Obikin89's Requiem for Neverwinter
MOD 20

M20 Cleric

Clerics can be either Devout Clerics, which are Healers, or Arbiter Clerics, which are Damage Dealers. Their Tactical power, which uses Stamina, is a Teleport, which gets them far away and makes them immune to most attacks for a small instant. Most of their powers have extremely small cooldowns, but they require Divinity (left yellow bar), a resource that replenishes over time. On top of Divinity, Arbiter Clerics have Judgement, which boost their powers when switching from radiant to burning damage and the opposite, to manage.

Devout Clerics are the Healers with the most powerful heals, but they do not have barriers. Their main heal, since the terrible mod 19 which broke healers to the nine hells, is a Heal over Time which lasts 18s (and that's mostly all they can do...). They also have a fantastic emergency button : Intercession, a spell that fully heals almost anyone, with a 25s cooldown. The perfect healbot.

Arbiter Clerics are potentially the most powerful Damage Dealers in the game, on single targets. But they are also the most difficult to play, with a 1 minute long rotation to benefit the most from their powers. Managing Divinity, Judgement, and the Perfect Balance mechanic, which lets them regain a full bar of divinity on the condition that they use their powers in the correct order, is the world that separates skilled players who outperform everyone from players who make small mistakes and do not perform as well.

Divinity and Judgement

Contrarily to most classes, Clerics have almost no cooldowns. They can use many of their powers just like at-wills. The mechanic that limits them from literally spamming their powers is divinity (yellow bar on the left). Clerics (and Paladins) have a divinity pool of 1000 points which diminishes when they use many of their spells. It replenishes with time, faster when out of combat. There are a couple of feats and powers that help divinity regeneration, but the most important mechanic is Channel Divinity. Clerics can Channel Divinity to rapidly restore their divinity to be able to use their powers more often.

In mod 19, we can’t Channel Divinity to regain Divinity anymore on Devout Clerics. This mechanic has been changed to a heal which actually consumes Divinity. Passive Divinity regeneration has been improved (we now get about 41-44 Divinity every 3 seconds, ticks on the clock), but it’s nowhere near what we could get from Channeling Divinity previously (about 25 divinity per second). Managing Divinity is now just waiting and doing nothing. It takes about 1 min and 9-15s to regain a full Divinity bar, so don’t spam your powers. People are responsible for their mistakes. You can’t heal everyone anymore, so focus on keeping the tank alive.

Arbiter Clerics also have divinity to work with, but they have Judgement on top of it (6 orbs on the right). Judgement are stacks of burning or radiant energy that make your powers stronger. When you use radiant powers, you gain stacks of Burning Judgement. If you use a burning encounter or daily power when you have Burning Judgement, it will be boosted and will deal up to twice its usual damage if you have 6 stacks of Burning Judgement. Your Judgement will be consumed and you will gain stacks of Radiant Judgement, which is gained when you use burning powers and consumed when you use radiant encounter or daily powers. You cannot build both Burning and Radiant Judgement : if you have Radiant Judgement and use a radiant at-will, your Radiant Judgement will be replaced by Burning Judgement. So, pay close attention to your Judgement.

The main mechanic for Arbiter Clerics to restore their Divinity is to consume Judgement using Channel Divinity. No point channelling divinity for hours. Just build some Judgement with your at-wills (or Divine Glow), and consume the orbs with Channel Divinity. Each time you have Judgement you will not use, Channel Divinity to instantly restore some of your Divinity. In the solo build I’ll show you later, that’s basically each time you use an encounter power. The only time you should be channelling divinity like a Devout Cleric is if you are low on Divinity between 2 fights, to make the recovery a bit faster. You can look at my video on the Hell Pit event (at the end of my solo Arbiter build) to get a grasp on how to use Judgement to restore Divinity and being able to fight at full power for long periods of time.

Devout Cleric Build

Channel Divinity

Channel Divinity is now a healing spell. When you tap the button, you mark your target. It makes your heals 5% more efficient on your target, so always mark the Tank, as they need the healing.

When you hold the button, it prepares a heal, which is released when you release the button, on the player you have marked (you cannot mark a companion). The longer you have hold the button, the better the heal will be, to a maximum when you hold the button for 2.5s (at which point, the heal is released by itself !).

If you have the Battle Prayer feat, if you Channel Divinity after using an encounter spell, the divinity cost is reduced and the cast time is reduced to 1s. More importantly, the heal can now be hold as long as you want (only works when the Battle Prayer feat is trigerred, won’t work with Gathering Light, or Angel of Life). So, if you Channel Divinity too early, you can actually wait to release the heal.

If you have the Gathering Light feat, as long as the Battle Prayer feat was not triggered, the cast time is extended to 3s, and the heal will target everyone around the marked player. The AoE is very small though (about 15′ radius, barely bigger than Astral Shield), so, do not expect to heal many people with it.

If you have the Angel of Life feat, as long as the Battle Prayer feat was not triggered, the cast time is extended to 4s, then you can cast healing spells without paying the Divinity cost. It can only be triggered once every 3 minutes though.

At-Wills

As Healing Word is a must have, Blessing of Light is too. If you are using Soothe, you can spam Blessing of Light to fill your daily. Make sure every single heal you use is buffed by Blessing of Light.

You can use Sacred Flame or Scattering Light if you have enchantments or sets that trigger effects on hit, but there are not too many of them. Sacred Flame has a better time cast, so it’s better to cast effects when you don’t want to hit many targets. The damage they do is about 0, especially since you shouldn’t have high offensive stats. They can also fill your daily.

Encounters

Use Blessing of Light, Exaltation, and Healing Word, wait 20s, dot it again. Boring, but there’s not much more you can do. Intercession is your emergency button, great to have. Cleansing Light is quite useful in a couple of places. And that’s mostly it.

Daily’s

I’ve been using Guardian of Faith + Hallowed Ground for the whole mod 16. I’ve changed Guardian of Faith for Anointed Army because I don’t run LoMM a lot nowadays, and boosting the party damage is great (even though it doesn’t last long). Guardian of Life (coupled with the Persistent Guardian feat) can be a solid option if your outgoing healing is low and you have trouble keeping up divinity or healing people, otherwise Hallowed Ground is a better version (no initial heal but a 10% damage reduction for the whole duration). I’m actually considering going back to using Persistent Guardian, because healing sucks in mod 19, and Anointed Army only works on your own group, which is not practical in trials.

Class Features

Overflowing Spirit is a must have. If you want better heals, Hallowed Guide is a good one. I prefer Hallowed Armor, because you can be the last one standing and revive your whole party from time to time, or kill a boss with the last dps alive. Staying alive is generally a good idea.

Feats

General

Do not forget about these. Accuracy is not too useful for a Devout Cleric, but Critical Avoidance is a big stat, especially for ToMM. You need up to 10k more than regular caps if you do not want to fall below the cap in many situations.

Arbiter Cleric Easy Build (Tipping Scale / Angel of Death / Burst Solo build)

When playing solo, this is a fantastic build. You never run out of divinity and you are not relying on a mechanic that necessitates you to use powers in a specific order. Just burst your way through anything, and it works !

At Wills

You only want Burning Judgement for your encounters.

Encounters

Let’s be honest, most of the time you open up with Searing Javelin to kill the small monsters, and Forgemaster’s Flame to finish the big one and jump to the next group of monsters. If you need more firepower, an At-Will and Divine Glow will double your encounter power while restoring some divinity. Any time you have Radiant Judgement, you channel divinity to never run out of divinity. Any time you need divinity, an At-Will + Divine Glow can solve the problem. On longer fights, you use At-Wills to charge your Encounters. That saves divinity.

Daily’s

Hallowed Ground is a must have to be able to survive any kind of situation. You will have full stacks of Radiant Judgement from time to time, Guardian of Faith is a great way to use them, when you don’t need divinity. Celestial Prominence is another option but I really don’t like the way it works. You end up losing plenty of time waiting for the daily to be charged, and the AOE is not that big, monsters can move away by the time it’s charged. Flame Strike is even worse (though it can deal good damage on a static target). Hammer of Fate is an alternative to Guardian of Faith but it uses Burning Judgement instead of Radiant Judgement. You’d rather use your Burning Judgement on your Encounters. Guardian of Faith may not be the daily that deals the most damage, but it works really well.

Class Features

More damage = faster fights = less use of divinity and less damage taken, right ?

Feats

General

Do not forget about these. Critical Avoidance is not too important for an Arbiter Cleric (though it helps), but Accuracy is. You need 10k more than regular caps if you do not want to fall below the cap in many situations.

How I play this build

Here is a video of the Hell Pit event where you can see how I play this build. I save my daily for healing if I need some. Getting divinity back from Radiant Judgement is key to being able to spam powers.

Arbiter Cleric Advanced Build (Focused Light / Perfect Balance / Sustained Damage Dungeon build)

Let’s be honest, if you want to play in dungeons and to be efficient against bosses, this build is much better than the previous one.

At Wills

These two are simply better than the other two.

Encounters

On groups of monsters : Break the Spirit then alternate Searing Javelin + Daunting Light

On bosses : Artifacts, Prophecy of Doom, Daily, alternate Forgemaster’s Flame+Daunting Light (x4 if timed properly with Perfect Balance). The thing is to start with 2 Burning and 2 Divine Judgement (which you can build before a fight with Sun Burst and Daunting Light), so that your divinity fully replenishes in the middle of your FF/DL rotation, to maximize the damage output of Prophecy of Doom. Use Prophecy of Doom twice per minute, so that one of them is always after the group uses their artifacts. Replenish Divinity with Conflagrate and Channel Divinity between two rotations. Do not Channel Divinity during your FF/DL rotation, to maximize your damage output. Hard to manage, any mistake will break the Perfect Balance… But if you manage your rotation properly, you’ll deal huge damage.

Daily’s

I think Flame Strike is more reliable than Celestial Prominence against static targets, just like Guardian of Faith is more reliable than Hammer of Fate. But pick the ones that feel best to you.

Class Features

As a dps, you just want damage. But if divinity is hard to manage, Expanded Faith is a solid option (perfect balance will restore that much more each time it procs).

Feats

General

Do not forget about these. Critical Avoidance is not too important for an Arbiter Cleric (though it helps), but Accuracy is and you need to be able to evade red areas without hesitation. You need 10k more than regular caps if you do not want to fall below the cap in many situations.