This short guide to the Rift Cleric is intended to give you an introduction to what is probably the most versatile class in the Rift.
The Cleric is first and foremost a healer class, and the best healer in the game. The cleric has no less than three different cleric souls to choose from, and they all differ depending on whether you want to be a raid healer or a tank healer. If you want to roll a healer, Cleric should be your first choice.
But it does not stop there.
Clerics are very, very good at DPS (Damage Per Second). They have ranged and melee damage and even a soul with a pet (a very ugly, but very useful fairy) if needed. They can heal when hit.
Besides this, clerics are reasonable tanks. Justicar’s soul is a tank soul.
To be honest, mages generally have better DPS than clerics, while warriors are better tanks. And these two factors may be the only weakness of the Cleric… If you can call that a weakness.
When you go to build your Cleric, you will be able to choose between different stats:
Wisdom: This is to regenerate your mana. If your preference is a healer, by all means make this your choice and get as much as you can. If you decide to DPS or tank, wisdom is not important to you. You will prefer other statistics.
Intelligence: You’re going to need a lot. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, intelligence increases your mana and you will need a lot of it as it is the “fuel” for your spells.
Second, it will increase in proportion to how much you heal or damage at any given time. Even the melee DPS build has a talent for converting spell power into attack power, so you’ll definitely need it in this case. The only reason you wouldn’t pick Intelligence is if you pick tank.
Endurance: Endurance increases your maximum health. Tanker clerics will need it. After spending 12 points on Justicar’s soul, you will have an ability (Mien of Leadership) that will increase your stamina by 90%, so you’ll quickly gain buffs by building up stamina.
Spell Power: Unless you’re a tank, you should have as much as you can get. Increases your damage or healing abilities.
Critical Strike: A cleric already has a high critical in his talents, so he can take it if offered by the equipment, but this is not required.
Hit Rate – This means, in short, how often you hit and miss. You want a high hit rating because there’s no point in hitting as hard as hell if you miss.
Depending on how you plan to play, you will mix the souls accordingly. You can easily mix only healing souls if you want to heal in dungeons or raids. You won’t need a lot of DPS or resilience, as the group will be here to do it.
Or, you can mix dps, tanking, and healing for the quest, so you have hit resistance, with chances of blasting your way through mobs, along with a small amount of healing (this will just be for you, so no need to exaggerate). that).
If you want to PvP, you’ll also have to find your place first: Do you want to be on the attacking side or the healing side? Choose between a combination of defense with healing or dps with healing.
Also, you can mix these different souls:
Warden – A soul healer who focuses on healing spells over time, including area of effect (AoE) spells that also heal over time. He also has a lot of good dispel abilities, but few full instant heals and no “big heals”.
Sentinel – A healer soul as well, similar to Warden, but has more AoE heals.
Purify: A single target heal. This would be the soul healing tank. Heals at a fantastic rate, has great heals and protection abilities as well. As expected, it lacks AoE and Healing over Time.
Justicar: This is the tank soul. It’s weaker than the rogue or warrior soul, but can still make a decent tank. The big plus is that he has a battle resurrection, which is a worthwhile bonus.
Inquisitor: This is the 1v1 soul. He’s very hard to defend against, he has a lot of instant damage over time abilities, debuffs on your enemy, and crowd control. Needless to add, this soul excels at PvP.
Cabalist: This is a soulful DPS caster. Not very good for survival. It would be more suitable if you want to do a lot of damage in raids or dungeons.
Shaman – At the opposite extreme from most other shamans I’ve played in similar MMOs, the shaman in Rift doesn’t really have any noticeable healing. On the other hand, he is a very tough melee DPS, and is capable of many very fast and deadly attacks and a multitude of buffs.
Druid: This is also a melee DPS. He has the pet that can be used to heal you or do damage when needed. The pet is not very sturdy and falls off quickly.
Templar: This is the PvP soul. It operates in different ways: better to cure; higher DPS and better resilience.
It all depends on your other souls and what you prefer. Want to continue building resilience into a tank/melee PvP soul? Or do you want to add healing to the soul itself? Maybe you want to increase the resilience of your PvP healer?
There is no “best combo” or “best healer specs”.
All up to you.
What is your style? Where are your strengths and weaknesses? Do you tend to stay in a fight too long (then put points into tanking and self-healing)? Do you prefer to be remote?
Find your style and grow with your Cleric. Change the soul trees until you find the mix that suits you best. You are the one in control of your character.
As you can see, if you pick a good combination (which is extremely easy to do with Cleric), you can quickly have a very viable, strong, and fun character to play as.
Hopefully, this Rift Cleric guide will get you started on the right foot.