Rift Cleric Soul Tree Builds Guide

In this article, I will be revealing the best Rift Cleric builds that you can use to mold the Cleric calling to your exact playstyle. By using these Rift game Cleric builds mentioned in this article, you will find that the Cleric is capable of fulfilling every single role in the game!

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Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Solo Play Builds
3. Group Play Builds
4. Healing Builds
5. Tanking Builds
6. Leveling Builds
7. DPS Builds
8. PvP Builds

Introduction

In Rift you will be selecting three souls which will be the basis for all of your character’s abilities, generally you will have one main soul and two other souls which will mainly be used for the starter abilities they give. In this Rift Cleric builds guide I will be discussing the Cleric souls, what they do, and which ones I suggest that you should use.

If you’re looking to be a healer in Rift you’re going to want to choose the Cleric class. However, there is also the route of melee DPS, ranged DPS, and also the ability to tank which makes this the most versatile class of them all. Of the eight souls the Cleric has one possible tanking spec which is the Justicar, however it is not recommended to attempt using this for tanking right now. The Cleric also has the Shaman and Druid souls for melee DPSing, the Inquisitor and Cabalist for ranged DPS, and finally the Warden, Sentinal, and Purifier for the three healing souls.

In Rift you’re able to purchase up to four separate roles for your character, and when setting up these roles you’ll want to make at least one for soloing and one for grouping. When playing a cleric it is wise to have a group healing role, a solo dpsing role, as well as a group dpsing role.

Solo Play Builds

When soloing as a cleric you’ll want to choose between ranged or melee DPS. If you choose ranged you are going to want Inquisitor as your main soul with Warden and Purifier as your off-souls as these provide 0pt abilities that give you a heal over time as well as a damage absorption shield. Inquisitor has great nuke spells which when coupled with the DoTs make it a very efficient damage soul.

Now you don’t want to forget all about the melee option, you’ll want to go with Druid as your main soul and have Warden and Shaman as your off souls. Druid’s are given a Faerie pet that will heal you whenever you take damage which makes this a great soul for soloing. You’ll want to disable your pets auto ranged attack that does not do a whole lot of damage and eats away at your pets mana which you’ll want to reserve for the healing it will do for you. One thing to note is you will want to use the Shaman’s base ability instead of the Druid’s. Overall this build makes for a lot of damage along with a great amount of self healing making it the best soloing build hands down.

Group Play Builds

Now if you’re going to be playing in a group and you want to stay as damage, you can simply use the same souls I mentioned early and tweak them to give less healing and more damage. As for healing however you’ll want to choose what kind of healer you want to be before picking your souls. Purifier has a lot of really big heals and shields, the Warden is a heal over time healer, and the Sentinel has some instant healing and a lot of aoe group healing. You will want to use all of these together for healing as they all come with great 0pt abilities for healing.

Healing Builds

The Cleric is by far the best healer in the entire game. With that said, there are two primary souls you will want to invest in: Sentinel and Warden.

In particular, you will want to put 32 points into Cleric and 26 points into Warden. This allows you to pick up Life’s Return, Cascade, and Refreshing Communion. Life’s Return is a combat-enabled resurrection spell (highly useful) while Cascade and Refreshing Communion ensure you never have mana problems.

You have a few options for this Rift Cleric healing build: you can continue to put points into Wardento pick up Healing Showers (powerful AoE heal), or you can put some points into Purifier to get extra crit, reduced spell push-back, and an endurance buff. It depends on the encounter.

With that said, here are key talents to get:

• Sentinel: Benediction, Light Concentration, Light Efficiency, Embolden, Protect the Flock, Healing Invocation, Refreshing Communion
• Warden: Aquatic Affinity, Surging Rapids, Fluidity, Ebb and Flow, Orbs of the Stream, Cascade

After that, it is up to personal preference and gear. For example, when leveling up your critical hit rate with spells will be very low. As a result, a talent like Serendipity is not very useful. However, once you get better gear and start critting more, you may find that it gets a lot better.

Tanking Builds

When it comes to Cleric tanks, no soul is better than the Justicar with a Shaman back-up. There are a few viable Rift Cleric Builds:

• Rift Cleric Build #1: 51 points in Justicar, 15 points in Shaman, Purifier equipped (but no points). This gives all of the Justicar talents and abilities while giving you the +15% healing, -5% damage reduction and elemental resistance from Shaman. Equipping Purifier gives you access to self-shield.
• Rift Cleric Build #2: 51 points in Justicar, 13 in Shaman, 2 in Druid. In this build, you pull out points of the “Heart” buffs in exchange for Oak Shield from Druid. Useful for enemies which deal in physical damage, as Oak Shield absorbs a lot more damage than the Purifier’s Shield of the Ancestors.
• Rift Cleric Build #3: 45 Justicar, 21 Shaman, 0 Purifier. Pull 6 points out of Justicar (3 from Healer’s Creed, 2 from Forced to Kneel, and 1 from Commitment). In Shaman, pick up Heart of the Twilight Forest and Shared Purpose. This allows you to get resistance for you and your raid for all schools of magic damage.

With that said, all builds require these Thick Skinned and Favor of the Valnir in Shaman. Reducing damage taken by an extra 5% and increasing healing received by 15% is necessary for making a good tanking Rift Cleric build.

Leveling Builds

For leveling, I prefer a combination of Shaman, Justicar, and Druid. There is a lot to this build; more details can be found in the Rift Cleric leveling guide.

DPS Builds

While Clerics are not meant built for damage, there is one interesting spec you can go that makes Clerics an exceedingly effective area of effect class. In other words, for any encounter that requires you to deal damage to multiple enemies at once, Clerics might even outshine Mages with this spec.

The recommend Cleric DPS build is actually 33 Cabalist and 33 Inquisitor. You will want to pick up the following key talents:

• Cabalist: Death’s Grasp, Explosive Energies, Broad Strokes, Deep Water, Maelstrom, Death’s Dominion, , Negation of Life, Undertow, Surge, Sigil of Ravaging
• Inquisitor: Inner Focus, Armor of Devotion, Fanatics Faith, Aggressive Renewal, Clinging Spirit, Fanaticism, Corporal Punishment, Circle of Oblivion

The applications of the AoE of these classes is significant. Between talented Maelstrom, Grasping Waters, and Binding Waters, large numbers of enemies will be stuck in place.

Combine that with powerful AoE and healing abilities like Sigil of Decay (with Broad Strokes), Devouring Mist, Engulfing Shadows, and Circle of Oblivion, this class becomes an AoE damage-dealing machine.

This spec also does good single-target damage, but not quite on par with the other damage-dealing callings (Cleric is the primary healer, after all).

PvP Builds

There are a variety of viable PvP builds. With that said, PvP souls are still under development so I do not currently have a list of the best Rift Cleric builds for PvP. With that said, amongst the 8 souls that are available:

• Purifier is the best PvP healing tree
• Inquisitor is the best PvP damage-dealer for 1v1 and small scale battles due to the large number of self-heals
• Cabalist is the best damage-dealer for AoE
• Melee Clerics are not effective in PvP

Odds are the some hybrid of the PvP Cleric soul will combine with the one of the three souls above. For example, it is extremely likely that the Priest PvP Soul plus Inquisitor will make the best 1v1 class, whereas Purifier plus the PvP soul will make the best PvP healer. We will see as PvP souls are released!

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You can also find example cleric soul builds here. When all is said and done, you now have a lot of great Rift Cleric builds that you can test and try out to your heart’s content. There are a lot of great talents for the Cleric, so be sure to test them all out and see what works best for you.