Introduction:
I've seen a lot of posts regarding PvP cleric builds mainly. PvP is a large part of the game to me and I used a few of the builds in the master class list to PvP but didn't feel like my cleric was worth bringing in PvP once I hit 60 (1-59 cleric felt OP with regards to PvP). This is my solution given the current skill set of clerics.
The thought process behind the build is to mitigate as much damage as possible without losing too much healing effectiveness. Burst damage is king in PvP and we simply don't have large NUKE heals. All of our strongest heals by nature heal over time.
Powers and Feats:Core PvP PowersAstral Seal - You or any allies striking the target will regain hitpoints. Your right click skill, max it
Brand of the Sun - DoT damage at will, highest damaging left click attack we have. Yes PvP is about burst, however we do not have time to sit and spam left clicks - this skill is fire and forget for the most part. Reapply when needed. triggers astral seal and builds a decent amount of divine power
Astral Shield - Simply put one of our best heal + damage mitigation powers. I don't have hard numbers but I believe this is widely accept as a must have heal in any non dps oriented cleric build.
Forgemaster's Flame - Slowing DoT when combined with divinity heals allies next to the target. Our second best heal that radiates from the target you place it on. Throw this on melee's targeting your team and watch them heal your buddies.
Chains of Blazing light - AoE Root / direct damage - Useful for peeling melee or preventing skill dodges.
Foresight - Feated this skill gives 11% Damage resistance. Simply amazing - the core of our build.
Prophetic Action - Block one attack every 40 seconds (at 3/3) - Situational , if you are largely being targeted by TR's this could potentially save you a 19k crit backstab. (sometimes I use
Healer's Lore instead)
Divine Armor - I always favored Hallowed ground over this skill but when combined with the Deepstone Blessing feat, I have not bothered bringing hallowed ground for pvp or pve.
Flame Strike - One of our best damage + crowd control skill shot dailies. With proper placement this skill will allow you to solo players or assist in CC chaining an enemy down.
Core PvE power differentiation
This is highly situational depending on the dungeon but 90% of the time I will make the following changes to the build
1) Replace
Chains of Blazing light with
Sun BurstSun Burst generates a ton of divinity and AP, is on a low CD and provides knockback in situations where you are low on Control Wizard knockback.
Depending on your gear / tastes pick any of the following:
Healer's Lore,
Divine Fortune,
Holy Fervor,
ForesightFeats - The defining part of the build
This is where my build really is defined compared to other guides posted that I have read.
3/5 Healing action - I am treating this feat as bugged. 3/3 is the max listed by the tooltip. No brainer - we heal and like to spam action point skills.
3/3 Greater Fortune - 3% more healing , sold!
3/3 Toughness - More HP for pvp and pve
3/3 Holy resolve - I was torn about taking this feat because it is on a 5 min cooldown. However with a good team in PvP this skill doesnt trigger TOO often. Combined with Deepstone Blessing, this feat can make you survive some really crazy encounters.
3/3 Weapon mastery - 3% crit - Like other popular healing builds we are focusing on crit > recovery > power > anything else.
3/3 Repurpose soul - Naturally if you are stacking crit more small heals off crit's is great.
1/3 Cleanse - With the amount of heals we put out and most of them being HoT's this triggers all the time still. 3/3 felt like a waste of points.
4/5 Bountiful Fortune - 12% more Divine power generation, yes please.
(This is assuming Human with bonus 3 feat points, without...I would probably opt to take points out of bountiful fortune if running 4/4 pvp gear or greater fortune)
Paragon feats
1/5 Rising Hope - 1 point is plenty here , more points do not seem worth their investment
5/5 Deepstone Blessing - 10% more effective heals is HUGE. The kicker is this only is active when you have temporary HP. As mentioned earlier in the guide we have two ways to generate temporary HP in this build. Our daily power
Divine Armor and also our 3/3 feat Holy Resolve. This really allows for some clutch baiting and amazing saves.
5/5 Enduring relief - 5% more healing after coming out of divine mode (aka all the time) not as much healing per point as Deepstone but useful 99% of the time. Get it and move on!
5/5 Benefit of Foresight - Makes our 6% DR 11%%.....I love team wide damage reduction. This is the basis of our build.
Righteous Rage of Tempus - Divine power generation through criticals. Just another synergistic effect of stacking crit.
5/5 Ethereal boon - Blue bar love. Our cd's are relatively low at 60 with stacked 20+ CHA and recovery gear - a great investment.
5/5 Power of oppression - More reason to throw astral seal on EVERYTHING. Stacked with all of our other damage reductions this is just icing on the cake.
In conclusion I believe this is a rewarding spec that has offensive potential at the right moments but also offers great team utility and healing. The best way to deal with the large spike damage potentials of classes is to use percentage based damage reduction and stacked healing modifiers. My feat selection may be worrying to some since it does not reach any of the capstone skills, however I do not find any of them worth the whole line investment. Although my focus in this thread has been largely pvp based
this build is VERY PvE viable.
I am not a big forum person but I will do my best to answer questions as they come. I have some starter pvp footage that I plan on releasing with commentary soon. Check back for updates to the thread!
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BagohigJkwM&feature=youtu.be
First video with commentary regarding the build. Please leave feedback!
To Do List:
Leveling tips
General Cleric Tips
PvP and PvE video updates
Comments
This would lead to same conclusion as I've seen elsewhere:
Roll 16 STR 16 WIS 12 CHA, put points from human racial bonus to +2 STR (if you are human. Otherwise favor STR > CHA > WIS)
On leveling, put points to STR + CHA
This is because STR gives critical chance, CHA gives recovery, and WIS gives healing/damage bonus, e.g. power.
The 16 / 16 / 12 roll is because you favor STR more than anything else, and that roll gives you the highest initial STR possible (while still maximizing the sum of STR + CHA + WIS which can never be above 44, when not counting racial bonuses)
Roll these if you are making a new character, but the initial roll isn't so super important that you need to reroll a level 50 cleric just to be viable with particular build. You're ok regardless, just stack STR + CHA in leveling up.
thank you for the correction - will edit !
Is this something confirmed from actual stats of the target affected by this? I'm asking becasue the tooltip itself is confusing - the foresight states damage reduction, and feat states 'defense bonus from foresight is increased by'. This is conflicting, because strictly speaking foresight doesn't have a defense bonus to increase. So is it foresight tooltip that's wrong, benefit tooltip that's wrong, or is it just poorly worded? It could also mean, if taken literally, that the 6% damage reduction is increased by 5% to a total of 6.3% damage reduction.
I do have another question too: Greater Fortune states "Your wisdom now grants 1/2/3% more healing". If this is taken as stated, this would mean that the existing bonus from wisdom is increased by so many percent. So with 20 wisdom for example, if the bonus healing is 10%, then this feat would increase it to 10.3%, not 13%. Can someone confirm this through actual values from tooltips/experiments? The other interpretation would be that it in fact has nothing to do with your wisdom attribute, but rather with being a 'wise healer', and thus granting an unrelated total bonus to healing efficiency.
I actually rolled 13 str 10 con 8 dex 10 int 16 wis 15 cha with +2 racial into wisdom. I prioritized cool down reduction from CHA and +healing naturally from wis.
Must have max powers for the build:
Astral seal
Sun burst
Healer's lore
Healing word
Flame strike
Hallowed ground
Chains of blazing light
Divine fortune
Daunting Light
Holy Fervor
Forgemaster's flame
Foresight
Brand of the sun
Divine Armor
Astral Shield
Prophetic action
The rest of the points are completely up to you
Thanks for the guide, much appreciated. It helped me a great deal.
16cha/15wis is impossible, 16wis/15cha is the one you're looking for. 16 wis, 15 cha, 13 str, 11 int, 11 con, 9 dex.
The only rolls with 10-10-8 for int/con/dex would involve 18-13-13 for wis-str-cha, so I imagine the OP roll was actually that, with +2 racial to charisma, not WIS - that would give the suggested 18-15-13-10-10-8. However in that case you just get better results with rolling 16-15-13-11-11-9 for wis-cha-str-in-con-dex, and putting the +2 to wisdom - you get the same 18-15-13 for main stats but +1 to each of int-con-dex. Even better would probably be to put the +2 into cha for a 16-17-13-11-11-9 spread.
Yeah this.
Why do you priorize CHA and STR instead of WIS? I mean, WIS raises your Power which raises your damage and healing, I know that STR raises crit and CHA raises recovery, but it seems that WIS is (or at least should be) the main attribute for Clerics.
I guess I'm wrong, but I wanted to know why.
Sorry but my english is not perfect....The Best points with this build is...?
16-15-13-11-11-9 for wis-cha-str-in-con-dex, and putting the +2 to wisdom or
+2 into cha for a 16-17-13-11-11-9 spread ??? Thanks you
I rolled about 1 million times but i never obtain 16-17-13-11-11-9 spread.
Also you wrote "you just get better results with rolling 16-15-13-11-11-9 for wis-cha-str-in-con-dex, and putting the +2 to wisdom"
But....it's impossible to obtain 16 Wisdom by puttin +2
And....It's impossible to obtain 18-15-13-11-11-9 for wis-cha-str-in-con-dex (+2 Wisdom already included) because i rolled 2 million times and i obtain only this one:
No yet. Waiting update