Holy Smoke! A Cleric's (Templar's) Handbook (by GelatinousOctahedron)

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Your God(s) wants you to go forth out into the world and wreck havoc/bring peace/do something to the world, depending on who you choose to serve. Many beings may worship your god, but you are invested with divine power as a leader and your god expects that you will be out there in the thick of battle. Your profession has several options in battle from smashing stuff to shooting lazers out of your holy symbol to preaching at your enemies to summoning stuff to doing all of these at once. You tend to be better at healing than other leaders and no matter what choices you make healing will always be some part of your abilities. But if you want to, you can be the best at this. You can be strong, wise, and/or charismatic. Finally, what god you choose to follow will effect what you can do to a huge extent as well. You have lots of choices ahead of you. So choose wisely!
 
 
 
 
Rating System:
 
 
Red: Don’t take this, there is always something better.  Either bad or outclassed
Purple: Might be useful sometimes, but there are almost always better options
Black: Good enough
Blue: Good choice and might be the best depending on different factors.
Sky Blue: Almost always one of the best choices
Gold Either broken good or the class needs this to function properly.  Less than 1% get this rating.
 
 
WoTC has renamed the original PHB cleric "Templar", but I am not going to make all the edits to this handbook to fix that change.  Cleric usually means templar, warpriest means essentials warpriest.

Sources: PHB: Player's Handbook; PHB2: Player's Handbook 2; DP: Divine Power; FRPG: Forgotten Realms Player's Guide; MM: Monster Manual; MM2: Monster Manual 2; AV: Adventurer's Vault; AV2: Adventurer’s Vault 2; D#: Dragon Magazine #; MOTP: Manual of the Planes; PHBH: Player's Handbook Heroes; MP: Martial Power; AP: Arcane Power; EPG: Eberron Player's Guide Thanks to everyone who contributes! If you do contribute try to include sources since there are so many books and dragon magazine articles now it is tough to know where these things are from and readers (including me) may need some help. 

Lastly a favor to ask, if you respond to another person's long post please just quote the relevant parts and if you post a complete build or something similar try to hide it in a spoiler box (["sblock=title]text[/"sblock] without the quote marks) since that will make the handbook less cluttered.  Also if you note any errors/typos let me know via private message since I used both the compendium and the books to make this and they sometimes disagree with each other on things like if a power is encounter or daily, who it targets etc.
 
 

The Warlord is great at granting extra attacks and damage, the Shaman gets lots of tactical tricks, and the Bard gets to multiclass a lot.  What do clerics offer?
 
Versatility: Clerics have some of widest variety of build options out there, arguably more than any other class.  From front line guy cutting orcs down with a big sword to the back line healer who never directly hurts an enemy.  Your channel divinity and domain options further help to make sure no two clerics play quite the same.  And almost every race is good for at least one build and you can sub for a controller, defender, or striker.
 
You Hybrid Really Well: Templar clerics keep their good AC and lose little by hybridding.  Combined with the versatility of the class makes clerics one of the best hybrid options in the game, to the point where some charopers think almost all clerics should hybrid to get the best out the class and pick up features and powers of other strong classes.
 
Great Team Player: You have a lot of buffing abilities and will make your teammates hit harder and more often.  Plus you get dozens of good burst/blast powers and almost all of them only target enemies.  Overall clerics make for a great fifth or sixth man on a party to fill in gaps and help out.

You Can Heal Great: Clerics are the best class out there for healing, particularly surge free healing.  You have to try to make your cleric not good at this so you don't have to invest much in this.  You are good at most other things a leader is good at like boosting allies defenses and granting saves.

You Won't Miss Much: Many of the good cleric attack powers either do not require an attack roll or the major effects still happens on a miss.  And many of the good weapon powers target a NAD instead of AC.

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:
 
When you create your cleric you have several major choices to make right away.  The cleric has more options than any other class at this point so this guide has a lot of detail and material in it.  

The first choice is whether or not to hybrid.  You are almost always better off hybridding as a cleric because you lose very little and can pick up the good features and powers of a wide variety of classes, but that is discussed in the hybrid section several posts below.  Templar hybrid is one of the best hybrids in the game (automatic good AC, access to some good powers using two different attack stats, access to both implement and weapon powers, and very good paragon paths for a variety of roles), while regular Templars and Warpriests are generally considered only ok leaders as far as chaop rankings go.

If you don't hybrid the next question is if you want to go Templar or Warpriest.  That depends on what you want from the build, but this guide assumes you are going Templar and I have a warpriest specific guide for those who choose warpriest.  Some warpriests have some good unique tricks and some campaigns are restricted to essentials materials, but templars have an incredible amount of variety.

The next important choice is if you pick Templar: Do you want healer's lore or battle clerics lore?  The right charop answer to this is almost always battle cleric's lore.  Some purely ranged clerics can get away with healer's lore since it does add a lot to your healing, but battle clerics lore is a +3 to your AC and substantially boosts your party's accuracy which is normally better than some extra healing.  The online character builder defaults to Healer's Lore (and Divine Fortune) so make sure to manually change these options if using that.

The other major early choices are: What stat array to go with?  What Race? What Channel Divinity option to pick?  What diety?  Weapon, implement, or weapliment?   These will be answered in the next few posts.
 
Hit points, healing surges, proficiencies, and bonuses
 

Hitpoints: 12+con (+5/lvl) (not a wilting flower, but you're no paladin) 
Surges: 7+con mod (con is sometimes your secondary stat)
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chain. Scale for Templars (usually) or heavy shield (for Warpriests)
Weapon/implement Proficiencies: Simple melee and ranged weapons, Holy Symbols.  Clerics are one of the few melee classes that can stick with a simple weapon like a morningstar or staff, but many will still want an upgrade to a superior weapon.
Bonus: Templars get +2 to will.  Warpriests get +1 will and +1 Fortitude instead.

Warpriests: I am going to try to include essentials warpriests in this guide as much as possible, usually by adding them last to the various sections when they have relevant information that is different.  But there may be older comments that leave them out when discussing things like feats and items because they came out after most of the guide was written.  If you are interested in warpriests make sure to look at my miniguide Master of My Domain which is focused on them.  Warpriests do get healer's word, don't get a Lore option or ritual casting, and get different channel divinity options compared to Templar clerics.
 

Features

Ones all Clerics (Templars and Warpriests) Get
 
Channel Divinity:You start out able to use this once an encounter and all Templar clerics get Divine Fortune
or Favor of the Gods.  Divine fortune was ok to have for occasional use before, but Favor of the Gods is an automatic reroll that you will be using most encounters and is good quasi-enabling.  You also get to pick either Turn Undead
(PHB), Punish the Profane
(D400) or Healer's Mercy (DP). Turn undead is really useful when you need it and can be augmented to effect creatures other than undead, but is situational and only for those who are boosting wisdom.  Healer’s mercy is good as a backup heal for bloodied allies, but weakens you (no problem for healics) and is also a standard action.  Punish the profane a choice mainly for strength primary builds.  You also can take dozens of different feats that give you more channel divinity choices, but these are deity/domain dependent. If you pick your deity solely for role playing reasons you might get stuck with a lemon of a feat choice, but with domains this is less of a problem now.  Normally for Templars sticking with the defaults is fine unless one of the other channel divinity feats from your diety/domain is very strong since Favor of the Gods is effective enough by itself.

For channel divinity all Warpriests get Smite Undead, a good single target weapon power vs undead, and one channel divinity that varies with their domain.  

Healing Word Heal as a minor action, close burst 5 at least twice an encounter (range grows as you level).  Your healing word does something extra (extra healing, temp hitpoints, ally shift, bonus to hit, etc.) depending on what warpriest domain or templar lore option you select and you can add to this through feats and paragon paths.  So you can still do fun stuff the same round you heal.  Warpriests automatically get various boosts to healing word at levels 1, 5, and 10 and possibly at 16 if they go devout warpriest.

Templar Only Features:

You can pick one of these 2 lore options, but you should pick Battle Cleric's Lore.

Healers Lore: (PHB) Add your wisdom bonus to cleric powers with the healing key word that allow PC's to spend a surge. Since one of your main jobs is to heal, this is always nice.  Note that this has been errated to only work when the PC spends a surge, so there may be older comments in this guide that do not reflect this.

Batlle Cleric's Lore: (Drag 400) This gives you scale proficiency, a +2 shield bonus to AC, and your personal and ally targetting healing powers where they spend surges (healing word and a good number of your utilities) gives you and allies a +2 bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn.  That is some good buffing and makes the class no longer MAD.  Every templar cleric should take this since it fixes a lot of problems with the class.
 
powers that work with lore features 
lore powers
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This might not cover all powers, but the basic rule is if its a surge spending power healer's lore works.  If its a surge spending power that targets an ally, battle cleric's lore works.

Powers that work with both Battle Cleric's Lore and Healers Lore
Healing word,  Return from deaths door, Resurgent Strength, Bastion of Health, Divine Favor, Word of Vigor, Astral Refuge, Unexpected Return, and Spirit of Health.

Powers that only work with Healer's lore:
Healing Strike, Resurgant Sun, Hallowed Advance, Zealous Sanction, forgemaster's flame, Raven's Talon, Tactical Strike, Strengthen the faithful, crucial resurgance, Remorse, union of three fates, mantle of glory, divine reprisal, Strength of the sun, divine fervor, death's touch, moon tide, revitalizing shove, healing torch, soulshock field, healer's reproof, strikes of woe and weal, sacrificial healing

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Ritual Caster: You won't have the int to excel at this, but you can do well as wisdom focused rituals and can create items if you want to, including potions at first level.  Warpriests don't get this.

Warpriest only Features:

They  get a power called Holy Clensing at level 4 and a free daily ally resurrection at level 8. They each get a level 1 utility along with various boosts to their healing word and some other class features depending on their domain and level.  They also get access to the the Devout Warpriest paragon path.

Basic Job of A Cleric:

Clerics are leaders can have decent minors in defending, striking, or controlling depending on how you build them.  Leaders have a couple of main functions that revolve around providing direct help to their allies: Healing, buffing (providing bonuses to hit, damage, AC, resistances, temp hitpoints etc.), granting saves, granting extra attacks, and movement. Clerics are particularly good at healing and with the right feats, powers, stats, and equipment can be the best without too much trouble.  With divine power they became even better at offering surge free healing, but still have a large number of powers that heal and require the use of surges.  In fact the big danger of building a cleric is to overload on healing as you level at the expense of the other parts of leading.

Clerics are also very good at buffing, especially post dragon 400.  That is mainly a function of power selection, but all clerics can be good at this without much trouble.  Their ability to grant saves varies dramatically with feat and power selection and strength clerics often stuggle with this, but wisdom clerics have a lot of save granting options.  Extra attacks and ally movement are the areas they are weakest especially in the heroic tier since they only have a couple of powers that slide, shift, or teleport allies or that give extra attacks, although several warpriests have good ally movement powers or features and templars are good at granting attack rerolls.  Because of this the cleric is often more reactive than some other leaders, specializing in helping party members after they get into trouble or miss with an attack.

Almost all of the cleric at wills help with these functions: Righteous Brand/Lance of Faith/Gaze of Defiance provide bonuses to hit, Sacred Flame gives extra saves or temp hitpoints, and Astral Seal/Recovery Strike provide surge free healing.  Don't repeat the function (i.e. don't take both Righteous Brand and Lance of Faith).

Clerics also effect enemies in different ways depending on builds.  Battle Clerics tend to be best at dealing the most single target damage and can sub as defenders with a few marking powers and other ways to punish/prevent enemy attacks.  They have a decent amount of powers that are debuff and buff.  Ranged clerics are often much more focused on control abilities through party friendly Area of Effect powers, summons, debuffing, and status effects.  Laser clerics tend to do the most multitarget damage of any cleric build and can easily sub for a controller with lots of blast/burst powers and have a decent number of debuffing powers as well.  Healics (overall the weakest of the main builds) are the best debuffers so they tend to focus on that type of control making it easier for enemies to be damaged and/or harder for them to damage allies and have some forced movement powers as well, but are bad at minion clearing since they tend to have only a few powers that do any damage.  And they are the best healers in the game.  Warpriests and Zealots are one of the best "off tank" leaders in the game because of their high constitution.  They also have a lot of powers with effects that occur on a miss, including at wills, but what they are good at depends on domain. 

Builds

Clerics have more builds than almost any other class at this point.  You have 2 main attack stats, but these break down into 6 basic builds: battle, laser, healic, balanced, zealot and warpriest (9 domains so far).  I am broadly rating them compared to other leaders based on a variant of what LordDuskBlade uses in his warlord handbook: Healing,Saving throws (condition removing), Buffing  (Temp Hitpoints, Buffing Attacks, Buffing Defenses)  Debuffing Enemies (Attacks, Debuffing Enemies Defenses)  Enabling (Ally Movement, Ally Extra Attacks) All clerics are at least decent at healing, but a good bit of what else they are good at depends on power selection.

Two of the cleric builds use mostly weapon attacks (battle and warpriests), two use mostly implement attacks (laser and healic along with death domain warpriests), and the last 2 builds are fairly balanced between the two (zealot and balanced).

When WoTC first made the cleric class they decided to split most of its attacks into two main groups: Weapon attacks using strength and implement attacks using wisdom.  They also made charisma a tertiary stat for all clerics.  This along with the fact that they needed consitituion and dexterity for feats made them a tricky class to build right and very MAD (multi ability dependent).   So then they decided to try to fix things by adding the warpriest build in essentials which is a wisdom build that uses mainly weapon attacks, with constitution as its normal secondary score.  They they let melee clerics effectively ignore wisdom if they want through dragon 400.  So you can make an effective melee cleric now that only uses wisdom, that only uses strength, or that uses both.

The four melee builds: Battle Cleric VS Balanced Cleric Vs Warpriest Vs Zealot:

Warpriest is the simplest to build and most tank like of the builds and gets free extra features and powers as it levels and it has the best healing word.  The cost of that is that you are much more limited in your at will and encounter power selection and you don't get healer's lore/battle clerics lore or ritual casting and a few of the domains are not very good.  Balanced requires that you maintain both a high strength and wisdom and your rider stats will suffer some, but you can hit with any cleric power.  This is the most versatile route and gives you the most flexibility in power selection, but you can't get a starting 20 in both attack stats.  Battle Cleric is strength primary and usually the most offensive focused of the builds.  It is good for 2-H weapon and simple weapon builds or for races with a strength bonus, but does not have access to many implement powers.  Zealot is like a warpriest, in that it normally takes a bunch of warpriest powers, goes wis/con, but it is a templar with battle cleric's lore and no shield.  After balanced it has the broadest power selection and can pick from the good implement powers without a problem and is almost as tough as the warpriest.

Battle Cleric
Strength is your most important stat, but you need to decided between wis or cha as your secondary stat.  With essentials warpriest powers to pick from, you get the most melee power choices by having both strength and wisdom equally high.  Several good strength and utility powers have charisma riders so that is often your secondary stat if you are ok sticking with only strength powers.  Good for off defender or off striker builds.  Healing,Saving Throws
Buffing
Debuffing
Enabling

Laser Cleric
(aka devoted): You shoot radiant “lasers” at enemies, buffing and healing them from near the front line while using an implement.  Wisdom is your most important stat, with charisma getting at least a little boost.  I wouldn't make it your full on secondary stat since that will tank both your fort and reflex defenses.  Probably the easiest leader build to play.  A well built one can consistently put out some good party friendly area radiant damage with solid buffing and debuffing and plenty of saves.  Healing, Saving Throws
Buffing
Debuffing
Enabling

Focused Healer/Controller “healics” (aka shielding): Similar to the laser cleric, but you forgo being good at dealing damage and instead are the best healer in the game. You are in many ways a controller who happens to heal better than any other leader.  But you really do not do much, if any, damage so make sure the party has that covered and your healing may get redundant in a leader heavy party. This is the weakest of all the basic builds and I don't recommend going full pacifist and taking the pacifist healer feat since it isn't worth the loss in total party damage.  At low levels the trade off can be worth it sometimes, but not past late heroic since clerics are already very good at healing by then.  If you are still interested, I think you should skip the feat and go wis/con and take mostly or even all pacifist encounter powers since those can be very good choices anyways, with damaging at wills and some damaging dailies.  You won't need charisma and won't be restricted in your power choices.  If you do decide to take the pacifist healer feat you should still take a couple of damaging powers (several ones damage without triggering the stun) so that you help out some with damage since even with the pacifist healer feat you will not always be attacking bloodied enemies. Wisdom is your most important stat, with charisma second or third (another problem with the build since it needs a good cha, which means bad fort and reflex).  Healing, Saving Throws
Buffing
Debuffing
Enabling

Balanced Cleric: You do not settle for one focus and are comfortable in range or melee and with melee can use strength or wisdom for your attacks so you get to pick from every cleric attack power. You cover all the bases, but the danger is being spread too thin on feats, ability scores, having low power riders, and possibly needing both an implement and a weapon. Make wisdom and strength equal or close to equal as your highest stats.   Healing,Saving Throws
Buffing
Debuffing
Enabling

Warpriest: This is an essentials build that uses wisdom for all its attacks, which are usually melee weapon.  Death domain is implement focused, while corellon can use both melee and ranged weapons.  This build gets free shield proficiencies and is one of the most durable leaders, but no ritual casting or healer's/battle cleric's lore.  It is usually a very good melee focused ally buffer and the easiest melee cleric to build, but much more restricted in its power choices.  How good it is at the above ratings depends on your domain.  See the hidden area for more detail.

warpriest domain summary
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Here is a quick summary of the different domains in rough order of general effectiveness:

Oghma:  It starts out well and I think its the most effective overall of the warpriests, especially once you get to mid paragon.  You focus on dazing and psychic powers so you can debuff very well.  You need to go devout warpriest, end of discussion.  It makes one of your at wills immobilize and your healing word grants basic attacks for free at level 16.  Obvious optimization route is to mc fighter for dizzying mace and maxing the number of healing words you get through gamblers word/unforgettable cudgel and supreme healer.  And throw in psychic lock at some point.  Also is best at knowledge skills of all cleric builds.

Domination: A focus on pushing, proning and intimidation.  It has a lot of psychic and fear powers to expolit and if I wanted to do an off striker warpriest this would be my first choice.  Very good at wills with both a proning attack that can be used on a charge and a push attack that targets will, pushes, and lets an ally shift.  Fairly good encounter powers overall and a good devout warpriest features and powers.  It also is good at ally shifts and generates some temp hitpoints.

Storm: Starting out it is the most ally damage focused build and has good ally movement enabling.  Focus on thunder and lightning powers.  Simple and effective.  I would strongly consider mark of storm and flail expertise with a tripple headed flail or else get a spear for polearm momentum.  One of the few warpriest builds I would consider using a two handed weapon since I think the spear and polearm feats could be worth it with a greatspear.

Torm: These do a little bit of everything.  They have decent defensive at wills and healing word can teleport and shift allies and potentially grant saves.  Their encounter powers do everything from grant temp hit points, blind, prone, let allies spend surges, let you shift, and at level 27 grants every one in the party a free action charge or BA.   Probably the hardest warpriest to get bored with over time and they have probably the best leader encounter power in the game with valourous charge.  I would probably only take devout warpriest if you don't take mark of healing.

Earth: You can get a lot of damage resitance with this domain, especially if you go with the devout warpriest path, and it has a good bit of pushing and proning along with some AC boosting.  And you tend to target fortitude with weapon powers so you will normally be fairly accurate.  You get to slide with healing word starting at 5 which is useful and your enemies will be granting CA when you hit them with encounter powers starting at 10.  Its a bit boring, but consistent.

Selune: Has a lot of defense boosting options and your attacks tend to do cold and radiant damage, which is a good combination.  Decent damage resistance and temp hitpoint generation.  About the only cleric build where you should do both cold and radiant optimization, although you will be doing less cold damage later on.  Devout warpriest gives you at will save granting so that is a good option if mark of healing is not available.

Sun:  The best healing/save granting warpriest build and the easiest to play as well.  Its powers do radiant damage and you should have more than enough save granting that you might not want mark of healing.  Its encounter powers get to be a bit repetetive and I would switch out at least one through reserve manuever or a power swap.  I would go with a radiant themed paragon path like morninglord or radiant servant instead of devout warpriest.  Obvious optimization route is to focus on radiant damage boosts and buffs that trigger off dealing radiant damage.

Death: It is focused on automatic damage and uses an implement.  It has good at wills, but several of its encounter powers are pretty bad even though they autohit and should be power swapped out for invoker, avenger, or similar powers as soon as possible and you should look at reserve manuever in paragon too.  If you swap out those powers it has some pretty good class features and devout warpriest features if you like autodamage and damage boosts and can be built into a solid front line psychic lock controller build.

Corellon It is focused on having radiant and force powers you can use either ranged or melee so a thrown weapon like a net, dagger or trident is a good option.  It also has some good movement for both you and your allies and is the most mobile basic cleric build out there.  I don't like several of the encounter powers: they don't do leader stuff, but they don't do much else either.  Its at wills aren't that good and don't have "leader" abilities and devout warpriest is only an ok path for it.  Even its one really good encounter power isn't a "leader" power and its one really unique leader feature is its devout warpriest healing word makes targets invisible, but you don't get that until 16 and the rest of the devout warpriest stuff for it isn't very good.  The obvious optimization routes are focusing on radiant or cold damage and boosting the free teleports you get at level 10 or making int your secondary stat and mcing artificer for spell commander.  I think its the worst cleric build since although it has some decent features, you can get those other ways and every other cleric build offers both more leader features and more of something else like control or damage.

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Zealot  This is a build that is a result of the warpriest and battle cleric's lore.  You only take wisdom attack powers, but you are a Templar with battle cleric's lore and make wis/con your two main stats.  You take a mix of warpriest weapon powers and regular implement powers while using a 2-H weapliment.  Like the warpriest, what you are good at depends on power selection, but you are probably a good buffer.  You have more healing surges and hitpoints than a str/cha cleric and a different and broader set of power choices.  But you might not have a good MBA depending on power choices (you like melee training, fell strike, sonnlinor's hammer, or dilletante), and will have more trouble qualifying for some weapon and armor feats.  Overall this is my favorite build for clerics since it gets a wide range of good choices and can stand on the front line with no trouble, while still attacking at range when needed.

Bow Cleric This is a specialized build, often hybrid or mulitclassed with a class like ranger, bard, seeker, or monk.  It is focused more on ranged damage and is usually more mobile than other clerics, but is not as good of a leader.  It is generally geared towards elves, but several other races can also be an effective one.  It is different enough from other clerics that I thought it needed its own miniguide, so you won't see it mentioned much besides this post.
 
Ability Scores

You have lots of options here depending on the build and have 2 different stats you can attack with.   You want at least an 18 post racial bump in your main attack stat or 18 in both wisdom and strength if you are going for both.  Its often a good idea to go for a 20 post racial in strength or wisdom, but you don't have to for a lot of builds if you need the stats for feat prereqs and some warpriests get a lot out of a high constitution.  Normally charisma or constitution is your secondary stat, but you can potentially make any stat a secondary stat depending on power selection and other build choices and you can boost multiple secondary stats with some builds.  

Normally your best choices are STR/WIS with both primary; WIS as primary, CON secondary; or STR primary, Cha secondary.

Strength: If you are a battle cleric than this is your most important stat.  Balanced want this as number 1 or 2. Warpriests, Laser clerics and healics mainly care about this for feat prereqs so they can even use this as a dump stat. (Recommended: battle 16-18, balanced 14-16, lazer, warpriest, zealot, and healics 8-13.)

Constitution: Always useful and helps with armor proficiencies and some feats.  Warpriests and some Zealots need this for powers riders so it should normally be their secondary stat.  Constitution only impacts about 1 in 20 cleric powers, but it effects 5 different at wills and determines some Warpriest class feature riders.  Its a good idea make this your secondary stat for many pure implement clerics as well.  It should probably be the 3rd or 4th stat you invest in otherwise. (Recommended 10-13, Warpriest/zealot 14-16) 

Dexterity:
 There are some useful feats that require dex as a prereq, but if you don't want those some clerics can start with this as low as 8.  There are several good feats in paragon where a starting 14 postracials is good enough.  Some speciallized bow builds want this high, but most clerics don't care much. (Recommended: 8-13)

Intelligence: You would think clerics care about int, but most do not even though it effects three of your class skills. If you are playing a race with a boost in int you might consider boosting this a little instead of dex to help your reflex or to qualify for some feats, but otherwise this should be your default dump stat.  Or you can ignore this advice and make this your secondary stat if you don't have powers with constitution or charisma riders and that opens up some interesting multiclass options and you will be good at your class skills.  (Recommended: 8-10, 11-12 if you get a racial bump) 

Wisdom:This is your main stat for most builds so start with this high. Battle clerics can get away with this being lower than 16 after racial bonuses to start with, but they are the only build that can.  Unless you are a battle cleric you should shoot for 18-20 post racials.  (Recommended: battle clerics 8-13, balanced 14-16, All others 16-18)

Charisma: This can range from very useful to dump stat depending on build and powers. It helps with a couple of at wills and a few other powers, but you can build a perfectly effective cleric that dumps this.  Only about 1 out of 8 powers you can pick from will use charisma, but for strength primary builds it works well as a default secondary stat if you are not planning on taking wisdom powers.  It is more consistently important for laser clerics and healics than for battle clerics, but even they should often treat it as a tertiary stat since wis/cha means both your reflex and foritude defenses will be low. (Recommended Battle 10-14 balanced 10-13 Laser/healics 12-14 warpriest/zealot 8-12) 

My preferred starting array is 16 16 12 12 10 8 if going balanced.  For most of the other builds 18 14 11 10 10 8 or 18 13 13 10 10 8 if you do not get a stat boost to your attack stat.  If you do get a boost to your attack stat, I like 16 16 13 11 10 8 or 16 14 14 13 10 8.  A starting 20 in strength or wisdom is often a good idea, but there are good feat and mulitclassing options that go away when you do that and your NADs, surges, and riders won't be as good.   The more powers you take that require a hit to have the riders go off the better a starting 20 works, so it mostly depends on power choices.
 
Potential Problems with Clerics:

Templars and AC: I am leaving this hidden area up only for those who have DMs that don't allow dragon material or for those who insist on keeping Healer's Lore, but post Dragon 400 this section is no longer needed for the vast majority of charoped clerics.  Short version of what templar clerics should do about AC: Take Battle Cleric's Lore.  Maybe a defensive weapon if you really want a boost after that (singing stick for ranged, or maybe an urgosh) for some builds that could make use of that and scale spec or plate proficiency in paragon or epic.  You can boost your AC a lot for a leader with items like singing sticks, paragon paths like tactical warpriest, and feats like lost in the crowd and small warriors defense.  Hybrids have even more potential for insane AC (battle clerics lore + barbarian agility or swordmage warding = profit).
Cleric AC Issues
[sblock]
A long note about Clerics, Abilities Scores, and AC Hide

AC and defense is one of the trickiest parts of building a non warpriest cleric (your will defense should usually be fine though). You have OK proficiencies, but lack scale, plate or any shields. And none of your three main stats directly adds to your AC and except for strength do not help with getting the armor/shield feats.   Warpriests have heavy shields so they can ignore most of this section.

For battle clerics this is not a big issue since you probably have the stats to invest in better armor and shields if you want it and might even qualify for some of the specialist feats later on without much effort.  Also, a lot of magic armors that are very useful for clerics are only available in chain so many clerics might want to stick with chain for that reason.  The battle cleric armaments feat from dragon magazine gives you light shield proficiency and a martial weapon proficiency so for a lot of clerics that is as good as two feats for the price of one.  Hafted defense from PHB3 is also a good defense boosting feat if you want to use a pole arm or staff.  Spending a feat for proficiency with a singing stick is another good choice since it lets you get a weapon of healing enchantment and is defensive/offhand.  If you don't mind doing d6 damage it can be a good idea to dual wield them and make a weapon of healing as your offhand one and something like an unforgetable cudgel or crusader's weapon as your main weapon.  The battle chaplain paragon path also gives you heavy shield proficiency for free.

Balanced clerics have the strength for armor and shields and depending on race and stats might have the con for better armor or even the con/dex for the specialtist feats. Half orc with starting stats of Str 18 Con 12 Dex 14 Int 8 Wis 16 Cha 10 could.get the shield feats in heroic and scale in paragon. Ranged clerics have problems though since you are still expected to be in the thick of battle and many of your powers have a range of 5 or are close burst/blast so you are a very tempting target. 

Option 1:You can stick with chain and accept that you have lower AC and try extra hard to use good tactics and heal yourself. Dwarf laser cleric can do a Str 10 Con 13 Dex 10 Int 8 Wis 20 Cha 14 and put all points into wisdom and charisma. One option is to spend a feat for weapon proficiency parrying dagger (AV1) or cutting wheel (EPG) which will boost your AC by 1.  Getting a Rhythm blade enchantment (AV2 and if your DM allows it) will up that by another 1.   That takes a feat, but does not have any prereqs and ranged clerics often have a free hand.  Pros: Saves stats points and feats and allows for high charisma.  Many good armors are chain. Cons: Lower AC and low reflex and fortitude 

Option 2: You can invest in str and possibly con to get the feats, but you will not use the stats for much of anything else. This can be a good choice if you want to put all your stat bumps into charisma and wisdom, with the caveat that then both your reflex and fortitude defenses will be low. A Dwarf healic for instance can use a point buy of str 13 con 13 dex 10 int 8 wis 18 cha 16 and get scale and light shield proficiency and then put the rest of his points bumps into wisdom and charisma. Pros: Good AC and allows for high charisma. Cons: little bit of wasted points and cost feats. Low fort and reflex.

Option 3 You can put your points into dex or int and stick with hide. Note that this is mainly for specialist builds like cleric/ranger hybrids.  This gives you mobility and unique multiclassing options, but at the cost of a low charisma. An Elf laser cleric can start with a Str 10 Con 13 Dex 16 Int 8 Wis 18 Cha 14 and then put all of his point bumps into dex and wisdom to keep up his AC (and Reflex) and Attack, but your charisma riders suffer. If you with an epic destiny that boosts dex or int, you will have slightly higher AC in epic than if you just had chain.  Really you need to start with a 18 in dex/int to make it worth while since then you are ahead of chain almost all the time, but only races like devas and elves can really pull this off Pros: Good Reflex, potentially higher AC then chain, mobility, and saves feats. Cons: lots of “wasted points” for some builds. Low charisma and fortitude. 

Comparison ACs  for chain and hide with starting dex of 18 with bumps to dex each opportunity (leaves out variables for shields, armor specialization, demigod stat bumps, assumes equal level armor, etc.)  Hide almost always is about 1 point higher.

Chain L1,AC=16  L4,AC=19  L8,AC=22

L11,AC=26  L14,AC=28 L18,AC32

L21,AC=35 L24,AC=37 L28,AC=40  L30,AC=43

Hide L1,AC=17  L4,AC=20  L8,AC=24

L11,AC=26  L14,AC=29 L18,AC=33
L21,AC=36 L24,AC=38 L28,AC=42  L30,AC=44
 

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Enabling
 
Clerics are one of the weaker enabling leaders.  Bard, Shaman, and Warlord are all better by deafult and enabling allied attacks is one of the most important things leaders can do.  But the cleric does have a few enabling powers, a few quasi enabling powers, and a few paragon paths that help with enabling.  Here is a quick run down of cleric quasi enabling powers (rerolls and potential OAs), enabling powers, and paragon paths.
 
Direct Enabaling Powers: Inspire Fervor, Valorous Charge
 
Enemies have to move: Cause Fear, Deadly Lure, Mortal Terror (DMs discretion)
 
Allies get OAs on an enemy's choice trigger: Conquering Blow, Demand Obedience, Realm of Battle, HopeKiller, Sundered Victory
 
Granting attack rerolls:  Favor of the Gods, Prophetic Guidance, Levy of Judgement, Allied Accuracy, Death for Death, Auspicious Foresight, Glittergolds Gambit (normally redundant with favor of the gods)
 
Paragon Paths: Luckbringer of Tymorra (rerolls),  Devout warpriest (oghma) (basic attacks with healing word), Zealous Demagogue (charge enabling)

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:

 
 
 
 
What race should you play?  At this point most PC races are a good choice for at least one build, but some are very good at particular builds or multiple builds.
 
Overall dwarf and half-elf are the two strongest cleric races, with deva and dragonborn the next strongest.

For strength primary builds your best choices are: dragonborn (str/cha) and dwarf followed by goliath, mul, and half-orc. 

For balanced str/wis builds: Longtooth shifter, minotaur, snerfneblin, and goliath.

For lazer/healic builds: half elf and deva (radiant builds) both work very well, followed by elf and kalashtar.

For warpriest/zealot: half-elf, dwarf, and deva (radiant focused), followed by goblin (zealot) and mul.

Humans are always a good choice, but struggle with balanced builds.

Races
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Note for races, colors are in general for the builds they are best at. With two different primary attack stats (wis and str), and two different secondary stats (con and cha) most races are good for at least one build.

PHBs

Deva Can make pretty good laser clerics or warpriests with their stats. Good racial features too and with Radiant Recovery they are hosses as sun or correlon warpriests or radiant themed zealots.

Dragonborn
One of only two races that gets bonus to both strength and charisma make them the best battle clerics, but they are only ok for most other builds.  Plus they have good racial paths and feats for melee clerics.

Dwarf About the best race for clerics overall, especially for melee focused clerics.  Either a wisdom or a strength boost.  Good for any build and extra durable so you will spend less time healing yourself, plus a good racial weapons feat. 

Eladrin Not much for clerics here, although teleporting is good and so is the racial PP from DP.  Dex + cha are decent bonuses.  Long sword prof from regular, long bow prof from moon option, and staff implement prof from sun option can all be useful.

Elf One of the better races for ranged clerics (and good for other builds too) and they get a good racial PP for clerics who use bows.  I generally like the standard elf package, but wild and wood are both good.

Githzerai
Wis and dex bonuses and nice racial features and feat support. Pretty close to elves for lazer clerics.

Gnome
Passable ranged clerics.  Can get pretty good defenses at least. 

Goliath Really good for battle/balanced clerics and very durable.  Make good warpriests as well. Have a good racial paragon path for strength clerics and they have goliath great weapon focus, which is good for morningstars and spears.

Half-Elf
With the bonus to wisdom, Half elfs are one of the better ranged clerics and are one of the best warpriest races.  Rivals the dwarf for best overall cleric race now.  My suggestions for dilletante.  Wisdom implement:  Astral Wind, Magic Stones, Hand of Radiance, Visions of Blood, Grasping Shards, Grasping Tide, Thorn Whip.   Wisdom weapon: dynamic assault, tending strike, or overwhelming strike (+ power of skill).  Any: Direct the strike.  With Adept Dilletante: thunderwave (my favorite), iron fist, five storms, pressing strike, howling strike, booming blade, recuperating strike, resolute shield (warpriests only) or magic weapon.  Con or Cha: Concussive Spike, Iron Fist, Conductive Defense, Viscious Cobra Strike, Eldrich Strike, Hellish Rebuke, or Dire Radiance.

Half-Orc Good for battle clerics who like heavy blades and doing extra damage and ok for warpriests as well.  Decent racial cleric path.

Halfling You don't get a boost to either attack stat, but can pick your con/cha with dex.  Small weapon size hurts even if you have a con bonus.  The reason this is still black is that you can get insane AC as a halfling mc fighter.  Battle or zealot is your best choice for this route.

Human Extra feat and at will are very nice, but your stats will be a little low.  Probably best off as a melee or ranged build with wisdom as your prime stat, but as long as you don't go balanced you will be fine.  Very good racial paragon path.

Minotaur Good tough battle clerics or great balanced clerics as of PHB3. (No over sized weapons for PCs however).  Good for warpriests as well.

Shardmind Good ranged clerics.

Shifter, Longtooth
Great for balanced since you get to boost both attack stats and regeneration is nice.

Shifter, Razorclaw Good for laser or warpriest and OK for other builds

Tiefling
At least you can get a charisma and con boost. Good feat support and there are a good number of cleric fire and fear powers so you might be able to make something out of that.

Wilden Excellent warpriests, good ranged clerics and decent battle clerics as well.

Non-PHB

Bladeling (MOTP) Its a str/wis race, but it doesn't offer much besides that.  Racial power doesn't scale and it doesn't have any good support.

Changling (EBPH) No primary stats but there is a racial feat that lets you pick any channel divinity feat you want.

Gnoll (D374) Bumps to 2 tertiary stats. Make decent battle clerics

Goblin (DSH) Good stats for a zealot or warpriest.  MC fighter for small warriors defense makes them the highest potential AC for zealot builds or lazer/pacifist clerics with a high wisdom.  And they have a good shifty racial power.  If you are not interested in mc fighter, they drop to darkblue.

Drow (FRPH) With the wisdom boost drow are now solid ranged clerics or warpriests.

Genasi (FRPH) Good for battle clerics and ok for balanced builds.  They have very good racial features, feat, and PP support.  Make ok warpriests. 

Hamadryad (Hof) Wis/cha with solid racial abilities.

Hengoyokai
(D403) Wis/cha.  But no support and only decent racial abilities.  You can pull off some wierd tricks with this race, but its not really a practical build because you can't use attack powers while in animal form.

Hobgoblin (D412) Con/cha, but good racial features and support if you want flails or spears. 

Kalashtar (EBPH) Bonuses to both wis and cha and skill boosts to class skills. Would be good for ranged, but the racial features seem to want you to be close to enemies. Racial PP is very good.

Kobold (DSH) Con/cha boost and decent racial features.  No longer quite as shifty as they were, but even an encounter minor action group shift is a good addition for most clerics.  Small

Kenku (D411) Dex/cha is ok.  Ok racial features and some good utiilties.

Mul (DS)  There may not normally be any clerics in darksun, but Muls are almost as good a choice as dwarves for any build.  The biggest drawback is that they don't qualify for the dwarf or human paragon paths, even though they can qualify for the feats, which puts dwarfs slightly ahead.

Pixie (HOF) Dex/cha is ok, but the racial abilities are solid.  Don't get "small" feats.

Revenant (D372) Tertiary stats, but access to any 1 race's abilities and good support.

Satyr
(HOF) Cha/Con bonus is decent.  Racial ability has potential, but not much support fot the race

Shade
(HOS) Not very good stats or racial support.  Dex/cha is ok. 

Shadar-kai
(D372) They now have good stats for most builds along with good feats.

Svirfneblin (DSH) Str/wis and small.  Only small race with a strength bonus so they can get really high AC by MCing fighter with small warriors defense and for warpriest/zealots you get the good feat deepstone blessing.

Thrikreen
(DS) Racial abilities make them more melee focused with stats for melee or ranged.  Speed 7 is nice.

Vryloka (HOS) The only other race besides dragonborn to boost Str/Cha and starts with a good speed. 

Warforged (EBPH) Good for battle clerics and durable. Decent racial PP for leaders.  Ok for warpriests as well. 
 
MM  Races (warning no feat support for these races)
 
 
Bugbear (MM) make good heavy blade battle clerics

Bullywug (MM2) tertiary stats.

Duergar (MM2) Same stats as dwarf's, but without the nifty feats and racial abilities.

Githyanki(MM) Con bonus and racial features makes them tolerable zealots/warpriests.  But no support.

Kenku
(MM2) decent laser cleric tertiary stats, but no useful racial features.

Orc(MM) tough and fast battle clerics 
[/sblock] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You get religion and 3 others.  Also a lot of the domain feats will add bonuses to different skills so take a look at those.  All of the skills now have at least some decent skill powers, even history, so if there is a skill power you like, take that into consideration.
 
 
Relgion (int) You have to take it, but at least it helps with rituals and monster knowledge
Arcana (int) again good for rituals and monster knowledge
Diplomacy(cha) this helps you be the party face
Heal(wis) good for out of combat heal checks and rituals.
History(int) meh (dwarves might want it for the stone keeper paragon path)
Insight(wis) useful and uses wisdom 
 
 
Non-Class: Athletics is good for battle clerics, warpriests should try for endurance, and perception is always nice for any cleric.

Skill Powers:

skill powers
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I am putting these here mainly because there is enough room for them here and am only doing class skill powers so good powers like Mighty Sprint are not here.  Clerics have good utility powers, but they can be repetitive and are often standard actions.   It is often worth getting the skill power feat to get one of these skill powers to help out with a gap in your abilities.

Level 2

Daily 

Strategist's Epiphany (History) You and allies can use your history check for initiative.  Only skill power that is worth taking without the feat for Oghma builds. 
 
Level 6
 
 
Daily

Stirring Speech (Diplomacy) Allies get a +1 bonus to saves and attack rolls.
 
 
Encounter
Empathetic Read(Insight) Allies can reroll social skill check
 
 
Insightful Warning(Arcana) When you are targeted by an area/close attack you and allies get +2 bonus to defenses 
 
 
Preseicent Manuerver (Insight) Interrupt to move half your speed when an enemy moves.  You do not have many move powers. 
 
 
Swift Recovery (Heal) Minor action for ally to use second wind as a free action.  Great for wardens
 
 
Level 10:

Encounter

Conviction (religion) +5 to your next save. 

Insightful Comment (insight) party gets bonus to social skills keyed off your wisdom mod.

Prescient Defense (insight) Immediate interrupt power bonus to all defenses

Tactician's measure (history) you or ally can shift and get a bonus to defenses when an enemy comes near you.

Time Out (heal) give ally a second second wind.  good for warden allies

Level 16

Daily

Miraculous Healing (heal) Ally gets surge free healing

Encounter

Elemental Countermeasures (Arcana) Reduce elemental damage

Insightful Riposte
(insight) Add 3 to a missed attack roll.  One of the few worth considering without a feat.

[/sblock] 
 
 
 
Clerics start with holy symbols as their basic implement and it is one of the better implements in general since it has a unique item slot and there are many good ones to pick from.  There are ones that can do everything from granting allies action points and saves to dealing extra radiant damage to letting turn undead target angels, demons, devils, dragons, or giants.  However, with the revised implement rules, clerics can now use any implement they are proficient with from multiclassing for their cleric powers.  This has two major implications.  First clerics can use any weapliment they are proficient with for cleric powers, including heavy/light blades from multiclassing swordmage and a ki focus with a weapon if they get it from a background/multiclass.  Second, other implements can be used for attacks for ranged clerics.  There are a few rods and orbs to look at, but staffs in general have the best enchantments for clerics, can be used as a simple weapon, and have a good expertise feat.  In both of these cases you can still keep a holy symbol with a useful property that does not require you to attack with it like a symbol of victory.

PHB3 has opened up the use of superior holy symbols at the cost of a feat.  So far there are four of them for ranged and balanced clerics to consider.  At last count, of the implement powers that target a defense: 47 vs will, 26 vs reflex, 12 vs fortitude, and 4 vs ac.
 
 
Accurate +1 to hit is boring. but solid since most of your implement powers need you to hit for the leader rider to go off.  Clerics are accurate enough and have other feats like coordinated explosion that they should still consider the other superior symbols.
Astral+2 to range and a boost to radiant damage.  Laser clerics in particular will want these
Warding Shield bonus to defenses when you hit with a power and bonus when targeting fort.  Not that many cleric implement powers target fortitude and you should already have a shield bonus from battle clerics lore.
Wrathful Bonus to crit damage and bonus to hit will.  Great for divine oracles, who crit more than most clerics and who target will more often.  Will is the most common defense that you target with implements so for a few builds this is a little better than accurate at higher levels.
 
 
Other Superior Implements
If you multiclass or hybird take a look at these (besides Accurate)
Farseeing Totem About as good as the astral symbol. 
Mindwarp Staff These are good for death domain warpriests and similar psychic damage builds.
 
 
 
 
Battle and balanced clerics care more about melee weapons, but there are a few choices like bows and maces that laser and healics should take a look at.   At this point most melee focused templars with battle cleric's lore are best off with 2-Handed weapons or versatile/small weapons for small templars.  Warpriests should stick with one handed since they need a shield, excepting a few storm warpriests.  Generally I prefer +3 to hit over damage for clerics since many of your powers require you to hit for all of the effects to work, but some races and builds are better off with +2 weapons especially if you are taking powers that require a simple weapon.  In epic levels the improved crit feats do help you be a better leader because of other feats and item properties that go off when you crit, so if you plan to play your character in epic levels you will want to try to take a weapon you can get the epic crit feats with without much stat investment.  Also what deity you worship may influence your weapon choice since there are some feats, weapon enchantments, and paragon paths that are deity specific.
 
 
Top 10 Weapons for Templars
in no order (small templars pick from the smaller equivalents):
Alhulak  If you can get this through a background like gritty sergeant instead of spending a feat for it, it is a good economical choice.  +3 to hit, decent damage, small clerics can use it, and flail is a good weapon group.
Greatspear: Reach, +3 to hit, decent damage and both a spear and polearm.  A good choice for many builds and polearms and spears have good tricks.
 
Fullblade: +3 to hit and good damage.  Get it through a feat or through angelic avenger paragon path.
Morningstar: Best weapon usually for those who want the simple weapon powers and has some good enchantments like unforgettable cudgel.  Doesn't cost a feat or background.
Singing Stick: +3 to hit and defensive and you get to pick from the good mace enchantments.  Dual wielding them is an option or you can get a good 1-H weapon in your other hand like an athulak or tripple headed flail if you care about damage or want a different expertise feat.  A good choice for implement clerics too.
Quarterstaff: You can invest a lot in this, but getting Staff fighting, staff expertise, staff of travel, and an mc feat that lets you use staff for implements is a powerful combination, especially if you want the simple weapon powers.
Spiked Chain: +3 Reach and Flail group.  Decent damage.  About the same usefulness as the greatspear, but a easier to get a weapliment.  Flail expertise is good if you can get sliding somehow through something like mark of storm.
Mordenkrad: Moradin clerics like this one.  High damage and is good for Hammer of Moradin path or for weapliments.
Gouge: If you want an axe or spear this is a good damage choice, plus it counts as both so it opens a lot of feats and enchantments.
Rapier
It costs you a feat or your background, but light blades have good support, its +3 and you can off hand a singing stick or light mace with an enchantment. 
Honorable Mention
Longbow: For bow clerics like elves this works or a shortbow for Sehanine worshippers.  Clerics have a decent number of weapon powers that can be used with a bow, but bow clerics are not one of the stronger builds.
Scythe
Cleric may be the only class where the lowly scythe can ever be an optimal choice.  If going for simple weapon powers and if you can manage a couple points in dex for the heavy blade feats this works well for a race like half-orc.  Has a decent Nerull feat for a good damage boost too.
Urgrosh: Good damage and it is defensive so that ups your AC some.  Dwarfs might take a look.
Heavy War Pick For small templars willing to use a background for it this is a good choice for them if not mcing fighter.

Weapon Groups
 
Axes Good damage and many races will qualify for the feats without too much trouble.  Gogue is your best bet for dwarves for instance.
Bows Good for a few builds, especailly hybrids and elf/eladrin, who want to pursue the the seldarine dedicate paragon path and for worshippers of Sehanine.  Otherwise avoid for the most part.  The one exception is that all ranged clerics in epic can use a Weapon of Evil Undone bow for their implement and take bow mastery to get a crit range of 19-20 on ranged implement powers, even if not proficient with a bow, and use bracers of archery.  Silly but it works and is one of the less restrictive ways for ranged clerics to get improved crit.
FlailsThe triple headed flail is not a bad choice for str/dex boosting races. Spike chain is decent for campaigns restricted to PHB material and works well for regular campaigns too.  If you do not plan to invest in weapon feats, then a +3 flail works as well as a +3 sword (Alhulak is available via a background). Flail expertise is good with a few builds too.
Hammers It is tricky to get the con you need for all the feats. Dwarves should consider them since they get some free proficiencies.  Blue
for Moradin worshippers because of feats and a good paragon path.
Heavy Blades The +3 to hit with many of these helps with hitting with your powers and if you are a battle cleric with a minimum investment in dex you can qualify for the blade feats.
Light Blades The
rapier
is a good choice for small battle clerics and warpriests who can get it through a background.  Small templar clerics can then off hand a singing stick/light mace and light blades have some good support.
Mace
You are already proficient with basic maces and there are some very good maces that help heal and several weapliments.  Morningstar a good option now for battle clerics, especially those who take powers with effects on a miss or who want the simple weapon powers.  Singing Stick is +3 and also offhand and defensive.  Low damage, but has potential and using them as an offhand weapon and dual wielding them are options for small templars.
Pick
These now have the small keyword so a heavy war pick is an ok choice for a small templar.  Otherwise you can automatically pass this up.
PoleArm You might qualify for some feats like pole arm gamble and can hide behind defenders.  Unless you are going for a specific build that needs a heavy blade or axe, then great spear is probably your best choice.
Spear Great spears are an excellent choice with +3 to hit and reach and potentially allow for polearm tricks. Gouge is also an option.  And you have proficiency with basic spears already so battle clerics might want to grab a javelin for backup ranged attacks at low levels.  Only problem is you need a good dex to get some of the feats, but even that is possible if you really want it.
Staff Staff fighting brings this up to a very solid choice now, but you need to puts several feats into it: Staff fighting, staff expertise, staff of travel, and an mc feat that lets you use staff for implements if you plan to make implement attacks.  That all combine to give you a +1 to ac, a reach melee weapon, you shift 1 when you hit with melee attacks, and you can make ranged/area attacks without provoking.
 
 

Depending on what backgrounds you have available, ones that add perception to your list of class skills will in particular be a good choice for any cleric with a high wisdom.  Backgrounds that add athletics or endurance as skills are also good choices.  Gritty Sargant and Noble Bred for War are often good choices since they give free proficiency with a martial weapon.  Templars should normally go for the Greatsword, Alhulak, Longspear, or Maul.  Warpriests and small templars can get proficiency with the Rapier, Alhulak, Longsword, Warhammer, or Trident.  Pike, Warpick, and Heavy Warpick work for small clerics too.

Some other useful backgrounds are listed below, but these are setting/campaign dependent and several of them your DM may think are overpowered.  The ones that give you bonuses like a martial weapon proficiency, resistances, or let you use wisdom or strength to determine your starting hitpoints are all good choices depending on build:

backgrounds
[sblock]
Forgotten Realms Background: From FRPH or Dragon 366, 376, or 371

Proficiencies
Gritty Sergeant: Simple or Martial Weapon Proficiency, +1 to initiative.
Noble Bred for War: Simple or Martial Weapon Proficiency, +1 to Diplomacy checks.

Hitpoints:
Auspicious Birth: Substitute highest ability score to determine initial hitpoints.
Born Under a Bad Sign: Substitute highest ability score to determine initial hitpoints.
Impiltur: You can choose to add your wisdom score  to your starting hit points

Resistances:
Akanul: Gain resistance to cold, fire, and thunder.
Calmishan: Resist 4 fire, +5 to endurance checks related to thirst

Saves:
Arcane Student who Saw too Much: +1 bonus to saving throws to end daze, stun, immobilize, or restrain.
Crusading Zealot: +1 bonus to saving throws until you fail a saving throw.
Former Gladiator: It takes 4 failed death throws to kill you
Haunted Vetern: Encounter: Trigger (failed a fear saving throw) Effect: Reroll that saving throw
Necromancer's Chattel: +2 bonus to fear saving throws
Scorned Noble: +2 bonus saving throws when no allies are within 5 squares of you.
Touched by Darkness: +1 to save against ongoing necrotic effects.
Wandering Mercenary: It takes 4 failed death throws to kill you

Crafting
Imbuer: You can construct implements and wondrous items. Implement takes 2 days, wondrous takes 4 days. Item cost is the same as if in store.
Warsmith: You can create weapons and armor and can cast creation rituals.

Attack Bonuses
Chessenta: +1 to rolls made with action point.
Restless Dead: +1 to damage against undead

Other
Monster Hunter: +2 to monster knowledge checks
Sarifal D376: Gain Terrain walk Earth/Forest/Ice/Swamp
Windrise Ports D376: extra class skill and language
Officer Who Came Out of Retirement: History class skill. +1 to History and initiative checks.[/sblock]

There have been two groups of themes so far: Darksun and Dragon Mag style.  Darksun themes have more opportunities for free power swaps and are sometimes prereqs for paragon paths.  Dragon style themes have few power swaps, but come with extra features at 5th and 10th level.  Both give you an extra power at level 1.  Generally the rankings take in all those potential benefits, but you should almost always go with the Dragon style themes.  I don't include all themes, but ones that I think are fairly good for a large number of clerics. 

Warpriests in particular might like the Iron wolf warrior or sohei (or possibly darksun) themes since they have often have good attack power swaps for weak levels.   Also, I like ones with good level 2 encounter movement utilities since clerics have trouble with movement and that is a good level to swap that out.  Out of all the theme handbooks out there, I prefer mommywasanorc's Variation on themes(x) the most.

themes
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Dragon Mag Style

Bloodsworn (DSH) Encounter power lets you reroll a missed at will attack.  Bonuses to intimidate and initiative.  Level 5 feature is great for dwarves, but not that great for everyone else.  Very good level 2 encounter utility.

Cipher (D414) The main reason to take this is that melee clerics sometimes have trouble getting into position at the start of encounters and this will help with that, while giving a slight boost to initiative and some skills.  But it doesn't get any free powers and the power swaps are only decent for clerics.

Devil's Pawn (NevWin) A party unfriendly autodamage close burst power.  Also gives you fire resitance later on.

Disgraced Noble
(BOVD) The power Dirty Deed lets an ally make a basic attack against an adjacent enemy as an effect and since clerics don't get many of those so that is the main reason to take the path.  And you get a chance to prone.  The rest of the theme is just ok, with some charisma bonuses and a small bonus to allies saves.

Earth Forger
(HOEC)  A good off defender theme.  Party unfriendly close burst power that gives you DR and some other decent features.

Escaped Thrall
(DHS) You will hardly ever use the encounter power, but it gives you a power point (lots of feats open up if you have a power point) and decent features.  I am only including it because the level 10 utility has some potential if your party loads up on psychic damage and you take penance of blood.  And I think this is the only LFR legal way to get a power point from a theme. Otherwise pass.

Elemental Initiate (HOEC) Ki Focus Proficiency!  That lets you use weapliments regardless of deity or weapon choice so warpriest/zealot/balanced will want to consider it just for this.  But wait, there's more! You also get a free skill at level 5 and a +1 bonus to will.  And a solid reaction off striker power at level 1 and a very good level 2 encounter movement power swap.

Fey Beast Tamer (HoFW) A strong all around path, though nothing too specific for clerics except easier to get CA at range.

Firecrafter (HOEC) The powers don't scale well, but are an ok powerswap choice for warpriests who want some variety and if I wasn't playing a warpriest like that I would not consider it.  The basic encounter power is party unfriendly aura, but gives you a free minor action shift 3 at level 1.  Something like Lesser Roaring Flames works ok for a death domain warpriest for a level 7 swap.

Gloamwrought Emmisary (D400) A decent free action weakening+shift power and some ok boost to skills.

Guardian (D399) For those trying to minor in defender or who want some more off turn attacking.  Good level 2 utility.  Good skill boosts too.

Haunted Blade (D416) Only for str/cha builds.  Best part is the level 10 feature which lets you use charisma for initiative.  Your OAs can immobilize once an encounter and you get to roll twice for initimidate at level 5.  Decent utility stances and a not that great attack swap at 3.

Iron Wolf Warrior (D400) Good for charging off striker builds and death domain warpriests with a weapliment for the level 7 power swap.  Has good power swaps for storm domain warpriests and others as well since most of the other non-darksun ones don't get attack power swaps.

Ironwrought (HOEC) Roll twice for a melee attack as the encounter power with extra damage if both hit.  And DR while bloodied at 5.  Solid!

Kinght Hospitaler (d400) Shield of devotion power is a good immediate reaction power like reverent mettle.  You can use it twice per encounter at 10.  It also has good utilities.

Mercenary (D399) Good basic melee theme with no action prone power.

Neverwinter Noble (Nevwin) A decent off defender theme for humans.

Noble
(D399) Good for battle clerics.  Get some enabling with the theme power.  Use the free item for a symbol of the holy nimbus (its common).  Decent utility powers.

Order Adept: (D399) This gives you a good level one minion clearing power.  And you can swap out for wizard utilities, like shield.  And a bonus to will.

Ooze Master (D413) For lazer clerics.  It gives you a good minion clearing minor action implement power and decent level 6 movement utility.  Also acid resistance at level 10.  If you can get a mordant weapon, staff of fire and acid, or staff of corrosion it can grant a lot of CA.  Normally clerics want to stick with radiant damage, but making enemies grant CA whenever you hit them is very nice and probably won't use up any feats.

Outlaw
(D399) I can see dizzying mace builds taking this for the free action daze power. 

Ordained Priest: (D399) Pick between two good first level powers: a good defensive melee weapon power or a close blast radiant power.  Also religion and inisght with bonus to your allies saves

Pack Outcast
(NevWin) This is a solid path for melee builds with free CA and a good level 2 utility.

Primordial Adept
(HOEC) A good implement controllerish theme.  Either a cold blast power (with push and vuln cold) or a area fire power (with prone difficult terrain), both party unfriendly.  The kicker is that at level 10 you either get a +2 power bonus to cold and lightning or fire and thunder damage.  For someone who has a lot of correllon or storm domain type powers that could be useful. 

Reaver (BOVD) A solid theme for melee clerics.  A good buff for a melee weapon attack and useful level 2 movement utility.  Also some free temphitpoints at level 10.

Samurai
(D404) A good positioning power for weapon clerics, decent skill boost and extra damage on waepon crits.

Sensate
(D414) A very strong stream of temp hitpoints when you use encounter or daily attack powers and a good power boost to all skills while you have temp hitpoints at level 10.   Unfortunately doesn't have a free power or obvious power swaps for clerics.  If you are off defending this is a good, but boring choice.

Seeker of Illifan
(D403) Lets you reroll a 1 and you can't be surprised at level 10.

Seer Good tactical feature and bonuses to useful skills.  This is sky blue because it helps you to know when to use favor of the gods and similar powers.

Sidhe Lord (HoFey) Only reason to take this is the wierd level 2 action point utilty.  It will give you good enabling most encounters.

Sohei
(D404) Very good minor action weapon power.  Plus good power subsititutions for warpriests anda  good level 2 utility.  And good boosts to skills and some saves.

Son of Alagonder
(D403) Good melee weapon themer. Dazing free action power and you help allies flank better.  Also free temp hitpoints when bloodied.

Spellscared Harbinger (Nevwin) Good extra movement or utitliy powers.

Tuanthan (HoF) Human or half elf.  Good level 2 utility and decent other features.

Underdark Outcast (DSH) The starting utility will only see occasional use for most clerics but it is a nice boost to offense and defense.  The level 2 and 10 utilties are good for clerics as well.  Decent skill boneses and a nice temp hitpoint boost when you spend a surge at level 10.

Windlord (HOEC) The main benefit is that it is good for bow clerics and correllon clerics who want a ranged weapon power.  Mainly take it if you want the good sliding encounter power and some flight at level 1 and maybe 10.

Yakuza (D404) Really for st/cha builds.  I mainly like this for the level 2 reroll power, which will turn a miss into a hit almost every encounter for a cleric with a good charisma score.  I wouldn't take if for a cleric without planning to take that utiltiy power.  And I would want to train intimidate somehow too.

Dark Sun (Only take these if you really need a powerswap for a warpriest attack encounter power or if you have too)

darksun
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Dune Trader For melee clerics.  Has a movement enabling theme with a good strength paragon path.

Elemental Priest An implement and conjuring themed path with a good healing focused paragon path.

Gladiator For melee clerics.  Good defenderish powers.

Primal Guardian An off defender melee theme.

Templar An arcane/implement leader theme

Vieled alliance Another implement controller/leaderish theme.

Wasteland Nomad For melee clerics who want to have some shifting/striker powers.

Wilder
An implement strikerish theme.
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There are a few things to consider before picking your Deity.  First off you need to consider role playing reasons and settings.  Some DMs may be pretty flexible about what domains and CDs are available for characters in home brew settings so if you use a homebrew setting you might be able to ignore the rest of this advice and just pick which one looks good.  For many campaigns you are restricted to just a few gods, usually the good/unaligned ones.  Also some DMs may allow you to worship a pantheon and to pick from multiple gods feats/domains and the rules do not explicitly forbid this and imply that you can serve a pantheon at several points.   Unfortunatley the online character builder does not allow this yet and I am pretty sure LFR requires you to pick one.

After you have done that you need to look at the mechanical choices and here is where it gets tricky.  You can build a perfectly functional cleric who does not take any Deity/domain specific feats.  But a lot of the domain and CD feats, along with some of the paragon paths and items, are pretty useful besides making your cleric feel more unique and they require you to worship specific deities or specific types of deities.  So if you want to focus on radiant damage for instance, it is ok to pick what flavor or powers you want for your cleric to be and then work backwords from there.  Here is a guide to picking a Deity/optimizing the Deity you picked. 
 

Warpriests and Domains:

Unlike other clerics, warpriests pick one domain or deity at creation and their powers are based around that domain.  Each domain gives different at wills, encounter powers, and special abilities and has a different theme to the powers

Here they are, ranked in rough order of effectiveness with theme:

Oghma Dazing powers and debuffs (potentially MBA enabling)
Domination: Pushing, proning and intimidation. 
Storm: Extra Ally Damage/movement
Torm Ally buffs and movement enabling
Sun: Saving Throws and healing/damage mitigation
Earth: Defensive focus/pushing
Selune Defensive powers and temp hitpoints
Death: Temporary Hitpoints and automatic damaging powers
Corellon Ranged/melee radiant/force powers and movement

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:

 
 
 
 
These are some of the powers you will be using most, especially at lower levels.  At-will powers from PHB and DP (excepting sacred flame) can become much more effective depending on what domain feats you take.  Warpriest at will powers are determined by their domain, but Templar clerics can select from them if they wish too.  At this point clerics have more at wills to pick from at this point than any other class with 31 different choices.  Because of this they get repetitive so the main recommendation I would make is to try to not take two that do the same basic thing like righteous brand and lance of faith or brand of the sun and sacred flame.  Wisdom templars should normally go for either brand of the sun or sacred flame unless they can get mark of healing.  For warpriests I mention if devout warpriest paragon path adds something at level 11 to the at will, but templars can ignore that.
 
 
Strength Weapon:
 
 
Battle Cleric's Weapon Mastery (D400) You have to wield a simple weapon for this, but at low levels you are doing striker range damage when using a weapon like a morningstar.  Not very leadery, but not a bad choice for someone going off striker.
 
 
Invigorating Assault (PHBH1) Gives adjacent ally temp hit points. This is more of a sure thing than Recovery Strike since there someone has to hit the same enemy, but you will be giving out more real hitpoints with that one.  Only for str/wis clerics, but they probably want a wis weapon power instead.
 
 
Priest's Shield (PHB) Obsolete and bad even before then. 

Recovery Strike (DP) Cha Healing without surges, but the ally needs to hit and you need to have at least some charisma bonus.  Post errata the only ways to consistently boost at will surgeless healing are through boosting charisma, the Weapon of Healing (mace), the healer's brooch, and the Holy Emmisary paragon path.  Only Str/cha builds should look at this and it has a couple fo decent domain feats.
 
 
Righteous Brand
(PHB) Gives an ally in burst 5 a +3 power bonus to attacks against the target. Post errata this is still pretty good and about equal to lance of faith.  This should usually be battle clerics first choice.  Power of skill
feat can make this a basic attack.
 
 
Weapon of Divine Protection (D400) Good damage, even with a simple weapon.  The best part is this gives off a +2 power bonus to defense to nearby allies as an effect.

Wisdom Weapon:

Blessing of Battle
(HoFL) (Sun) Con Damage resistance as an effect to you or an ally is good as long as you have a decent con. 
 
 
Blessing of Knowledge (Nevwin) (Oghma) Effect gives ally CA against target.  If you have allies who have trouble getting CA this is almost decent at low levels in a small party.  Fell Strike is normally a lot better since its more accurate and can be used on a charge and as long as the enemy is prone its granting CA.  Even oghma clerics won't be using this much.
 
 
Blessing of Law (NevWin) (Torm) Con Good off defender power, but blessing of light is probably better since its radiant and very similar.  Effect has enemies take untyped Con damage the first time they attack your allies, so its more likely to occus than blessing of light, but that has potential for more damage.  
 
 
Blessing of Light (NevWin) (Selune) Con
The effect is the first time the target hits you or your allies it takes con mod radiant damage.  This goes up to skyblue if you are pursuing radiant vulnerabilities.
 
 
Blessing of the Wild
(Nevwin) (Corellon) Can be melee or ranged. Effect lets you or ally shift.  Clerics don't have much movement enabling, but Icon of Fear now gives you another option which is usually superior overall.  This is barely purple since you can use it with both melee and ranged weapons.

Blessing of Wrath (HoFL) (Storm) Con Bonus to ally damage keyed to con as an effect.
 
 
Brand of the Moon (NevWin) (Selune)   Does both cold and radiant damage so hard to resist.  Effect gives you and allies a power bonus to saves.  With devout warpriest you or ally can also make a save.
 
 
Brand of the Sun (HoFL) (Sun)   This gives melee clerics a good option for saves, plus the save is an effect that can be used on you or an ally (that is rare for a leader).  Don't take this and sacred flame however and if mark of healing is available this drops down in value.  Devout warpriest add a +2 bonus to the save.

Burden of Earth (D392) (Earth) Push 1 and effect gives next party member to attack target a +1 power bonus to hit.  Good choice for hammer, mace, or spear users since you can start boosting that push through feats and items.  Icon of Fear is a similar power that is more accurate and lets an ally shift instead of providing the bonus to hit.

Earth's Endurance (D383) (Earth) Much better version of priest's shield since the ac bonus is an effect with a good range and you can apply the bonus to you or an ally.  With Devout Warpriest the bonus applies to both and the ally gets a +2 to fortitude too.

Fell Strike
(D409) (Domination) Prones and you can use it as an MBA on a charge.

Graceful Switch (Nevwin) (Corellon)  
This is a wierd power.  It does force and radiant damage which is almost impossible for an enemy to resist.  It can be melee or ranged.  And it lets you switch out weapons before the attack.  Devout Warpriests also give an ally CA against a target, but normally it doesn't do anything leadery.  For specialized builds.
 
 
Icon of Fear (Drag 409) (Domination)  Vs will and pushes 1.  And lets an ally shift towards the target.  Better for non-clerics who want to do polearm tricks/pushing tricks, but you can easily get this to a push 2 or 3 with feats and items, and with polearm momentum can add in a prone.  Devout warpriest also deal some extra psychic damage if the target is next to you at the end of its turn.

Shielding Strike (Nevwin) (Torm) Effect gives ally adjacent to the target a +1 power bonus to defenses. With devout warpriest its all your allies adjacent to the target. 
 
 
Singing Strike (Nevwin) (Oghma)    Effect gives enemy -2 to attacks.  Plus it does thunder and radiant damage so you can combine it with thunder shennanagins (mark of storms) and/or radiant vulnerability and its hard to resist.  Devout warpriests get to immobilize with it as well.
 
 
Silvery Arrow (D386)   Cha
Requires a bow, so only a very small number of elf, eladrin, and sehanine worshippers will probably pick this.  Does weapon damage and next ally to hit does charisma mod radiant damage.  For specialized builds only.

Sonnlinor's Hammer (D385) Cha A This is the only cleric at will that always counts as a basic attack without taking the power of skill feat or charging, which is the main thing it has going for it. The charisma rider is ok, but most clerics who want this won't have that good charisma score anyways.  Gets better at higher levels where you don't use your at wills as much since you can use this to avoid melee training.

Storm Hammer (HoFL) (Storm) Targets Fort, thunder and lightning damage, and can be used as a basic attack when you charge.  Devout Warpriests push 2, but otherwise its only damage unless you have Mark of Storm or something else that keys off the damage type.  More accurate then Fell Strike, the other charging at will, but that prones.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Seal
(DP) + Cha (healics) +2 extra to hit on top of and a nice debuff.  And healing without spending a surge. It does no damage which is a big + for healics (who need to take this power to avoid stuns), but a big minus for everyone else.  Post errata the only ways to consistently boost at will surgeless healing are through boosting charisma, the Weapon of Healing (mace), the healer's brooch, and the Holy Emmisary paragon path.  Its not normally worth it to boost your charsima enough to keep the healing this gives you meaningful, but pacifists have to.

Death's Shadow (HoS) (Death) A melee implement power . Roughly equivalent to lance of faith since it lowers the defenses of your enemy and does cold/necrotic damage.  Good choice for human ranged clerics as a third at will for when you end up next to enemies.

Gaze of Defiance (PHBH) The only ranged at will that targets will.  Does Psychic damage and is about equal to lance of faith (don't take both). Divine Oracles will want this and it works with psychic lock.

Lance of Faith (PHB)   Targets reflex and bonus works with any sort of attack instead of just melee like righteous brand.  If you are focusing on radiant exploits this is a better choice than gaze of defiance. 
Power of Sun can make this sky blue becuase radiant vulnerability is really useful.

Sacred Flame(PHB)   Cha Gives an ally temp hitpoints keyed to cha, which is nice. But extra saving throws get really valuable later on, a little less so if you get mark of healing.

Tenebrous Blessing (Hos) (Death) Con Another melee implement power vs will. Psychic damage and the target takes a penalty to damage rolls keyed to con.  Devout Warpriest also get a power bonus to their next attack if they miss with this.  The skyblue rating assumes you are boosting con as your secondary stat.
 
 
At Will Buffs From Domains:Your domain feats from divine power can buff 1 at will power and gives you a skill boost. Here are the at will powers and the relevant domains.  The rankings are for at will buffs, not for domain channel divinity powers.  Most of them are pretty useful, but there are a couple that can make your at wills worse for most builds since they change damage type from radiant to some other type that you normally get a lot less use out of like necrotic or cold.

Astral Seal (DP): Fate, Knowledge, Life, Torment, Tyranny, Vengeance
Lance of Faith (PHB):
Arcana,
Luck, Strife, Sun, Undeath, Winter
Priest's Shield (PHB): Civilization, Darkness, Protection, Strength, War
Righteous Brand (PHB): Creation, Death, Destruction, Freedom, Hope, Justice, Madness, Moon, Poison, Skill, Storm

Recovery Strike (DP): Change, Earth, Love, Sea, Trickery, Wilderness
 
 
List copied from despo1na
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Deities and Domains
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Domains & Associated Deities
Avandra: Change, Freedom, Luck
Bahamut: Hope, Justice, Protection
Corellon: Arcana, Skill, Wilderness
Erathis: Civilization, Creation, Justice
Ioun: Fate, Knowledge, Skill
Kord: Storm, Strength, War
Melora: Life, Sea, Wilderness
Moradin: Creation, Earth, Protection
Pelor: Hope, Life, Sun
The Raven Queen: Death, Fate, Winter
Sehanine: Love, Moon, Trickery

Asmodeus: Civilization, Tyranny
Bane: Skill, War
Gruumsh: Destruction, Strength
Lolth: Darkness, Trickery
Tharizdun: Destruction, Madness
Tiamat: Strife, Vengeance
Torog: Earth, Torment
Vecna: Knowledge, Undeath
Zehir: Darkness, Poison 
 
FR
Amaunator: Civilization, justice, sun
Angharradh: Hope, protection
Bahamut: Justice, strength
Berronar: Truesilver Life, protection
Chauntea: Earth, hope, life
Corellon: Arcana, skill, wilderness
Garl Glittergold: Creation, trickery
Gond: Creation, knowledge
Ilmater: Freedom, hope
Kelemvor: Death, fate, justice
Mielikki: Freedom, wilderness
Moradin: Creation, earth, protection
Oghma: Knowledge, skill, trickery
Selûne: Arcana, change, moon
Sheela Peryroyl: Love, wilderness
Silvanus: Life, storm, wilderness
Sune: Love, skill, trickery
Tempus: Protection, strength, war
Torm: Civilization, justice,protection
Tymora: Change, luck
Waukeen: Civilization, knowledge
Asmodeus: Knowledge, torment,tyranny
Auril: Storm, winter
Bane: Civilization, tyranny, war
Beshaba: Fate, trickery
Cyric: Madness, strife, trickery
Ghaunadaur: Destruction, earth, madness
Gruumsh: Destruction, storm,strength
Lolth: Darkness, poison, strife
Loviatar: Torment, vengeance
Luthic: Earth, protection
Shar: Darkness, knowledge,undeath
Sseth: Arcana, darkness
Talona: Destruction, poison
Tiamat: Tyranny, vengeance
Umberlee: Sea, storm
Zehir: Darkness, poison
 
 
Eberron
The Silver Flame: Hope, justice, protection
The Sovereign Host: Civilization, fate, knowledge
Arawai: Life, storm, wilderness
Aureon: Arcana, justice, knowledge
Balinor: Earth, strength, wilderness
Boldrei: Civilization, justice, protection
Dol Arrah: Hope, sun, war
Dol Dorn: Skill, strength, war
Kol Korran: Civilization, skill, trickery
Olladra: Change, freedom, luck
Onatar: Civilization, creation, strength
The Blood of Vol: Death, undeath
The Path of Light: Freedom, skill, sun
The Spirits of the Past: Protection, vengeance, war
The Undying Court: Fate, knowledge, undeath
The Dark Six: Destruction, wilderness
The Devourer: Destruction, sea, storm
The Fury: Madness, vengeance
The Keeper: Death, torment
The Mockery: Trickery, war
The Shadow: Arcana, darkness
The Traveler: Change, creation, trickery
Cults of the Dragon Below: Darkness, madness
 
 
Dragon #378 is the source for the FR and Eberron domains.
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Power notes: 

+ is for non damaging attack powers/powers that do not trigger the pacifist stun.
 powers with  radiant keyword. 
Cha/Con powers have charisma or constitution riders.

Also note that strength powers generally require a weapon.  Wisdom powers generally require an implement if they are regular cleric powers, but many warpriest powers are wisdom weapon. A fair number of cleric attack powers don't have attack rolls or don't have the implements or weapon keywords so their effects occur automatically.  Also, 95%+ of cleric attack burst/blast powers only target enemies and I will note it if this is not the case.  Finally, be careful to not overload on one type of effect for your powers. There are many powers that grant saves, temporary hit points, power bonuses to AC, let allies spend a healing surge, etc. so try to get at least a little bit of variety.  This is harder with warpriests unless they get reserve manuever or power swap, but you can still pick your warpriest dailies and utilities.  Don't overload on healing powers, especially once you hit paragon.

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:


Powers are organized by level and by whether they use strength weapon, wisdom weapon, wisdom implement, strength or wisdom implement, or other which means the power does not have an attack roll.  Utilities are 2 posts down to save space.

Clerics have 23 different choices encounter power choices this level and several of them are very good.  Strength clerics have 3 really good choices: healing strike for some off defending and healing, Mighty Hew which works well as interrupt if you have a defender good at getting enemies to attack him, and Sundering Might for simple weapon users that lets allies attack the targets lowest defense. 

Any one with a decent wisdom can get good use out of the autohit prophetic guidance, which is a good power to help with focus fire.  For implement users: Divine glow is a decent power for blasters and the only multitarget implement power this level, Cause Fear has quasi enabling since it can potentially provoke multiple OAs, and Bane has a debuff that competes with prophetic guidance. 

I think pacifists should be going for prophetic guidance or cause fear, especially if at least one or two people have good OAs in your party for cause fear.  Its even a good idea for them to have both at level 3.

For wisdom weapon users your choices are earthen hail for a good defense buff and potential minion clearing or illuminating blow for an excellent damage boost to multiattackers.  Sunburst is worth looking at at low levels if for some reason you don't have any save granting and Thought Twister starts off weak, but gets better the higher your level.

Level 1 Encounter
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Strength:

Healing Strike(PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Good damage: lets ally spend a surge, marks, and deals radiant. One of the best overall strength power in the heroic tier for clerics and it works for any strength or balanced build. vs. AC

Numinous Shield (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif  Not much damage, but creates a close burst 2 zone that gives a +2 power bonus to you and your allies AC.  There are wierd builds that can make use of it like if you have mark of warding or an architects staff for instance.

Mighty Hew (D383) Immediate interrupt vs ac when ally is hit.  Best part about this is that it is an immediate action and you not have many strength attack powers that are immediate actions.  Does decent damage and reduces damage by an enemy.  Sky blue assumes you have a reach weapon, solid defender in the party to attract attacks, or get other consistent way to exploit it.

Sundering Might (D400) Simple weapon +1 vs AC.  High damage and as an effect you and allies can attack vs the target's lowerest defense

Weapon of enforced Serenity (D400) vs AC with extra damage for simple weapons.  You will probably do the most damage if you hit with this power.  Effect reduces targets damage for its next attack by half.  Competes with Mighty Hew, but that is an immediate so it normally wins even though this might prevent more damage in some cases.  Sundering might will do more total damage overall when you include extra ally damage from hitting it more. 

Wrathful Thunder (PHB) Vs AC for thunder damage and dazed.  Only dazing option of the level so if you have thunder tricks its worth a look. 
War Priest's Strike (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Good radiant damage and target grants combat advantage.  But you can do better with almost all the other strength powers even wrathful thunder, since dazing grants CA.

Wisdom Implement:

Bane (DP) +
C Ranged 10 vs will with a good debuff to their defences and attack rolls based on your charisma mod.  Its real competetor is prophetic guidance.

Cause Fear (FHB) +
C Targets will and makes them run away.  This provokes OA, potentially several if you set it up right by using it on a surrounded enemy.  Sky blue assumes you have good BAs in your party.

Divine Glow(PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Blast that does radiant damage vs ref and gives a slight boost to allies. Only true multitarget power for level, but short range.

Exacting Utterance (DP) +Short range, grants vulnerability to enemy, and temp hitpoints to ally.  The debuff from Bane is better, but the temporary hitpoints almost make up for it.  Its really similar to Prophetic Guidance (this is wis mod vulnerability for your allies and that is wis mod power bonus to damage for your allies), but prophetic guidance is automatic.  If you have super accurate allies like rogues or avengers you might prefer this.

Shield Bearer (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif  Only long range power of level that does direct damage. The conjuration boosts allies AC until end of next turn, but there is a good chance it won't be near ally

Vengeful Flare (D379) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C Potentially highest single target damage of all ranged powers of level and decent debuff of enemy's defenses if you have used healing word. targets reflex

Wisdom Weapon:

Dread Revelation (D407) Pushes with extra psychic damage when they move next to you or an ally.  Good single target damage, but something like illuminating blow will noramlly do more damage overall if you have a decent con.  There are very few ways to exploit psychic damage at low levels.

Earthen Hail (D392) vs Fort against a single target, but you do you con mod damage to enemies in a blast.  Effect gives you and allies a +2 power bonus to ac and fortitude.

Faerie Flame Strike (NevWin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif
Ranged or melee and does fire and radiant.  Effect prevents enemy from getting concealment.  The only thing this has going for it is decent damage and ranged veratility.

Illuminating Blow (Nevwin)

Radiant damage and you or ally gets power bonus to damage equal to you con mod until EONT.  A much bigger damage bonus than thundering steel, but untyped.


Ringing Blow (Nevwin) Only 1W thunder damage and allies that attack the target get a +2 bonus to all defenses.  Very close to Earthen Hail, but that one is overall a little better since it also minion clears, targets fort, and the not as good defense bonus does not require anything.  Unless you have a thunder exploit I would take Earthen Hail first.

Thought Twister (Nevwin) Black at low heroic, but it gets better over time. psychic damage, but you won't have many ways to exploit psychic at low levels.  Still gives a decent debuff to the enemies attack rolls and its next save.  Bane gives a better debuff at low levels, but this damages.  I might retrain into this at late heroic since it gets better the more save ends effects your party gets over time.


Thundering Steel (HoFL) Ok thunder damage and ally will automatically do a little bit of thunder damage.  Unless you have a thunder exploit take illuminating blow instead.

Sunburst (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Allies get free temp hit points and a save as an effect and you do a little radiant damage.  Its good at low heoric if you don't have any save granting options, but I would retrain out of it once you have a chance to improve on this.  I wouldn't take it if you have an at will that grants saves or something like mark of healing.

Other:

Prophetic Guidance (D386) + Autohits range 5.  Target grants CA, takes extra damage equal to your wis mod and 1 ally can reroll attack against target.

Inevitable Doom (HoS) + Basically the next ally to attack does automatic 9 average extra damage.  I would always take prophetic guidance or illuminating blow instead.  Terrible power.

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Moment of Glory is the default choice since DR 5 for your party is very powerful.  Strength clerics with a focus on Damage will want to look at Weapon of Astral Flame and Shield of the Gods is a decent blast with a good shield bonus for an ally.  Beacon of Hope is still good, though comparable to Moment of Glory which is better.  Wisdom weapon builds generally want to pick implement daily powers, though lesser aspect of wrath is a good encounter long self buff and Nimbus of Holy Shielding is a good attack and defense buff.

Level 1 Daily
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Strength:

Avenging Flame(PHB) OK damage and the saving throw requirement discourages them from attacking a little bit.

Gift of Incomparable Strength (D383) Marks for the rest of the encounter vs AC for good damage.  So only take it if you really want to sub as a defender.  You can use it on a charge as well.

Inflict Light Wounds (D384) Weakened (Save ends) is a nice effect, but it only goes off if you hit vs AC.  Does little damage and not much of anything on a miss.

Shield of the Gods (DP) A close blast that damages and knocks prone. Potentially very useful +3 shield effect that you can transfer for rest of encounter

Weapon of Astral Flame (DP) Targets reflex with an ok debuff, but the real point of the power is its sustainable feature. Minor action to attack for 1(W) fire damage each round.  Best power for off striker melee builds, but not a very leadery power.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Condemnation (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C
Short range, but even if you miss it has a nice sustainable debuff that they do 5 + Cha mod less damage for the rest of the encounter. Better/longer effect than cascade of light, but moment of glory is very similar.

Beacon of Hope (PHB) +One of the best level 1 powers overall.  Use it early and boost your heals for the rest of the encounter.  It targets will and is close burst.  Post errata the effects bonus healing still works for later powers like consecrated ground and spirit of life.

Cascade of Light (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Good radiant damage and causes some vulnerabiltiy, but not that good for a daily. Only deals damage on a miss.

Font of Tears (DP) +Close burst dazed saves ends. OK sustainable zone that lowers enemies attack.  D

Guardian of Faith (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif At least it does not need to be sustained and does radiant damage. Slow, short ranged, targets fort, and limited to who it targets, but it attacks on its own.  I actually used this in my very first cleric and it was a good damage boost for the long slog fights we had with MM1 solos.

Inflict Wounds
(HoS) + Melee 1 auto necrotic damage.  Why is this a cleric power?


Moment of Glory (DP) +Large blast with an ok proning effect on enemies, but a solid sustainable resist 5 for all your allies in it.  Resist 5 all encounter long is vastly overpowered in actual game play.  I have read comments by people saying that at even low paragon this has trivialized encounters.  Best power for level and worth taking for any cleric build.
Either STR or WIS Implement:

Curse of Misfortune (D380) 
Close burst vs will.  Debuff penalizes enemies attacks (save ends) and does some automatic psychic damage.  Blue for low level battle clerics and balanced builds.  This is almost a + power since it only stuns if you miss.  If you hit you are not stunned since the damage is an aftereffect.

Horde of Spiders (DSH) Did the author of this power bother to read what other stuff cleric has at this level?  Some single target necrotic damage.  Ongoing poison if you hit.  Ongoing CA automatic.

Wisdom Weapon:

Lesser Aspect of Wrath (HoFL)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifvs will with a good personal effect: temp hitpoints, encounter long autodamage effect, and power bonus to attack

Levy of judgment (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifvs AC Good damage, but effect is ally gets to reroll 1 attack

Nimbus of Holy Shielding (HoFL) close burst vs will Allies get +2 power bonus to all defenses for encounter.


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Words are Not Enough is the best melee power for most strength primary builds, but high charisma ones will want to look at Sacred Shielding and a few other powers work with specific builds and parties.  Death Surge is normally the best of the implement powers with a nice immediate reaction burst attack and buff effect.  Radiant blasters might consider Light of Avandar.  Dizzying mace builds might retrain for Astral Flare, but close burst dazing can be decent for anyone.  Hymn of Resurgance is another good pacifist power with a good blast effect and some save granting/temp hitpoints.

For wisdom weapon you have a couple good options.  Hammering Wind is probably my favorite with decent control and good ally movement, but Allied Accuracy helps make sure an ally's next attack hits, Conquering Blow has a good prone with potential provoking, Granite Shield is good DR, and Inspired Steel can be good with crit loving allies.

Level 3 Encounter
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Strength:

Blazing Beacon (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Good if you are a range attack heavy in your party. Otherwise don't even look at it.  Targets AC

Hammer of the Gods (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Only potentially does extra damage. Targets AC.  You need to have some way to grant radiant vulernerability for this to be worth considering since other powers will do more damage otherwise and your allies need to focus fire some.  If you have solar enemy and are regularly setting up a ranger for a nova round for instance this might be worth taking.

Focus of Cascading Power (D383) C Targets AC.  Gives power bonus to ally melee damage.  Without a good charisma bonus pick something else.  Dark blue if you have very accurate allies or combine with prophetic guidance/favor of the gods since the damage bonus goes away when an ally misses with a melee attack. 
Inspire Fanatacism (D400) Simple weapon +1 vs AC.  Bonus damage if you are wielding it two handed. Effect reduces damage 1 PC takes by half for a round.

Split the Sky (PHB) Pushes and knocks prone. Thunder exploiters might want it. Targets Fort at least.

Sacred Shielding (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C With a high charisma you can be giving good DR to multiple allies. Without a good charisma bonus consider picking something else. Targets AC

Words are not enough
(D400) Vs AC against 2 targets.  Dazes and does extra damage with a simple weapon.  Your first multitarget melee encounter power.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Flare (DP) +
Skyblue for dizzying mace(x) zealot builds, but black if you are not a pacifist since I like words are not enough more.   Close burst vs will that dazes. Better choices that don't damage, but multitarget dazing is decent. 

Command(PHB) +
C Targets will Dazes and either slides or knocks prone. Sliding is nice if you have high charisma especially.  I would probably only take this on a pacifist build at this point, but I got a lot of use out of it when it first came out.

Daunting light(PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Good long range damage vs reflex.  Causes enemy to grant CA.

Death Surge (HoS) Immediate reaction close burst for psyhic damage vs fort when someone within 3 drops to zero.  And an effect that gives you and your allies a power boost to attacks and some temp hitpoints.

Destined Duel (D379) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs reflex Too close to lance of faith, but they also get a damage bonus if you used healing word that round. 

Hymn of Resurgence (DP) + Blast 5 (errata confirms this is a blast) that can potentially knock enemies prone when hit and lowers their defenses (errata says until the end of your next turn).  It has a nice effect of either temp hitpoints or save for allies in the blast.

Light of Arvandor (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Short range and small area. Grants allies AC power boost. First AoE ranged damage power, but not much damage.

Lost Love (D385) C  short range vs will for psychic damage and target grants CA.  Pretty even with destined duel.  

Wisdom Weapon:

Allied Accuracy (nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifRanged or melee.  Radiant damage and effect lets ally reroll its attack roll against the enemy.

Conquering Blow (D407) Prones and they provoke when they stand up.  So either they are going to stay down an extra round or take some OAs, providing they can't escape by teleporting or something. 


Granite Shield (Drag 392) vs fort and pushes.  Effect gives you aura 2 with damage resistance.

Hammering Wind (HoFL) Good control and push/prone power that slides allies around as an effect.

Heartening Strike (Nevwin) Decent temp hit point generation.  Not bad, but there is a lot of better competetition this level.

Inspired Steel (nevwin)  Low damage, but effect gives ally 18-20 crit range.  If you have a crit lover that is a solid effect for heroic tier.


Moonshadow Blow (nevwin)

  Cold and radiant damage and effect slows.

Resurgent Sun (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Competes with healing strike, but there is no mark, uses wisdom, and the healing is an effect.  If you really want to heal it is your only option this level.

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Strength primary clerics will probably want Hallowed Advance since it provides decent enabling and healing, but some might want Rune of Peace for the "can't attack" save ends or augment of war to put on a striker's weapon.  Implement users are probably going to pick between Servitude in Death since has potential for abuse and can let you dominate a powerful dead enemy long term and Iron to Glass is an effective debuff attack that nueters a melee enemy for the encounter.  Wisdom weapon clerics are going to want to look at Inspire Fervor for some effective MBA enabling, though Divine Castigation looks like a lot of fun if you have a good OA.

Level 5 Daily
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Strength:

Divine Juggernaut (D379) C vs AC Interesting effect if you can pull off a lot of uses of healing word and channel divinity quickly, but only if you have a high charisma and use the power right at the start.  If you do not have a high charisma take something else.
Hallowed Advance (DP) vs AC Kind of a warlordish power. Teleport a striker to let them get a basic attack in when they need to & spend a healing surge.  Blue for str/cha builds, but str/wis should take inspire fervor instead.  I used this on my laststr/cha battle cleric and it is consistently useful.

Rune of Peace (PHB) Low damage for a daily, but targets will and a save ends "can not attack". Even if you miss you deny the enemy at least round of attacks.

Wisdom:

Halo of Consequence (DP) +vs ref -4 to attacks and dazed when it attacks (save ends). Nothing on a miss.  I think it is inferior to Iron to Glass since save ends is worse than until end of encounter even with a penalty to the save and the Iron to Glass debuff will often be bigger and gives a decent debuff on a miss too.

Hold Foe (DP) vs will Ranged single target damage and Daze and immobilize (save ends) on a hit. Boring compared to other powers this level and does little on a miss combated to something like iron to glass.

Iron to Glass (DP) +vs will. Very fun attack debuff for melee enemies that gets worse and does not go away.  Will effectively neuter most melee focused enemies for the encounter.

Revealing Light (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Targets reflex and great against lurkers, but not much else. You ignore concealment and cover and they can not become hidden and take ongoing radiant (save ends). Much more situational than the other powers.

Servitude in Death (HoS) Ranged vs will that does necrotic damage.  When the enemy dies it becomes a dominated ally with one hitpoint that you can keep until it dies again. This has potential to be abused and the skyblue rating assumes you are dominating something like a elite above level artillery or something else hard to kill again, but your average new ally can be killed fairly easily with this power.  Worth taking for pacifists since you are not going to be using this on a bloodied target most of the time.

Spiritual Weapon (PHB) Conjuration that targets AC (very innaccurate comared to any other power this level) does little damage and enemies grants your allies CA if in the same square.  Can be sustained with the attack repeated at the cost of minor actions.  I think its the worst cleric power this level since most other powers will likely do more damage and/or have a better debuff without sucking up your minor actions (see Augment of War for instance).

Sundered Fortune (D386) + Area burst vs will with a decent save ends debuff to the enemies attacks.  Does damage keyed to wid mod when they hit with a an attack or fail a save, it but does not trigger stun.

Wisdom Weapon:

Divine Castigation (PLES1)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC for Damage.  Each time targeted enemy attacks you or an ally, you get a OA.  Good for balanced clerics.  Normally clerics are not great at OAs, but with power of skill, heavy blade opportunity, or other tricks like swift spear this can be a great power.  Note according to the rules compedium, OAs are a melee 1 attack so you can't use this with reach weapons against enemies 2 squares away.

Inspire Fervor (PLES1)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC You make a weapon vs AC attack for radiant damage.  Effect lets each ally within 2 can shift 2 and make a MBA.  Clerics don't really enable attacks in heoric, but this lets you do it once a day.

Other:

Augment of War (D384) Minor action to put a big damage buff to an ally's weapon that keys off of your strength.  Also causes hit enemies to grant CA.  More of a utility power, but it works well. 

Consecrated Ground (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C +   Uses charisma for auto radiant damage and surge free healing both keyed to your charisma (no implement or weapon keyword and no attack roll so it does not stun pacifists).  This used to be the best cleric power this level, but post errata you can no longer move the zone and no longer use healer's lore with it and it still sucks up minors, which drops it down to merely black.  An immovable close burst 1 zone in my experience its not big enough most encounters and all the good use I saw with it in real games involved moving it around.

Weapon of the Gods (PHB)  /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif + Minor action to make a weapon do 1d6 extra radiant damage and debuffs enemies AC by 2 when hit by the weapon.  Augment of War is very similar and will do more damage if you have a good strength score unless you have a lot of severe radiant vulnerability exploits, but by the time you get those your will be retraining this for a better power.  You can put this on your own weapon, but I would rather buff a mulitattacking striker the vast majority of the time.



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This used to be by far the weakest level for strength powers, but if you have a simple weapon Strength of Spirit is a great choice.  Strength clerics without a simple weapon should probably take a lower level skyblue power, but Strengthen the Faithful and Strike of Judgement are decent healing powers and Warning Strike is good if you have a good OA. 

Wisdom clerics have lots of options.  Searing Light is the first choice for radiant implement focused PCs.  Pacifists will generally prefer the good debuff from Denuncation, but Peacemaker's Light has some good near automatic potential damage for anyone with a good wis mod if your party can exploit either cold or radiant vulnerability and is technically pacifist.

My favorite wisdom weapon power this level is Fey Beguiling, because it means enemies can't use AOE attacks that include you, triggers potential punishments, and if any other enemy attacks you the target must make OAs against them.  Searing Brand blinds, Wrathful Lightning and Tactical Strike are both good ally movement powers, and Thought Storm is good for Dizzying Mace builds.

Level 7 Encounter
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Strength:
Awe Strike (PHB) vs Will and low damage.  Immobilizes.  Only thing it has going for it really is that it tarets will, but Strike of Judgement does that too.

Bolts of Warding (DP) vs AC. Slight lightning damage discouragement for enemies that stay next to your allies. 
Forgemaster's Flame (D379) vs AC.  The same as healing strike if you used a CD powers this encounter (with fire instead of radiant damage).  If you haven't then it might slow/grant combat advantage instead if you have not used a CD power yet.  I would take healing strike instead of this since radiant is better than fire and its more consistent and then some other good level 1 power like Mighty Hew.

Strength of Spirit (D400) Simple weapon +1 Vs AC.  Highest damaging power of level if you are wielding a simple weapon.  But the real goodness is the effect, which gives you and your allies a +1 power bonus to attacks and damage that will grow up to +5 when you and your allies get attacked.

Strengthen the Faithful (PHB) C Targets AC, but your allies need to be adjacent to the target to spend the surge. Bonus for high charisma. You will hit more with strike of judgment, but probably heal more with this one when you do hit.

Strike of Judgment (DP) vs will Has an effect of surge free healing for an ally within 5 if the target attacks any ally. Easier to use and more accurate than strengthen the faithful, but no healing if the target fails to attack for whatever reason.

Warning Strike (D400) vs Ac with extra damage for simple weapons.  A defenderish power that lets you make extra OAs against the target with a boost if they shift or make an attack that doesn't include you.  Mainly for off defenders who have a good OA through power of skill or Heavy Blade opportunist or something similiar.

Wisdom Implement:

Break the Spirit
(PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C Targets will, decent range and radiant damage, and nice debuff for those with high charisma. Similar to denunciation, but does damage, has better range, and slightly worse debuff so if you want to do damage pick this one first.  Searing light is generally better since blind is a better debuff, though this targets will so this has a niche use on divine oracles who want to do damage.

Searing Light (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Targets reflex with ok radiant damage. Blind is a good debuff.

Denunciation (DP) +
C vs will. Pacifists and high CA clerics might want this.  The debuff to their defenses is keyed to your CA and since they are dazed they also grant CA.  Also has penalty to their attack rolls equal to cha.  Searing light is generally better, but pacifists might want this since it will increase the chance of the enemy getting hit more than searing light.

Price of Violence (DP) + immediate reaction vs fort. Trigger is that enemy hits you or ally. Blinded is a good condition to apply, but it does not stop the hit since it is a reaction and only lasts till the end of your next turn so depending on initiative order the enemy will not be blind for long. Searing light also blinds (and technically for a little longer), has longer range, and does damage so if you want so if you want to blind I would pick that first and denunciation has a better debuff for the vast majority of ranged clerics.  The only thing keep this from being red is that you do not have many immediate powers and that can save some time.

Zealous Sanction (DP)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif  vs will Only ranged healing power this level.  There is a bit of confusion regarding the wording and I used to think that it only healed the first ally that hit, but CS says that every ally gets to spend a surge if they hit. 

Wisdom Weapon:

Blessing of Dust
(D392) Knocks prone and some damage, but at least targets fortitude.  But there in an at will and several level 3 powers that do a better job of proning so take one of those if you really want to prone.


Dreadful Warrior (D407) Does some psychic damage and conjures a spirit that causes the target to grant CA and which potentially does psychic damage to enemies that move away from the square.  Psychic lock builds can take a look, but Thought storm is better for dizzying mace builds.

Fey Beguiling (Nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifvs will with ranged or melee for radiant damage.  Enemy can not target you with any attacks (noe AOEs with you in them) and must make OAs against creatures that willingly attack you.  Try to combine with punishment of some sort for not attacking you, such as MC/hybrid paladin, Battle Awareness, or for Tactical Warpriest this triggers an OA or forces them to not attack that round.  My favorite power this level, expecially for some hybrids.

Searing Brand (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Basically searing light for weapon users.  Blinds with radiant damage.

Tactical Strike (Nevwin) A complicated power for helping you flank.  You can shift 1 and if you are flanking the target, the ally flanking with you can spend a surge and you and the ally get a +2 power bonus to attack rolls against targets you flank. 

Thought storm (Nevwin) Psychic damage and dazes.  Psychic and dizzying mace builds should consider retraining for this in paragon, but other clerics can pass it up.

Wrathful Lightning (HoFL) You throw your melee weapon at a target at range 5 and then teleport you or an ally next to it.

Other:

Peacemakers Light (NevWin)
+ /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifEnemies in close burst 2 take cold and radiant damage keyed to your wis mod when they attack you or your allies.  There are a lot of vulnerabilities (permafrost or radiant mafia) your party can exploit with this, but if you can't exploit them take something else.

Raven's Talon (HoS) + Automatic necrotic damage against bloodied enemies and if you kill the enemy an ally spends a surge.  I would be reluctant to take this unless your DM lets you have a good idea of the HP of your enemies and even then I would pick something else like Peacemakers Light since it will do damage to more targets and both cold and radiant are better to exploit.

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Strength primary clerics want Divine Power.  Wisdom melee clerics want an implement power.  Implement clerics want Blade Barrier if they have good forced movement in party or if you are wisdom without an implement at higher levels since there is no attack roll, otherwise Flame Strike is a good choice for blaster builds.  Dismissal and Rebuke Violence are both good similar pacifist powers, but I prefer Rebuke Violence.  A lot of other charopers prefer Dismissal.

Level 9 Daily
[sblock]


Strength:

Crucial Resurgence (DP) Close burst 1 vs AC.  Only guaranteed healing power of the level. You have to be bloodied, but it covers you and a good number of allies.

Divine Fury (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs fort Burst 1 of radiant damage. Creates a zone of potential surgeless healing for your allies. The zone is pretty small, can't be moved, and they have to hit, but if you can get a multiattacker to be in the zone it can be a lot surge free healing, with 10 HP a hit.  Its like the excellent utility spirit of healing without being able to move the spirit at all.  If you could move the zone it would be great.

Divine Surge (D384) vs AC.  Close burst 1 of good damage and those hit grant CA (save ends).  Divine power is flat out better.

Divine Power (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Burst 2 attack with your weapon, targets fort, and OK damage and push. But you get regeneration 5 while bloodied and you and your allies in the burst get a +2 power bonus to AC all encounter long. Combine with stream of life.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Defenders(PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs ref Summon 2 soldiers that do not have to be sustained and can make their own opportunity attacks for radiant damage. Pretty slow.  I would take blade barrier over this if you want a summons.

Blade barrier
(PHB) + Wall of auto damage keyed to your wis mod and save ends damage. Combine with forced movement for fun, but its not party friendly.  If you don't have good forced movement in your party I would probably take Flame Strike over this if you want a control/damage power.  No attack roll so battle clerics and pacifists can use it if they want.

Dismissal (DP) + vs will Interesting power. Guaranteed to remove an enemy from the battle for at least 1 round, possibly a lot more depending on if you hit and its type. About equal to rebuke violence, but I would give the edge to Rebuke Violence.  A lot of other charopers rate this as the best cleric power this level.

Flame Strike
(PHB)  Decent damage and high ongoing fire damage, at least 9 at this point, (save ends) to a area burst 2. Vs reflex, but not much on a miss and not very leadery.  I like blade barrier more if you have any forced movement in your party, but a lot of people like this power for its party friendly damage.

Rebuke Violence (DP) + vs will. Target can't attack (save ends at -5 until attacked), the save is potentially tougher and you can keep damaging it unlike with dismissal.  I think its a bit better than dismisal since it can still be damaged and keep the -5 to the saving throws as long as no one is techincally attacking it, while often dismisall will have an easier save.
Vengeful Ghosts (HoS) Blast 3 vs will for necrotic damage.  Creates zone that makes enemies grant CA.  Unless you are a Divine Oracle don't take this.

Wisdom Weapon:

Champion of the Gods (HoFL) close burst vs ac.  You get a power bonus keyed to you con for damage rolls, and strength/athletics checks.  Least worst of the wisdom weapon powers this level.

Crushing Despair
(HoS) vs ac for psychic damage.  You can keep the psychic damage up all encounter if allies are able to surround the foe, but no other leader benefits.

Divine Punishment (HoFL) vs AC.  Just single target damage, but it goes up if you have bloodied allies.  no leader type boosts or effects.

Pariah's Curse
(HoFL) vs AC  Effect is enemies that end there turn adjacent to enemy take 10 damage.

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Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:

 
 
 
Simple weapon strength clerics will want Divine Beacon, but strength clerics without a simple weapon will want Promise of Victory.  Deadly Lure is probably the best choice for any implement user in a party with good basic attacks since it is quasi enabling, though a lot of charopers perfer Remorse for the multitarget vulnerability+daze.  Mantle of Glory is a decent choice for radiant focused blaster builds as is Crown of Light if you have a high charisma.  Thought Crusher is good for dizzying mace builds and the best of the not very good wisdom weapon powers, but dizzying mace builds probably prefer Chains of Blazing Light or Remorse.  Silverlight Blow is the only other wisdom weapon power worth taking since it can put out a good damage boost for wis/con builds.  Hybrid strikers want to consider Union of Three Fates as a tripple tap.

If you have something like an AOE focused party I would probably go with Remorse as my first choice, but with multiple allies with good OAs I would go with Deadly Lure as my first choice.

Level 13 Encounter
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Strength:

Angel's Rescue (DP) vs AC . You can use when you charge, it does more single target damage than the other non simple weapon powers of this level, and you automatically slide an ally.   Errata changed the attack stat to strength.  Clerics have better ally movement powers now.

Arc of the Righteous(PHB) Melee lightning attack that targets AC and potentially hits another target 3 squares away for a little bit of control. Unfortunately clerics do get enough lightning powers to specialize in it easily. Promise of victory can do more damage if you set it up right without much difficulty and it debuffs. 
 
 
 
Divine Beacon (D400) Simple weapon str +1 vs ac.  This competes with promise of victory, but I would take this if you use a simple weapon.  The debuff will likely be bigger, is automatic, and it does more initial damage, but promise of victory is close burst 1 and can be any weapon so it will potentially effect more enemies.

Inspiring Strike (PHB) C Targets AC with 15 plus charisma mod surge free healing for you or an ally. Good for battle clerics who find themselves low on healing.

Invocation of War (D384) Targets AC for a little damage.  Gives bonus damage to next hit against target, with more damage if you wield it two handed. Silverlight Blow is better now, but this power was always fairly bad.

Promise of Victory (DP) vs AC Its a close burst 1 that debuffs multiple enemies' defenses.  If you find yourself next to multiple enemies a lot this is the best choice if you don't use a simple weapon.
 
 
Weapon of Peace Foretold (D400) vs AC Effect reduces enemies damage, but as written the OA part does not work.

Wisdom Implement:

Call to the Dark (HoS) + Causes one enemy in burst to automatically grant CA and take automatic damage the next time it is attacked.  You have several mcuh better similar powers this level like remorse that either do more damage or target more creatures and several dazing options.
Chains of Blazing Light (D379) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif + C Daze up to four creatures in burst.  If they get hit they take extra damage next time.  Similar to remorse, but bigger area, debuff is slightly worse, and does nothing for allies. targets reflex.  Mainly for dizzying mace builds.
Crown of Light (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C vs reflex Gives a nice power boost to an ally based on your charisma and then attack every enemy next to them. Use it on a surrounded ally.

Deadly Lure (DP) +vs will This makes them vulnerable to damage but has the +/- of also making them come right next to you. The DM gets to decide how they move to you, but its not technically forced movement so it provokes.   Or you can make an enemy walk past a wizards storm pillar or through your Blade Barrier, Concecrated Ground, etc.

Mantle of Glory (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Blast 5 that targets will, hurts enemies, and heals allies. Biggest size for level by far.

Ominous Portent (D386) Immediate Reaction vs Will.  Does a little psychic damage to an enemy that misses your ally and then they take a -2 penalty to hit and grant CA. 

Plague of Doom (PHB) C Targets fort, but potentially very powerful debuff for one enemy if you have a high charisma and does ok damage.

Remorse (DP) + vs will Makes enemies vulnerable, dazes, and lets allies in small burst spend a healing surge.  Works for duizzying mace builds.  I prefer deadly lure over this, but a lot of charopers think this is the best power clerics have this level.  
 

Wisdom Weapon:

Most of these are not very good this level.
Awenking Sun (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif An improved version of Sunburst that again gives saves and temp hitpoints to multiple allies.

Earthen Vanguard (D392) vs fortitude.  On a hit does extra damage in blast to enemies and has effect of +2 bonus to fort and ac to nearby allies and cleric.

Glimmer Strike
(Nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifRanged or melee for damage.  Ignores cover/concealment

Inspire terror (D407) A good bit of psychic damage, but that is it unless you are optimizing around the fear keyword as a domination warpriest.  Roar of thunder is about the same damage. Thought crusher does less damage, but has a lot more effects if you are going for psychic damage.

Roar of Thunder (HoFL) High direct single target damage power of level, but that is it.  Angel's rescue is almost as much damage, but has a cool effect as well
Silverlight Blow (Nevwin)

  This will do the most total damage of the warpriest powers this level if you have an ally with a good multiattack, which you should by this level.  You and an ally get a power bonus to damage keyed to con.

Thought crusher (Nevwin) Another psychic damage + dazing power, but you can start to take advantage of it this tier.  The implement dazing powers are better, but this in not bad if you want to be in melee. 

Thundrous Blow (Nevwin) Real similar to Earthen Vanguard, but this knocks prone and targets AC.  Effect gives power bonus to defenses to allies who attack target
 
 
 
Strength or Wisdom Implement:
 
 
 
Union of Three Fates (D380) (hybrid strikers) Not a great power for the average cleric and not very leadery, but it can work as a triple tap power with three seperate damage roles against a single enemy, which is very good for hybrid strikers with a weapliment or implement who mainly care about being a striker.  You target 1 creature and it takes damage from your hit and then you can do two more damage roles (one cold and one necrotic) against it or another 2 creatures and you let someone else spend a surge (its a poorly worded power, but that works RAW).  Only purple for normal clerics, but some builds will want it.
 
 

[/sblock]
There are not many choices for strength clerics here, but Ivory Rampart creates a decent immobilizing wall.  Tree of creation is my favorite of the implement direct damaging powers.  Penance of blood is excellent if you have focused on vulnerability.  Sacred Armistice has a very powerful no attack debuff that covers a large area.  Brilliant Censure is a good blind save ends with some extra radiant damage for the party for the encounter.  Wisdom weapon users should take an implement power this level or else Aura of Astral Radiance since it is has a good autoeffect.
 
 
 
 

Level 15 Daily
[sblock]

Strength:

Holy Spark (PHB) Targets will and does ongoing lightning damage to enemy and nearby allies so has potential to do the most overall damage of strength powers for this level. Miss effect is not good.

Ivory Rampart (DP) vs AC Doesn't do much damage, but creates a decent sized sustainable wall that provides cover for allies and immobilizes enemies. You do not get many wall powers so worth taking a look.

Wrath of the Faithful (DP) vs AC Good damage, reliable, and you get a bonus if enemy is surrounded so you will hit with it eventually. But no leader or control effects.

Wisdom Implement: 
 
 
 
Brilliant Censure (DP) +/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif  vs fort Close burst that blinds (save ends) and for the rest of the encounter your allies do extra damage if they are near you.

Drain Life (Hos) + Automatic necrotic damage.  You take damage too.

Divine Reprisal (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Immediate reaction vs will Lets you help an ally by letting them spend a surge and make a save, while doing a little bit of damage. Good for when the attack really messes them up and can prevent them from going below 0 or suffering from a nasty save ends effect.

Penance of Blood (DP) + Gives enemies vulnerability until end of encounter and greatly increases effectiveness of other vulnerability powers. If you took lots of powers like remorse this stacks well with them and increases its rating to skyblue.

Purifying Fire (PHB) C A Area burst 2 power that does ongoing fire damage and surge free healing for you allies next to those taking the ongoing damage. If you did not take flame strike this is similar, but with healing. Not much on a miss.

Ruinous Kismet (D386) C Vs will area burst attack that does damage and causes them to take a penalty to defense (save ends).  For rest of encounter allies do 5 + cha mod damage on a miss to target.

Sacred Armistice (D379) Targets allies too! +Large blast vs will that prevents creatures from attacking (save ends) and your healing word also buffs defenses for rest of encounter.  Very powerful if you hit since unlike stun enemies don't often have a way to get out of it, but tricky to set up since you often will be going towards the end of initiative if you don't ionvest in things like battlewise and you really don't want to hit party members with this attack.

Seal of Warding (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Close burst, targets will for good damage and does radiant. Creates sustainable zone of difficult terrain for your enemies that grants you and your allies cover from ranged attacks.  I would take tree of creation or brilliant censure over this.

Summon Black Reaper (D372) C Minor Action Fast flying summoned creature with reach that attacks AC with your wisdom, but deals necrotic damage based on your charisma. If it kills something you and one ally get surge free healing. Power says that it has reach 2 for OAs, but does not says it has threatening reach so that is your DMs call. This is an actual summons so it can be killed, but its not accuracte, wastes your standard actions, does necrotic damage, and its the only one clerics can get.

Tree of Creation (D375)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Close burst vs will that does radiant damage. Sustainable zone that protects against will/psychic attacks and lets allies make saves against dazed, dominated, and stunned conditions at beginning of turn. Does a little bit of auto radiant damage. Really good effects, but situational.
 
 
Wisdom Weapon:
 
 
Full Eclipse (D386) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C Requires a bow vs ac.  Ok single target damage and target is blinded (save ends). This would get a better rating except that Brilliant Censure outclasses it with no bow requirement and multiple targets. 
Levy of Damnation (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Vs Reflex for decent damage.  You and allies get to roll twice for damage against target.  Take an implement power instead.
 
 
 
Other
 
 
Aura of Astral Radiance (HoFL)/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif+ Sustainable Aura 2 that autoheals bloodied allies and autodamages enemies keyed to your wisdom mod.
 
 
Manifestation of Wrath (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif+ Close burst 1 autodamage keyed to wisdom, and you get same number of temp hitpoints.  You get +2 bonus to attack rolls for the encounter
 
 

[/sblock]
The toughest level to pick for cleric encounter powers.  Strength clerics get Divine Phalanx as a nice movement power or Violence Betrayed for some close burst 2 dazing as the best choices.  For wisdom clerics Sever the Source is an excellent vulnerability debuff and Death's Call is a very good immediate reaction close burst psychic power (my favorite of the lot).  Brilliant Idea works for any melee cleric and is automatic blind in a close burst plus some ally saves.  And there are other good ones besides those like enthrall, demand obedience, bastion of fanatacism, thundrous word, and winds of fury.
 
 

Level 17 Encounter
[sblock]

Strength: 
 
Bastion of Fanatacism
(D400) Simple weapon +1 vs AC.  Extra damage for 2 handed weapons.  Effect reduces damage to you and an ally by half till EONT.
 
 
Blinding Light (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Targets fort and blinds. Your only chance to blind if you are a strength pirmary cleric until level 29.  This level also has Brilliant Idea so I would consider taking that instead since that is multitarget and automatic, though this does radiant damage and is fairly accurate.

Divine Phalanx (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC  The effect teleports your party so the defenders are in front of you with the ranged strikers and other squishes behind you with a power bonus to their ac and attack.  Good to follow up with a close burst utility boost.

Halo of Peace (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC Ok Damage, but a good attack debuff. It help protects all your allies instead of the 1 sentinal strike definitely protects from damage.

Sentinal Strike (PHB) Targets AC and decent damage. Reduces damage from that enemy against 1 ally to 0 until end of your next turn.  Bastion of Fanatacism is usually better,

Violence Betrayed (D400) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifClose burst 2 vs ac that Dazes.   Effect gives you and allies +5 bonus to damage vs dazed enemies.  Extra damage for your attack if using a simple weapon..

Wisdom Implement:

Enthrall (PHB) targets will for psychic damage in burst and enemies are immobilized and unable to attack you until EONT.  Pre errata this was one of my favorite powers this level, but the size reduction hurts it a lot.

Death's Call (HoS) Immediate Reaction in close burst 5 for psychic damage when anyone within 5 drops to 0.   Allies get temp hitpoints and +2 to attack.  Similar to death's surge, but a bigger area and a little more damage.

Life stealing light (D372) Close burst 3 that targets will, does necrotic damage and potentially grants allies a tiny bit of surge free healing.  Death's call is a lot better if you want close burst, thunderous word is better if you want a standard action close implement power, and enthrall is better for divine oracles.  I used to give this a black rating before some of those powers came out, but I can't think of a build that would be better off with this power at this point.

Malediction (DP) + vs will Short range, weakened and dazed. The other pacifist powers are better.

Prescient Boon (D386) + C vs Will.  short range and allies get to roll twice to hit target and do extra damage if they hit with both rolls of 5 + cha mod.

Starry Snare (DP) vs fort /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Very useful against certain enemies like insubstantial undead, but it immobilizes everyone. Only single target, while enthrall also immobilizes, targets will, and has better range.

Thunderous word (PHB) C Blast 5 of thunder damage that targets Reflex and pushes enemies 3 plus cha mod and lets your allies shift 1. Clerics do not have many ally moving powers, but this one is only ok for that. The push effect can be pretty big by this point for high charisma types.

Wisdom Weapon:

Demand Obedience (D407) Close burst that prones.  Targets provoke OA if they stand up.  And allies get to shift as an effect.  Winds of fury is pretty close, but this has slightly better effects. Which one to pick depends on things like feat selection.

Gleeming Strike (nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Very similar to obsidian shield, but that does a lot more.  This does more direct radiant damage and gives you and allies some damage resistance while next to the target.
 
 
Harmony of Blades (Nevwin) ranged or melee for force damage.  Takes additional force damage when you or ally misses target.  You can do more damage with something like sever the source or have a better effect with another power.

Honorable Challenge (Nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifAn interesting defenderish power.  An ally can shift away from the target and if the target willingly attacks any of your allies it is blinded.
 
 
Obsidian Shield (D392) vs fort and slide your enemy.  Effect creates a zone where your party gets damage resistance and does extra damage.

Strength of the Sun (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Highest single target damage for level damage and as an effect you and an ally can spend a surge.  Not that healing is bad, but the other powers this level have more varied effeects and at this point you should have plenty of healing.

Winds of Fury (HoFL) Targets enemies in a blast vs fort and knocks prone/pushes.  Effect slides allies around as well.  Good control power.

Other:
 
 
Brilliant Idea (Nevwin) + Autoblinds in close burst 1.  Nearby allies can make a save

Sever the Source (DP) + This is an autoeffect, but keys off of wisdom for the vulnerability and prevents healing.  Use with penance of blood.  There are multiple errata threads complaining that this is overpowered because it ups party DPR so much.

[/sblock]

Strength clerics pick between Beacon of Doom which has the potential to be a good enabling power if the target fails his saves or Holy Wrath for some good self regeneration and a +2 bonus to attacks for the encounter.  For wisdom clerics Fire Storm is good fire damage for blasters, but it you have a radiant focus you will probably want Supernal Radiance more.  Moment of Peace is a big "no damage" save ends debuff and Miraculous Intervention is a stunned save ends in a close burst, but with the unfortunate trigger of an ally dropping to 0. Wisdom weapon clerics want an implement power. 

Level 19 Daily
[sblock]

Strength:

Beacon of Doom(DP) vs AC A Warlordish power that can be good if you have lots of people who can make good basic attacks. It does just a little damage and half that on a miss. The effect is a big penalty to defense (save ends with a penalty) and your allies get to make a series of basic attacks against it.

Greater Augment of War (D384) 5+ str mod bonus damage to ally's weapon and the hit enemy is slowed and grants CA to you.

Holy Wrath (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif This was updated to make it a weapon power vs AC for close burst radiant damage. Gives you regeneration 10 and +2 power bonus on attacks for rest of encounter so all clerics can find this effect useful.

Indomitable Spirit (PHB) Vs AC for ok damage. Lets everyone, including you, within 5 squares heal as if they spent a healing surge as an effect.

Necrotic Transference (D372) C Vs Will and does most single target damage. On hit lets one ally regain a healing surge.  Indomitable spirits effect is significantly better since it is as if everyone nearby spent a healing surge, even if you miss. You will hit more with this and possibly do more damage, but it is not worth it.

Realm of Battle (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC  Single target attack that creates a close burst 3 zone that gives a +1 power bonus of ac and attack to you and your allies, does some auto radiant damage, and enemies provoke OA on a shift.

Wisdom:

Fire Storm (PHB) area 3 burst vs Reflex for fire damage. Sustainable zone of fire that autodamages enemies who end their turn in the zone. No effect besides damage and not very leadery, but its a lot of party friendly damage.

Knight of Glory (PHB) Conjure knight that targets AC for damage. Minor to sustain and repeats the attack.

Miraculous Intervention (DP) + Immediate interrupt vs will. Let an ally that drops to ) heal as if they spent a surge and attack enemies in close burst 2 stunned save ends.  Tbat is a mighty powerful effect, but an ok trigger.  Moment of Peace will more likely prevent an ally from dropping in the first place.

Moment of Peace (DP) + vs will Blast 5 attacks deal no damage (save ends) or for until end of your next turn if you miss.

Shakles of the Grave (Hos) vs fort in blast. TARGETS ALLIES TOO for necrotic damage.  Similar to level 5 Servitude in Death since first enemy to die while in the zone becomes your dominated servant, but you don't get to pick which enemy this effects.

Supernal Radiance (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs will Radiant damage in a large close burst.  Effect is ongoing radiant damage/stops enemies from being concealed save ends.

Wisdom Weapon:

Gaze of the Sun (HoFL): /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif + Targets allies as well.  Blast 5 vs reflex that does 20 ongoing damage (10 on a miss) and while taking the damage they can't hide/have concelament/be invisible.  Supernal Radiance is very similar and almost always better, although sometimes this will do more damage and won't trigger the pacifist stun.

Other:

Wrathful Judgement
(HoFL) + When the enemy you pick damages an ally, you can as an immediate interrupt deal half the damage to the enemy.

Strength or Wisdom Implement:

Breath of the Raven Queen (D380) TARGETS ALLIES! Implement close blast 5 vs fort for cold damage and immobilized save ends.  Strength clerics might want this for variety if they happen to have a good weapon/implement since they might be at the forefront of the party anyway, but its too bad they get this at this high of a level.  If target fail saves they become restrained and then take ongoing necrotic.   Moment of peace and Firestorm are both better choices for most ranged clerics.

[/sblock] 

Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:


Strength clerics want Relentless Spirit if they have a simple weapon.  No simple weapon than you might want Divine Retribution or possibly Mortal Terror or you can consider a level 17 power that you didn't get to take like Brilliant Idea.  Blasters want Healing Torch if they have a radiant theme and a good charisma, otherwise they will want Spirit Flame.  Rebuke the Wrathful is great for pacifists and wisdom implement builds if someone in the party can force an enemy to attack through something like domination.  Wisdom weapon builds want Shared Secrets for enabling or Awful to Behold for blinding.

There are a lot of red and purple powers this level.

Level 23 Encounter
[sblock]
Strength:

Divine Censure(PHB) Huh? Targets AC, OK damage, and gives the same debuff as an at will wizard power. Why is this level 23? You are better off with healing strike than this power.

Divine Fervor (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif
vs AC.  As an effect you and an ally can spend a healing surge.  By this point healing shouldn't be enough to take a power.

Divine Retribution (D400) vs AC.  Upgraded version of warning strike so for those going subdefender.

Haunting Strike (PHB) Targets AC with a +2 and you get a power bonus on your next attack against him. 

Mortal Terror (DP) vs AC Target moves away by safest path.  It can technically provoke OA from your allies, but thee enemy can avoid some of them.  For some parties this could be dark blue if you have good tactics.

Relentless Spirit (D400) Simple weapon +1 vs AC.  Upgraded damage version of strength of spirit.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Blades of Death (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Great name, but just does radiant damage vs ref. 

Healing Torch (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C Burst of radiant damage, targets will, and effect lets all of your allies in the area spend a healing surge plus your charisma mod and gets a power bonus to their ac equal to your charisma mod.  Post templar errata the area is much smaller, but it is still a good power.

Rebuke the Wrathful (DP) + vs will When the enemy first attacks your party makes BAs against them.  Enemies can move out of range or not attack, but preventing a solo or elite from attacking for a round is good.  If you have domination or even somthing like Hypnotism in party this gets knocked up to skyblue.

Spirit Flame (DP) blast 5 vs ref for fire damage.  Efffect ends a bunch of bad conditions on yourself and your allies each lose 1 (stunned, weakened, etc.).

Word of Deterrence (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif +vs will Immediate reaction.  I have this as a non-damage power even though you roll an attack dice and potentially damage because the damage is caused by them attacking, not by your rolling an attack. The only thing this has going for it is that its an immediate.  Rebuke the wrathful is a lot better.

Wisdom Weapon:

Awful to Behold (nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifranged or melee, psychic and radiant and the target is blinded.  And nearby enemies grant CA as en efffect.

Earthen Chains
(D392) Vs fort for decent damage.  Effect knocks target prone for a round.

Moontide (Nevwin)

  Blast 3 vs fort that pushes and effect lets allies spend surge.  Healing torch or spirit flame will normally be better if you have an implement, but if not for some reason than this is an ok power.

Overwhelming Light (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif This would be darkblue if not for Awful to Behold, which simply does everything this power does and more. 
Sun Domain warpriests should keep this.

Revitalizing Shove (Nevwin) Moontide is generally better, but this lets you spend a surge too and it knocks the target prone.

Shared Secrets (Nevwin) A psychic damage attack enabling power.  Enemy takes attack penalty keyed to number of PCs flanking it.  Probably best wis weapon power of level.

Spirits of Victory (D407) Close burst psychic damage with a zone of CA for enemies.  Awful to behold and shared secrets are better psychic powers and moontide will usually target more enemies with a slightly better effect most of the time.

Thunder of Justice (HoFL) You throw your melee weapon at enemy and do high single target thunder/lightning damage.  As an effect you and up to 3 allies teleport next to target.


Other

Death's Touch
(HoS) + Another automatic damage melee power vs bloodied enemies that lets you and an an ally spend a surge if it kills the enemy.  I would always take Healing Torch over this.

[/sblock]
Strength clerics probably want Righteous Might, but Flames of Torment has a good single target debuff if you have a high charisma and it targets reflex.  Sacred Word is in general the best choice for wisdom clerics, though Call to the Hungry Ghosts is good too.  If you really want a pacifist power than your best choices is probably Life Lanterns.  Hopekiller is the only notable choice for wisdom weapon users since it can potentially put out some MBA enabling. 

Level 25 Daily
[sblock]

Strength:

Divine Reaping (D384) Close burst vs AC that weakens (save ends)

Flames of Torment (DP) C Vs ref for a lot of fire damage and ongoing fire damage and a penalty to their defenses keyed to your charisma mod.  For those with high charisma this can be a good choice.
Nimbus of Doom (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Vs Ac. Good damage and an OK -2 to defense (save ends) as an effect. But suffers when compared to powers like righteous might.

Prayer of Victory (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Vs AC and effect grants ally shifting and power bonus to attacks.

Righteous Might (DP) Vs AC nice effect that increases your reach, damage, speed, and ac.

Seal of Protection (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs reflex. Close burst radiant damage. The effect is ok. A sustainable zone that gives untyped +2 bonus to you and your allies AC and enemies end their movement when they enter the zone. 

Wisdom Implement:
Divine Intervention (DP) +Immediate Interrupt vs fort. Switch positions and blind adjacent enemies (save ends). You take damage and they get temp hitpoints.

Call to the Hungry Ghosts (Hos) Big blast vs will for necrotic damage.  It creates a good sustainable zone that weakens enemies that end their turns there and consistently grants your party temp hitpoints.

Life Lanterns (DP) +vs will Weakens (save ends) up to 3 enemies and can daze enemies/provide some surgeless healing.

Sacred Word (PHB) Stuns enemies in close burst 2 with psychic damage, but no stun on a miss and targets fortitude.  This is probably the best choice for balanced clerics this level since they don't mind getting up close.

Seal of Binding (PHB) Targets will and stuns. They errated this so that if you are bloodied you can't sustain it, but it can lock down one enemy in exchage for some damage and your standard actions.

Wisdom Weapon:

Subjugating Strike (HoFL) vs AC for Force damage and daze (save ends) if you hit, half damage on a miss.  Effect deals 10 points of force damage to nearby enemies.  Pretty sad for level 25 daily considering the other ones are stunning on a hit, increasing your reach, creating sustainable zones etc.   

HopeKiller (HoS) The effect is the target provokes OA from your allies that are not targets of its attacks.  Good potential for catch 22 situations with your defenders and melee strikers.

Other:

Soulshock Field (D375) + OK sustainable zone that does auto lighting damage to enemies. If an enemy dies while in the zone you or an ally gets to spend a healing surge. If you or an ally takes lightning or thunder damage while in the zone you can spend a surge as an interrupt. There are much better choices.

Divine Battle lord (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif + Close burst that knocks enemies prone and gives you a power bonus to melee damage and strength/athletics roles keyed to con.  Enemies that end turn next to you take 10 radiant damage for the encounter.
[/sblock]
Valorous Charge is the one of the best enabling powers in the game.  Take that.  The only other powers worth considering are doom of the unworthy for simple weapon strength clerics (which is close to automatic hits the next round for some allies as an effect) and healer's reproof for implement users which is one of a small handful of multitarget stunning encounter power in the game (there are only 3 others when I last counted).  There are other really good powers this level like auspiscious foresight, sublime light, and divine contempt, but they get outdone by the others.

Level 27 Encounter
[sblock]

Strength:

Brutal Grace (D384) vs AC for good damage and lets allies make a save.  Light of first dawn is better if you have a good wisdom.
Doom of the Unworthy (D400) Simple Weapon +1 vs AC.  Good damage and the effect lets allies treat attack rolls as a 10.  By this point most of your allies should be hitting on a 10 with any boosts you are giving them.

Punishing Strike
(PHB) +4 bonus to hit vs AC and good single target damage. Boring and does not help you be a better leader, but accurate.

Sacrificial Healing (PHB) C Vs AC. On a hit Every ally within 10 gets to spend a healing surge and add your charisma modifier.  Light of first dawn is better for the most part.

Scouring Smite (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Vs Fort and good area vulnerability debuff. Will probably cause most overall damage of all str powers.  But if ally damage is your main concern, Valorous Charge or Doom of the Unworthy is better.

Stroke of Ruin (DP) vs ac for necortic damage and weakens and damages or stuns with no damage if it has resistance to necrotic.

Weapon of Final Peace (D400) Decent damage and effect makes monster take damage equal to half of what it just dealt when it next attacks.

Wisdom Implement:

Auspiscious Foresite (D386) C immediate reaction vs will when an ally misses the target.  If you hit you damage + cha mod, enemy gets -2 penalty to defenses and ally rerolls the attack.  It stinks this isn't a lower level since I really like this power.

Divine Contempt (DP) C vs will Some damage, stuns and debuffs their attack after they are stunned.  Another power I wish was a lower level.  Healer's reproof is better because stunning 2 or more is better than stunning 1 really well, but this is a really good single target 2 round debuff.

Healer's Reproof (DP) + Close burst 1 vs will Stuns multiple targets and then heals 1 ally in area.  Range is tough for pacifists and lazer builds, but stunning is pretty powerful and right now there are only 3 other multitarget encounter stunning powers.

Herald of Inevitable Doom (HoS) Other powers this level are stunning or blinding multiple targets or giving out automatic surge free healing.  This power grants automatic combat advantage and some automatic damage against one target.

Scourge of the Unworthy (PHB) Good range, but only OK debuff and damage for that level and does necrotic vs ref.

Sublime Light (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs ref Blast 5 that blinds. Effect lets you and allies make a save and cancels enemies invisibility.  Wish it was a lower level.

Sunburst (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif C Targets will in area burst for radiant damage. Each ally in area gets some surge free healing with your charisma mod as a bonus and makes a saving throw.

Wisdom Weapon:

Earthen Fortress (D392) Vs Fort.  Good single target damage.  On a hit, enemies in blast 3 are then automatically damaged and knocked prone.  Effect is bonus to party's ac and fort.


Light of the First Dawn
(HoFL)
/tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif High radiant damage, and effect gives you and allies 20 temp hitpoints and a save.  Another power that would be decent at a lower level.

Staggering Moonglow (Nevwin) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gifSolid radiant damage and dazes.  You and allies get power bonus to damage rolls equal to con mod.  Divine Contempt is better if you want to single target debuff a.

Strike of Woe and Weal
(Nevwin) melee or ranged attack for force damage against up to 3 creatures.  You and potentially 1-3 allies can spend a surge, depending on how many enemies you hit.  Sublime Light and Sunburst are both better multitarget attacks.


Sundered Victory (D407) Immobilizes and prones, with OAs if they stand up.  A single target power needs to do more this level and its the only wisdom weapon this power without an automatic effect.  If you want to grant BAs take valorous charge instead at this level.

Thought Destroyer (Nevwin) Unfortunately the psychic dazing powers don't really change much over time.  Effect gives -2 penalty to targets attack rolls and next saving throw.


Thunder of the Dawn War (HoFL) Decent thunder damage and dazes. Staggering moonglow is much better if you have a good con and thought destroyer is a better debuff.

Other:

Valorous Charge
(nevwin) + One of the best enabling powers in the game and arguably better than the warlords enabling powers this level.  You and all allies in burst 5 can charge or make a basic attack.  Each target of the power gets a power bonus to defenses keyed to your con mod.

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Strength clerics have two decent choices: Astral Exile will remove one target from play if you hit with it and Stern Judgement has some potential ongoing blinding.  Astral Storm is a good sustainable zone of lightning damage for blaster builds, but if you like radiant damage you might prefer Breath of the Stars which dazes (Save ends) in a big blast of radiant and cold damage.   Pacifists will probably want Enforced Surrender, which is a dominate and beat up the target power.  Ordained Victory is a decent wisdom weapon choice for a daily, though I would probably go with an implement power most of the time for warpriests.

Level 29 Daily
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Strength:

Astral Exile (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs AC Does damage and exiles an enemy (Save ends) on a hit and dazes.

Godstrike (PHB) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Targets AC for 7(W) Radiant damage. Not really better than nimbus of Doom, which is level 25. Generally less useful than other choices since it has no leaderish benefits to it. I like some of the level 25 dailies more.  Ravage will do more damage most of the time.

Stern Judgment (DP) vs will. Potential blinding when they take the ongoing damage.

Wisdom Implement:

Astral Storm (PHB) Area burst that targets reflex with hard to resist damage and creates a big sustainable zone of lightning damage.  The errata made it smaller and less damaging than before, but is still a good area power.

Breath of the Stars (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif vs Fort. Blast 5 of cold/radiant that pushes 5 and dazes (save ends).  Allies in blast get lots of surge free healing.  Dizzying Mace and Radiant blasters usually want this one.

Chains of the Peacemaker (DP) + vs Will Really hinders one creature's attacks with a save ends and an aftereffect.  But Enforced surrender is better for pacifists.

Enforced Surrender (DP) + vs will Dominates (save ends) and then lets allies beat up on it as an aftereffect creature.

Wisdom Weapon

Ordained Victory (HoFL) vs AC for good untyped damage and allies get to roll twice for all attacks against the target EONT.  Unless you have avengers or others in your party who already roll twice this is a good buff, but I prefer a couple of the implement options.

Visage of the Gods (HoFL) vs will. Melee 1 for some reason. Necrotic and psychic damage.  The effect: knocks prone, but this has a fear keyword so I think some enemies will be immune to that effect.  This rivals godstrike.  Why is it so hard to make some good level 29 cleric powers?  Ravage will do more damage most of the time.

Other

Ravage (HoS) It does your bloodied value of automatic damage and you lose a healing surge. Not a good trade off for non warpriests/zealots, but it can be a lot of damage.

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Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:


A bit of warning about cleric utility powers: Clerics have a lot of standard action utilities.  Partly I think because clerics were one of the first two leaders they developed, but even a lot of the recent ones are standards.  These tend to be very good powers, but you can easily have all standard action utilities powers if you don't watch it.  At higher levels there are a few items like the Timeless Locket and Clockwork Cowl that let you use minor actions for standard actions as long as they are not attacks and those helps with that issue some.

Clerics have a decent number of minor and immediate powers you should look at.  And while clerics have some of the best healing utilities in the game you need to take some buffing or other sorts powers as well.  Its really easy to overload on healing so try to avoid that.

Level 2


Unfortunately clerics do not have any absolutely great utility powers this level like they do every other level, but they do have a few pretty good ones.   Angelic Witnesses, Bless, Divine Skill, Return From Death's Door, Sacrificial Aegis, Blackened Soul, and Shield of Faith are the ones this level that are not standard actions (several of these were errated to minor actions).  Pick one of those.  There are also warpriest utiltities that are written up at level 1 and I am including those here because I think all clerics can take them, but really only sudden inspiration is worth considering.

Level 2 Utility
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Daily:

Armor of Faith(DP) +4 power bonus to one ally's defense of your choice.  Shield of Faith is usually a better choice now.

Angelic Witnesses (D379) Creates at least on angel that occupies a square and heal an ally extra when they spend a surge.  Each time you use healing word or channel divinity it creates another.  They need to be sustained, but can be moved. 

Blackened Soul (HoS) Good bonuses and lots of healing for a dying ally.

Bless (PHB)  A plus +1 power bonus to attack for your party, so it won't stack with many of your other bonuses.  With the errata it is now a minor action and I would take it if you avoided all the other power bonus to attack powers.

Cure Light Wounds (PHB)  Possibly useful at lower levels if you have a low con party with long workdays. Less useful at higher levels when you have more surge free healing options so if you do take it at 2nd retrain it later.  Now that they have errated surge free healing so much this drops down from black to purple.  I would take either Resurgent Strength or Blackened Soul.

Fey Sight
(Nevwin) Minor action for low light vision for party and +2 to perception checks.

Holy Vestments (DP)  You and potentially other allies get some resistance. Retrain this at latter levels when resistance becomes more common.

Life Transference (DP) Erratted to be a daily, which knocks it from potentially skyblue to black.  Only worth taking if you have access to temp hit points, lots of surges, or regeneration and squishy allies.  Otherwise cure light wounds is better.

Moon Weapon (Nevwin) Level 1 Weapon sheds light, is silvered, and does radiant damage if it didn't already do a type.

Resurgent Strength (HoFL) Minor action for you or ally to spend a surge and get a damage bonus.

Return From Death's Door (DP) Good long ranged immediate interrupt for dying allies. If you are doing your job right you will not you need it much, but it is great when you need it and the reaction part is the main reason to go for it.

Sacrificial Aegis (D384) You take a surge worth of damage and an ally gets twice as much in temp hitpoints.  Main thing going for it vs life transference is that Sacrificial Aegis is a minor action.  This is blue for warpriests/zealots with squishy allies since they have the surges to spare, but black for other builds.

Shield of Faith (PHB)  With the errata this is now a minor action which ups its usefullness a lot in my opinion.  Probably the default choice for most clerics.

Veil of Darkness (HoS) An immovable and sustainable zone of darkness.  Some parties could make use of this, but I don't like that you have to sustain it and that it can't be moved.

Encounter:

Create Water (Hofl) level 1 Makes water.  Skyblue in darksun.

Divine Aid (PHB) C Extra saving throws are always good and you get to add your cha bonus. Good for those who do not have sacred flame/brand of the sun.  Also this is the only cleric power until level 27 that can grant the cleric a save besides brand of the sun.  To bad it is a standard action, or else this would get a blue rating.

Divine Skill (DP) C Minor action for a bonus to skill check keyed to Charisma.  Strength clerics in campaigns with lots of skill challenges might like this. but normally sudden inspiration is better.

Eye of the Vulture (HoS) level 1 Minor to learn which creatures in burst have low hitpoints.

Inspire Dread (D409) level 1 +2 power bonus to your next intimidate check.

Sanctuary (PHB) Useful when allies are in real trouble: stunned, petrified, etc.

Stone Speak (D392) level 1 Minor action to give you a +5 power bonus to perception to find a hidden creature or object.

Sudden Inspiration
(Nevwin) Level 1.  Interrupt to give an ally a boost to a failed skill check equal to your Wisdom mod.

At Will:

True Strike (NevWin) level 1.  +4 untyped bonus to allies next attack!  Too bad its a standard action.  I guess if your battle cleric is immbolized and not near any enemies or you have a massive penalty to your attacks like blinded with no close/area attacks this is good to have in reserve, but it is extremely situational.

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Level 6

Post errata the two best choices this level are still probably spirit of life and stream of healing and which one you pick should depend on party makeup and how you have otherwise built your character.  Bastion of health is a good choice for templars and hybrids since it also boosts the target's attack roll, but it provokes OA.  I might take it at 6 and then retrain at 9 or 10 for a different one if I took word of vigor at 10.  Divine favor or holy celerity are the other good choices this level, particularly if you think you have enough healing already and are worthy of more attention now.   If you take a daily power this level, you should probably take an encounter power at 10 since you probably took a daily at 2.

Level 6 Utility
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Daily:

Blades of Holy Fire (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Helps allies overcome resistances/exploit vulnerabilities, but only does a little damage.

Cure Serious Wounds(PHB) Standard action surge free healing.  Good for long work days out of combat healing, but with DP there are better surge free options at this level now and it no longer gets healer's lore or other bonuses.

Divine Favor (DP) It is a standard action, but a good buff to put on a striker or controller.

Divine Vigor (PHB) Not bad for very large parties in huge battles, but with encounter long surge free healing from other powers it is not as useful as it used to be. For some parties it is worth taking.  Pretty much only take this if you have multiple dwarves or wardens in the party.  Siezed destiny is similar sized boost and probably a little better, but is a standard action.
Gravesite (Hos) Creates a decent sized sustainable zone, where you and allies do extra damage and where you all get some surgeless healing when an enemy dies in the zone. 

Light of Revelation (HoFL) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif Creates small sustainable zone that deals radiant damage to enemies when they attack in the zone.  Also gives you and alles bonus to insight and perception.

Mark of Victory (HoFL) You and allies get +2 power bonus to attack one target.

Siezed Destiny (D380) You and allies get temp hp keyed to your wisdom mod and +2 to will for encounter.  Its biggest drawback is that it is a standard action and has good competition from Spirit of Healing/Stream of Life.

Soul Cage (HoS) Hard to rank divination power that is mostly useful for roleplaying situations.  You can question a dead enemy or view a distant area.

Spirit of Healing (DP) Surge free healing for allies equal to your wisdom mod per round for whole encounter (pre errata this was 3X wis mod). Eats up actions, but worth it and heals more than Stream of Life for allies with multiattacks. Danger of losing it if stunned, etc.  Some argue this is better than Stream of Life and with some party makeups it will be, especially since it can potentially heal a lot more if you have people like wizards and rangers in your party with lots of multiattacks.  Post errata this is still a good power, but not as much of a auto choice as before.  Post errata this gets knocked down a little since the base healing was lowered by 66%.  With the right items this is still skyblue, but you have to work for it now.

Stream of Life (DP) Seems pretty easy to abuse if you have any access to regeneration since regeneration does not "reduce" damage (like a potion, divine power or are a longtooth shifter), which will heal at about the same rate you take damage. Encounter long surge free healing to potentially all your allies is really nice. Heals potentially more at than spirit of healing, does not need to be sustained, and uses less actions, but has shorter range and damages you.  Can be used out of combat to bring entire party back from 0.  I prefer this to spirit of life since you can use it the same encounter as another sustainable daily, especially for melee clerics who have to worry more about move actions and for higher level characters since you can get regeneration potions easily then.  Errata knocked down the amount of healing it gives out, but if you have easy access to regeneration through race, feat, or Divine Power this is the best big healing option for the level

Seized Destiny (D370) Temp hitpoints and Will defense bonus for potentially all of party.  Not bad, but with 2 other daily powers providing so much surge free healing you will probably want one of those.

Encounter:

Bastion of Health(PHB) C OK long range healing. Becomes less useful over time as you get more healing powers, but good for hybrids who might need the extra boost.

Gift of Good Fortune
(D379)  Grants save at range, but better if you have focused on divine fortune

Holy Celerity (DP) Allows you or an ally to ignore pretty common mobility conditions (slowed, restrained, immobilized) until EONT.  This is blue because you can use it on yourself and it is a minor action, but if you have mark of healing or other at will save granting you might not need it as much.  Clerics usually have lousy reflex scores and a lot of the attacks that have mobility penalties are reflex attacks so this helps mitigate that.

Walk Among The Wounded (PHBH1) You take a move action and all of your adjacent allies get AC power bonuses until end of your next turn. Often you will be moving that way anyway, but it is just a +1 or +2 bonus. It is not bad, but seems a bit underpowered.

At Will:

Holy Lantern (PHB) (black if you have tome expertise, which some hybrids like wizards or shamans should have)  Slight enhancement to perception and insight. Buy a torch instead.

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Level 10
Reverent Mettle is my personal favorite this level for those with a strong charisma since you can potentially get 2 uses of it an encounter in heroic with that number growing if you expand the number of times you can use channel divinity, all as immediate actions.  Word of vigor is a top choice, especailly for hybrids and for those with battle clerics lore.  Wall of shields is probably my favorite daily, but battle surge is always an easy choice and both knights of unyielding valor and umbral soul are interesting.

Level 10 Utility
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Daily:

Astral Refuge(PHB) Standard action that lets an ally escape for a couple rounds. Most of the time I would rather use word of vigor or even cure serious wounds. If they are out of the fight they aren't helping.
Battle surge (HoFL) Same as mass cure light wounds, but with a +2 power bonus to attacks EONT in exchange for healing a little bit less than mass cure light wounds. 

Godsight(DP) Truesight. Depends too much on what the DM throws at you, but if you DM likes invisibile creatures it is worth taking. Several of the other powers of this level will be more consistently useful.

Knights of Unyielding Valor(PHB) Interesting control options.

Mass Cure Light Wounds(PHB) C Battle surge is strictly better now since it is almost identicle and gives an attack bonus.  Only thing this has going for it is the charisma bonus to healing.  Its still a very good power, but battle surge is better. 

Phantom Vigor
(HOS)
This would be a good power if it wasn't a standard action.  It gives you and your allies temp hitpoints in exchange for surges and gives out a nice encounter long boost to speed and atheltics.  But Battle Surge is pretty similar and doesn't use up surges.  And cloak of courage does close to the same thing, doesn't use surges, and is an encounter power at a level where all the good stuff is standard actions.

Radiant Armor (HoFL) immediate interrupt to reduce damage from one attack.  Reverent mettle will get a lot more use.  Battle Surge will heal more.

Sacred Beneficence (DP) Lets an ally regenerate, but you can't be bloodied.

Transcendent Advisor (D384) Get a lot of help with party knowledge checks.

Umbral Soul (Hos) This is a good defensive boost (inubstantial and weakened) to put on yourself if you are a pacifist or on an ally that is not focused on damage.

Wall of Shields (HoFL) Creates a sustainable wall that boosts allies AC and immobilizes enemies. Probably my favorite daily cleric utility this level, though I normally take word of vigor or reverant mettle this level.

Encounter:

Healer's Balm (DP) Short range, but lets you relieve an ally with a save bonus for you. Strength clerics might want this since they tend to be short granting saving throw abilities, but other types might not be as interested.

Prophetic Protection(D386) C Interrupt.  When you ar ally is hit with crit, enemy must reroll attack with a penalty = to your cha mod.  This is only black if you don't boost your charisma.

Recall Ally (DP) Help out a trapped ally or helps bring a straggler/immobilized ally back to the group.

Reverent Mettle (D379) C Reduces damage ally takes as close burst immediate interrupt.  You get to keep using this each time you use a CD power so this makes divine fortune more useful if you have not taken any additional channel divinity powers.  At epic this can be used up to 3 times an encounter fairly easily and clerics are normally action starved when it comes to utilities.

Shielding Word (PHB) Immediate Interrupt. Kind of like shield for the wizard, but just AC for an ally. Blueif you know how close your DM came to hitting.

Word of Vigor (DP) Short range surge healing. Helps if you run out of healing words or for hybrids and will give you and your allies a nice attack boost with BCL.


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Level 16

All my favorite ones this level are standard actions: Divine Armor, Hallowed Ground, Astral Shield, Cloak of courage.  The charop consensus is to pick Cloak of Courage since you can use it before combat starts and its an encounter power.

Level 16 Utility
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Daily:

Air Walk (DP) Kind of like flying, but not really. 
Chosen Servant (HoFL) Ally gets to make an immediate save whenever subjected to effect.

Cloak of Peace (PHB) Really nice defensive buff for an ally in trouble, but it ends if they attack.

Cure Crit Wounds(DP) This should bring your ally from 0 to near full hitpoints, but takes a standard action. Not that this is bad, but with something like Divine armor, cloak of courage, or hallowed ground you could probably proactively do more to help multiple allies not need to be healed in the first place. And many parties will have lots of surge free healing options by this point.

Sphere of Shadows (HoS) A big stealthy zone for your party.  You all get concealment while in the zone and are able to hide more easily.   This will vary by party, but is a good bit different than what you normally get and some parties with sniper rogues or others who like to hide will love it.

Divine Armor(PHB) The bonus you get is only ok, but encounter long damage resistance is nice. Depending on your party this might become less useful at epic when this sort of resistance becomes more common.   Hallowed ground gives a better buff, but this effects targets rather than an area.

Hallowed Ground (PHB) The bonuses are all power bonuses, but they are varied and it is a close burst 5 zone.  Main drawback is that it is a standard action, but so is divine armor.

Healing Circle (PHBH2) C Big zone that increases your healing effects when allies spend healing surges. Good for non pacifist healers with high charisma.

Radiant Beams (DP) /tools/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-innocent.gif High resistance, but limited to necrotic and they do a little bit of auto radiant. Good if you face a lot of undead.

Encounter:

Astral Shield (PHB) Untyped AC bonus that lasts till the end of the encounter every encounter that can be moved around.

Cloak of Courage (DP)  Surge worth of temporary hitpoints for nearby allies.  Its a standard action so the the general cheese trick with this power is to use it right after a short rest.  Unlike most of the other standard action utility powers a cleric gets you can easlily use this out of combat at full effect and its an encounter power so it basically ups your party HP by a 1/4.

Unexpected Return (DP) A reaction healing power for when allies drop. Hopefully you will not have allies dropping to 0 each encounter, but it has good action economy and works with BCL.  All the other encounter powers this level are standard actions.

At will:

Eternal Barrier (D384): Lets you use a standard action to create a sustainable zone where your party can ignore difficult terrain. Why can't clerics get any good at will utilities like the warlock?


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Level 22

Good choices, but again lots of standard actions: Clarion Call of the astral seal is a poweful single target heal/protection power, Mass Cure Serious Wounds is huge multitarget surge free healing, and adjure the chosen is a very good enounter power party buff.  The two good minor action powers are purify for those who have neglected saving throw granting and the damage resistence encounter power ramparts of light.

Level 22 Utility
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Daily:

Angel of the eleven winds (PHB) Lets an ally fly and you can switch which ally flies each turn.
Clarion Call of the Astral Sea(PHB) Teleports them till the beginning of their next turn, heals them up, range and lets them move to a new location

Cloud Chariot(PHB) Five people can fly around all day with cover. You are in trouble if you have more than 5 or 1 of party can become/is large which can happen at epic.
Death for Death(D380) Ally trades surge for reroll of attack with your wisdom mod as a bonus.  That is a sweet boost and all but guarantees your barbarian friend hits with a daily he just missed with, but the other dailies are pretty good for this level.

Death Shield (Hos) I am tempted to rate this red, but it has some action economy value since you can activate it out of combat and the ally stays up for a little longer.  The first time your ally would drop to 0 it is at 1 instead.  I would be more in favor of this power if it was at a lower level.

Heal (DP) Must be adjacent. Mass cure serious wounds will usually be more useful. And clarion call of the astral sea also brings them up to max, but has better range and moves/protects them

Mass Cure Serious Wounds(DP) Heal most (if not all) of the damage for everyone around you without spending any surges. Probably best healing power of the level.  So if you are a battle cleric that neglected your healing powers than this is a good choice, but pacifists clerics probably don't need it by this point.
Prayer Made Real(D379) Power bonuses to saves and potentially defenses and attacks if you have used CD and healing word powers recently.  Power bonuses and conditions.  I like adjure the chosen more.

Propheic Fervor (D386) C Allies get initiative bonus and 10 + cha mod temp hit points.

Purify(PHB) Ends all save ends condition in a burst.  Errata made this a minor action, but it was a good power even before this change.

Revive (DP) If you screw up and someone dies, this brings em back, I prefer powers that prevent them from dying in the first place. The second level return for deaths door is better in some ways for mid combat since it is immediate interrupt and has better range. If you do not have that power that ups the value of this one to blue.

Sealing Deaths Door(Drag 372) No one can die while in this sustainable zone, but they can take damage. If they get pulled/bullrushed/teleported out of the zone they can die if they were at zero.

Spirit of Health(PHB) All it does is let allies spend healing surges.  Battle clerics lore barely moves this to purple.

Encounter:

Adjure the chosen(DP) Everyone in a close burst gets a power bonus to speed, damage, and attacks and crits on a 18-20.  Only reason it is not skyblue is it is a standard action.

Ramparts of Light (DP) Minor action DR 20 for an ally.  Adjure the chosen is the only other encounter power.  CB has listed this as a daily in the past, but its encounter

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Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:

I am mainly going to include black and above for feats unless it is feat specific to clerics or divine characters.


Feats I would look at for each build.  You will need to put off some of the recommended feats until paragon: weapon proficiency, mark of healing (a few warpriests shouldn't take it), healer's implement, expertise (varies by build which one), improved defenses, superior will, channel divinity or domain (depending on deity/domain) Last Legion Officer. Also: multiclass & racial feat.

Battle (str/cha): Battle healer, defensive healing word, mark of warding, improved initiative
Balanced (str/wis): battle healer, Shielding word, battlewise, coordinated explosion
Lazer: Defensive healing word, battlewise, coordinated explosion. distant advantage, superior implement training, implement focus
Healic: Pacifist Healer, Defensive healing word, battlewise, distant advantage, superior implement training,
Warpriest & Zealot (wis/con) Shielding Word, Battlewise, melee training,
scale proficiency(warpriest)

Cleric Class/Divine Feats
[sblock]
Battle Healer (DP)  Battle clerics will want this.  It is surge free self healing based on your strength mod, possibly multiple times each encounter and lets you worry less about keeping yourself up.  There have been some questions in the comments about if these hitpoints stack and the answer is that they stack with everything since it is additional hitpoints not any sort of "bonus".  This is a great feat for battle clerics and should on the top of their list unless maybe if you are playing a dwarf or longtooth shifter who can self heal reliably without using your other leader powers.

Battle Cleric Armaments (D379) Obsoleted by Drag 400. This used to be darkblue.

Defensive Grace (DP) Anyone who takes healer's mercy and has a good charisma will want to consider this.  Its usefulness really depends on how often you end up using that power and you will probably not use it each encounter.

Defensive Healing Word (DP) I like this better than Defensive Grace since you are probably going to get a lot more uses out of it.  With str/cha builds this is one feat I would try to get in there.  Power bonus that stacks with shielding word

Demonbane (DP) Target elementals with turn undead

Devilbane (DP) Target immortals with turn undead

Domain Synergy
(D379) +2 to hit with domain at will after using domain CD.  This really depends on whether the two are good to begin with since this the third feat in the chain, but ok choice for sun domain for instance.  For a few hybirds and half elfs this is sky blue since it can apply to hybrid paladin, avenger, and invoker at wills so it will cover both your at wills.  I have an avenger/cleric sun domain built based on this feat.

Fate's Warning
(D380) Must worship Raven Queen.  If you like divine fortune a lot this makes it better, but you should not take divine fortune


Fortifying Word (D385) Target of healing word gets +4 fortitude bonus and bonus to saves against poison.

Greater Turning (D371) Push when you miss with turn undead.  Only for those focusing on turn undead.

Greater Divine Fortune(D379) Don't take divine fortune to begin with

Harbinger of Rebirth (D379) Bonus to heal skill and ally bonus to death saves.

Healer's Implement
(DP)  Add yet another bonus to your heals.  Even battle clerics who are using implement/weapons or who have picked up a decent holy symbol will want to consider this.  Errated to only work on power's where the PC spends a surge, so this knocks it down from skyblue.

Nimbus of Light (DP)  This is only black if you focus on radiant powers and if your party has melee types that focus on radiant powers.

Light of Order (D381) If you don't like the level 2 utilities this lets you swap it out for the Light of Order power, a free action radiant damage boost and CA onto one hit target per encounter.  So for radiant builds
this lets something like Death Surge or Flame Strike trigger radiant vulnerabilities on a target.

Pacifist Healer (DP) Skyblue for healics, Red for everyone else.  Note that I think pacifist is the weakest of the 6 main cleric builds and I wouldn't take it.  A lot of people insist on going this route, but you don't need to go pacifist to heal well and it cuts off a lot of good options.  If you take this feat you need to build your character around it focusing mostly on powers that won't trigger the stun and not every party is right for a pacifist healer.  On the plus side this has been errated to only stun when you make an attack roll and do damage: so ongoing damage, sustained zones, powers that make other people attack, etc. do not stun.  There is confusion on the most recent errata and stuns since the summary of the errata used the original stunning text from diving power, but the official final errata document and I think the RAI as well is that it does not stun unless you make an attack roll and the attack does direct immediate damage.

Pacifist's Reward(D379) Really only for pacifist builds, but gives you temp hitpoints when you hit without doing damage.

Pupil of the all-father(D385) Moradin clerics.  You can enchant weapons and armors as if you were a higher level and can start enchanting at level 1.  Retrain this out later.

Purifying Light (D371) Scaling bonus to hit with radiant prayers, but only against undead.  This is very campaign dependent.

Shared Vitality (D385) Use your second wind on an ally.  Dwarves should maybe consider this

Shielding Word (D378) Targets of healing word get untyped bonus to defenses. Stacks with defensive healing word.

Spirit of Hestevar
(D387) Adjacent allies get scaling bonus to surge value, but you must worship Erathis.

Templars' Domain (CC) Only for Str/Cha builds and was darkblue, but obsoleted by battle cleric's lore.

Versatile Channeler (DP)  This has some potential and counts as your multiclass, but even then some builds might put it off until they have ways to recharge channel divinity like with glorious channeler.  It was a better choice for clerics before Favor of the Gods was published.  There are some powers like Divine Mettle that are worth taking by themselves.  Or if you are a battle cleric who multiclasses paladin you can take the feat Tireless Wrath and use the divine strength power until the end of your next turn.

Word of Retaliation (D379) Healing word heals your allies a little more if they are next to enemies.  For some parties this can be black such as when you have a warden/fighter good at surrounding themselves all the time.

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A quick note on damage feats: in general for leaders its better to focus on boosting "to hit" bonuses than it is to worry about boosting damage.  Not that boosting damage is bad, but you only have so many feats and many leader at will and encounter powers have riders that only take effect if you hit.  Usually getting these riders to take effect is more important than doing a little more damage.  I encourage clerics to look at feats like weapon/implement expertise, distant advantage, and coordinated explosion before looking at implement or weapon focus.  The big exception to this rule of thumb now is if you are taking some of the newer weapon powers that have come out since essentials since a lot of those have effects that trigger on a miss or hit.

General
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Battle Caster Defense
(PHB3) bonus to OA defense for your ranged/area attacks.

Battlewise(PLES) Eventually you will want this or an equivalent feat unless you are a pure strength/charisma cleric or doing a dex build.  You can put it off for awhile.
Coordinated Explosion (PHB2) Laser clerics should definitely take this as should some pacifists.  Really helps you hit with AoE powers and you already usually want to include your allies in them.  You can put this off for a while since you want things like expertise first.

Disciple of Freedom (PLES1) Warpriest won't qualify for this, but other melee clerics might want it since you don't have much movement ability as is.

Disciple of Light (PLES1) Giving your allies scaling temp hitpoints when you spend a surge while bloodied is a decent boost for many builds.

Disciple of Stone (PLES1) Give yourself temp hitpoints when you spend a surge.

Distant Advantage (PHB2) Ranged clerics will want to get this if they can find room for it.

Durable (PHB) If you find that you run out of healing surges and not doinga  con build consider this.  It is not a bad feat, but with surgefree healing it is less useful than it used to be.

Focused Mind (PHB3) Dazed and stunned are bad for you as is, but won't happen that often. However, combined with superior will this gets to be a lot better for divine oracles and pacifist clerics with damaging powers.

Grounding Shot (PHB3) Worth taking for ranged clerics if your party knocks people prone often.

Impending victory (PHB3) +1 to hit with at wills against bloodied targets.

Improved Initiative (PHB) Better initiative never hurts, but you have better things to worry about and probably only pure strength clerics should take this.  Battlewise is better for all but pure strength clerics and dex builds.

Improved Defenses (PLES1) I think you are better off just taking this one feat than any of the other three general improved defenses feats.  You are short of feat slots as it is, but superior will is awfully tempting and you can take both if you really want to.

Last Legion Officer (D396) Your surge spending powers let allies shift or give them an untyped bonus to AC/reflex.  That stacks with feats like defensive healing word and works on non-healing word powers too.

Melee Training (PHB2) Blue mainly for warpriests, who might get good use out of it.   But there are now wisdom at will powers that work as melee attacks for wis primary builds. Healics should not bother and balanced and battle don't need it.

Resilient Focus
(HOFL) If you can fit it in its a +2 feat bonus to saves.  This outdates a lot of other feats.

Skill Training (PHB) Perception (for everyone) and Athletics (for balanced/battle) are both worth taking.  But you are probably better off if you can get these through MC options since those give you something extra.

Superior Fortitude/reflexes(PLES1)  These are good feats, but you are better off with just impoved defenses because you already have other feats you could take.

Superior Will (PLES1) This is the exception to the ones above.  You will qualify for it and it lets you save for dazed/stunned at the beginning of the round.  For pacifists who want damaging powers and divine oracles at level 16 this is skyblue.

Toughness (PHB) Never hurts to have more HP, but only battle clerics who want to off tank should probably spend a feat for this.

Vicious Advantage (PHB3) If you take powers that slow and immobilize (clerics have some) this is pretty good.  Or else if your party takes powers that do this it is worth taking.
Wintertouched (PHB) Hardly any cleric powers have the cold keyword.  The only reason to take this is if you get a cold weapon, but clerics have a lot of other interesting options for weapons.  Ranged clerics need to almost always avoid this and look for radiant and to a lesser extent fire, feats.

Worldserpent's Grasp (HOFL) Clerics often have other ways to prone, but this works in some parties.

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Damage types and powers (not really feats, but relevant)
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Here is a rundown on cleric and damage type powers to give you a hint on how the damage type feats play out.  I am not including CD powers (except turn undead/smite undead), racial, item, paragon path, or epic destiny powers, just pure cleric ones.  Warpriests tend to do thunder damage with the storm domain, radiant with the sun domain, untyped with earth, and necrotic/psychic with death.  In general radiant is the one for templars to focus on, with fire and thunder your other two main options.  I haven't updated this for recent dragon articles, but it is close enough

Acid No cleric powers

Cold
4 powers: 2 Paragon (1 of which damages allies), 2 Epic

Fire 13 powers: 7 heroic, 3 paragon, and 3 epic

Force
1 power: 1 heroic

Lightning 5 powers: 1 heroic, 2 paragon, and 2 epic

Necrotic 7 powers: 2 heroic, 3 paragon (1 of which damages allies), 2 Epic

Psychic 6 powers: 1 at will, 1 heroic, 2 paragon, and 2 epic

Radiant 78 powers: 2 class feature, 4 at will, 35 heroic, 21 paragon, and 16 epic

Thunder 13 powers: 1 at will 5 heroic, 3 paragon, and 4 epic (half of these are storm warpriest)

This list is updated to include PHB, DP, PLES1 and up to Dragon 380

Here is a guide to optimizing damage types.

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Racial Feats
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Several of these feats require that you are a cleric or in a divine class.

PHB1/2/3
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Deva

Battle intuition (D374)  Better than improved initiative or battlewise.

Radiant Recovery (D374) Temp hitpoints when you take or deal radiant damage keyed to con?  Oh Yeah!  For warpriests and zealots.

Immortal Skill (D374) Makes memories of a lifetime do about 1 more on average.

Majestic presence
(DP)  Gives adjacent allies necrotic and radiant resistance and scales.

Auspicious Lineage (PHB2) average of +1 more to memories power.

Radiant Power
(PHB2)  Power attack for radiant implement attacks.  I do not like trading to hit for damage.


Dragonborn

Breath of Life (DP) Breath weapon only targets enemies and your allies get temp hitpoints.  Combines nicely with enlarged dragonbreath.

Adaptable breath (D365) Breath weapon can do a second type of damage

Enlarged Dragon Breath (PHB) Bigger blast.

Radiant Breath (D378) Breath weapon is also radiant

Dwarf

Dodge Giants  Later on you fill face a good number of large creatures so this can be darkblue in paragon.

Dwarven Battle Priest (DP) Get temp HP when you use healing word.  This is solid for wis/con builds.

Dwarven Weapon Training
(PHB) Great for battle, warpriest and balanced clerics since it combines superior weapon proficiency and almost gives you weapon focus too.  The damage bonus applies to implement attacks made through the weapons also.

Quick Steps (D391) If you can fit it in another +1 to speed.

Shield the Fallen (FRPG) +2 bonus to defenses of adjacent bloodied or helpless allies

Eladrin

(I really do not like the fey step add ons since they add extra conditions to an encounter power, but Healing step is probably the best of the bunch)

Eladrin Soldier (PHB) A good feat in general, but not many Eladrin clerics out there.

Elf

Blessing of Corellon (DP) Allies get to spend a healing surge when you use elven accuracy.

Wild Elf Luck (FRPG) Add 1d4 (average of 2.5) to elven accuracy.

Elven Precision(PHB) Add +2 to elven accuracy

Githzerai (PHB3)

Alhahn's Mindful Relocation
(PHB3) Shift your speed with racial power.

Dakshai's Body-Mind Union  Trade iron mind for a save with bonus.  Do not take with other feats that boost Iron Mind.

Gitzerai Blade Master Fullblades and extra feat damage.

Miryath's First Strike Potentially do a lot of extra psychic damage with your first attack of the encounter.  For builds with good blast/bursts this is good if you have boosted your initiative.  Take psychic lock if you take this feat.

Zuwoth's Enlightened Step This is useful for laser clerics who win initiative since you can use a ranged attack up close.

Gnome

Armored Warrenguard The rare gnome cleric probably wants this as his first feat since it gives you a +1 to your 4 speed in chain/scale armor.  And a AC bonus against large enemies.

Hidden Channeling
(drag 376) Gain concealment after channel divinity.

Goliath


Kord's resilience(DP) Adjacent allies get to share your stone endurance power.

Goliath Great Weapon Prowess(PHB2) If you do the math taking a superior weapon and weapon focus does a tiny bit more damage than taking this power when you are dealing with multi (W) powers, an average of 1 point per extra W.  But this is a still very good deal as it is almost the equivalent of those 2 feats in 1.  Great Axe is probably your best bet stat wise, but maul and heavy war pick also use con and greatsword gives you increased accuracy.  Morningstar is the best if you want simple weapon powers.

Makings of the blessed
(PHB2) Roll twice for first save.

Markings of the Victor (PHB2) Roll twice for first attack

Half-Elf

Remember you can pick from Human and/or Elf, though not all of them will do anything for you.

Adept Dilletante (D385) This lets you use Wisdom for your dilletante power, but restricts your MC choice to the class the power came from.  Still if you want something like twin strike or thunderwave to key off wisdom its a really good choice.

Religious Dabbler (DP) A second divine dilettante power, but you can't use both in same encounter.  Retrain this at paragon.

Halfling

Blessing of Avandra (DP) Successful use of second chance and ally can spend surge.

Lost in the Crowd{PHB) +2 to AC when next to 2 larger enemies, which is most of your enemies

Melee halflings will want to consider multiclassing fighter since that opens up a bunch of useful feats from dragon that make up for your small size.

Half-Orc

Invigorating Assault (D386)
When you are first bloodied you get to add the amount from your temp hitpoints to your healing for the next round.

Thirst for Battle+3 to init and another healing surge.

Human

Divine Approval (DP) Get a free save when you use a CD power.  Non sun warpriests will struggle with giving themselves saves, but you might not need one when you use a CD power.

Action Surge(PHB) +3 to attacks with action point.  Use with your AOE dailies.

Human Resolve (D377) Temp hitpoints that key off your charisma when you spend an action point.

Minotaur

Bloodied Ferocity (PHB3) Free MBA most encounters.

Vigilant Recovery (D385) Decent way to avoid CA.

Shifter

Sturdy Shifter(EBPG)Get scaling temp hitpoints when using your shifter power.  Probably the best of the lot.

Wild Senses(PHB2) If you have perception training then this might actually be worth taking because you also get an init bonus.


Tiefling

Infernal blessing (DP) Surgefree healing and an attack bonus for an adjacent ally when you  use infernal wrath.

Scion of the gods (FRPG) bonus to will and fort that you should retrain at paragon

Hellfire blood (PHB) Clerics have a good number of fire and fear powers.

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Other
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Changeling(EBPH)

Fickle Servant (DP) Pick whatever domain feats you want and get a +3 to religion.

Drow(FRPG)

Brilliant Darkfire(DP) Darkfire power causes radiance vulnerability

Instinctive Darkness(drag 367)Cloud of Darkness as immediate reaction frees up actions

Shadowslip (drag 367) You will use the shifting

Xendrik Weapon training(EBPG) Not that useful for a cleric.

Clutch of Darkness(FRPG) not bad improvements

Genasi(FRPH)

Elemental Blessing(DP) Racial Power gives ally temp hitpoints

Earthshock master (Drag 367) reliable and more damage

Fast Manifestation (Drag 367) More manifestation Power usage is good

Firepulse master (Drag 367) reliable and more damage

Genasi Fire Affinity (Drag 367) Clerics With fire (save ends) powers will want this

Genasi Frost Affinity(Drag 367) OK resistance/immunities

Primordial Surge(Drag 367) Temp hitpoints are nice

Extra Manifestation(FRPG) Combine with fast manifestation

Manifest Resistance(FRPG)Possibly overkill

Versatile resistance (FRPG) Best if you do not have any of them already  Does not scale

Goblin

Ankle Biter
(DHS) Better than weapon or implement focus since it works with most of your attacks with either a weapon or implement.

Hobgoblin

Hobgoblin Phalanx Soldier If you refuse to take battle cleric's lore this is a must have.  If do take battle clerics lore and you are playing a build that only needs a one handed weapon its a +2 shield bonus to your reflex.

Hobgoblin Weapon Proficiency Proficiency in all flails and spears (Spiked Chain, Gogue, Great Spear) and bonus to weapon attack damage.

Kalashtar(EBPH)

Clarity of Spirit
(DP) Use racial power, ally spends surge

Quori Shield(EBPG) Rare resistance

Telepathic Sensitivity(EBPG) DM dependent

Kobold (DSH)

Dragon's indominability (DHS)  This plus superior will means you will almost never be stunned or dazed.

Svifneblin (DSH)

Deepstone Blessing (DSH) Good for zealots and most warpriests.  Some warpriests already do the equivalent (domination and sun) with their healing words and selune also grants a lot at 10 with her attacks, but its useful for the other domains. 

Warforged(EBPG)

Holy Resolve (DP) More healing after using racial power

Warforged Tactics This situation will happen enough that battle clerics can make good use of the untyped +1 to attack

Revenant (I am not going do all the double racial feats.  They are generally worth taking.)

Past Life Flashbacks (D376) If you do not mind going last more often this is a nice boost.

Reaper's Resistance (D376) Scaling damage resistance is good.

Devious Jaunt (D372) If you have the int this is decent

Life on the Edge (D372) If you save your action points this is not bad.

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Weapon/Implement/Armor Feats
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Proficiency feats often need to be some of your first feats and you will need an expertise feat by late heroic.  You only have so many feats so do not go overboard here:

Expertise Feats  You need one of these by late heroic or early paragon at the latest.  Pure weapon using battle clerics and warpriests should usually take the specific weapon ones, but those don't apply to weapliment attacks.  Warpriests should also consider Devout Protector Expertise since it gives a nice shield bonus to all your allies.  Pure implement users should take holy symbol expertise or whatever implement you are using like staff expertise.  Weapliment users should go with versatile expertise or staff if you use a staff.

Holy Symbol Expertise (HoS) Helps avoid CA

Versatile Expertise
(PHB3) 
Holy symbol for everyone and then mace or whatever weapon you plan on using. If you are planning on using a weapliment or both a weapon and holy symbol take this.

Devout Protector Expertise (Drag402) Bonus to holy symbol attacks and weapon attacks, but not implement attacks through a weapon.  Gives a shield bonus to AC to all your allies when you have a shield.  The only drawback to this for warpriests is that it doesn't boost weapliment attacks.  But a holy symbol using death domain or another domain without a weapliment this is a good choice.

Axe Expertise (PLES1)
Lets you reroll 1s for damage.

Bludgeon Expertise (PLES1) Adds to pushes/slides.  Earth domain warpriests and others with bruden of earth should consider it.

Heavy Blade Expertise (PLES1) Bonus to AC vs opportunity attacks.

Light Blade Expertise (PLES1) Bonus to damage with CA.  Mainly small clerics should be using these with the rapier.

Pick Expertise For pixies and other small clerics who don't mc fighter.

Spear Expertise (PLES1) Bonus to damage when charging.

Staff Expertise (PLES1) No OA when you cast ranged prayers.  Only for those who MC into a staff wielding class or if you take staff fighting.

Armor and Weapon Feats:

Hafted Defense (PHB3) Obsolete unless you went with healer's lore.

Armor Proficiency (Plate) (PHB) If you have the stats for it consider this, but its not essential anyone.

Superior Implement Training (PHB3) Accurate or astral are your best bets, but warding is good for a small number of builds.  Not for battle clerics or non death domain warpriests.

Implement Focus (PLES1) Only good for lazer clerics and a few death domain clerics, but a good choice for them.

Weapon Focus (PHB1) Not a bad choice, but does not really help you be a better leader and no longer works with weapliments.

Weapon Proficiency (PHB) Unless you have a racial weapon feat (Goliath, Dwarf, Eladrin etc.), are going to use simple weapon powers, or have a good martial weapon proficiency from a feat/background/race, then battle/balanced clerics and most warpriests will want to consider getting a superior weapon proficiency based on their preferred weapon choice/stat bonuses fairly soon.  This should probably be your first feat in a lot of cases.  Other ranged clerics can ignore these and stick with a mace and possibly pick up proficiency with a singing stick for the +1 to AC. 

Moonbow Dedicate
(D386) This is only for sehanine worshippers.  Gives you proficiency with the shortbow, the equivalent of weapon focus for the shortbow, and you can use it as a divine implement.  For specialized builds, but pretty useful since you can do some interesting things with it.

Serene Archery
(D386) Must worship Sehanine.  Use wisdom for bow basic attacks.

Silvery Glow (D386) Must worship Sehanine. 2/3/4 scaling radiant and cold damage.


Staff Fighting (D391) If you want to go with with a staff weapon you will want this feat.  With the simple weapon powers in dragon 400 staff is now a good option for melee clerics.

Staff of Travel (D391) If you took staff fighting, follow up with this and hopefully staff of the traveler.

Symbol of the Sonnlinar(D385) Moradin Worshippers can gain proficiency with military axes, hammers, and picks and use them as holy symbols.

(Note that if you multicass in fighter or other martial class more weapon and shield feats are opened up to you from martial power, PHB and dragon.  There are really too many of these to fit into a cleric's guide, but some will be mentioned in the multiclassing section)
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There are currently around 100 different channel divinity feats you can take. I recommend picking CD feats based on three main criteria: 1. How often will I get to use it? Most CD powers either have a trigger or else only help in certain situations. Some you will be able to use every encounter and others will only come up occasionally. 2. How helpful is the effect? Sometimes effects can be great for every character, but sometimes they only help melee characters or have some other limitation, and sometimes the powers do not do much for anyone. 3. Is the power ranged or another type? This is mainly important for balanced or battle clerics since they are more likely be adjacent to an enemy and have to worry about provoking OA.

I base my color ratings on those criteria and anyone with a black or higher is worth taking for at least some builds. In general you only get to use 1 CD power each encounter, but there are feats and items that let you do multiple CD uses. Nothing in the rules says you can not worship more than 1 god or take more than 1 CD feat so if you worship a pantheon this might be appropriate, but check with your DM. LFR does not allow it and neither does the CB.  It may be overkill since in general you still only get to use 1 each encounter. CD powers with the healing keyword are not cleric prayers so you do not get to add a lot of the bonuses you normally add to healing powers. They may still be worth taking. Also, many CD powers are ranged, even ones that are used in melee situations or on yourself, so be careful since they provoke OA. The ones that are interrupts do not trigger the enemy's OA if it is their turn since no one can take opportunity actions on their own turn, but any other enemy next to you will get one.

Ways to get more uses of CDs: epic feat glorious channeler; cleric paragon path: astral savant; avenger paragon paths: dervish of dawn and radiant visage; Items: Champion’s Hauberk armor. Here is a miniguidethat expands on how to get multilple uses of CD per encounter and may be more complete than my list.

Domains and CD
[sblock] Source is DP unless it says otherwise. You do not need the domain feat to take the CD power.  Many of the power of feats are worth taking if you want to use the at will and you can always train them out at paragon if you no longer use them.   Generally you are better off taking weapon focus instead of one of the domain powers that boosts damage a melee at will does.
Arcana
CD Arcana Ward Potential scaling resistance
Power of Arcana (DP) Arcana. bonus and lance of faith becomes arcane.  Bonus to arcane powers.  Can be pretty good for MC arcane clerics when you combine with quickened spellcasting or the white lotus feats.

Change
CD Cycle of Change Transfer a save ends effect
Power of Change
(DP) Thievery.  Recovery strike.  Bonus to next encounter/daily attack.

Civilization
CD Anthem of Civilization You or ally gets attack bonus while you flank. For battle/balanced clerics.
Power of Civilization
(DP) Diplomacy. Priest's shield does more damage when you are adjacent to enemies

Creation
CD Creation's Secret Chance to not expend a daily magic item usage.  Skyblue rating assumes you have items like a Symbol of Victory.
Power of Creation(D374/DP) religion. Righteous brand (DP) gives ac bonus to ally. 

Darkness
CD Darkness Consumes Close burst concealment
Power of Darkness
(DP) stealth. priest's shield gives concealment

Death
CD Death Knell Kill a bloodied enemy or use other CD power later on
Power of Death (DP) Religion. Righteous brand does extra damage against bloodied enemies

Destruction
CD Path of Destruction  Roll twice for melee damage
Power of Destruction (DP) intimidate. Righteous brand does extra damage against non bloodied enemies

Earth
CD Earth Hold Automatically slow close enemies.
Power of Earth (DP) Athletics. recovery strike slows

Fate
CD Fate Rolls On Ranged. Penalize/reward someone who makes/fails a save. Only worth taking if you have a lot of save ends powers.
Power of Fate (DP) insight. astral seal gets bonus to hit vs bloodied enemy

Freedom
CD Path of Freedom Mass saves against a couple of movement effects.
Power of Freedom (DP) acrobatics. righteous brand gives bonus to ally's save

Hope
CD Hope Remains This provides nice bonuses and should be used with powers like Return from deaths door or other healing powers.
Power of Hope (DP)Diplomacy. Righteous brand gives another ally a bonus to attack

Justice
CD Immediate Justice (D374) Do radiant damage when ally hits 0. Knowledge
Power of Justice (DP)Insight. Righteous brand gives +1 bonus to all your bloodied allies on their next attack

Knowledge
CD Sure Knowledge Reroll a knowledge check
Power of Knowledge (DP) history.  Astral seal gives you a bonus to defenses

Life
CD Pulse of Life Make sure an ally makes their death save.
Power of Life (DP) Heal. Astral Seal also gives temp hitpoints

Love
CD Loving Sacrifice Ranged. Better take one that actually heals them and hurts no one.
Power of Love(DP) Diplomacy. Recovery strike can give temp hitpoints instead of doing damage

Luck
CD Imminent LuckThis is really nice for elves or if you have other reroll abilities
Power of Luck(DP) Acrobatics. Lance of faith crits on 19-20

Madness
CD Screaming Madness
Fun, but you do not have that many fear powers.
Power of Madness(DP) Bluff. Righteous brand penalizes the enemies next rounds attacks

Moon
CD Moon Touched OK healing and possible temp hitpoints for an ally.
Power of The Moon (DP) Perception. Righteous brand lowers their AC until the end of your next turn

Poison
CD Original Poison You do not have poison powers.
Power of Poison (DP) bluff. Makes righteous brand poisonous and do extra damage with it.

Protection
CD Sure Protection Extra protection from second wind
Power of Protection (DP) Heal.  Priest's shield gives ally bonus to all defenses

Sea
CD Sea Surge Slide an ally
Power of Sea (DP) Athletics. Recovery strike lets you take a save or give an enemy a save penalty

Skill
CD
Divine Excellence Bonus to skill checks
Power of Skill(DP) Bonus to all trained skills and righteous brand is a basic attack.  This is like heavy blade opportunist only a lot better since you can use it with charges and with other basic attack situations and there are no prereqs other than domain access.

Storm
CD Storm Sacrifice Storm warpriests and clerics with allies that do thunder or lightning damage can get a lot out of this.
Power of Storm (DP) Intimidate. righteous brand thunder and does extra damage.

Strength
CD Strength of the Gods Battle clerics should give the bonus to the wizard or sorcerer in the party.
Power of Strength
(DP) Athletics.  Priest's shield does extra damage

Strife
CD Sudden Strife Ranged Good when combined with slowing/immobilizing powers.
Power of Strife (DP) Bluff. Lance of faith does more damage to enemies near other enemies.

Sun
CD Solar Enemy Close burst radiance vulnerability!
Power of Sun (DP) Insight. Lance of Faith makes enemy vulnerable to radiant

Torment
CD Perfect Torment
Untyped save penalties! Good for parties that focus on this
Power of Torment (DP) Intimidate. Astral Seal grants CA

Trickery
CD Trickster's Fortune Penalize a save and potentially give an ally a save.
Power of Trickery
(DP) Thievery. Recovery Strike lets you or an ally shift

Tyranny
CD Master of Tyranny
Bonus to attack bloodied creatures.
Power of Tyranny (DP) Intimidate. Astral Seal automatically lowers enemies saves

Undeath
CD Undeath's Ally Ally gets lots of temp hitponts
Power of Undeath (DP) Religion. lance of faith becomes necrotic instead of radiant and does extra damage.  Radiant is better.

Vengeance
CD Small Vengeance Just a little damage
Power of Vengeance
(DP) Intimidate. Astral Seal causes enemies to take damage if they attack. 

War
CD Path of War
Untyped bonuses to attack/penalty to defenses for allies
Power of War (DP) History. Priest's Shield gets bonus to attack against unbloodied enemies

Wilderness
CD Grasp of the Wild
Creates area of difficult terrain
Power of Wilderness (DP) Nature. Recovery Strike lets you and allies ignore difficult terrain.

Winter
CD Path of Winter
resist cold
Power of Winter
(DP) Endurance. Priest's shield becomes cold and does extra damage, it is possible to make this useful, but cold in general is not a good damage type for clerics.

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PHB
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Armor of Bahamut Ranged interrupt. Turn a crit into a normal hit.
 
Avandra's Rescue switch places with an ally as a move action.

Correllon's Grace Ranged interrupt. Get a free move when someone else spends an action point

Harmony of Erathis Ranged Give ally power bonus to next attack

Ioun's Pose Ranged Give ally bonus to will defense

Kord's Favor Ranged Let someone spend a healing surge on a melee crit, at high levels this becomes blackwith a high melee crit party (barbarians, daggermaster rogues, TWF rangers etc.)

Melora's Tide Ranged. You or ally get regeneration while bloodied.

Moradin's Resolve Power bonus to next attack against a large creature. BY late heroic you will be facing a decent number of large creatures.

Pelor's Radiance Attack against undead. You can already take turn undead and I think you are better off not doubling up on that.  If you take healers mercy this is a better choice.

Raven Queen's Blessing Ranged. Drop an enemy to 0, you or ally can spend healing surge.

Sehanine's Reversal Ranged When you roll a 20 on a save an enemy gets your condition. Won't happen each encounter. [/sblock]

Forgotten Realms
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Angharradh's Favor Ranged After someone makes a save an ally gets a bonus to their saves.

Berronar's Salve Ranged reaction. Ally that hits 0 gets to spend a surge. This duplicates a couple of utility powers

Blessing of sylvanus Gives a bonus to an ally's healing surge, probably equal to your wisdom mod.
Chauntee's Blessing lets ally reroll a save with a bonus.

Eyes of Selune Reroll a failed save.

Fleetness of Mlelikki bonus to speed and ignore difficult terrain.

Glittergold's Gambit Ally gets to reroll attack or skill check.  This only becomes skyblue if you can use a CD more than once an encounter now that there is Favor of the Gods.  This is slightly better than favor of the gods.

Gond's Craft. Bonus with a magic item power. This will not be useful to many characters and many item powers are dailies as well so you will probably not get much use out of it, at least not until paragon.

IImater's Martyrdom An ally hit by a cirt gets to spend one of your healing surges.

Kelemvor's Judgment Kind of a toned down version of turn undead with bigger AoE.

Oghma's recall Bonus to knowledge checks

Power of Amaunater Extra radiant damage for any attack. Laser clerics will find this useful since it effects everyone hit by AOE power so it lets them pick up good non-radiant encounter or daily AOE powers and still do vulnerability tricks with them.

Righteous Rage of Tempus They issued eratta for this, but it is still a lot of damage.

Sheela Peryroyl's Gift Someone gets to make a save.

Sune's touch Ally next to you gets bonus to next attack roll or skill check.

Torm's Justice +2 bonus to attack rolls against bloodied creatures. This applies to all attacks so all clerics should get use out of this almost each encounter.

Tymora's Coin Roll a 1 or 20 and get a double roll later on. Clerics with lots of AoE effects will get more out of this since they are rolling more.

Waukeen's Silver Tongue Ally rerolls social skill check with a bonus [/sblock]

Eberron
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Ancestral Guidance Add your wisdom mod to a skill check

Arawai's Abundance Ally gets to spend a healing surge and +2 to defenses

Aureon's Instruction Roll twice for monster knowledge checks.

Balinor's Prey
Just a little more damage

Beacon of Dol Arrah This is always good for laser clerics and gets even better when there are paladins or other radiant damage dealers in your party.

Boldrei's Shelter Close burst power bonus to defenses, ok for battle/balanced clerics.

Kol Korran's Boon Makes sure excess healing does not go to waste.  Sky Blue for healics.

Light Within This can be tricky to set up, but potentially multiple allies can get a healing surge worth of free healing if your party has a lot of movement powers.

Might of Dol Dorn Temp hitpoints for battle clerics each encounter.

Onatar's Gift Battle clerics might want this for when they miss.

Shield of the Silver Flame
You won't use this each encounter but it is about the only mass saving throw CD power I have seen.

Sovereign Justice Temp hitpoints for an ally when you get hurt.

Traveler's Gift Allies get a shift each encounter and freed from marks.

Undying's Command Dominate an undead.
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Other
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Favor of Tymora (D365) Bonus to Attack and saving throws when first bloodied.

Divine Rage (D368) Good for ranged clerics since it automatically pushes enemies away.Works with all deities

Shadow Legacy(D380) Must worship raven queen and be shadra kai. Teleport or make an ally insubstantial when they are bloodied.
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Dragonmarks
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Aberrant Mark of Contagion (EBPG)
Enemies take penalty to ongoing damage saves, probably worth it if you have multiple damage dealing save ends powers.

Aberrant Mark of Madness (EBPG)
Enemy's will defense is lowered when you hit with a daily

Aberrant Mark of Terror (EBPG)
Enemies take penalty to attacks if you hit them with a daily,

Mark of Healing (EBPG)
Allies get a save when you use a healing power.  Str/cha clerics especially want this since most of the save granting attack powers clerics have are wisdom powers.  Dragonmarks are not allowed in all campaigns or LFR, but this feat lets you not need nearly as many save granting powers.  Recently I noticed that every single leader I make takes this feat

Mark of Hospitality(EBPG)
Allies heal max during rests

Mark of Storm(EBPG)
Storm Domain war priests can use this, but otherwise only useful if you plan on taking the thunder and lightning powers available to clerics.

Mark of Warding(EBPG)
This increases the effectiveness of all of your defense granting powers and incerases the penalty to your marks if you have any.

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Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:


Feats I would look at for each build: Gambler's Word, Scale Specialization, Uncanny Dodge

Battle (str/cha): Assured Healing,
Balanced (Str/wis) & Zealot (wis/con): Armored by Faith
Lazer & Pacifist: Armored by Faith, Assured Healing
Warpriest: Armored by Faith, Reserve Manuever 

Cleric Class/Divine Feats
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Armored By Faith (DP) Temp hit points keyed to wis mod whenever you use a CD power.
Assured Healing (D379) A lot of clerics have healing powers with no effects on a miss, so you get to heal your charisma mod in hp.

Clinging Radiance (DP) Good against lurkers

Darkfoe (DP) You will not need necrotic resistance enough to make it worthwhile to have it only 1 round some encounters.

Dazing Rebuke (D371) Daze undead instead of immobilizing them. 

Divine Cleansing (DP) This only helps in encounters where you face undead. I do not think Demonbane type powers trigger this.

Dragonbane (D378) Divine powers like turn undead also target dragons. 

Extended Healing (DP) If you face large areas then this can be very useful.

Greater Fortune (DP) This was bad before it was obsoleted

Invigorating Critical(DP) In paragon tier laser clerics will be targeting more enemies so are more likely to get crits. It is pretty conditional and has a decent amount of healing.

Merciful Power (DP) If you use healer's mercy a lot this is useful since by the time they need it they will likely need to make saves as well.  Mark of healing is better.

Pervasive Light (DP) If you do not have many radiant power this is pretty useful if you or someone else has a way to do radiant damage, but most clerics with radiant exploits will have too many radiant powers to make it worth it.

Gambler's Word (D379) This can be even better depending on the build and is skyblue
if you have a Champion's Hauberk.  By epic this gets better for battle clerics since melee clerics will be critting more and lazer clerics should already be getting crits most encounters if they take a good number of blast/burst powers.

Merciful Shift (D378) Healer's Mercy lets allies shift.

Radiant Vessel (DP) Boosts healing word with an extra 2d6 after you hit with a radiant power.  I like other boosts to healing word more, this is fine if you can squeeze it in.

Raven Queen's Outrage(D380) Must worship RQ.  Slide undead with radiant attacks.

Saving Grace (DP) Sacrifice for your allies. If you have a high wisdom they will almost always save and for death saves you will help them top 20 more often.

Swift Turning (DP) If you have lots of opportunities to use turn undead this is worth taking. I like the ones that effect other enemy types more.

Undead Ward (D371) Turn undead creates a radiant zone against undead. 

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Racial
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Deva

Shared Channeling(D374) Lets allies be effected by some of your personal channel divinity powers, i.e. lets your barbarian use RROT. Depending on what CD powers you took this can be very useful.

Ascendant Lineage (PHB2) Possible reuse of memory power.

Astral Renewal (PHB2) You will use this enough so that most encounters you will get a +2 untyped attack bonus.

Dragonborn

Admixture Breath (D365) use two damage types at once. Good for overcoming resistances.

Dragonborn Zeal (D365) Lots of prereqs for a pretty decent utility power.

Empowered Dragon Breath (PHB) Definitely take this if you have been taking the related feats.

Dwarf

Dwarven Durablity(PHB) More and better surges. This makes sure you are worrying less about healing yourself and more on your allies.

Eladrin

Fey step trailblazer(D366) Take an ally with you. Some of the other feystep feats look a little better if you have this.

Reactive Feystep (D366) Fey step to stop forced movement.

Feywild Protection(PHB) Bonus to defenses after you step. This might encourage you to step into battle rather than away from it

Elf

Running Shot (PHB) Encourages mobility

Githzerai (PHB3)

Iron Hands (PHB3) Battle clerics will get enough out of this to make it worth it, but the race is better as ranged clerics.

Shared danger sense (PHB3) Group racial bonus to initiative

Wind's Fortune(PHB3) Teleport rather than shift when using racial power.

Zuokons Centering (D378) You need to mulitclass monk for this and you need to be playing a non-constitution focused build for it to be worth it.  But if you meet this condition this is a very good feat.  Use your wisdom for surges and hitpoints and in place of strength for athletics and strength checks.

Goliath

Unyielding Stone(PHB2) Good temp hitpoints 1/encounter

Half Elf

Versatile Master (PHB2) Get a third at will. And recover encounter powers.

Half Orc

Strength From Pain (PHB2) Extra untyped damage once per encounter.

Halfling

Human

Action Recovery (PHB2) Make saving throws when you spend an action point

Shifter

Beasthide Shifting (PHB2) Gain resist 2 while under shifter power and that is always useful.

Tiefling

Fiery Rebuke(PHB) Extra damage with racial power. Fairly useful

Drow(FRPH)

Eyedark Strike(FRPG) Use cloud of darkness as a free action.

Master of Fire and Darkness (FRPG) You can now use both of your racial powers each encounnter.

Merciless Killer(FRPG) This is only black if you combine it with feats like distant advantage or have a party that dazes a lot or another way to get CA a lot, since ranged clerics do not get much combat advantage on their own.

Genasi(FRPH)

Shocking Flame(FRPG) Battle clerics will want this.

Stormrider(FRPG) Speed and hovering are both good.

Kalashtar(EBPG)

Extended Telepathy(EBPG) This one seems a bit campaign dependent

Quori BacklashNice punishment for psychic enemies and it keys of wisdom.

Warforged(EBPH)

Improved Immutability(EBPG) End a save ends effect 1/day. The only reason this is rated so low is that it replaces another paragon/epic utility power and that is a big sacrifice. It is a prereq for the good Warforged Fortification epic feat.

Gnoll

Fierce Charge(D367) Use at will power when you use your racial charge power. There are other ways to do this depending on what domain you have that might be more versatile, but this is the prereq for the very nice epic Brutal Charge feat.

Swift Bite (D367) Extra damage when you bloody someone.

Minotaur

Beast Within
(PHB3) +1 to hit/damage when bloodied.

Brutal Ferocity (D369) This is not a bad feat, but your at wills benefit your allies more than you so I am not sure that this is going to help much when you drop to O.

Revenant

Distant Reaping (D376) Extend the range of your reaping power.

Fierce Vitality (D376) Lets you stay conscious while at 0 a little longer.

Reaping Burst(D376) 1/encounter do extra necrotic damage with a blast/burst power to everyone you hit. If you have high con and are a laser cleric this is worth it.

Resilience of Death (D376) Scaling poison resistance and immunity to disease, but has a feat tax.

Thin the Herd(D376) Increase the range of your reaping power to include bloodied creatures withinn 10.

Unnatural Stamina (D376) get varied, non scaling resistance when you spend a surge and an extra surge.

Shadar kai

Ghostly Rejuvenation (D372) Insubstantial allies!

Reactive Jaunt (D372) Shadow Jaunt as a reactive power.
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Weapon/Implement/Armor
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Heavy blade opportunity (PHB) How many opportunity attacks do you think you will get as a cleric? Enemies should be running to kill you, not away from you.  But with polearm gamble and a glaive it becomes a different story.    Also consider power of skill which is similar, but does a lot more if you have access to the skill domain. 

Polearm gamble (PHB) This is a consideration since enemies are going to try to get up close to you and you should have the stats for it. But it does not really make you a better leader and you grant combat advantage.  Combine it with power of skill or HBO and it gets much better

Moonbow Prelate (D386) Must worship sehanine and use a bow,  Extend range of implement attack powers by 5.

Chain Specialization (PHB) Only for those who stuck with healer's lore.  Dark Blue
for warpriests.

Scale Specialization (PHB) this is costs as much as plate proficiency and you lack skill penalties, but requires points in dex.

Plate Specialization(PHB) Only for those with high con scores. Does not reduce skill check penalty.  Torm warpriests might want it.

Thunder's Rumble/Lightning Soul
(HEOC) If you are taking mainly thunder/lighting powers go for this.  Thunder's Rumble is a good boost to damage for storm warpriests
for instance.
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General
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Agile Opportunist (PHB2) Your melee basic attacks are OK if you augment them some. If you have someone in the party that moves you a lot and you are a balanced/battle cleric this gets a lot better.

Danger Sense(PHB) Improved init is better (other people have done the math) and this does not stack with the divine oracle's 2 rolls.

Devastating Crit(PHB) Not bad. Laser clerics with lots of AoEs are going to be getting a decent number of crits so if you take a lot of large AoE powers this is blue.
Expansive Burst(PHB3) If you take a lot of burst blast powers, this is OK.

Lasting
Frost
(PHB) Almost no cold powers so red for ranged clerics.  If you have a cold weapon you can pull off the winter touched combo, but cold weapons are usually not a cleric's best choice.

Psychic Lock (PHB) If you have gaze of defiance and a few of the psychic powers this is worth it.  Skyblue for death and oghma domain warpriests.

Reserve Maneuver (PHB2) A lot of people like this one since it lets them "retrain" a paragon path power that they do not like for a cleric heroic power. If you are happy with your powers, this is probably purple at best.  Warpriests, especially death domain warpriests and to a lesser extent sun and other domains, this is a good choice if you don't power swap out on poor levels.

Uncanny Dodge (PHB) You should have the wisdom for it and it is a useful feat for battle clerics.

Vexing Flanker (PHB2) Battle clerics flank enough for this to be worth it, but if your ranged party members have distant advantage then it is not that useful.

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Feats I would look at for each build: Divine Mastery, Glorious Channeler, Supreme Healing, Epic Reflexes

Battle (str/cha): Beatific Healer, Punishing Radiance, Radiant advantage, Weapon (Axe, Bludgeon etc.) Mastery, Font of Radiance, Blind Fight
Balanced (Str/wis): Punishing Radiance, Radiant advantage, Font of Radiance, Blind Fight
Lazer: Beatific Healer, Punishing Radiance, Radiant advantage, Font of Radiance, Epic Fortitude
Pacifist: Beatific Healer, Epic Fortitude
Warpriest & Zealot: Shared healing, Blind Fight

Cleric Class/Divine Feats
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Beatific Healing (DP) Add your charisma mod to heals.  Erratad to only work with powers where PC spends a surge. 

Divine Health (DP) Poison resistance and no disease.

Divine Mastery (DP) Recharge an encounter power when you spend an action point.
Echo Of Letheran (D380) Must worship RQ.  Radiant powers also do necrotic damage and gain necrotic keyword.  There are probably some exploits out of this, but adding necrotic doesn't help that much.

Epic Turning (DP) If you have augmented turning with other feats then keep on with this one.

Fires of Heaven (D377) When you do ongoing radiant damage, also do extra ongoing fire damage.

Glorious Channeler(DP) 2 CDs an encounter. If you have not taken another CD from a domain or other class now is the time.

Icon of Hope (DP) Other feats are just more useful.

Icon of Purity (DP) Necrotic resistance

Punishing Radiance(DP) Laser clerics definitely want this, and it is not bad for anyone with radiant powers who potentially crits a lot.

Radiant Advantage (DP) CA most of the time for your party when you hit.

Reactive Healing (DP) Most likely you will have already used healing word before they go to 0. Take supreme healing first.

Shared Healing(DP) Community surges. You may have enough surgefree healing to make surges not much of an issue by this point, but con heavy builds might want this.

Supreme Healing (DP) Doubles the usefulness of healing word.  Gold for anyone who has not focused much on healing to this point so pacifist can put this off, but this would be one of the first feats most clerics should take in epic.

Torm's Radiance(D381) Encounter and Daily powers ignore radiant resistance.

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Racial
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Deva
Immortal Prowess (D374) Like Immortal skill, but for attacks.

Transcendent Lineage(PHB2) Reroll memory and pick better. Might not want to take this and Immortal prowess since that seems too much.

Githzerai (PHB3)

Adamantine Mind (PHB3) Makes Iron Mind twice as good.

Iron Body(PHB3) Gain damage resistance equal to your wis mod. Nice

Peerless Reaction (PHB3) Use second wind as immediate interrupt. I like the other 2 epic feats that help iron mind more, but this is decent for warpriests.

Gnome

Vanishing Act(PHB2) Teleport out of trouble.

Goliath

Ancient Stone (PHB3) Gain an extra resist 10 1/encounter

Half-Orc

Ferocious Critical(PHB2) Big bonus to your next attacks when you crit. You should be critting at least 10% of that time by about now and with action points and close burst attacks you should get this bonus most encounters.

Shifter

Burst of Savagery (PHB2) Decent bonus when you end your shifter power.

Changeling(EBPG)

Fluid Anaotmy(EBPG) Turn a cirt into a normal hit most of the time. Worth taking and you do not have many other racial feats to pick from.

Genasi(FRPG)

Double Manifestation(FRPG) two manifestations at once!

Kalashtar(EBPG)

Quori Desperation Keep going when you hit 0 for a round. The only thing is at epic you may have other things that happen when you hit 0 as well.

Warforged(EBPG)

Warforged Fortification(EBPG) high prereqs but 1/encounter turn a crit into a normal hit.

Gnoll

Brutal Charge (D367) Use an encounter power when you use your racial charge power,. But you have to pay a feat tax to get this.

Minotaur

Mythic Senses (PHB3) If you have boosted your perception this is better than the similar initative feats.

Uncanny Scent(D369) Ignore total concealment and invisibility near you

Revanant

Eerie Resurgence (D376) Retrain one of your other death saving throw feats for this one.

Ghostly Vitality(D376) Insubstantial while at zero and get a move action.

Reaping Renewal (D376) Dark reaping 2/enc.

Shadar-kai

Spirit Jaunt (D372) Phasing with racial power.

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Weapon/Implement/Armor
[sblock] The improved crit feats are worth taking if you have the stats for it. Bludgeon, Flail, and Spear are a bit of an investment in stats, but if you really want to go that route it is worth taking the feat. Color Ratings are by how hard it is to get.   These feats are useful partly for the increased damage, but more because you have other epic feats that trigger on a crit (punishing radiance and font of radiance), gamblers word, and weapons have things that happen only a crit.  If you are using a high crit weapon this is also a good choice.

Axe Mastery (PHB) requires moderate con

Bludgeon Mastery(PHB) requires high con

Bow Mastery (PHB2) Only for bow clerics, but no prereqs.  This is the only one that works with ranged and area weapliment powers.

Flail Mastery (PHB) Requires High dex

Heavy blade mastery (PHB) Requires moderate dex.

Light Blade Mastery (PHB) You are only going to have the dex for this if you went with a non standard build.

Pick Mastery (PHB) If you are playing a small race this can be worth it.

Spear mastery (PHB) Requires High Dex.
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General
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Blind Fight (PHB) This is worth taking for melee clerics.
Epic Fortitude/Reflexes/Will 
Your reflex is probably going to be a bit low and these stack with improved defenses.  Pacifists and lazer clerics will want to boost fortitude.  These are all fine to take for any cleric.



Font of Radiance (PHB) Most cleric will have lots of radiant powers by this point and should be getting crits farily often. This makes all that better.

Irresistible Flame(PHB) If you took a lot of fire powers, then this is OK.

Triumphant Attack (PHB) Battle clerics who were able to take an improved crit feat and lazer clerics or other multitarget clerics will want to try to take this, probably after font of radiance.

Superior Initiative (PHB3) This helps you catch up to monster's init at epic
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