Cleric leveling - balancing AC/HP and WIS

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by Vexenu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Looking for thoughts on the ideal balance for leveling purposes. How effective is stacking AC/HP on a Cleric for survivability? Is there a worn cap on Cleric AC that makes it not as effective as stacking AC on a melee? (I remember a thread on this but can't find it). I guess another way to think about this question would be, "When the shit hits the fan as a Cleric, am I better off having relatively high AC/HP with a lower mana pool, or a higher mana pool with noticeably less tankiness?" Is it more often that a wipe/death is prevented by the Cleric being able to survive himself through AC/HP? Or does the deeper mana pool end up saving you/others more often by being able to get off a couple extra heals/roots when shit really goes south?

I am biased toward tankiness at the moment, my idea being to shoot for as near 200 WIS as possible while stacking AC/HP in as many slots as I can. But I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the ideal balance.

In classic clerics had same worn ac caps as the melees, just their lower defence skill meant they got slightly less mileage out of it. I don't know if AC caps work the same here.

The best way to gear AC is to take hits from the mobs you are going to be XPing on and see if you mitigate well enough. Taking aggro should be rare enough that the important thing is being able to survive, you'll probably have to use one of the heals you already have loaded to top yourself up so there isn't much reason to tank better than that patch heal fixes, if that makes sense.

Obviously, you only regenerate as fast as you can meditate, so that dictates your pace.

However, having a big mana pool will provide you with two things;

- a larger capacity for those rarer 'uh oh' moments.

-It will also allow you to take advantage of meditate for longer before you end up being close to 100%. (at 100% it is arguably a good idea to spend mana on lower priority spells to avoid wasting meditate ticks).

I'd be interested in seeing what a more experienced cleric has to say regarding your questions and if they have any suggestions that contradict/correct my advice. I don't play clerics so often.

edit:
I forgot to mention, I don't get to loot much when I am on my clerics, so instead I use my slots to carry spare gear.

When meditating I'll wear lots of +wis/mana to get to a higher total mana. As I spend my mana I'll switch to tankier / utility gear since I'll sometimes want to take a couple of hits/help with cc/pulls/etc. As I get close to recovering most of my mana I'll switch back to +wis/mana.

As a side question, does charisma help memblur checks succeed or basically only the paci checks?