This HD video is narrated PVP footage of my level 50 Rank 4 Cleric in RIFT Patch 1.4 in an Escalation Whitefall Steppes warfront (queued solo). In this video, I talk about my “M*A*S*H” melee healer spec which has been viable and effective in terms of AoE healing with decent support DPS.
I have written a Guide about the M*A*S*H spec, so check that out if you want to see the spec link, strengths and weaknesses, GCD rotations, macros, and other information.
Other tips / comments:
- If you watch closely, you’ll see that some of my melee attacks miss and some of my spells are resisted. This was happening because I had 0 Focus and was therefore under the “Hit Cap.” Per my Guide, my estimate is that you need 5% Hit / 5% Focus to reduce the chance to miss / be resisted to 0% in PVP. Note that for Justicar or Shaman our Focus is converted to Melee Hit. Therefore, after watching this video, I replaced Wisdom runes with Spell Power / Focus to reach the Hit Cap
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Great video. I’ve been running a justicar deep PvP healer for a couple weeks now and they are really great where rank 8 warriors and big aoe damage is king. DoL give you AoE burst healing that no other calling for spec and bring to the table, and I have kept up entire raids for short periods of time spamming DoL. The mitigation you get from the spec is awesome when a R8 Warrior bull rushes you, you have the time to snare and kite him away.
I run a ranged version of this build using Sentinel and Inquisitor as my other trees, and it allows me to build unlimited convictions at range. Mana is always an issue with this build, especially if you encounter a VK or Dom. They can reall ruin your day.
I liked the example you showed of the warrior overextending himself. In Escalation that is one mistake that will get you killed the most often. The res waves always rush back to middle and if your too deep you will be in the crosshairs of half their raid.
I like to use my knockbacks to take a high rank warrior who is in danger of overextending and push him deeper into our lines and out of range of his healers. A good way to get a high rank melee down w/o his healer support. Im glad this spec is working out for you, I think people will really give Justicar healers a second look now.
Do you have a cleanse with your build, e.g. Cleansing Prayer or Empowering Light? The M*A*S*H spec does, which is really helpful, so I can remove debuffs such as Dom’s Traitorous Influence. And I can interrupt Mana Wrench if I’m close enough.
VK’s are nasty, I just snare/punt and kite as much as possible. Thankfully M*A*S*H has strong kiting mechanics.
Yea, I love punting over-extenders so that they are even more over-extended. It tends to help people notice them as a target for a quick burn-down.
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Yeah I have both and I use them as aggressively as possible. I always remove the debuffs you mentioned ASAP along with Anathama, Curse of Solitude and Discord. If I have a warrior pushing deep into enemy ranks I try to keep them as clear as possible of dots because I dont have and HoTs of my own. A bunch of dots will chew through their health quickly and will force me to expend ST heal cooldowns. Another advantage my build has is Healer’s Covenant which I use on melee fighting deep, or on myself when i get a high rank warrior. One thing I like about deep Sentinel is Quietus. A silence on a Chloro or Cleric at the right time makes it a lot easier to bring healers down.
One thing I would add when using these builds is keeping the raid as close to max health at all times. Let people drop too much will allow high burst dps to get them before you can get your big heals in. Your example is a good one of spending your convictions aggressively.
Have you ever considered running with a shield with your aggressive playstyle? Or is the drop in SP and burst damage not worth the increase in survivability?
TLDR: stick with a 2H.
In other games, where block is avoidance, swapping to 1H + shield provides a huge benefit.
In RIFT, block is mitigation, and for a Cleric without the talents for increasing block, the base block % is anemic (like 1%).
So all you really get for swapping from 2H to 1H is armor, but Cleric shields don’t have much of that stat and armor is only good against Physical damage. So it can help a bit to swap weapons, but not to the extent I’ve seen in other games.
That’s what I was trying to accomplish with Jodah but far, far better realized. It’s nice to see that someone made it work and I’m glad to hear you’re liking the new server. The Brocliff/Harrow community really was a toilet.
Are you still playing, and if yes, where?
Come join us over on Sunrest if you have Guardian characters.
Not playing atm. I try to limit myself to one MMO per month and I forgot to cancel EVE so it snuck in a fee on me over the weekend. I am looking at Rift again, especially with the Valor changes. If I do re-sub I’ll roll on over.
Hello Taugrim,
Here’s a link about a R8 cleric on french server Phynnious doing roaming and some WF. He uses a modified Duracell build, and it’s quite interesting to see what a offense oriented version of your build can do.
The quality is low, but it’s quite interesting.
He fights some low rank, but is heavily outnumbered most of the time.
The link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYGJHW6UaWA
taugrim, could you figure out a build, or a way to counter the vampiric munitions? I use your mash cleric as my main build, but since 1.5, i’ve had to incorporate purge and by doing that i had to pull warden.