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Holy Smoke! A Cleric's (Templar's) Handbook (by GelatinousOctahedron)
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<blockquote data-quote="Nibelung" data-source="post: 6707063" data-attributes="member: 74499"><p><strong>Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:</strong></p><p> </p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Hit points, healing surges, proficiencies, and bonuses</strong></span></p><p> </p><p></p><p><strong>Hitpoints:</strong> 12+con (+5/lvl) (not a wilting flower, but you're no paladin) </p><p><strong>Surges</strong>: 7+con mod (con is sometimes your secondary stat)</p><p><strong>Armor Proficiencies</strong>: Cloth, leather, hide, chain. Scale for Templars (usually) or heavy shield (for Warpriests)</p><p><strong>Weapon/implement Proficiencies</strong>: 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.</p><p><strong>Bonus</strong>: Templars get +2 to will. Warpriests get +1 will and +1 Fortitude instead.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Features</strong></span></p><p></p><p><strong>Ones all Clerics (Templars and Warpriests) Get</strong></p><p> </p><p><strong>Channel Divinity:</strong>You start out able to use this once an encounter and all Templar clerics get Divine Fortune</p><p> 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</p><p> (PHB), Punish the Profane<strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong>(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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Templar Only Features:</strong></p><p></p><p>You can pick one of these 2 lore options, but you should pick Battle Cleric's Lore.</p><p></p><p><strong>Healers Lore</strong>: (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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>powers that work with lore features </strong></p><p><strong>lore powers</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Powers that work with both Battle Cleric's Lore and Healers Lore</p><p>Healing word, Return from deaths door, Resurgent Strength, Bastion of Health, Divine Favor, Word of Vigor, Astral Refuge, Unexpected Return, and Spirit of Health.</p><p></p><p>Powers that only work with Healer's lore:</p><p>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</p><p></p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Ritual Caster:</strong> 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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Warpriest only Features:</strong></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Basic Job of A Cleric:</strong></span></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Builds</strong></span></p><p></p><p>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: <strong>Healing</strong>,<strong>Saving throws</strong> (condition removing), <strong>Buffing </strong> (Temp Hitpoints, Buffing Attacks, Buffing Defenses) <strong>Debuffing Enemies</strong> (Attacks, Debuffing Enemies Defenses) <strong>Enabling</strong> (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.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong></strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>The four melee builds: Battle Cleric VS Balanced Cleric Vs Warpriest Vs Zealot:</strong></span></p><p></p><p><strong>Warpriest </strong>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. <strong>Balanced</strong> 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. <strong>Battle Cleric</strong> 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. <strong>Zealot</strong> 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.</p><p></p><p>Battle Cleric<strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong>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</p><p>Buffing</p><p>Debuffing</p><p>Enabling</p><p></p><p>Laser Cleric<strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong>(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</p><p>Buffing</p><p>Debuffing</p><p>Enabling</p><p></p><p>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. <strong>This is the weakest of all the basic builds and I don't recommend going full pacifist </strong>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</p><p>Buffing</p><p>Debuffing</p><p>Enabling</p><p></p><p>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</p><p>Buffing</p><p>Debuffing</p><p>Enabling</p><p></p><p><strong>Warpriest: </strong>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.</p><p></p><p><strong>warpriest domain summary </strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>Here is a quick summary of the different domains in rough order of general effectiveness:</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Earth</strong>: 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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Selune</strong>: 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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Sun</strong>: 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>[/sblock] </p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Ability Scores</strong></span></p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>Normally your best choices are STR/WIS with both primary; WIS as primary, CON secondary; or STR primary, Cha secondary.</p><p></p><p>Strength<strong>:</strong> 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. (<strong>Recommended: battle 16-18, balanced 14-16, lazer, warpriest, zealot, and healics 8-13</strong>.)</p><p></p><p>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. (<strong>Recommended 10-13, Warpriest/zealot 14-16</strong>) </p><p></p><p>Dexterity:</p><p> 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. (<strong>Recommended: 8-13</strong>)</p><p></p><p>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. (<strong>Recommended: 8-10, 11-12 </strong>if you get a racial bump) </p><p></p><p>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. (<strong>Recommended: battle clerics 8-13, balanced 14-16, All others 16-18</strong>)</p><p></p><p>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. <strong>(Recommended Battle 10-14 balanced 10-13 Laser/healics 12-14 warpriest/zealot 8-12</strong>) </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Potential Problems with Clerics:</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Templars and AC:</strong> 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). </p><p><strong>Cleric AC Issues</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>A long note about Clerics, Abilities Scores, and AC Hide</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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 </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Chain L1,AC=16 L4,AC=19 L8,AC=22</p><p></p><p>L11,AC=26 L14,AC=28 L18,AC32</p><p></p><p>L21,AC=35 L24,AC=37 L28,AC=40 L30,AC=43</p><p></p><p>Hide L1,AC=17 L4,AC=20 L8,AC=24</p><p></p><p>L11,AC=26 L14,AC=29 L18,AC=33</p><p>L21,AC=36 L24,AC=38 L28,AC=42 L30,AC=44</p><p> </p><p></p><p>[/sblock] </p><p><strong>Enabling</strong></p><p> </p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p>Direct Enabaling Powers: Inspire Fervor, Valorous Charge</p><p> </p><p>Enemies have to move: Cause Fear, Deadly Lure, Mortal Terror (DMs discretion)</p><p> </p><p>Allies get OAs on an enemy's choice trigger: Conquering Blow, Demand Obedience, Realm of Battle, HopeKiller, Sundered Victory</p><p> </p><p>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)</p><p> </p><p>Paragon Paths: Luckbringer of Tymorra (rerolls), Devout warpriest (oghma) (basic attacks with healing word), Zealous Demagogue (charge enabling)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nibelung, post: 6707063, member: 74499"] [b]Originally posted by GelatinousOctahedron:[/b] 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. [Size=3][b]Hit points, healing surges, proficiencies, and bonuses[/b][/size] [b]Hitpoints:[/b] 12+con (+5/lvl) (not a wilting flower, but you're no paladin) [b]Surges[/b]: 7+con mod (con is sometimes your secondary stat) [b]Armor Proficiencies[/b]: Cloth, leather, hide, chain. Scale for Templars (usually) or heavy shield (for Warpriests) [b]Weapon/implement Proficiencies[/b]: 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. [b]Bonus[/b]: 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. [Size=3][b] Features[/b][/size] [b]Ones all Clerics (Templars and Warpriests) Get[/b] [b]Channel Divinity:[/b]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[b] [/b](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. [b]Templar Only Features:[/b] You can pick one of these 2 lore options, but you should pick Battle Cleric's Lore. [b]Healers Lore[/b]: (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. [b]powers that work with lore features [/b] [b]lore powers[/b] [sblock] 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 [/sblock] [b]Ritual Caster:[/b] 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. [b]Warpriest only Features:[/b] 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. [Size=3][b] Basic Job of A Cleric:[/b][/size] 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. [Size=3][b] Builds[/b][/size] 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: [b]Healing[/b],[b]Saving throws[/b] (condition removing), [b]Buffing [/b] (Temp Hitpoints, Buffing Attacks, Buffing Defenses) [b]Debuffing Enemies[/b] (Attacks, Debuffing Enemies Defenses) [b]Enabling[/b] (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. [Size=3][b] The four melee builds: Battle Cleric VS Balanced Cleric Vs Warpriest Vs Zealot:[/b][/size] [b]Warpriest [/b]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. [b]Balanced[/b] 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. [b]Battle Cleric[/b] 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. [b]Zealot[/b] 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[b] [/b]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[b] [/b](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. [b]This is the weakest of all the basic builds and I don't recommend going full pacifist [/b]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 [b]Warpriest: [/b]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. [b]warpriest domain summary [/b] [sblock] 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. [b]Earth[/b]: 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. [b]Selune[/b]: 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. [b]Sun[/b]: 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. [/sblock] 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. [Size=3][b]Ability Scores[/b][/size] 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[b]:[/b] 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. ([b]Recommended: battle 16-18, balanced 14-16, lazer, warpriest, zealot, and healics 8-13[/b].) 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. ([b]Recommended 10-13, Warpriest/zealot 14-16[/b]) 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. ([b]Recommended: 8-13[/b]) 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. ([b]Recommended: 8-10, 11-12 [/b]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. ([b]Recommended: battle clerics 8-13, balanced 14-16, All others 16-18[/b]) 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. [b](Recommended Battle 10-14 balanced 10-13 Laser/healics 12-14 warpriest/zealot 8-12[/b]) 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. [b]Potential Problems with Clerics:[/b] [b]Templars and AC:[/b] 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). [b]Cleric AC Issues[/b] [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 [/sblock] [b]Enabling[/b] 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) [/QUOTE]
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Holy Smoke! A Cleric's (Templar's) Handbook (by GelatinousOctahedron)
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