Suggestions for Raid Heal specs/rotations?

Hey y'all,

I did a run of RoS last night, and was on raid heals. I'm using the cookie cutter 34 Sent/27 Warden/5 puri - and I was going through mana like crazy.

Anyone have any suggestions for either a raid heal build that is less taxing on mana, or some thoughts on how to conserve it? Kind of clueless raid heal wise.

Thanks.

Does the raid have the necessary support abilities (getting mana return and reduced ability cost). After that, make sure you have the apprtopriate raid consumables (tablets from raid drops, flasks for int/wisdom and if using totems, the +400 mana boost) and Int/Wis runes on your gear wherever you can. Use mana potions as soon as you can benefit from them (so their CD has a chance to be up when you really need them) - if you wait till empty you'll likely still run out of mana. Assuming you've done all the expensive stuff, it then comes down to experience. Raid heal spells are significantly more expensive than single target heals. You cannot constantly cast them. Experience in encounters will let you work out when you need to toss the raid heals and when you can get by with a bit of single targetting. You'll also get a feel for how fast your mana goes down with your casts. Mana management is the main challenge for raid heal specced clerics. Working out the tempo of a fight - when to go all out, when to conserve - is the challenge. It will be hard at first, just have patience and don't beat yourself with a stick if you mess up, work out where you went wrong and go onto the next attempt. As you gear up it will get easier, and you will get better and if you stick with it you'll find you intuitively make the right decisions more often than not.

*nods* Good thoughts. I am also thinking about trying a Sent/Inq/Just build, although me and melee....*gulps*

My Cliste on Guardian side is pure healing. I haven't got her into anything big yet, but know from some mid-level dungeons where Tiernan played chain puller extraordinaire to take several us through dungeon fun, I could have my mana sucked up quite well. It really is a lot of working through experience to get the mana control down even after doing everything to make sure you have the biggest Duracell battery equiped. =) Of course, it also helps if the tanks know how to hold the agro and your dpsers aren't getting attention by accidentally doing too much damage at once to make them ignore the tank. Seen this in any game, so this really isn't anything new. One thing that is great, that going with the family we learn a lot and are figuring out how to beat the enemy. This helps us when we PUG it, but definitely won't stop the frustration of a bad PUG. In other games I have let people die for not following orders. The old, "You hit it, you bought it." rule.

There are several ways to accomplish raid heals. Each depends on playstyle and gear. I'll go over the most prominent styles. Justicar hybrid - This includes the Shaman/Justicar, Inquisitor/Justicar, Sentinel/Justicar and just about any build that has at least 10 points into Justicar to get Mien of Honor, Reparation, and Doctrine of Loyalty. Pros - DoL is the best AOE heal available to Clerics. You can reduce it's cost by 30% in the Justicar tree. It hits 10 targets (and since 1.4, it has smart healing) and it has tremendous range. Until 1.5, this would also guarantee a crit which would proc spells such as Serendipity. Since it hits 10 targets, it should still proc Serendipity all the time anyways post 1.5. If you go the Inq/Justicar route, your passive heals through Reparation can be quite substantial depending on how much DPS you do. Cons - You need to hit things to generate Convictions. So you need the necessary Focus for that level. Instant cast spells or melee abilities are the best to proc Convictions. Any life-based attack will do, which is why Sentinel and Inquistor are the two natural souls to pair with Justicar since they have various Life damage abilities. You don't necessary have to be in melee, a Sent/Justicar has 5 different ranged Life spells that you can use. You also need to manage your GCD accordingly. Lastly, mana efficiency is always a problem with AOE healing. Inquisitor offers Agressive Renewal at 12 pts and Justicar offers Purpose, although you have to melee for that one. Still you'll be quaffing some mana pots until 1.5 goes live. And even past that. The Warden AOE builds - Basically, this is anytime you put alot of points into Warden (31+ points) and use a soul like Sentinel to complement it. How many points you put into the soul depends on how much single target healing you need and how many oh#@@$ buttons you want. Pros - You don't need to hit anyone. So you need no focus for this. It's very mobile because most of the HoT's are instants. Used correctly, a 51 point Warden can provide the highest HPS of any other Cleric build. Not that HPS means much, but still. You can provide more single target coverage than most of the DPS Justicar builds. You can do a lot of proactive healing rather than reactive healing. Cons - It's very very clicky. Ideally, you are juggling putting up 4x Soothing Stream on multiple targets while also using your assorted AOE HoT's and the occasional Deluge on the tank plus some Orbs here and there. You will be switching targets alot. The GCD is your enemy here, so you need to prioritize which spells are more important. Most of the AOE heals of a Warden are HoT's and is poor for reactive healing. Also, the range is shorter and hits less people than DoL. Mana efficiency is again a problem. Those are the two main AOE heal choices as a cleric. If you want builds and specs then you can always send me a tell or find me on vent and I can walk you through them. Good luck to you.

Thank you, Bentmer. My main problem with the Sent/War build was the mana regen/mana management issue. I have now played around with gear enough so that I have 225 focus so I can play around with a Sent/Inq/Just build. I have done very little melee, only playing with a bit on my baby Guardian, but it's my Dside main that needs to work on it. Looks like I need some victims - errr - I mean volunteers - to help me try this new build out one of these days, lol.

If you are going that route then here are some possible combinations for you: 32 Sent/31 Just/ 3 Inq This is the Senticar build. 2 battle rezzes, lots of survivability, and still able to main heal when needed. You build Convictions through all the instant life spells in all 3 trees. Sanction Heretic actually gives you 2 Convictions each cast. The main problem with this spec is that you have large mana regen problems unless you can melee with Purpose to get your mana back. 42 Sent/ 12 Just/ 12 Inq This is actually just a Sentinel build with extra AOE capabilities. It loses a battle rez but in return, you get more toys from the Sent tree and Agressive Renewal for mana regen in the Inq tree. Also this does more dps than the Senticar build. 44 Inq / 14 Just / 8 Sent This is the Inquisicar build. It does only support healing and cannot be considered a main heal spec. But it does much better damage than either of the above spec and adds a few extra tools like Purge and the Soul Drain debuff to a raid. The AOE healing is still very good. There are a few others that I can think of, but these are the more commonly tried builds.

If you're still having mana issues, then you might want to include 11 points into Inquisitor to get Agressive Renewal. It's the best mana regen skill we have. You'll need Focus because you have to hit things but it's superior to Purpose and Ageless Ice because you don't have to melee. And it's on a pretty short timer. Your other recourse is to ask your Archon to give you Mental Flare when you need mana. It gives back 30% of your mana and has a 5 min CD. Archons never use it on themselves, so I'm sure you can get them to cast it on you. Finally be wary of using certain AoE spells that are very mana intensive. One of the worst is Healing Communion. (at full rank) Never use this spell unless there is dire need. P.S. For extreme AoE goodness, you can go Ward/Just/Inq and get both AoE souls along with Inq to regen your mana back faster so you can AoE some more. The problem I've experienced with this soul is that Warden and Justicar AoE heals overlap quite a bit and results in AoE overkill. I prefer getting more utility than becoming a super AoE healing AoE machine. I used it once in a Greenscale fight and cleared 2k HPS lol.

Hey Bentmer, can I borrow you on vent sometime? I never see you there when I am, and would like to pick your brain - and I'm almost always on the defiant side, so don't see you in game. Thanks.

Yes come find me on vent anytime. Alot of times, I'm leading a raid in one of the channels below. But anytime after 9 server, I'm usually only messing around. I'll be more than happy to theorycraft with you. It's one of the more enjoyable things about Rift, playing around with different combination of souls. :)

Sounds good, thanks.