Rift: The Cleric in Me

When I first reluctantly purchased Rift I knew I'd be rolling a healer. I wasn't sure how similar healing in Rift and in WAR would be but, when having to decide between roles, I'm more comfortable as a hit point restorer than as a damage dealer. Which is not to say I completely suck at dealing damage but, when I do, I keep thinking about the ones dying around me that I could be helping instead. So I rolled a Cleric, the most obvious (but not exclusive) option for those of us with a mother-hen complex.

For my main role I went "Pure Healer" as I called it. My main soul (20 or so points spent at level 28) is Sentinel. It's focus is long cast instant heals which appealed to me after two years spent playing a Zealot. My secondary soul is Warden which focuses on instant cast heal-over-time abilities. The third slot I filled with the PvP soul  (Templar) but I haven't really studied it properly so I dared not spend many points in it.

Soulkilla: Found his farming spot

How I mainly operate is by deploying HoTs around and casting my AoE heal (2sec cast time) when battle starts and when AoE is dealt from the opposing side. This I do for 2 reasons: firstly, to restore hit points (la-dee-daa) and the second is because I finally specced it to reduce incoming damage by a certain percentage (I forget how much). This isn't a very interesting role, to be honest. I just stand there and apply health where needed. I have an ability to increase the next heal's effectiveness by 50% and another to reduce the next one's cast time to nothing. Oh and another to reduce a target's damage input (read how much damage is done to him/her/it) by some.. 40% was it? That's about it. Not terribly exciting even if enjoyable when you're in the mood.



So if you decrease it twice
do you end up increasing it instead?



Now my second role, the one I use mainly for PvE, has proven to be much more interesting. I went for Justicar as a main soul, Shaman and Druid for other small benefits. If you played WAR you might understand when I say that a Justicar plays a lot like a DoK/WP in that the damage you deal can be reverted back to health to your allies. There are many differences though. First off, I usually walk around with an increased armor, endurance and threat buff but I can switch to a decreased threat and increased healing output one if needed. Also, I recently acquired this one-target buff that increases all of my healing effects on another player by some 100% or more. I'm terrible with numbers really, I just know it's cool. Also, whenever you use a Justicar ability you gain a Conviction (if you remember to activate the buff) and with each Conviction you can cast healing spells for your party, yourself and your prefered "defensive target". And you can actually rarely run out of Conviction, unless you're being focus fired. Your cookie cutter isn't that expensive plus you get an ability to restore 10% of your mana for each of your melee swings and it has a manageable cooldown.

Healing as Justicar in optimal conditions

I'm quite stricken with it. It worked better than I expected in PvP as well, as seen above. I have some points in Druid for... actually I don't know what for; a few other points I invested in Shaman to increase my damage and critical ratings. It must be said that all your magical stats convert to melee stats when you're using these close combat Cleric souls. So you can keep investing in Wisdom and Spell Power to boost the effectiveness of whatever soul you desire.

Which is... pretty cool,  right? I thought so. It also keeps me from lugging around two sets of gear.

I'll probably expand more on these souls and my love for them when I start actually memorising their names and learning what they do exactly and for sure and was this even a sentence anymore because it's so long I can't tell what it is with any degree of certainty anymore.



I'm not the only one gagging for more Dragon Age



Phew... One problem I found though: I always end my playing sessions crafting in Sanctum. I arrive on my mighty Rhino-like mount with my purse filled with about 1plat every night. When I'm ready to log out im down to 20 silver. I need help finding a scam in AH to make easy money. PLS HALP!