*Release* Rift Cleric Discussion

Like to be the life of the party, fancy walking around with a fairy, perhaps you like to get up close and rattle some teeth with a blunt object, or are you more a fan of the Inquisition, regardless of how you want to spread the love of the gods - grab your chainmail cup (have to protect the private bits) and favorite mace because this thread is for you.

What no cleric love?

Since it looks like there are a few other necromancers already planned for the guild I might jump to my 1st alt to start as my main if we are going to be short on clerics.

Inquisitor38/Justicar16/Sentinel12

That is my planned DPS/healing build. Since they changed salvation and reparation to work with all damage abilities and not just melee ones it may be viable to dabble in Justicar to add some heals to ranged DPS. It was a toss up between Sentinel and Purifier for the main healing aspect, but after some though sentinel won out due to the increase of crit chances and damage.

Definately. Definately playing a cleric. Definately. Yeah ....

Yeah ... Definately a cleric. Definately a cleric. Yeah ... Definately a cleric.

I finished off with a Beta of Inquisitor, Purifier, Justicar. After playing around with that I am going Inquisitor 31, Purifer 31/21, and either Sentinel or Warden. Still playing around with that build. Trying to determine if Fear is as good as a silence, seems it would be since both should remove target from combat for a set period of time.

Yes, but a silence will pull a mob to the party (and or help them bunch up into a little group) ... not sure if fear does that.

Justicar/Shaman/Purifier

Roughly what I had at the end of beta. Sort of a cross between a Prot paladin and a Ret paladin. Trying to heal during rifts with Doctrine of Loyalty was a great way to grab more agro than I wanted and to run out of mana.

Very solo friendly, might take a while to chew through things, but with the self healing, the shaman ice shield and the purifier shield, it took a lot to overwhelm me. Enough so that I did a lot of work with a 2hander, keeping the mace&shield in the pack.

Not sure if it would be able to tank instances effectively, might have a problem keeping agro. Didn't get a chance to try Mien of Leadership, so I can't say if that would be enough.

I'm thinking this Inquisitor (9) / Warden (31) / Sentinel (26)

allows me to roll out some pretty powerful heals both single target and aoe, and lets me have that wonderful DoT action from the back of the group.

Has anyone been able to come up with a good build for Cabalist? It seems to not sync well with other souls except Inquisitor. I'd like to mix it with a healing souls, maybe warden but nothing I come up with feels right.

*edit*
This is the best I could come up with for a Cabalist/healing build without inquisitor:

Cablalist32/Warden18/Justicar16

Problem is most of the Cabalist damage spells won't find their way into the rotation. All I can see using is Decay, obliterate, Tyranny and Engulfing Shadows. I would focus in being in melee keeping my health up with Justicar attacks and dropping the instant cast HoTs from warden on the Tank.

Ignoring the Cabalist, Justicar and warden seem to mesh pretty well with all the instant heals I might just have to try this build out.

Is there a build that has high burst damage for clerics?

ranalin wrote:

Is there a build that has high burst damage for clerics?

A Shaman/Druid mix is the best burst damage for clerics, but that is a melee focused build. The 2 ranged dps souls (Inquistor and Cabalist) are dot based.

Arovin wrote:
ranalin wrote:

Is there a build that has high burst damage for clerics?

A Shaman/Druid mix is the best burst damage for clerics, but that is a melee focused build. The 2 ranged dps souls (Inquistor and Cabalist) are dot based.

what would be a good 3rd for the shaman/druid mix?

Most common is Justicar the 3rd melee soul.

I would say go with something like this:

Shaman32/Druid22/Justicar18

That gives you high crit chance, and melee burst damage. Amazing mana regen and some self healing. You can adjust those numbers to get more survivability and lowering your dps a little.

*edit*
With that build you will be stuck with the fairy pet. If you want the goat swap Druid to 31 and shaman to 21 (most important skills there is Endless Winter for the mana regen) With Justicar 14 you can keep Righteous Mandate up on your pet to keep you both healed.

Druid31/Shaman21/Justicar14

Oh man this is one of the great things about this game: I got a little bored with my cleric so I decided to grab the other 2 souls that I had no interest in previously, the sentinel and purifier. Wallah! My interest is renewed!

I have a new build for everyone to try out. (some of you may have mentioned it before) cabalist/warden/sentinel. 16/3/6 so far. Im locking cabalist at 16 and more than likely not putting more than 6 into sentinel and the rest in warden.

You have no melee ability other than autoswing. But, you have great single target dps with channeled spells. You have great aoe dps from the cabalist. You have great HoTs and half HoTs from the warden plus some great insta heals from the sentinel. Throw in an armor buff too.

Mana isn't really an issue but you will have to have mana pots or drink after every 3 fights. Im gonna have to research to see if I can find a mana tap ability somewhere.

fangblackbone wrote:

Mana isn't really an issue but you will have to have mana pots or drink after every 3 fights. Im gonna have to research to see if I can find a mana tap ability somewhere.

If you bump Cabalist up to 23 points you can use Sigil of power every 30 secs to help keep your mana up.

Arovin wrote:

Has anyone been able to come up with a good build for Cabalist? It seems to not sync well with other souls except Inquisitor. I'd like to mix it with a healing souls, maybe warden but nothing I come up with feels right.

I was loving my Justicar/Cabalist/Purifier. Between self-healing auras and instants from the Justicar tree, Purifier's dmg absorb shield and Cabalist's 3-target AoE, it was a harvesting machine.

--Edit--
Oh, and I forgot... The Purifier has a life damage DD+DoT attack. This attack gives you 2 Convictions to be used for your Justicar healing abilities--1 for the initial DD and 1 for the first tick of the DoT portion.

MoonDragon wrote:

I was loving my Justicar/Cabalist/Purifier. Between self-healing auras and instants from the Justicar tree, Purifier's dmg absorb shield and Cabalist's 3-target AoE, it was a harvesting machine.

--Edit--
Oh, and I forgot... The Purifier has a life damage DD+DoT attack. This attack gives you 2 Convictions to be used for your Justicar healing abilities--1 for initial DD and 1 for the initial tick of the DoT portion.

The lack of light based attacks in my Cablalist32/Warden18/Justicar16 build basically forces me to melee in order to keep convictions up. I looked a purifier (for shield and light damage) but I think the Warden fits better with the instant cast HoTs for healing with the Cabalist since you will be spending most of your time channeling Decay to keep your marks up.

If you bump Cabalist up to 23 points you can use Sigil of power every 30 secs to help keep your mana up.

Yeah I use it sparingly now. I just need to use it more often and remember its there before the fight is over.

The lack of light based attacks in my Cablalist32/Warden18/Justicar16 build basically forces me to melee in order to keep convictions up. I looked a purifier (for shield and light damage) but I think the Warden fits better with the instant cast HoTs for healing with the Cabalist since you will be spending most of your time channeling Decay to keep your marks up.

Ditto this. Its actually one of my favorite cleric builds. I use the warden spammable nuke most times as it does more damage than the justicar melee attack. But like Arovin said, the warden nuke will not trigger convictions so you are forced to melee if you want to use your justicar heals. The justicar melee will also trigger much bigger group heals from reparation.

fangblackbone wrote:

But like Arovin said, the warden nuke will not trigger convictions so you are forced to melee if you want to use your justicar heals. The justicar melee will also trigger much bigger group heals from reparation.

That's a very situational difference. If your 3-target AoEs are hitting 3 targets, then you're getting more reparation healing from your Cabalist AoE than your Justicar attacks. Or so it reads to me based on skill descriptions.

Personally I still like the Purifier as a pure support soul that adds the life damage DoT (that gives 2 Convictions) and has DD spell that inflicts life damage for ranged caster support. The part that I really want to test come live, is how the Purifier healing triggered benefits play off of Justicar's heals. A lot of Purifier's branch skills are "do X on heal cast" mechanics. If they proc from Justicar's insta-heal, that could be a super powerful combination.

I see Cabalist's Lurking Decay mechanic as a situational response bonus. As SpyNavy pointed out the other day, the refresh on Obliterate is way too long to be a main damage skill. So I see the Cabalist as both AoE damage dealer and support class of opportunity.

ould it be a mess if you combined one of the caster/range souls with the melee ones?

Like add cabalist to a druid?

I save obliterate for a finisher or to kill off a minion quickly. I use decay to build up lurking decay stacks for the AOE awesomesauce that is tyranny. Still, obliterate does not seem that much more powerful that other abilities that are insta cast and on 15 second cooldowns or 8 sec cooldown with a 2 sec cast.

They probably would have been better off giving obliterate a 2 sec cast and a 20 sec cooldown and having that talent reduce it to insta and 15.

Cabalist is also a single target damage dealer as well. They get 2 good damage channels. Distorted Shadows does more damage but will lose damage ticks if the caster is hit. It is also on a 15 second cooldown. The other is decay that does less damage but creates lurking decay stacks to be used with tyranny and obliterate. It is spammable with no cooldown and will not lose damage ticks when the caster is hit.

No, Ran. I love justicar/warden/cabalist or justicar/druid/cabalist. The cabalist's aoe works just as well in melee and ranged combat.

MoonDragon wrote:

That's a very situational difference. If your 3-target AoEs are hitting 3 targets, then you're getting more reparation healing from your Cabalist AoE than your Justicar attacks. Or so it reads to me based on skill descriptions.

Personally I still like the Purifier as a pure support soul that adds the life damage DoT (that gives 2 Convictions) and has DD spell that inflicts life damage for ranged caster support. The part that I really want to test come live, is how the Purifier healing triggered benefits play off of Justicar's heals. A lot of Purifier's branch skills are "do X on heal cast" mechanics. If they proc from Justicar's insta-heal, that could be a super powerful combination.

I see Cabalist's Lurking Decay mechanic as a situational response bonus. As SpyNavy pointed out the other day, the refresh on Obliterate is way too long to be a main damage skill. So I see the Cabalist as both AoE damage dealer and support class of opportunity.

This is exactly what makes Rift so awesome. With 4 specs you have plenty of room to experiment and find what fits your play style. I can roll 2 specs for for comparing Warden and Purifier switch back and forth on the fly testing and still have two specs free for other builds!

I love the inquisitor, purifier, and either justicar, sentinel or warden as 3rd soul. You can swap them out as you like to play.

What do you think of this one? I spent a long time tonight balancing it out.

Inquisitor29/Shaman23/Justicar14

This build is focused on getting the most out of critical hits. It pretty much ignores the Shaman crushing/massive blow mechanic in favor of spamming Strike of Judgment for DPS in between keeping up Inquisitor Dots and off healing the melee cluster. This is in no way a main healer or a tank.

Inquisitor benefits:
+20% Crit damage
+5% Crit chance for spells
+3% Crit chance for everything
Light and death based crits add 12% damage to next attack
Self healing from Vex Dot
Instant cast light spells to increase convictions

Shaman Benefits:
+20% Crit damage
+5% Crit chance for melee
+4% Mana after crits
Reactive damage after Crits
Melee Crits add 30% damage to next attack
+10% self heal
Self cast damage shield
Group buffs [Dex(melee crits), End(health), or Wis(spell and melee attack power)]

Justicar Benefits:
Self and AoE healing through DPS (Bigger more frequent Crits mean bigger heals more often)
-50% Threat from DPS
+5% Melee DPS

My guess would be 2 handers are going to be the way to go for most damage, but I cannot rule out dagger and totem if I can find one that gives a high bonus to Crit rating, spell power and +Int. Int is going to have to be more of a focus than your average cleric. the higher it is the more you can crit with both melee and spells.

I think the biggest weakness will be anything that strips buffs. If I loose my buffs, I loose almost all healing ability and survivability.

Holla wrote:
I figure my healer will be doing lots of rifts and warfronts to power through, so going pure healing is a pretty nice option for me.. you get crazy rewards..and its easy to top out the healing in rifts which means lots of planarite and blue shards..and in warfronts i can focus heal the carry and tab DoT the enemy and come out with a VERY respectable score.

I wrote:
I haven't worked through my pure healer class, but it will be Warden based. Bring the rain baby!

Holla wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:
That last IT run was fantastic, with 4 clerics in the group.
But Holla, consider purifier for your third soul. Gives you self shield for those times you get aggro. Gives you awesome procs from healing others. And gives you DD and DoT spells for when you're just sitting there doing nothing, because all your teammates are shielded with absorb-damage shields your heals procced on them.

hummm i'll have to look into that, i'm a fan of shields.

I wrote:

Purifier Shield is very nice - especially solo. The Purifier is not as good of a group healer, but is awesome for self heals and single target heals - especially damage related burts heals. My Inquisitor AOE and dot couple with Purifier and Justicar/Warden/Sentinel (3rd soul) was pretty awesome.

This is the Cleric AOE, max shield, off Healer build that I have been working on. It has some weakness early on that I may sub Justicar for warden, but it is more of an end game although I think it will level just fine as is. I really wanted the 32 point abilities for both Inquisitor and Purifier so that limits 3rd soul utility. Warden has the best zero point ability with the single HOT.

Inquisitor (32) / Warden (0) / Purifier (34)

OK, I have been running Cabalist/Justicar/Inquisitor and I absolutely love it.

We just completed an Iron Tomb run and the massive AOE damage along with all the tiny heals are awesome. The Justicar's -50% aggro really helps, I only pulled arggo once or twice and lost it really quick when I did. For all the AoE spamming I was doing it felt pretty good. If things looked bad for the tank I could run in and spam Strike of Judgment to help heal. As an off healer and DPS this build is great.

I'm currently running a just/dru/ward. This class is a lot less fun with the crowding so while this is a great build, its more of a struggle than a ranged focused class would be. I have to spam the warden base nuke to tag quest mobs.

I also got carried away running around in the raid groups chasing rifts at as low as level 7. The rifts were level 12-18 =P Fun but not the optimal use of time. (and LOTS of deaths)

I'm running dru/just/war on Cic also. I'm having fun. No real rush.

Things have evened out a bit with the crowding and I have lurched to almost 15. I have most of the cleric souls except inquisitor and shaman. I have the quest for the inquisitor but the plane shard isn't dropping for me =(