Anybody tried an all-cleric team?

[Apatheist]

Justicar AoE heals can hit up to 10

This is a good point. It does make us much more useful in bigger fights. Maybe what I need to do is use the video feed function and set up a little mini buff window for each of my toons, so I can see more easily when I need to replace cavalier.

That looks very interesting, Apatheist. Looks like 5 of those should be great for questing and PvP. Then for expert rifts and dungeons, I could switch out one of them to a Justicar role and possibly another one for main heals and support?

This is pretty much what I do. I leveled 4 clerics and a chloro/archon (which I later changed to chloro/lock) but I really didn't like the way the mage sync'd with the clerics, so I leveled a 5th cleric solo and I much prefer it. For instances, I change one of my clerics to Justicar and one to Warden and I haven't found anything I wasn't able to clear yet. 4x DoL is basically a tank cooldown . . . with no cooldown. If you ever get in trouble, pop DoL and the whole group is instantly full again. I much prefer 11 points into Justicar in PvE, because you can always rely on having conviction.

The problem with instant Tyranny is that it really isn't instant. You still have to wait for decays to build. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that the talent for reducing Tyranny's CD doesn't effect Bound Fate?

It doesn't effect BF, but it reduces the cooldown on tyranny and obliterate. Tyranny you can spam nonstop, but after the first hit, you only have time to build up one decay between GCD's, so subsequent tyranny's hit for a bit less. It's still nice damage, though, for an instant spammable AoE. It's like 300 for tyranny itself plus around 100 per stack of decay (up to 3 max). Decay builds up at around 1 per 1.5 sec.

[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.

[Smedbox]

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

Level 10: 3 Inquisitor, 4 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vz.m.h
Level 20: 11 Inquisitor, 9 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vz.Vzc.E0o
Level 30: 11 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 8 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vd.VzVVx.E0o
Level 40: 21 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 11 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10....VzVVx.ExobM0o
Level 50: 33 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 12 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10...VzVVx.ExobMxkq

Modifications to Apatheist's spec is:
- Swapped out Warden for Justicar.
- Added Cabalist "Dark Harbor" buff.
- Removed Inquisitor "Life and Death Concord" because I don't want to manage random instas on all characters.
- Added Inquisitor "Clinging Spirit".
- Added Inquisitor "Determination" and "Bewilder" for more CC.

This is the Justicar tank spec I'm thinking of for dungeons:
Level 50 Tank: 38 Justicar, 20 Shaman, 8 Inquisitor: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10...sdoo.VedzzM.Vh

It has 20 points in Shaman for the Wisdom buff, which seems nice for an all-Cleric team.

Comments?

[leroyreborn]

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

Level 10: 3 Inquisitor, 4 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vz.m.h
Level 20: 11 Inquisitor, 9 Cabalist, 6 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vz.Vzc.E0o
Level 30: 11 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 8 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rod.Vd.VzVVx.E0o
Level 40: 21 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 11 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10....VzVVx.ExobM0o
Level 50: 33 Inquisitor, 21 Cabalist, 12 Justicar: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10...VzVVx.ExobMxkq

Modifications to Apatheist's spec is:
- Swapped out Warden for Justicar.
- Added Cabalist "Dark Harbor" buff.
- Removed Inquisitor "Life and Death Concord" because I don't want to manage random instas on all characters.
- Added Inquisitor "Clinging Spirit".
- Added Inquisitor "Determination" and "Bewilder" for more CC.

This is the Justicar tank spec I'm thinking of for dungeons:
Level 50 Tank: 38 Justicar, 20 Shaman, 8 Inquisitor: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10...sdoo.VedzzM.Vh

It has 20 points in Shaman for the Wisdom buff, which seems nice for an all-Cleric team.

Comments?

been running my cleric tank in couple of experts and think with that many points in shaman you will end up being to soft. mien of leadership gives you 1% of armor for every point in justicar. i'm running 51 justicar 8 shaman 6 inquisitor. by having 51 points over 38 gives you. 14% more armor. and found i went oom with out commitment. but the great thing with rift is you can make a spec that works for what you want. just wanted to share what i had found out

[Smedbox]

been running my cleric tank in couple of experts and think with that many points in shaman you will end up being to soft. mien of leadership gives you 1% of armor for every point in justicar. i'm running 51 justicar 8 shaman 6 inquisitor. by having 51 points over 38 gives you. 14% more armor. and found i went oom with out commitment. but the great thing with rift is you can make a spec that works for what you want. just wanted to share what i had found out

Good point, I didn't realize the boost in armor Mien of Leadership gave. With the shaman build I was thinking of improving spell power instead to increase damage (+passive healing), dodge, block and parry - as well as increasing DPS and Healing from the other clerics in the party...

Regarding mana, I'm hoping the crit-heavy shaman build would give about the same mana regen with "Endless Winter', but I may be wrong about that?

[leroyreborn]

Good point, I didn't realize the boost in armor Mien of Leadership gave. With the shaman build I was thinking of improving spell power instead to increase damage (+passive healing), dodge, block and parry - as well as increasing DPS and Healing from the other clerics in the party...

Regarding mana, I'm hoping the crit-heavy shaman build would give about the same mana regen with "Endless Winter', but I may be wrong about that?

not sure on the mana. but one way to find out. try it worst would be have to respec to some thing else

[Smedbox]

I'm trying to do as much of the planning ahead of time - I'm going to do the 24-hour Extra Life event and I don't want to spend too much time respeccing and testing during the event... On the other hand, I may not reach many dungeons and certainly not level 50 so the tank spec won't matter too much.

But I could certainly remove two points from Inquisitor and move them to Justicar. I could get 3 pts in Commitment and 40 pts total.

[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.