Anybody tried an all-cleric team?

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Originally Posted by Smedbox

I did the Extra Life event in the weekend and finally created my own 5-cleric team. I got level 20 in the 24 hours. A lot of AFK, walking around and trying to wake up. :) I was too tired to set up the tank and healer macros so I didn't do much dungeons. I did the first two bosses in IT at 20 and it was extremely easy though I'm not sure how to manage mana on the tank yet.

Purpose didn't seem to do anything (tried just spamming Strike of Judgment)... While Purpose is on, do all melee strikes use 0 mana? Or does it matter which melee strike I use to try to regain mana (meaning I use should use low-cost strikes rather than high-cost strikes)?

Videos from that first IT attempt is uploaded at http://boxofchocolate.smedis.com.

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I also made a team of 5 clerics and ran around with Smedbox here and there.

However, I only managed to get to level 16 and a bit before the 24 hour mark.

I am liking the team however and hopefully will be able to transfer them over to Alsbeth once they have combed through all the logs for titles and rewards.

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Originally Posted by wyofiddler

If I remember right (at work, posting on my phone) purpose lasts for 10secs and returns a % (10%???) of your mana for each melée hit that lands while it's active. if you time it right you can get about half a bar of mana from it, but if you have to move etc and only hit once or twice it doesn't do as much for you. Abilities still cost normal mana while it's active as well, so I try to use my single target spam while it's up instead of even justice spam.

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I finished the whole IT last night as level 20/21 and I got better at using Purpose. This time I actually just used Even Justice. My single-target macro contains many non-melee abilities too that don't give any mana back at all, but my AoE macro is just Even Justice at the moment.

I time it with Aggressive Renewal on my other clerics, so in my case I hit:

1. F9 - Turns on Purpose and Aggressive Renewal (starts 3 sec channeling) on all clerics.
2. 7 - AoE spam on just the tank (the other clerics are still channeling)
3. 7 - AoE spam on just the tank (the other clerics are still channeling)
4. F7 - AoE spam for all clerics (the other clerics may be on cast timer)
5. F7 - AoE spam for all clerics (the other clerics may be on cast timer)
6. F7 - AoE spam for all clerics (the other clerics may be on cast timer)
7. F7 - AoE spam for all clerics (the other clerics may be on cast timer)

I do the first two steps pretty much at the same time - there's no GCD when turning on Purpose. I do step #2 and #3 on the tank only since channeling spells tend to be aborted if you try to cast something else. This went pretty well, and you can do it pretty much at the start of a big group pull - the tank will get a lot of aggro, all clerics get full mana and everything dies. :)

For my first dungeon run, I used 1h+shield on my Justicar tank. But now I've read that this is useless and a cleric tank should be using a 2h hammer?

What's your opinion on the matter?

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Originally Posted by Smedbox

For my first dungeon run, I used 1h+shield on my Justicar tank. But now I've read that this is useless and a cleric tank should be using a 2h hammer?

What's your opinion on the matter?

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You want a shield as a tank. Almost two tiers of your tanking talents revolve around blocking, including Precept of Refuge, which is a massive mitigation talent. You also gain 5% of your mana whenever you block.

Also, don't bother micromanaging Purpose. Just macro it into your generic single target and AoE rotations. You will gain more total mana using it on cooldown than you will saving it until you're low. Mana isn't really an issue as a cleric tank.

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Originally Posted by Apatheist

Also, don't bother micromanaging Purpose. Just macro it into your generic single target and AoE rotations. You will gain more total mana using it on cooldown than you will saving it until you're low. Mana isn't really an issue as a cleric tank.

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Under level 30, that's incorrect. Once you get Precept of Refuge and the mana regen talent that goes with it (which requires 30 points in Justicar at minimum), your mana regen comment becomes true. I tried weaving purpose into my tank rotation when my noobs were leveling and I found making a macro with

cast purpose
cast strike of judgment

and spamming that for the 10 seconds it was up did much, much better. Like, 20% regen versus 80% regen. You don't need it for trash for teh most part -- you need it for long-ass boss fights, and that's where weaving it into the macro sucks balls.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

Under level 30, that's incorrect. Once you get Precept of Refuge and the mana regen talent that goes with it (which requires 30 points in Justicar at minimum), your mana regen comment becomes true. I tried weaving purpose into my tank rotation when my noobs were leveling and I found making a macro with

cast purpose
cast strike of judgment

and spamming that for the 10 seconds it was up did much, much better. Like, 20% regen versus 80% regen. You don't need it for trash for teh most part -- you need it for long-ass boss fights, and that's where weaving it into the macro sucks balls.

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I didn't find that to be the case for my cleric team through IT and Deepstrike Mines. My tank never ran out of mana (unless for some reason I was spamming Even Justice which dropped my mana precipitously).

As far as 1h+shield versus 2h tanking, it seemed to me that I took less burst damage using 1h and shield than using a 2h weapon (up to about level 28 on my current team). I didn't run an analysis of this but it just seemed that way to me. I know that people have tried to number crunch the issue and say that at lower levels 2-handed tanking is equal to or better than 1h+shield tanking. Once you get the shield skills I think that the numbers favor 1h+shield.

Hell, who knows. I was (likely) doing something wrong with spec or gear. My experience was Justicar sub-30 was a pure mana hog in sustained fights. If you spread out pulls (like when clearing trash) such that you could use Purpose every other pull, it was fine. On the longer boss fights, I ran out of mana faster than Purpose could refresh.

Of course, it's a moot point now at 40 as the mana regen from block pumps so much mana that I could just about spam nothing BUT even justice and not run dry.

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Originally Posted by Ughmahedhurtz

Under level 30, that's incorrect. Once you get Precept of Refuge and the mana regen talent that goes with it (which requires 30 points in Justicar at minimum), your mana regen comment becomes true. I tried weaving purpose into my tank rotation when my noobs were leveling and I found making a macro with

cast purpose
cast strike of judgment

and spamming that for the 10 seconds it was up did much, much better. Like, 20% regen versus 80% regen. You don't need it for trash for teh most part -- you need it for long-ass boss fights, and that's where weaving it into the macro sucks balls.

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This confuses me. The opposite should be true, since Even Justice costs a lot more mana than any of your single target abilities. The only time I had any issues at all with mana was if I tried to non-stop spam Even Justice. I put Purpose in both my single target and AoE macros as soon as it was available and it always reset my mana to full every 60 seconds.

Only thing I can think of is you have too many heals macrod into your threat rotation, which is both unnecessary (with a full group of reparations proccing) and less DPS, which becomes very important when you start running instances with enrage mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Gomotron

Once you get the shield skills I think that the numbers favor 1h+shield.

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Should be a no-brainer, really. You get 20% flat chance to block from Precept of Refuge and Safe Haven alone. Plus 30% of your spellpower as block, plus 10% non-physical damage reduction (this plus 3 points into Shaman are the only forms of non-physical damage reductions Justicars have access to).

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Originally Posted by Apatheist

This confuses me. The opposite should be true, since Even Justice costs a lot more mana than any of your single target abilities. The only time I had any issues at all with mana was if I tried to non-stop spam Even Justice. I put Purpose in both my single target and AoE macros as soon as it was available and it always reset my mana to full every 60 seconds.

Only thing I can think of is you have too many heals macrod into your threat rotation, which is both unnecessary (with a full group of reparations proccing) and less DPS, which becomes very important when you start running instances with enrage mechanics.

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Justicar doesn't have a lot of melee skills, so my single target macro has a ton of non-melee skills in it. Since those don't return any mana at all with Purpose, spamming my single target macro does barely anything to my mana bar.

Theoretically, Strike of Judgment is the skill you'd want to spam to maximize mana regeneration. But in practice, I found that Even Justice worked really well for me both for mana regeneration, healing, dps and threat - basically everything. This is because I often "overheal" the mana bar so it doesn't matter that Even Justice costs a little more, I still get 100% mana. At the same time, I get 100% mana on all my other clerics because they use their mana regen skill at the same time - so all clerics have nicely synchronized mana bars.

It's good (passive) healing because it's great dps. It's great threat because the Justicar gets 450% more threat (Mien of Leadership) and all other clerics gets 10% less threat (Explosive Energies). So it's an IWIN button that I can and do use often, but I do like to have it under control so I can plan when the IWIN button is available to me and not on CD.