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Post-patch Cleric
daswooly
Member Posts: 60 Arc User
I'm writing this because as an rpg player, I need to build my characters well in advance. I can honestly say I've been researching more than I've actually played my Devoted cleric (lvl 18) at this point. I started out with a particular build in mind, but with the patch, I'm somewhat concerned about it. My concerns:
I rolled my stats with the Astral Shield recovery cap in mind. I took 16/15/15 (wis/cha/str) with the +2 in cha. At 10 I placed points in Str and Cha. With the change to Astral Shield, is it worth it to pump Cha anymore? Are there any other important recovery caps to reach? I'm considering either rerolling or just pumping Str/Wis the rest of the way.
The other issue I'm having is that I'm having trouble finding much information post-patch. Most of the guides seem to drop off after the day of the patch. Not much talk of how viable the build remains, or how things have impacted it etc. etc. Most the major guides just don't have much post-patch follow up. And since respecs are somewhat ridiculous cost-wise, I was just looking to build towards something that'd work instead of worrying about blowing hundreds of zen on experimentation.
Not concerned with PvP at all. Strictly PvE endgame.
Thanks.
I rolled my stats with the Astral Shield recovery cap in mind. I took 16/15/15 (wis/cha/str) with the +2 in cha. At 10 I placed points in Str and Cha. With the change to Astral Shield, is it worth it to pump Cha anymore? Are there any other important recovery caps to reach? I'm considering either rerolling or just pumping Str/Wis the rest of the way.
The other issue I'm having is that I'm having trouble finding much information post-patch. Most of the guides seem to drop off after the day of the patch. Not much talk of how viable the build remains, or how things have impacted it etc. etc. Most the major guides just don't have much post-patch follow up. And since respecs are somewhat ridiculous cost-wise, I was just looking to build towards something that'd work instead of worrying about blowing hundreds of zen on experimentation.
Not concerned with PvP at all. Strictly PvE endgame.
Thanks.
Post edited by daswooly on
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Comments
Basically, post-patch at end-game your Astral Shield will be down for 4.5-5seconds, you can get it a little lower but only by pumping stupidly high amounts of recovery and neutering your other stats. In most situations your team should be able to cope with a few seconds of down time, and if they literally go from 100%-0% in 5 seconds then it was either one of those terrible situations (i.e they got chain stunned by red circles) or it was entirely their fault.
As far as bosses go, you're just gonna want to slot something else to heal for the downtime, and even then it won't always be needed. Your third slot rotation is going to depend entirely on which dungeon it is, and which boss you're doing. Astral Shield and Sun Burst will basically never leave your bar, and for good reason.
Your third slot will probably be taken by: A) Healing Word (When someone has to kite)
Your Dailies will never change. Hallowed Ground, Divine Armor. You have slightly more flexibility with your At-wills. Brand of the Sun is pretty much a must, and your other slot will likely be Astral Seal, however if you're struggling to build up divinity fast enough you can slot Sacred Flame instead as it has incredibly fast Divinity Gain.
You have a bit of flexibility with your passive slots, one will be taken by Foresight. Personally I use Holy Fervor, so I can get really fast AP, but Healer's Lore is also a good choice, or you could go with Sooth if you want threat reduction (Personally, I didn't bother with any Threat Reduction skills/feats)
As for Feats, I don't think any choices have really changed, everything you would've built in a Pre-patch AS build you'd use in a post-patch AS build. Although, with the newly released Patch Notes on the Preview Server, it seems that the Healing Action Feat from the very first tier of feats might be worth investing in.
Also, the soft-caps on stats are roughly:
Recovery: 3,200
Critical: 3,200
Defense: 2,200
Power: No Cap.
So, yes it's still worth pumping CHA and STR to get the additional hard percentages of Recharge Speed and Crit Chance.
You probably want to build them roughly in that order to, though you can swap Recovery and Crit if you prefer. Power is the absolute last thing you focus on increasing.
I can't really agree with this post. I went the str wis route as I PvP all the time and placed points in the third tree to at minimum get the two skills that pump divinity and recovery and find that they both recover fast enough that way in PvP where PvE recovery is even easier (I use healing word constantly for recovery which works amazingly well). With a non-heal focused build PvP is a lot more fun for me though I run with healing word rather than AS. In dungeons and playing with groups in PvE I'll slot AS only on bosses unless fights are difficult which they could be in some places like Castle Never. Generally though, I find that without AS few take damage outside of the boss fights and few actually look to stay within its radius except for boss fights. When not using AS in boss fights the group tends to go down so it is still needed there (I've tested this many times). At wills I prefer lance of faith and astral seal. Encounters I prefer sunburst, chains of light, healing word. Dailies I'll run with flame strike and hammer of fate but would trade out hammer for hallowed ground if needed in PvE as hammer's damage is kind of low in PvE. Passive I use Holy Fervor and the other one that helps with recharging (used to run with foresight which I do max out in points regardless, but I find that I don't need it). PvE is easy enough, can solo and group while being called a good cleric and if there is another cleric in the group my build shines out as I toss and freeze and do good damage while boosting with healing word which is very useful on those that run out of or won't use AS. I find my build fun. In PvP I've only had a couple people complain that I should focus upon healing, I've always outscored and even out killed the few who have complained as they typically are beyond terrible. If I go with both AS and healing word in PvE boss fights I ask for someone to watch over me in terms of adds or they can forget about healing support as I need two attack encounters to fend off adds effectively (I figure if they aren't willing to defend a healer they don't deserve one).
Secondly, you should swap Lance of Faith for Sacred Flames. It's been proven that it's actually got higher DPS.
Thirdly, since he's pure PvE a lot of your advice won't apply to him~
Fourthly, only put one point into Chains of Blazing Light. As far as I'm aware, extra point only increases the time it'll remain on the ground before disappearing if nobody steps on it, it has no effect on the amount of mobs it can trap or the damage it deals, or even the time it traps them. Since you'll mainly cast it on mobs, or directly in front of them, the extra points are wasted.
Crit soft cap varies depending on your stat roll , for some classes & builds the soft cap is 2500 keep that in mind .
Lance of faith does the most damage for me, I've tried the rest in real game play (I count out how long it takes to kill things with the various at wills against the same type of creatures) and I could care less what is shown on paper. As to blazing light, there is no way in hell I'm not maxing it out and using it. Don't like my build, then don't play my build, I personally love it and can finish top of the charts in PvP with it while having no real problems in PvE or soloing. I'd rather be different and have fun than being a cookie cutter cleric to make those who came up with their mold an ego boost.
Example powers & feats: http://nwcalc.com/dc?b=nlr:4wt83:b65s,1x33315:66000:6zu5u:6u000&h=1
You don't really need to worry much about optimizing your stat rolls, you can use enchantments to balance things out endgame. Really depends which of the unique stat bonuses that you want - control bonus,control resist (Wis); stamina regen, DoT resist (Str); or companion stat bonus, combat advantage bonus (Cha).
There are a few builds that are current, like mewbrey's "My Cleric Build" and Cyclops Linked Spirit build. Don't bother listening to wholyhandgrenade if you don't care about pvp. Other posts have solid advice for pve.
The post earlier that the DR/Soft Cap is different based on your roll was news to me, so it's entirely possible it all varies depending on what your Ability Score is...
However, I had a low-STR build, and 3,500 Crit Rating. When I respecced to a high STR build, I lowered my Crit Rating to 3,200 and got a higher Percentage. So yeah, I dunno if that information is accurate, but if you go to 3,200 Crit/Recovery and 2,200 Def you can't go wrong~ It's also pretty easy by the time you're at Best-in-Slot gear.
One of my clerics went for max Wisdom (on creation + all extra points) and then split the rest on Str and Cha. Atm he is happily sitting on 30-31% crit, AP gain and recharge using only T1 gear and level 4 enchants.
Your build will be just fine.