Question on Divine Disciple SLA's

[PestWulf]

Hey, doing some theorycrafting for my next TR and being unfamiliar with some of the cleric nuance I was wandering if the Cleric SLA's Nimbus of Light and Searing Light are based on Caster levels, Cleric levels or Character levels?

The SLA is only in the cleric Disciple tree, but nimbus of light and searing light are spells shared between Favored Soul and Cleric. It seems like it would be either character level or the level at which you can cast the spell and not just Cleric level, but I thought I'd ask and see what the reality of it was

Thanks.

[Varinon]

Hey, doing some theorycrafting for my next TR and being unfamiliar with some of the cleric nuance I was wandering if the Cleric SLA's Nimbus of Light and Searing Light are based on Caster levels, Cleric levels or Character levels?

The SLA is only in the cleric Disciple tree, but nimbus of light and searing light are spells shared between Favored Soul and Cleric. It seems like it would be either character level or the level at which you can cast the spell and not just Cleric level, but I thought I'd ask and see what the reality of it was

Thanks.

It's just cleric level. Caster levels are not shared between similar casting classes. If you are sorcerer 19/Wizard 1, and do not have expeditious retreat in your sorcerer spell list, but took it as a wizard, you would cast it as if you were a level 1 caster (because you are--a level 1 wizard). If you were to have it in both spell lists, I believe it would cast at level 19 (because that's your higher level caster class). This may be wrong however--it might cast at the level of class from which you took the spell out of the spellbook

[PestWulf]

It's just cleric level. Caster levels are not shared between similar casting classes. If you are sorcerer 19/Wizard 1, and do not have expeditious retreat in your sorcerer spell list, but took it as a wizard, you would cast it as if you were a level 1 caster (because you are--a level 1 wizard). If you were to have it in both spell lists, I believe it would cast at level 19 (because that's your higher level caster class). This may be wrong however--it might cast at the level of class from which you took the spell out of the spellbook

That's what I was curious about. Both the FS and the Cleric have the SLA's as spells. I was curious that if I splashed Cleric for Nimbus/Searing/Holy Smite if it would cast it as a lvl 4 cleric or if it would allow the SLA to cast it at level 16 FS

[unbongwah]

Both the FS and the Cleric have the SLA's as spells. I was curious that if I splashed Cleric for Nimbus/Searing/Holy Smite if it would cast it as a lvl 4 cleric or if it would allow the SLA to cast it at level 16 FS

SLAs are based on the caster level of whatever class that PrE belongs to; so in your example, the CL of your DiDi SLAs would be 4 (cleric) not 16 (FvS), not counting any bonuses. [Same thing if you did a wiz/sorc blend.] However, caster level bonuses seem to apply to all spells; e.g., Intense Faith (AoV) will boost any "Fire, Force, Light, and Physical damage" spell you cast, regardless of which class it comes from. That's certainly the premise behind heavily-MCed caster builds like the Spam-Machine.

[PestWulf]

Just for data purposes in case anyone else cares. A friend of mine just tested this with a Bladeforged with the Nimbus of Light SLA(love the iconics for testing!).

Nimbus of Light SLA: 1d4+4 points of light damage plus 1 additional damage for every caster level

With a Cleric 1 / Paladin 14 and a light spell power of 5 he got nothing higher than a 9 out of about 30 samples.
With a Cleric 1 / Paladin 1 / Favored Soul 13 with a light spell power of 5 he got nothing higher than a 9 out of about 30 samples.

Nimbus cast by a Cleric 1 should see values of 6 to 9.
Nimbus cast by a Favored Soul 13 should see values of 14 to 17.

So only cleric level matters. Bummer, but not really unexpected.

^^^ Thanks Unbongwah, must have been typing this at the same time

[ddorimble]

That's what I was curious about. Both the FS and the Cleric have the SLA's as spells. I was curious that if I splashed Cleric for Nimbus/Searing/Holy Smite if it would cast it as a lvl 4 cleric or if it would allow the SLA to cast it at level 16 FS

But keep in mind a Divine ED will add 6 levels or whatever. Your dinky little Cleric 4 caster level suddenly gets +6 for Exalted Angel, and then another +3 for Angel of Vengeance Intense Faith...so now it's casting at Level 13, and not looking nearly so bad. Some of the spells you'll look at like this cap at 10th anyways, so you're maxed out!

(Disclaimer: This is from my own theorycrafting too, haven't played it.)

[unbongwah]

Some of the spells you'll look at like this cap at 10th anyways, so you're maxed out!

That's actually the downside to these spells: they don't do enough DPS in epics due to low MCL. What makes Magic Missile useful to Shiradi builds isn't the low base DPS, but the 5 missiles per cast for 5x the proc chances. Nimbus / Searing Light aren't nearly so fortunate.