What should I spell school focus clerics/oracles in?

[dataseer21]

This is just a question. I already like clerics and think they are like a top 3 class. However I don't know what the feat spell focus(or whatever the spell school one was) should focus on. Before I would focus on healing and buffs. So i wonder what works for other people. I think there is some love given to necromancy. However I am unsure what other areas I should focus on for an offensive cleric casting machine. Perhaps this is on purpose and clerics aren't supposed to have offensive casting spells but they have some. They have offensive spells but they seem to be kind of all over the place. With Angel though I already know that dispel magic is good.

I could just focus on meta magic and spell penetration I suppose. Persistent(I think that is the one with a reroll) spell should work for offensive spells.

[dataseer21]

Having a cleric focus on domains. Having a cleric focus on healing. Having a cleric focus on buffs. All three I found are viable.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by dataseer21:

This is just a question. I already like clerics and think they are like a top 3 class. However I don't know what the feat spell focus(or whatever the spell school one was) should focus on. Before I would focus on healing and buffs. So i wonder what works for other people. I think there is some love given to necromancy. However I am unsure what other areas I should focus on for an offensive cleric casting machine. Perhaps this is on purpose and clerics aren't supposed to have offensive casting spells but they have some. They have offensive spells but they seem to be kind of all over the place. With Angel though I already know that dispel magic is good.

I could just focus on meta magic and spell penetration I suppose. Persistent(I think that is the one with a reroll) spell should work for offensive spells.

Spell focus affects spell DC only, so only really adds to things the enemy saves against. So like if you just plan to heal allies, you don't need spell focus at all.

Dispel magic isn't affected by increasing it's DC. You can improve dispel magic via the various Dispel Feats, such as Improved Counterspell.

There is also a spell specialization feat chain related to spell focus, if there's a particular spell you'd want to cast at higher caster level.

Spell penetration, too, only matters for spells you cast on the enemy.

There is a feat chain for getting more out of summons via spell focus conjuration (gives access to augmented summoning and superior summoning).

Regarding piercing SR, you got Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Piercing Spell metamagic (added with latest DLC), and Elven Magic (half-elves and elves can take if they don't have it as part of their race).

[Outlaw]

Oracle has so many amazing buffs that I simply can't find enough spell slots for offensive spells. I prefer to spend all spells on buffs before the fight, and during the battle, ride on a wolf and strike with a sword. So I dont need school focus.

[Deo]

It depends on which Domains you picked, because Domains give you spells. So Cleric is very versatile caster in the end.

What I do not recommend to miss, is picking two new feats for Dispel (+2 and another +2 to Dispel caster level roll), and Destructive Dispel. While the DC of Destructive Dispel is nothing to brag about usually, the amount of buffs on enemies - and in turn, the amount of dispelled effects from them is enormous. This leads to huge chance for bosses to roll 1 on save and be Stunned. Stun is best crowd control, hands down.

The amount of times I dispelled a boss, stunned them and killed in the same turn is quite huge. The amount of times I stunned them on second turn again, while dispelling another part of effects, is lesser - but it still happened.

There is also currently a bug (or maybe it's not a bug, who knows) - if you have Corruptor mythic and casted Crusader's Edge on your damage dealer, after his crit demons will not be immune to nauseated. Even demon lords

[revan1229]

I always have Sosiel focus on Enchantment + Necromancy or Evocation.

Greater Command and Overwhelming Presence are excellent spells, and there is lots of gear to support Enchantment DC.

Necromancy has Bestow Curse and Plague Storm. Plus, there is a heavy armor that gives another +1 for Necro DCs.

For Evocation, Clerics get Flame Strike, Firestorm, and Stormbolts, but I use it mostly to increase the DC of Archon's Aura.

[dataseer21]

Originally posted by revan1229:

I always have Sosiel focus on Enchantment + Necromancy or Evocation.

Greater Command and Overwhelming Presence are excellent spells, and there is lots of gear to support Enchantment DC.

Necromancy has Bestow Curse and Plague Storm. Plus, there is a heavy armor that gives another +1 for Necro DCs.

For Evocation, Clerics get Flame Strike, Firestorm, and Stormbolts, but I use it mostly to increase the DC of Archon's Aura.

I was curious. For wizards usually people focus on exploiting like 4-5 spells with all of the focuses. I was thinking that necromancy also has bone shatter and bone shaker. Some of those spells come on late though.

[LArc7thHeaven]

For buffbot you don't need much spell penetration since it's rarely need to bypass spell resistance BUT if you want to attack aka use damaging spell then you need that. Focus your cleric as buff and healbot because there are a lot of better offensive caster and with dip in loremaster wizard can cast cleric's offensive spell with better potency compared to cleric

[Chronocide]

Oh, if you do go oracle, there's Oracle's burden, which if it actually works, can be pretty impressive, depending on your curse as oracle. That's a necromancy spell.

Like if you have blackened, gives the enemy -4 to attack.

[Edstyles]

Originally posted by dataseer21:

This is just a question. I already like clerics and think they are like a top 3 class. However I don't know what the feat spell focus(or whatever the spell school one was) should focus on. Before I would focus on healing and buffs. So i wonder what works for other people. I think there is some love given to necromancy. However I am unsure what other areas I should focus on for an offensive cleric casting machine. Perhaps this is on purpose and clerics aren't supposed to have offensive casting spells but they have some. They have offensive spells but they seem to be kind of all over the place. With Angel though I already know that dispel magic is good.

I could just focus on meta magic and spell penetration I suppose. Persistent(I think that is the one with a reroll) spell should work for offensive spells.

hard question . cause both can do alot . they can do it all but master of none. So its more about playstyle.
Cleric in general has some very good enchanting spells some of the best in the game. It also has some decent evocation spells and decent conjuration spells. These are the 3 i would focus on .

Imo clerics have way too few spell slots so therefor i rather have an oracle buffing. So daeran is good here. Clerics are good at domains which is their strong ability. What i prefer to do on Daeran is go conjuration kinda fits with his theme as well. He doesnt have many strong conjuration spells tho sadly . Id rather have him focus on evocation , but he doesnt have the feats to go around taking a bunch of different things so i rather put him on a more support role with buffs , summons and blinding people with glitterdust as it doesnt require any spell pen you can get this with oracle mything feat also gives mirror image so you get 2 really strong spells in one go and fits his theme. Later he learns a few other good conjuration spells ,tho not many so some loremaster might be a good idea.

If you dont mind waiting until later ingame focusing on evocation is also really good. Probably the best. But takes a while to come online as he is feat starved and spell starved with all the buffing and the really good evo spells come late game.

Sociel for instance imo requires a mount for him to move around also helps with other things. he takes too long to start working to some extent. He is a domain bot .

[Outpost Omega 5]

This comes more from experience with PF: KM, not PF: WotR, but I took Greater/Spell Focus with enchantment and then necromancy. The primary role of my cleric in the party was that of healer and buffer, but being able to peg an enemy with a "Hold <Something>" spell from the enchantment school and than unleashes coup de gras on them until go down is highly effective. I picked necromancy because that seems to be where the core of a clerics outright attack spells come from.

Spell penetration is pretty much a mandatory feat for any spell caster who intends to cast spells on enemies and not just buff your party.

Of course my first feat choice was "selective channeling".

I should also note I used a mod to allow me to respec all the NPCs from level 1 to get rid of the less than optimal choice made by the game's default builds. I kept the NPCs as their originally designed classes, I didn't turn a cleric into a druid, or anything like that, and I didn't change anything clearly tied to their background like a clerics deity and domain selection, but I actually gave them feats and class abilities that made the usable.

[Edstyles]

Also i wouldnt focus on necromancy at least not as my 1st option. Its either enchanting or evo and conjuration as oracle. You cant go wrong with enchanting , but you need a backup plan as some mobs are immune like undead . So you either have some evo spells as backup or you dip sorc for bloodline.

Tho even if enchanting is effective its also not very fun. The spells are quite boring at least imo. While necro evo and conjuration have cooler spells and dont require any dipping.

[Belegc]

Clerics - Evocation + Necromancy
Oracles - Conjuration (for summoning) + Abjuration

[john_boy]

Merged with angel ? Conjuration - mainly for orbital nuke, you also get rift of ruin which it'll help with too

[revan1229]

Originally posted by Edstyles:

Originally posted by dataseer21:

This is just a question. I already like clerics and think they are like a top 3 class. However I don't know what the feat spell focus(or whatever the spell school one was) should focus on. Before I would focus on healing and buffs. So i wonder what works for other people. I think there is some love given to necromancy. However I am unsure what other areas I should focus on for an offensive cleric casting machine. Perhaps this is on purpose and clerics aren't supposed to have offensive casting spells but they have some. They have offensive spells but they seem to be kind of all over the place. With Angel though I already know that dispel magic is good.

I could just focus on meta magic and spell penetration I suppose. Persistent(I think that is the one with a reroll) spell should work for offensive spells.

hard question . cause both can do alot . they can do it all but master of none. So its more about playstyle.
Cleric in general has some very good enchanting spells some of the best in the game. It also has some decent evocation spells and decent conjuration spells. These are the 3 i would focus on .

Imo clerics have way too few spell slots so therefor i rather have an oracle buffing. So daeran is good here. Clerics are good at domains which is their strong ability. What i prefer to do on Daeran is go conjuration kinda fits with his theme as well. He doesnt have many strong conjuration spells tho sadly . Id rather have him focus on evocation , but he doesnt have the feats to go around taking a bunch of different things so i rather put him on a more support role with buffs , summons and blinding people with glitterdust as it doesnt require any spell pen you can get this with oracle mything feat also gives mirror image so you get 2 really strong spells in one go and fits his theme. Later he learns a few other good conjuration spells ,tho not many so some loremaster might be a good idea.

If you dont mind waiting until later ingame focusing on evocation is also really good. Probably the best. But takes a while to come online as he is feat starved and spell starved with all the buffing and the really good evo spells come late game.

Sociel for instance imo requires a mount for him to move around also helps with other things. he takes too long to start working to some extent. He is a domain bot .

I don't take a mount for Sosiel anymore. If you use him as a caster, it's not necessary, and Bismuth exists anyway. It also uses up a feat (Boon Companion) and a Mythic Ability (Mythical Beast) that could be used elsewhere.

And with all of the Pearls of Power added to the game, Sosiel has a slot of spells to work.

[reidj062]

Originally posted by dataseer21:

This is just a question. I already like clerics and think they are like a top 3 class. However I don't know what the feat spell focus(or whatever the spell school one was) should focus on. Before I would focus on healing and buffs. So i wonder what works for other people. I think there is some love given to necromancy. However I am unsure what other areas I should focus on for an offensive cleric casting machine. Perhaps this is on purpose and clerics aren't supposed to have offensive casting spells but they have some. They have offensive spells but they seem to be kind of all over the place. With Angel though I already know that dispel magic is good.

I could just focus on meta magic and spell penetration I suppose. Persistent(I think that is the one with a reroll) spell should work for offensive spells.

For mine, I tend to focus on evocation and necromancy.