Post by Sokanon on Apr 30, 2011 16:34:48 GMT -5
Author: Ashrawr
It seems many threads about a variety of topics surrounding Justicar abilities will produce a number of recurring questions and fights about what to spec and why, so with my day off I thought I'd give it a go making one thread to focus the discussions and potentially provide the answers some people are looking for which form the foundations of any tanking character, or even better, start more questions for progressive thought.
NB:I’ve always held the belief that there is enough wiggle room within rift that taking the spec you enjoy using the most [within reason] will produce the best results, you’ll focus yourself more, push yourself harder and make fewer petty mistakes which may occur from drudging through a spec and/or rotation which you don’t enjoy. Imo these factors>any minor difference between an extra 1% in armour or melee damage resulting from tiny spec differences, most of the specs I post here have Shaman as the secondary soul, this is merely personal preference as I feel it has the most widely applicable tank-friendly abilities in the early tiers, however in any build where points only go as far as Valnir, feel free to change out the tree as you see fit.
This thread is focused on builds for raids/rifts/5man PvE tanking.
For Justicar information relating to soloing/Aoe levelling take a look at Melkrow’s fantastic thread.
For Senticar information, check VeroProdigy’s take on the very fun and dynamic spec here
Introduction
Just to ground the discussion, and for anyone seeking information on how to take their first steps into becoming a cleric tank:
-Your armour will not change, though you may want to opt for a 1hander with extra endurance or some form of mitigation stats if there is one available, if not, a normal spellpower weapon will still serve you well enough.
-You should always use a shield, there was originally some discussion about opting to drop your shield in favour of a totem or 2 hander to generate additional threat, relying on the extra spellpower to provide parry. Unfortunately The parry cap (20%) is very easy to reach, even without trying, the mana/mitigation lost by dropping a shield is simply not worth it.
-Each point spent in Justicar increases armour by 1%, ergo each point spent elsewhere comes at a cost of extra physical mitigation.
-Justicar damage is almost all Life damage, beware of talents which increase physical damage [such as Dauntless Courage tier one, Shaman] when choosing filler talents. While they seem like a better investment than crit which wouldn’t scale as well, it will only affect a small portion of your damage, making spell or physical crit generally superior [the exception to the rule is Hammer of Virtue, as this increases ability damage].
-Focus, it's important, 220 is the cap - although being slightly under is acceptable, you still want to aim to reach the cap as best you can within reason.
-Doctrine of Authority, sometimes referred to as Doctrine of bad, Doctrine of 51pt fanboys, or simply the 51pt GoTryFrenchOpera of my raid bomb. This almost warrants it’s own thread due to how much some people loathe/love it. I’m somewhere in between, I personally don’t macro it into my rotation with my other melee abilities as I feel this negates some of its usefulness and turns it into a lacklustre melee swing, wait for times when there has been a break in damage from a boss, a time when the group has had to avoid some aoe or similar situations and hammer it onto your target then to get a good amount of threat and put the heal to some use, it will only ever be as good as you yourself make it.
Moving swiftly onto choosing a build:
Basic Justicar builds.
Here are a number of straightforward setups, easy to pick up which cover very general tank needs and skills. If you are looking for an off-spec to use simply when your designated tank is away, or are just getting to grips with cleric tanking, I recommend using one of the following:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10nrG.Mcd.EuRsqeekRR.VM
51/8/7 Just/Sham/Pur. The armour buff from purifier procs from each heal by reparation and salvation, making almost 100% uptime, however it does not scale, so the actual increase comes to 1-2% instead of the 6% shown.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10nrd.ccd.EuRsqeekRR.V0z
51/9/6 Just/Sham/Inq. My Personal favourite, Extra endurance form inquisitor and mildly useful spellcrit, great for learning new fights providing you with extra durability for when you need it. Currently Devotion is superior to Treachery however next patch Treachery will be changed to Armour + endurance, making it the obvious choice for tanking, and giving you one point to spend as you wish in Inquisitor.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rno.EuRsqeekRR.ccd.Vz
51/8/6 Just/Sham/Cab. Maximum magic resistance, still pitiful but it’s the best defence available against generic magic damage.
Speccing for Secondary tree abilities.
Now we move onto builds which may retract the 51 points from Justicar to take specific abilities, these builds will still be able to tank encounters which do not require such specific spells, whether or not you respec each time is up to you, however the current census is that taking less than 38 points in justicar will begin to affect your ability to take damage and control the fight adequately, so always bare that in mind:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnd.VuRsVee00o.ccd.VLz
Purge, taking that many points in Inquisitor and keeping the 10% healing from shaman means you won’t have enough points to go 51 Justicar, personally I either spec 51 Justicar or 38, and nowhere in between, hence I left the extra talents up to you to place as you wish, probably the best places are Overwhelming and Fanatic Faith, followed by Reprive and Light Makes Right, although some like taking Contempt and incorporating Vex into their rotation.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rnG.VuRsVeezoo.ied0zMs0z
Battle Charge, great for movement when there may be loose adds or casters which will also break slows/snares. If you want to take points out of Shaman you can drop to 21 to only go as far as Maelstrom or drop even further down to 16 to pick up jolt, however dropping any further begs the question of why going any further than Valnir just to gain filler talents when the same bonus can be taken from Inquisitor, gaining the much more useful purge.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10ran.VuRsVeezoo.EV0o0z.Mcd
Silence [Druid], a little extra endurance [does not stack with mien of leadership] and some melee damage to pick up silence and the less useful slumber, the third tree here is Shaman again, though you should note that Shield of Oak and Glacial shield do not stack so either work around this or trade Shaman for Inquisitor at your own discretion.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rne.VuRsVee00o.Mcd.xxbx
Ebb and Flow/Restorative Tide, somewhat unconventional in the sense that it is heavily reliant on casted heals but at the current end game similar builds are gaining more and more attention as clerics are forced to find ways to match the survivability of other tanks, particularly during magic heavy fights [more on this momentarily]. This build also picks up a shorter cooldown silence, cleanse plus one heal improved by 50% every 45 seconds [Can be used with Reprive for an enormous instant heal], you can also spam waterjet if a mob gets out of range. Note: Ebb and flow does not proc from salvation/reparation but at current any clerics attempting Greenscale are building around maximising ability to spam heal themselves [even through the 40% reduction of leadership], hence the stacking buff becomes more attractive as it is generally more PV, point for point, than other talents due to its maintenance requirements. Another, less effective Greenscale build is below, this time using purifier:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnG.VuRsVeezoo.Mcd.VgoV
Surviving heavy magic & Greenscale.
There may come a day, a bleak day, when all of the warriors and tank specced rogues are on hiatus and you may be asked to attempt Greenscale, previously it has only been your job to spam your Aoe heal during the airphase and place Righteous mandate on the real tank. Now everyone looks to you to decide whether your team will raid tonight or not, and you are outright the worst tank for this, but with a dedicated group who are willing to listen, and of course an appropriate spec of your own, it can be done. The biggest concern will be living through Noxious Fumes, and then if you mange to survive that, being able to take the following cleave which will undoubtedly finish you off if you aren't prepared for it. The amount of magic damage reduction available to clerics is currently 18%, topped off with 40 resist if you take the cabalist buff, in short - this is nowhere near enough. You will need to string cooldowns to get through this plus use some of your time to heal yourself, 51 Justicar will fail you, think less of your group utility and get selfish with the heals, now lets deconstruct some essentials within Justicar and then examine where to add you remaining points:
-Light makes Right, essential, you want a full stack of convictions before Noxious Fumes casts, this will get you there faster if you use some up on Refuge or bliss prior
-Reprive, goes without saying, you might survive one cast with this alone as long as your healer is on form, use it early/use it twice
-Just Defense, another cooldown which you will absolutely need, a 1 minute timer means you can get this off on every other cast/every third cast of Noxious fumes
As the main tank, you can drop Vengeful Justice for this fight, and while Resplendent embrace seems like another awesome tool to use here, it requires too much investment into talents which won't be of much use. Doctrine of Valiance is still trash, don't take it. Like in the two specs above, pre-emptive instant heals will be what save you, you may want to tweak the purifier build to pick up Latent Blaze:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnG.VuRsVxekoo.Mcb.qgkV00z
Drop Glacial shield as it wont interact with Caregiver's blessing or Ancestral ward, Searing Transfusion is also very useful.
Our loving community. ☮
If you have any more vastly different specs used for tanking that you wish to share, then get in touch and you will be fully credited! Keep comments constructive, if you don't agree - then say why and what you would do instead.
I hope this is of use to someone, somewhere, and as noted this is a community discussion so send some input and share your ideas, you could be the next big thing!
~Ash.
[/size]
Original link: forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?177516-Justicar-builds-amp-abilities-Community-discussion-board.
Ashrawr said:
It seems many threads about a variety of topics surrounding Justicar abilities will produce a number of recurring questions and fights about what to spec and why, so with my day off I thought I'd give it a go making one thread to focus the discussions and potentially provide the answers some people are looking for which form the foundations of any tanking character, or even better, start more questions for progressive thought.
NB:I’ve always held the belief that there is enough wiggle room within rift that taking the spec you enjoy using the most [within reason] will produce the best results, you’ll focus yourself more, push yourself harder and make fewer petty mistakes which may occur from drudging through a spec and/or rotation which you don’t enjoy. Imo these factors>any minor difference between an extra 1% in armour or melee damage resulting from tiny spec differences, most of the specs I post here have Shaman as the secondary soul, this is merely personal preference as I feel it has the most widely applicable tank-friendly abilities in the early tiers, however in any build where points only go as far as Valnir, feel free to change out the tree as you see fit.
This thread is focused on builds for raids/rifts/5man PvE tanking.
For Justicar information relating to soloing/Aoe levelling take a look at Melkrow’s fantastic thread.
For Senticar information, check VeroProdigy’s take on the very fun and dynamic spec here
Introduction
Just to ground the discussion, and for anyone seeking information on how to take their first steps into becoming a cleric tank:
-Your armour will not change, though you may want to opt for a 1hander with extra endurance or some form of mitigation stats if there is one available, if not, a normal spellpower weapon will still serve you well enough.
-You should always use a shield, there was originally some discussion about opting to drop your shield in favour of a totem or 2 hander to generate additional threat, relying on the extra spellpower to provide parry. Unfortunately The parry cap (20%) is very easy to reach, even without trying, the mana/mitigation lost by dropping a shield is simply not worth it.
-Each point spent in Justicar increases armour by 1%, ergo each point spent elsewhere comes at a cost of extra physical mitigation.
-Justicar damage is almost all Life damage, beware of talents which increase physical damage [such as Dauntless Courage tier one, Shaman] when choosing filler talents. While they seem like a better investment than crit which wouldn’t scale as well, it will only affect a small portion of your damage, making spell or physical crit generally superior [the exception to the rule is Hammer of Virtue, as this increases ability damage].
-Focus, it's important, 220 is the cap - although being slightly under is acceptable, you still want to aim to reach the cap as best you can within reason.
-Doctrine of Authority, sometimes referred to as Doctrine of bad, Doctrine of 51pt fanboys, or simply the 51pt GoTryFrenchOpera of my raid bomb. This almost warrants it’s own thread due to how much some people loathe/love it. I’m somewhere in between, I personally don’t macro it into my rotation with my other melee abilities as I feel this negates some of its usefulness and turns it into a lacklustre melee swing, wait for times when there has been a break in damage from a boss, a time when the group has had to avoid some aoe or similar situations and hammer it onto your target then to get a good amount of threat and put the heal to some use, it will only ever be as good as you yourself make it.
Moving swiftly onto choosing a build:
Basic Justicar builds.
Here are a number of straightforward setups, easy to pick up which cover very general tank needs and skills. If you are looking for an off-spec to use simply when your designated tank is away, or are just getting to grips with cleric tanking, I recommend using one of the following:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10nrG.Mcd.EuRsqeekRR.VM
51/8/7 Just/Sham/Pur. The armour buff from purifier procs from each heal by reparation and salvation, making almost 100% uptime, however it does not scale, so the actual increase comes to 1-2% instead of the 6% shown.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10nrd.ccd.EuRsqeekRR.V0z
51/9/6 Just/Sham/Inq. My Personal favourite, Extra endurance form inquisitor and mildly useful spellcrit, great for learning new fights providing you with extra durability for when you need it. Currently Devotion is superior to Treachery however next patch Treachery will be changed to Armour + endurance, making it the obvious choice for tanking, and giving you one point to spend as you wish in Inquisitor.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rno.EuRsqeekRR.ccd.Vz
51/8/6 Just/Sham/Cab. Maximum magic resistance, still pitiful but it’s the best defence available against generic magic damage.
Speccing for Secondary tree abilities.
Now we move onto builds which may retract the 51 points from Justicar to take specific abilities, these builds will still be able to tank encounters which do not require such specific spells, whether or not you respec each time is up to you, however the current census is that taking less than 38 points in justicar will begin to affect your ability to take damage and control the fight adequately, so always bare that in mind:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnd.VuRsVee00o.ccd.VLz
Purge, taking that many points in Inquisitor and keeping the 10% healing from shaman means you won’t have enough points to go 51 Justicar, personally I either spec 51 Justicar or 38, and nowhere in between, hence I left the extra talents up to you to place as you wish, probably the best places are Overwhelming and Fanatic Faith, followed by Reprive and Light Makes Right, although some like taking Contempt and incorporating Vex into their rotation.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rnG.VuRsVeezoo.ied0zMs0z
Battle Charge, great for movement when there may be loose adds or casters which will also break slows/snares. If you want to take points out of Shaman you can drop to 21 to only go as far as Maelstrom or drop even further down to 16 to pick up jolt, however dropping any further begs the question of why going any further than Valnir just to gain filler talents when the same bonus can be taken from Inquisitor, gaining the much more useful purge.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10ran.VuRsVeezoo.EV0o0z.Mcd
Silence [Druid], a little extra endurance [does not stack with mien of leadership] and some melee damage to pick up silence and the less useful slumber, the third tree here is Shaman again, though you should note that Shield of Oak and Glacial shield do not stack so either work around this or trade Shaman for Inquisitor at your own discretion.
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=10rne.VuRsVee00o.Mcd.xxbx
Ebb and Flow/Restorative Tide, somewhat unconventional in the sense that it is heavily reliant on casted heals but at the current end game similar builds are gaining more and more attention as clerics are forced to find ways to match the survivability of other tanks, particularly during magic heavy fights [more on this momentarily]. This build also picks up a shorter cooldown silence, cleanse plus one heal improved by 50% every 45 seconds [Can be used with Reprive for an enormous instant heal], you can also spam waterjet if a mob gets out of range. Note: Ebb and flow does not proc from salvation/reparation but at current any clerics attempting Greenscale are building around maximising ability to spam heal themselves [even through the 40% reduction of leadership], hence the stacking buff becomes more attractive as it is generally more PV, point for point, than other talents due to its maintenance requirements. Another, less effective Greenscale build is below, this time using purifier:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnG.VuRsVeezoo.Mcd.VgoV
Surviving heavy magic & Greenscale.
There may come a day, a bleak day, when all of the warriors and tank specced rogues are on hiatus and you may be asked to attempt Greenscale, previously it has only been your job to spam your Aoe heal during the airphase and place Righteous mandate on the real tank. Now everyone looks to you to decide whether your team will raid tonight or not, and you are outright the worst tank for this, but with a dedicated group who are willing to listen, and of course an appropriate spec of your own, it can be done. The biggest concern will be living through Noxious Fumes, and then if you mange to survive that, being able to take the following cleave which will undoubtedly finish you off if you aren't prepared for it. The amount of magic damage reduction available to clerics is currently 18%, topped off with 40 resist if you take the cabalist buff, in short - this is nowhere near enough. You will need to string cooldowns to get through this plus use some of your time to heal yourself, 51 Justicar will fail you, think less of your group utility and get selfish with the heals, now lets deconstruct some essentials within Justicar and then examine where to add you remaining points:
-Light makes Right, essential, you want a full stack of convictions before Noxious Fumes casts, this will get you there faster if you use some up on Refuge or bliss prior
-Reprive, goes without saying, you might survive one cast with this alone as long as your healer is on form, use it early/use it twice
-Just Defense, another cooldown which you will absolutely need, a 1 minute timer means you can get this off on every other cast/every third cast of Noxious fumes
As the main tank, you can drop Vengeful Justice for this fight, and while Resplendent embrace seems like another awesome tool to use here, it requires too much investment into talents which won't be of much use. Doctrine of Valiance is still trash, don't take it. Like in the two specs above, pre-emptive instant heals will be what save you, you may want to tweak the purifier build to pick up Latent Blaze:
rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00rnG.VuRsVxekoo.Mcb.qgkV00z
Drop Glacial shield as it wont interact with Caregiver's blessing or Ancestral ward, Searing Transfusion is also very useful.
Our loving community. ☮
If you have any more vastly different specs used for tanking that you wish to share, then get in touch and you will be fully credited! Keep comments constructive, if you don't agree - then say why and what you would do instead.
I hope this is of use to someone, somewhere, and as noted this is a community discussion so send some input and share your ideas, you could be the next big thing!
~Ash.
Original link: forums.riftgame.com/showthread.php?177516-Justicar-builds-amp-abilities-Community-discussion-board.