PVE Heal / Solo Cleric

arrealle

So I have my cleric to lv 52 now and I am enjoying the gameplay, however I still have not found a build I like.

I have read the builds and looked at the videos. I am looking for a pve / support role that I can solo with as well.
So many different opinions, its my first healer I usually play tank so I am a little lost.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

mumnoch

buy a heal pet, reroll, or go to another game (I went to Rift, thousands of Neverwinter players that got shafted have left as well).

If you are intent on continuing this class (please don't spend money!) If you are looking for a build that you can solo content with (IE lvl 60 Foundry quests), do group content (T1 dungeons), do group epic content (T2 dungeons) then I think you are SOL. The closest might be the crit build, however imho this game isn't worth it. If you really wish to try then I wish you the best of luck.


As a side note at the time of this posting (4PM eastern time) there was only 8 post's updated on this forum today, some of which was done by the same person...

Lulz~

satanous1

DC is pretty much a 5th wheel class. It's useful, but doesn't feel necessary. Honestly, I see pretty much every other class being holistically better.

echokazul

I'm a single player game type of gal, and that's how I've mostly been playing so far. I've gotten my cleric up to 51 soloing. I'm focusing a little more on DPS (the guide I'm currently using), and it hasn't been too bad. I think I may hold off, though, until they do a little more tweaking. I've noticed the cleric always seems to be a few steps behind. Mine is always attacking the enemy I was targeting before, not the one I'm currently targeting, and always takes a moment to move/dodge, which makes dancing around attacks difficult. I've also noticed you really have to stay on top of your gear, whereas with my CW and rogue didn't have to have such high maintenance.

arrealle

satanous1 wrote: »

DC is pretty much a 5th wheel class. It's useful, but doesn't feel necessary. Honestly, I see pretty much every other class being holistically better.

Uggg so Is what ive been reading essentially accurate, so a healing cleric is a dead class now that AS was nerfed?

So much for my healing cleric. Is a crit build viable in a party?

echokazul

I do think Clerics are worth playing. It's just they're better for people who play in groups, not people who solo at the moment. I have to say, when I played my cleric, I got far more friend and party requests then my CW or rogue. And you always see people looking for clerics for dungeons and such.

bootyjoos

arrealle wrote: »

Uggg so Is what ive been reading essentially accurate, so a healing cleric is a dead class now that AS was nerfed?

So much for my healing cleric. Is a crit build viable in a party?

Clerics are not dead at all. Most parties insist on having a cleric. Just having Astral Shield makes you desirable for party play. It's hard to see all the things a cleric can bring to the table because the charts only show you the heals. And just with the heals, you saved your party a lot of potions or waiting around.

Crit build is viable for both soloing and party. Definitely doable as early as, or earlier than, when you get a set of T1 gear. Even if you buy a set of regen gear for ~2k AD total, it's doable. I recommend Daunting Light, Divine Glow, and Sunburst for "soloing" with your companion cleric. For my build, 1-60, I just combined Unspecified's and Deistik's guides on the forums and picked up Linked Spirit as well since it got popular before I spent all my feat points. Even solo-healed CN with half T1 gear (hint: find wizards who can carry you :P).

If you read all the builds people post here, you'll probably find out that almost anything works.
Aside: Foresight and the feat for it is quite good, too. And also Bountiful Fortune/Rising Hope.

Edit: Linked Spirit may not be as good as it is now once the Feywild patch hits, since you might not be able to change to divine mode mid-cast anymore.

arrealle

TYVM bootyjoos and echokazul

I really enjoy playing my cleric too much to give up on it. I will try the crit build and see where it gets me.

Any other advice would be appreciated and again ty so much for your comments and feedback.

troodee

There's a lot of people who are unhappy about the class - but if you enjoy it, keep it up like the rest of us. If we're so useless, why is it that most of the LFG spam in PE is searching for a cleric.

First thing to do is to get a standard build or the Crit build posted on these forums, where you can test what powers you like to use.

If you like Healing Word, you should clean up your UI.

Otherwise, just keep at it. You'll figure out when to put down your Astral Shield, you'll get used to spamming Sun Burst, and you'll find a third encounter, which you love.

I'm not sure what you mean when you write "solo play". At the Tymora event, I used my cleric to grind a bit in the foundry quests with mobs in pits. If you do that sort of thing, Searing Light, Daunting Light and Divine Glow are your main three damage abilities. In divine mode, Searing Light hits like an 18 wheeler on grouped up mobs.

hamji

The feat points do not make a whole lot of difference when compared to unlocking the Powers that you want.

I compared full Virtuous healing/damage with full Faithful healing/damage and full Righteous healing/damage.

What I found was yes sure if you really spec for damage it can go a little higher, likewise with heals but the difference honestly is not all that much.

It is the gear you wear, your character Ability scores and the Powers you wield that make the real difference.

Point being I have respecced for maximum healing throughput and all I need to do is switch out my heals for DG, DL and I can wield considerable dps, more than enough for solo play.

I think the difference between the maximum DPS I could produce and the DPS I can produce if I want to do some solo action on my heal spec was only a few hundred damage per second.

I do notice the difference but it is marginal and more than made up for by second to none dungeon heals.


My thinking was this...it is my first character so I need it for making AD and doing higher tier content so by specc'ing fully into heals I maximise the chances of doing successful DD's while not really handicapping my solo play by much at all.

I have a few very slick DC specs I would like to try live(they work great on test) which are more tuned to healing as a side-effect of dealing damage but the fact is actual healing throughput does suffer when compared to a full heals spec.

When I have BIS gear and a regular group of dungeoneers or two who are all BIS and running the specs they want then it will be my turn to spec away from heals a bit and go more control/dps.

There are some Boss Fights that can become easy-mode with a Virtuous/Righteous Cleric but in order to even get the chance at doing the fights that way a regular party up for it is needed hence having to wait in line. The party comes first.

The largest handi-cap to a maximum healing throughput spec is PvP but I don't plan on getting serious about PvP any time soon and so will no doubt be able to afford the respec for it when I do want to get into it.

My favourite spec by far is 5/5 Focused Poise and 1/5 Righteous Flames whether it proves to be PvP viable or not remains to be seen but for solo play it is an absolute firecracker without losing too much in the way of heals for group activities. I suspect it will prove to be a solid performer in PvP and am very much looking forward to it.

odd111out

I've been playing since the start of open beta and have 2 60s (CW and DC). I was able to solo all of the content up to the 2nd half of Whispering Caverns (I zone grouped largely because I was itching to get to 60 and run Epics). And my DC is entirely heals, and I ran with a Striker Pet (the basic dog).

Divine Emissary Build for PVE Solo and T1-T2

Before Astral Shield, I used to run Sunburst FF and Chains. And in GG right now it's usually Sunburst Chains AS except for the Great Hall boss. I'm only 3/4 on CN but I've only done 2 non-farming runs, with people massively undergeared, just for kicks. But I seriously go ^^ when I hear people say Clerics are 5th wheels. I can't log on without invites to various DD or CN runs.

zydrateacademy

I leveled as a healer despite not doing dungeons for pretty much 30 to 60. It's a little rough, sometimes I simply asked if someone wanted to quest with me. I usually nabbed someone. If I didn't, I'd play more carefully.

mconosrep

I think DC is simply the weakest soloing class especially at high levels.

As an example - I have done level 60 Foundries on both a GF and a GWF who had level 50is gear (as I hadn't played them for a while but had still been doing leadership and invocation) and they were fine if a little potion heavy. By comparison my 9.5K DC still has an amazingly boring time soloing the same Foundries. Not impossible, but very slow - at least double the time despite having nearly double the gear score. And of course CW and TR are even faster.....

uri92

WTF ?
Cleric a 5th wheel class ? Not necessary ?
Do we play the same game ?
Cleric is mandatory in most groups and is wonderful, I save my groups everyday. My heal cleric performs very well in PVP also.

Cleric is my favourite class, the funniest to play in dungeon in my opinion (along with wizard).
You can spec your cleric in healing (Faithful) and still be able to farm decently, all you need is Sunburst, Daunting Light, and Forgeflame for healing (or healing word/astral shield but FF does some DPS). For At-wills, use Sacred flame (more dps and more divinity than Lance), and Brand of the sun.

I recommend going Critical spec, my cleric has 38% base critical and I have no trouble doing Foundries or anything alone, even though I'm Faithful spec (I had no trouble when I had low GS either).

theblazed

don't listen to anyone that said the cleric class shafted. clerics are still great in endgame PvE. you can look up videos or streams and see how people play in endgame dungeons.

eggsn

I love playing cleric but then I hate soloing so it works. If you want to solo definitely think about doing the regen builds or pvp builds. If you play well enough, you can heal well enough in dungeons as a tanky cleric. A cleric that lives, is a cleric that heals :rolleyes: yay it rhymes... kind of. DC is always needed. I think a soloing cleric takes a little more thinking out of the box to be viable. It's pretty hard to be an "any PVE dungeon healing cleric" that can automatically switch to a "soloing cleric". Hence why you got the responses you did early on. Crit builds work just as well too (I am one); and another poster here talked about lvl 60 blues with regen for pvp build (which is a good build for soloing too for sheer survivability).

arrealle

eggsn wrote: »

I love playing cleric but then I hate soloing so it works. If you want to solo definitely think about doing the regen builds or pvp builds. If you play well enough, you can heal well enough in dungeons as a tanky cleric. A cleric that lives, is a cleric that heals :rolleyes: yay it rhymes... kind of. DC is always needed. I think a soloing cleric takes a little more thinking out of the box to be viable. It's pretty hard to be an "any PVE dungeon healing cleric" that can automatically switch to a "soloing cleric". Hence why you got the responses you did early on. Crit builds work just as well too (I am one); and another poster here talked about lvl 60 blues with regen for pvp build (which is a good build for ing to switch besoloing too for sheer survivability).

Thanks egg

maybe that why I was having such issues trying to switch between pve heal cleric and soloing ( which I enjoy ). im lv 53 now and I am finding im getting my butt handed to me on a regular basis in the drow map area, especially if I pull a lot of mobs at one time. At lower lvs I had no issues at all. So I guess the crit build is the way to go. At the present ive been trying to stack recovery, obviously the wrong choice.

I am Definitely NOT going to give up on my cleric. I enjoying playing her way too much.

Cheers all and ty again.

wujorogal1

WOW...just wow...Sooooo i will give you my opinion (and sorry but i didnt read all comments i stopped after first 2-3)
Geez Dont listen to ppl that say Healing cleric is dead 1 word BULL**** my main char is full heal cleric... and yea its much sloower at higher levels to lvl up but compared to other classes dont use a single potion so you can just gain some bonus gold from that:P(on 60 t2 dungeons you will need tons of them) people cry over astral shield...bull**** again...just use FF or bastion when AS is on cd(up to you which one) ofc you can go crit build but you wont heal that much you will simply change to dps with a bit of healing from full healing machine and i personally think that gwf tr or cw is way better class for dps ^^. But ofc its your playstyle i know few clerics that are great dpsers etc but dont let them say you that healer cleric is dead lol:s

About the build weeeeelll...i mostly combined like 2 or 3 of them and when i get a grip of things i just "edited" it for my own preferences. But if you wanna some tips or helping with the healer build just pm me.

SOOOORRYYYYYYYY for my english

snaplemouton

DC is good and a most needed in group. But it falls pretty flat on soloing content as every fight is slow and painful due to our lack of DPS.

5 things that sums it up.

1. You are forced into using specific powers as everything else is underpowered.
Most of them is due to the passive 40% self heal reduction that applies only to certain heals. Which is also why forgemaster flames and astral shield are our best ability by far.

2. Our damage is terribad and only daunting light can hold it's own. Searing light can do well at some point when combined to a CW vortex but other then that it's just drag us down. Also, the lack of a real DPS tree just kills it.

3. We are forced to used an encounter solely for healing. If we don't, we die. Which brings down our DPS even more since we don't have any kind of passive defense or survivability mechanisms aside from 2 slow dodges.

4. We are an agro magnet in a game which main mechanism for PvE is to summon mobs. Add to this the fact that you rarely see a GF do his actual job.

5. DPS companions are a joke. Basically, if you don't get an healing companion, the companion is near useless in every situation. Being a class so focused on supporting, healing, debuffing and buffing, you would expect to use a DPS companion to fill in the lack of DPS... well nope.

wujorogal1

snaplemouton wrote: »

DC is good and a most needed in group. But it falls pretty flat on soloing content as every fight is slow and painful due to our lack of DPS.

5 things that sums it up.

1. You are forced into using specific powers as everything else is underpowered.
Most of them is due to the passive 40% self heal reduction that applies only to certain heals. Which is also why forgemaster flames and astral shield are our best ability by far.

2. Our damage is terribad and only daunting light can hold it's own. Searing light can do well at some point when combined to a CW vortex but other then that it's just drag us down. Also, the lack of a real DPS tree just kills it.

Sorry for my english

3. We are forced to used an encounter solely for healing. If we don't, we die. Which brings down our DPS even more since we don't have any kind of passive defense or survivability mechanisms aside from 2 slow dodges.

4. We are an agro magnet in a game which main mechanism for PvE is to summon mobs. Add to this the fact that you rarely see a GF do his actual job.

5. DPS companions are a joke. Basically, if you don't get an healing companion, the companion is near useless in every situation. Being a class so focused on supporting, healing, debuffing and buffing, you would expect to use a DPS companion to fill in the lack of DPS... well nope.

So:
1. Nothing to add just truth

2.Well yea daunting is our best spell but you can always use chains or divine glow as bonus aoe but still need a heal etc so yea...

3.Someone can see a good side of it )like me) yea ofc other classes use encounters to dps etc and we have to heal...but we dont have to use pots ^^and about pasives and mechanisms
Holy Resolve - heroic feat that will give you 15% temporary hp when you get down to 30% (its once per 5min but geez saved me countless times)
Foresight - class feature that reduced incoming dmg by 6% all the time when you just put it in your slot + you can get paragon feat that gives another +5% to that so its already 11% incoming dmg reduction oh and when you heal this bonus goes to your party soooo... with just those 2 things i dont rly think he dont have any survival skills


4. Im full heal DC and i had this "magnet" problems on lower lvl but on 60 and at any t2 or CN most adds sits on cws (cos of sings and steal time etc) so not rly a problem later on

5.Rly? Heal companion on cleric? nah but rly? i just hope thats a joke if not then phew wasted companion. just get a simple white npc "Man at arms" it sucks at higher lvls and can die like in 2 hits but if you are good with your heals you should be able to keep him alive for most of the time or at least long enough to tank any mob or boss he will get beat up when you can dps and heal at the same time.

Summing
Clerics for sure got lower dps then other clases and are quite squishy but at least for me it was EASIEST char to lvl due to his giant survivability cos of the heals and other things as i mentionet above.

sorry for my english

ethannightwing

Sorry for the short reply, but when even if we use an encounter to heal us.. I swear a lot of people in the game still don't understand.. Were clerics not freaking god!! They have potions in the game for a reason! So use it!

b100d31f

5. DPS companions are a joke. Basically, if you don't get an healing companion, the companion is near useless in every situation. Being a class so focused on supporting, healing, debuffing and buffing, you would expect to use a DPS companion to fill in the lack of DPS... well nope.

I'll have to disagree with you. My man-at-arms is quite devoted to getting agro and keeping it for me.

As far as dps goes, sure we arent the spikers. But I use rank 2 terrifying insight, and it seems just fine for me when im not in a group doing the protection role. I don't even have the spec for dps, and I can see that its possible to dps pretty decent. Although I didn't spec for full healing either.

I did all the quest content solo, without trouble. Still do foundy content solo, and sometimes it can be a challenge, but thats what makes it fun.

echokazul

I'm finding myself surprisingly fond of my wererat companion. He's not that expensive, and has a nice little knockback attack he uses quite often.

battlestationv

just got done but im looking at this for a full heal cleric

http://nwcalc.com/dc?b=oho:3nxv7:9re8,1x0x2i2:60000:bxhz1:60000&h=1

abell39

I play a cleric as my main, always solo except for dungeons, and while I don't know the game mechanics well enough to really maximize a build with ability points and everything, I still found something that's worked for me (up to level 52 now). I took the Faithful path, and chose feats that maximize divine power gain and action point gain. I use Hammer of Fate and Hallowed Ground for dailies (HG with the added regeneration bonus from Faithful feat), and when solo I use Sunburst + Forgemaster's Flame + Chains of Blazing Light with Astral Seal and Sacred Flame (I think that's what it's called? Not Brand of the Sun) for at-wills. Passives are Holy Fervor and the one that blocks attacks every 60 seconds (can't remember its name). When in a dungeon with a party, I swap Sunburst for Astral Shield. The trick is to flip in and out of divinity quickly so you can get the healing and knockback that you need when you need it. For a companion, in retrospect I should have chosen the Man-at-Arms to hold aggro, but instead I roll with the dog (who still is somehow awesome and never dies) and the phoera, both of which have worked well for me.

I still use potions more frequently than I do on my (much lower level) CW and TR, but I don't notice because I pick up enough gold and items that I'm never broke (heck, my DC buys horses for my alts). I'm sure there are more efficient ways to do a build like this than what I've done, but hey, maybe a divinity-maximizing build is something worth considering for a solo PVE DC. It's worked out pretty well for me.

snaplemouton

b100d31f wrote: »

I'll have to disagree with you. My man-at-arms is quite devoted to getting agro and keeping it for me.

I clearly stated DPS companion... Cleric biggest lack is in the DPS department, hence the need of a good DPS companion to fill in the lower DPS due to our class being so focused on pure support and heal.

adinosii

My main character is about as heal-specced as you can get, and with pretty good gear (GS of 12.502 for those who care about that <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) I don't do PvP, but for DPS I, well... quite frankly suck. Of course I switch out a few powers, and switch companions as well when playing solo, but, well....I tend to have some trouble with "standard difficulty" Foundry quests. This actually only became a problem at level 60 - I found something like "Bill's Tavern" (to take a well-known example) to be pretty easy when I was around level 20, but how it is, well...rather hard - doable, but hard.

The solo quests in Feywild are fine - sure, the monster killing takes me a bit longer than it would take other classes, but I have not had any real issues there.

As for companions, I alternate between a tank and a DPS companion when soloing, but switch to the stone in dungeons.