DDO Top 10: Reasons to Play a Cleric

By Brennie

Clerics are the paragons of the healing archetype in any massively-multiplayer online game. Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO) is no different. Clerics are the best healers in the game. If DDO deviates from the standard in any way it's in how clerics can hold their own in melee combat. Below you will find a handy list of reasons you should consider being a cleric in DDO. But beware: while clerics are loved beyond all other classes, the expectations of them are extremely high!

Just like a keg at a frat party, a cake at a wedding reception, or a clown at a birthday party (okay, maybe not the clown) everyone wants you in his party! Waiting for a group to invite you, or waiting for that group to finally find a healer is a non-issue. Why? Because it's just not a party without a cleric!

Clerics are, without a doubt, the best healers in the game. Packing spontaneously cast (always available) Cure spells, Enhancements and Feats to increase those Cure spells, and a wide variety of status removal spells, Clerics can keep their party alive, active, and non-debilitated.

With Cure spells, Searing Light, Holy Smite, and that oh so wonderful Turn Undead ability, clerics strike fear into the hearts of fearless undead! Heartless undead too, for that matter…

No more robes and staves for these casters! Clerics sport the latest active wear in the form of heavy armor and large shields. Thus clerics can match or surpass the armor class of their group mates. Clerics also have the ability to accessorize with a good selection of weapon choices, with their best choices being heavy maces or morningstars for melee, and heavy crossbows for range. And while a fighter can wield a shield and heavy armor combo too, clerics make it look good!

Clerics have some of the best buffs in DDO, able to increase attack bonuses, armor class, resistances, Abilities, and even the cleric's own combat power! In later levels, and with the Extend Spell Feat, clerics can have some cheap-but-effective buffs on their party members at all times!

Health isn't the only thing clerics can restore. With a lovely little Enhancement known Divine Vitality (DV), clerics can funnel unused Turn Undead into spell points for other casters. This keeps your bard barding, your wizard whizzing, your sorcerer scorching, and becomes even more of a boon when you can restore the spell points of someone capable of doing a little extra healing! Save that shrine, you won't need it… ever!

Unlike wizards, who have to find or purchase a scroll for every spell they want, or sorcerers and bards, who can only have a very limited selection of spells in their character's lifetime, clerics instantly have available to them every spell they can cast. Thus, once you level to level 3, your spell list will have every level 2 cleric spell on it. Now to figure out which spells to prepare…

Even without multi-classing, clerics have amazing flexibility in what role they take. Some people prefer battle clerics, using the clerical self-buffs to augment their combat prowess. Others prefer to be a walking shrine, healing health and mana of teammates with nearly unlimited capacity. Clerics can also range, shield block/tank, distract enemies, and (when someone else can shoulder the healing responsibility) can go into full crowd control and damage spell mode! And you thought bards were versatile!

If it annoys you, a cleric can fix it (except your little brother; you're on your own with that one). Clerics can cure poison, disease, fear, doom, bane, hold, slow, Ability damage, level drain, enfeeble, idiocy (but only on the character, not the person playing it), and two of the most dreaded status ailment in the game: Blindness and Curse. In fact, neither of those two ailments can be removed without a cleric (barring a rather expensive potion, a donation to a tavern bother/sister, or a quick dirt nap). Finally, at later levels, clerics have the ability to undo the most common and annoying ailment in the game – Death. Warning: desire to eat human brains is a normal side effect after being brought back from the dead.

Clerics are by far the most appreciated class in the game. Play a cleric, and the DDO community will think you are a better person than you actually are. Build and play your cleric well, and you will have groups pouring out praise at your ability to get them through that tight spot (you know, the one with the wraiths and the reavers *shudder*). And thus, when you find yourself in a tight spot, your party is much more willing to help you out, be it with Cure wands, divine scrolls, or enough muscle to put the smack down on that baddie that's picking on you.

Items that didn't quite make the top 10 list:

• The “my gods made me do it” excuse
• Bull Dung (it's a joke waiting to happen)
• Clerics get to stockpile healing potions
• There's no substitute for clerics, only backup healers
• Feeling of importance and self-worth
• Can withhold DV/healing to “teach groupmates a lesson”
• Can Command enemies to lie down (Note: does not work on other players, no matter HOW cute they are)
• No matter how good clerics are, they can still summon hell hounds, fiendish scorpions and giant spiders
• Can make up gods/holy symbols (for instance Manic-o, god of bipolarness!)
• Eternal hatred of 2-handed warforged barbarians
• Full dental plan
• Leaving a dungeon before anyone else, while your pet is still active. Always hilarious!
• Hold Person is essentially a level 2 instant death spell
• Don't need to max Wisdom, allowing for better stat distribution
• Don't need to add any Intelligence, allowing for hysterical roleplay options
• Priest jokes (A shaman, a druid, and a cleric walk into a bar…)
• Nicknames such as Doogie Howser, or *your name* MD

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