Cleric leveling - balancing AC/HP and WIS

[Vexenu]

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.

[RDawg816]

In a good group you won't get hit. More mana is always good, especially if you raid (or do higher end content on your own (with friends)).

Most PuGs are another story. It's better to have the tankiness to survive. You do have DA/DB and root/gate, but none of that means much of you get in a tight spot and people start panicking.

If you like survivability, I'd shoot for that. You can always have a second set for raiding, if need be.

[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?

[Pyrion]

A bigger mana pool will *only* be good if you are that player who is trying to be close to FM in normal situations. If you are one of those who will always be LOM, what good is that big potential? Bigger mana pool won't make you regenerate mana faster. Those people always drive me crazy.

[RDawg816]

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

A bigger mana pool will *only* be good if you are that player who is trying to be close to FM in normal situations. If you are one of those who will always be LOM, what good is that big potential? Bigger mana pool won't make you regenerate mana faster. Those people always drive me crazy.

It's not a matter of mana regeneration. You don't need to be full mana all the time to benefit from a larger mana pool. There are going to be good pulls and bad pulls. Some pulls you will use 5% of your mana, some you will use 50%. That's just how the game works.

The person with the bigger mana pool will need less med breaks. They will be able to save that ranger who got aggro. They will be better suited to handle things than the person with a smaller mana pool.

If we both start out with full mana (which is common when joining a group) and I start out with 600 more mana than you do, you will run out of mana before I will. If the puller/tank has to take an extended AFK I will still have more mana than you. If we're in a situation where I had to use all of my mana to save the group, some (or all) of your group will be on a corpse run. These are facts. If they drive you crazy, that's fine with me.

[fugazi]

Mana > hp > ac. Do you duo a lot? Do you need to lull? Get some basic charisma gear. Do you pug a lot? Go for a set lf 55hp rings and wear a shield.

Do invest 50 plat into a watersprinkle staff for clickie atonement.

[Baler]

Clerics: Mana > HP
Druid: Mana > HP
Shaman: HP > Mana
AC third for every single one of them. Shields are Good!

[Vexenu]

Cleric is fully geared and has been leveling nicely. My experience thus far reinforces the idea that being as tanky as you reasonably can is definitely is the way to go while leveling/PuGing/duoing. Being tanky allows you to get a lot more use out of your underrated CC skills without having to constantly heal yourself. I find myself taking hits fairly regularly (lot of root CCing in small leveling groups) and the AC helps a lot. A good number of minimum hits and misses from mobs. For reference, I'm tanky enough that melee soloing with a 30/36 Velious bat is still superior XP/hr to root nuking even at level 40 where I currently sit. The Dwarven cultural is a huge asset in this regard, having high AC and decent WIS in the Chest/Arms/Legs. Crystal Chitin Gauntlets are another easy choice, with 20 AC and a respectable 35 mana in the glove slot (compare to Gauntlets of Iron Tactics with +7 WIS but only 2 AC!). Mana has not been an issue at all even in a few SHTF situations (although to be fair even in tanky gear I still have 192 WIS and a number of +mana items).

I really can't think of any situation outside of raiding where a Cleric isn't better served by reasonably emphasizing AC/HP over max mana. Solo, group and duo all benefit noticeably from it from what I've seen so far. Given that a Cleric death is the worst death a group can take, it makes sense that Clerics should be as hard to kill as they reasonably can be while having a sufficient mana pool to deal with the occasional SHTF scenario.

[deadlycupcakez]

my thoughts are AC all the way - and maxing defense skill! I solo'ed my cleric to 51 on red (well i cant say solo, sometimes lone players would come around looking for a partner and Id team up with them - this was red after all) and having high AC gear with maxed defense allowed me to root tank for rogues.

This was such a fun way to level up that one time a rogue and I even solo'd CE for an hour or so - I root, tank then toss heals when needed (added bonus is you also max channeling when you solo) and let the rogue burn through mobs with BS.