with the following
human
str 10
dex 8
con 14
int 8
wis 18
cha 12

unsure of what feats to take
for skills I was going to keep concentration and balance maxxed.

if anyone can offer some starting advice or point me in the direction of a good build guide, I would appreciate it.

[axel15810]

First of all, healing and buffing is not something you need to specialize in to be great at. As long as you take maximize and empower healing, your heals will be powerful enough to heal anything. The empower feat is a solid choice, it will give you even better bursts as well as DoTs and blade barriers. If you want extra length on your buffs, extend feat is an option. It is very useful early on, but becomes almost useless as you get higher in level because having a buff last 40 minutes instead of 20 is not very relevent as you can just recast it after 20 minutes.

From your description it sounds like you want a human clonk. 18 cleric / 2 monk is a great splash. 2 monk gives you evasion, which is a huge boost in survivability as well as extra heal amp. Human gives you an extra feat and heal amp. You'll lose a 150 or so SP compared to a full 20 cleric but the survivability you gain is more than worth it. You'll also lose a capstone but they're not very good anyways. If I had more time I'd write out a build for you, maybe later.

[wrath-z]

don't have access to monk, would going rogue help instead since they also get evasion?

[firemedium_jt]

CLR17 is all you need to heal. Healing is more about paying attention to the red bars, but a Cleric does not have to only do that. Sometimes it is cheaper to kill stuff than to heal.

To heal click on name bar with mouse. Hit shortcut for cure or heal. Done. For healing enhancements you want the Radiant Servant tree for Aura and Burst ASAP. I like War priest with Amerloriating Strike early till you get Radiant Burst, and for 2W. Once you can get burst stay in Radiant Servant till Aura. Dump Warpriest for Burst and Aura till later then take it again. Human damage boost and healing amp tier1 min. FTR Haste get it up to 3 pts costing 6 enhancement pts.

Divine Might

CLR17/FTR1/PAL2 is my favorite for survivablity . Taking FTR1 at lvl2 and PAL2 at lvl19 and 20. PAL2 adds your Charisma bonus to your saving throws All of them. And Divine Might.. IMHO better than Evasion. Better to make a saving throw for half damage on any saving throw type giving you a chance to heal yourself or giving your healing Aura some time to tick off.

STR14 for Power attack and 2hr
CON14
WIS14
CHR14

is all you need for this build which leaves you 4 pts on 28 pt build for either more STR16 +2 tome +5 level ups = STR23 base line for Overwhelming Critical requirement or go more CON or DEX. You can even drop WIS a little as long as you can get it to 19 for lvl9 spells.

FTR1 for haste and martial weapons
PAL2 so you make most saving throws. What is the pt of evasion if you don't make your reflex save. Better to always take half damage than to risk failing saves more and take full damage. It can be hard to get the reflex up.
ROG2 is good for INT builds and trapping.

Human for human damage boost and healing amp.

Done. And a easy build.

Empower Healing
Maximize
Power ATtack
Empower since you want to heal so much. Better burst healing or Cleave here instead
Cleave
Quicken at lvl9 so BB and DP are not interupted.
Improved Critical slash
Great Cleave
THF
Overwhelming Critical - can be taken here or last
ITHF
GTHF

ED feat
Perfect Two Handed Fighting
Perfect Two Weapon Fighting for some doublestrike even on 2hr builds

Melee saves spell points for more healing. Casting can be tough to build for insta killing and crowd control. Melee builds still offensive cast with spells that guarantee damage even if saved against, and use spells that are not saved against or spell resisted like Blade Barrier and Divine Punishment. For Epic Cocoon for healing and Draconic Energy burst for damage are nice even if you melee.

Big thing for me on Clerics is not to splash too many lvls early cause you don't want to delay Burst, Aura, Heal and Mass Heal since you want to heal. Also Blade Barrier should not be delayed for heroic content. It makes things so much easier. You might lose invites if you splash more than one level. One lvl is ok early and FTR is the best for Haste. Haste is a huge melee damage increase in combination with Divine Power items to save spell points. You don't need the saving throws till high lvl to epic anyway. Lots of synergy with Cleric and Pally now with CHR. Saves higher. More turn undeads for healing burst Aura. ED US synergy. Lay on hands is a mass heal in epic destiny Unyielding Sentinel and regenerate.



However you put down WIS18. Would you rather cast or melee?

[unbongwah]

Hi, welcome to DDO.

Healbots - or "heal-n-buff bots" like you describe - don't get a lot of respect in DDO, because you're under-utilizing the class. There are really only 3 must-haves for a dedicated party healer, IMHO:

• At least 17 cleric lvls for Mass Heal spell; and many would argue this is no longer a must-have outside of a few raids, but it's better to have it and not need it 99% of the time than to be missing it that 1% of the time. More cleric lvls get you more SPs and extra spell slots, as well as access to the lvl 18 core enh & capstone.
• At least 32 APs invested in Radiant Servant tree for Pos Energy Aura.
• The Quicken & Emp Heal metamagic feats; ideally you also have Maximize and Empower, which boosts your Pos Energy Bursts as well.

But that still leaves you with a lot of wiggle room as to what to do with your other feats, APs, etc. You could make a Necro cleric who focuses on Dark Disciple or a melee battlecleric like the Radiant Titan. You could make a ranged cleric like my old Radiant Archer. I have a friend who's currently running a cleric 18 / FvS 2 light DiDi build for spamming light spells & Blade Barriers.

Point is, there's a lot of room to get creative with cleric builds; don't feel like you need to pigeon-hole yourself as a healer just because that's what you're used to in other MMOs.

[axel15810]

don't have access to monk, would going rogue help instead since they also get evasion?

Well yes rogue would work but they don't have as much synergy because monk gives extra feats, heal amp, ocean stance in addition to evasion. Splashing rogue is good if you want to be a trapper though. Like others said, there's a lot of options you can pick. First of all you need to decide what you want to do when you aren't healing, which will be quite often. You have two options, you can focus on offensive spellcasting or focus on melee.

If you want to be a caster, my next best option would be pure 20 cleric since you don't have monk access. This will give you the most spell pen and DCs. Invest 32 points in the RS tree for aura, invest most of the rest into Divine Disciple for offense and some in Human. Build is pretty basic, max WIS, 14 or 16 CON, 10 STR so you don't get encumbered, 10-12 CHA.

If you want to melee, there's several good options -

17 cleric / 2 pally / 1 fighter - gives 1 extra feat, plus divine grace from the pally levels which adds CHA bonus to saves. Most popular melee cleric build on the forums right now.

17 cleric / 2 fighter / 1 wiz - gives 3 extra feats.

17 cleric / 2 rogue / 1 fighter - gives evasion, 1 extra feat. Good if you want to be a trapper, you get extra skill points from the rogue levels.



For the build, go 16 STR, 14-16 CON, 12-14 CHA, take enough WIS to allow you to reach 19 at cap, once gear and tomes are added in. Some in DEX possibly for reflex saves. If going with 2 rogue you'll want more DEX to boost your evasion and possibly some INT for skill points.

For enhancements, invest 32 points in RS tree for aura. Spend the rest in warpriest, kensei, human. Also Horc and Dwarf are good race choices if you are going 17 cleric / 2 fighter / 1 wiz since you'll have extra feats to spare. Going anything but human on the other builds means you can't fit in all the melee feats so I would go with human with them.

[firemedium_jt]

Heroic Survivability
lvl1 to lvl20

is

Fortification

Always have on the highest that your level allows. Preventing critical damage on you means you live.

Yes this alone deserves its own post.

[firemedium_jt]

Other good gear at low level to melee

Keen
Falchions, Scimitars, Kukri, Rapier
with Bloodletter. Keen means a 15to20 will critical hit with these weapons for 2x and Power Attack does +20 damage for a -5 to hit.

with Everbright for slime and rust monster.

Accurracy to leave Power Attack on

Deadly for damage

Divine Power item click. Why waste spell points on it.

Seek to help confirm critical hit.



Level 10 to 20.... Paralyzers. Metalline.



High level is mostly saving throws and PRR Ghostly Displacement Dodge and some AC and DR.

Resistance and Parry items. Heroism clicks and pots.


Btw Toughness feat can be taken early and is a nice HP percentage increase at low lvl, but you need to swap iy out by level 10. You get a free feat swap but it can be confussing cause you need to meet the requirements for the feat you swap into. Ie. Cleave requires Power Attack.

This helps you plan and not mess up your build. You can post it in forum format too.

http://www.rjcyberware.com/DDO/