Hey, I'm just returning to DAoC from quitting back in 2003/2004 or so, so I am pretty rusty on everything.

Are Smite Clerics any good, or overall useless? I googled quite a bit and I couldn't find anything on them.

You should really try to skill a cleric the "classic" way (Enh, Rejuv). There are always level groups around and clerics are needed everywhere, so you won't have trouble getting in a group even if you are a bit lower.

i got a 50 smite cleric 4L3...

smite really rocks very much in BGs and i hardly ever lost any unadded 1 on 1 except for well SCed tanks (warrior, hero, thanes, champs)...

however in end-rvr smite cleric just sucks....every1 has purge3, so mezz will practically always be purged...the advantage of buffs is negated by most ppl having charges or pots...and due to most ppl having dd-charges it's even had to do the smite-smite-stun-smite-smite-smite-thingie on inc...maybe with cleric rr5 or higher rr and moc etc. it's a little different, but low rr smiter is useless in end rvr...the only thing you can kill is unbuffed low-rrs, that don't have purge up and don't have too much defense (parry/shield-spec)...

Jezzmin wrote:i got a 50 smite cleric 4L3...

smite really rocks very much in BGs and i hardly ever lost any unadded 1 on 1 except for well SCed tanks (warrior, hero, thanes, champs)...

however in end-rvr smite cleric just sucks....every1 has purge3, so mezz will practically always be purged...the advantage of buffs is negated by most ppl having charges or pots...and due to most ppl having dd-charges it's even had to do the smite-smite-stun-smite-smite-smite-thingie on inc...maybe with cleric rr5 or higher rr and moc etc. it's a little different, but low rr smiter is useless in end rvr...the only thing you can kill is unbuffed low-rrs, that don't have purge up and don't have too much defense (parry/shield-spec)...

Thanks for the input. I mostly solo, which is why I was thinking of going smite Cleric (I know probably isn't the best class for soloing, but I always wanted to play a smite Cleric on live) at least until endgame, maybe then switch to rejuv/enh. What kind of spec did you use leveling up?

can't remember...i tried to always have a rather high smite...also important: get the first spec-buffs fast...+~25 dex and str (from specs) is a major difference

let's take BG-levels for examples - just tested some specs that look fine in char-calc ( http://nixianplay.com/index.php?page=ch ... ass=cleric )

level 34 - braemar:
reju 11 (cure poison/disease, 40% single inst)
enh 17 (2nd s/c and d/q, first dmg+-buff)
smite 27 (level 27 dd)

level 42 wilton:
11 reju
21 enh (third specs)
35 smite (L35 smite)

level 48 thid:
15 reju
21 enh
44 smite (last dd, last mezz)

final: 23 reju (60% single inst, 50% grp inst), 21 enh, 44 smite...dunno if that's a good spec but it works very well in pve and worked very well in BGs...don't think anything will work at all for low rr smiters in end rvr

hmm.. smitecleric.... hmm

i guess, you will have fun with him/her in the BGs, but in rvr...

1.st, you will not find a grp, with smite-spec you lose too much utility for the group
.. so you will move solo the whole time... and when u move solo, you should have at least, moc3, purge2, rp2, some dmg-ras and maybe bof2+ .... to survive

nearly the whole time, you will not be able to smite, you will use more the mighty hammer, cause nearly every solo-enemies has purge2+ .. so maybe a buffbot-cleric is a more effective smite-cleric

but gl with the try.. maybe you will be the first mighty smite-cleric on uth

Galydun wrote:so maybe a buffbot-cleric is a more effective smite-cleric

due to the fact, that i knew every1 would purge my mezz i was thinking the same...but with my smiter i noticed that i was almost unable to hit any melee-class often enough to do any dmg and buffs prolly won't change anything on that...if i only land a hit in 25% of the cases (if at all) a buff-cleric is even more useless...the advantage here on a smiter is, that you at least get a pbae dmg off every no and then...

anyway: smiter sucks in rvr without the Ras mentioned above

My first 50 on live back in 2002 was a Smite cleric. If this was a true classic server and smite was godlike like it was then I would say yes but its not.

5 minutes on your AE Mezz. Worthless smite dmg. No point. None at all.

svperstar wrote:If this was a true classic server and smite was godlike like it was then I would say yes but its not.

Exactly. For such a classic server Uthgard says it is, it surely lacks a lot of what classic was, and smite is one of them. I will tell you that I leveled a smite cleric to 26 and it was surely a lot of fun in PVE, but I would hardly think I'd make it in RVR. Probably insta death. It's a shame really.

Oh well thanks for the input, I do remember Smite Clerics doing quite well in RvR when I first played, its too bad they are essentially irrelevant on Uthgard. However, I may still level one for PvE fun .

Keoki wrote:

svperstar wrote:If this was a true classic server and smite was godlike like it was then I would say yes but its not.

Exactly. For such a classic server Uthgard says it is, it surely lacks a lot of what classic was, and smite is one of them. I will tell you that I leveled a smite cleric to 26 and it was surely a lot of fun in PVE, but I would hardly think I'd make it in RVR. Probably insta death. It's a shame really.

imho it all boils down to three things:

- in older "classic" times there were no potions or charges and buffbots were not so common, so that smiters had the buff-advantage
- without RAs (very old classic times) or OF RAs ppl rarely had purge up (very crowded server, 30 min purge) and thus the mezz was very helpful back then
- mezz got nerfed from 30s timer to 5 min timer

these three things are what broke smiter's necks and uthgard is only "unclassic" in terms of RAs...mezz-reuse-timer and pots/charges are livelike for 1.69 patch limit (though i'd love to see them removed, but classic to me is some 1.4X or 1.5X patch anyway)

Jezzmin wrote:

Keoki wrote:

svperstar wrote:If this was a true classic server and smite was godlike like it was then I would say yes but its not.

Exactly. For such a classic server Uthgard says it is, it surely lacks a lot of what classic was, and smite is one of them. I will tell you that I leveled a smite cleric to 26 and it was surely a lot of fun in PVE, but I would hardly think I'd make it in RVR. Probably insta death. It's a shame really.

imho it all boils down to three things:

- in older "classic" times there were no potions or charges and buffbots were not so common, so that smiters had the buff-advantage
- without RAs (very old classic times) or OF RAs ppl rarely had purge up (very crowded server, 30 min purge) and thus the mezz was very helpful back then
- mezz got nerfed from 30s timer to 5 min timer

these three things are what broke smiter's necks and uthgard is only "unclassic" in terms of RAs...mezz-reuse-timer and pots/charges are livelike for 1.69 patch limit (though i'd love to see them removed, but classic to me is some 1.4X or 1.5X patch anyway)

Good points. I'd love Uthgard to be totally classic like when I first played it back in late 2001. It was unfortunate the way ToA ruined many things about the game.

You guys forgot to mention players were not exactly "Templated" back in the day in addition to their already existing heavy damage.

Patch 1.51 wrote:- The Cleric Smite line was re-tuned to bring this specific class/skill combination into line with other healers. The primary change was a reduction to the direct damage spells (single target and AE), which were doing the equivalent damage to a nuker direct damage spells. This was inappropriate due to offensive and defensive melee capabilities of the Cleric. The Heavenly Strike line (AE DD) now has had its radius increased to 350 at all levels, however.