Cleric
Clerics can either become Arbiter Clerics, which are Damage Dealers, or Devout Clerics, which are Healers.
Arbiter Clerics rely on Divinity to cast most of their spells, and generally have very small cooldowns. Their spells give them Judgement, which they can use either to boost their other spells or to regain some Divinity. They really shine when they master a specific rotation using the Perfect Balance feat.
Devout Clerics are healers with very potent healing spells. Their main healing tool is a Heal over Time which lasts 18s. And they cannot do much more than using this spell, as they won't have tons of Divinity to play with once they've used it. Most of their other mechanics are clunky and terribly designed... So they can focus on boosting their team's damage output with artifacts and enchantments.
- Leveling
- How to read Powers
- Arbiter Cleric
- Mechanics and General Skills
- The Perfect Balance Build
- The Tipping Scales Build (alternative for solo)
- Arbiter Itemization
- Devout Cleric
Leveling
Clerics start the game as Healers. This means that if you are going into dungeons prior to level 11 (you shouldn't, considering how bad the queues are nowadays), you will be the healer... but you won't have any real way to heal until you are pretty much level 20, so don't. Joke on Cryptic for putting you in an impossible spot, as they just can't design anything properly.
In order to level up easily, until you become an Arbiter Cleric at level 11 (you can change to a Devout loadout at any time at a campfire, but soloing is way better as an Arbiter), you can use the powers that follow :
- Sacred Flame (At-Will) : for single target damage
- Scattering Light (At-Will) : for damage on multiple targets close to one another
- Daunting Light (Encounter) : for damage on multiple targets close to one another
- Geas (Encounter) : to kill bigger monsters
- Sun Burst (Encounter) : for more damage on multiple targets, when you are overwhelmed (very bad power to use later on, but you just don't have Searing Javelin yet)
- Guardian of Faith (Daily) : to kill bigger monsters
- Hallowed Ground (Daily) : for emergency healing (which is efficient, contrarily to Bastion of Health)
- Hallowed Armor (Class Feature) : which reduces the damage you take
- Pilgrim's Light (Class Feature) : which improves the damage you deal while soloing
With these powers, you shouldn't have any problem leveling up to level 11, at which point you can start reading the next sections. Do not invest in Feats yet, unless you know what you are doing, as these are permanent choices (you can change them but it's not free, contrarily to all of the other powers/class features).
To level up to level 20 easily, become an Arbiter Cleric and change the following powers when you unlock them :
- Sacred Flame (At-Will Power) ➤ Lance of Faith : for better damage and Burning Judgement
- Sun Burst (Encounter) ➤ Searing Javelin : your main power to kill monsters
- Geas (Encounter) ➤ Forgemaster's Flame : your main power to destroy bigger monsters
- Daunting Light (Encounter) ➤ Divine Glow (when you have Searing Javelin) : to get a bit more Divinity to play with
Get familiar with the Judgement mechanic, to gain your divinity back or to improve your powers by consuming Judgement : whenever you have Radiant Judgement (yellow orbs at the right of your character), tap the Channel Divinity key (Tab on PC, R1 on PS4, RB on Xbox) to get some of your Divinity back. Burning Judgement (red orbs) is used to make your Searing Javelin and Forgemaster's Flame stronger, but you can also consume it to get your Divinity back if you need it.
Once you are level 20, you can start making a real Arbiter build, picking Feats that work well together, study the Perfect Balance build for group content, or stick with a Tipping Scale build (which works well for solo, but not as well as the Perfect Balance build in group content), or become a real Healer as a Devout Cleric (for group content only, as you would hurt yourself in solo content, change whenever you want at a campfire) !
How to read Powers
On this page, you will find lots of information about powers. Here is how they will be presented, and how to understand them :
Arbiter Cleric
Arbiter Mechanics and General Skills
Mechanics are the core of your character. Dodge is the tactical power of the Cleric, which lets you evade attacks and teleport further away. Channel Divinity is the mechanic which lets you regain Divinity, the main resource of the Cleric, which you need to cast many of your spells. Judgement is unique to the Arbiter Cleric : you gain either Radiant or Burning Judgement when you cast your spells and you can consume it, either to boost the damage of the opposite type of spell (Burning or Radiant) or to regain some Divinity.
Dodge
Unlocks at level 1
Channel Divinity
Alteration at level 11 :
Base Divinity Regeneration :
VideoUnlocks at level 2
Scales of Judgement
Passive
Your powers now cost more Divinity, but certain powers give you either Radiant or Burning Judgement (orbs displayed on the right side of your character on your screen, also floating around your character). You can stack up to 6 orbs of either Radiant or Burning Judgement.
Radiant powers give you Burning Judgement and consume all of your Radiant Judgement. Radiant powers deal more damage with more Radiant Judgement consumed.
Burning powers give you Radiant Judgement and consume all of your Burning Judgement. Burning powers deal more damage with more Burning Judgement consumed.
The key is building Judgement with at-will powers, and consuming it by using an encounter or daily power of the opposite type, or simply alternating Radiant and Burning encounter or daily powers.
Also, Channeling Divinity instantly consumes your Judgement and gives you Divinity back, so you do not have to keep channeling anymore, just tap the key after gaining some Jugement.
Unlocks at level 11
Forte
Passive
Your Forte stat gives you 50% of its percentage to Power and 25% of its percentage to Critical Severity and Deflect.
Unlocks at level 11
General Skills are passive skills, which are the same for both paragon paths. One of them lets you interract with different items throughout the world, without using Skill Kits, the others boost your stats when your Stamina or Divinity are high. You will also find your Racial Bonuses in the General Skills on the Powers page of your character (at the very bottom).
Religion
Passive
You can interract with Religion objects in the world as if you had a Religion Kit (you can buy Kits for every other skill from merchants for 1.5 silver each, and they generally give you miscellaneous items which you can sell, and insignias from time to time).
Unlocks at level 1
Divine Meditation
Passive
Increases Divinity Regeneration out of combat.
Unlocks at level 6
Composed Insight
Passive
Grants up to 10% Accuracy when your Stamina is full. This effect decreases as your Stamina decreases.
Unlocks at level 10
Divine Protection
Passive
Grants up to 10% Critical Avoidance when your Divinity is full. This effect decreases as your Divinity decreases.
Unlocks at level 10
Arbiter At-Will Powers
You can use 2 At-Will powers, and these should be Lance of Faith and Scattering Light.
Sacred Flame
Nice for building Radiant Judgement for Daunting Light and Geas... until you get to level 13 (when you unlock Searing Javelin).
Unlocks at level 1
Scattering Light
A good option in order to build Burning Judgement for Searing Javelin, if you are going to hit 4 targets or more. Due to its faster building of Burning Judgement, using Lance of Faith outputs more damage if you cannot hit as many enemies (and it's generally preferrable to focus on targets to kill a few of them faster rather than having all of them still alive hitting you).
Unlocks at level 1
Lance of Faith
Your main Single Target At-Will power. Also good to focus monsters in AoE situations, as it builds Burning Judgement fast for your Searing Javelin, and it's always better to kill a few monsters first, rather than having all of them hitting you for the whole fight.
Unlocks at level 11
Conflagrate
Technically the best aoe At-Will power in terms of damage dealt, but it has a long cast time, and it builds Radiant Judgement, which likely means using Daunting Light next, which is not as practical as Searing Javelin (the other two options are Geas and Break the Spirit, which both suffer from a very long cooldown and are single target... or a Daily Power).
Unlocks at level 16
Arbiter Encounter Powers
You can use 3 Encounter powers, and there are mostly 2 builds for them : the Perfect Balance build, which is the harder build to master, recommended for group content, and the Tipping Scales build, which works well enough for solo but won't shine as much as the other one, especially in group content.
Daunting Light
Altered by the Lightspeed Feat :
The next Daunting Light in the next 10s after using Searing Javelin is improved :
Altered by the Focused Light Feat :
The next Daunting Light in the next 10s after using Forgemaster's Flame is modified :
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
Not a fantastic aoe spell, but when used with the Focused Light Feat after Forgemaster's Flame, it hurts !
Unlocks at level 1
Geas
Increases Burning Judgement by 1 (JPS : 0.61).
Altered by the Doomsayer Class Feature :
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
Either the duration or efficiency are too small, or the cooldown is too big, to really make use of this spell. A shame.
Unlocks at level 1
Bastion of Health
Do not even think about using this one as an Arbiter Cleric, this would be a waste of a spell slot.
Unlocks at level 2
Divine Glow
Improves Divinity Regeneration for 12s.
Altered by the Tipping Scales Feat :
With the Tipping Scales Feat, it's a good power to have, to never run out of Divinity, and to be able to boost your Encounter powers.
Unlocks at level 4
Sun Burst
Increases Radiant Judgement by 1 (JPS : 1).
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
Knock Back is the worst effect in the game, as it means people will lose combat advantage or use their powers on nothing. So never use this ever again after you've unlocked Searing Javelin.
Unlocks at level 7
Searing Javelin
Altered by the Piercing Javelin Feat :
At-Wills have a 10% chance to make your next Searing Javelin, in the next 10s, automatically be a critical hit (which technically improves its average damage by 4.97% when your critical stats are capped, 14% when both are at 70%, 20% at 50%.
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
Your main spell to destroy hoard of monsters.
Unlocks at level 13
Forgemaster's Flame
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
Your main spell to demolish big monsters.
Unlocks at level 15
Chains of Blazing Light
Altered by the Doomsayer Class Feature :
There was a time (before mod 16), it dealt damage, and was totally awesome !
The funny thing is that with mod 21, it becomes theoretically possible to permalock monsters with very high Control Bonus and Recharge Speed (it won't work on bosses as they are immune to most controls)... But any attack, even from a companion, removes the control... which makes this power totally useless.
RIP.
Unlocks at level 17
Break the Spirit
Increases Burning Judgement by 1 (JPS : 0.61).
Altered by the Doomsayer Class Feature :
Altered by the Sudden Verdict Feat :
Altered by the Perfect Balance Feat :
It would sound good for trials if Prophecy of Doom didn't exist.
Unlocks at level 18
Prophecy of Doom
Altered by the Doomsayer Class Feature :
The key is mastering the rotation with the Perfect Balance feat. It's not easy, but it's very worth it.
This power only serves the purpose of destroying bosses in dungeons and trials... But it does it very well once you've mastered it.
Unlocks at level 19
Arbiter Daily Powers
You can use 2 Daily powers. Hallowed Ground is very recommended for solo (for emergency healing). Guardian of Faith is the other one I recommend, as it does the job well.
Guardian of Faith
Increases Burning Judgement by 1 (JPS : 0.67).
Simple and clean, except it doesn't deal as much damage as what's written...
Unlocks at level 2
Hallowed Ground
Your emergency healing power for solo. Don't use it in a group (unless you are in a crazy bad situation), as your healer will do a much better job than you, and your role is to deal damage... And your daily power is very important to boost your damage if you are using Prophecy of Doom.
It seems it cannot crit for a Devout Cleric. I haven't checked for the Arbiter.
Unlocks at level 2
Flame Strike
Altered by the Burning Patch Feat :
Regular Flame Strike's magnitude and crit severity are messed up : the damage is a lot less than what's indicated, and a critical hit will deal bonus damage as if you had 3 times less critical severity...
Alterned version suffers from the same problem on the first hit, and secondary hits (2 to 7) simply cannot crit and will do the same damage regardless of the first hit being a crit or not.
Tons of time wasted (at least 4H just for the tests on this particular power) to get you the numbers, while cryptic clearly can't do a single thing properly... It was clear there was something very fishy with this power when I realized the hits were dealing the same damage whether it was a crit or not on the first hit on the alterned version, but I uncovered a whole iceberg here... I won't check the numbers for every power. I'm not working for the non-existent quality control at Cryptic's studios... And they still can't make tooltips that reflect the numbers used in the damage calculations... because it's more fun and much more waste of time and totally not a good practice for the maintainability of their code to hard code the tooltips and the damage calculation for each and every power separately... while a single formula and a proper database would do the job much better, and updating powers would be as easy as changing 1 value in the database instead of changing pretty much everything...
Unlocks at level 8
Celestial Prominence
Increases Burning Judgement by 1.
Altered by the Critical Sun Feat :
First place the AoE, then activate it to trigger the damage and stun effect. If you wait 5s before activating it, the damage will be improved. It will automatically trigger after 15s.
Considering the time it takes to place the aoe and activate it, the cast time of 0s does not really reflects the reality...
Unlocks at level 11
Hammer of Fate
Can be interrupted midway... And yeah, they fucked up this power too...
Unlocks at level 20
Arbiter Class Features
Soothing Prayer
Passive
Whenever you channel Divinity, you receive a 25 magnitude Heal over Time.
Unlocks at level 3
Hallowed Armor
Passive
You take 5% less damage, 10% when channeling Divinity.
Unlocks at level 6
Pilgrim's Light
Passive
You deal 5% more damage when there are no party member nearby.
Unlocks at level 9
Expanded Faith
Passive
Increases your maximum Divinity by 150 (to 1150).
Unlocks at level 9
Critical Insight
Passive
Whenever you critically hit, you receive 10 Divinity.
Unlocks at level 13
Doomsayer
Passive
Whenever you use an encounter power that inflicts a negative condition on an enemy you gain 10% damage, for 10s. That is : Geas, Chains of Blazing Light, Break the Spirit, and Prophecy of Doom.
Unlocks at level 15
Light of the Scales
Passive
Increases the Divinity restored when Channel Divinity consumes Judgement, by 10%.
Unlocks at level 17
Divine Equilibrium
Passive
Increases your damage dealt by up to 15% when your Divinity is exactly half of your maximum Divinity, decreases as your Divinity becomes further away from this point.
Unlocks at level 19
Arbiter Feats
Lightspeed
Passive
Searing Javelin improves Daunting Light (for the next 10s), reducing the cast time and increasing the Burning Judgement given by 1. This effectively gives +100 magnitude (+11.5% damage) to Forgemaster's Flame, or +60 magnitude (+11.3% damage) to Searing Javelin, if you are going to use them right after Daunting Light.
Unlocks at level 12
Piercing Javelin
Passive
At-will powers have a 10% chance to make your next Searing Javelin (in the next 10s) automatically Critically Strike. This effectively improves its average damage by 4.97% when your critical stats are capped, 14% when both are at 70%, 20% at 50%.
Unlocks at level 12
Focused Light
Passive
Forgemaster's Flame changes your next Daunting Light (in the next 10s) to be Single Target (it's still considered an aoe for the Vistani set), increasing its magnitude to 450 (+100 per Radiant Judgement).
Unlocks at level 14
Tipping Scales
Passive
Divine Glow generates a full stack of Judgement as long as you have at least 1 orb already.
VideoUnlocks at level 14
Sudden Verdict
Passive
Encounter powers that generate Judgement, have a 25% chance to generate a full stack.
Unlocks at level 16
Inner Balance
Passive
Increases the Divinity restored when consuming Judgement by up to 20 if your Critical Strike and Accuracy are equal, and as much more when your Combat Advantage and Critical Severity are equal. Both effects are diminished when your stats are further appart.
Unlocks at level 16
Critical Sun
Passive
Whenever Celestial Prominence deals critical damage, you can cast it again (in the next 6s), without spending Action Points (for free !), cannot proc multiple times in a row (would be broken with 90% Critical Strike).
Unlocks at level 18
Burning Patch
Passive
Flame Strike no longer applies a Damage over Time effect, instead it makes the area deal 450 335 x 6 magnitude damage (once every 3s for the next 18s). For some reason, those hits cannot crit... The first hit of Flame Strike (which is affected by Judgement) is unchanged.
Unlocks at level 18
Perfect Balance
Passive
Encounter powers that generate Judgement now grant Radiant or Burning Shift (depending on the kind of Judgement they generate), which both stack up to 4 times, for the next 60s.
Each stack of Shift increases damage by 1%.
If either Stacks of Radiant or Burning Shift exceeds one another by MORE THAN a single stack, both will expire immediately. So you can have 1-1 or 2-1, but not 2-0 stacks, you have to alternate a Burning and a Radiant power to make use of this passive (and the powers are Forgemaster's Flame, or Searing Javelin, and Daunting Light, with the Focused Light Feat).
When both stacks reach 4, both will be consummed and your Divinity will be fully restored.
VideoRotation : Prophecy of Doom ➤ Artifacts ➤ Daily (with the Apprentices' Spoils set preferentially) ➤ Forgemaster's Flame + Daunting Light ➤ Tunnel Vision (Mount Combat Power) ➤ ( Forgemaster's Flame + Daunting Light ) x3.
(in the video I mess up a bit and use Tunnel Vision before the first FF/DL, which means it doesn't benefit from the Divine Equilibrium buff)
Unlocks at level 20
Angel of Death
Passive
Encounter powers which cost Divinity grant stacks of Angelic Inspiration, for 60s. When you reach 26 stacks, the effect is converted to Angelic Presence.
When under the effect of Angelic Presence, Channeling Divinity removes it and grants you Angel of Death.
Angel of Death allows you to cast your Encounter powers without paying their Divinity cost, for the next 12s, cannot happen outside of combat.
Most of the time this effect is totally wasted due to it triggering at the end of a fight and never when you want it.
VideoUnlocks at level 20
The Perfect Balance Build
This is the build that will doom monsters, especially bosses. It all revolves around the Perfect Balance Feat, and the Prophecy of Doom Encounter power. To maximize the damage, you must master a very specific rotation :
Prophecy of Doom ➤ Artifacts ➤ Daily (with the Apprentices' Spoils set preferentially) ➤ Forgemaster's Flame + Daunting Light ➤ Tunnel Vision (Mount Combat Power) ➤ ( Forgemaster's Flame + Daunting Light ) x3
You start with 2 Radiant and 2 Burning Shifts. As you will use Forgemaster's Flame and Daunting Light twice, your Divinity will be fully depleted, but you will have 4 of both Shifts, which will replenish your Divinity entirely, for you to use Forgemater's Flame and Daunting Light twice more... When your Prophecy of Doom procs, you'll have dealt tons of damage, and 30% of this damage will be dealt again on your target.
Video- Lance of Faith (At-Will)
- Scattering Light (At-Will)
- Daunting Light (Encounter)
- Forgemaster's Flame (Encounter)
- Prophecy of Doom (Encounter)
- Guardian of Faith (Daily)
- Hallowed Ground (Daily) / Celestial Prominence
- Doomsayer (Class Feature)
- Divine Equilibrium (Class Feature)
- Lightspeed (Feat)
- Focused Light (Feat)
- Sudden Verdict (Feat)
- Critical Sun (Feat)
- Perfect Balance (Feat)
On groups of monsters :
- Prophecy of Doom (Encounter) ➤ Searing Javelin (Encounter)
The Tipping Scales Build (alternative for solo)
This build is much simpler to use (there's no rotation), but you won't deal as much damage as with a Perfect Balance build. It revolves around the Tipping Scales feat, which gives you a full stack of Judgement when you use Divine Glow (as long as you have 1 orb already). You will only use Burning Judgement to boost your Encounter powers (either Searing Javelin or Forgemaster's Flame, depending on which you need at the moment), and consume all of the Radiant Judgement you will generate, with Channel Divinity, to get your Divinity back. Between Divine Glow and the consumption of Radiant Judgement, you will be able to use your Encounter powers fairly often, and will be able to generate 6 orbs of Judgement almost instantly to boost an Encounter power whenever you need to deal lots of damage.
Video- Lance of Faith (At-Will)
- Scattering Light (At-Will)
- Divine Glow (Encounter)
- Forgemaster's Flame (Encounter)
- Searing Javeling (Encounter)
- Guardian of Faith (Daily)
- Hallowed Ground (Daily)
- Pilgrim's Light (Class Feature)
- Divine Equilibrium (Class Feature)
- Piercing Javelin (Feat)
- Tipping Scales (Feat)
- Sudden Verdict (Feat)
- Critical Sun (Feat)
- Angel of Death (Feat)
Arbiter Itemization
As an Arbiter Cleric, what matters the most is the damage you deal with your Encounter Powers. All of your powers deal Ranged and Magical damage, so try to boost these in priority.
For Stats, as any Damage Dealer, you want to prioritize Power, then Combat Advantage, then Critical Stats (equally), then Accuracy, Hit Points, Defense and Awareness. Combat Advantage is less important than Critical Stats in solo content, but if you are a Damage Dealer in dungeons, do not worry about modifying your build for solo : it will work well enough, especially if you position properly and surround monsters with your companion.
For Ability Scores, pick Dexterity and Intelligence. Charisma can be an option, but you do not really need the Recharge Speed as your cooldowns are generally very small.
Also, the most important thing you should focus on early on is to get a mount with the Tunnel Vision Combat Power, and to upgrade it to Mythic... You'll quickly end up feeling like this should be renamed Power Word : Kill.
You also want to upgrade a Debuff Artifact to Mythic (any of them, as long as players in the group have different ones).
And the Apprentices' Spoils set (also known as Music Box set) is a must have if you are using the Perfect Balance build.
Devout Cleric
Devout Mechanics and General Skills
Mechanics are the core of your character. Dodge is the tactical power of the Cleric, which lets you evade attacks and teleport further away. Channel Divinity is the mechanic which lets you regain Divinity, the main resource of the Cleric, which you need to cast many of your spells. Judgement is unique to the Arbiter Cleric : you gain either Radiant or Burning Judgement when you cast your spells and you can consume it, either to boost the damage of the opposite type of spell (Burning or Radiant) or to regain some Divinity.
Dodge
Unlocks at level 1
Channel Divinity
Modification at level 11 :
When holding then releasing the key, it will trigger Light of Divinity, which heals the player targeted with your mark (you, if you didn't place the mark).
Putting the mark on someone never works when you need it (really, it takes me 3 tries to manage to put this fucked up mark on anyone), it's impossible to micro manage this when in a fight, and it will even disappear if you or the marked player dies... This is the worst mechanic ever implemented in Neverwinter.
Restoring Divinity with Channel Divinity was such a way better mechanic, which made everything tactical (heal, move, or channel divinity), and it simply worked. Healers became terrible, and really not fun to play, when mod 19 came, and this is the main reason why : we don't have much divinity to play with anymore, and the mechanic that replaced it is just unplayable.
Unlocks at level 2
Light of Divinity
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
Encounter powers which cost Divinity reduce the Cast Time and Divinity Cost of your next Light of Divinity cast in the next 12s. This is the Feat that makes Light of Divinity less Divinity intensive than Bastion of Health for healing Single Targets, and makes it much more reactive (thought still takes twice as long as Bastion of Health to cast). Too bad it's a pain to use... The only good point is : you can hold it infinitely until your tank needs healing... as long as you do not need to move...
Altered by the Gathering Light Feat :
Altered by the Angel of Life Feat :
To activate this power, you need to Channel Divinity (Tab on PC, R1 on PS4, RB on Xbox). Make sure to press it for a long enough time or you will just move the Mark of Divinity to yourself or someone else, and this is a huge pain. The amount healed and divinity cost depend on the time you take to Channel Divinity.
Note that while you can hold the heal as long as you want with the regular Light of Divinity and the one boosted by Battle Prayer, the effect triggers immediately once the cast time is completed with the Gathering Light or Angel of Life Feats, which makes them even worse, so do not use the 5th Feat or you'll probably regret it.
Unlocks at level 11
Mark of Divinity
When tapping the key (Tab on PC, R1 on PS4, RB on Xbox), which means pressing for less than half a microsecond, marks a target with the Mark of Divinity. This target must be a group member (not a companion). Your heals on this target will benefit from 5% more Outgoing Healing (which can go over the 90% cap). That's the good part.
Now the fucked up part, that makes it totally unplayable and makes it the worst mechanic in the whole game... Not only it is a pain in the a$$ to place it (it easily takes 3 tries each time you want to mark someone when they are standing still in front of you, and that's much worse in the middle of a fight)... It will also disappear when you or the target dies. Which means you'll waste 10s trying to place this fucked up Mark on the tank each time one of you dies, and that makes it very dangerous for the whole group who needs healing while you're struggling with this.
So, as much as possible, just do not play with it, if you can avoid it : this is the worst mechanic in the whole game, the devs didn't play test it with a controller, and it's more dangerous to try to apply the mark than to heal with spells that do work.
There are places, like the Infernal Citadel or very end game trials, in which using the mark is highly recommanded... just place it before the fight starts, and hope it works well when you need it...
Unlocks at level 11
Forte
Passive
Your Forte stat gives you 50% of its percentage to Divinity Regeneration and 25% of its percentage to Critical Severity and Deflect.
Unlocks at level 11
Righteousness
Passive
Increases the effectiveness of healing spells, reduces the divinity costs and threat of healing spells. Increases the regeneration rate of Divinity.
Unlocks at level 11
General Skills are passive skills, which are the same for both paragon paths. One of them lets you interract with different items throughout the world, without using Skill Kits, the others boost your stats when your Stamina or Divinity are high. You will also find your Racial Bonuses in the General Skills on the Powers page of your character (at the very bottom).
Religion
Passive
You can interract with Religion objects in the world as if you had a Religion Kit (you can buy Kits for every other skill from merchants for 1.5 silver each, and they generally give you miscellaneous items which you can sell, and insignias from time to time).
Unlocks at level 1
Divine Meditation
Passive
Increases Divinity Regeneration out of combat.
Unlocks at level 6
Composed Insight
Passive
Grants up to 10% Accuracy when your Stamina is full. This effect decreases as your Stamina decreases.
Unlocks at level 10
Divine Protection
Passive
Grants up to 10% Critical Avoidance when your Divinity is full. This effect decreases as your Divinity decreases.
Unlocks at level 10
Devout At-Will Powers
Sacred Flame
Can be used to trigger debuffs from Weapon Enchantment or Apocalypse set, on single targets (faster than ).
Unlocks at level 1
Scattering Light
Can be used to trigger debuffs from Weapon Enchantment or Apocalypse set, on groups of monsters.
Unlocks at level 1
Soothe
Altered by the Empowered Soothe Feat :
Unlocks at level 11
Blessing of Light
Can be spammed to gain Action Points (during downtimes in a fight, doesn't work out of combat), in order to get access to your Daily Power faster.
Unlocks at level 16
Devout Encounter Powers
Daunting Light
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
Unlocks at level 1
Geas
Either the duration or efficiency are too small, or the cooldown is too big, to really make use of this spell.
Unlocks at level 1
Bastion of Health
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
The fact that a 20' radius AoE heal should be used to heal a single target and is severily affected when other players get close to someone who needs healing baffles me. This is such a bad design, and the spell was great the way it was in mod 18... I don't know what the devs were thinking when they made the changes to healers at that point, but they failed hard and broke everything.
Light of Divinity is technically not as good to heal a tank as the Magnitude / Divinity Cost ratio is worse, and the cast time is much longer, so it can't really be used in emergency situations (or just pray that your tank survives the next couple of seconds, and don't think about spamming it or you'll just put the mark on yourself and say goobye to your tank...). But since anyone running around can make Bastion of Health half as good as it should be, and it's hard to tell people to stay away from those who need healing... We basically have the choice to use either a terrible mechanic that may or may not work, or a spell that may or may not heal as much as it should... Whoever made those changes is probably not at Cryptic anymore (due to them firing half of their team after they failed with Magic:Legends), but their legacy is still a plague to the game... Healing was fun before mod19...
Unlocks at level 2
Divine Glow
Improves Divinity Regeneration for 12s. This effectively doubles 4 ticks of Divinity Regeneration. Base Divinity Regeneration being at about 31 Divinity every 3s, to which you add half of your Forte percentage : with 50% Forte, that means 31 x ( 1 + 0.5/2 ) = 38.75 Divinity every 3s... Divine Glow ends up giving about 155 Divinity (more or less depending on your Forte).
Altered by the Blessed Armaments Feat :
Unlocks at level 4
Sun Burst
Knock Back is the worst effect in the game, as it means people will lose combat advantage or use their powers on nothing. So never use this ever again after you've unlocked Searing Javelin.
Unlocks at level 7
Healing Word
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
Using Healing Word as you would Bastion of Health is about 35% less efficient in terms of Divinity, and the cast time is twice as long. You would heal 5 players better with a single spell, and you would not have to care about the AoE radius of Bastion of Health (though the radius of Healing Word is actually too small to cover the whole platform of Cradle of the Death God, you can't heal people on the other side, so it's not infinite either...), but you would have an harder time healing them if you spammed it, as you would heal them 16% less over time, due to the cast time.
Note that the Heal over Time effect will critically heal either on all of the heals or on none of them, as all of the heals of that effect will give the exact same amount. Boosting Healing Word with Blessing of Light and Exaltation will also result in all of the heals being better.
So, while you can choose to not use Bastion of Health, you have to keep in mind that Healing Word is not as efficient if you need to spam it, and that spamming it results in losing the benefits you could get from bonuses such as or .
Unlocks at level 13
Exaltation
Also increases your Damage dealt by 20%, for the next 8s.
Altered by the Blessed Armaments Feat :
Especially good to boost your Healing Words (and the cooldown is a fantastic reminder for when to cast Healing Word again : as soon as you can cast Exaltation again !).
Note that 110% OH only means about 10% better heals compared to 90% OH, so it won't really improve your healing by 20%.
Unlocks at level 15
Cleansing Light
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
Note that removing 1 negative condition doesn't always work, and may remove a self-inflicted negative condition you don't really care about, instead of a damage over time you'd like to remove. So you may have to cast it multiple times before you get the result you want... Does NOT remove periodic paralysis, like the one from electricity in Tomb of the Nine Gods... which is the most annoying control in the whole game as it makes healing almost impossible... But it removes negative conditions from runes in Undermountain expeditions, so you can change loadout, remove the condition, and go back to your Arbiter loadout at any firecamp there.
In order to heal, that's much worse than Bastion of Health, or even Healing Word (spammed), so only use it to remove negative conditions... or to heal companions, because I guess that's the only spell we have left with a proper healing effect for them (though you shouldn't worry about them in most cases)...
Unlocks at level 17
Astral Shield
Altered by the Battle Prayer Feat :
Its main use is to block bit hits that could kill the tank or the party (Halaster's Annihilate, or Superstorm, in Tower of the Mad Mage). Not very useful in other situations as the healing power (Magnitude / (Cast + CD)) is terrible, and the aoe is very small.
One of the few heals that still work on companions... But Cleansing Light is much better in that regard, and it's still a bad healing spell.
Unlocks at level 18
Intercession
That's emergency healing ! And does not use Divinity, which means it's both very efficient and will save your resources for other powers.
Intercession is particularly important to save people from the cocoon against Arcturia in the Lair of the Mad Mage, but it's also generally great to save anyone who took damage they shouldn't have, or to save a bit of Divinity when you would have used Bastion of Health instead.
The drawback is that if you intend to heal the tank with it, and one of the damage dealers just took damage they shouldn't have, you may not heal the one you wanted to heal with it. And the cooldown is fairly long, especially now that players get wrecked with the mod 20 combat changes...
Unlocks at level 19
Devout Daily Powers
Guardian of Faith
Altered by the Persistent Guardian Feat :
Unlocks at level 2
Hallowed Ground
Your main Daily Power, in order to keep the whole group alive when tons of damage are coming on the group.
Note : after killing monsters with my Hydra Scale Rings (wasted 2 hours on this), which deal 3 ticks of damage with a low magnitude on monsters hit by Daily Powers, and kinda unexpectedly work with Hallowed Ground, I've come to the conclusion that Hallowed Ground never crits.
Unlocks at level 2
Flame Strike
Unlocks at level 8
Anointed Army
Altered by the Anointed Arms Feat :
Unlocks at level 11
Guardian of Life
Altered by the Persistent Guardian Feat :
While Hallowed Ground has a higher magnitude than Guardian of Life (I know right ? Always thought Guardian of Life was Hallowed Ground with a big initial heal instead of the damage mitigation, but nope, it actually heals less often, because there are no game designer at Cryptic)... Because of the fact that Hallowed Ground apparently cannot crit (or I'm the unluckiest person), Guardian of Life can heal better... if you crit ! (or with the feat)
Guardian of Life is honestly not great compared to Hallowed Ground : Hallowed Ground heals more often, more (if you don't crit, and crit severity is halved for healing anyway), and the damage mitigation can save people on top of everything.
Unlocks at level 20
Devout Class Features
Soothing Prayer
Passive
Whenever you channel Divinity, you receive a 25 magnitude Heal over Time.
Unlocks at level 3
Hallowed Armor
Passive
You take 5% less damage, 10% when channeling Divinity.
Unlocks at level 6
Pilgrim's Light
Passive
You deal 5% more damage when there are no party member nearby.
Unlocks at level 9
Expanded Faith
Passive
Increases your maximum Divinity by 150 (to 1150).
Unlocks at level 9
Desperate Prayers
Passive
Gives you 20% Outgoing Healing when your Divinity is fully depleted. This bonus goes down to 0 when your Divinity is half empty. Yes, it's completely useless to be able to heal more when you do not have the Divinity to cast a healing spell... But what do you know !...
Unlocks at level 13
Swift Prayers
Passive
Allows you to move at a reduced speed (not high enough to evade aoe's) when Channeling Divinity, or casting Astral Shield.
Unlocks at level 15
Hallowed Guide
Passive
Gives you 5% Outgoing Healing when healing a target 15' or closer from you.
Unlocks at level 17
Overflowing Spirit
Passive
Whenever your Divinity is full, your Outgoing Healing percentage is increased by 25% (does not overcap).
Unlocks at level 19
Devout Feats
Repeated Blessings
Passive
When healing someone affected with Healing Word, the duration lasts 6s more, up to its original duration (18s). So, if you cast Healing Word, and 3s later you cast Bastion of Health, Healing Word will have its duration reset to 18s (the maximum, full duration), while if you wait 10s to cast Bastion of Health (8s left), the duration will be back to 14s. Bastion of Health being the cheapest encounter power for group healing in terms of Divinity, you'd need to have 50 Divinity per tick (every 3s) to be able to maintain Healing Word with Bastion of Health (which is impossible, the maximum being slightly below 45... and that's with 90% Forte which no one can get because there are not enough items in the game that give Forte...).
Relying on this is bad, because people will lose Healing Word when they die, or they won't get it if they are too far away, or the duration will not be reset if you do not make sure to heal every single player with every of your Bastion of Health (we all know this is impossible as players tend to move quite a lot)... So do not use it, and reapply Healing Word whenever necessary.
Unlocks at level 12
Empowered Soothe
Passive
Encounter powers which cost Divinity now grant 3 stacks of Empowered Soothe, which last 30s. When you heal with Soothe, 1 stack is consumed and the magnitude of Soothe is increased by 100.
Unlocks at level 12
Cycle of Prayer
Passive
Increases Divinity Regeration rate every 3s, up to 4 times. This effect is reset when you use a power which uses Divinity.
So, yeah, just wait and let your team die, to get more Divinity, to be able to heal them... This passive litteraly asks you to afk for some time in the middle of a fight... There's something called game design, and they teach it in every school in which you learn to make video games...
The one thing it's good for is it won't take about 69/81/99s to regain a full bar of Divinity (with 90/45/0% Forte)...
If you're not using Light of Divinity with Battle Prayer instead, then this feat could give you back a bit of Divinity here and there, so it's not completely useless, but it's such an awful design...
Unlocks at level 14
Battle Prayer
Passive
Encounter powers which cost Divinity reduce the cast time of your next Light of Divinity by 1s, and its cost by 50 Divinity, if it's used in the next 12s.
It makes it much more manageable for emergency situations, though the cast time will still be long (1.5s). You can cast Healing Word and then alternate Light of Divinity and Bastion of Health to heal the tank at the last boss of the Infernal Citadel, or the cocoon on the first boss of the Lair of the Mad Mage.
Unlocks at level 14
Blessed Armaments
Passive
Grant Divine Glow and Exaltation the effect of decreasing the damage you take by 10% for the next 10s, while also increasing the damage you deal by 20 magnitude.
Unlocks at level 16
Towering Light
Passive
Increases your damage dealt by 10% when your Divinity is full. Effect decreases as your Divinity goes down.
Unlocks at level 16
Anointed Arms
Passive
Anointed Army now lasts for half the duration (10s instead of 20s) and heals for half as much (900 instead of 1800 magnitude), but it grants 3% damage until the heal is consumed (so for up to 10s).
Unlocks at level 18
Persistent Guardian
Passive
After using Guardian of Faith or Guardian of Life, an Angel descends to heal wounded party members (individually) by 600 magnitude, up to 6 times or 45s.
Unlocks at level 18
Gathering Light
Passive
Extends the maximum cast time of Channel Divinity by 0.5s (from 2.5s to 3s). If cast for the full 3s, the magnitude is reduced by 900 (from 1700 to 800), so it heals a lot less, but it will also heal players in a 5' radius.
Either kill everyone by stacking on the tank and taking deadly aoe's, or never ever heal more than 1 person at a time because people will never stack on one another when they need healing... But make sure your Light of Divinity sucks in any circumstance.
By the way, if you take this feat, you will not be able to keep Channeling Divinity forever until the tank needs healing (to perfect time it when you know a hit is coming), as, with this feat, the heal will be triggered automatically at the end of the cast time.
Unlocks at level 20
Angel of Life
Passive
Extends the cast time of Channel Divinity by 1.5s (from 2.5 to 4s). Holding Channel Divinity to the full cast time grants you Angel of Life, which will allow you to cast spells without paying their Divinity cost, for the next 12s, once every 3 minutes.
If you need this, then by the time you cast it, your whole group will probably be dead, and you will only be able to cast it once in a whole boss fight (unless it's a trial in which you just can't stay idle for 4s in a row).
It also means you won't be able to hold Channel Divinity forever until your tank needs a heal or you will trigger the effect when you may not need it.
So that's another crappy option, don't pick any and you'll be better.
Unlocks at level 20
Devout Build
- Blessing of Light (At-Will)
- Soothe (At-Will)
- Healing Word (Encounter)
- Exaltation (Encounter)
- Intercession (Encounter)
- Hallowed Ground (Daily)
- Anointed Army (Daily) or Guardian of Life
- Hallowed Armor (Class Feature) or Hallowed Guide
- Overflowing Spirit (Class Feature)
- Empowered Soothe (Feat)
- Battle Prayer (Feat) or Cycle of Prayer
- Blessed_Armaments (Feat)
- Anointed Arms (Feat) or Persistent Guardian
- No 5th Feat (both are detrimental).
Cast Blessing of Light + Exaltation and then Healing Word when your Divinity is full, to benefit from 55% extra Outgoing Healing (which can boost your Outgoing Healing from 65% to 120%, effectively making it heal 33.3% better on the whole duration (as if it healed 150 magnitude more instantly and 100 magnitude more every 3s for 18s...).
You can replace Exaltation (Encounter) or Intercession by Bastion of Health, if you need more healing on the group.
Astral Shield (Encounter) can be used to mitigate damage on big hits in trials.
When necessary, to remove negative conditions (Damage over Time effects on the manticores in Fangbreaker Island and Svardborg's Assault, or debuffs in expeditions or 3rd boss of Lair of the Mad Mage...) :
- Exaltation (Encounter) or Intercession ➤ Cleansing Light
If using the Apocalypse Set :
- Soothe (At-Will) ➤ Sacred Flame or Scattering Light
Devout Itemization
As a Devout Cleric, what matters the most is the healing you can do, and you staying alive to heal everyone.
In order to heal better, the most important stats are Power and Outgoing Healing (equally), then Forte, then Critical Stats (equally). Unfortunately there are very few items that boost Outgoing Healing and Forte, and every item that boosts other stats actually reduces these because of the way stats work... So Healers are fucked up by design... And you also want some Hit Points, Defense, and Awareness, to survive the hits.
For Ability scores, pick Wisdom and Charisma. Dexterity or Constitution are also valid options, for Dexterity can actually boost healing more than Wisdom (but it's way easier to boost Critical Severity than Outgoing Healing) and the movement speed is a nice bonus, and Constitution means more Hit Points. And the more Hit Points the better, as you need to survive to save the group !
Also, the most important thing you should focus on early on is to... level up a Paladin, for the Sigil of the Paladin artifact is great at mitigating damage for the group, and is very useful in a couple of situations.
You also want to upgrade a Debuff Artifact to Mythic (any of them, as long as players in the group have different ones), to use it when you do not need the Sigil of the Paladin.
Then it's always a choice between boosting your healing capabilities (healing companion like the Dedicated Squire or Lillend, Tiamat set, Holy Avenger weapon enchantment...) or boosting the damage of the group (damage boosting companion like Drizzt or the Succubus, Apocalypse set, Debuff weapon enchantment...).