Been wondering if its possible to make a viable melee cleric or fvs. Almost every cleric/fvs that I have seen in heroics is setup to nuke or use instant kills. The few melee ones that I have seen generally died a lot and didn't do much.

Main issues I see are :

-Warpriest tree forcing you to use non-optimal 1h weapons to get full bonuses, with the favored deity requirement (unless you do iconics)

- Warpriest tree not giving enough damage/survivability on its own

- If you go 2WF to do more damage, that means you have a hefty dex and feat requirement and other associated problems

- Since Warpriest is the only melee oriented tree, you would need to multiclass to get access to a martial class's trees, and going full fighter or ranger would be way more effective

- Buffs in DDO don't scale and were never balanced for the stat inflation DDO has...Divine Power, the spell that makes clerics in pnp better than fighters, doesn't give extra attacks in DDO so is mostly useless. You can have a +6 str item easily by that point and the temp hp is meh.

Just seems like you end up with a gimped fighter in most cases, especially as a high UMD would let you use scrolls for the stuff on the cleric spell list anyway.

Have any of you been able to get a melee cleric/fvs to work well in heroics?

So have you actually tried running a melee cleric or fvs?

Do one of the Sylvanis Maul builds I am doing a couple of PDK 14 Cleric / 6 Fighter runs on an alt now and it's a killer and a hell of a lot of fun. Minimal gear investment really and it just crushes through content.

If I was doing heroic only I would say grab a dagger and do a SWF Vistani focused build maybe another 14/6 split with rogue to get easy Dex to hit/dmg with daggers and make sure and take divine might to boost things even further. You could run it as a Dex build or if you have access to Falconry go for a wisdom build. 7 Points in balance gets you qualified for the whole SWF line so that's easy on the feats. The low level Spectral and cove daggers were pretty nice weapons and at 14 Slice and Dice are at least decent and not too hard to have.

A THF with the Tail of the Scorpion isn't a bad option either. Falchions are pretty decent and the Tail would work from 14-20 as your end game weapon with a good augment in it anywhere just about.

You have plenty of options. Truth be told heroic runs aren't too hard to gobstop really. Most any cleric build should be able to solo R1/2 fairly easily and if you have folks around probably go in midskulls if they are built decently.

All good ways to get those damn racial lives out of the way...

Quote:

A warpriest cleric using scimitars doesn't match Kensei damage.

Synchrono wrote on Nov 19^th, 2018 at 1:12pm:


Yea, ive heard about the Sylvanus Maul Cleric thing...unfortunately that requires going into epics, and I have no epic destinies (yet). I don't have access to Vistani/Falconry either.

IIRC, Tail of the scorpion is the falchion from the last Disciples of Rage quest right? Isn't that pretty bad? I mean, poison is one of the worst damage types out there (due to all the undead) and the keen on it is kind of redundant as every melee build basically has improved critical at that point...I can't think of any quest where the metalline is a good combination with poison either. Adamantine DR is usually on constructs, which is immune to poison anyway...it can bypass the DR of Jariliths, but those usually come with Hezrous which needs Good damage so you are better off with a holy weapon anyway...

And most importantly, I dont think you can get warpriest favored weapon enhancements to work with Falchions unless you invest in the Elf tree...which doesnt seem to have a lot of benefit for melee (compared to the generic half orc damage bonuses at least).

And while you can get most builds to hit 20 solo...theres a huge difference in effectiveness really. With melee builds, the main issue I find in heroics is being able to kill stuf fast enough. Huge difference in solo clear times with a paladin vs a fighter for example. I would rather not get stuck doing something like the paladin again, which was just painfully slow without people to carry me.

You should buy EDs as soon as you can.

5 Foot Step wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2018 at 2:42pm:


People told me I would be able to pick up the expansions for really cheap during black friday, but they had RL instead unfortunately.

With the black friday sale, I got the Ravenloft so I now have access to the Vistani tree. Im now wondering how viable a fvs vistani melee build is...the vistani tree gives plenty of flat damage, but i'm kind of confused how some of the enhancements work. For example, rapid attack and blessed blades last for 10s with a cooldown of 10s according to the character planner I am looking at. Are you just supposed to spam them every 10s? That seems strange.

No AOE options in either the vistani or war soul trees also seems like it would be annoying. No cheap defensive stance like stalwart defense either. You do get AC and PRR/MRR through war soul/vistani but i'm not sure if thats enough.

And only 20 melee power at the Vistani capstone.

And im not sure how 2WF compares with SWF. Most of the vistani builds I found were 2WF, but there were a few that did 3 levels of bards for swashbuckler and went SWF. How do they compare? 2WF seems like it would be much harder to gear for till you get to level 10...especially as you would need a set of holy weapons for Deleras and a set of hammers for skeletons.

It's easier if you stop thinking of a Melee Cleric as a cleric.

It isn't.

It's a Paladin with better spells and no alignment restrictions, or a no-Rage Barb with access to heals.

Vistani Knife Fighter is a trap, IMHO. It was a gift to assassins and a lure to try to get people to use different weapon types (daggers in this case). It didn't work because assassin was still gimp and daggers are fucking terrible DPS weapons. Although to be fair, Assassin has enjoyed a renaissance of late in Reaper mode.

You best bet is to build like a Paladin (STR, CON, and WIS instead of CHA). If you had the Falconry tree, you can dump STR just low enough to qualify for Power Attack and Cleave feats and go full ham on WIS to Attack/Damage with Killer Instinct I & II. Side benfit, you have more SP and better will saves. Choose War domain since it gives the best (re: easiest to use) overall benefits for Melee:

War Domain

• Level 2: You gain +1 to hit and damage with melee and ranged weapons. This increases at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th.
     
• Upon Turning: When you use Turn Undead your party gains a Divine bonus to Melee Power and Ranged Power equal to half your Cleric level for 20 seconds.
     
• Level 5: You gain proficiency in all martial and exotic weapons.
     
• Level 9: Your tactical DCs are increased by half your Cleric level.
     
• Level 14: You gain Holy Sword as an SLA. 10 SP, 6 second cooldown.

Access to Holy Sword (+1 Crit Multi, +1 Crit Threat) THF + Cleave + Great Cleaves are your friend. Falchion in probably your best weapon choice. You won't have the feats for much else aside from maybe Quicken or Empower Healing unless you go Human or PDK.

The simplest solution is still using the Warpriest tree and taking Divine Power at Tier 5. The STR is not the lure (+6 is easily obtainable and even under powered by Lvl 12, although it may save a gear slot) the real lure is the full BAB. That opens up additional attack animations and to-hit bonuses which improve overall DPS.

You can skip it and run the spell Divine Power, but it has a short duration, can be dispelled, and you won't have the spare feats for extend. That was an option prior to Reaper when having the Radiant Aura for constant healing while in Melee was a thing. Now that's pointless.

Otherwise you'll be deep splashing into Fighter like was mentioned above and that may not be what you want.

Reaper basically made self-heals moot but you'll be much better equipped than a Paladin or Fighter, and a lot more useful in Reaper PuGs. Don't waste time gearing for better Heals, it won't help (unless you're running Elites for fast completions).

In any event, don't overthink it. A Warpriest is pure tank and spank playstyle, but you're pounding a square peg into a round hole using a Cleric. Kind of like making a good gunstock warclub 

YMMV.

Digimonk wrote on Nov 30^th, 2018 at 3:11pm:


Regardless of your opinion of his one statement about assassin/dagger, his general advice for warpriest play is pretty much spot-on.

It is kinda amusing that he said it blows but has enjoyed a renaissance, but maybe he thinks everyone playing assassins is just an idiot.

Metal-Beast wrote on Nov 30^th, 2018 at 11:37am:


And a nice set of buffs and cures for various effects.  Warpriest is still way below the meta, but if you want to do it you won't go wrong following beast's guidance.

For a vistani divine, I wouldn't worry about swashbuckling. It doesn't bring much, you're already getting better crits from Vistani.