Cleric Creation

Creation | Skills | AA's | Spells | Epic 1.0 | Epic 1.5 | Epic 2.0

The Cleric is one of the most fundamental classes in Everquest.  Looked at under the pain light of reality, Clerics keep people alive.  But there is a lot more to this class than just healing powers.

Clerics have the best health increasing buffs in the game.  With both their Symbol line of spells and their Courage line, they can at later levels give well over 1500 extra hit-points to people. Clerics also get an excellent line of AC increasing spells, and resistance buffs for all kinds of magical attacks. 

On the offensive side Clerics get a powerful series of magic based stun spells.  These can inflict a decent amount of damage whilst also serving as an effective stun to help other party members in crowd control, or to simply reduce the amount of attacks the enemy gets.  Clerics also get a series of Hammer Summon spells which enable them to summon weapons with special attacking abilities.

Clerics have the best resurrection spells in the game.  These serve to restore lost experience to people who have died, and to bring them back to their corpse if they were bound in a different zone.  This is perhaps the greatest asset of the class.   Clerics can complete a quest as they become more experienced to obtain a special item for this purpose.

Despite the fact that Clerics are one of only two pure caster classes which can wear plate, they are not suited to prolonged tanking which makes soloing difficult.  Whilst having some melee skills, at later levels they rely much more heavily on their magical abilities in combat.  Their high armor class does however afford them some extra protection from the mobs which are angered when they heal party members.

The cleric is an ideal group class, always sought after for both their buffs and heals.  The downside to this is that Clerics are often struggling for money due to the expensive cost of casting many of their most popular spells.  At later levels buffing can get expensive in component costs, and many groups forget to reimburse them.   

Clerics are almost always trying to recover mana, because of this Clerics can often be found with a Bard or Enchanter to help keep their mana flow constant.

Overall the Cleric is an interesting class to play.  They have sufficient HP, AC and offensive capability (both magic and melee) to be able to jump into the fray if you are in the mood.  Alternatively, they have enough magical power to simply hang back and heal, buff and stun if you want a more relaxed gameplay.  Finding a group is never difficult for Clerics, and it is rewarding knowing you save people from death every day of your life in Norrath.

Statistics

Strength: Strength determines how much you can carry.  It influences maximum and average damage and how quickly you learn many offensive skills.  For Clerics their are two main factors to consider in relation to this stat.  Firstly, Clerics wear plate armour which is quite heavy, and if wielding a weapon are heavier still.  This can greatly reduce the amount of space left for carrying things.   However, the second factor somewhat displaces this first one.  Clerics get a number of spells which increase their strength.  This somewhat lowers the need to not put bonus points into this statistic, but Strength will help in both your melee and general life in EQ, so some extra points here won't go astray.

Stamina: Stamina affects how many hit points you have, and how long you can hold your breath.  Stamina is a very important statistic since its one of the hardest stats to raise in game through the use of items.  While Clerics do get good hitpoint buffs, Stamina is considered one of the most important statistics in EverQuest currently.

Agility: Agility affects how quickly you can learn some defensive skills, how difficult it is to hit you as well as how much damage you take when you are hit.  The true effect of Agility is often debated.  Since clerics get hit a lot in combat, there is sound argument for putting points into this statistic.  However, it doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference, and there are quite a few Agility increasing items in the game.

Dexterity: Dexterity affects how quickly you learn weapon skills, and how often weapons will do their special.  This is important only in terms of the melee capacity of a Cleric.  Whilst at lower levels one will melee a lot, it will diminish as you raise higher.  It is not recommended to put bonus points into this statistic, but rather to focus on some extra dex items early in the game which you can later trade for other modifiers once you reduce the amount you melee.

Wisdom: Wisdom affects the amount of mana the priest classes have, also rangers and paladins.   It also affects how quickly you can learn many skills if your wisdom is higher than your Intelligence.  It is the core statistic for Clerics and a good amount of your bonus points should be allocated here.  Whilst some people may say it is easy to reach the soft cap of 200 wisdom through the many bonus items in the game, this is one stat which you can never have enough of.  Once you reach 200 you can then free up slots for other stat enchancers such as for hit-points, direct mana, or AC.

Intelligence: Intelligence directly affects how quickly you can learn most skills.  It affects the amount of mana for bards and all pure casters, as well as shadow knights.  Since a Cleric always has a higher wisdom, skill raising is based off that statistic.  Do not put bonus points into intelligence.

Charisma: This affects amount you will be paid for goods by NPC merchants, and how much they will pay you.  This is not a stat to worry about at creation.  Although vendor prices do add up for purchasing spell components, you can easily raise your charisma with in game items.

Choosing A Race

The first thing you have to pick then is your race.  Which race you pick will determine the foundation of your character for the rest of your life in Norrath so it is kind of important you pick one you like.  

In terms of Faction, only the Dark Elf Clerics generally have problems.  They will have difficulty trading in some areas and forced to seek out evil aligned vendors.

Experience wise halfling clerics level a little faster than the other races.  You should also be aware that the smaller races (Gnomes, Dwarves, Halflings) have restrictions on the size armours they can wear.  At later levels this is not so important however.  Dark Elves and Halflings get the ability to hide.  Halflings also get sneak.  This is a valuable asset to the Cleric since they get no standard invisibility spell, only able to cloak themselves from eyes of the undead.

Humans and Erudites have no form of night-vision.  This can make life difficult if you are not familiar with the geography of Norrath.

Gnomes have a very low wisdom, and because of this are rarely chosen as a cleric race.

Frogloks are the newest race option for Clerics introduced with the Legacy of Ykesha expansion.  Frogloks have excellent night vision and start out with strong swimming skills.

Base Statistics

Spending Your Bonus Points

In today’s EverQuest starting stats are not as crucial as they were in the beginning. We suggest maxing out your stamina stats first, and training the rest of your starting points in wisdom.

Religion

Clerics cannot be agnostic and are forced to choose a religion.  This does not create too many difficulties, except for Dark Elves.  The worship of evil gods can lead to some problems in some zones, but these can easily be avoided.   Choose a god which you think will tie in well with the nature of your character.