Solo casting Cleric Enhancement build advice needed!

[Menethenes]

Im looking for build advice for a pure casting Cleric, mostly solo. With the most recent changes, whats the best choice of races for a casting solo build?

From what I can see now for Enhancements:

Dwarven: Lots of hp. Very durable. Axe bonuses better suited to a battle cleric.

Human: Skill/ability boosts up the ying yang!

Elven: Lots of hit bonuses and search stuff. Meh.

Drow: Spell resistance, non-wis stat boosts, combat skills.

The rest of the races Im not interested in.

Right now it would seem Dwarves for durability or Humans for versatility. As far as Class Enhancements, Im assuming Radiant Servant is more for grouping healing builds, and Divine Disciple is more for offensive casting, correct? Any thoughts?

[EllisDee37]

Human is the clear winner, half-elf is second, and all other races are suboptimal. This is because only humans and half-elves get enhancements to boost wisdom.

Human is better than half-elf because humans get an extra feat and an extra skill point per level, both of which clerics are starved for.

The Necro Cleric link in my signature can be a useful starting point for planning out a caster cleric.

[SirValentine]

With the most recent changes, whats the best choice of races for a casting solo build?

Agreed with Ellis, Human seems the clear winner for a caster divine, due to more Wisdom and a bonus feat.

As far as Class Enhancements, Im assuming Radiant Servant is more for grouping healing builds, and Divine Disciple is more for offensive casting, correct? Any thoughts?

Yes, Disciple has a number of good offensive options. Spell power, Crits, Spell Pen, SLAs, +DCs at higher tiers...

I'd take enough Radiant Servant for Positive Energy Burst regardless. Zero-SP-self-healing is great. Divine Healing similarly.

Also, 5 DR from Warpriest is awesome at lower levels and still useful in higher level Heroic quests. And the +HP or +PRR options aren't bad either.

If you're going pure, and want max Wisdom, you put 3 in Human, 41 in one class tree (for capstone), 22 in another (for +2 Wisdom), and 12 in the 3rd (for +1 Wisdom), with 2 left over anywhere. My own Cleric, I have the 3 in Human, 41 in Divine Disciple, 12 in Warpriest, and 22+2=24 in Radiant Servant (using the extra 2 for regenerating turns). Or if you are willing to give up a point or 2 of Wisdom, you can gain a lot of flexibility in your enhancements, too, instead of only 2 points of flexibility.

[EllisDee37]

My build goes with the alternative, which sacrifices a point in wisdom from the third tree to beef up radiant servant. In addition to sacrificing 1 wisdom, I also sacrifice 1 necro DC by taking aura from radiant servant. It's still too iconic in my mind to go without, but it essentially locks you out of EE viability.

The basic concept is exactly as SirValentine describes, though:

41 divine disciple (capstone)
32 radiant servant (aura)
3 human (wisdom)

With 4 points left over to play with.

[axel15810]

If you're going for DC casting, I'd suggest going all out on your WIS. Get it as high as possible. Don't give up any WIS for anything...every DC makes a difference.

[SirValentine]

If you're going for DC casting, I'd suggest going all out on your WIS. Get it as high as possible. Don't give up any WIS for anything...every DC makes a difference.

For high level EEs, absolutely. Every point counts.

If you were mostly going to be running EH, or levels 20-23 EEs, you can safely give up a bit of your DC.

[axel15810]

For high level EEs, absolutely. Every point counts.

If you were mostly going to be running EH, or levels 20-23 EEs, you can safely give up a bit of your DC.

Still...even on heroic elite or EH I think it's important to have your success rate as high as possible.

[Menethenes]

Thanks for the replies. I know this stuff has been asked a million times over the years so its nice to see folks still have patience with it. =) As I level up I imagine I will refer to this thread often to help keep me on track.

I do have another question about starting stats. Im having difficulty locking down how much Charisma to begin with. Right now my starting stats look like this:

STR 8
DEX 8
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 18
CHA 14


I would like to be deadly to undead, as that is just so much FUN. But Im not sure really at this point how important CHA is to a casting build, other than Turning power. I assume Turn Undead uses still convert to useful abilities? I see Divine Vitality in the DD tree and Divine Healing and Divine Cleansing in the RS tree, but those are only used on an ally, correct? And thus useless for soloing. Would a few points of CHA be better used in another stat? Or is it just fine to keep it there for a little extra turning oomph?

[axel15810]

Thanks for the replies. I know this stuff has been asked a million times over the years so its nice to see folks still have patience with it. =) As I level up I imagine I will refer to this thread often to help keep me on track.

I do have another question about starting stats. Im having difficulty locking down how much Charisma to begin with. Right now my starting stats look like this:

STR 8
DEX 8
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 18
CHA 14


I would like to be deadly to undead, as that is just so much FUN. But Im not sure really at this point how important CHA is to a casting build, other than Turning power. I assume Turn Undead uses still convert to useful abilities? I see Divine Vitality in the DD tree and Divine Healing and Divine Cleansing in the RS tree, but those are only used on an ally, correct? And thus useless for soloing. Would a few points of CHA be better used in another stat? Or is it just fine to keep it there for a little extra turning oomph?

Your breakout looks fine, although I'd put STR up to 10 and bring INT to 10 to prevent getting burdened or enfeebled although with tomes/slotting STR item may not be a problem.

[SirValentine]

I see Divine Vitality in the DD tree and Divine Healing and Divine Cleansing in the RS tree, but those are only used on an ally, correct? And thus useless for soloing.

Divine Vitality is other-only, I believe, yes. But Divine Healing definitely works fine on yourself. I have it running on myself almost all the time. :-)