Lowbie Cleric

[gladi8or]

After making a few clerics over the years, I've noticed that they are the only caster that do not get lowbie staffs with spell slots. Perhaps this is something that can be looked at? Spell slots are so few that clerics constantly need to rest on runs, slowing down the tags. Also, given the fact that clerics buff with so many spells, you lose slots to buffs and time to rebuffing every rest. Once the cleric gets up there in exp, a TA is almost absolutely necesary. It would be very nice if lowbie cleric staffs were available to purchase in town like the others.

[sabregirl]

Jul 25, 2018 21:11:14 GMT gladi8or said:

After making a few clerics over the years, I've noticed that they are the only caster that do not get lowbie staffs with spell slots. Perhaps this is something that can be looked at? Spell slots are so few that clerics constantly need to rest on runs, slowing down the tags. Also, given the fact that clerics buff with so many spells, you lose slots to buffs and time to rebuffing every rest. Once the cleric gets up there in exp, a TA is almost absolutely necesary. It would be very nice if lowbie cleric staffs were available to purchase in town like the others.

The staffs in town shops for most other classes are almost useless imo. It's the random staffs that are good.

That said, I think you should visit the Drow Arcane academy if you're interested in a lowbie cleric staff.


-S

[gladi8or]

Drow isn't until lvl 40ish though. The other staffs have spell slots. Cleric is tougher to find. Yes, there are helms, belts, etc. as there are for other casters, but right from early play with other casters there are spell slotted staffs. It feels weird running around empty handed as a cleric. haha.

[chainlink]

Grab a weapon in your primary hand, its not like you get uber with spells until later levels and you have decent buffs to improve the AB and damage output, divine power, GMW, darkfire, frost weapon, etc.

[madzapper]

Jul 27, 2018 15:07:45 GMT chainlink said:

Grab a weapon in your primary hand, its not like you get uber with spells until later levels and you have decent buffs to improve the AB and damage output, divine power, GMW, darkfire, frost weapon, etc.

I'm not sure that this gives you a lot of options for different play style, but what you posted is what I always do with cleric. I also use soundburst, which is fun and stuns creatures. It helps a lot for speeding up killing the mobs.

[simpetar]

Jul 27, 2018 15:07:45 GMT chainlink said:

Grab a weapon in your primary hand, its not like you get uber with spells until later levels and you have decent buffs to improve the AB and damage output, divine power, GMW, darkfire, frost weapon, etc.

Especially Elemental Staff from fine imports (useable at 11) is wonderful when buffed, beats most other weapons around that level.

[chirality]

yeah, really there's no reason to use a staff (or try to be a focused spellcaster) until much higher levels. early game ACs are a joke and cleric has 3/4bab. combine with wearing armor+shield, and powerful self buffs and it's actually a lot easier/faster/(more fun? ymmv) to just play thru as a "tank" for the first ~30 levels (actually even in 35-40 a fully buffed L35 weapon and wearing tanky gear makes a cleric a lot more effective in most situations than trying to play like a true LL/hells caster with very few slots). there's not much point trying to go as a "caster" right off the bat. there's no aoe instakills till plode anyway, unlike mages which can at least cod in teens. even into 20s mages aren't likely to have more than a few L9 slots for weirds anyway, clerics same for plode, but weird you can truly mass with. plode aoe is tiny in comparison...coupled with only a handful of casts and it doesn't make much sense to bother 99% of the time.

i agree that it's a bit "lame" on principle of wanting to be a cool spell tossing priest that shop/set gear doesn't encourage to go "caster" from the start, but if anything i'd look at it like "hey, this is awesome, i'm a class that can basically solo anything up until BBoD becomes required" and emped destructs are a powerful tool for the annoying bosses that give 80% of other classes so much trouble.

anyway same with druids. they can't/don't do much but act as self-buffing tanks for majority of lowbie zones. but same as clerics, they have powerful dmg tools for the bosses that take tanks forever to beat down.

[buddhamind]

I agree with Chirality, bashing stuff as a self buffing tank is really effective up until level 25-30ish.