Anybody tried an all-cleric team?

[jca]

Oh, one thing I wanted to add.

Don't overlook CoO. I don't like ground targeted spells and used to overlook this one. It's not a replacement for BF, Tyr and SD, it's a complement. Both BF and SD have cast times during which you're not doing damage and people have a chance to get topped off from HoT's, etc. CoB starts doing damage immediately when you start channeling. While it's easily healable when a single toons casts CoO, stacking them makes a death zone for people trying to get on you.

I am fascinated with the Cab tree though and wish I could free up some more points for it. I'm always playing with specs though, so who knows, I may give a more cab-heavy spec a spin for a while.

[Apatheist]

Oh, one thing I wanted to add.

Don't overlook CoO. I don't like ground targeted spells and used to overlook this one. It's not a replacement for BF, Tyr and SD, it's a complement. Both BF and SD have cast times during which you're not doing damage and people have a chance to get topped off from HoT's, etc. CoB starts doing damage immediately when you start channeling. While it's easily healable when a single toons casts CoO, stacking them makes a death zone for people trying to get on you.

I've tried using it, it's just so easy to interrupt/knockback/silence. It also has issues targeting with camera angles, using it at range effectively is iffy at best. It's fairly simple to plant it ontop of your group, but I'd rather use that time for a SoulDrain or knockbacks if it comes to that. With 10 clerics t might be decent against melee rushes, with only 5 it doesn't do enough damage to keep people off me.

It's annoying that Rift doesn't give you the option to save camera angle settings.

[jca]

You're probably right that it's a scaling difference. 5 vs 10 does change some dynamics.

You have got me thinking though. I'd always assumed that spamming tyranny without full decays just wasn't very effective. Cab though is one of the few cleric specs I haven't played to a high level one-boxing so maybe my impression is wrong. I'll play with it a bit, just have to figure out what I could stand losing in Inq.

[Apatheist]

You're probably right that it's a scaling difference. 5 vs 10 does change some dynamics.

You have got me thinking though. I'd always assumed that spamming tyranny without full decays just wasn't very effective. Cab though is one of the few cleric specs I haven't played to a high level one-boxing so maybe my impression is wrong. I'll play with it a bit, just have to figure out what I could stand losing in Inq.

With 10 Cabalists, I'm pretty sure you could win Port Scion with nothing but tyranny and DoL spam.

Based on what you've said, I'm thinking of this spec for levelling 5x clerics:

Your first goals with a Cleric group should be 6 points in Justicar, since salvation does next to nothing at low levels and you have no other worthwhile heals with this spec. Next, aim for 11 in Inquisitor for aggressive renewal. I'd just keep going into inquisitor after this, picking up soul drain and the passive improvements to vex helps a more than anything else at low levels.

As for mana, the wisdom buff would help your DPS more than anything. Justicars have zero issues maintaining full mana between commitment and purpose. And, yes, 51 points into Justicar is basically a requirement for a serious tanking build. The increase in armor is huge.

Also, I'd go for as many passive buffs as possible rather than the CC options. You won't use them, especially at lower levels. You run in spamming vex on everything you can find, then hit soul drain and everything is dead. I can see an argument for removing life and death concord if you don't want to manage the procs, I'd put those points into determination and more passive buffs from Cabalist (particularly, the +3 radius on AoE's).

I'm probably going to go back to 11 points into Justicar over Warden, too. I'll miss the 10% buff to instants and the ease of running healing flood but, as jca said, the fact that DoL hits 10 targets is pretty hard to beat.

[JamieW]

I can see an argument for removing life and death concord if you don't want to manage the procs, I'd put those points into determination and more passive buffs from Cabalist (particularly, the +3 radius on AoE's).

I hadn't bothered with this particular passive buff (the additional radius on AE damage spells). With the primary AE damage from this spec being chain damage (Obliterate/Decays, Soul Drain and Bound Fate) vs. traditional AE damage (Circle of Oblivion is only one I can think of), I didn't think that it would be that great of a buff.

Anybody know for sure if the +radius passive buff helps out on the chained AE abilities?

[Apatheist]

I hadn't bothered with this particular passive buff (the additional radius on AE damage spells). With the primary AE damage from this spec being chain damage (Obliterate/Decays, Soul Drain and Bound Fate) vs. traditional AE damage (Circle of Oblivion is only one I can think of), I didn't think that it would be that great of a buff.

Anybody know for sure if the +radius passive buff helps out on the chained AE abilities?

It effects bound fate, circle of oblivion, soul drain, etc. Anything that says it hits more than one target in the tooltip.

3 yards doesn't sound like much, but when you consider the majority of AoE effects are 7 yards, it's almost 50% more range on all your AoE's.

It's even better with bound fate, since BF is a "chain"-like effect from target to target. You could potentially hit players up to 40 yards away as long as there's enough people staggered between to chain the effect. Pretty win. It also helps a lot by preventing targets running out of soul drain range before it goes off, which it's pretty easy to do.

[jca]

I've been playing with working in a bit more cab but am hitting a bit of a bump in the road. Cab just doesn't have any synergy with Justicar. I could give up my Sent sub-specs but not my Justicar's. DoL is just too good.

Perhaps I'll try 14 cab in my Inquisicar specs (which is what I'm doing now), drop the Sent sub-specs and go something like 20-24 cab in 6 Warden sub-specs.

Something else I'm wondering about. Since it's obviously a bit hard to keep track of everyone's decays, would it be worthwhile to play with only 4/5 AfD? That should make your Tyranny's line up with your decay regen. Fill in the gaps with BF and CoS. Seems like the only time that would be a problem is if you went a full 51 for SoA. Thoughts?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Ho Lee Shit. Apparently I've been playing clerics wrong this whole time. That 30ish cab/inq spec with 6 justicar for the group heal is insane for rifts. Not sure how well I'll survive invasions yet. Should be a lot easier questing with this build.

[Smedbox]

What rotation did you use?

[Smedbox]

Your first goals with a Cleric group should be 6 points in Justicar, since salvation does next to nothing at low levels and you have no other worthwhile heals with this spec. Next, aim for 11 in Inquisitor for aggressive renewal. I'd just keep going into inquisitor after this, picking up soul drain and the passive improvements to vex helps a more than anything else at low levels.

As shown in the spec progression links I posted, that's exactly what I'm doing - first going for 6 Justicar, then going for Inquisitor Aggressive Renewal. However, after that I'd like to reach spam status on Tyranny asap.

Your final spec you posted is very hard to argue against, and I'm switching to that too for level 50. I just regret not having the "Dark Harbor" buff - since it stacks with the Shaman resistance buff it could be pretty uber.

As for mana, the wisdom buff would help your DPS more than anything. Justicars have zero issues maintaining full mana between commitment and purpose. And, yes, 51 points into Justicar is basically a requirement for a serious tanking build. The increase in armor is huge.

After talking to people on my server, I think I'll keep the tank role at 40 Justicar for now and see what heppens. The cleric tanks there say it would be a great spec and that they love the Shaman "Jolt" spell for Justicar tanking.

Note that I didn't mean that the Shaman wisdom buff would be to primarily boost the tank - it's meant for the whole group since everyone is Wisdom-based. Basically a 5x factor on that one.

I'm now looking at this progression:

Level 10: 7 Inquisitor, 0 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.V0z..g
Level 20: 14 Inquisitor, 6 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.V0z.V0z.Eoob
Level 30: 14 Inquisitor, 20 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.V0z.V0VVx.Eoob
Level 40: 22 Inquisitor, 20 Cabalist, 11 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10....V0VVx.Exobboo
Level 50: 35 Inquisitor, 20 Cabalist, 11 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10...V0VVx.Exobxxoq