Caster Cleric leveling gear

[EllisDee37]

I've tried and failed to come up with a leveling gearset I'm happy with. You'd think the cannith crafting pass would have made it easy, but sadly no.

Some goals I'd really like to try and accomplish:

- Four spell powers: Positive, negative, light, force
- Four lores: Positive, negative, light, force
- Three spell focuses: Enchantment, evocation, necromancy (mastery is preferred to cover all at once)
- Spell pen, and ideally insightful spell pen
- Use a shield
- Eternal Faith and Silver Flame for turning undead (both of which could go on a crafted shield)
- All the standard stuff (wis, con, cha, sheltering, false life, etc...)

The issues I run across are:

Pansophic Circlet seems great on paper, and will almost certainly be part of my final ML30 gearset, but for leveling it introduces a massive gearing headache before level 13. What am I wearing at 10? Also, it conflicts with one of the few slots you can cannith craft spell focus mastery.

Slave Lords looks promising to slot lore somewhere other than ring, trinket and weapon, but I'm underwhelmed at the thought of running epics with heroic slave lord gear. For example, if I use slave lord gear to slot lore, that's only lore 10, which is the equivalent to ML7 cannith crafted. Heck, cannith crafted universal lore is +8 by level 18, so I definitely don't want to be relying on slave lord lore during epics. (Cannith crafted single lore is roughly double universal lore; ML18 single lore is +15.)

I suppose I could treat undead separately: Swap out the turning shield and holster my nullification and void lore items when fighting undead. I'd rather not, but it's an option.


Any thoughts?

[peng]

I'm also trying to work out levelling gear for my mains. I was considering making a universal caster gear set, with the only swaps being a cha/int/wis item, and a spellpower/lore stick. All other spellpowers and lores would be universal. Yes, your spellpower and lores would be sub-optimal for anything other than your main element, but you'd have 1 gear set for every single caster life. And yes, I also ran into the pita that spell mastery can only be slotted on helmet (pansophic) or trinket (litany). Still not sure if it's worth the trade-off.

[EllisDee37]

I'm also trying to work out levelling gear for my mains. I was considering making a universal caster gear set, with the only swaps being a cha/int/wis item, and a spellpower/lore stick. All other spellpowers and lores would be universal. Yes, your spellpower and lores would be sub-optimal for anything other than your main element, but you'd have 1 gear set for every single caster life. And yes, I also ran into the pita that spell mastery can only be slotted on helmet (pansophic) or trinket (litany). Still not sure if it's worth the trade-off.

Yeah, my original thought was that in a perfect world, the same gearset foundation would work for both my necro cleric and my pale master. Each would bring their own armor to the table.

A "universal DC caster set" would be so nice to have if I could figure it out. Maybe focusing on two individual lores and spell powers with the rest being relegated to universal lore and either potency or augments might end up being an acceptable concession. Hmmm...wonder what that would look like?

[Phil7]

So you need force for BB & Cometfall and light for your dots and low level spells and some SLAs. So far so good, on my warlock heroic gear I already cover 2 spell power types using slavers 5-set. I could cover 3 but I only use acid and light anyway. That means you can also do it.

Now what do you want negative spell power for? Necrotic Ray/Bolt? Come on that's a joke. I'd say forget about negative unless you manage to surprise me somehow.

You also think you want to max positive spell power. Here's the deal... if you solo R1-R2, maybe even R3 then you should max it if you don't want a hireling on your back. If you run higher skulls than that, then your self-healing is basically the hireling. You don't need to bother with positive SP for high skulls unless you want to be the healer of a premade group. If now you run low skulls solo and don't mind having a hireling then you can also dump positive SP.

So lores and spell powers will be covered from 3 slaver parts,1 CC and obviously Pansophic at level 13 for the SP boost.
Now you also want to max Necro, Enchant and Evocation. To me that means Greater Command, 4 insta-kills (1 for undead) and BB + Cometfall.

I see a problem here and that is, first what do you do when the mobs are commanded? Do you have some follow-up burst damage? Cometfall + BB, yes but that will work until R2 propably, after that your damage will be very low and your SP will run out. Also knock-down + BB don't synergize very well.
Second why would you bother with Necromancy if you can just BB the entire dungeon to victory? Now that brings us to the next question, how many skulls are you willing to go for?
If you plan to play on R1-R2 then you can forget about Greater Command and let your level 13 CC Trinket (wis/ins wis/spell mastery) do the work. Max evocation first for the damage and for Implosion and for your secondary School use Necromancy for annoying champs. That means CC gogles with INS Evocation and spell pen.

If now you decide to run higher skulls, say R3+ then max Necromancy first because it will carry you and then focus on both Evocation for Implosion and BB (don't bother much with Cometfall) and Enchantment for the CC. So what's my point here? You can't have everything. You need to sacrifice some spell power, to get higher DCs if you plan to run on high skulls. Or you need to lower your DCs and max your spell power if you want to run low skulls.
When you run r7-r10 quests on a warlock you can't expect your Eldritch Blast to clear the dungeon. It's the charms & the insta-kills and until you get these, you just run lower difficulties and use CC + aoe damage (aka Tentacles + cone).

I would like to say so far so good, spell pen is covered from spinneret + mutilator and from your level 16 Goggles of spell pen/ins #DC/XYZ with a yellow augment of #DC (it stacks)

Shield doesn't matter cause you are divine so feel free to use a Large shield of fire absorption/spell power or a named one.

About Eternal Faith and Co. I'm not sure cause it's been useless so far and I haven't checked it out.

The standard stuff can be slotted on slavers, cc gear and augment slots for not so important things like STR or DEX.

So as I said, decide on a difficulty and adjust your gear accordingly. Low runs zerg mode? Max your spell power and you can ignore slavers gear.
High skulls using the meta spells? Time to craft and sacrifice some damage.

[ValariusK]

I have a couple of items you might slot in around level 13
Trinket, Spell focus mastery 3, spell pen 3, insightful spell pen 2 (crafted trinket, level 13).
The thing on this one is it'll cover your needs pretty handsomely up to level 20 insfar as spell pen and spell mastery are concerned
at level 23 you can upgrade it to spell mastery 4, spell pen 5, insightful spell pen 3.

Also at level 13, boots, spellsight 15, insightful spellsight 7, sheltering 17. This gets you good use out of your boot slot.
Greensteel con op spell point bracers (which include +6 wisdom), there from level 11
Panosophic circlet at level 13
Smoke GS hp necklace at level 11.
Make a weapon of radiance/radiance lore at level 10 or 13. You can do a shield with devotion on it (or use Dalorent's seal or Fanion). Devotion lore isn't really usually that important.
For armor I tend to like constitution, healing amp, parrying for cannith. Good spots for making it are level 10, level 15 and level 18 and level 23.
Gloves can carry a spell power and an insightful spell power on them. If you just gotta have more spellpower and insightful spell power than the circlet gives you, consider spellpower, heal skill, insightful spell power gloves.
For goggles, consider intelligence, insightful intelligence, insightful focus (pick school). Having a higher intel will squeeze out a little more spell power for you through spellcraft.
I usually use the mysterious cloaks for their insightful MRR and stacking heal amp. They also generally carry heavy fort for me in their green slot.
For rings I like one to be charisma, dexterity, and insightful constitution or dexterity. level 10, 18 and 23 are good make levels for such rings. Your second ring can cover spell crit (pick school), spell power (pick school) and insightful (charisma most likely, but make it match your other items).
Your belt I suggest using one of your belts from a melee life. Dodge, strength, insightful strength is a good fit.

[EllisDee37]

Let's see if I can manage to break this down into chunks:


Spell DC / Spell Pen

Craftable trinkets have a limited supply compared to other gear slots, and the universal DC stuff doesn't change much each level so you could get by with just a few versions if you put them on trinket:

ML5 Spell Penetration 2 trinket of Spell Focus Mastery 2
ML13 Spell Penetration 3 trinket of Spell Focus Mastery 3 w/Insightful Spell Pen 2
ML24 Spell Penetration 5 trinket of Spell Focus Mastery 4 w/Insightful Spell Pen 3

That's only three craftable trinkets needed to go from 1 to 30, and it services all DC casting regardless of caster type. Doing this means you get no Efficient Maximize (only goes on trinket extra) but sacrifices have to be made, and crafted Eff. Maximize kind of stinks in the new system anyway. However, you could make an alternate version for nukers if you really want since they wouldn't need insightful spell pen. The prefix could be switched to an individual lore in that case.


Caster Stat

Goggles can cover either int or wis, but not cha:

ML10 Int or Wis 6 goggles of iFocus 2 w/Insightful Int or Wis 2
ML13 Int or Wis 7 goggles of iFocus 2 w/Insightful Int or Wis 3
ML21 Int or Wis 10 goggles of iFocus 2 w/Insightful Int or Wis 4
ML23 Int or Wis 11 goggles of iFocus 3 w/Insightful Int or Wis 5

The ML13 and ML23 versions would be optional. I'd probably skip both since you need separate int and wis versions. Who knows, maybe I'd make them anyway, but later on down the road.

You only get one school for the insightful school focus, but that literally only goes on goggles and runearm so you only get one school regardless.


Spell Power / Lore

Spell lore: Rings, trinket, weapon
Universal lore: Gloves, trinket
Spell power: Rings, gloves, necklace, trinket, armor, weapon, shield
Insightful spell power: Gloves, weapon

Pansopic Circlet offers 39 insightful+quality potency all by itself, but its 63 potency isn't great. ML12 crafted spell power already adds +21 stacking spell power on top of circlet, so crafted spell power is still worth having even with circlet. However, since insightful spell power is so hard to slot (it conflicts with lore on weapons) let's stick with circlet for insightful (and quality) spell power and not bother with insightful anywhere else.

Trinket was already earmarked for DC stuff, so let's say:

Lore ring of spellpower: element #1
Lore ring of spellpower: element #2
Spell power weapon of Lore: element #3

That gives us three maxed elements with full spell power and lore. Note that both spell power and lore increase every single level, so make these for as many levels as you please.

Pansophic covers "good enough" spell power for everything else, and we could slot in universal lore for "good enough" lore for everything else:

ML4 Wizardry 60 gloves of Spell Lore 3
ML10 Wizardry 112 gloves of Spell Lore 5
ML15 Wizardry 154 gloves of Spell Lore 7
ML21 Wizardry 203 gloves of Spell Lore 9
ML24 Wizardry 10 gloves of Spell Lore 10

For the extra slot, gloves offers Dex, Str, Spell Pen and Spell Power, all insightful. I could see maybe iStrength and then slot strength in a colorless for carrying capacity or maybe dex for reflex saves. Going with the "+20 spell power matters" measure, insightful spell power on the gloves is worth +20 spellpower over pansophic by level 17/18. (Worth +19/+21 respectively.) And it's already worth +12 at ML13, so that's probably the best use of the extra slot. Pick one element that everyone could use and go with that, since these generic gloves are otherwise universally useful. For me I might go nullficiation since I'm looking at a necro cleric and pale master.

[EllisDee37]

Now what do you want negative spell power for? Necrotic Ray/Bolt? Come on that's a joke. I'd say forget about negative unless you manage to surprise me somehow.

Why is necrotic ray a joke?

It's also nice for slay living and destruction if the target happens to save.

Devotion lore isn't really usually that important.

I'm a big aura guy with my cleric, and positive lore is huge for aura.

[psykopeta]

Why is necrotic ray a joke?

It's also nice for slay living and destruction if the target happens to save.

I'm a big aura guy with my cleric, and positive lore is huge for aura.

im ok with you on healing lore, however negative... i see it more useful on harm than in necrotic ray

the good thing of necroray is the neg lvl, the damage itself is kinda symbolic

it will also make it much easier for you to fit the power/lore, not universal i mean(2 rings+1 weapon since you don't want double weapons)

not sure about the saved slays but i would say they are untyped, not negative

[EllisDee37]

im ok with you on healing lore, however negative... i see it more useful on harm than in necrotic ray

the good thing of necroray is the neg lvl, the damage itself is kinda symbolic

it will also make it much easier for you to fit the power/lore, not universal i mean(2 rings+1 weapon since you don't want double weapons)

not sure about the saved slays but i would say they are untyped, not negative

I find that necrotic ray damage is pretty decent, but yeah, for the cleric I think negative is the one that can be relegated to pansophic spell power and universal lore. Or no lore at all if it comes to it.

Just ran into an issue with saves: Resistance goes on hat (pansophic), gloves (spell lore), trinket (DC stuff) and bracers (blurry, either bracers of wind or greensteel smoke).

Getting closer, though...

[Livmo]

I've tried and failed to come up with a leveling gearset I'm happy with. You'd think the cannith crafting pass would have made it easy, but sadly no.

Some goals I'd really like to try and accomplish:

- Four spell powers: Positive, negative, light, force
- Four lores: Positive, negative, light, force
- Three spell focuses: Enchantment, evocation, necromancy (mastery is preferred to cover all at once)
- Spell pen, and ideally insightful spell pen
- Use a shield
- Eternal Faith and Silver Flame for turning undead (both of which could go on a crafted shield)
- All the standard stuff (wis, con, cha, sheltering, false life, etc...)

The issues I run across are:

Pansophic Circlet seems great on paper, and will almost certainly be part of my final ML30 gearset, but for leveling it introduces a massive gearing headache before level 13. What am I wearing at 10? Also, it conflicts with one of the few slots you can cannith craft spell focus mastery.

Slave Lords looks promising to slot lore somewhere other than ring, trinket and weapon, but I'm underwhelmed at the thought of running epics with heroic slave lord gear. For example, if I use slave lord gear to slot lore, that's only lore 10, which is the equivalent to ML7 cannith crafted. Heck, cannith crafted universal lore is +8 by level 18, so I definitely don't want to be relying on slave lord lore during epics. (Cannith crafted single lore is roughly double universal lore; ML18 single lore is +15.)

I suppose I could treat undead separately: Swap out the turning shield and holster my nullification and void lore items when fighting undead. I'd rather not, but it's an option.


Any thoughts?

• Festival (Night Revels)
• Festival (Crystal Cove/dagger w/augments)
• Loot gen.
• Might of the Abashi set bonus
• Slavers set bonus
• Thunderforgerd armor/weapon
• Cannith Crafting

Slaver's Staff is nice.

BTW you can get a +4 DC to all spell types off random lootgen.

I rock evo and necro on my clerics.

[Livmo]

• Festival (Night Revels)
• Festival (Crystal Cove/dagger w/augments)
• Loot gen.
• Might of the Abashi set bonus
• Slavers set bonus
• Thunderforgerd armor/weapon
• Cannith Crafting

Slaver's Staff is nice.

BTW you can get a +4 DC to all spell types off random lootgen.

I rock evo and necro on my clerics.

I have my stacking Enhancement augment on another item:



Edit ~ the yellow topaz makes a +10 DC

[EllisDee37]

Okay, I've grown comfortable with the idea of moving nullification + void lore to a weapon that the pale master uses, or the necro cleric swaps to. The main cleric weapon will be radiance and light lore, so I switch out depending if I'm a light or dark disciple.

I'm so close in my gearset planner except for one minor thing: My actual cleric on live has greentseel bracers and belt. Why did it have to be belt? Fortunately the bracers are the cleansed item, so I can move the belt without too much issue. Complicating matters is that the pale master has necklace and gloves, I think, with the necklace cleansed as a spell power shrine swap with torc. (My cleric doesn't have a torc.)

Not quite giving up yet, though this is usually where I run out of steam. (I've tried to come up with a gearset like 5 different times.)

[Livmo]

Okay, I've grown comfortable with the idea of moving nullification + void lore to a weapon that the pale master uses, or the necro cleric swaps to. The main cleric weapon will be radiance and light lore, so I switch out depending if I'm a light or dark disciple.

I'm so close in my gearset planner except for one minor thing: My actual cleric on live has greentseel bracers and belt. Why did it have to be belt? Fortunately the bracers are the cleansed item, so I can move the belt without too much issue. Complicating matters is that the pale master has necklace and gloves, I think, with the necklace cleansed as a spell power shrine swap with torc. (My cleric doesn't have a torc.)

Not quite giving up yet, though this is usually where I run out of steam. (I've tried to come up with a gearset like 5 different times.)

I use my goggle slot for/as a hot swap:



Usually have CHA on hat, necklace, or trinket.

[EllisDee37]

Here's what I have so far:

Head: Pansophic Circlet
Eyes: Wis or Int of iFocus w/iWis or iInt
Neck: Con of False Life w/iCon
Back: Cha of Spellsight w/iCha
Wrist: Greensteel 1
Hand: Wizardy of Resistance w/iSpellpower1
Waist: Greensteel 2
Feet: Dodge of Sheltering w/iSpellsight
Ring: Spellpower1 of Lore1
Ring: Spellpower2 of Lore2
Trinket: Spell Pen of Spell Focus Mastery w/iSpell Pen
Armor: Vitality of Healing Amp w/Parrying
Weapon: Spellpower3 of Lore3
Shield: Silver Flame of Eternal Faith

The good:

- The cloak is charisma, which is easily swapped out for a cloak of flames on a pale master.
- The con necklace can be moved to belt for my pale master, who has a greensteel necklace, not belt.

The bad:

My pale master really likes bracers of wind.

[Enoach]

Just thoughts I have...

I actually like the Trinket slot as the eternal faith/silver flame holder and do agree swap in is best as it is only useful when doing undead.

Doing this opens up the Shield for spell power - even better if you can get a shield that can hold red augments - these won't be the "highest possible" spell power but can be decent spell power.

----
Another thought would be to lean towards Potency for spell power along with generic spell critical. Maybe pick a primary damage type to boost.

With this many requirements you may need to consider consolidation over "top value".

[psykopeta]

1 question good sir, what are the gs for? i thought i've read it but running gh EE atm and can't find it while piking lol

hp and conc opp?

[EllisDee37]

1 question good sir, what are the gs for? i thought i've read it but running gh EE atm and can't find it while piking lol

Hit points, spell points, smoke, and maybe concop.

[SirValentine]

My approach is a little different, for several reasons.
- I'm only doing racials, 1 to 20, so Epic's not relevant to me at the moment.
- I don't really worry about spellpower much, let alone lore. If I can't instakill it, I'll maybe just beat on it with a Vorpal weapon.
- I honestly don't really worry about most of my leveling gear very much at all, not like end-game gear. I've only crafted a very few select items, and the rest is just whatever old named or random or old-crafted junk I have lying around. Yes, that means some of my items are like 1/4 of their potential power because I have only 1 thing on them, instead of prefix+suffix+extra+augment.

- Three spell focuses: Enchantment, evocation, necromancy (mastery is preferred to cover all at once)

Crafted Spell Mastery on hat for me. Trinket is Ioun Stone levels 5-12, Litany 13-20

(Or 13-27, Epic Litany 28-30. If there's ever an end to the endless TRing, and RSO is still being run, the gloves from there might replace Litany, who knows if that will ever happen.)

- Eternal Faith and Silver Flame for turning undead (both of which could go on a crafted shield)
...
I suppose I could treat undead separately: Swap out the turning shield...

That's what I do, have the Turn shield as a swap.

Exceptional Wisdom's only on GS at 12, also on ToD rings 18+. Alchemical Wisdom on a weapon 18+.

Quality Wisdom on ML15 named cloak or ring.

You could get Artifact Wis & DC from a Heroic Slaver's set, as you mentioned, but 5 gear slots and all that grinding for just for a set bonus on otherwise-mediocre mid-level gear isn't worth it to me. I'd probably use the Orb if I had one, though.

It's also nice for slay living and destruction if the target happens to save.

Destruction's on-save damage is covered by your Force/Untyped.

[EllisDee37]

Destruction's on-save damage is covered by your Force/Untyped.

Nice, that helps justify throwing nullification and void lore to the wolves.


It turns out that the vast majority of the crafted items in the potential gearset I'm working on would need a separate version for my pale master. So much so that my guys will likely only share the DC caster trinket.

[EllisDee37]

Here's the first pass I came up with, tailored more for general use than my personal setup:

Slot	Prefix	Suffix	Extra	Augment	Versions
Helmet	Pansophic Circlet			Deathblock	(ML13)
Goggles	Wisdom	Ins. Necromancy Focus	Insightful Wisdom	Water Breathing	ML10, ML21
Necklace	Heal	Insightful Wizardry	Insightful Heal	Feather Falling	ML10, ML21
Cloak	Charisma	Spellsight	Insightful Charisma	Fear Immunity	ML10, ML21
Bracers	Bracers of Wind	Greensteel Smoke (HP)			(ML3, ML11)
Gloves	Wizardry	Resistance	Insightful Devotion	Strength	ML10, ML21
Belt	Constitution	False Life	Insightful Constitution	Master's Gift	ML10, ML21
Boots	Dodge	Sheltering	Insightful Fortification	Striding	ML12, ML16, ML20
Ring 1	Healing Lore	Devotion	Insighful PRR	Blindness Immunity	ML11, ML21
Ring 2	Kinetic Lore	Impulse	Insighful MRR	Heavy Fort	ML11, ML21
Trinket	Spell Penetration	Spell Focus Mastery	Insightful Spell Penetration		ML5, ML13, ML23
Half Plate	Vitality	Healing Amp	Parrying	Armored Agility	ML12, ML23
Weapon	Radiance	Radiance Lore			ML11, ML21
Large Shield	Silver Flame	Eternal Faith			ML1, ML10, ML22

Notes:

• I simply could not work Concentration in anywhere
• Half Plate for the higher MDB / dodge cap: Magecraft and Planeforged
• The two higher ML shields are for Densewood and Celestial versions
• If you don't need striding, you only need ML10 and ML21 versions of the boots. I set it to 12, 16 and 20 for characters without an upgraded quiver of alacrity. Also move feather falling to boots so you don't lose your iWizardry spell points if you need to swap out feather fall.
• If you stick with bracers of wind, they get dodge once you hit the ML11 version. In that case, you don't need dodge on the boots. Boots prefixes are kind of weak, with the main choices being striding, dodge and dexterity. Crafted striding is worse than augments, so I guess dexterity?

Veteran tweaks:

Greensteel Necklace (ConcOp/SP)
Just drop the crafted necklace altogether. Move the fear immunity augment down to Ring 2, moving heavy fort to the shield. Note that this requires at least one of the two greensteel items be cleansed.

For me personally, since I already have a concop belt (and my smoke bracers are cleansed) I'll simply move the belt to necklace and put fear immunity on the boots since I don't need striding.



Thoughts?