I'm gonna keep this short and simple. My cleric is in my sig, he's the
ProphetMuhammad. If like me and you wish to go on a holy journey and convert or behead the infidel armies of Nalatos, and the citizens of nearby cities, then the Cleric is the perfect class!!
Skills worth investing points in:
Sound of Force: Gives cleric extra hits on auto attack. Can get up to +6 hits maximum with 21 skill level. At max you get 15% chance to proc divine justice with auto attack. Max this first.
Armor of Faith: Boosts attack haste when skilled up, and gives a healthy armor boost. At max skill you get 8% chance to proc fist of the heavens with auto attack.
Resolution: Boosts HP (by a lot, 1627 HP boost on my Cleric) and boosts casting haste when skilled up. The level 20 bonus does what it says, I tested it to make sure it works, and it WILL save you from death as it suggests. But I leveled this for the casting haste.
Mark of judgement: When skilled up the holy nova attack does a LOT of damage, because when you cast it you also get the damage boost associated with this skill so it hits a bit harder than the tool tab suggests. Level 20 skill lowers the C/D to 20 secs which makes this more useful.
Smite: This is your reliable no C/D cast spell. Leveling this up is a good idea, but there are other skills which are better to level up first.
Guardian Angel: Lets be honest here, the damage mitigation sucks, so that's not why you'd level this skill up. But the level 20 bonus, 22% chance to proc vicar's wrath is a very strong attack. Not only is it the strongest of all the proc attacks, it also has the highest % to activate. Unfortunately, its not that useful in hell mode because this shield will disappear immediately, or you'll need to use this right after you stun the screen with benediction which makes its usage situational at best. Its not wise to pump skill points into "situational" skills like this. This is why I decided to sideline it from my rotation. Reliability is what I seek.
Benediction: Like Mark of Judgement, this attack can do a lot of damage if you max it out, and depending on your focus with cleric, you might level this up to get the bonus damage effects on some of the spells that mark of judgement grants. I decided not to skill this up, because I found some of the other skills to be better.
Gear/weapons:
Strong 2h blunt weapons. Ideal candidates end game would be Staff of Sentoth, Hallowed Gavel of Pharmakos, Hammer of the Dragonborn. I prefer the Hallowed Gavel out of all of them because it has 83 damage. Its quite a rare drop, about as rare as a Staff of Sentoth, whereas Hammer of the Dragonborn is a more common drop.
Gear/Armor/MiscProphetMuhammad is end game geared, or BiS in my opinion.
Generally on Cleric you want to aim for DPS gear, as well as life leech. There is a lot of versatility in attaining this due to Cleric being able to wear heavy armor with no penalties, as well as any armor lighter. So pre-end game gear you got a ton of options.
My attack rotation:
Auto attack (on)
Sound of force
Benediction
Mark of Judgement
Smite
What about the other skills? Once I leveled up smite I realized that smite is almost as strong as some of the other spells which have a C/D and are single target like expel corruption, but there is something to be said for efficiency in keeping your rotation as simple as possible. I dropped expel corruption from the rotation and didn't lose any DPS at all. I can do around 25-28k DPS sustained with my gear and rotation. So Cleric is definitely NOT one of the weaker classes. Its stronger in all categories than Paladin is. My Cleric has over 5k HP with all buffs up, 4500 armor, max resists, and good elemental absorption %s, and 50 life leech. So yeah, Cleric is MAD tankage.
