Cleric Tank buildFollow

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rna.EuRsqeekRR.Mcd.x

Heavy in Justicar with bonuses from Shaman and Druid. Thoughts appreciated!

I feel that Forced to Kneel (and Humility, for that matter) along with Vengeful Justice and Sovereignty are fairly useless to a tank. I've been getting by just fine without any of them... and those points could be better spent elsewhere. My tank spec uses a similar Shaman backing, though, so I agree with about 85% of your setup. Here's what I'm working with at lv37:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rno.VhRsqxezoo.Mcb.Vz

If you feel that Dark Harbor's benefits aren't worth the 6 pts to get to it, then by all means, scrap Cabalist for something else. I find the extra resistance quite helpful, though. Aside from that, it's mostly the same as what you're rocking right now.

Just Defense is awfully tempting, though...

Edited, Mar 29th 2011 9:07am by haliphax

As far as I know yes. Every single Cleric tank build takes both talents so it would be unusual if Trion decided to make them mutually exclusive.

Your forgetting +10% healing done to the tank AND a great shield that adds threat due to causing damage to all that attack you. And yes as for tanking, Clerics should be adding Purifier as well, at the very lest for it's shield (the Druid shield is garbage). Also no tank should ever have to remove it's own poisons, that's what your healers are there for.

The shield absorbs almost identical damage as the untalented Puri shield while at the same time causing more threat and doing a tiny amount of damage to all attackers while it's up. As for your 2000 heal in 30sec, my Puri spec heals more than that in 3sec, and I guarantee you will take more than 2000hp damage in 30 sec on a boss fight. The Druid shield is identical to the Shaman one, save it's ONLY physical damage and there are no tanking (mitigation) talents in the lower Druid tree. Taking Shaman + Puri are the way to go. Put 8 in Shaman for the 3% dmg reduction, +10% heal and the shield, put 7 in Puri for the shield at +20% strength.

I in no way suggested that you shouldn't take Puri as I believe that + Shaman are the ONLY secondary souls to take after the obv Justicar. Druid is a complete waste as the Shaman shield is stronger (since it absorbs all dmg) and the Shaman soul gives damage mitigation, however small, vs the Druid soul giving zero mitigation. And the Fae pet healing is about 1/5th of what your passive Justicar self healing is.

EDIT: 5% HP in Druid base (spending 5pts) is not worth the loss of +10% healing, -3% damage taken and a better (overall) shield.

Edited, Apr 16th 2011 8:37pm by delindsay90210

With my build you get more shields than that single shield in purifier, you get 4 shields and extra self heals. I dropped shaman because as far as mitigation goes puri outweighs shaman, but to do that you are left with few points to spare, with having less than 5 points to put into a 3rd spec, druid is a better choice than shaman. You probably could divide it up between shaman and puri, and I do intend to look into that, but for now (at lvl 35) the spec I gave gives me the most utility with the shields.

2ndly, the numbers I gave were just thrown out there, I don't have a lvl 50 yet and I don't know what kind of damage/healing you take at that lvl. The point remains the same though, lets say you take 10000 damage and 10000 healing in 30 seconds, the 10% healing now gives an extra 1000 health and the 3% damage reduction is still unworth the points spent, taking only 300 damage. having the extra mitigation from the puri soul with those 3 points is more worth it. If you HAVE to have those points spent in shaman to get something later, then I suppose that might be the best option, but its hard to say for endgame when I'm not there.

I understand you're not bashing my build and I'm not bashing yours either. I actually enjoy getting other people's input on my spec and trying to see things from someone elses point of view, it allows me to learn more about my spec.

Aye tis true, I am crazy, lol.

^^^ I feel like this guy almost nailed it ^^^

rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10nrG.Mcd.VuRsVeezoo.Vgkzc

I dropped 4 points in Shaman (vengeance, + melee crit) and doctrine of valiance for caregiver's gift and the associated talent, along with 1 point in Enflamed Rejuvination( helps Doctrine of Bliss, or Doctrine of Rightousness)

caregiver's blessing is so good. You might call this build a "shield" build, because you get the shaman shield, the beastly Justicar shield, the purifier basic shield (with talent), and talented Caregiver's blessing. Note that shields are unaffected by Mien of Leadership, making them superior to self-heals in a tanking situation (especially since you can effectively tack them onto your max health in certain situations). Just remember to use all of your abilities! I could see this build having challenges maintaining caregiver's blessing/ healing blessing by running out of mana or simply having to many activated prevention abilities (IE not focused on passive healing enough), but building 4 conviction and activating the blessing right before a spike, then spamming the just self-heal will probably keep you alive very well! Also, this build pretty much gets every mitigation point possible, while only giving up the 48 point ability for Justicar.
It might be though that you will run out of mana too often. In that case, drop Pur down to 14 points (getting Caregiver's blessing still), and try to get 14 points into Shaman for Ageless Ice. Also note that with this build you can off-tank and have significant shields/heals on the tank using caregiver's and Doctrine of Rightousness, then switch Miens when its time to tank!

Edited, Apr 19th 2011 10:46am by stewewewewism

Edited, Apr 19th 2011 10:47am by stewewewewism

/sigh.

1. Increasing the critical hit chance of spells does absolutely nothing to the abilities that require a melee weapon, which you are going to be using the majority of the time. Going up the Inquisitor tree to grab that armor is basically spending 5 points increasing only the critical hit chance of your nukes, which have a cooldown and aren't going to be the ones you're hitting the most often.

2. Ageless Ice is nice, but you don't NEED it if you work on raising your block rating.

3. Adding more crit isn't going to do a lot for Justicars, who don't focus on crit. With the aggro increase from Mien of Leadership, aggro issues for Justicar occur when you aren't actually hitting something, not because you didn't do enough damage.

4. There's nothing wrong with speccing for more shields. Damage shields as a whole usually don't last anywhere near their full duration in actual fights. If you're actually tanking something that is a threat, you will burn through a shield extremely quickly. It just might not be necessary to get a shield if your healer dabbles in the Purifier soul.

5. Flame Ward only increases your armor based on your base (i.e. before any buffs like Mien of Leadership) amount.

6. Healing Breath, even with the -40% effectiveness, heals significantly more than a Doctrine, and is a (not the) reason why some people dabble in Sentinel.

This



Again this, and I'll add if you have issues with aggro as a Justicar, don't roll tank.



When it really counts ALL shield the Cleric can put on his/herself will be eaten in one hit. I do however disagree about the second bit with having less of a need if you roll with Puri healers. ANY mitigation CD's a tank can have helps the healers and therefore your group, the more the better (even if that shield only negates 1/10th of the incoming "I'm-going-to-kill-you-now" Boss move).



Yes and no. Healing breath heals significantly more than ONE Doctrine of Bliss, but with an 8sec CD I can spam all FOUR convictions with Doctrine of Bliss and heal for much more. Or use Doctrine of Valiance once for roughly the same heal then build 1-2 more convictions for more Doctrine spamming and again get even higher healing in that 8sec.

I'm not in any way against "outside the box" thinking, I do it myself all the time, but there are certain static abilities/talents that are considered by anyone who does end game seriously to be mandatory. The Inq Soul has uniqueness in it but not practicality once fully thought out. IMHO Shaman and Purifier are the ONLY two Souls to pair with Justicar for tanking to realize the greatest benefit from overall mitigation (and yes that means we become cookie cutter like everyone else, sigh).

From my understanding, most shields won't stack with each other. So you shielding yourself with something other than Just Defense and a Purifier shielding you at the same time (i.e. boss mob about to do something nasty, or about to hit an "oh crap, I'm getting a little low" moment) nets one wasted action. Again, it's only a "might not be necessary", not a "will not be necessary" there.


Wrong context. Mathematically, yes Bliss nets more in the 8 seconds. Realistically? You use Healing Breath to help stretch out your Convictions as long as possible. Since it can do more than one Bliss, it's an acceptable substitute to rotate in when you're trying to buy time for other things.


Unfortunately, you have to consider other things, like avoidance. Mitigation literally falls in your lap when you upgrade gear. You may find that your combination of souls works best for you, but I can guarantee that not everyone feels the same just by sifting through the Justicar threads on the official boards.

That I didn't know, then I change my opinion to it's worth a shot trying it for Justicar tanking to see if it's viable (for the 44pt Justicar tank build, not the 51pt). As for shields, no they do not stack (however your personal shield stacks with a Puri shield placed on you by the healer, again one at a time from both toons).

To point out jsut how important Purifier is to tank mitigation, Garad Nallam < Focus Merchant > in the college of Planar Studies in Meridian sells a raid Essence that increases the absorbed amount of Purifier shields by 727. http://rift.zam.com/en/item/ABF4F0CB0601010101/Ancestral-Soulstone with 5/5 Protection of the Ancestors, that means every 30sec you have a 1973.5 hp shield that absorbs ALL incoming damage.

Oh and someone mentioned Glory of the Chosen in Shaman for non-GCD self heals. If you are being critically hit in experts or Raid, you should not be tanking, period. A tank is required to have enough toughness to be uncritable and therefore that ability would never proc.

Thanks for the confirmation, Stumpbum. If that's the case, I'm not sure what I tried with Caregiver's when I fooled around with it back at headstart, only that it burned out way too fast to be useful.

Regarding Ancestral Soulstone, the fact that it exists only means that the devs consider the spell type it boosts one of the Purifier's defining traits. You may choose to reserve one of your essence slots for it, but honestly? Most people aren't going to have that to play with.

It used to proc off of salvation. It no longer does, so you have to use conviction to proc it. And yes, I intend to be a healing tank. Healing = mitigation and AOE aggro

No need to be an ass about it, if you had actually bothered reading my posts, I stated that I don't know endgame numbers and was using more or less what i was receiving at my lvl.

I dropped druid altogether for shaman, lowered my points in puri and justicar to create this build. Still not endgame but I'm in the mid 40's now and this is working for me. I thought about dropping Doc of Valiance since I never use it, but I didn't see anything else I wanted to put a point in.

I'm interested in your results, I would think that the 6% would be better though.

Yeah, both armor bonuses are based on base armor.

From your numbers, you are sitting around 2939 armor.

6% of 2939 base armor is roughly 176 armor. Probably a rounding error to see why you only received 167 armor.

2% of 2939 base armor is roughly 58 armor. Again, most likely a rounding error in the game itself.

Armor of Treachery is superior to both, but at a higher cost of talents. At your gear level, it is better overall although 6 points + speccing into a soul with no other benefits < 2 points into a soul that already has solid talents invested (imo).

Another thing to consider is the usefulness of the +5% wisdom talent points to get to the 2nd tier of the tree. At my level of wisdom, the 5 talent points would provide about 34 parry + 5 block (roughly 350 Wisdom).

So here is the question: Would the +5% spell > +5% wisdom +6% base armor? Going to crunch the numbers tonight to see if it is right for my toon.

If you are OOM'ing as a Cleric tank then you aren't doing it right. I literally NEVER run out of mana unless the mob(s) are mana draining me. I would hope you know as a Cleric that we DO NOT stack Dex/Str/etc that a Rogue or Warrior would have on their tanking gear, Spell Power is our Parry and forget Dodge, we just don't get much of it. Your stats are basically the same as any Cleric, except Crit is nearly useless to a tank. You should not be wearing Leather tank gear, pretty much ever and even the "tank" rings, essences and necks are up for debate as we gain our primary tank stat (Parry) from Wisdom (which is Spell Power to us).

Also you mention something about added physical damage output...why. First off something like 95% of Justicar tank abilities are spell damage, not physical and second adding 5-10% damage to already the lowest DPS output in the group/raid is completely wasted points. Spend those points in talents that help you tank better. And if it's a matter of better threat gen, then again you aren't doing it right, with a few exceptions nobody short of taunting has pulled threat off of me.

Lastly you talk about Enflamed Rejuvenation wondering if it would help you. People need to stop thinking that "heal tanking" is viable (no offense to you personally). I guarantee you that in ANY situation where a tank is required to control any mob (because it would destroy any other player in 1-2 shots) the self healing a tank "could" do is insignificant past their own tank CD's which in most cases is a shield or 3, increased healing done/decreased damage done for xx sec, and a 5/10m cd half-full hp ability. Even an off-healer usually cannot help keep the tank alive once the true healer dies for more than a few seconds.

You cannot be the best Tank possible while trying to be a good DPS and/or self healing thingamabob. It's no different from any other Role. If a DPS spec'd into a bunch of tanking abilities so they "could" OT when needed then they would not be topping the DPS meters (unless OT was their job, then it's appropriate). If a Healer spec'd into a bunch of DPS talents (discounting Bard/Chloro since that IS what they do) then they probably wouldn't be capable of dealing with the tremendous damage output of "I'm going to kill you now" boss move.

With all that said, since it is a game and people will play it how they choose, do that. If you want to be a 'healtank' then be one, nobodies going to stop you, but you will not likely be tanking end game content as there will be better tanks out there that realize the futility of trying to do the same.

EDIT: I keep seeing this so I feel it's necessary to reiterate a point, Glory of the Chosen in the Shaman tree for those of you taking it so you can "healtank" WILL NEVER PROC, EVER! If that ability ever procs then you shouldn't be tanking since you do not have the required Toughness to handle that content.

Edited, Apr 27th 2011 2:12am by delindsay90210

I thought that the way toughness worked was that it just reduced the damage taken from critical hits, not reduced the rate at which you are critically hit. That's what the tooltip leads me to believe but I am honestly not sure, I don't tank very much.

WoW removed their "defense rating" stat a few months back... and they do work differently.

Rift's "toughness" stat does reduce crit damage but does not remove the chance to be crit. The toughness caps (50 for T1, 100 for T2, etc) reduce the damage done by crits to a normal hit. Yes, at the caps, it works the same as "defense rating" did in WoW - what should be a crit would hit like a normal hit.

The differences between the two are seen when a tank is under the cap. If a tank has 0 toughness in a T1, a crit on him/her would deal the normal hit + 100% of the normal hit (basically double). In a T2 expert run, the same tank would take a crit of the normal hit + 200% of the normal it (triple damage on a crit). This mechanic puts a need for a tank to continue to increase their toughness stat along with other stats, just like focus/hit for dps. It also prevents tanks from being carried in content that is above their head.

Using the following example from the post above this:

50 toughness = 100% crit dmg reduction.

A T1 crit on a 50 toughness tank would be: Normal hit + 100% of the normal hit -100% of the normal hit = just the normal hit. A normal hit of 1k would result in a crit of 1k.

44 toughness = 88% crit dmg reduction.

A T1 crit on a 44 toughnes tank would be: Normal hit + 100% of the normal hit -88% of the normal hit = normal hit + 12% of the normal hit. A normal hit of 1k would result in a crit of 1120 dmg.

Yes, it is very important to stack toughness to reach the point where crit dmg = normal hit dmg. Being slightly under the toughness cap would result in some small spikes. The more the tank is under the cap, the larger the spikes.



Edited, Apr 27th 2011 2:34pm by Daitila

Then I must point out that it is obvious you have never tanked end game content before. Once the DPS is pulling so much threat that it is all you can do as a tank to hold 5-10% more threat on the boss with your damaging abilities (that have increased threat gen, your "heals" have no extra threat gen) then doing anything other than the self healing all tanks get passively and the 5/10m CD save-my-life button will likely wipe the raid or at least get 1 or more DPS killed. And I don't care how good your gear is as a Cleric tank (how much SP you have) your Doctrine of Bliss will never match what a healer can do in the same GCD. So you are wasting a GCD for a worthless heal (worthless in end game numbers) that doesn't build any more threat than if you weren't tanking, and you lose out on the threat gen a damaging ability would have created. When you are going from 11K hp to zero in a matter of 2-3 seconds because the boss hits that hard, your 5-600hp Bliss heal is moot because your dead.

Taunts go immune at some point so tanks cannot rely on that to regain threat all the time, it comes down to the built in increased threat mechanic via certain damaging abilities. And again self healing (spammable buttons with GCD, not the passive healing) creates no additional (no more than any other person in raid using the same heal) threat so even the Healer is pulling as much threat as you (more actually if they have HoTs rolling on you). Your job as a tank is to be #1 threat on the boss and be the best meat shield you can with the gear you have at the time. And to gain access to these healing talents in the Purifier tree means you ARE losing out on some tank CD's like not going 44 deep into Justicar or dropping Shaman like someone mentioned (the 51pt is meh and the extra 6 pts is worse than Flame Ward because then you only get 20% bigger shield instead of 50% with only 44pts).

Alright then I must obviously be horrible at explaining why a tank should be a tank and not a healer so good luck to those that wish to try.

Drop overwhelming altogether and 1 point from unyielding and put em in the justicar tree for the 44 point talent and extra 1% armor per point. Drop healing blessing and put it in protection of the ancestors. If you do the math the shield gives more mitigation in the same cd period than the blessing does. Don't forget to count the 40% reduction in healing from the blessing due to mein of leadership.

Mana isn't an issue as you have time between pulls to get your mana back up via drinks if need be.

Edited, Apr 28th 2011 8:41pm by Pimpinabox

Clerics do yes, Chloromancer not so much. No matter how well geared a healer is if things go horribly wrong where they are having to spam heal everyone in sight (not just the tank) they will eventually OOM. Mage's are a different story as the better they DPS (better gear) the better they heal and thus don't really have mana issues. Currently on my Shard the best healer is a Chloro and he has solo healed every T2 and Expert Rift they're Guild has done, he never drops more than 10-20% mana (from full).

Euthanasia > Todrin > Defiant, can't remember the Guild but he's on the leaderboard.

All I know is that being over the Toughness cap (soft cap) for T1's I don't ever see BIG numbers from a usual crit from a mob. What I mean is all the normal damage being done shows as 'xxxx' while crits show as 'XXXX' and I don't see any of those, where I did see crits when I was under tough cap. Now, it's possible that the crit is still happening (game mechanic) but only shows as regular damage, not increased crit damage, if you are over the cap and then possibly Glory of the Chosen would still proc. I will see if I can find a Trion post that verifies one way or the other.

EDIT: I can however verify that you really shouldn't be tanking until you have the toughness cap (soft cap) unless you run with a very competent Healer. At 26 Toughness (half way to cap) I was getting crit for over 5K (with 57% armor, & 18% dmg reduction). That's a huge amount of HP for a healer to replace before you get crit again for the roughly same amount. The same mobs after tough cap I only get hit in the 2's (roughly same armor %).

Also, I just acquired Spirit Wolf Totem and can say it's amazing as a Justicar Tank. It's up time on me was well over 50% and I saw it on 4/5 party member simultaneously. I don't know if it's better or worse than Sacred Heirloom of Eth since I have only ever seen that one heal basically Melee but both are still very nice for Cleric Tanks.

Edited, May 6th 2011 11:38pm by delindsay90210