I'm returning to play EQ again on Agnarr. I played a necro and rogue back in the day so I'm not really sure how clerics worked then (other than they were always wanted for groups). I quit EQ when WOW came out, and played a holy/dis priest (healing) so I know the basics of playing in a support, role but would like some heads up on clerics in classic(up to pop) but most the threads in the priest class forum seems to be geared at live or high level (pop+) clerics. Any info on what spells are must have vs ones you never use, what your spells line ups look(ed) like, use full macros, UI lay out ect. ? Thanks, hope to see some of y'all in game and "rezz" some old memories
There was some discussion on this thread about Clerics and race choice: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/he-or-de-cleric.240695/ You should be aware that Cleric is an important but somewhat passive class. Sometimes situations get intense, but mostly its just sitting and waiting to CH.
It's really not very complicated. Low levels you'll mostly just be using whatever your highest heal is and playing regular ole whack a mole when peoples health drops in your group window. Later on when you get HoT's and CH it becomes a little different but still nothing complicated that you'd really need a guide for. Cast HoT on tank at start of a pull. Sit til he gets ~40% (Use your judgement based on how much dmg hes taking) then cast CH and 10 sec later he's full hp and you sit back down.
I never "played" a cleric in EQ (i made one and leveled it to like 3 one time), I have heard of cheal chains but was assuming that was more in a raid, is group play mostly the same? as I said I played a "healing spec'd" priest in WOW which was often considered boring (and could be with a well geared/skilled group doing easy content) how ever I did enjoy it (most the time). I'm ok taking a back seat/ passive role, but don't want to be a one trick pony
Check out youtube for vids on starting and playing a cleric or just throw the verbiage into google and knock yourself out, lot of good info. Seeing the play will tell you what you need to know.
Let's see, from what I remember way back in the day... Character Creation Want the hide skill and to play an evil race? Roll Dark Elf Want well rounded stats and an origin close to Commonlands Tunnel? Roll Human Want hide and sneak? Roll Halfling Want to tinker and don't mind being small? Go gnome Want to tumble instead of jump and have high strength at lower levels? Roll Dwarf From a min/max perspective, Stamina is your character creation stat point because everything else will cap at max level with best in slot gear, but it's hard to recommend that during the first few expansions. Strength is much more useful starting out. Wisdom is never a bad choice. I wouldn't recommend spending character creation points on Charisma for a Cleric and I explain my reasoning below. _____ Charisma Info Regarding Charisma, the dev's have stated: "Charisma affects resists against Mez, Lull, Charm." However, the stat cap is so low, I wouldn't worry about Charisma as a Cleric, personally--rather than spending points at character creation to raise Charisma, I would recommend wearing 1 or 2 Opal Encrusted Stein's if necessary for vending and Lull'ing. For most merchants, you need indifferent faction and 104 charisma. This is to say, that 1) at any given charisma, a merchant will give you the same price at indifferent or higher (but worse at apprehensive or lower), and 2) if your faction is at least indifferent, you will stop getting better prices beyond 104 charisma. But there are a couple exceptions to this, noted on EQ Traders years ago. 1. Merchants in your guild in your hometown only require 93 charisma. 2. There are some merchants who require MUCH higher than 104 charisma. These are usually the merchants near banks and near the entrances to cities (i.e., Tubal at the Qeynos gate, Boomba the Big at the WFP gate, Aimee at the NFP bank, Merchant U-something (the dufrenite merchant) outside the Kelethin bank. I'm not sure if you even can reach "best" prices with them so, don't buy or sell from them if you can avoid it. How do you know you're being offered the best price? When you're offered 9.524pp for a peridot (or any other item you know the "best" price for). (Source: http://www.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=g144&menustr=030000000000) And while we are at it, Heroic Charisma does not do anything useful for any class in the current state of the game, as far as I am aware. _____ Important Spells All Heals All Cures Lull/Soothe/etc. Gate Stun Divine Aura/Divine Barrier All Resist buffs Root Bind Affinity Invis vs Undead/Improved version Resurrect line Summoned Hammer line - if what you can summon is better than what you're wearing, use it. Otherwise don't bother. For AC/HP Buffs, you should pick up ALL of the buffs like Courage that buff both AC and HP. The pure AC and Symbol buffs I have really only ever used for solo'ing, or for tanks in raids or something really tough. Yaulp - I used this when melee'ing (GO GO Battle Cleric!). Summon Food/Drink - useful to save money on consumables for your early levels. Cancel Magic Nukes (especially the Undead line) - it's easy to forget about nuking when you're watching buffs and health bars, but if you are at 100% mana in a casual grind group, start nuking the NPC's somewhere between 50% and 20% health! I'll try to hover between 80%-60% mana in grind groups. Also, whenever possible, try to cast heals/buffs so they land out of combat that way you can regen between pulls and during the start of fights. This means healing the puller before they run off to pull, not while they are "incoming." Bookmark this: http://destef.dyndns.org/spells/ _____ Spell Sets This is going to vary based on group composition, your current zone/encounter, and/or personal taste. Basically, quick heal, Complete Heal, promised heal, HoT, are the first four when you get high enough level to get all of them. Before PoP, all I remember was Heal, CH, and HoT for the first 3. After that, all the spells are situational, but typically, a RDS (reverse damage shield), Stun, Root, or others depending on whether undead or not. I use spell sets and keep heals the same in each one so if I'm interrupted while memorizing a new spell set, I always have my heals to cast no matter what (you may want to include divine barrier in that technique if you use it, as it has a long cool down!). This ends up with me have a primary set, a couple of different buff sets, a resist set, solo set, a cure set, and an undead set. Whew. _____ Gear A whole guide could be written on this alone so for now I'll just link this for reference (see the gear section): https://wiki.project1999.com/Cleric Until you can get 'good' gear, you may want to gear yourself up like you were a druid until you get strong enough to wear/carry (and acquire enough money to buy) plate. At low levels, this simply means wearing leather or light wisdom armor as opposed to plate. _____ Macro's I was a 'clicker' back in the day--I didn't key bind very much, ha-ha! For Agnarr, my key binds are going to start out pretty simple. Maybe others can suggest some much more useful one's until I get around to thinking of better. Big Heal (Complete or whatever you are using) /cast 1 /g big heal on < %T > Small Heal /cast 2 /g small heal on < %T > Resurrect /say casting 'insert_highest_rez_spell_here' on %t Corpse Retrieval I create two simple hotkeys for this. You can drag 2 corpses at once (not sure if that's changed). /corpsedrag /corpsedrop Complete Heal rotations will have to be worked out with your raid and you can either use voice chat to time and pace your heals or if you are in a pick-up raid you might have to do CHeal rotations, with a variable pause time but from my experience it was often in the mid twenties. My guild had a few separate channels for spam such as CHeal. The macro might look like this: /cast 1 /g Complete Heal on < %T > /pause 25 /g Cleric #2 cast now! _____ AA's This is a list that goes up to 80, so you won't be able to get them all but should give you a good start on what to go for. The list is in alphabetical order NOT in order of importance or preference: Abundant healing ranks 1-10 Cascade of life ranks 1-2 Celestial regeneration 1-12 Divine arbitration 1-3 Gate AA (just really good to have this and not take up a spell slot) Gift of mana ranks 1-3 Gift of radiant mana Gift of exquisite mana Healing adept 1-9 Healing boon 1-9 (this works on elixirs, your celestial regeneration AA, focused celestial regen AA, elixir procs) Healing gift 1-15 Mnemonic retention 1-4 (4 extra spell gems) Radiant Cure 1-9 Secondary forte (I would go for abjuration for buffs, though you could choose evocation for nuking if you prefer) Spell casting mastery 1-4 Spell casting reinforcement 1-4 Recourse of life 1-9 (the best versions of this are at the end, but it's good to keep increasing this as you can) Unfailing divinity 1-3 (if you use DI spells on your tank for named, this is a requirement) _____ Class Names Cleric, Vicar(51), Templar(55), High Priest(60), Archon(65) _____ Cleric Epic p99 guide - https://wiki.project1999.com/Cleric_Epic_Quest allakhazam guide - http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=757 and some horrible notes I shared on my spartan website back around 2002 (which I now have absolutely no control over or access to): http://gra.midco.net/aenuu/cleric_epic1-0. I meant to turn it into a guide but never got around to it. lol _____ Group Level Disparity & Experience Bonus The criteria for experience level range is as follows: Characters within 5 levels of the highest level character in the group will always gain experience. Otherwise, characters must be at least 2/3rd of the level of the highest level character in the group to gain experience. The maximum spread is 30. (So, for example, a level 67 would not gain experience with a level 100, even though she is 2/3rds of his level, because the maximum spread is enforced at 30.) (source: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/i...anges-in-instances.206206/page-4#post-3028642) There was also an independent 15 level range cap on most group missions (10 levels on LDoNs). You get bonus XP for more players in your group. The simple version is that real players [added to the group] give 20% additional experience per mob up to the 5th player. The 6th player doesn't add to the split. FYI: Mercs don't add to the bonus and take a full split if they are the 6th player. (source: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/i...eveloper-updates.207587/page-139#post-3050423) _____ MISC 1 in game day = 72 real life minutes 1 in game hour = 3 real life minutes /join serverwide.cleric:cleric _____ Links Agnarr Returning Player Quests https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/agnarr-returning-players-quests.240191/ EQ Chat Commands http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:Chat_Commands Cleric Forums http://eqclerics.org/forum/index.php Everquest TLP Best In Slot http://eqitems.com/ Faction Guide http://www.runen.co.uk/Everquest/ Leveling & Tradeskill Guides http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/sho...-Guide&p=240495&viewfull=1#post240495 http://www.almarsguides.com/eq/progression/ http://eqtraders.com/ In-Game Maps http://www.eqmaps.info/eq-map-files/ Per-Level Hunting Guide http://wiki.project1999.com/Per-Level_Hunting_Guide Raid Loot http://www.raidloot.com/Default.aspx?z_id=eok1 Spell List http://destef.dyndns.org/spells/ EQInterface http://eqinterface.com/ Allakhazam: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/ Fanra's Wiki: http://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Main_Page Magelo: https://eq.magelo.com/ Paul Lynch: http://www.paullynch.org/eqblog/ World Map: https://i2.wp.com/www.eqmaps.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/World-2014-12-23.png All this Cleric talk makes me want to play Cleric again! That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'll probably work on writing a better guide for progression server clerics as I progress through Agnarr.
If you want to look different, be a gnome or erudite cleric. If you want to meta-game it a bit, choose a dwarf to start with purely for the higher strength, and then race change to a real race in Velious once you get enough gear to make the low strength of some of the real Cleric races not matter for carrying phat lewts from dungeons. With the dwarf strength, you'll be able to carry more weapons to vendor. Having said that, as a cleric being severely encumbered doesn't matter much because you can just origin out of a dungeon with full bags and then crawl your way to a vendor to unload it. Dwarves are the absolute dumbest looking playable race in EQ.
