TheRaj'Urge (26cleric/13wizard/1monk)

Theurge Tricks



This means that your Spell Penetration on a monk-splash build is the same of a pure cleric. Yay!
This also means that you Caster Level for all spells is only 58. Nay.

Here enters the Spell Penetration artifact 1/rest power, using it before your buffing you are able to cast at full CL. That's 5% more concealment, better Tenser, higher soak, faster FoM and especially worth of note -1 to Battletide penalities to enemies. It also improves the SP of your Battletide by 3, for the whole duration, because it takes in consideration the level it was casted at.

Hint: you can swap on a CL/SP ego or other sources of +Spell Penetration (Arcanis's Assay) while buffing, to improve the Battletide SP for the whole duration.

Should you die, or need to rebuff, your buffs will be weaker, if you didn't plan in advance:



Energy drains grant you temporary caster levels, you can use them to store some level and recast the important/CL based buffs in between fights (mostly EV and Btide, note I memorize 1-2 spare copies of those).

You can also store such temporary caster levels into a Soul Jar from Dulvuroth, just make sure you have 3 levels stored and then use the power to rebuff before going to the next area: parties commonly take a syncronized nap at the end of a map, best use the Jar power over the Sigil one then, and keep the SP arti available for a rebuff mid-next-map.

Also, super badass black gfx of POWER when you pull that trick.


On Draining and Sucking in general:


When you do your erotic vampiric tricks to buff your CL, keep in mind you can accomplish even more with a smart selection of targets.



Here you can see how the first successful drain dropped the enemy fortitude save by 12 ( !!! ) points. Being a level 9 spell, this is a good opener to follow up with low level spells: you can drain an enemy to death with enervations or kill it outright with heartbanes or even better spells that would have had a lower chance to land before, often banish and rebuke (yes, even without foci, after a drain it's easy).

In the specific example there's another interesting property of drains, they lower the parry score of enemies, so I was able to HB an (uncursed) cornugon, usually immune to that and other on-crit kills like an Assassin's Mortal Strike and a Ranger's Called Shot if a Bard didn't drop their skill earlier. If you ever wondered why sometime enemies refuse to die to that spell, good chances the Bard was slacking, but you can fix that yourself (unlike the other classes who pretend to do your job, or just 10% of your job, and fail miserably at that anyway).


I'm a SP Cleric!

As a cleric, your're usually reliant on other classes to drop the enemy Spell Resistance for you. At best, you can Bestow Curse single targets that have been left outside of NB range (a -11 SP effect, or -12 when you have at least 2 levels drained/charged). Needless to say BC-ing every single enemy is time and slots consuming (Asmo rod power can be useful in a pinch), and here enters your theurge versatility: AoE Mordenkainen Disjunction.

Over yourself, over the druid who is sucking so much and doesn't NB efficiently, heck if you want to prove a point even over the party until they rage at you, but then you point your finger at the slacker druid. More seriously, learn to aim it, but know that the buff Augury makes you immune even to your own Mords: great when soloing, massing an area, use a mord scroll/rod over yourself and all monsters that graciously surrounded you, and then plode the hell of them. Bonus points if burning Rona trees at the same time. In desperate times and with the druid out of games you can decide it's worth to debuff your party in order to get rid of a bunch of enemies but make sure you know what you're doing/it's worth it/you can dismiss angry comments thanks to your true vet status.

Another good Divination spell is Assay Resistance, being ranged it can work as a safe-bestow curse, but know it stacks with it and other SP-lowering effects, even if just for you. In the screen you can see both the SP of your Battletide, and of the spell boosted by AR. Against high SP targets if there's no druid around you should stack both Mord and AR, or BC and AR, and then yell at the bard if he's not persuading as well.



Is it a coincidence in all these screens I'm using defensive casting mode to avoid attacks of opportunity, and mobs can't hit me nor go through the conceal either? I think not.


Battletide, Prayer and You

I am stressing the importance of having good ac/concealment and being able to stand next to enemies, and I can hear you whining 'but why?' when a caster job should be stand safe and protected by tanks firing spells from afar?

Let focus on Battletide's description:



At CL 60 (remember you're buffing with SP arti, or memorize some spare ones to refresh after you drained a couple of enemies) it means: -5 to enemy SAVES, enemy AB, enemy damage rolls. +5 to you and your party rolls.

Now, the buff benefits for you are worth nothing: saves are already easily capped with gear, AB for touch attacks is maxed by tenser/truestrike. You get +5 damage but are not a battlecleric, duh.

About the debuff tho... -5 to all saves to all enemies into the aura that don't resist the SP check (remember that trick with +sp items while buffing), that's like saying +5 dc to you. Smart and solid open race clerics are better than BUR pussies.
-5 to enemy AB, stacking: that's the equivalent of +5 armor class for you or whoever those enemies are attacking, so always move close and flank enemies busy with your tanks, you're effectively shielding your allies.
-5 to damage is the least powerful debuff when enemies hit for 100+ physical damage but hey every bit helps.

Prayer does pretty much the same, and it stacks:



The AoE on prayer is much better, but it's a fire and forget spell so you want to land it after enemy SR has been dropped. Sometime that's not possible (druid sux), but landing that (and btide) is so good that having high spell penetration on clerics is better than high DC, consider that when picking ego/artifact. You gain that DC back (and more) by using these debuffs. It's like having +8 DC, AC and DR for you and your whole party!

You can stack that with Bigby Interposing Hand for -10 AB on one enemy and have effective AC in the 170s after the enemy is cursed, and stack the saves penality with the -12 from Serendipity (that one stacks with prayer/btide, just not with bard song) for effective +20 DC. Make sure you use Seren next to enemies as well.

brace yourself theurgies incoming.