Looking for a current cleric PVP healing build

Yeah, I know PVP healing is getting mega-nerfed in 1.4, but I still want to give this a try.

Fog mentioned that his great post from a couple months back is out of date now, darn. Does anyone have a build that's working well for them these days? A Zam (or similar builder) link is fine.

thanks!

» Edited on: 2011-08-01 17:21:18

I run a warden, inquisitor, justicar. The warden gives me a really nice HOT and the Inquisitor gives me a group/raid heal that sucks my mana. I haven't figured out the justicar part yet. If anyone else can help, I'll be reading too.

I run a modified version of my raiding senticar build. Since battle rez is rather useless in pvp, I take some points out and put them in Templar for Break Free, Detaunt, etc. As long as I don't run out of mana, then I do pretty well. You get great survivability when going deep Justicar, not to mention tremendous burst heals. Yes instant cast heals will see a big nerf but that's fine with me, I'll just adapt or respec if necessary. I've hit like almost 450k heals in a codex before lol. The only problem that I have is that I get too overconfident with my survivability and always run around in circles in front of people all the time. I get focus fired alot lol.

I am currently using this build: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00jex.E0e0bszc.xEbuozR.VVb This build has all of the survival tools and strong burst healing. You basically hit healing flood often enough to keep reinforce and protect the flock up full time (11% DR for you and your team). Then keep orbs on yourself in case a rogue pops on you. Spam hots and breath on targets being focused to proc serendipty for a fast healing invocation. You also have divine call and healing communion if you need a group burst heal. If you get a paragon eating your face or an assassin use detaunt or covenant and usually they will switch to an easier target. If you aren't rank three yet, put 5 points in templar, but move them to the reduced chance to be crit (resilience), and the rest in warden. I like senticar too for a less pure healing based build, but I find for me that the hots and orbs from warden provide more survival than the DR from justicar. This may change with the patch though.

» Edited on: 2011-08-02 07:43:03

"Yes instant cast heals will see a big nerf..." I guess I hadn't worked that part out yet... I thought all~ healing was nerfed. It looks like Serendipity and Opportunity (Cholor) procs will matter a lot! "You basically hit healing flood often enough to keep reinforce and protect the flock up full time..." I'm not 50 yet, so no Reinforce for a while. But spelunking through the PTS patch notes to date, I saw that Healing Flood isn't mentioned for a nerf (yet), nor are the other group heals from the 3 "healing" souls. (DoL is~ slated for a nerf). That's interesting, tactics wise, provided mana can be managed.

PtF and Reinforce only proc on the first tick of a HoT. They do proc on Reparation and Salvation heals. PtF only procs on Reparation heals to other people, since you don't actually get healed yourself. An AoE heal is a more effective means to proc Serendipity since it gives you multiple opportunities to proc it per cast. The problem with Warden healing is that the GCD interferes with burst healing. And the individual HoT's themselves are not powerful enough which requires you to spend alot of time building up to a point of effectiveness. A damage reduction is helpful when you are subject to a healing debuff. Also if you go far enough into the Justicar tree, you get significant parry and dodge. I have 18% to dodge and 18% to parry at the moment. This is why Justicar healing is seeing the most nerfs next patch. It probably is too effective at the moment. I shouldn't be able to run into a pack of 5 Defiant and proceed to run around spamming 1k-2k heals on 10 targets while also doing some damage and being harder to kill than the average healer. I regularly lead in healing in a WF, but more telling is that I regularly lead in damage taken also but I very rarely die.

Well, I don't need selling on Justicar. It's easily my favorite cleric soul, and I have my slots taken up with Shamicar for soloing/rift healing, a deep justicar tanking build, and Inquisicar for ranged support. Dear lord, Justicar is wonderful! Re DoL, I love and used it a lot - currently. I heard a couple weeks ago that in 1.4 it's been changed to a smart healing spell. No idea if this is still true, but if so it will be OP for PVE healing... and might still have a place in PVP healing.

DoL is great heal no doubt about it and i like senticar a lot for pvp. I only have my own purely subjective experience to go by though and i just feel tougher to bring down when i mix in warden vs justicar. Hots are cheap, there's no reason not to prehot when you have a free moment and orbs are a great preemptive heal you can put on yourself and others. Also I had trouble keeping focused targets alive with senticar. The targeting system in this game makes me want to punch a kitten, and i personally had trouble quickly switching from a damage target to build convictions and a heal target that was getting pegged. Much respect to those who can though. I'll also agree that warden isn't the best for burst heals, but that is why I pair it with sentinel. I can have serendipity ready to go just from keeping healing flood going to refresh my dr procs. Combine with breath and I can burst quite a bit in 1 cooldown, meanwhile my hots are still ticking away. Warden smooths out the damage and sentinel bursts it back up.

I'd be interested to see how much different Warden feels to you after today's patch: * Warden: Reduced the effectiveness of Healing Spray, Orbs of the Stream, Orbs of the Tide, and Soothing Stream when the target is in PvP combat. Healing Flood is not being nerfed, but a lot of the single target HoTs are.

The thing about these type of nerfs is that they often hurt the lesser geared more than the well geared, who are the primary target of whining on the forums. If you're a Rank 1 Cleric with blue drops, then you're going to feel these nerf a lot more than someone who is like Rank 6 with a Relic weapon. For myself, instead of using one DoL to pump everyone up to full, it will take me 2 or 3 maybe. But I've got enough survivability and gear to wait out that time. Plus I was overhealing for the most part anyways. But for someone who is just starting PvP, it just makes them more squishy and less effective. I don't see how that will encourage more PvP beginners to want to PvP more. Caem, do you use target of target casting? I just normally shoot whomever I'm healing is targetting lol. The targetting system is bad in this game. I love how it switches targets for you when you DPS a friendly target's target. lol. And let's not even get into tab targetting hahaha.

After the patch I'm actually thinking about going with Shamanicar or inquisicar. Healing is already a thankless task in pugs, i'm not sure why they decided to make it more miserable, so if you can't beat em join em. I hear Cabby may be the new FotM. I have target of target turned on, but sometimes its more of a hinderance than a boon. Target of target doesn't translate to the range indicator or the target is out of LOS or behind you and you can't tell because there's no reticle around them. And as you said the switching between targets when you dps your targets target. Things like that drive me crazy. A dual target system is so much easier, elegant, and intuitive. I and others complained about its lack all through alpha, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. As for post patch healing builds, it looks like puri/sent may be the way to go since shields and cast time heals were not nerfed. Maybe its time to try shared recovery/surging flames for pvp!

I love Shamicar and use it a LOT outside of PVP. (Specifically this build: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnd.euMo0fo.Ved0t0shk.Vxkb) Problem is, as a P1 I get eaten up fast in melee range. It's hard as a new PVPer. Feels like Rift is going the "supersuit" route, like WAR.

How is PVP healing now with the nerf? I have been reading some concerning things.

Well I have to say after two days of pvp, it looks like my days of wardening are over. The hots just don't heal enough to provide the survival they used to. Instead i'm playing this: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00xjr.VVb.E0x0bsuc.yhMooxs0o Tons of survival. DoL, while nerfed, is still good healing (smart heal now!) and serves as a force proc for serendipity. Protect the flock and reinforce are up full time. So you can DoL, then burst up your target with HI and breath, then go back to building convictions. I've just given up selecting targets and just assist off of whoever i Healed last. Seems to work ok. Its especially suited so far to the AoE fest that is the new whitefall, which is good because the favor/prestige gains in there are crazy right now.

Ironically, I dropped Senticar (like above) and went to a Warden/Sentinal build much like the earlier one you posted, Caemlys. I'm almost P3 now, but I found I didn't do so well building convictions for the DoL spam. QUESTION ABOUT STATS! Senticar - which is better, Spell Power or Spell Crit? Warden - which is better, Spell Power or Spell Crit? I'm almost Decorated with The Unseen now, and getting ready to start my Valor sigil, so SP vs SC?

I use a macro to cycle through all the instant cast conviction building spells. I just run around strafing or in circles hitting those buttons lol. Well spellpower gives you more survivability in Senticar. But it's better to stack crit because 1> spellpower is naturally stacked through your gear anyways and 2> it procs not only Serendipity but also Light Makes Right. With the instant heal nerfs tho, having a good amount of spellpower helps offset it somewhat. I think you should stack SP for Wardens. It helps your HoT's heal for more which can add up in time and also you're less dependant on Serendipity sped heals as a Warden anyways. I no longer easily top the healing charts but I still do it by a comfortable margin. What is most noticeable is that I can be killed easier through focus fire. Where it might have taken 4 or 5 people to bring me down, now it's more like 2.

I use a macro to build Convictions on all my X-icar builds, but I still found they missed a lot as a new 50 in PVP. Maybe I lack "hit"?

Having a bit of hit/focus in pvp helps more then you might think. I have at least the +18 helmet rune on my pvp gear to help.

Well, I've switched back to Senticar now that I'm P3 and have a lot of PVP gear on, and I'm having a lot more success with it. Thanks for the build, Caemlys... I'm using it exactly! :)