Cleric Problems

[Jetrule]

My caster character Shortpact is running a cleric life, and I am sooo frustrated with the build I have.

I keep running out of spell points. I think I have done as much as I can to boost his spell points he is a morninglord with arcanum 3 and fey tap 2. He is electric domain with a lightning bolt and a chain lightning sla and he is a divine disciple of light with the extra spell points from there and the three weak light sla's. His necro dcs are acceptable for slay living and destruction and he has very good evo dcs.

But with quests starting to sport 2k + hit point mobs including regular 3k hit point champs with death ward my 2,020 spell points just dont last. My weakish reaper (1 skull usually) dps outside of the lightning sla's combined with maybe 30% or so of mobs being death warded do not offer me much encouragement for epics.

I am level 16 running wheloon now and the problems I had with quest failure at level 15 are just increasing in frequency. I use a cleric hire with the spell point recharge option. thats 20 uses and about ~500 spell points more but I just seem to run out of blue bar about one or two encounters short of a shrine all the time.

I typically open up with stunning things with sound burst. picking off a couple of baddies with slay living and destruction, then sound burst again then my two aoe chain lightning (15 second cool down) and holy smite. Both max and empowered as are my other sla's. Then my lazor beam light sla and lightning bolt sla and then my two half way decent light spells sun beam and sun bolt with no metta spell feats then repeat.

Blade barrier is weak dps I still use it some times but I may be spoiled by Shortpact's recent favored soul life when AOV enhancements added caster level and max caster level to blade barrier and had the spell points and efficient maximize enhancement to maximize it.. a big difference in dps for cleric. The only thing i run metta magics on are my sla's and quicken for heal.

So does anyone have any suggestions regarding play style tactics or build or gear? I only have 1 cannith crafted wizardry item for 150 something spell points. As it is I am likely to re roll him as a melee with a lesser heart and I dont want to.

[Coffey]

Soloing is hard with a caster unless you have the guns for the fight not to mention the SP. Either you have enough damage and SP to get through or you have to drop the quest level or party
up. I use the same tactics as you to replenish SP. I have even ran back to the dungeon entrance and restarted the hireling after the 5 min cool down so i could make it through.

I play my air domain cleric for fun and i adjust as need be but for you some advice from some savvy veteran casters for gearing options would be a good place to start.

Edit: Could have some points in falconry for wis to hit damage so you could maul your enemies after the SP tank runs dry

[Tlorrd]

A decent DPS caster cleric option is 18/2 Cleric/FVS for Just rewards and increasing Light spell crit. Now I previously ran this when Sunburst was bugged and had auto no fail blindness on mobs (Core 5 from Divine Disciple). This may have been fixed though, so you could go 17/3 Cleric/FVS or 17/2/1 Cleric/FVS/x.

Just rewards will net you temp sp on light, force, fire, and physical damage spell crits. It will help keep your spell point pool up.

Now depending on your past lives or past ED lives a few things can help, but assuming you have none to minimal your rotation should consist of just a few things.

Sunbolt (3 sec cooldown), Lightning Bolt SLA (6 second cooldown), Sunbolt again. Both of these go through a straight line of mobs, so play this like a ranged character and line up the groups. Then finish them off with Chain lightning SLA.

Also prep them with Soundburst stun to maximize your dps.

Crits on Sunbolt will help keep your spell point pool.

Also farm Torc Prince de whatever its called from Zawabi Revenge. It'll give your spell points occasionally when you're hit also helping. If you have greensteel mats then make concordant opposition, but Torc is better and easier to farm even if you have to do 20 completions of Zawabi.

[Tilomere]

So does anyone have any suggestions regarding play style tactics or build or gear?

Next time, start 10 warlock then go 10 cleric. Charisma + wisdom. Use cleric soundburst and turn undead AoE helpless to power damage from the 10 SE/TS warlock levels. Feed on Magic from SE will power all your spells. Feats Max/Emp/Quicken/SpellPenx2/Evox2 (or PL:Wiz + Completionist)

[slarden]

At 17 I cast many spells without metamagic during boss fights to conserve spell points. Implosion is your single most efficient spell for taking down mobs for a low spell point cost. dEstruction and slay living with just quicken are good as well for single targets. And the age old divine heroic strategy of kiting enemies through blade barrier is still a very efficient way to take down mobs especially with lightning bolt, chain lighting, un-meta'd sunbeam and un-meta'd sunbolt to supplement.

If you prefer melee for dps, I've been playing 17 cleric /2 fighter /1 favored soul wisdom based vistani knife fighter earth domain for racial tr which is about as unconventional as it gets - and liking it a bit better than pure caster or pure melee. Earth domain is basically for earthquake. I am melee first with 1 spell focus evocation feat only. Gear and specs are mostly melee with exception of the following:

- 1 evocation spell focus feat
- evocation/ins evocation focus goggles
- 2 twists for +5 evocation dc at epic levels
- 14 pts in caster reaper tree for 4 wisdom and 3 dc

I find the earthquake, implosion and soundburst still effective at epic levels and martial dps is just easier to work with than spellcasting.

[lyrecono]

My caster character Shortpact is running a cleric life, and I am sooo frustrated with the build I have.

I keep running out of spell points. I think I have done as much as I can to boost his spell points he is a morninglord with arcanum 3 and fey tap 2. He is electric domain with a lightning bolt and a chain lightning sla and he is a divine disciple of light with the extra spell points from there and the three weak light sla's. His necro dcs are acceptable for slay living and destruction and he has very good evo dcs.

But with quests starting to sport 2k + hit point mobs including regular 3k hit point champs with death ward my 2,020 spell points just dont last. My weakish reaper (1 skull usually) dps outside of the lightning sla's combined with maybe 30% or so of mobs being death warded do not offer me much encouragement for epics.

I am level 16 running wheloon now and the problems I had with quest failure at level 15 are just increasing in frequency. I use a cleric hire with the spell point recharge option. thats 20 uses and about ~500 spell points more but I just seem to run out of blue bar about one or two encounters short of a shrine all the time.

I typically open up with stunning things with sound burst. picking off a couple of baddies with slay living and destruction, then sound burst again then my two aoe chain lightning (15 second cool down) and holy smite. Both max and empowered as are my other sla's. Then my lazor beam light sla and lightning bolt sla and then my two half way decent light spells sun beam and sun bolt with no metta spell feats then repeat.

Blade barrier is weak dps I still use it some times but I may be spoiled by Shortpact's recent favored soul life when AOV enhancements added caster level and max caster level to blade barrier and had the spell points and efficient maximize enhancement to maximize it.. a big difference in dps for cleric. The only thing i run metta magics on are my sla's and quicken for heal.

So does anyone have any suggestions regarding play style tactics or build or gear? I only have 1 cannith crafted wizardry item for 150 something spell points. As it is I am likely to re roll him as a melee with a lesser heart and I dont want to.

Have you tried using 5 people to do the work for you and spend that mana on keeping them up?
You're playinga cleric, in case you forgot, you have other options....

[Tilomere]

My weakish reaper (1 skull usually) dps.
.

You should also lower the difficulty to elite or hard. Reaper 1 has ~29% caster dps debuff, so you will deal 41% more damage in elite, and also not have to worry about reapers.

41% more damage will shave off 5+ hours on a heroic life. You will drop from ~340% xp per quest to ~300%, but the dps increase and lack of reapers to also dps down will more than make up for it.

You lose ~200 quests worth of R1 xp @ 300 a quest = 60k reaper xp leveling 1-20 on elite/hard, but that is 12 quests in 2-3 hours at cap with first time bonus @ 5k/quest. The 10 warlock/10 cleric at cap can heal in shiradi (twist some more healing in) plus has some sick no-save CC with tentacles (slow portion has no save, also strength check not a save on grab)/nerve venom+confusing blast+stay frosty+faltering blast on cone + wave, no save blind/slow on sleet storm. Plus your leveling in epics with energy burst twisted into whatever ED based on charisma will be easier. Since you are having difficulties casting in heroic R1, no-save CC should be right up your alley.

Between the no-save slow on tentacles, stay frosty, and faltering blast, you can cut mobs speed down to 1/8th. Sleet storm will blind mobs for half speed, then make it slippery for another half speed, for 1/4th speed. Add in Legendary Salt from LGS for a 90% stacking slow, and you will no-save AoE reduce mob speed down to 1/8th x 1/4th x 1/10th for a total of 1/320th speed, on top of the confusion and nerve venom stuns. Plus it will work on basically everything, including undead, plants, and constructs where mass hold fails.

[simo0208]

Open with greater command instead. It has a much longer duration. Have. Hireling fighter beat on them and instakill those tgat save or break. Soundburst is great when you are with a large group though.

[Enoach]

Many times SP consumption can be improved by examination...

1. AoE vs Single target spell use
Not always the most obvious and many times overlooked for the "Big Numbers". It is an easy trap to fall in to use Single Target Spells vs Groups or to use AoE Spells vs Single Targets.

2. Over Meta'ng
This is where you use more Metamagic Feats then you need to accomplish the task. More obvious is using full meta's on spells where a "naked" spell would be enough to finish the job. Less obvious is using Meta's like Heighten and still not be able to beat the mobs save, or Quicken when you don't need to combat a Concentration Check or Enlarge when the mob(s) are within normal spell range

Some tactics that can help

1. Right click Hotbar spells and set the metas, have multiple versions with different settings
Fully Meta SLAs these don't cost any more just set them as always on
Having multiple version on different bars can help you quickly cast the spell at the appropriate "power". As an example I have a bar dedicated to Quickened spells, now I've adjusted to switching to that active bar (ctrl+#) and back to bar 1 (ctrl+1) when not needed.

2. Wait for the Whites of their eyes on AoE effects
AoE spells have a better ROI the more it can effect. Taking the time to "round them up", or learning how to kite in and out of Bladebarrier for Cleric/FvS/Artificer can increase the ROI

3. When running solo have a melee type NPC in the group. I know it is popular to have a cleric to "heal" you in Reaper. But a good barbarian or fighter can "clean-up" the hit points left on mobs

4. Examine your spell casting cycle.
Many players can get into a 1,2,3 repeat cycle of casting damage spells. But the order of casting can make a difference. Spells that cause 'helpless' can increase the damage output of the next cast spell(s)

For Example: Soundburst followed by Flamestrike will do more damage overall then Flamestrike followed by Soundburst.

[Coffey]

Open with greater command instead. It has a much longer duration. Have. Hireling fighter beat on them and instakill those tgat save or break. Soundburst is great when you are with a large group though.

I thought about this generalist approach to casting but remove elven AP for fey energy tap and move into falconry for wisdom to hit damage for a form of melee using a BFH with favored weapon silvanus for example to save SP.

[Tilomere]

So does anyone have any suggestions regarding play style tactics or build or gear?

So um, next time dump air domain*, and take trickery for charm DCs and mass charm, and more and better turn undead (use a turn for charisma buff before recalling or shrining). Dump DD for RS for manaless healing over time so that you can run through a dungeon fast, and to save time and mana to dps with.

Run to end of dungeon casting non-meta blade barriers. Divine healing and + energy aura will keep your hitpoints up, mostly, with occasional positive energy bursts.

When you get to a door or lever, soundburst to get time to open door, can also have a passive melee hire open door while u kite.

When you get to boss drop symbol of persuasion and mass charm and have the mobs following you take boss out (don't kill them all when u get to boss, they are your dps).

When you get to a reaper soundburst > symbol of persuasion or mass charm or BB/flamestrike if that's all that is on timer then continue on to end of dungeon with blade barriers.

From levels 1-10 use a hireling to help you clear after sound burst, since you don't have bb or symbol of persuasion yet. Use flame strike/holy strike instead.

Lower difficulty as needed to get above to work.

Feats: Augmented Summoning, Completioist, PL Wiz, Quicken, PL:Bard, SF:Enchant, GSF:Enchant

AP RS 32 + energy aura, divine healing, mighty turning

Gear: 20/40/60 GS hamp shortsword / shield

Optional AP take your pick:
harper 8 hirelings/summons +4 stats
falconry 8 AP run speed boost
elf 14 AA unlock, enchant DC
AA 21 4 enchant DC

*The reason you dump air domain is that it's ultimate ability chain lightning does 1d6 dmg/lvl to a max of 6 targets, or 14d6 x 6 targets = 84d6 total at level 14 per cast.

Blade barrier hits twice, once when entered, and once when exiting, for a total of 2d6 per level, at an unlimited # of targets. With a train of 10 mobs behind you, this wil be 14d6 x 2 hits x 10 mobs = 280d6 total per cast.

So it's over 3x better to just stick with your base cleric spells then to use air domain SLAs. Plus blade barrier ignores elemental immunity.

So pick a domain that has something cleric doesn't have better of already or that enhances something you already use, like trickery with invis/mind fog/mass charm and also enhancing turn undead via charisma. One mass charm will deal with an entire group for 40 mana, and have that group kill a boss for you, to boot.

Elf Mass Charm 64 DC by level 18 in heroic reaper:

Base SLA 17 DC
52 Wisdom 21 DC
Feats 5 DC
Elf/Elf AA Enhancements 5 DC
4/2/1/1 Gear Enhancement/Insightful/Equipment/Augment = 8 DC
Reaper tree/Ship 4 DC
Trickery Domain 4 DC

I mean, 40s DCs are all you really need in heroic reaper, and 60s are just overkill, but hey, why not.