Cleric
Welcome to the Virtue Gaming Cleric Wiki
Goal of This Wiki
To give members new and old a place where they can find up to date information on the Cleric Class.
Table of Contents
- Class Introduction
- Cleric Gameplay
- Cleric Souls
- Equipment
- Stats Breakdown
- DPS Specs
- Raid Healing Specs
- Tanking and Specs
- Healing Specs
Class Introduction
Telara’s original wielders of magic gained their powers through pacts with minor elemental spirits. Through devoted study, these Clerics reached out to ever-more-powerful beings, soon communing with demons, faeries, and gods. These holy men founded a number of spiritual disciplines: some focused tightly on a narrow ethos, while others retained more free-form theological allegiances.
Although those who take up this calling boast extensive knowledge and keen intellect, Clerics value wisdom and faith above all else. Intensely focused, a Cleric tackles any endeavor secure in the support of powerful beings incomprehensible to the layman. These beings’ exact nature depends upon each Cleric’s culture of origin and spiritual training regimen.
Cleric Gamplay
Clerics are renowned for their powerful support magic, able to repair the most grievous injuries or cure the deadliest diseases. The spells at a Cleric’s command are as varied as the patron deities they follow. Many Clerics are also capable combatants who rain divine wrath from afar, or wade into the thick of battle, warhammer swinging.
Clerics fuel their spells with the arcane energy known as mana. Granted by their patron deity, a Cleric’s pool of mana is not limitless and must be carefully managed, lest the Cleric deplete his reserves in a crisis.
Cleric Souls
Cabalist
The Cabalist is one of the Cleric's best DPS classes. It is a spellcaster with strong area of effect spells. "The more mobs the better" is the motto of the Cabalist.
Description
Strengths
The Cabalist’s sigils and ritual magics give him a tremendous advantage on the battlefield, for if given enough time to fester, they will eventually erupt in a cascade of dark energy, destroying everything within range of the sigil’s host.
Weaknesses
If given the opportunity, a Cabalist will slowly spread destruction across the battlefield. The only defense against this inevitable doom is a lightning-quick assault to overwhelm them before their sigils have a chance to take effect.
Gameplay
The playstyle is based on the management of Sigils and the stacking of Lurking Decay on the target. The Cabalist gets access to several Sigils, a sort of self-buff that enables a couple of abilities; notably Obliterate and Tyranny (AoE). If a Sigil is active while using one of these spells, the Sigil is consumed and the Cleric gains an effect from it (for example mana from the Sigil of Power). Another way to enable Obliterate and Tyranny is by channeling the Decay spell. This does damage to the enemy as well as gives the Cleric up to 3 stacks of Lurking Decay (1 stack per second). Obliterate's damage is enhanced by each stack of Lurking Decay, and Tyranny consumes one stack every time it is cast. The Cabalist has no great crowd control, nor does it have any heals or shields. For dungeons and crowd control, try combining it with the Inquisitor soul. For survivability and soloing, the Purifier is an excellent choice as a companion soul.
Druid
Druids are melee Clerics who forge bonds with Fae creatures, strengthening their bodies, minds, and spirits by drawing upon the magical energies of their companions.
Description
Strengths
Where fragile Mages force their minions to fight in their stead, the mighty Druid draws upon their bonded Fae to personally take the fight to their foes. Druids themselves are formidable combatants, using their pets more as conduits and sources of power than as direct attackers.
Weaknesses
A Druid’s bond with their Fae Spirit is both the key to their power and their greatest weakness. Enemies who destroy a Druid’s companion greatly reduce the Druid’s prowess and endurance.
Inquisitor
The Inquisitor is a cleric who no longer follows the doctrines of life or death alone; instead, they stand between these forces demanding purity from both. An Inquisitor passes judgment on those who are worthy, and damns those who are corrupt. Their true strength is derived from their extreme faith; as such, they forgo heavy armaments in favor of a simple hauberk of chain and a sturdy maul. Although Inquisitors will never achieve the great heights of power from choosing an exclusive life or death path, their ability to harness and manipulate both energies make them extremely valuable companions.
Description
Strengths
An Inquisitor is a potent one-on-one combatant who specializes in mixing life and death magic, stealing their opponent's greatest strengths and making it their own.
Weaknesses
Because they stand between the threshold of life and death, Inquisitors give up the strength found in those who walk a pure path. For that reason, they cannot support their allies in battle as strongly as other, more specialized clerics.
Gameplay
The Inquisitor is about debuffing and life- and mana drains. They have no direct healing effects, but instead they leech the enemy's health to themselves. In a prolonged fight the Inquisitor will probably have the upper hand over many souls, but can fall quickly to burst damage.
Justicar
Justicars are clerics who fight shoulder-to-shoulder with their allies in close combat. Conviction builds with each swing of their weapon, bolstering nearby comrades and powering the Justicar’s potent healing magic.
Description
Strengths
A Justicar’s healing comes from damage dealt in close combat. Thus he can survive and thrive in the thick of the fighting while ensuring his allies do the same.
Weaknesses
A Justicar’s divine magic depends upon his melee prowess, so foes are wise to try and keep the Justicar from the front lines.
Gameplay
Justicars are one of the front-line healers within the cleric calling. While they do have some direct heals, most of their healing power comes from damaging the enemy with melee abilities, gaining Conviction stacks which they then can release for powerful Area of Effect heals.
The Justicar Soul focuses primarily on healing and damage mitigation. They can play as tanks or offtanks if they choose to pick up a Mace and Shield, or as DPS if they pick up a Two-handed Mace.
Purifier
The tradition of the Purifier begins with a baptism by fire, a test of faith from which only the strongest souls emerge. Those who pass are reborn as masters of the curative secrets of fire, able to heal the most grievous wounds with a searing touch.
These Clerics also draw upon a pact with their long-dead ancestors as the source of their offensive power. While the Purifier wreathes his allies in flames, he unleashes a spirit vanguard to visit his wrath upon his foes.
The Purifier, in regards to Gameplay, is Single Target Healer. The class was intended to keep one target up through the harshest environments that Trion offers. While it has some incredible strengths in this regard, it also has some severe drawbacks. It is my hope to touch on some of these in the following paragraphs and shed some light on an often maligned role.
Description
Strengths
Purifiers dedicate themselves to mastering the healing properties of fire, and as such are potent support Clerics who can burn away disease and instantly cauterize the most horrific wounds.
Weaknesses
Purifiers are not known for their offensive capabilities, and while they are capable of marshaling the fury of their ancestors to strike down foes, they rapidly lose ground against the focused assault of a determined melee combatant.
Gameplay
The Purifier is a powerful single-target healer with an assortment of shields and blessings. It is great for tank healing in dungeons. Combined with the Sentinel or the Warden (or both) for more area heals, it becomes part of a very powerful healing role.
It is also a great choice to combine with offensive caster souls like the Cabalist or the Inquisitor for soloing or off-healing.
Sentinel
The Sentinel is a soul from the cleric calling that excel at group support including direct and area-of-effect healing.
Description
The Sentinel brings the blessings of light to all who do the will of the gods. Capable of healing many wounded at one time, Sentinels bolster their allies and protect themselves with divine wrath.
Strengths
Sentinels are defensive clerics who excel at group support. Their divine powers aid the weak and ensure that everyone in their group lives through the fray.
Weaknesses
Sentinels sacrifice offense for a strong defense, and thus struggle to deal massive damage to their opponents.
Gameplay
The Sentinel is a powerful single-target and area healer. It gains access to a strong instant cast heal immediately. More points gives the Sentinel access to both large single-target and raid heals. It is great to combine with the Warden soul for heal over time spells, and with the Purifier for shields and absorbs.
As with the other healing souls, the Sentinel has a weak damage output and no crowd control. For soloing it can be combined with a damage-dealing soul such as the Inquisitor or the Cabalist.
Shaman
The Shaman binds the power of the icy north to his very being, wreathing himself in pure elemental force. This power augments a Shaman’s attacks, making him a powerful melee combatant, and provides shields and reactive healing.
Description
Strengths
A Shaman strikes hard and fast like the fury of a winter storm. He can quickly close in to melee and unleash powerful blows fueled by muscle and magic.
Weaknesses
Shamans lack other clerics’ abilities to bolster defenses and heal grievous wounds, so they fare poorly against foes with a strong defense of their own or who can keep the Shaman at bay.
Gameplay
The Shaman is all about swinging their big hammer around dealing damage and is the most offensive of the Cleric souls, but sacrifices almost all of their healing abilities while doing so. They have self buffs, which can be changed to affect the group, that helps the shaman adapt to different situations.
Warden
The Warden is a healer who calls upon the soothing power of water. They specialize in slow healing that escalates over time, making them ideal at aiding allies over prolonged fights that would leave most exhausted and unable to continue.
Description
Strengths
The Warden excels at slowly stacking powerful healing energies on their allies. Given sufficient time to lay down magic, a Warden can bolster their allies through even the most grueling struggles.
Weaknesses
Unable to weave their protective spells quickly enough to overcome a concentrated attack, Wardens have little defense against a rapid or group assault.
Gameplay
The Warden is a healer with an arsenal of heal over time spells (HoTs). These spells are great for keeping both the tank's and the party's health up when taking damage. The Warden makes a great party or raid healer because of the ability to have HoTs on many targets at once. For large emergency heals, however, the Warden should be combined with more direct heal focused souls like the Sentinel and the Purifier.
The Warden is a viable choice for PvP because of it's many HoTs and a couple of nice utility spells such as a knockback and snare-removing spell. For soloing it can be combined with any of the offensive souls, as the HoTs will add to the survivability of all of them.
Equipment
The militant orders gird themselves in chainmail, and march into close combat wielding heavy, two-handed warhammers, or a simple combination of mace and shield. The more arcane priesthoods, meanwhile, wear cloth vestments, brandishing symbols of spiritual power such as staffs, tomes, and totems.
Stats Breakdown
Stack for SP. The softcap for Spell Crit (SC) is 1.1 k and on raid settings you will reach close to that. Although if you are soloing/5 mans, you might consider getting some lesser essences with a decent amount of SC as well. In general, you will want 2.5 times as much SP as SC. Whenever evaluating gear, use the formula total SP *2.5 + total SC.
Wisdom
1 wis = 0.75 spell power (sp) = 4 max Mana = 0.277 mana regen every 10 sec
Intelligence
1 int = 0.25 spell power (sp) = 1 spell crit (sc) = 5 max mana
How should you focus on these two stats? The general consensus on the official forums is that you should aim for 2:1 SP to SC ratio. So you will need to adjust the amount of wisdom and intelligence you have until you reach this optimum ratio.
DPS Specs
Inquisitor Dps
51 Inquisitor / 10 Sentinel / 5 Cabalist
51 Inquisitor / 10 Sentinel / 5 Warden
46 Inquisitor / 10 Sentinel / 10 Shaman
Shaman Dps
51 Shaman / 11 Inquisitor / 4 Justicar
51 Shaman / 11 Inquisitor / 4 Warden
Cabalist Dps
51 Cabalist / 11 Inquisitor / 4 Warden
Druid Dps
51 Druid / 11 Inquisitor / 4 Shaman
Joltisitor Dps
35 Inquisitor / 21 Shaman / 10 Sentinel
Raid Healing Specs
Senticar
34 Sentinel / 22 Justicar / 10 Warden
32 Sentinel / 31 Justicar / 3 Inquisitor
Inquisicar
51 Inquisitor / 11 Justicar / 4 Sentinel
45 Inquisitor / 11 Justicar / 10 Warden
38 Inquisitor / 17 Sentinel / 11 Justicar
Shamicar
51 Shaman / 11 Justicar / 4 Inquisitor
38 Shaman / 17 Sentinel / 11 Justicar
45 Shaman / 21 Justicar / 0 Sentinel
Druidicar
This Role is new as of 1.8, so there most likely will be some tweaking to get this at it's optimal effectiveness.
51 Druid / 11 Justicar / 4 Shaman
51 Druid / 11 Justicar / 4 Inquisitor
51 Druid / 12 Justicar / 3 Sentinel
Tanking and Specs
There were major changes to Justicar talents in 1.8, builds and stat priorities will be updated as soon as possible. Keep on eye on this section for new information.
51 Justicar / 3 Shaman / 12 Inquisitor
The Build Physical Mitigation - The Bread and Butter Build
51 Justicar / 4 Shaman / 11 Cabalist
The Build Magical Resistance (Earth/Air/Fire/Water)
51 Justicar / 3 Shaman / 12 Purifier
The Build Requires ID Gear For Best Results
Justicar Spreadsheet
Google Doc Gear/Rune List and Stat Values - Maintained by Radak of the Rift Forums
51 Point Builds
44 Point Builds
38 Point Builds
Uncoventional Builds
Tanking Guide
Healing Specs
51 Purifier
51 Purifier/15 Sentinel
The usefulness of build comes into play at Lord Greenscale fight (healing debuff affecting all but purifier shields) and Matron in HK (very heavy damage, especially during the add phase). However, if your tank is taking heavy damage and dying a lot in other fights, this build might shine there as well.
The Build:51 Pur/15 Sen
The other variation on this build is 51 purifier/10sent/5cab for the extra SP. However, Touch of the Light from 15 Sentinel is a huge tank saver and its benefits outshines the additional SP gain from the Cabalist soul.
Macros
This build has only three macros. First one is an instant cast Restorative Flame that crits. Its cooldown its every 45 seconds.
#show Touch the Light
suppressmacrofailures
cast Touch the Light
cast Flashover
cast Restorative Flame
Second one is Healing Flare coupled with Healing Breath. This can come in handy if you don’t need big heals and your Healing Breath its on cooldown.
#show Healing Breath
suppressmacrofailures
cast Healing Breath
cast Healing Flare
Third one make your Latent Blaze restore your tank to full hp (or close to it)
#show Latent Blaze
suppressmacrofailures
cast Flashover
cast Latent Blaze
Gear
Purifier, unlike other souls, is heavily Spell Power (SP) dependent. This is because the absorption values of purifier are very SP dependent, especially past 36 points into purifier. To see why, examine these two abilities in the purifier tree.
Disciple of Flame
Ancestral Flame
Therefore, you want to gear heavily for SP. Your spell crit (SC) will suffer a bit as a result. You want SP based lesser essences and a greater essence for puifier. Here is a list of Lessers with the best SP ratios (last one is the purifier Greater Essence).
Last Rites (death vendor) Living Hunt (life vendor) Dark Rites (death vendor) Pyro Spark (fire vendor) Living River (water vendor) Ancestral Soulstone You will also want to grab the purifier synergy crystal if you have T1 raid gear. It only affects Ward of Ancestors but it is better than nothing.
Speaking of T1 raid set, Diona is the set with more SP but the difference between the two isn’t huge. See this link for a comparison of the two sets. I would recommend getting Shyla for everything but gloves and helm and then use Diona for those two for the extra SP. This will ensure you are not totally gimped on SC either.
Strategy
Purifier is all about cooldowns. You will be casting two things constantly: Restorative Flames and Ward of Ancestors. Restorative Flame its your big heal with a shield attached to it that shields for 60% of your total SP. Ward of Ancestors is your instant ward with a cooldown timer of 20 seconds per target.
Here is a list of your useful cooldowns
Spiritual Conflagration – channeled heal for 4 seconds, in addition to a shield every second. Cooldown is 1 minute. Rites of Ancestors – for the next 15 secs, a shield will form every 3 seconds if target is taking damage. Cooldown is 1 min. Caregiver’s Blessing – Your next 6 heals within 1 min will shield your target. Cooldown is 2 min. Fiery Blessing – Your next 5 heals within 1 min will crit (most likely). Cooldown 2 min. Searing Infusion – Increase your target’s hp by 25% of your hp for 10 seconds and heal them for that amount. Cooldown 1 min. Touch the Light macro – cooldown 45 seconds. Before pull: Before pulls, cast your Latent Blaze on your tanks, this is essentially a free heal if your tank goes down below 30% hp. This last for 5 minutes or until it is used up. Once used up, there is a time before you can cast it again on the same target. You can keep Latent Blaze on your MT (Main Tank), OT (Off Tank) and yourself but this might be too much work so just keep it on MT and OT if you can.
Next, you will want to cast Surging Flames on the MT. This will help out the healing of your OT and melee dps a bit and pad your hps meter by alot . Make sure you cast it on the tank you are healing or this won’t work.
On Pull: In most circumstances, you will want to pre-shield your tank before pull by casting Ward of Ancestors on him. This will help mitigate some of the damage on incoming. If the tank’s hp is not dropping too much, you can start off with your 3 second cast of Restorative Flame. If the tank’s hp is dipping a bit too fast for comfort, top him off with Healing Breath/Touch the Light macro and then cast RF. If the tank is taking big hits on incoming, then it is time to cast your Spiritual Conflagration followed by Searing Infusion followed by your RF.
Middle of the fight: If the tank is spiking quite a lot in the middle of the fight, then it is time to pop Rites of Ancestors and 15 seconds later (remember to chain cast RF in between) when Rites expires, cast your Caregiver’s Blessing. Don’t be afraid to use Fiery Blessing after Caregiver’s Blessing is used up. Spiritual Conflagration and Touch the Light macro has a shorter cooldown timer than others so don’t be afraid to interrupt your chain casts of RF if you see the tank just took a big hit and might not survive until your RF lands.
If the tank you assigned to heal is not taking much damage and healing is a breeze, you can also put Ward of Ancestors on other tanks/healers or people you suspect that are the mostly to die.
Special phases of the fight: Certain fights will require you to save your cooldowns for special moments in the fight. I will describe the two that comes in mind.
Lord Greenscale – Noxious Fumes is where the tank takes the most damage. Noxious fumes will tick the tank for a significant amount of damage as it is casting and apply a 75% healing debuff. It is casted every 26 –30 seconds or so. For the first one, you can tough it out with Spiritual Conflagration but it won’t be up for the 2nd cast. For the 2nd cast, you might want to pop Caregiver’s Blessing on the tank and then followed by Touch the Light macro and use Searing Infusion in the end. You can also use Fiery Blessing instead if Caregiver’s is not up. If you can, try apply a fresh Ward of Ancestors on the tank before the noxious fumes hits. Hopefully by the time the 3rd Noxious Fumes is cast, your Spiritual Conflagration will be up.
Matron – When Matron’s stack reach 27+, tanks will take some very heavy hits and may not survive the 3 seconds you have between casts. You don’t want to waste your good cooldowns here because the next phase is going to get even worse. Use Searing Infusion as need and if you must, pop Caregiver’s Blessing. Make sure your Searing Infusion has at least 30-40 seconds left on its timer. If you have not used any cooldowns before the babies spawn, here is how I did this fight.
When the person clicking the book clicks and there is about 5 seconds before the adds spawn (Wire’s Raidkiller addon may help you with the timer for this). Pop your Caregiver’s Blessing. Hopefully you have time to get one RF off for to have Ancestral Flame shield up as well. As soon the adds pop, pop Rites of Ancestors and wait about 2 seconds and then cast Spiritual Conflagration right now. The reason for the wait is that the adds may not attack the tank right away after spawning and you don’t want waste your Spiritual Conflagration if the tank isn’t taking damage for the first few seconds. After you finished with Spiritual Conflagration, then pop Searing Infusion and Touch the Light macro if need. If not then go back to chain casting Restorative Flame.
Depending on your DPS, the cooldowns should come back every time the babies spawn. Healer’s Convenant from Sentinel tree comes really handy as well but you might need to coordinate your other healers with this ability to make sure that they don’t overlap entirely and over protect the tank and not have anything when these cooldowns expire.
(edited by Freight)
Welcome to the bottom of the HPS Meter!
First thing to say about this role is that if you are hellbent on being at the top of the Uberhealz list, this is not the droid you are looking for, move along. This spec is all about keeping one target alive, for a LONG time. This build is extremely mana efficient and with minor help can cast in perpetuity.
The first major Strength of this role is Shields. The 36 point passive ability Disciple of Flame combined with Protection of the Ancestors allows you to apply Shields to your target that are 100% effective in combination with your healing abilities such as your mainstay heal, Restorative Flame and its after effect Ancestral Flame. These few abilities by themselves are enough to warrant a deep Purifier build. This, however is just the beginning, it is my hope to briefly outline the prerequisites and abilities that will let you answer whatever questions you may have had about this build.
So,
In the beginning...
You will need to decide if you want some utility (an AE Heal and Instant Cast) or Straight Spellpower? This means either:
51 Purifier/15 Sentinel/0 Warden ~ or ~ 51 Purifier/10 Sentinel/5 Cabalist.
Both have their benefitsa but in my opinion this build is predicated on Spellpower. Most if not all of your shielding abilities will be based on a % of your Spellpower. Therefore, the higher you can get your SP the more effective your Shields will be. "BUT WHY DO I CARE ABOUT SHIELDS?" Well, the good thing is that they are 100% effective. "WELL, WHATS THAT MEAN?" That means that your shields stay on the target, time permitting, until they are used. Meaning that if it shielded for 2000 points, that it actually absorbed 2000 points of damage. Where many of the big heals thrown by other classes have the potential to be overheal regardless of the uber-crit it may have produced. Shields are also not reduced by debuffs so in a given encounter where incoming heals may be reduced by 50% such as LGS, Hydriss or Grug, they stay at maximum effect. In my opinion, this is a tree that requires 51 points for maximum effectiveness. There are several variants of it but the 2 listed above.
The 15 Sent will give you and AE heal and some more CD utility with Touch the Light @ 14 points. For sheer Single Target power the 5 Cabalist build shines and will add over 100 SP overall with 5 points in Stroke of Genius. There are many advocates of the 3x/3x Purisent build. It is my opinion that the 36 point passive in Puri is too important to trade off for the utility in Sent. However it is up to the individuals play style. This build is more intended for raiding and any combination you use for other purposes is left to your enjoyment and particular needs.
A Few Thoughts on Spell Usage:
You have several cooldowns that you can use to get you through times when the Tanks are taking high damage. Most of the are self explanatory and the tool tip will give you the information you need to learn what they do and allow you to work them in to your Macro or rotation as you see fit. The only thing I will recommend is that you NEVER Macro Ward of the Ancestors and use it Individually. I have a Secondary Macro something like this:
Show Ward of the Ancestors suppressmacrofailures cast Ward of the Ancestors cast Touch the Light cast Restorative Flame
This is your OH S%!T, I have to move and the tank is gonna die Macro. This allows you to cast of the move a HUGE shield/heal combo. By not macroing Ward, you have a better chance of it being there when you need it.
Other spell to learn to love...
Searing Transformation Rite of the Ancestors Spiritual Conflaguration
So keep up Surging Flame and Latent Blaze and have at it!
Enjoy!
Holler at me in Game if I can help with anyting in particular. I love this spec and enjoy helping others love it too.
34 Pur/32 Sen
34 Purifier/32 Sentinel/0 Warden
Build:34 Pur/32 Sen/0 War
Macros:
Guaranteed Latent Blaze w/ Crit – Tank saver
#show Latent Blaze
suppressmacrofailures
cast flashover
cast latent blaze
Fiery Blessing + Healer’s Haste – for when you need big and fast heals
#show Fiery Blessing
suppressmacrofailures
cast Fiery Blessing
cast Healer’s Haste
Healing Communion + Divine call (this one is optional, if you like to save Divine Call for special occasions then don’t use this macro. However, since I don’t AoE heal much with this spec it didn’t matter)
#show Divine Call
suppressmacrofailures
cast Divine Call
cast Healing Communion
Healing Breath + Healing Flare
#show Healing Breath
suppressmacrofailures
cast Healing Breath
cast Healing Flare
Instant cast big heal
#show Touch the Light
suppressmacrofailures
cast Touch the Light
cast Flashover
cast Restorative Flame
Gear:
With purifier, SP (Spell Power) is going to be the stat to aim for. The more SP you have, the bigger your ancestral flame shield is going to be and the less of a beating your tank will receive between casts of Restorative Flame.
That being said, you should not ignore SC (Spell Crit) either. Ideally you want to have SP and SC in a 2.5 ratio. When looking at a piece of gear, I like to use the formula total SP *2.5 + total SC to give me an “item score”. Total SP is calculated from wis *0.75 + int *0.25 + actual SP on item. Total SC is calculated from int*1 + actual SC on item.
In terms of your sigils/sourcemachines, you might consider the purifier greater Ancestral Sourcestone but for now it really only affects your Ward of Ancestors. This might be a good greater to have regardless when you need to switch to 51 purifier for whatever reason.
The rest of your sigil/sourcemachine should be filled with the best lessers you can get for SP. My top 6 choices, in keeping with the 2.5 SP/SC ratio, are the following.
Dark Rituals 100 inscribed @ Death vendor Last Rituals 100 inscribed @ Death vendor Living Quest 100 inscribed @ Life vendor Living Surge 100 inscribed @ Water vendor Pyro Flare 100 inscribed @ Fire Vendor Mystic Surge 100 inscribed @ Water vendor For T3 (Diona/Shyla) raid set, there is very little reason to go Diona set. You should get Shyla for all pieces except maybe gloves. See comparison here.
For T4 (Asphodel’s Reinforced/Empowered) raid set, the same applies. Go for empowered (set w/ focus) except maybe gloves. See comparison here.
For PA (Planar Attunement) points, if you are using a 2hander, it is better to go for point allocations that give these +SP bonuses as they give out twice as much sp as 1handers. Once you done that, focus on +SP on totems or +wis ones. Lastly, focus on +int squares. None of the tier 2 special abilities are worth getting on raids save for the water one (+300 mana on totem). The rest of the abilities do not stack with Burning Powerstone and are inferior to the +200 sp bonus that Burning Powerstones give out.
For consumables, you should have a burning powerstone for every raid. Make sure to get the +20 SP cake from Farhall/Atia as well. Have brightsurge vial (I use the +35 one) and Elder Tablet too. Make sure to use Elder Tablet before the start of a fight as it shares a cooldown with your mana pots. Of course you should have your drinks.
Discussion
This is pretty much the tank healing build to run for clerics unless there is a need for 51 purifier or more AoE healing is needed (in which case Sent/Warden might be better). It feels less sluggish than 51 purifier and comes with a battle rez. although with a 10 minutes cooldown.
You should have Latent Blaze (w/ Flashover) and Surging Flames maintained on the tank at all times. The cooldown on Latent Blaze is fairly small so you can keep it up on yourself and another person as well pretty easily. Be sure to pop Ward of Ancestors on the tank whenever it is up. You can also keep it up on another person or two fairly easily. Anything more might be stretching a bit.
With this build, you won’t have as many save-butt cooldowns as a 51 purifier or as much Serendipity procs as a sent/warden. However, you are not losing out much either. Your Restorative Flame will be much faster casting on average than that of a 51 purifier due to the occasional serendipity procs. You have Healer’s Covenant with a 2 minute cooldown timer you can pop on the tank when he/she is about to take a lot of damage. You also have Searing Transfusion and Fiery Blessing + Healer’s Haste for when things goes awry as well. Keep Flashover handy on your skillbar, as you can use it before Healing Breath to quickly save someone from the brink of death! Don’t forget the Touch the Light macro either on a 45 second cooldown!
In terms of AoE healing, you will do a lot of passive AoE healing through Surging Flames (via chain-casts of Restorative Flame), as long people are near 15 meters of you. Divine call is also nice to have to for when things goes awry. If you need a bit more AoE heals than what Surging Flames offers and your Divine Call is on cooldown, then Healing Communion is nice to chain spam but beware that it can drain your mana pretty quick!
Don’t forget you also have an AoE cleanse, this can come handy in a couple fights (i.e. Sicaron in HK comes to mind).
51 Warden
51 Warden
The Build:51 War/15 Sen/0 Pur
A healing focused cleric who uses the warden tree almost exclusively to provide healing through HoT spells and direct heals. The warden’s ‘orb’ spells are used to provide spike healing capability. And the cool downs from the warden/sentinel trees allow for the best group healing in the game.
Advantages Consistent, steady tank healing through HoT spells. High burst AoE healing, including the best AoE Heal currently in the game. Good burst healing on the tank MUCH bigger heals on your HoT spells than other warden builds. Mobility. Because most of your HoTs are instant-cast you can cast them while running around Good mana efficiency, including power regeneration ability on a 2 minute timer Instant-cast large direct heal 45 second cooldown to make ANY heal instant cast. 45 second cooldown to increase ANY heal by 80% 45 second cooldown to make ANY of your single target heals affect the entire group. Spell Synergy and Rotation There are several good healing combinations I have found, as well as a ‘general’ casting order that I will use in most dungeons.
General Rotation: Pre-pull load the tank with Tidal Surged single orbs and the person most likely to pull agro with the group orbs (optional). Cast Healing Spray before Soothing Stream stacks (if they aren’t still on the tank from last pull). Healing Spray heals for about the same as a 4-stack of Soothing Stream and uses only 1 GCD to get it ticking. Always cast this first. Then Deluge->Healing Current->Deluge, refresh SS and HS, Deluge->Healing Current->Deluge repeat as necessary.
In general your ‘oh-crap’ responses are not as powerful as a Sentinel/Purifier’s would be, however they can still do the job and I find that they are quite effective. They generally will use one of the three ‘enhancement’ buttons available for the Warden.
Tidal Surge – If you can spare the time, this is probably your best option. +80% on your next heal. If you cast this before your orbs, then all three triggers will get the bonus. If you cast it before you hit the 4th (or top-up) cast of Soothing Stream, then all 4 stacks will gain this benefit until you refresh the stacks. If you cast it before Downpour then your group has god-mode until it’s finished. I’ve had a deluge crit after casting this and it hit for 5k, that’s not a small number. Touch the Light – Make your next heal instant-cast. This is not as huge as it is in other builds because Warden’s don’t have many long cast abilities. It is good for when you need an extra heal NOW though. I usually will use this to make Healing Cataract instant-cast if I need to top-up my group. It also works well on Deluge or orbs, as it gives you an extra 0.5seconds to cast things with. Use it three times in a fight and that’s an extra heal (GCD timer). Ripple – This is probably the most powerful cool down available for the warden. It makes all your single-target spells cast on everyone in your group for 6 seconds. The best use I have found for this spell is to combine it with Touch the Light and cast Healing Current, then Healing Spray and a few stacks of Soothing stream. Depending on lag you will get a large heal with a HoT (Healing Current), Healing Spray and one or two stacks of Soothing Stream. This is usually enough to bring the entire group back to full, and as an added bonus it doesn’t reduce healing on the tank. This spell magnifies the effect of Tidal Surge as well, as each of the spells that are spread to the group will benefit from the 80% increase on Tidal Surge. Ocean’s Blessing – Passive. Increases the Spell Power bonus on your heal over time spells by 6% plus an additional 3.6% per point spent in the warden soul above 36. This is the core of this build. Putting the extra points into warden increases the bonus to your HoT spells by A LOT. At 51 points you are looking at a 60% bonus to your HoTs. If you have 1000 spell power, that’s like getting an extra 600 spell power for free.
Offensive Touches For a lot of the easier zones (T1 expert specifically) you will be able to heal the trash with nothing but a 4-stack of Soothing Stream and Healing Spray. In these situations it is best to DPS with your two DoT spells and Waterjet. If you run into a large group of ranged caster mobs, make sure you silence one of them so it runs to your tank. This makes it easier on him for holding agro, and also reduces the difficulty in healing the encounter by making the ranged mob less likely to agro YOU for healing. Be aware though that some ranged attackers are simply using a bow. Silencing them will not help. In these cases you can use the knockback to move them towards the tank, or you can just heal through it.
Gearing As this build revolves around a solid, steady stream of heals, it doesn’t benefit from a focus on crit. Crits are great when they happen, but lowering your overall healing amount by focusing on INT to get crits is not the way to play this class. If you crit, great, but you should be able to heal without any crits at all. Focus on WIS and +SP. I also find that the best greater essences are the faesources that trigger an extra HoT on your heals and the one which gives you an SP boost when you cast heals. The same thing for trinkets. If you can get the wolf-trinket from the first name in King's Bastion (expert) you'll do well with it. Failing that there is another trinket (that I'm currently using) which gives you 60 SP when you cast a heal.
This class has a lot of potential. But it is fiddley to use and requires a lot more attention than the normal 32/34 sentinel/purifier build that I see a lot of people using. Yes, it is more difficult than spamming Healing Invocation/Restorative Flame. But it also brings a lot more healing to the group. If you spend the points in the Warden tree to get the extra spell power bonus (60%!) you’ll notice your HoTs will be healing for A LOT more and are actually viable as the main source of healing instead of just as filler while you cast your next Healing Invocation or Restorative Flame. The hybrid-Warden builds do gain some utility over the pure-Warden, however to put enough points into them that they get anything really useful, you have to pull so many points out of warden that your HoTs are back to being filler and you then have to use those extra heals as your main heal (HI or RF), at which point, you aren’t really a warden anymore.
The Warden soul can absolutely stand on its own. It doesn’t require help from other souls to work, and I honestly feel that it is the only one of the three healing souls that SHOULD be maxed out.
PvP Healing
PvP Healing
I'm still waiting for an up to date guide on Cleric PvP healing but for now here are a few builds that have been suggested recently.
32 Warden/29 Sentinel/5 Purifier
51 Warden/15 Sentinel/0 Purifier
The most important thing for your PvP build is having hots, alot of AoE capabilities and mobility.
The main thing about survival in PvP is LoS (Line of Sight), use pillars, stones, rocks, whatever to your advantage and hide behind them when you are getting focus fired. If they don’t get line of sight to you, they can’t kill you.
Cleanse is another big thing in PvP and you will devout a significant amount of time to it and soon learn all the icons you need to cleanse off right away. The reason you need to cleanse a lot is the healing debuffs from warriors, rogues and mages. These healing debuffs will reduce your healing by as much as 50% if not cleansed. Also, mages are out there running with the stormcaller build and they have a nasty Storm Shackle that will damage you if you move without cleansing it. Remember you have 3 cleanses – AoE, cleanse over time and single target cleanse.
