1901

Thank you for the advice. I was asking for advice regarding a melee cleric due to people mentioning their lasting power + lack of downtime and the fact that I usually play a caster.

I brought both a justicar/shaman and a cabalist/inquisitor to level 5 and the caster does seem quite a bit more complex (and fun), though I hope that the mana regen talents will suffice to keep this downtimeless (or at a minimum).

One thing I find odd about the cabalist is that two of the first four spells I got have “AoE” components, but the class does not really have the HP/defences to tank several mobs at once. If I manage to pull monsters at max range with Channeled spell --> Vex --> spammable nuke, it goes very well, but if I pull face-aggro from a respawning mob or something, things get nasty pretty quick.

It seems that trial folks cannot join chat channels, I tried joining dropbears, but then again I haven’t decided on where I am going to play, should this weekend convince me.

1902

Great synopsis James.

I want to add that Justicar is one of my favorite specs for PvE solo and 5 man groups (at least up to 38). Justicar has a ton of survival talents both early and later in the Justicar tree. Later in the Justicar tree, for 5 points you can get 15 percent damage mitigation, which I believe is the best bang for the buck all around DM in any soul. Putting 3 points into the parry spec skyrockets your parry rate. I am not a big fan of cleric shields so I have not tried the shield Justicar abilities. Combine the Justicar mana regen skill with another souls mana regen and you can fight and heal pretty much non-stop. Combine Justicar with Inquistor for some ranged dps and good close range AOE to quickly kill 3-5 same level mobs very quickly. The major weakness of Justicar is that if you can’t hit, you can’t heal. Whiff a couple times when fighting 2 or 3 higher level mobs(3+) and you may find yourself or your tank dead.

1903

At lower levels this is true. That’s why you choose Purifier for your 3rd soul for a free shield that helps quite a bit.

Also, since I always do Cabalist and Inquisitor, I have both the Cabalist and the Inquisitor bolts on my quickbar, and I use the Inquisitor one when there is a chance the AOE could get me into trouble - which really isn’t much of an issue once you get to level 10 or so. If you’re going more Cabalist, once you get Obliterate and Tyranny (11 points I think) you can destroy mobs (mana use becomes a small concern tho). If you go more Inquisitor, once you get 2 points into the talent that makes Vex heal you for 90% of the damage it does, you are pretty much golden.

As an Inq/Cab I typically Vex all the mobs, Sanction Heretic one of them, pop my “next spell crits” talent, cast Soul Drain (which hits each mob, then bounces to each other mob, and they all crit), put down a Circle of Oblivion, and the mobs fall over. But Shadow’s Touch (the Cabalist bolt) is still my bread and butter bolt unless I’m fighting next to some of the other faction or near some neutral mobs I don’t want to aggro.

1904

if you’re a cleric and want build for relaxing leveling experience and/or farming, here you go:
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rdo.VuMs0e0z.VvkbMx0o.VzVV

aimed for area effect killing with survivability and it accomplishes it pretty well. actually its so powerful i’ve been expecting it to be nerfed, but havent happened yet.

justi for survivability (def and heals), inq for soul drain and stuff, and cab is basically there for more ae damage / spellpower talents.

vex bunch of mobs -> fanaticism if its up -> soul drain -> bound fate / even justice (ae attack for convictions) -> repeat from soul drain if they are not already dead -> loot

1905

I haven’t really needed Justicar to do what you describe, and I can’t see passing Circle of Oblivion by, since it’s so cool. But yeah, there are a lot of builds that can do this. My main problem with any sort of AOE build is finding enough mobs that aren’t casters (since casters tend to stand in place and not run up to you when you vex them). A friend of mine suggested trying animals since they don’t often have casters, and he was right!

1906

casters / archers are easy if theres something to hide behind (because of great LoS code, mobs happily come to you :))

1907

I’ve been having a lot of success with shaman (main soul), druid (secondary), and purifier (third). That gives me three shields which I’ve put onto a single macro, which means my shields almost never run out, even when fighting mobs 3 and 4 levels above me. I have the occasional reactive heal from the shaman, the druid’s insta-cast heal every 15 seconds, and if I really mess I can just stand there & keep healing myself with the Purifier’s 4 point heal spell. Hell, there have been a couple times when the tank went down in an instance & I was able to “tank” by just standing there healing myself. I don’t last too long doing that, but it’s often enough to give the other dps time to finish the boss off.

As for offensive capability, ignore the druid’s spells (most of 'em suck, unless you go full-on druid) and look at their talents. The first 2 tiers fit with shamen perfectly. (Plus you get the extra shield & the insta-heal.) And if I’m anticipating a really really hard fight, I even bring out my idiot fairy. (For that one fight, anyways. Then it’s back into her box she goes.)

The biggest problem with this build is that it pretty much consists of 3 buttons: one mega-macro button for single target attacks, one slightly smaller macro for multi-target fights, and the all-important shield button. There’s a couple things I have to do manually, like choosing when to cast the druid or purifier heals, or when to use the mana regen talent. But really, the character is extremely easy to play, to the point where she’s can be kinda boring. When I want a more challenging play experience, I hop onto my rogue. But when I want to be pretty much invincible,* my shaman is my go-to character.

By the way, I found the Warden to be a suprisingly excellent third soul for cleric builds. I started my shaman as shaman/purifier/warden, and the insta-cast hot I could cast, along with the insta-cast ranged attack (for pulling mobs, or irritating humans as you run around) was really really invaluable.

  • I’m only talking about a pve environment. I have a feeling I would be anything but invincible on a pvp server.
1908

Cab has quite a bit of downtime due to horrible mana inefficiency. The Inquisitor is similar if you spam the full suite of spells, but honestly you should just get the +90% heal from Vex, put that on everything, and PBAOE stuff down with Soul Drain as an Inq. That’s very cost effective in terms of mana:kill. Get one of the proc-heal-on-heal essences and it’s difficult for you to die.

This is the barebones build at 14.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00Gdr..Vxkb

The next step is grabbing Justicar and Mien of Honor, which will require level 18.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00Gdr..Vxkb.Vuz

From there, the rest of your points go into Cab and Inq, maybe stopping to put one point in Reparation if you care about healing your group. You can trade out Purifier (just there for the emergency shield) for Cabalist when you need more damage.

Theory:

Buff.
Vex everything.
Soul Drain when they’re in range.

Prioritiy Rotation:
Refresh Vex as needed.
Soul Drain when it’s up.

1909

The 3rd soul should compliment your build and improve it in the areas you feel lacking, so it’s highly dependent on your goals and the things you are planning to do with this build. For my purposes (which is mainly PvP), I found Sentinel to be the best 3rd soul for Just/Sham. IIRC 4 points in it give you REALLY nice instaheal on a decent CD, nice extra instanuke, nice Endurance buff and a nice passive boost to Spell Power. 4 extra points give you insta dot. Nuke and dot are life damage, which is good for conviction generation. So you get what Just/Sham really needs - convition-free insta heal (btw as a melee dps you want all yoru abilities to be instant), instant range spell and boost to survivability (through the End buff). Plus a 2 sec cast conviction-free heal, if needed.

Decide how many points you want to spend in it (I would recommend 0-6 to start with) and compare the alternatives. IMO other souls don’t offer that much to Just/Sham.

I disagree with your PVP assessment. Plus, it’s useless to evaluate souls by themselves, unless you are planning to invest 51 points in one and even then you have 15 points to add some things. Take Just/Sham/Sent, for example. As per your assessment, it’s a combination of average and very poor in PvP. In reality, it’s a highly mobile and versatile build, it’s extremely hard to kill and has average dps that becomes awesome once a minute. It draws a lot of fire in PvP and lives through it. In warfronts, it always has the most “Damage Taken”, with the next guy having taken about 2 times less damage. What it means during the PvP fights is that Just/Sham is pretty much tanking 2-3 enemies at any given time, effectively taking them out of the fight and allowing your team to win.

Just/Sham is a very useful combo in PvP and can be really fun if you enjoy this playstyle.

Firstly, you don’t really need to level up 2 clerics - just level up one and at about lvl 13-15 you can get all other souls and switch to anything at any time.

Secondly, most of the time you can’t really say anything about a soul by lvl 5. Justicar, for example, doesn’t really come into its own until IIRC 11 points are invested in it and even then it just starts to open up and a lot of the juicy things are still to come (like 15% damage reduction or AoE, for example).

Same with Inquisitor. Vex is a nice spell and all but it really starts to shine when you increase its damage by 50% and make it heal you for 90% of the damage dealt. Combine that with, for example, Justicar’s “healing while damaging” and, maybe, Purifier’s nice shield and you have a build that can tank and aoe several mobs at once with no problem and no downtime at all.

I don’t really have any experience with Cabalist though. Yet. :)

1910

I’m skeptical about this. I don’t think tanky builds are all that great in most MMOs unless you have skills that work in PvP like taunt (EQ2) or can guard squishies (WAR). If you are getting focused as a tank then you are probably playing against lesser skilled players. Also a lot of the damage taken probably comes from AoE damage. If you are in the frontlines, you will take a lot of that type of damage.

1911

I’ve been Just/Sham for 40 levels, believe me it works. In a group PvP situation, just target their healer (well, everyone should really), their healer switches to 100% self healing, almost always a couple of dps enemies will try to help their healer by hitting you (and if they don’t and I have at least one friend helping me, their healer dies for sure and then they die too) - there you go, you took 3 enemies out of the fight. With a little healing from, for example, a bard, you could do this all day long without dying or running out of mana.

Plus don’t forget that Just/Sham is a cleric too and does do some decent healing if he’s not focused on, so usually they do get focused just for this reason alone.

As for the AoE damage, well, all melees get hit by it and yet I have twice as much Damage Taken by the end of the warfront (and usually the least deaths), so it’s probably not just AoE.

1912

If your goal in PvP is getting solo kills, plain and simple, front-loaded burst damage is the way to go. If your goals are a bit more subtle, say, surviving and winning in a group environment, or being able to quest in the wilds with the ability to either kill or escape a ganker, with either outcome being ok to you, you have a lot more flexibility. I usually do PvE on my Necro (though I’m thinking of swapping to Elementalist as a main to try that out), as that’s great for killing mobs quickly and safely, but I’m much more survivable when jumped if I’m in Chloromancer mode, which I use for WFs and group questing/PvP. I can’t kill much as a Chloro on my own, but I’m a lot harder to kill (as hard as a squishy gets, that is).

Oddly, though, my favorite caster is perhaps my Cabalist. I really like that soul.

1913

imo, Justicar past 10 is a pretty huge waste if you’re pairing it with Shaman. Deep Shaman is vastly superior than a more even Hybrid.

Why?

-You want to be using a 2-hander as a Shaman. Your core attacks instant and weapon damage. Half of the Justicar’s abilities are shield-centric.

-Almost every Shaman talent is good for what a Shaman is trying to do. Even 51 Shaman isn’t a bad idea.

-You need Battle Charge as a melee Cleric.

-Rage of the North is simply superior for heavy Shaman. It’s a kill every minute. Too much Justicar and it’s no longer a kill, just a quick burst.

Frankly, 44 Sham/10 Inq/10 Sent http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00ndj.ExzttrsAk.Vx.V0x is just plain better imo. An extra +60% on top of regular crits, some on-demand heals, an endurance buff, Purge, 3% extra ability damage (though you could pick 3% chance to crit if you gave up 4% of that extra crit damage – your choice). You even get a Rez – not important in PvP, huge in PvE.

Also, Justicars are probably the weakest raw tanks (they’re Block-centric and Block is regarded as bad), and, unlike Paladins, Reavers, and Void Knights, fill no specific role in PvP that other classes can’t do better (Bard, Chloros).

Paladins: Brutally durable. You may as well forget about killing one 1v1.

Reavers: Better at tanking groups in PvP. Has plenty of tools to make a large group of players miserable enough to change targets and kill the Reaver, which only results in him getting more durable.

Void Knight: After Dominator’s Mana Drain got nerfed, Void Knights are left as the final word when it comes to killing Clerics – which is very, very hard otherwise. It’s much easier to kill a Cleric’s mana bar than it is to actually kill a Cleric, and VK does it better than anyone else.

Also, Just/Sham alone is not a PvP healer by any stretch of the imagination. You have no on-demand heals – only passives and things that require Convictions.

When you split your focus between two barely compatible souls like Justicar past 10 and Shaman, you’re going to have a ton of flabby overlap that you think is “utility” when it’s just dead weight.

Does Rift let you create hybrids? Yes. Should you in PvP? Probably not, no.

1914

Wait a second, how is “Block regarded as bad”, yet “Paladins are brutally durable”? Paladins are ALL about block.

I wish I could make a good dps/questing build around paladin - it’s by far my favorite warrior soul. I’ve tried Champion heavy builds, and to be honest they seem a little like a glass cannon, and I don’t really like the way they play. I did most of the 20’s as a beastmaster primary, and they are ok I guess… After the 1.1 patch and just hitting 30 I switched to a paragon/riftblade build. At first it was a little fiddly and I still am not sure (4 different attack point finishers? That’s a bit much) I have it completely grasped. However, I was able to do well in a Foul Cascade run last night as dps and in the limited combat I did quest-wise I seemed to end up with a lot more health than other dps oriented builds I’ve tried.

1915

Not that I do insane DPS, but I’m running a Paladin/Reaver/Paragon right now that does just fine in the solo field. Enough self healing to take on 4-5 even level MOBs. Routine basically goes Plague Bring - All the Plague spells - the paragon ability that is +48% damage for 12 S, AOE AOE AOE, repeat.

1916

If we’re discussing ideal Cleric leveling builds, allow me to say that I’ve tried them all, and I think I’ve found the one best suited for me.

This is not a build I designed. I am using one that another dude came up with. It is frighteningly good. How good? I have leveled a Warrior to 41, a Rogue to 40, and a Cleric to nearly 43 now. It is the fastest leveling build of all of them. How fast? I had the day off yesterday. I played 4 1/2 hours to maybe 5 hours. Went from level 39.9 to 42.7 or so in that time.

What the build does is actually use three souls in perfect harmony with one another:

  1. Two separate, powerful, instant heals
  2. Two separate, powerful, personal shields
  3. Two separate, powerful, mana regens
  4. Useful set of support buffs
  5. Excellent HoT and direct healing from pet to compliment direct heals
  6. Excellent damage output
  7. Minimal downtime.

The three souls are Shaman, Druid, Sentinel. You use a 2H weapon.

Here’s the thread on the official forums and discussion:

http://forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?115148-A-Cleric-Leveling-Build

Here’s what the build looks like at level 36:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00anj.Vq0VAoVo.ELz0z

First off, the build doesn’t come into it’s own until you hit level 18 or so. Go ahead and level up to there with whatever spec you like.

You will go OOM occasionally until you get the second mana regen. At that point, you’re golden.

The macro has been corrected. By about level 20, make it look like this, even though you won’t have some of the abilities in there yet. Once you get them, you’ll cast them.

The macro:

#show Fervent Strike

/suppressmacrofailures

cast Fated Blow

cast Glory of the Chosen

cast Jolt

cast Combined Effort

cast Eruption of Life

cast Trickster Spirit

cast Bombard

cast Massive Blow

cast Lightning Hammer

cast Fervent Strike

(The “/suppressmacrofailures” line will keep you from seeing spam for abilities you don’t have yet.)

I put the button for the Macro on one spot on my action bar. I use two other buttons for my two shields. I use two more for my mana regens, and finally two final buttons for my on-demand insta heals. On another action bar, I use two buttons for my only AOE attack Avalanche Strike and another for Bombard for pulling (I keep bombard macroed, but it can be useful to have it on an action bar to pull with, too.)

From that build at 36, here’s how I spent my points:

  1. Took Overwhelming to 5/5 (1 pt)
  2. Took “Touch of the Fae” to 5/5 (5 pts)

A note on that: you VERY much want to get 36 points in the Druid soul so you get the “Friend of the Weald” passive. That will at 10% to your pet’s abilities, which makes his heals even more viable for you.

Finally, I’m now putting my points into Stormborn. “Jolt” is already one of the nastiest spells/abilities for damage output I’ve seen; Stormborn makes it even nastier.

1917

I like Druid/Shaman/Warden.

Pretty much everyone has their own favorite builds, and everyone says that theirs is the best, which is one of my fav things about this game.

1918

A trial key thrown this direction would be appreciated greatly. TIA

1919

Since yall are posting builds, does anyone have a good rogue levelling build? I am liking Bladedancer/Nightblade but I literally have no idea what I’m doing so…

1920

I am not really a big fan of this kind of theoricrafting build comparisons, especially when the arguing sides don’t have first hand experience with the builds discussed. But I will address a few misconceptions, as they, in general, apply to all of the classes, not just shamans and justicars.

-You want to be using a 2-hander as a Shaman. Your core attacks instant and weapon damage. Half of the Justicar’s abilities are shield-centric.

It’s not half and you don’t have to use them (and I don’t use them in my build). In general, you don’t have take all the available talents from a tree, just take what works for you and your build. Every build has a purpose, there are no builds that are good at everything. These shield talents in particular are useful to (even required for) a PvE (dungeon) tank but not to a PvP build.

-Almost every Shaman talent is good for what a Shaman is trying to do. Even 51 Shaman isn’t a bad idea.

That’s usually the case for most of the classes but it doesn’t mean 51 points is the only way. Shaman in particular has PvP survivability issues, so improving that area by investing points into some other tree might be a better idea than, for example, adding 30% dot component to Massive Strike.

-You need Battle Charge as a melee Cleric.

-Rage of the North is simply superior for heavy Shaman. It’s a kill every minute. Too much Justicar and it’s no longer a kill, just a quick burst.

Absolutely correct. And there is no need to give them up either. You can have 32 Sham/30 Just/4 Sent build, for example, (that’s my current build), and have all of it - Jolt, Battle Charge, Rage of the North, etc. from Shaman as well as 15% damage reduction, self healing, snare/root, stun, 50% to healing, etc. from Justicar. And 2 mana regens.

Frankly, 44 Sham/10 Inq/10 Sent http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00…zttrsAk.Vx.V0x is just plain better imo.

And sham/inq might also be a good build, of course. But it all depends on the goal. If the goal is to improve damage - by all means take Inquisitor. If the goal is to improve survivability - there is no better option than to add Justicar. It all depends on your playstyle and the thigns you are planning to be doing.

Also, Justicars are probably the weakest raw tanks (they’re Block-centric and Block is regarded as bad), and, unlike Paladins, Reavers, and Void Knights, fill no specific role in PvP that other classes can’t do better (Bard, Chloros).

Sorry, this is just nonsence.

Also, Just/Sham alone is not a PvP healer by any stretch of the imagination. You have no on-demand heals – only passives and things that require Convictions.

No, Just/Sham alone is not a full time PvP healer. Neither is pure Sham nor is Sham/Inq. I am not sure why you brought it up.

Just/Sham doesn’t take 1st places in “Healing Done” in warfronts. But it consistently takes 3rd/4th place. Just because a bunch of heals require Convictions, it doesn’t make them all of a sudden useless. It’s 4 very decent insta heals that certainly saved more than 1 of my teammates when they got focused. Just because some heals are passive, they are not useless. It’s a constant stream of AoE healing and you don’t have to do anything special to maintain it.

Paladins and Reavers are nice souls too but they can’t heal everybody around them for 500 (@ lvl 39) every other GCD (1 hit to get a conviction + 1 insta aoe heal). Yes, Chloro and Bards are good/better at healing but can they battle charge and burn down a target too? Not really.

And it’s not like I can respec my Cleric into Paladin, Reaver, Chloro or Bard.

All this “but that class can do it better” talk is pointless. As I said, every class is better at some things and worse at others. It all depends on what you want your character to do.

When you split your focus between two barely compatible souls like Justicar past 10 and Shaman, you’re going to have a ton of flabby overlap that you think is “utility” when it’s just dead weight.

Does Rift let you create hybrids? Yes. Should you in PvP? Probably not, no.

Lol, I will just say “whatever” to this. I guess our definitions of “flabby overlap” differ.