question about important Cleric spells

[Lopretni]

i have a level 8 cleric, almost level 9. did mail runs to level 5 and i've grouped my way up and will hopefully continue to do so. i have these spells so far, i was curious if there were any others i should pick up or if i ought to be alright. i'm just doing Crushbone right now and when i outgrow that i plan to go to Unrest or Befallen.

Level 1
Courage, Cure Poison, Divine Aura, Flash of Light, Lull, Minor Healing, Spook the Dead, Strike

Level 5
Cure Blindness, Cure Disease, Furor, Gate, Holy Armor, Light Healing, Stun, Summon Drink, Ward Undead

Level 9
Center, Fear, Hammer of Wrath, Root, Soothe, Summon Food

any recommendations about future spellgroups are welcome as well, i'm ok on plat right now but i try to keep the future in mind.

[Daena]

Absolutely essential (14-24):
Bind affinity, cancel magic, expulse undead, healing, invis vs. undead, smite
Calm, daring, endure magic
Bravery, counter poison, dismiss undead, greater heal

You don't need resist buffs other than endure magic (might prove useful even as low version) as you will get better versions later on. I've yet to use fears much till 40+ when I once grouped with a necro. Low level symbols suck, but you can pick Ryltan at 24 to buff before some tough fights (like hags in Unrest).
Hammers are utterly useless, yaulp might have use when you're so overweight you cant move, but can get later versions for that. AC buffs do very little, pick them 29+ though for tanks.

[webrunner5]

I know you don't want to here this, but you NEED, as a Cleric, to buy EVERY spell you get. You will be surprised how many low level ones you use higher up. :(

[Lopretni]

Absolutely essential (14-24):
Bind affinity, cancel magic, expulse undead, healing, invis vs. undead, smite
Calm, daring, endure magic
Bravery, counter poison, dismiss undead, greater heal

You don't need resist buffs other than endure magic (might prove useful even as low version) as you will get better versions later on. I've yet to use fears much till 40+ when I once grouped with a necro. Low level symbols suck, but you can pick Ryltan at 24 to buff before some tough fights (like hags in Unrest).
Hammers are utterly useless, yaulp might have use when you're so overweight you cant move, but can get later versions for that. AC buffs do very little, pick them 29+ though for tanks.

thanks for the reply, i was on the fence about the resist spells and yalup. might pick up yalup next time i'm in town. my armor takes up like 80% of my weight, it sucks but it's worth it cause it's kept me from CRing more than once.

i picked up Fear just in case but as i get higher in levels i'll probably have to be more selective about what i get.

I know you don't want to here this, but you NEED, as a Cleric, to buy EVERY spell you get. You will be surprised how many low level ones you use higher up. :(

this isn't feasible right now but i will go back and re-buy what i miss when i have the platinum, i'm really just looking at what is important, what i absolutely need to keep a group's wheels spinning smoothly in a basic sense. it'll be nice at a higher level when i have more freedom in what i'm doing so i can do that, i'd like to have a full spellbook one day.

i hit a snag in leveling, the only downside to playing a group reliant class is you're reliant on other people not being selfish dicks and that's not really always gonna happen. think i'm gonna play with a necro for a bit, maybe hop back on my cleric when i find a group of good people. thank you for the replies though, i don't think i'm closing the book on the cleric class yet.

[Daena]

You are not group reliant at all, till level 50/51. In fact aside from a very good duo or trio, soloing is vastly better than any PuG you can find. Just nuke undead and afk, exp is much faster this way, sad as it is. There's a great undead solo guide somewhere in the forum, as well as on wiki page.

If i had to do it again:

1-14 doesn't matter, just get bind and ALL essential spells up to level 24
14-22(24) Kurn's tower, I would make sure I don't get kos with burynai and solo lower levels of Kurn for as long as giant icebone/charbone skels are blue (can be done to 24 but gets dull so I left at 22)
22(24)-40 Unrest, first floor, start second floor at 24 with new undead nuke
34-40 Unrest hag tower, fastest exp in game
40-44 group in CoM to learn some group tactics
44-50 solo specters in Feerrot
50-51 undead ghosts in TT, get Seb key meanwhile, or just start KC 49+
51+ group KC, 54+ Seb/KC/HS what ever

[kaev]

You are not group reliant at all, till level 50/51. In fact aside from a very good duo or trio, soloing is vastly better than any PuG you can find. Just nuke undead and afk, exp is much faster this way, sad as it is. There's a great undead solo guide somewhere in the forum, as well as on wiki page.


I'll disagree with "soloing is vastly better than any PuG". First, I'd question the whole notion of playing a cleric solo wizard style (nuke & afk), it makes a lot more sense to actually play a wiz and nuke whatever type of mob you feel like and get the ports besides if that's the way you want to play.

Second, and much more important, it seriously sucks to find yourself in a group at 50+ with a cleric who hasn't bothered to learn to play her class well on the way up. A well played cleric is a great asset to a dungeon group. A CHeal & buff bot phoning it in is an appendage presiding over repeated group wipes and/or parasiting off the efforts and good play of others. You're far better off grouping with a well-played druid healer than one of those annoying cookie-cutter twink/solo rez-bots anyday, despite the weakness of druid healing.

[Daldaen]

24-40 soloing in Unrest is faster than any group would be. But it is often camped. Beyond 40 I found soloing to be bad, I grouped once or twice and then exchanged PLs with a guildie to push through to 46.

People talk about these cleric group skills like they are hard to learn or not glaringly obvious to most people. You're fine to solo to 50 and Chardok to 60, then start grouping at some loot camps on a cleric. No one will notice the difference unless you are dumb.

Before grouping:

Make sure you reset your Specialization from Evocation to Alteration. It's pretty typical for a solo cleric to spec evocation from spamming nukes. Reset it to Alteration once you start healing in groups.

Make sure your Alteration/Abjuration skills are maxed, fizzling buffs and heals from bad skill is sadface. Divination and Conjuration don't matter for grouping. If you ever need IvU it's fortunately low enough that your skill doesn't matter. Don't bother with Sunskin, it blows.

Have a solid spell lineup that lets you fill a cleric and utility role, mine typically is:

Complete Heal
Divine Light
Remedy
Celestial Healing
Stun
Root
Divine Aura
Divine Barrier

Depending on the situation, root or one of the heals may be dropped for a second stun, or a nuke. Stun may be dropped for MoK if it's mostly melee mobs. Stun/root/extra heal may also be dumped for Group healage in the rare event that's necessary.

Use 30 Mana stun to prevent gating mobs from training you, and caster mobs from nuking your tank. It's better to spend 30 mana stunning preventing a nuke than it is to spend 350 healing back that nuke.

Use Root CC as required (if no Enchanter/Bard is present). I try to only do this when grouping with people who have some level of situational awareness. Often times you'll find people who just face roll and don't pay attention to the rooted mob behind them beating on them, when they could take a step forward and be completely safe.

Use Symbol on Tanks, Enchanters and Bad pullers. DPS should not require symbols. Once you get group symbol, may as well use that. Same deal with Heroic Bond. No one really needs AC buff other than Tanks. If you're full mana and bored, this is the time to buff the non-necessary people.

Get a Water Sprinkler of the Forgiven - Atone stick is one of the most underrated cleric items in game. Having mana free memblur, plus Root and Lull, allows you to save tourself from having to gate out from a see invis or allows you to perform a CC/Puller role if you want to get crazy with it.

You can toss nukes when full mana and HPs are fine also, even though you're a cleric.

In-low DPS groups doing epic fights, juggs, and other high HP mobs, consider using Unswerving Hammer pet (skill up Conjuration beforehand). Pro-tip - Get a Reclaim Energy clicks item from Sol Ro Mage quests, you can reclaim the hammer before a mob dies for mana free DMG. I've had hammers do like 2-3k DMG on Sebilite Protector and Tolapmuj. Don't use against mobs with instant AEs and reclaim the pet if it looks like they are casting an AE.

Use Heroic Bond as a group heal. It's the most efficient one you will get.

Beyond that, grouping on a cleric is absurdly boring in your typical - Tank, Cleric, Slower, Puller group.

[kaev]

People talk about these cleric group skills like they are hard to learn or not glaringly obvious to most people. You're fine to solo to 50 and Chardok to 60, then start grouping at some loot camps on a cleric. No one will notice the difference unless you are dumb.


OTOH, Chardok AE is so incredibly attractive to dummies that it's best to avoid clerics who follow Daldaen's golden rez-bot path or anything similar to it. Learn your class, meet people, build a rep. To steal somebody else's line from alt.games.everquest ~ 15 years ago... the playstyle Dald's recommending here closely resembles a robot masturbating: efficient & joyless.

[webrunner5]

I can tell you a LOT of groups totally suck being the "Healer". Bad pulls, AFK people, etc. make for a "just blame the Cleric" why we died thing. :mad:

I have always found soloing on a Cleric much more exciting, challenging, rewarding than almost any group. Not counting if you want to quit playing, just quit. No, well crap, I can't find any replacement stuff. :( YMMV.

[webrunner5]

OTOH, Chardok AE is so incredibly attractive to dummies that it's best to avoid clerics who follow Daldaen's golden rez-bot path or anything similar to it. Learn your class, meet people, build a rep. To steal somebody else's line from alt.games.everquest ~ 15 years ago... the playstyle Dald's recommending here closely resembles a robot masturbating: efficient & joyless.

We are not talking Rocket Science to play a Cleric here. Figuring out what HP the Tank, Assist has, and using the right couple of heal spells, and timing them is pretty much it. Hell a Shaman is a LOT harder to play than a Cleric.

We aren't talking being a Enchanter skill wise with a pet or hell even being a puller for that matter. With a good Tank with the right gear, you can almost pretend you are a Wizard and be AFK half the time.

[Sorn]

any recommendations about future spellgroups are welcome as well, i'm ok on plat right now but i try to keep the future in mind.

Oh, gosh, what can I remember from my time on live when I grouped with my cleric? I think I was pretty good, if memory serves. I don't remember a lot of dying on my watch, at least. Never made it past 49, though.

I usually get every single spell available if I have the money, but if I don't, I focus on getting the following: Buffs, heals, and nukes. Various utility spells should come based on need if you're tight on pp.

You already have a good set of the basics there. Root, divine aura, nukes, heals, basic buffs, and a few utilitarian spells are good. What I think a cash-strapped cleric would need for level 14 and 19...

14: Bind affinity, cancel magic, expulse undead, healing, invis vs undead, smite (symbol of transal optional but requires a cat's eye agate to cast, so it'll end up costing you over time, the rest can be for when you get more money)
19: Calm, daring, endure magic, holy might (spirit armor and yaulp II if you have money)

After 19 you should have a pretty good idea what suits you best. By the way, level 19 spells suck because you're in that awkward, in between place where nothing seems to be quite good enough for the level of mobs you're dealing with.

This seems like a good place to ramble about cleric spells, so I will do that. I'll cover the three basic categories first and then comment on other types of spells. (INC long post!)

BUFFS
Clerics get a few different types of buffs each time they upgrade. One is an HP buff (with a minor AC component, I believe), another is a pure AC buff. Later on you get symbols, which consume a reagent and give you HP. All of these stack, so technically they're different lines. My advice for cash-strapped clerics, get the main HP buff (ones like Courage, Bravery, Daring, etc) first. The other two are nice to have if you can get 'em, but that first one is definitely something you will want every time you upgrade. The symbols can get expensive because of the reagents.

We also get more specialized buffs like Endure Magic, Endure Fire, etc. Grab these if you want to raid or superbuff people. Endure Magic is most useful. The Yaulp line may be useful if you do melee or have a tendency to collect a lot of heavy things and need to run somewhere faster than the speed of snail (that would be all clerics ever). Extra optional: Shrieking a battle cry in real life every time you cast yaulp.

HEALS
Clerics don't start pulling ahead of the shamans and druids until the mid-levels (30s, I think) when we start getting crazy strong heals at relatively earlier levels, and no one else gets Complete Healing (CH). Regardless, get the upgrades to your main heal when they come along because you will need them.

We also get things like Cure Disease and Cure Poison at early levels. Grab these, too, if you can. I've never personally used Extinguish Fatigue unless I've decided to try jumping a lot for whatever reason. That one just does not see a lot of regular usage.

We also get area effect/group and heal over time heals. These can draw a lot of aggro. You can get these at your own discretion depending on what you think would be most useful in your situation. I tended to drop the heal over time spells on newbies. The AE/group heal just turned me into a hate magnet. I think I've only used it in raid situations when there were multiple tanks on a single mob.

NUKES
Clerics actually have a surprisingly wide array of nukes available. First is just your basic wizard-y nuke (Smite harder, cleric! Harder!), which is very minimal and comes with a longer recast time than the other spells. A cleric is not a nuking machine :( Oh well, the dedicated soloer won't let that stop them.

Now our second type of nuke is our undead line, which puts the fear of life into every undead we come across. Shorter recast time + higher damage makes it way more efficient than the basic nuke. In fact, we are on par with wizards in terms of damage, though we only have one line of undead nukes as opposed to three.

Our third and much more limited nuke line is the summoned line. Could be useful but I honestly didn't use it that much on live so I can't tell you for sure.

Cash-strapped clerics can get the basic nuke and undead nuke. Later we get AE nukes, but those are pretty weak. I liked using them on crowds of defenseless orcs in Crushbone, but maybe that was just me. :)

OTHER (Offensive)
I would get stuns, roots, and fears.

Stun - for caster mobs who want to introduce you to real nukes as opposed to your pansy cleric nukes.
Root - for mobs running at you as your tank tries to draw aggro after you drop a major heal on them.
Fears - You just want to see something run away from you screaming for once. It'll stop them from wailing on you, at least.

If you team up with someone with snare or get a clicky snare, you're golden. Fear those suckers til kingdom come. We also get an AE fear at 24. Useful? You decide. Once again, I would just use it on helpless orcs in Crushbone when no one else is around. They tend to shoot off in different directions and occasionally bring friends on the return trip.

Blinds are up there with fears, only marginally less useful because mobs are somewhat like homing pigeons in that they do not need to see to home in on you most of the time.

We get the occasional basic debuff. Up to you, could turn you into a weak back-up shaman in some situations. Good for soloing caster mobs as well.

OTHER (Non-offensive)
We can imbue gems and minerals. These spells are ENTIRELY optional. I'm not sure how much demand there is for these. I personally plan to use them in tradeskilling.

We can summon food and drink. I'd get these, personally. They are anti-spam spells.

We can also summon hammers. Useless? Some say yes. But picture this...you're naked, alone, and afraid. You have to run through an entire dungeon to get back to your body, and the mobs are invulnerable to regular weapons. Summoning a magical hammer sure seems like a nice idea, doesn't it?

Divine Aura and Divine Barrier are necessary.

Resurrection line of spells is also necessary as a cleric (after 29, at least). You can save yourself exp when you die, and people will throw money in your face to avoid spending extra hours killing stuff. By the way, level 29 rez is basically useless except for saving someone from a long corpse run. The exp rezzes you get later on are the ones people pay for, even if you don't ask. (I never asked, even at level 49.)

-------------

Regarding grouping, it is up to you how you play as a cleric. Just ignore the rest of us old geezers arguing about it if what we say doesn't suit you. Follow your heart! :)

I will say that buffs, heals, nukes, stuns, and roots are all well-employed in a group as well as solo. All spells require good timing, especially heals. Good timing requires practice. Any time you get a new set of spells - and this is general advice for any caster - practice both solo and in a group so you can learn how everything works.

You also need to be a good communicator as a cleric in a group. LOM (low on mana), OOM (out of mana) are two essential concepts. Keep track of who you're healing and who is killing what, who is in range of spells, and what is around you. Priorities should be to keep everyone alive (if only barely - my policy is usually 'no one below 50% or bust!'), and to help the main tank keep aggro on themselves, or help redirect aggro if the main tank is compromised.

You do have some crowd control capabilities. They are minimal but they can get the job done in a pinch. I have saved butts by rooting a mob to keep it from killing another group member who drew untimely aggro while lom. Stun only briefly keeps caster mobs from raining death and destruction on a group and gets their attention pretty fast. I have also deliberately drawn aggro onto myself at times to even out damage distribution in a group since I had the AC and HP to handle it. I've also pulled and done some assist tanking. These are all within a cleric's abilities. I personally find it fun to do the unexpected.

Soloing is less chaotic than a group and you have more limited options when it comes to survival. It's also a little lonely sometimes. Some might say soloing is better than a bad group. That's probably true in most cases, but nothing beats a good group in my mind. You can go to many more interesting places with allies. Right now I'm struggling a bit on my own because I'm too shy to ask for help. Soloing might get me levels and pp, but it doesn't get me the experience of doing quests and earning respect and friendship.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I remember from playing a cleric on live. Some info might be wrong since it's been a really long time. Hopefully the information is helpful to anyone reading.

[webrunner5]

Darn good writeup Sorn. Well done. :)

[Daena]

You will find that most PuGs have little respect for how much mana you have. This is less true at 51+ but on lower levels your heals are nowhere near as good. Complete heal doesn't really kick in till at least mid 40's. You will be often struggling for every possible med tick to keep your group alive. This could get very stressful, as the fault is not really yours but you will be the one to blame.

Soloing on the other hand is far less stressful, you can also AFK a lot and do many other things. Group tactics are very easy to learn, just read this forum and apply what you learn in game. Things like macros, percentage healing regarding to your mana, etc. You can very easily learn all this low 50's in your typical KC/sol b/CoM group. In this sense grouping till at least 44 doesn't give you much practice. 51+ you will get new fast heal, more cool hp buffs, a rez and all things that make cleric shine. Till that you are just slightly better than druid or shammy.

Oh as folks here say don't forget to respec from Evocation to Alteration somewhere at 49-51. I forgot and was struggling with mana at first while my spec. Alteration slowly went up.