Over the weekend, Trion posted a few updates on the forums for Clerics, Warriors, and Rogues. Among the updates, there were notes of current bugs impacting Fiery Spike and Expose Weakness for Rogues, Reckless Strike for Warriors, and Light of Redemption for Clerics. Light of Redemption, the Sentinel ability, has actually been temporarily disabled as of late Saturday. Here are the three dev tracker posts, starting with the Cleric update:

Originally posted by Pithos (Source)

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Hello everyone,

We’ve had to disable the 61 point Sentinel ability, Light of Redemption, due to a bug.

Thank you to everyone who reported it, and we hope to have it active again soon.

Keep reading to see the others.

And for Rogues:

Originally posted by Ailion (Source)

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Some updates:

1) The damage bonus acquired by Flame Blitz (talents, heat retention etc.) is currently being transferred to Fiery Spike, resulting in more than expected damage added to Fiery Spike. This will be fixed later.

2) The additional damage from Expose Weakness is being “distributed” over the duration of DOT effects. For example, if Expose Weakness increases damage by 100, using Impale results in Impale getting an additional 100 damage over 20s, or 9 per tick, instead of 100 per tick. I may re-function Expose Weakness by removing the 20 Charges limitation.

Finally, an update for Warriors who might be using the RB/VK DPS spec:

Originally posted by Ailion (Source)

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Hey guys,

Just to let you know, Reckless Strike is currently bugged because it is tagged both as a physical attack and a non-physical attack when it should only be a physical attack. As such, it is enjoying all the non-physical damage bonuses from the Riftblade talents.

I will be getting that fixed, but not a hotfix at the moment.

Hello, everyone! In this installment of The Divine Retribution we will take a look at Clerics as healers. The Warden, Sentinel, and Purifier souls will be examined in this article; sample builds and useful tips will be given for each of them. I will also go over some general healing knowledge that all dedicated healers may want to have.

What does it mean? (Being a healer, not double rainbows)

Healers heal people, sure. Defining the role seems simple enough, but I think the term means more than its definition. A while ago, I was reading an article about healing much like you are right now. I remember reading an analogy that made so much sense to me that I doubt I will ever forget it. The author wrote that a healer functioned much like a drummer in a rock band. I guess this would make tanks the group’s diva—but I digress. Just like a song can’t rock without a good beat, a group won’t often get far without a good healer. As long as a boss fight doesn’t have an enrage timer, a good healer can make up for DPS that is lacking by keeping the tank up for as long as is necessary. If you have decent DPS but the tank isn’t that great, a good healer can often play his/her cards right and get the group through an encounter. If the healer is bad though, the game becomes much less forgiving; a small mistake on anyone’s part may spell defeat for your group.

Deciding to be a healer is a selfless decision, in my opinion. It is also one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’ll try to share how to feels to be a healer. Consider that, by becoming a healer, you are symbolically giving up the sword and quite literally giving up your ability to fight. Your group relies on you to keep them alive as much as you rely on them to keep you from harm or kill your enemies. Because the virtual lives of your comrades are in your hands, you may feel a little more stress than you would if you were a tank or DPS. In some ways, being a healer can make you feel helpless as well. While it is true that no one in the group can make it on his/her own, the fact that you have no bite can make you feel especially helpless – just like DPS may feel very fragile because they don’t have as many tools to help them survive. This is mostly psychological though; the truth is that everyone in a group is relying on each other and, in most cases, would go nowhere on their own. Simply keep in mind that if healing feels stressful even after doing it for a while, perhaps it isn’t for you.

As with everything, there is a positive side to being a healer. You may feel important and perhaps even honored that people trust you with their digital health. After all, you might be all that stands between them and a dirt nap. The responsibilities of a healer can also be very thrilling; your gameplay experience can be very intense, as you have to react quickly to changing situations. More often than not, it will not be difficult to find a group to join; there is usually demand for healers. Healers are also VIPs in many respects. Both in PvE and (especially) PvP, people will go out of their way to keep you safe.

The Basics

Any ascendant fresh off the character creation page can throw a heal hither and yon, but real healers are hardened players that have mastered the skills of the trade. A good healer knows how to conserve his/her mana, prioritize, and manage cooldown abilities. Veteran healers keep their cool when a situation is deteriorating and are ready to salvage bad situations when possible. The best healers will prepare ahead of time by setting up macros and having consumables (usually mana potions) they may require.

Prioritizing is perhaps the most fundamental part of the healing game. This is a very simple concept that shouldn’t be difficult to grasp. The most common example of a healer prioritizing is when both a tank and a DPS are taking heavy damage, and both are in risk of dying. If it can’t be helped, the right choice is to let the DPS die in order to save the tank. This doesn’t mean that you should always choose to let someone get knocked out if more than one person is at risk though; AOE heals, particularly ones that are powerful cooldown abilities or boosted by cooldowns, can often allow you to save everyone even in a bad situation. The catch here is that AOE heals usually cost a lot of mana, so they should be used sparingly.

Managing your supply of mana is crucial when you’re a healer. DPS and Mage healers have ways to easily regain their resources but, as a Cleric healer, your mana is very much limited and won’t get you far if you do not spend it wisely. The main thing for which to watch out is AOE healing. It may seem tempting to answer many of the game’s threats with AOE heals but this is the fast track to running out of mana. The best way to deal with situations that require healing several group members at once is to either use powerful cooldown AOE heals or boost your regular AOE healing spells with cooldowns that increase healing done or guarantee a critical heal; your goal these situations should be to keep everyone alive using as few AOE heals as possible.

When things are going bad, you will often have to turn to your big cooldown abilities to get your group through that rough situation. Every healer has some of these cooldowns, and every healer has to learn when to use them. Some of these have cooldowns of 2 minutes or more, so you may only get to use them once per boss fight. It’s difficult to just teach someone how to manage their cooldowns; with time, you will learn what to use when and how to ration your cooldowns to make it through tough fights.

Helpful Macros

If you want to be good at something, it doesn’t hurt to give yourself every advantage you can. I was a healer in WoW for a long time and I think the greatest advantage I gave myself was using unitframes add-ons, like the popular HealBot. Add-ons like these would display my group/raid health bars in a very neatly organized way, making it easier for me to be aware of everyone’s condition. They also allowed for things like casting spells simply by clicking on health bars, which saved me some precious time. In Rift, we currently have no add-ons; we’ll have to work with the game’s default interface, like it or not. All is not lost though; there are interface features in the game that can improve our performance as healers if we use them correctly.

Mouse-over macros are probably a good way to start fine tuning your healing. When you cast something at your mouse-over, you are casting at the unit or unit’s portrait currently highlighted by your cursor. By casting everything at mouse-over, you eliminate the need to target anyone. This will save a little bit of time; every millisecond counts when it comes to healing.

You would have to make a mouse-over macro, like the one above, for EACH of your healing, cleansing, and other beneficial spells; things can get complicated of some spells are mouse-over and some are not. When using mouse-over, you may want to turn off Auto Self-Cast in the combat submenu of your interface settings to make sure spells just fail to cast if you cursor is a bit off instead of casting on yourself and wasting a global cooldown.

There are some spells that you may only ever cast on your group’s tank or your designated tank in a raid. For these, you can make macros that cast at your focus. To make someone your focus, you simply target that person (in this case your tank) and type /focus. You should see what looks like a second target frame pop up. When you cast a spell at focus, it will be cast on the target you have on focus even if you are targeting something else or have no target at all. This is why making focus macros for important emergency cooldowns can be very useful; it eliminates the risk of casting them on the wrong target or taking too long to target the right one.

Lastly, there are spells that you will most likely only cast on yourself. The best example I can think of is Cascade from the Warden soul. You can make macros to cast on yourself. The reason for doing this would be to avoid accidentally casting something like Cascade, which regenerates 15% of your mana, on someone else. It also eliminates the need to target yourself or, if you are using Auto Self-Cast, the need to at least have no target selected.

Healing in PvP can be stressful at times, especially if you’re using an incorrect build. This article is going to discuss and analyze healing souls for PvP, and discuss the synergy between different souls. We will also touch briefly on how to counter healing, as well as avoiding these counters as a healer. In a later blog I will discuss the PvP soul for each class, but for the time being, we will just be talking about soul specific PvP talents.

CLERIC

All 3 of the cleric healing souls have very strong 51 point abilities, but are often not ideal for PvP due to long cooldowns or selective usage. This leaves us a lot of points for us to put in other tree(s) to make us perform better. For most cleric PvP healing builds you should put 26 points into Sentinel because it offers the most efficient heals for PvP. That leaves you with 34 points to spread into another tree(s) of your choosing, which is completely based off your play style.
Sentinel

Since Sentinel is included in most PvP builds, we will discuss this soul first. The signature move of Sentinel is Healing Breath, which happens to be the most effective heal in the game for PvP. The spell is instant cast, has an 8 second cooldown, and has massive healing. Other abilities to mention from Sentinel tree:

• Serendipity – When you Critically Hit with a heal, the cast time of your next heal is reduced by 1.5 seconds (Passive)
• Healer’s Covenant – Grants the ally resistance to pain, reducing damage taken from all sources by 40% for 10 seconds (2 minute cooldown)
• Divine Call – Spontaneously heals up to 5 party or raid members within 20 meters (1 minute cooldown)
• Empowering Light – Bathes the area surrounding the Cleric with holy light, removing 1 Curse, Disease, or Poison from up to 10 party or raid members within 15 meters (45 second cooldown)
• Touch of Light – Emboldens the Cleric with righteous alacrity, causing the next healing spell the Cleric uses to be cast instantly. Does not trigger a global cooldown. Lasts 30 seconds (45 second cooldown)

Serendipity is arguably the most useful passive ability of any soul in the cleric tree for PvP. It allows you to get off quick casts when under pressure, and can change the tide of a fight. Healer’s Covenant is perfect for PvP because of its quick damage reduction and short cooldown. Divine Call is good in group situations, because it can spike heal up to 5 party or raid members. It uses the smart healing system, which recognizes what targets are taking the most damage and will only apply the heal to them. Touch of Light is another extremely useful spell for when you need to get a quick heal off in a pinch. A macro is recommended for using this ability optimally. With one button press, you’re macro will apply Touch of Light, and then make the 3 second cast Healing Invocation, instant cast for a huge burst heal.

#show Touch of Light
cast Touch of Light
cast Healing Invocation

Here are some examples of some soul specializations:

• Sentinel/Warden
• Sentinel/Purifier
• Sentinel/Justicar Offensive melee healing build
• Sentinel/Inquis Offensive Caster Healing Build

Warden

Warden is a HoT based healer and functions best in groups. This is mainly because Warden’s best healing comes from spreading HoTs on multiple targets. The problem with a full Warden specialization for PvP is they lack the burst healing to keep a target alive during a focus fire situation. Some key AoE abilities from Warden are:

• Healing Flood – Summons a rejuvenating flood, healing up to 5 party or raid members within 20 meters for health over 12 seconds (No cooldown)
• Ripple – Weaves rippling waves into the Cleric’s spells, causing any single target, Water-based heal over time spells they cast to affect up to 5 additional party or raid members within 15 meters. Does not trigger a global cooldown. Lasts 6 seconds (45 second cooldown)

Warden also offers a really good defensive move called Dissolution, which breaks all snares/roots and makes you immune to them for 8 seconds. With just 20 points into Warden, you can pick up Ripple, Healing Flood, Dissolution, as well as the granted abilities. Some Warden PvP granted abilities:

• Crushing Wave – Slams the enemy with a powerful ocean wave, dealing Water damage, in addition to knocking them back (15 second cooldown)
• Tidal Surge – Calls on the power of the tides, increasing the effectiveness of the Cleric’s next healing spell by 50%. Does not trigger a global cooldown. Lasts 30 seconds (45 second cooldown)
• Drown – Floods the enemy’s lungs with sea water, dealing 36 Water damage over 12 seconds, in addition to Silencing them for 3 seconds (30 second cooldown)

Here are some examples of soul specializations:

• Warden/Sentinel
• Warden/Purifier
• Warden/Inquis Offensive Caster Healer

Purifier

Purifier has the best single target healing in the game, and can become extremely potent when mixed with Warden or Sentinel. The Purifier tree is based around absorb shields, casted heals and Blessing spells. Blessings spells allow for greater mobility and instant burst healing output.

• Healing Blessing – Calls on benevolent spirits to heal the Cleric the next 3 times they are attacked. Only 1 Purifier Blessing can be active at a time. Lasts 1 minute
• Caregiver’s Blessing – Causes the next 3 single-target healing spells the Cleric casts to shield the ally for 10 seconds, absorbing damage. Only 1 Purifier Blessing can be active at a time. Lasts 1 minute

Purifier also brings damage mitigation with absorb shields, which when timed correctly, can turn the tide of a fight. They can be used to prevent damage, or when you need time to hard cast heals.

• Shield of the Ancestors – (Shields the Cleric for 30 seconds, absorbing damage)
• Ward of the Ancestors – (Shields the ally for 30 seconds, absorbing damage. Cannot target the Cleric)

The playstyle of Purifier isn’t meant to fit all players, its largely based off predicting and preventing damage. It synergies very well with both of the other healer souls, but is much more potent with Sentinel.

Here are some examples of soul specializations:

• Purifier/Sentinel
• Purifier/Warden
• Purifier/Inquis Offensive Caster Healer

Justicar

Justicar has a much different playstyle than the rest of the cleric souls because they must keep doing damage to be able to heal. The main healing is done with Doctrines which consume Convictions. Convictions can only be gained with by using life based damaging abilities. Healing also comes from damage dealt through the passive buffs Reparation and Salvation. The healing from Justicar can greatly help a team but is reliant on them actually sticking on a target to earn convictions. When forming a support build for PvP, it’s important to take your groups composition into account. Using a Sentinel off soul will grant access to more healing spells and passive abilities to buff your Doctrines. Using a damage off soul will grant you with more support from damage and more passive healing from Reparation and Salvation.

Here are some examples of soul specializations:

• Justicar/Sentinel Offensive Melee Healer
• Justicar/Shaman Offensive Melee Support

Rogue(Bard)

This is quite possibly the most unique class in the game mainly because it’s a mana-less healer. The Bard brings everything to a team that a pure healer cleric cannot, and this includes massive AoE healing, amazing buffs, and effective cc. I won’t go into the abilities too much due to the amount of motifs and simplicity of Bard healing.

As a bard, there are many options for your second soul, and it all completely depends on your group composition and your play style. Many bards use Riftstalker as their second soul, mainly because it offers them defensive cooldowns when they are focused. You also get added perks like Guardian Phase and Stalker Phase. These are both extremely good tools but need to be maintained and switched depending on the situation. For instance if you’re just healing your team with Cadence and not being focused, you would not want to be in Guardian Phase, because it decreases your damage by 30%, which would decrease healing with Cadence by 30%. You’ll also gain Boosted Recovery (increases all healing by 6%), Planar Refuge (reduces all damage by 30% for 10 seconds) and Shadow Shift (15 yard teleport)

If your group or premade has one or more clerics then using Riftstalker as your second soul wouldn’t be recommended. Using one of the more offensive souls will be more beneficial, which really could be any other rogue soul; it all just depends on your play style. Each one will give you beneficial things, but I’ve found the best were Nightblade and Marksmen. Some benefits of Nightblade are Twilight Shelter, which reduces damage taken by 80% for 8 seconds on a 2minute cooldown, Conceal (stealth) and another 8 second duration CC (Lost Hope, Incapacitate) on a different Diminishing Return then your bard mesmerize.

Marksman brings a different play style to a bard, with way more kiting abilities. With this off soul you’ll gain access to On the Double, which is a 70% sprint on a 30 second cool down, and with Getaway talent, you’ll be immune to snares and roots for 5 seconds when On the Double is activated. You’ll also get Keen Eye, which increases your ranged attack range by 5 meters, and this effects bard moves as well. Other moves to look for are Repelling Shot (knockback) and Static Shot (root).

Here are some example of soul specializations:

• Bard/Riftstalker Defensive support healer
• Bard/Marks Offensive support healer

Mage (Chloromancer)

Chloromancer brings the most utility of all the pure healing souls in the game. The mindset you must have when playing Chloromancer is Damage = Healing. The play style is based around keeping Healing Spores on any target taking damage and assisting your team with damage spells. Bloom and Flourish are your only heals that do not come from doing damage, and they both have cooldowns.

• Lifegiving Veil – Causes Life damage dealt by the Mage to heal up to 5 allies within 20 meters for 50% of the damage done for 1 hour. All other spell damage dealt by the Mage heals allies for 5% of the damage done. Spells that damage more than one target have healing generated by Lifegiving Veil reduced by 80%. Life based damage over time effects heal allies for 60% of the damage done by the first damaging tick of the effect. The Mage cannot receive healing from other Lifegiving Veil effects while affected by this buff.
• Wild Abandon – Removes all root and snare effects from the ally and grants immunity from root and snare effects for 8 seconds (30 second cooldown)
• Synthesis – Bathes an ally in the Mage’s group or raid in light, increasing healing they receive from Lifegiving Veil by 150% for 1 hour. Cannot target the Mage. Can only affect 1 ally at a time.
• Natural Conversion – Causes the next single target damaging spell cast by the enemy, within 30 seconds, to heal the enemy’s target for 200% of the damage done by the enemy’s spell (1 minute cooldown)
• Nature’s Touch – Blasts the enemy with energy, dealing 86 to 89 Life damage. If the Mage is affected by Lifegiving Veil, the ally, within 20 meters of the caster, with their Synthesis buff is healed by 100% of damage dealt (6 second cooldown)

Picking a secondary soul while playing Chloromancer is extremely difficult because of how many options are available to you. If you’re solo healing a group, Elemental Summoner will be very effective, because if offers an absorb shield, mana return and a root. When in a group, your secondary soul will probably change depending on what your group’s composition. Warlock, Dominator and Archon are all very good off souls when playing Chloro in a group.

Looking at all these amazing spells and soul combinations makes you think, is there any way to actually kill someone through all this healing? The answer is Yes, and it just requires a little coordination. Focusing a healer in a group situation can be dangerous, because you’re allowing his partners free roam to do what they want. Sometimes a better option is killing the person that presents the most threat to your team. This could be a specific person who is focusing your healers, or someone CCing your team. While doing this, throw some CC onto the healer. This causes them to use Break-Free and other cooldowns to keep teammates up, and leaves then susceptible to a hard switch.

You can go a different route if you have access to a Void Knight or Dominator, and have them try to drain the healer’s mana (ineffective against Bard for obvious reasons). This technique will work extremely well against an unorganized group, but if the team has coordination it will be more difficult to pull off successfully because their team will peel for the healer. If you or your team composition has access to a healing reduction debuff, that would be ideal to put on any target that is under focus, because it will cut healing by up to 50%. Some examples of different healing debuffs are:

• Lingering Wounds – Critical hits reduce the healing received on the target by 50%
• Fell Blades – The Rogue enchants their weapons with Death magic. Each weapon attack has a 20% chance to deal 30 Death damage and adds a curse on the enemy that lasts for 15 seconds, reducing healing taken by 50%. Lasts 1 hour. Only 2 weapon enchantments can be applied at a time.
• Essence Link – Reduces any healing the enemy receives by 30% for 60 seconds. Causes undead pets to heal the pet owner for 9 health each time the pet deals damage

I hope this helped all you healers make a strong build for PvP. One thing to always remember is, have fun! If you’re not enjoying the current play style of your healing, try something new! The options and play styles open to you are endless.

You may or may not have realized this, but we do have our own forums. As the game grows in popularity the official forums get more and more crowded and the signal to noise ratio will decrease. I want to invite everyone who wants to focus their discussion on game related topics, specifically speculation on theorycrafting for all the callings, to our forums. We hope that everyone will be eager to share their own ideas and help others with their own speculation. Even though we know it’s extremely early to start doing this, who wouldn’t want to be prepared?

With that being said, I started the forums off with my own speculative build of a 30 Warden, 17 Purifier, 4 Sentinel. All of this is based off of the abilities listed on Telarapedia from GamesCom footage.

In a months time, the player with the most popular build, will win an Official Rift T-shirt.

More GamesCom footage and this time we’re showing you the Purifier and Sentinel soul tree talents and roots. Both classes are healers for the Defiant and Guardian respectively.

Videos to follow.

Today Telara Central revealed the latest soul for Rift: Planes of Telara. The new soul is the Sentinel. The Sentinel falls under the Cleric calling.

Sentinel – “It is easy to have faith in one god. I have seen the truth of the universe, devoted myself to the Vigil as a whole. I bring succor to the one and the whole alike.”

Overview

The Sentinel brings the blessings of light to all who do the will of the gods. Capable of healing many wounded at one time, Sentinels bolster their allies and protect themselves with divine wrath.

Make sure you head over to Telara Central and read up on the rest of the information.