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Message: <blockquote data-quote="azarias" data-source="post: 4303966" data-attributes="member: 54755">Thanee - the thing is this: (1) it behoves the basic (battle) Cleric to maximise Strength and Wisdom. Any discrepancy between these two abilities, and a chunk of the battle Cleric's prayers are weaker than the rest in attack and damage.(2) there's no PHB1 race that gives +2 Str/+2 Wis, so 18s in both is unaffordable unless your DM is allowing other races. This may change, but for most games played now the melee Cleric is setting out with 16/16, 16/18, or 17/17. (3) once Str and Wis are assigned, the battle Cleric still needs a decent Con: nor can he ignore Cha completely. There's no wriggle-room; nothing left over for Dexterity or Intelligence. That cuts out some useful feats, including Astral Fire, and requires the reservation of feats for heavy armour and a really good melee weapon which other melee classes already possess.(4) once you've stopped wriggling, and gone along with the PHB on all this, how good are you in melee? Not as good as the Fighter or Paladin, certainly, nor the Ranger. Not quite as good as the Warlord. Not as frightening as a melee-dedicated Rogue, either. Better than a Warlock or a Wizard. Hmm...What, then, are the alternatives to towing the PHB Str-and-Wis line?You can go all Str and low Wis, or all Wis and low Str. The Wisdom prayers offer more AOEs, more maneuverability, and on the whole (to my mind) slightly more oomph. So the ranged Cleric is a solid option.  Now...the important thing about the ranged Cleric is that he avoids MAD. All his prayers work off Wis. That's the main advantage, and very nice it is too. However, you are left with a decision - what does the ranged Cleric do with his hands? He doesn't need to hold his symbol. There's not much point holding a melee weapon. A ranged weapon makes much more sense. With a basic ranged Cleric, you're looking at a crossbow or sling...but with an Elf Cleric/Ranger you can do better than that.There's nothing better a ranged Cleric can be holding in his hands than a longbow. It's a very good weapon in 4E. 1d10 damage, 20/40 range. How many prayers compete with that for range? Even a basic attack with a longbow can be a good thing, and a Cleric/Ranger is also getting a choice of some tasty bow encounter powers at 4th. In addition, as others have pointed out, Ranger exploits often work off Wis, and that makes the Novice encounter and Acolyte utility excellent choices. In conclusion: it's not that the bow is brilliant in itself: it's that the ranged Cleric has the wriggle-room to use it. Now and then - when range is an issue, for example - it's going to be very useful. The rest of the time, it adds a bit of versatility to a build which is already solid and strongly focussed.</blockquote>

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