Cleric Help for the Uninitiated

Okay, so I played Rift since beta, started a cleric.  I've primarly used Justicar to level, have not done much in the way of raiding or grouping.  At some point I switched up to Shaman/Justicar.  Now I wish to expand my roles, so I have delved into some of the presets, like Shaman/Warden and full Inquisitor.  However, I'm in need of some advice.

1)  Equipment:  clerics can use maces, totems, shields, staves and wands.  As a shaman, I just used a stave.  But as an Inquistor, is my damage based on what I have in my hands or in my wand slot?  Is there an advantage to using a totem over a shield if you are using both slots?

2)  I hear Warden/Justicar is probably better than Warden/Shaman for dungeons?  What's the truth, and what kind of specs do you suggest?

3)  Is there any advantage to going Cabalist over Inquisitor in groups? 

I can only really answer 1 and 3 for this; I haven't played around much with warden since the patch. 1) Your damage is primarily based off of your spell power; it's calculated based on Wis*0.75 + Int*0.25 + any other SP. If you're shaman, druid, or (I guess) justcar, you want to look at the weapon DPS. Weapon damage is based on your main hand, although the offhand plays in somehow. Each spell or melee ability has a set value modified by either your attack power (melee souls) or spellpower (everything else). There's a passive root ability that converts your SP to AP for you in the melee souls. So... for Inquisitor, it's based on your spellpower, to finally answer the question. 3) Yes. Cabi does high amounts of AoE damage. Inquisitor, aside from Soul Drain (if I remember the name right; it's the one you have to be in melee to use) does high single target, but not nearly so much AoE. Whether one is better than the other is largely based on the fight. Large groups of trash mobs? Cabi. One or two mobs? Inquis. EDIT: A quick addendum to your first question. Certain Cleric abilities only happen on criticals. Crit is calculated based on Wis*0.5 + Int*0.5 + any other crit. When you look at your gear and your abilities, you'll also want to look at that. Unlike spellpower, crit does cap out. Pre-1.11, that was ~1140 crit; I don't know what it is now, since the percentage coefficients seem to be lower.

» Edited on: 2012-11-04 19:54:11

I got this: 1. Hit N to open your skill tree. 2. randomly click on souls and skills until you run out of points. 3. Put on any gear you have, greens are fine - even whites if you have to. 4. Go to the highest level area you can, or dungeon (you can que as all the roles, so check all the boxes) 5. Roll face on keyboard. 6. Collect loot. :) Hope that helps! 3 2 1 GO!!!