New Cleric - Dwarf or Dark Elf?
 

Hello everyone. I have a quick question. I'm starting up a cleric this afternoon and I was wondering if a Dark Elf cleric is a viable build. My old cleric from 2001 was a dwarf, mostly because they were the obvious choice at that point. But I do have a certain amount of affection for the Dark Elves. What are people's opinions on this?

I like the racial hide that Dark Elves get, and it's saved me from a more than a few total-party wipes after we got trained or whatever. Just click-stick everyone back up and continue.

The clicky-snare necklace is neat, but the cast time on it and the relatively small snare effect makes it more of a toy than a really useful thing. Your mileage may vary. If you like, you can also keep turning in the Master Whoopal's head to [I forget his name exactly] for a one-charge Illusion:Halfling mask, and that's kinda fun, too.

Aegis of Life will require lots of faction work to do (so much so that I haven't bothered with that particular quest).

Dwarves have an easier time carrying the plate armor in the early levels (hell, my 60 cleric still only has about 4-5 stones of weight before he's encumbered), and the flippy jump is cool I guess. Summoning beer is a less useful toy than an almost-useless snare, but I guess if you really like virtual beer, you've got that going for you. Faction and starting STR is probably a dwarf's best starting perk.

Dwarves (and Brell worshiping gnomes) get the benefit of the +wis dwarf cultural plate armor some of which is still wearable at 60.

DE is plenty viable for a cleric. Racial hide is a neat, but you'll want to get some ring potions or rings of shadow. DEs also get to wear robes, while dwarves do not.

A quick tangential question. Are newbie armor quests still around? By that, I mean the Initiate Dark Priest set, Brell's Blessed set, Felwithe Defender set, etc.

Nope, those are post Luclin newbie zone remodels.

Sol Ro armor sets are available, but player made cultural armors are better.

Whatever you choose, keep something in mind: there's no Nexus or PoK book for easy selling and banking.

Yes faction can be worked on and eventually fixed, but in my humble opinion dwarf is the way to go for cleric.

I've only ever played evil races. Personally I just think Dark Elves are cool and you should pick whatever race you think is the coolest for your class because that's the char you're going to be playing for a long time.

As far as banking, selling, etc goes I've never had a problem with it. It is inconvenient at times but there are plenty of evil cities and other merchants everywhere. If you play an evil class that gets invis it's no big deal at all.

Dwarves are awful.

HALFLING.

gnome, duh