You have a cleric and you want to learn how to DPS? Or you already know, but you are tired of applying those Dark Water stacks? This build will provide great DPS with a more forgiving rotation…

This guide will show you how to do some awesome DPS with your cleric as a ranged caster. This build has awesome burst damage and even has a cleanse to help out your healer. Furthermore you can spam your macro whilst moving. Because the build uses two debuffs it is advisable to use an addon like Karuul Alert to assist with keeping track.

Advantages of the talent build:

1. Awesome burst damage
2. (Semi) permanent damage bonus of 15% on all damaging abilities
3. Spam your macro whilst moving
4. Better DPS on target switching
5. Not losing 3K dps from letting Dark Water stacks fall off
6. Cleanse to assist your healers
7. Trinke heals from Salvation

Advantages of the guide:

1. Easy to learn!
2. For all skill levels: New Player / Basic (Raid)  / Advanced rotations
3. Ability bar layout screenshot
4. Explanation of Inquisitor mechanics
5. Copy pastable Macro’s
6. Complete Karuul Alert set (Addon)

Disclaimer: This build is superior better for 90% of the players out there (all players not doing Plane Breaker bastion). Thanks to the 15% damage boost it is much more forgiving. This build is not the new theorycrafted best DPS build on a static dummie (or even on a static boss).

*Update: Karuul Alerts work now*

The “best” dps spec, according to guide write Ahov, is the 61 inquisitor / 10 cabalist/ 5 defiler spec. While Ahov’s guide are never “newbie” friendly this build also has some disadvantages.

1. You are investing  3 global cooldowns on applying Dark Water stacks. This results in a low damage start.
2. It requires attention to refresh Dark Water Stacks before they “fall off”. If you let them fall off, you have to re-apply 3 stacks. This will definitely hurt your dps!
3. The previous mechanic  contradicts the other debuffs; vex and scourge. On these debuffs it is better to let them fall off. (Because if you refresh it before the next damage “tick” you do NOT lose dps, and you can still use the GCD on a different ability).

So instead of explaining Ahov’s guide I will tell you about my favorite spec; the 61 Inquisitor /15 Defiler. It has no dark water! So that saves a lot of trouble… Because you are not wasting 3 GCD (global cooldowns) on applying the stacks the starting DPS is much higher. Useful for a lot of situations! On long parses you will lose about 500 dps on a 15.500 dps parse.

61 inquisitor /15 defiler / 0 Justicar

I recommend using Justicar for Salvation. You could keep 0 Cabalist but because you will not use Bound by fate or Shadow’s Touch anyway.

• BoJ macro*
• BoR macro*
• BoD macro*
• Scourge
• Vex
• Spiritual Deficiency (not in Raids)
• Nysur’s Rebuke
• Radial Coalesence
• Confound (interrupt)
• Purge
• Soul Drain
• Circle of Oblivion

I recommend not using more than 5 button for spells that you need to use often, and during movement (WSAD). To accomplish this the interrupt is on mouse5. Rebuke and Radieal Coallescence are on shift-mouse4 and shift-mouse5. The final keys are Q,E,R for the Purge, Soul Drain (AOE) and Circle of Oblivion (AoE).

• Spiritual Protection: 65 resistance on party
• Shroud of Agony: 20% chance to deal death damage to 10 nearby enemies over 6s
• Armor of Awakening: Increase damage done by 10% and Critical Hit 5%
• Spriritual Scrutiny: Reduce GCD of ranged abilities by 0.5s and mana cost by 35%, ignores 20% armor, reduce cast time of Bolt of Judgement by 1.5s
• Rage Blight: When damage applies rage: Increases damage by 1%, stacks 5x
• Blighted Greed: Trigger rage when the targets is damaged (apply on tank)

Basically Sprititual Scrutiny and Armor of Awakening are your most import buffs, besides those, all are important except Spiritual Protection.

Finisher

All damaging spells provide the caster with 1 stack of Life and Death Concord. At 5 stacks the player will receive “Unified Theory“. This will change the 3 seconds cast time of your Bolt of Deprevity (BoD) to instant. Therefore it is similar to attack points of the warrior and combo points on the rogue. Fanatism will give a 100% crit chance. Because Bolt of Deprevity is your hardest hitting spell we combine this with Fanatism in a macro. 

There is one issue though! The rift interface does NOT show these stacks anywhere but the top right menu. Therefore you are advised to use an AddOn like Karuul Alert to track the stacks. For more info check this guide: How to Track stacks with Karuul Alert (INSERT URL HERE)

Rebuke

Nysyr’s Rebuke is a 3 second channeled cast that provides you with 4 stacks. Create 5 stacks by casting another spell before, or after Rebuke.  To maximize your dps never cast it when you already have a few stacks. If you already have some stacks then first use your regular spells to gain 5 stacks, use your finisher (BoD) and THEN use Rebuke.

Keep in mind that you cannot move while casting rebuke, and you cannot spam keys during rebuke. Spamming keys will cancel the channeled spell!

Radial Coallescence

The Radial Coallesence will reset the Cooldown of ALL your abilities AND provide you with 5 stacks. It will reset both Rebuke and Fanatism! After activating Radial Coallesence you can spam BoD Macro twice (fanatism+finisher), Rebuke, spam Macro, and finisher to gain a nice damage burst.

To maximize dps make sure that Rebuke is already on cooldown. If it will be ready in <15 seconds then wait for it!

Cast time reduction (advanced!)

There is some dps gain in this mechanic (about 500) but it does require another Karuul Alert and a lot of attention from the user. Therefore it is advanced and not obligated!

Every time you transform your 5 stacks into damage with your finisher, you will receive a new buff called Echoing Concord. This buff will reduce the cast time of your next Bolts by 0.5 seconds. However thanks to your Buffs  Bolt of Justice is already instant. Therefore casting this ability when you have Echoing Concord does not make sense! Instead you should use it on Bolt of Retribution (1.5 second cast).

Generally after your first round of burst spells (see rotation) you will have  6 stacks of Echoing Concord. This means you should be spamming Bolt of Retribtution for a while. When you run out of stacks, switch back to Bolt of Justice.

*DPS Purpose is to show the gains from the different rotations. These numbers are based on a raid boss dummie with a tier 1 gear set (520 hit, 2517 wisdom, 5626 spellpower, 2390 spellcrit, 304 critpower). Try to do the most basic rotation, see where you end up. Then use the % difference to estimate your dps on a perfect rotation.

Import all alerts to track debuffs and buffs by using the following code…