Warriors of Light: Cleric Tactics in DDO

By Darkgolem

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Clerics fill many roles within Dungeons and Dragons Online. His general function is to keep his party healthy, but healing isn't the only way he does so. Using his various magics and abilities, a cleric can keep his party healthy by debuffing their enemies, or by helping to kill their enemies more quickly, or by buffing his party, all in addition to healing.

Some Basics of Fulfilling Your Role

You can have a variety of builds as a cleric and still fulfill your role in a party. Basically, a cleric can be (without multiclassing) one of the following:

- A generalist: fair at healing, turning, casting and combat
- A combat specialist: good at combat and healing
- A spellcaster: good at healing and casting
- A turning specialist: good at healing and turning

Divine Vitality (which “heals” an ally's spell points in trade for additional chances to Turn Undead) is a very good enhancement for any cleric that has good charisma (especially the turning specialist).  For the combat specialist, feats which provide direct bonuses to combat (not feats that are okay but lead to bigger feats), such as Weapon Focus, or Two-Handed Fighting, are good choices. A spellcaster cleric might strongly consider Spell Focus Necromancy or Enchantment.  Many, many clerical maledictions such as Bestow Curse and Blindness are necromantic.

When to Heal, When to Hurt

It's actually quite simple to figure out when to heal your party, and when to fight your party's opponents. If combat is difficult, you should be healing. The classes that do damage as a specialty--barbarians, fighters, wizards and such--will be doing their jobs, and better than you can. Even if you are a cleric designed for combat, you are still not going to out-damage your barbarian friend.  Let your friend give and take the hits while you keep her up on her feet.

If you're engaged in simple combat, then this is a different story. In those cases, you should feel free to put your holy symbol in your pocket and pull out your mace to damage your opponents.

There are exceptions. If there is that one archer or spell caster off in the distance blasting your warrior types (who are a little busy in the midst of a furious melee with other foes), then feel free to run off and get that sniper's attention off your fighters. After all, you can heal yourself from a single foe between supporting your fighters. Just remember your primary job: keep your fellow party members alive.  Don't run too far away from the people you're supporting.

Don't forget the benefits of using your shield in a combat. A cleric out of spell points and support abilities can draw the attention of foes scattered from a melee by hitting them then backing off, raising his shield, and keeping them centered on himself until his melee friends can deal with them. You'd be surprise how effecting the damage reduction of a raised shield can make you a defensive bulwark.

Buff, Debuff or Heal

What is the best way to spend your spell points?  Basically, the best way to decide is to look at your party's make up. What sort of use you put your spell points to should be based upon your party's needs.

If your party is good defensively, wearing heavy armor, then try to make your party better at harming their opponents. Bless and Bull's Strength are great for this.  If your party is weaker defensively, consider Cat's Grace and Shield of Faith. Both of these can make your party last longer between rest shrines. And don't forget saving throws. An Owl's Wisdom provides a +2 saving throw for your fighter friend against mind affecting spells. Elemental protections, especially fire protection, are something you should have prepared most of the time. Remember that wands of Cat's Grace and other similar spells are not expensive after a point in your adventuring career. Carry them around for use.  The spells last so long that your will run through perhaps 2 or 3 adventures before needing a refill.

Sometimes, you will find yourself unsure of what to do with an extra spell slot while at the inn or a rest shrine. Consider a malediction of some sort. When fighting small groups of large, damaging opponents such as giants or perhaps earth elementals, consider Bestow Curse.  If planning to face spell casters, think of Blindness. If facing large groups of more even foes, plan on Bane. You get a lot of mileage from the right curse at the right time.  You don't get as much benefit from affecting your enemies as helping your party members.  Make sure your spells are against key opponents.  Don't try to hold entire rooms of enemies, instead, get that one guy up on a shelf that your friends can't reach.

Healing (and associated recovery spells) is something you should definitely have a plan for.  Lesser Restoration is a vital spell to have available.  Make sure to ask your fellow members to check to see if they need their ability scores healed.  Many people don't know to check. While it is hard to put away the “fun” spells and prepare Remove Curse and Cure Blindness, your party will thank you for it. As a habit, carry around 2 or 3 of each elemental protection, in case you don't have one you need prepared, and a wand of Repair. If  your party sorcerer or wizard doesn't have one, and you lend him or her that wand, you're doing yourself a favor by not spending all those spell points healing your warforged friend.

Spell Point Conservation

Aside from carefully deciding what you spend your spell points on, it's important to remember a few simple tips to using spells as a clerical spell caster.  These can bring your party farther in a safer manner when you follow them, and they're not too hard to follow with a little practice.

Carry your spell points inside you. That is, there is no reason that you shouldn't try to keep your party at close to maximum hit points, especially those who have low hit points types such as wizards. Certainly, you will have buffs and debuffs that you are using to prevent damage to your party, but these should make the points you spend on healing fewer. If you die with a full spell point bar, then you have wasted those points.

When you reach a shrine, use up all your spell points before you rest. The best way to do this is to heal any party members who are not going to use the rest shrine to their maximum hit points, then allow those who are going to rest to do so, then buff all your party members, then rest yourself.  This way you leave the rest shrine with you party buffed, and some members having saved the shrine for a later time. If you have Divine Vitality, make sure to use it on a spell caster before you rest too.

By planning how to use your spells and melee capacity carefully you can provide a much greater benefit to your party then simply watching health bars and hitting your cure hot buttons on the tool bar.  Your party won't usually notice or say anything, for them, it just means the party is doing well.  But when you next come online and you find several people from previous parties calling you (not just any cleric, but you specifically) to join them, you'll know the difference.

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