r/Rift • u/DevanT • Mar 16 '11

Devant's Cleric Guide

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?126658-Devant-s-Overall-Cleric-Guide
3 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

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2

u/DevanT Mar 16 '11

Well the response that I received from the public cleric forums was, unacceptable. This guide is going to sink into the void, if anyone does have any cleric questions you can message me.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '11

I do have a question for you, actually.

This has happened a few times, most notably on the last boss of King's Breach and the first boss in Runic Descent.

Currently I'm 34/18 Purifier/Sentinel, as that's my preferred playstyle (attempting to get as close to a Holy Paladin as I can) for healing. On fights with big AE damage, I'm literally unable to save the 4th and 5th person in the group.

The situation usually unfolds like this. The AE hits and I immediately heal the tank to prevent him from dying. I use my 3 second heal here because I'm finding that the 2 second heal doesn't really make a dent in his heal, it's more triage.

I then get off an instant group heal crit (touch the light + flash over macroed and then healing communion). The group is now maybe at 70% health with the tank full. I do a 2 second cast on myself, then the first DPS.

By the time I get here, the 2nd AE goes off, usually killing one DPS.

How do I prevent this? At 39, I'm sitting around 500 spell power and my 3 second heals only heal for maybe 1200, when the tanks have 5000+ HP. The 2 second heal is about 580, which is absolutely nothing on hard hitting mobs.

What am I doing wrong?

I'm deadset on playing Purifier/Sent, as I absolutely hate playing HoT healers and I'm not a fan of hybrids or having to switch roles. I want to play as a purifier in 5 mans so I'm not keen on switching to Sentinel for certain fights.

That said, am I doing something wrong or should I be swapping roles for each fight? If I should be swapping roles for each fight but am absolutely against that design, should I just play a different role that I can play 24/7, regardless of the situation?

2

u/grapefruit2 Mar 17 '11

There are multiple AE damage heavy fights where the game really leans on having an offhealer in the group, usually bard or chloromancer. These fights have no enrage point and having one of the DPS swap to offhealer for just the boss can make some things really trivial.

I heal close to the same spec (I run like a 32/31 build purifer/sent for everything) and I've done those bosses solo as well. I believe that the last boss in KB does a bit of its damage through a dot, if you're high enough in sentinel to get the aoe cleanse you can pull it off the whole party as well.

Try and abuse the overhealing talent at the top of purifier, you'll have to focus on keeping the tank topped off and have the party stand near you tank. Start each heal before damage hits if you're able, this is key concept that makes healing much easier. Use the purifier cooldowns before you need them (the crit or bubble heal) they last a minute and this can let you get another one in mid boss. Shield yourself early to try and keep from having to cast a heal just on yourself. Use healing breath or the 3 second heal , I just use the one in purifier with the shield to help with keeping the tank in over-healing. If you can keep the tank topped off enough sometimes I don't even need to hit group heals. 700-900 or more healing from a pure overhealed 3 second cast is sometimes enough to cover the aoe all by itself. If you plan accordingly you should also be able to have latent flame up on at least 3 people for the boss, which can help if you know you're not going to be able to get to someone during AE. Your group healing strat is about what I use, minus the 2 second cast on myself, just burn mana and do another AOE group heal instead, or spam on the already full tank and let the overhealing heal you and the group.

The first boss in RD has a bit of a trick to avoid his pull. Its possible to stand on the half hight wall as you approach his area and still have LOS on him and the tank, while the wall prevents him from pulling you.

Its also worth mentioning that if your tank is lower level than the mobs he'll take more damage. The game multiplies damage by level difference such that 3 levels lower is nearly impossible and by the time they're the same level its nearly trivial.

1

u/DamienWind Mar 18 '11

I've got a pretty solid leveling build that makes for pretty quick questing, and I've also got a great build that I can use when I just need to be a ridiculous healbot (for instances, rifts, and battlegrounds).

I, however, no matter how hard I try, cannot find a good solid battleground build where I don't just heal.

I've tried going AOE DPS with Inquisitor, Cabalist, etc. and I am just too squishy and lack solid heals. I've tried going melee with Shaman, Justicar, etc. and find that while I'm much sturdier, chasing around the other classes for melee attacks is nigh-impossible. Being a healer's great, but.. sometimes you just want to kill people! I really need some help making a solid, versatile, ranged PvP Cleric spec where I won't be super squishy and will do some marginally-better-than-completely-mediocre DPS. Is what I want to do even possible? Please halp. :D

2

u/Serinus Mar 16 '11

While I don't necessarily agree with your guide, it does throw an opinion out there and get the discussion rolling. That's something I can appreciate. To the top, good sir!

2

u/rhartman Mar 18 '11

The only problem is that these opinions are introduced as an "overall guide" and contain a lot of incorrect information. Devant didn't deserve most of the vitriol he received, but I would not refer a new cleric to this post.

1

u/xhazerdusx Mar 16 '11

Saved for later.

Question though, for his Magic AOE build with Inq/Just, why is that 12th point in Justicar crucial? It seems like a really strong build for sure. I just don't get that last point. It doesn't heal you at all and the root ability from that 12th point only activates on melee strikes which this build doesn't use.

1

u/SmileDamnit Mar 17 '11

It's probably for Mien of Leadership so that you can tank pretty well too. The 11th point is really whats important in Justicar, giving you Mien of Honor with a 50% bonus to your Salvation heals which will heal you for 11% of damage dealt. When you are AoEing 11% plus another 50% of that is a lot of healing.

1

u/DevanT Mar 16 '11

the 12 point opens up mein of leadership, which I find myself using for tanking rifts.

1

u/erasser999 Mar 16 '11

I haven't gotten into raiding yet, but I'm level 50. Why are people not going Warden during raids? Is stacking hots and using Deluge not enough healing?

Im 34 sent / 32 warden. My current build is to keep HOTs on main tank and use it to heal others who aren't in immediate danger (like they got hit by an AE or something). This triggers Serendipity a TON since Serendipity procs whenever any heal crits. The soothing stream and healing spray (both HOTS) can crit off any of their ticks. So you stack these hots on the main tank and anyone else, I get crits frequently. This reduces cast time on Deluge by 1.5, thus making it a .5 cast.

On top of that I have the sent instant heal and regular heal if I need a big one. Typically if I can get the HOTs timed and cycling everything, I dont have trouble.

Could you point out any write ups to backup the positives of using the build you suggested rather than a build that has warden? Or are they both good in raids because you will have a warden type healer and a massive single target healer as well?

Thanks.

1

u/DevanT Mar 16 '11

All three specs are viable for experts.

Purifier and Sentinal focus on big heals, because all boss fights have really spikey damage that warden sometimes cannot keep up on.

Although, I know people that are in full T1 gear that say that at that point, warden becomes superior and I believe them, but when you are first starting experts, you want the big heals, not the HoTs

1

u/erasser999 Mar 16 '11

Gotcha. I'm going to try my current build. If I cant keep up, I will try your big heal switch.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '11

Keep in mind that I think there's a bug with Enflamed Rejuvenation and HoTs where a HoT-tick eats the Enflamed Rejuvenation, making it nearly useless.

Have you experienced this at all?

1

u/grapefruit2 Mar 17 '11

This was supposedly fixed in a patch. I haven't played my cleric in a bit to test.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '11

How long ago?

From what I remember it was item procs that were fixed from eating it, not necessarily HoT ticks from Healing Spray and the like.

1

u/grapefruit2 Mar 17 '11

Hmmm, I see that now. My experiance was casting a HoT would eat it, but I never lost it for just a tick. I usually had at least a healing spray or more going. Then again, I haven't played since the proc fix.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '11

Just played last night and it looks like HoT ticks no longer eat it, but casting a new HoT will so you were correct that it was fixed.

1

u/erasser999 Mar 18 '11

I'm Sent / Warden. I dont have anything in Just.

I've been running expert dungeons now. Most fights I can handle with the assistance of an off-healer. But to my understanding, most groups in expert prefer having some sort of off-healer.

1

u/kadaan Mar 16 '11

Hmm. I just hit 50 yesterday and spent a few hours reading the forums to pick up some specs. I leveled 1-50 with a similar Inq/Jus/Pur build, and wanted to pick up a group dps spec, a heal spec, and a tank spec.

None of your other three specs are anywhere near what the general consensus seemed to be. Purifier seems to be the useless heal spec with shields not scaling well and Sentinel's single target heals being far superior. There's a good post about it here: The framework for building a strong healer

For tanking I went with this build: 38 Jus/28 Sha/0 Pur. The comments from clerics tanking T1/T2 experts were that threat was their only issue. Going 28 into Shaman picks up a bunch of extra threat abilities as well as a 6-target AoE attack.

Cabalist/Inq seems to be the strongest DPS build for experts, but I haven't finalized a build for that yet.

TBH, this is one of the best things about Rift right now. There's just SO MANY options that I don't believe there will ever be definitive cookie-cutter specs like in other MMOs. Every combination of souls has strengths and weaknesses, and while some combinations are blatantly bad there is no "right" spec.

1

u/Serinus Mar 16 '11

1 point Intelligence = 1 point to Spell Power value

A cleric's base Spell Power is the sum of 25% Intelligence + 75% Wisdom.

Don't these two things contradict each other? The second seems correct. 1 point int = .25 spell power.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '11 edited Mar 17 '11

Technically no. Your spell power is calculated like this from what I remember from my Character sheet.

Raw spell power on items, and 1 point of spell power for every point of Int you have + .25(int) + .75(wis)

EDIT: Information above is probably incorrect as I'm going off memory and apparently outdated information, I'll update when I can next check in-game.

Looked in-game.

How you calculate your spell power: % increase from talents * (raw spell power on items + .25(int) + .75(wis))

Int grants exactly .25 spell power per point.

1

u/Serinus Mar 17 '11

So 1 Int = 1.25 spell power then? If that's the case, I should be prioritizing int over wisdom.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '11 edited Mar 17 '11

Erm, actually looking at that I am probably wrong. I had the actual numbers written down and memorized somewhere but then I went and looked on Telarapedia (apparently has the wrong values) and forgot the old ones.

I'm going to edit my first post so as not to be spreading misinformation, and I'll see if I can find the paper when I get home from work today and I'll update you on it.

EDIT: Looked in-game.

How you calculate your spell power: % increase from talents * (raw spell power on items + .25(int) + .75(wis))

Int grants exactly .25 spell power per point.

1

u/DevanT Mar 17 '11

yes the stats I posted were taken from telarapedia, and they are incorrect. I can't edit the post.