Cleric Support Build

Most Cleric build guides appear to revolve around PvP. This guide will focus on support being the primary role but will still allow for players to contribute damage during a boss encounter.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:
High Healing
Contribute Damage
Sought after for groups
High Energy

Cons:
Low Damage
Low HP Pool
Low Survivability in PvP

Skill Build:

Tier 1:

5/5 Divine Punishment: The quick cast, short cooldown, and high damage of this ability cannot be ignored. Not only is it required for having any decent solo ability in the game, but also to contribute damage during PvP and boss encounters.

1/3 Revitalize: The long cast time of this ability makes it only sensible to cast before engaging in a fight or to heal yourself while your group is taking damage from a distance. As a ranged character this skills use is limited since you should be avoiding damage.

5/5 Divine Master: 10% increase to damage and healing. Enough said.

Tier 2:

3/3 Focused Strike: Not only is it a main part of your combo, but also your best way to regain energy. It's necessary for keeping up your energy pool.

3/5 Heal: I do not see a reason to go beyond skill three for Heal. Although the reduced Cooldown could sometimes be beneficial, it would cause a heavy drain on your energy and encourage players to sit their spamming until they're running on empty. 3/5 is enough.

1/3 Blessing Endurance: 6% boost to groups stamina for 1pt. 2% per point afterwards is too low for the cost in my opinion.When level caps and gear increases this may change.

Tier 3:

1/5 Circle of Punishment: I know it seems silly for a support built, but during times when circle of healing isn't needed, it's a waste of a cooldown to not combine this with divine punishment.

1/3 Mind Training: I don't really like this skill but 2% chance to restore 5% energy is pretty useful during long fights.

Tier 4:

3/3 Healing Strike: Not only is this skill a key part of your combo, but it aids in your healing. This skill is a must have for groups and soloing. Its based on Stamina instead of EP helping keep your EP usage down.

1/3 Circle of Healing: A lot of people make the mistake of putting three points in this, but it is mostly used to enhance Heal. If you are running into the melee group it should be to do damage and get back out. This means that CoH is only used in emergency situations. That being said, it is important to keep a point in it as a heal booster.

3/3 Blessing Concentration: The best EP regen ability. Great for long fights.

Tier 5:

1/3 Miraculous Recovery: Dead healers can't heal and the 1 second cast time on revitalize is killer.

2/2 Uplift: Everybody likes passive bonuses.

Tier 6:

2/3 Salvation: This is your biggest group heal and when followed by heal is a lifesaver.

1/3 Blessing Swiftness: Although the cooldown is long, a 10% buff to attack speed and movement speed for 15 seconds can either help kill a boss faster or help a PvP group escape. It's a nice emergency button.

Tier 7:

1/3 Storm of Judgment: Despite the long cooldown, I fail to find many other places I would prefer the point at the level you would take this.

1/3 Miracle Combat Resurrection: Battle Ressurection on a long Cooldown, but you can't underestimate a battle rez.

Why take damage abilities in a support build:
This being a support build I'm sure people would be wondering why I put 5 points in Divine Punishment instead of a full 5/5 in Heal and 3/3 in Circle of Healing. The reason is simple actually. During a lot of boss battles there is downtime where your team mates are managing to avoid damage. During this time you can either sit around doing nothing, or you can contribute. This actually increases your healing per second because the boss dies sooner.

By taking circle of punishment, divine punishment, focused strike, and healing strike you can run into the group, lay down circle of punishment, instant cast storm of judgment, and commit your healing, focused, divine punishment combo before running out. As the fight progresses as people are capped in health you can run in and strike before running back out.

As focused strike and healing strike restore your energy and heal your team, you're able to heal longer while reducing the fights length, thus ensuring you have enough EP to last the fight.

Why not take Crystal of Life?
The amount healed is low and requires people to notice it and run through it. Although I wouldn't say its a bad ability, it's not one I like. Its nice as far as a premptive heal, but it needs a buff before I feel its worth a point. If you decide to take it I recommend taking the point from Storm of Judgment since it has a long cooldown.

Armor:
Two sets of armor are recommended. One set being chain and the other being cloth. Chain armor should be used in PvP and while Soloing. Cloth Armor should be used in PvE. Look for chain armor with in.

Weapons:
Two sets of weapons are recommended. One set should be mace and shield, the other should be staff. Mace and shield is nice to use while soloing, staff should be used for both PvP and PvE. Chances are if an enemy catches you and chain armor doesn't save you in PvP, the shield won't help but it is great for soloing against monsters since they are predictable. Realistically you can get away with just staff.

Gemming:
Some people gem for EP but realistically Intellect should be where to gem. If you are using focused strike your EP should maintain itself and intellect offers additional damage and healing. There is no reason to gem anything but Int at this stage in the game.

Overall:
This is a support build. Although some people may screech that this build is missing every support ability, some just aren't worth picking up.The fact is, at the moment in the game adding the dps skills help a lot more than putting the last few points in support skills.