Dargad
01-05-2008, 02:18 AM
I decided to create a basic guide to a very rare Paladin build.
A Cleric, in the fantasy world, is Holy Warrior and a Healer. In this case, a Cleric is a rather unusual Paladin build, used not to rush or MF or anything in between, but rather to help other players, along with dealing with Undead creatures. It uses a different playstyle than any build on Diablo II, which I found very enjoyable. The Cleric focuses on the Defensive Auras tree, and uses any aura depending on the needs of others. It uses Holy Bolt as his main weapon, both for healing and for damage. Furthermore, it does not need end-game gear to be successful aiding its party members. The only item this build needs is the Insight runeword from Ladder.
OK, I won't hide anything, this character is a leech. He can rarely be used alone, as he can only kill undead, and they're but a third of the creatures in the game. But cheer up, you'll be a helpful leech! :rolleyes: Healing and almost infinite mana is always something people like to have, even if they have to do the killing for themselves. You'll be almost always welcome in parties, and if you're allowed, you can even spice up dueling games.
Attribute Placement
Strength: just enough for your gear. If playing untwinked, around 100-120 base strength is often enough.
Dexterity: just enough for gear, usually none
Vitality: everything else
Energy: none, you will have near infinite mana with Meditation
Skill Placement
Defensive Auras
Prayer: 20 points
This skill, while being bad on its own, transfers its effect on Cleansing and Meditation. So if you max Prayer and only use Meditation, the health regeneration will be active with Meditation
Note on Prayer: unlike any other skills in the game, the Prayer/Cleansing/Meditation have a unique synergy. Other synergies work only with hard points, but in this case, +skills from items, shrine or skills will affect the healing regeneration Prayer gives to the other two aura. A level 35 Prayer will carry its very effect on Meditation/Cleansing.
Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning: 1 point each
Can be useful in specific situations. Only 1 point in all three is enough, as +skills will raise the effectiveness enough for your need.
Defiance: 1 point
Defense is not as useful as other things you could bring to your party, so there are much better auras to choose from to help players.
Cleansing: 20 points
This skill has a great effectiveness, as it greatly reduces Poison and Curse duration. The effect your Prayer aura has is also active with Cleansing, making it doubly useful. But beware, this skill also reduces the duration of Shrines, as they have the same mechanic as Curses. Minor drawback...
Vigor: 1 point
A very handy skill to have to run faster and longer, but 1 point and +skills will bring more than enough of it.
Meditation: none
Meditation will be your main aura, giving an immense mana regeneration to all party members, but it is available on the Insight runeword. Therefore, you can have both Cleansing and Meditation up at the same time without having to spend on Meditation. As the health regeneration from Prayer is transfered to both Cleansing and the Insight Meditation, it gives you twice the Health regeneration. Handy. Note that Meditation does not activate on Mercenaries or Summons, so having it in combination with Cleansing allows you to at least give some regeneration to those minions.
Note that if you don't have Insight or cannot dream of obtaining one, you *should* max this skill, as it is a more useful main aura than Cleansing. But try your best to get your hands on an Insight...
Redemption: 1 point
A very potent self heal, 1 point is largely enough. Redemption can also be used to clear an area from corpses to prevent their resurrection.
Salvation: 1 point
Gives a massive resistances bonus to your party, minus poison, and only with 1 skill. Note that if there's only a single type of Elemental damage, use the correct Resist XXXX aura to counter it better than Savation can. If your party struggles with all Elemental damage, use Savation.
Offensive Auras
No skill will be invested in any of those skills, as our main purpose is not to attack, but to defend ourselves and party members.
Combat Skills
Holy Bolt: 20 points
This will be your main left-click skill. It heals target ally by a significant amount, thus allowing you to be a very potent healer. It is also your main weapon against the filthy Undead. Use it to attack only while no party member needs your immediate assistance.
Blessed Hammer: 20 points
This skill gives one of the biggest synergy bonus ever encountered in the game, which is a 50% magic damage increase to Holy Bolt. We want to max this so Holy Bolt can have a decent damage output.
Fist of Heaven: zero or 1 and more
This is completely optional. You can choose to slightly boost your Holy Bolt damage by adding to this other synergy, or to spread your remaining points elsewhere. The damage of Fist of Heaven will be very bad on its own, but the resulting Holy Bolts can be decent enough.
Skills to max first
1- Prayer
2- Holy Bolt
3- Cleansing
4- Blessed Hammer
Equipment
This section is completely, totally and globally unimportant for your Cleric, as he does NOT need high-end equipment to be successful and fun to play. The only item you need is an Insight weapon. The choice is up to you, really, as any rare combination can work very well. But please do not buy any expensive stuff for this guy. He doesn't need to be competitive at all and it's for fun.
So really, mix and match according to your needs. As this guy is a caster, getting Faster Cast Rate, +skills and resistances should be your main goals when trying to find items to wear. The rest isn't that important. Defensive Auras grand charm are ridiculously cheap to trade for. Therefore, you can pack them without any risk to your purse, adding additional effectiveness to your Cleric.
As for Insight, it's very cheap to make, and can be used early on. The recipe is (Ral - Tir - Tal - Sol) in a 4 socket Staff or Polearm, only in Ladder. Personally, I think a staff looks much better than a Polearm on a caster. Even if it looses trading value, I've always kept it on my Cleric, so no harm done.
Using a Mercenary for MagicFind purposes
Since equipment is unimportant here, you can pack up rather large amount of MF. And since you have close to 0 killing speed, you don't even have to worry about your killing speed ! But the only way you can efficiently MF without killing things yourself is with a Mercenary. When they make a kill, your MF% is added to theirs. Therefore, you can let your Mercenary kill, leech out of him instead of real players and still benefit from a high %MF ! Since you can heal your Mercenary very fast, you can let him tank without worrying about his survivability. But know that Meditation is not activated on Mercenaries, so he will only gain 1 time the Prayer life regeneration from Cleansing.
Note that you shouldn't try to MF out of Bosses, since your Hireling have very bad statistics against them. A mercenary deals half of its listed damage against Bosses in Normal, 35% in Nightmare, and 25% in Hell. Additionally, they take 10 times more damage from Bosses. Therefore, avoid Bosses at all costs. My favorite locations to MF with a Mercenary are the Pit in Act1, Travincal in Act3 and River of Flame in Act4.
If you want to be at the very least successful with this, you need a high damaging weapon. Polearms usually work better than Spears and Javelins, since they can be made into much more Runewords, but the best weapon you have can often work. My personal favorite is the Obedience runeword. It is cheap and surprisingly powerful, especially in an ethereal weapon.
As for yourself and his armor/helm, pack up as much MF as you possibly can. As this is not really a MagicFinding guide, you should check around to see what equipment you should get to maximize your MF.
My basic stats:
Level 31 Prayer, which regenerates 100 Life every 2 seconds (50 with Cleansing, 50 with Meditation)
Curse and poison duration reduced to a mere 15%
700% mana regeneration (with a level 17 Meditation on Insight)
244-508 life healed with Holy Bolt
3432 - 3864 damage to Undead with Holy Bolt
Very basic strategies
-Play defensively. Very defensively...
-Keep your teammates portraits opened at all time (the "Z" button by default). This allows you to see who needs your help.
-Watch out for too many minions, as they can completely block your target from your Holy Bolts.
-As you often have an eye on the others' health, remember to also watch out for your own Life, as you cannot use Holy Bolt to heal yourself.
-Be nice and have fun!
A Cleric, in the fantasy world, is Holy Warrior and a Healer. In this case, a Cleric is a rather unusual Paladin build, used not to rush or MF or anything in between, but rather to help other players, along with dealing with Undead creatures. It uses a different playstyle than any build on Diablo II, which I found very enjoyable. The Cleric focuses on the Defensive Auras tree, and uses any aura depending on the needs of others. It uses Holy Bolt as his main weapon, both for healing and for damage. Furthermore, it does not need end-game gear to be successful aiding its party members. The only item this build needs is the Insight runeword from Ladder.
OK, I won't hide anything, this character is a leech. He can rarely be used alone, as he can only kill undead, and they're but a third of the creatures in the game. But cheer up, you'll be a helpful leech! :rolleyes: Healing and almost infinite mana is always something people like to have, even if they have to do the killing for themselves. You'll be almost always welcome in parties, and if you're allowed, you can even spice up dueling games.
Attribute Placement
Strength: just enough for your gear. If playing untwinked, around 100-120 base strength is often enough.
Dexterity: just enough for gear, usually none
Vitality: everything else
Energy: none, you will have near infinite mana with Meditation
Skill Placement
Defensive Auras
Prayer: 20 points
This skill, while being bad on its own, transfers its effect on Cleansing and Meditation. So if you max Prayer and only use Meditation, the health regeneration will be active with Meditation
Note on Prayer: unlike any other skills in the game, the Prayer/Cleansing/Meditation have a unique synergy. Other synergies work only with hard points, but in this case, +skills from items, shrine or skills will affect the healing regeneration Prayer gives to the other two aura. A level 35 Prayer will carry its very effect on Meditation/Cleansing.
Resist Fire/Cold/Lightning: 1 point each
Can be useful in specific situations. Only 1 point in all three is enough, as +skills will raise the effectiveness enough for your need.
Defiance: 1 point
Defense is not as useful as other things you could bring to your party, so there are much better auras to choose from to help players.
Cleansing: 20 points
This skill has a great effectiveness, as it greatly reduces Poison and Curse duration. The effect your Prayer aura has is also active with Cleansing, making it doubly useful. But beware, this skill also reduces the duration of Shrines, as they have the same mechanic as Curses. Minor drawback...
Vigor: 1 point
A very handy skill to have to run faster and longer, but 1 point and +skills will bring more than enough of it.
Meditation: none
Meditation will be your main aura, giving an immense mana regeneration to all party members, but it is available on the Insight runeword. Therefore, you can have both Cleansing and Meditation up at the same time without having to spend on Meditation. As the health regeneration from Prayer is transfered to both Cleansing and the Insight Meditation, it gives you twice the Health regeneration. Handy. Note that Meditation does not activate on Mercenaries or Summons, so having it in combination with Cleansing allows you to at least give some regeneration to those minions.
Note that if you don't have Insight or cannot dream of obtaining one, you *should* max this skill, as it is a more useful main aura than Cleansing. But try your best to get your hands on an Insight...
Redemption: 1 point
A very potent self heal, 1 point is largely enough. Redemption can also be used to clear an area from corpses to prevent their resurrection.
Salvation: 1 point
Gives a massive resistances bonus to your party, minus poison, and only with 1 skill. Note that if there's only a single type of Elemental damage, use the correct Resist XXXX aura to counter it better than Savation can. If your party struggles with all Elemental damage, use Savation.
Offensive Auras
No skill will be invested in any of those skills, as our main purpose is not to attack, but to defend ourselves and party members.
Combat Skills
Holy Bolt: 20 points
This will be your main left-click skill. It heals target ally by a significant amount, thus allowing you to be a very potent healer. It is also your main weapon against the filthy Undead. Use it to attack only while no party member needs your immediate assistance.
Blessed Hammer: 20 points
This skill gives one of the biggest synergy bonus ever encountered in the game, which is a 50% magic damage increase to Holy Bolt. We want to max this so Holy Bolt can have a decent damage output.
Fist of Heaven: zero or 1 and more
This is completely optional. You can choose to slightly boost your Holy Bolt damage by adding to this other synergy, or to spread your remaining points elsewhere. The damage of Fist of Heaven will be very bad on its own, but the resulting Holy Bolts can be decent enough.
Skills to max first
1- Prayer
2- Holy Bolt
3- Cleansing
4- Blessed Hammer
Equipment
This section is completely, totally and globally unimportant for your Cleric, as he does NOT need high-end equipment to be successful and fun to play. The only item you need is an Insight weapon. The choice is up to you, really, as any rare combination can work very well. But please do not buy any expensive stuff for this guy. He doesn't need to be competitive at all and it's for fun.
So really, mix and match according to your needs. As this guy is a caster, getting Faster Cast Rate, +skills and resistances should be your main goals when trying to find items to wear. The rest isn't that important. Defensive Auras grand charm are ridiculously cheap to trade for. Therefore, you can pack them without any risk to your purse, adding additional effectiveness to your Cleric.
As for Insight, it's very cheap to make, and can be used early on. The recipe is (Ral - Tir - Tal - Sol) in a 4 socket Staff or Polearm, only in Ladder. Personally, I think a staff looks much better than a Polearm on a caster. Even if it looses trading value, I've always kept it on my Cleric, so no harm done.
Using a Mercenary for MagicFind purposes
Since equipment is unimportant here, you can pack up rather large amount of MF. And since you have close to 0 killing speed, you don't even have to worry about your killing speed ! But the only way you can efficiently MF without killing things yourself is with a Mercenary. When they make a kill, your MF% is added to theirs. Therefore, you can let your Mercenary kill, leech out of him instead of real players and still benefit from a high %MF ! Since you can heal your Mercenary very fast, you can let him tank without worrying about his survivability. But know that Meditation is not activated on Mercenaries, so he will only gain 1 time the Prayer life regeneration from Cleansing.
Note that you shouldn't try to MF out of Bosses, since your Hireling have very bad statistics against them. A mercenary deals half of its listed damage against Bosses in Normal, 35% in Nightmare, and 25% in Hell. Additionally, they take 10 times more damage from Bosses. Therefore, avoid Bosses at all costs. My favorite locations to MF with a Mercenary are the Pit in Act1, Travincal in Act3 and River of Flame in Act4.
If you want to be at the very least successful with this, you need a high damaging weapon. Polearms usually work better than Spears and Javelins, since they can be made into much more Runewords, but the best weapon you have can often work. My personal favorite is the Obedience runeword. It is cheap and surprisingly powerful, especially in an ethereal weapon.
As for yourself and his armor/helm, pack up as much MF as you possibly can. As this is not really a MagicFinding guide, you should check around to see what equipment you should get to maximize your MF.
My basic stats:
Level 31 Prayer, which regenerates 100 Life every 2 seconds (50 with Cleansing, 50 with Meditation)
Curse and poison duration reduced to a mere 15%
700% mana regeneration (with a level 17 Meditation on Insight)
244-508 life healed with Holy Bolt
3432 - 3864 damage to Undead with Holy Bolt
Very basic strategies
-Play defensively. Very defensively...
-Keep your teammates portraits opened at all time (the "Z" button by default). This allows you to see who needs your help.
-Watch out for too many minions, as they can completely block your target from your Holy Bolts.
-As you often have an eye on the others' health, remember to also watch out for your own Life, as you cannot use Holy Bolt to heal yourself.
-Be nice and have fun!