Cleric Class Guide (Classic - Prophecy of Ro)
This guide covers the Cleric class from Classic EQ all the way until Prophecy of Ro when the level cap is 70. Clerics are the second most useful class in the game behind Warriors and you're the best healer. This is coming purely from a raid perspective, you need Warriors to tank difficult raid targets and you need Clerics to heal them. This is something that never changes even beyond this era.
On raids your role will typically be a tank healer, early on you have CH and you're stuck doing CH rotations. Later Druids will heal the caster groups and Shamans heal the melee groups, you still heal the tanks. Due to Clerics being a purely healer class, they need a group to do basically anything. This is most likely why you reign supreme too, since the others solo and you can't - you need to be better.
Keep all of this in mind before you pick a Cleric, yes you may be able to find groups quickly but you're pretty useless without a group.
Important Stats & Focus Effects
Stats give you the biggest benefits to your character until the Luclin era when you start maxing out all of the important ones with gear and buffs. You'll want to focus primarily on Wisdom and Stamina during the early eras; Strength helps too since your gear is heavy. Aside from those stats you'll also want to get Mana, AC and Mana Regen.
Once you max out your Wisdom the only way to get "better" (in a raid context) is to get more Mana and Mana Regen. AC will increase your survivability so in a group context this is a good option too. One thing to note is shields are not limited by the AC soft cap which means you'll want to get a Secondary with high AC on it.
Armor Class: You will be taking a lot of hits especially when leveling in groups since heals make monsters quite angry. Also tanks (esp Warriors) have terrible agro early on.
Mana Regen (Flowing Thought): Gear with this is very valuable early on since this Mana Regen stacks with KEI and everything else.
Stamina: Gives you HP; works similarly as Wisdom in that it scales as you level.
Strength: Increases your weight limit, it's important since plate weighs a ton.
Wisdom: This gives you mana, until you max it out it's the best source of Mana for your class. How much Mana you get per Wisdom scales in level; at 1 it's 1 Mana per 1 Wis and at 60 it's typically 10 per 1 Wis.
Starting in PoP and becoming more common as the expansions go on, you'll find Heroic Stats on gear. These stats will provide you with benefits kinda similar to your normal stats - just a bit worse. Much like your normal stats HStats will also come with soft caps and hard caps.
Typically, it's best to spread out your HStats a bit to avoid the soft caps (diminishing returns). For Clerics you're going to want Heroic Wisdom, Heroic Stamina and Heroic Agility the most.
Heroic Stamina (HP/Mitigation): Increases HP, HP Regen, and HP Regen Cap. It also gives you some Mod2s which help with damage and stun mitigation.
Heroic Wisdom (MP/Regen): This increases your MP, Mana Regen and Max Mana Regen for Casters. Once you cap Flowing Thought, you'll need more Heroic Wisdom to increase your potential cap.
Heroic Agility (AC/Mitigation): HAgility increases your mitigation mod2s, your AC, Dodge, Block, Parry and many other important mitigation skills. It also increases your Endurance, Endurance Regen and the potential Endurance Regen cap that you can reach. Not as important for a Cleric though.
Want more information about Heroic Stats and what they do/how they're beneficial? Curious what Mod2s are? Take a look at my Heroic Stats Guide for more information about what each stat does and why we're getting the ones that we're focusing on.
Important Focus Effects
You can start using Focus Effects in Luclin, there are a few important ones for you and they're the best while leveling up. At level 60 you should keep in mind that you'll have to sacrifice using Tower Gear to use many of these Focus items. This is a pretty big trade off and may not be worth it for some foci. Ultimately, it's your choice.
***Mana Preservation: Reduces the amount of Mana consumed with each cast.
***Improved Healing: This increases the total amount that you heal for with each cast.
**Spell Haste: Reduces the cast time of your spells (makes your spells cast faster)
**Extended Enhancement: Increases the duration of your buffs.
**Extended Range: Increases the range of your spells.
*Improved Dodge: Chance to Dodge is increased by a moderate amount. Pretty much gives you a bit more survivability.
*Improved Parry/Block: Chance to Parry and Block is increased by a moderate amount. More survivability.
*Reagent Conservation: Decreases the chance of a reagent being consumed. It saves money since some of our useful spells do have reagents.
Important Spells, Skills & AAs
Clerics primarily use Alteration and Abjuration. You'll be using Alteration for your healing and other important spells, Abjuration is going to be what you use for buffing. I recommend you Specialize Alteration as this will give you the most benefit. You have a line of direct healing spells which you'll be casting most often when the damage output of what you're fighting is high (meaning when your target's health is spiking a lot).
HoT (Heal Over Times) are typically used when the damage output is very low, this will help you conserve mana and keep medding. Another valuable use for HoT spells is to cast them on melee DPS who take damage briefly but not
There are group versions of your HoT and direct healing spells as well but they can be very costly in mana and typically are for severe situations. You also have Complete Heal which will be your primary raid heal from the moment it's added until the end of PoP (or whenever your guild phases it out). There are quick heals too which take a lot less time to cast but heal for less. For the most part in these early eras you'll be using one or two heal spells primarily and the rest will be kind of meh.
Buffs
As a Cleric you will get the best HP buffs in the game, early on you will need to stack HP Type 1, Symbol and Armor Class buffs together. Do this until Velious when you get Aegolism which gives you a combo spell that stacks all three of these together in one cast. This same logic will continue in future expansions, HP Type 1 won't stack with Druid buffs but Symbol and Armor Class do.
From Classic - Luclin not much changes for you, you'll get your Self Shielding line in Luclin which is the main new thing. Once PoP hits you'll get your Spell Haste line, in LDoN you'll get your Damage Absorb line. Omens adds upgrades for basically everything but not much new, the next big thing is added in Prophecy of Ro which is your Aura. Basically every class gets an Aura of PoR and it's actually so good that you will be using it until level 100+.
Below is a list of other important spell lines and information about why they are important.
Self Shielding & Mana Regen (Luclin): Blessed Armor of the Risen is the first example of this. Occasionally as expansions go on you will get upgrades to this line, the benefit of this buff is it stacks with all of your other HP/AC buffs. Plus this gives additional benefits like Mana Regen.
Yaulp: A short duration buff which boosts your melee combat capabilities. Yaulp 5 and greater will give Mana Regen but it will cancel if you sit (or use a mount).
Spell Haste (PoP+): Blessing of Reverence is the first spell in this line followed by Aura of Reverence.
Bulwark/Damage Absorb (LDoN): You start getting this spell line during LDoN but it becomes a staple forever. During LDoN Protection of Vie and Bulwark of Vie are added into the game, Bulwark of Vie is what gives this spell line the name.
Divine Intervention: This spell will instantly heal your target if they suffer a killing blow. It consumes 2 Emerald when you cast this but it's a very good spell to throw on your tank during raids or difficult encounters.
Divine Aura: Divine Aura and Divine Barrier are your DA spells. You'll get AA versions of these in the future that make the spells redundant but each of these two spells have their uses.
Resistance Buffs: Resist Magic, Resist Disease, Resist Fire and Resist Cold are all valuable spells in the early eras. You may find yourself stuck casting these buffs for some raids/difficult targets that require resists.
Resurrection Spells: You're the only person who can rez people and get them back EXP for a long time. In Omens of War Druids and Shamans get a 90% rez and it stays that way for awhile. Clerics get a 100% AA rez too with a long cooldown, they also get two AoE rez spells called Larger Reviviscence and Greater Reviviscence. I actually used Greater Rev on my Clerics all the way until 115-120 because the AoE rez is great for boxing.
Invis vs Undead: Sunskin and many other spells will allow you to invis yourself against Undead. You'll also get a line of AAs that will give you IVU and group IVU.
Curative Magic: You can cure Curse, Poison and Disease spells.
Aura of the Pious (PoR): Your group members will absorb some incoming melee damage if they stand close enough to you. From this expansion onward, Clerics are always put in the tank group (if they weren't already) because of this Aura. There will be no upgrades for this aura either until Rain of Fear. You will get Circle of Divinity at level 80 which may be better than this one.
Stuns: You'll get stun spells starting at a very low level and every so often with new expansions you'll get an upgraded one. This is a good CC for Clerics but it causes a high amount of threat so it's only situationally useful. I like to use it on mobs that are casting Complete Heals during the early portion of the game. You will also get a PB AE stun which will let you stun a whole group. This is very useful in AoEing large groups of mobs.
Pacify: Sometimes you'll be asked to use Paci on mobs which will let you pull them separately easier.
AAs
Luclin adds a few clicky AAs and you will continue to get more and more as each expansion releases. In Luclin you'll get Celestial Regeneration which is a group HoT (you can MGB it and turn it into a raid HoT). You also get MGB which lets you cast a single group buff in an AoE around you. Bestow Divine Aura, Divine Aura both provide DA, one is self only and the other is on your target.
Divine Resurrection is something else you get which gives you a 100% rez on a very long cooldown. You'll get Turn Undead and Innate Invis to Undead as well during this era, invis saves you having to memorize a spell and Turn Undead is situationally useful. Purify Soul is also added in Luclin which will cure all debuffs of your target; Radiant Cure does more or less the same thing but on an entire group and you get it in PoP.
Speaking of PoP, you'll get Divine Arbitration which is a great ability, it averages your groups health out. I normally make a macro with this and my group heal combined as one button. Also added in GoD is Exquisite Benediction which is a crappy AA that you can add to your group heal macro if you'd like. Divine Avatar is another crappy one in GoD, it boosts your melee damage which is really only useful when doing trivial solo content on your Cleric.
The only good clicky you get in GoD is Spell Casting Subtlety, this will cause you to generate less threat. Omens of War adds Celestial Hammer which is a pet AA that pretty much sucks; Divine Retribution is slightly better - it can stun enemies attacking you once activated. Sanctuary is your first fade, it will allow you to escape combat and fully heal.
Your last new clicky AAs for this guide are added in DoDH (Depths of Darkhollow), in this expansion you get Ward of Purity which I don't believe I ever used. Silent Casting is the more important AA as this will give you dramatically less threat for casting spells for a short duration. This AA has a 36min cooldown initially and it's the beginning of the new era of EQ where you will get many Cooldowns. I will go into this in much more detail in the future class guides I make, but basically raiding in future EQ revolves around your Cooldowns.
There are many more passive AAs available to you that I won't list here. Autogrant AAs kick in during DoDH, after that you will be autogranted AAs for 4 expansions back. For example, DoDH starts with Luclin.
How To Play: Cleric Basics
During Classic all the way until PoP this class is pretty basic. Until you reach level 39 you'll be using whatever your best heal is, then you'll typically switch to Complete Heal when mana becomes an issue. Depending on your gear changes the point in which mana becomes an issue.
You'll be using Complete Heal on raids and I recommend using Ethereal Light or some other non-CH heal when doing group content (once you get to Luclin). Let's face it, Complete Heal kinda sucks because it locks you into a long cast which is easy to interrupt. It's also not always easy to predict a tank's health spikes if you're unfamiliar with the content or the tank. I sincerely hate CH and CH rotations, consider my views biased.
Buffing is also important since you're a buffing class as much as a healer. I talked about all of the important buffs in the previous section, check that out if you need to. A TL;DR refresher is stack HP Type 1, Symbol and Armor Class buffs together. Once you get your Aegolism line use that instead since it's all 3 buffs in one. During PoP you will get Spell Haste, once you're in LDoN you'll get your Damage Absorbtion line. These become key in your buff line up once they're added.
There are a few more minor buffs that I don't mention here but they are mentioned above. Read what is above to learn all of the buffs you should be casting. Once Luclin unlocks you should also make sure you buy a mount. This will let you sit without drawing extra agro, it also lets you sit the entire time you're mounted. You will also unlock mount buffs if you buy the right one (like from Tower) or from the DBG store. Mount buffs give you AC, HP, Mana, Endurance, Resists all of which stacks with every other buff and is very good.
As more expansions release you will need to start making macros and adding in AAs to your main rotations. This is when things get a bit more complicated - I will talk about this more in my next class guide for Clerics because if we're being honest until you reach SoF/HoT and beyond it isn't a major issue.
For now, I will show you my group heal macro since this is one I recommend you make in Omens of War.
Cleric Group Heal Macro
This macro uses a few different AAs in addition to the Epic 2.0 which is basically a second Divine Arbitration. Group Heal (Spell) is last because I prefer to use my cooldowns before I consume my mana. When using the macro typically one Divine Arb will fire and the other will be skipped. If you're not boxing and you are playing a Cleric solo you can take one out of the macro and use it individually.
Aside from the advice I give above, I feel like the only other things I can say are generic healer knowledge for these games. Pay attention to your tank's health and judge what heals you need accordingly. Complete Heal may not be good in situations where the tank is taking lots of spike damage and you can't predict how much he will take over 8-10seconds. If there are additional mobs hitting you, CH is too risky as well.
More Tips & Tricks
- Get a mount when Luclin hits because that will let you meditate the entire time. Mounts also come with very powerful Mount buffs that stack with basically every other buff.
- Use the extended target window! It unlocks at level 20 and you're able to right click it and add people to it, this will allow you to easily heal people outside of your group and watch their HP/Mana.
- If you're not a boxer you should consider buying SoW, Clarity and Invis Potions.
- Consider getting your Epic, it will allow you to cast a 96% rez without consuming any mana or using a spell gem
Cleric BiS Lists
I have BiS gear lists for this class which include both Tower and Pre-Tower BiS items. For those of you who care less about a BiS list and just want a list of good gear options, I have included that at the bottom of each page too.
Kunark Cleric BiS Gear List
Velious Cleric BiS Gear List
Luclin Cleric BiS Gear List
PoP Cleric BiS Gear List