Divine Slinger

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Summary

  • Cleric Legendary BAB: +12 (note that Divine Power will increase your LBAB bonus to +15 due spell changes)
  • The Divine Slinger quasiclass combines versatile ranged weapon attacks with the protective and restorative capabilities of the Cleric. In exchange for enhanced missile attacks, the Divine Slinger sacrifices some of their spellcasting ability.
  • Divine Slingers receive Weapon Specialization (Sling) as a bonus feat.
  • The Divine Slinger receives one stack of unlimited Divine Bullets, which they can imbue with various powers.

Requirements

  • To qualify for Divine Slinger the character must have 15 levels of Cleric, the Strength domain, and the Zen Archery and Weapon Focus: Sling feats before level 17.

Weapon Specialization (Sling)

  • On achieving Divine Slinger status at level 15 or 16, the Slinger receives Weapon Specialization (Sling) as a bonus feat.
  • To be able to take Epic Weapon Specialization (and beyond) you will need to fit in at least one Fighter level after 20.

Divine Bullets

  • The Divine Slinger receives one stack of unlimited Divine Bullets. This stack may have its power changed individually using the below SIMTools commands.

All bullets do:

  • (Slinger level / 10) d8 of Bludgeoning damage.
  • (Slinger level / 20) d10 of Divine damage (this is excluded if using the !damma command; see below).
  • plus (Slinger level / 4) d10 of selected elemental/exotic damage


  • The Divine Bullets can hold both a damage power and on-hit effect. If a damage power is selected, the on-hit effect will be a Damage Resistance Decrease (DRD) for that elemental or exotic damage type. If an on-hit power is selected, it will override the DRD on-hit until another damage power is selected.
  • The DRD applies 5/- at a time, up to a limit of (Slinger level / 3) for elemental damages, and half that amount for exotic damages, to a maximum of 20/- elemental and 10/- exotic at Slinger level 60. It is possible to apply multiple elemental and/or exotic damage debuffs to the same target.
  • Their DC-based bullets (blind/silence and knockdown) use a DC of (Slinger level - 5) plus one additional point of DC per 5 paragon levels.
Slinger Bullets
Cleric Levels Command Effect Save Type
15 !damfi adds Fire damage. --- Damage
15 !damco adds Cold damage. --- Damage
20 !damel adds Electrical damage. --- Damage
20 !damac adds Acid damage. --- Damage
25 !damso adds Sonic damage. --- Damage
25 !dambd on hit, inflicts target with 3 rounds of blindness/Silence with DC of [(Slinger level - 5), +1 per five paragon levels]. Will Effect
30 !damdi adds Divine damage. --- Damage
30 !damih on hit, casts Bigby's Interposing Hand. --- Effect
35 !dambr on hit, casts Greater Spell Breach. --- Effect
35 !damhe on hit, heals the Slinger and allies within a large radius around target by 1 point for every 8 points of Heal skill. --- Effect
40 !damma adds Magical damage, disables base divine damage (useful for targets that heal from divine damage type). --- Damage
40 !damkd on hit, target is knocked down for 2 rounds with DC of [(Slinger level - 5), +1 per five paragon levels]. Fortitude Effect

Spells

Spell changes

  • Divine Power The duration is multiplied by 10 and always grant the LBAB of a Fighter.
  • Entropic Shield In addition to its normal effects, grants 1% melee concealment per two caster levels below 41, and 1% melee concealment per caster level above 40, to a maximum of 40% at caster level 60.
  • Greater Magic Weapon May be cast on slings, granting them an enhancement bonus 2 greater than the normal.

Tips for Building and Playing

Divine Slingers used to be the poor relative of other Cleric based builds, however more recently they have been used with increasing frequency in 'end game' runs such as Limbo Pt1 & Pt2. This is primarily due to wanting to restrict party size to limit time taken and that Divine Slingers can supply personal and party buffs (including Epic and Paragon spells) and also provide damage and support though the special effects available for their sling bullets.

The 'pure' Cleric build is very popular but Fighter, Monk and Paladin splashes can add extra damage and defences.

Using Divine Bullets

You will want to create custom macros on your hotbar to allow quick switching between different bullets. Swapping between bullet types with the SimTools command is considered a free action, so it is possible to change bullet effects multiple times in one round.

Don't underestimate the utility of your on-hit bullet effects, and be willing to read a situation for the best option available in your arsenal. Is your tank taking too much heat from a target? Use the Interposing Hand bullets to reduce their AB. Does a target have unusually high SR, and your party doesn't have a great way to reduce it? Your Breach bullets' Greater Spell Breach effect can substitute as a SR reducing debuff in a pinch, which becomes more effective with spell focuses in Abjuration. Knockdown offers effective crowd control for multiple targets; with some effort, you can juggle a handful of targets at once to create some breathing room. Some casters can be completely nullified with your Blindness/Silence bullets if they are susceptible to them.

If you are investing points into the Heal skill, the healing area-of-effect bullets are very helpful in mitigating party-wide Kickback effects of certain targets. Each individual bullet will provide a Healing effect (not each flurry), so you can potentially heal up to 8 or 9 times in one round.

It is just as important to know your targets' immunities to status effects, as well as damage immunities, to determine which damage type or status debuff works best for them. Most of your exotic damage types are safe bets for multiple areas, but don't be afraid to take advantage of targets with high damage vulnerabilities to maximize your damage output. It can be helpful to note a target's saves (specifically Fortitude or Will saves) to judge the best on-hit effect to use for a situation.

If all else fails, remember that your bullets apply a scaling damage resistance decrease (DRD) debuff, which can be applied multiple times across different elements/exotics. This will obviously increase your damage output, but also benefit your party's damage.

Slings

There are four legendary level slings you will want to consider for your character all with slightly different benefits.

  • The Dragonhide Sling +16, +16 Mighty, +5% Bludgeoning immunity, +1d6 Sneak Attack, +20 Craft Weapon
  • The Whistling Cannon +16, +5% Bludgeoning immunity, Rapid Shot, Haste, Keen, Massive Criticals 2d12 - Provides the only way of getting Keen on a sling but does NOT have Mighty
  • The Stinger's Barbs +17, +17 Mighty, Rapid Shot, +1d6 Sneak Attack
  • The Ssithrak Sling +16, +16 Mighty, +5% Bludgeoning immunity, +1d6 Sneak Attack, Freedom

Both the Dragonhide Sling and the Ssithrak Sling have a level requirement of 40 with the Ssithrak Sling also requiring immortality due to the run requirements. Stinger's Barbs has a base level 55 requirement and whilst not specified the Whistling Cannon also has this due to its tag requirement.

Main attribute

Whilst Divine Slinger builds are designed to be Wisdom based (Zen Archery requirement etc) there is nothing to stop you making a Dexterity based character as there are (currently at least) no significant benefits from going Wisdom based (unlike those associated with a Zen Ranger). You will need to plan in that you can only take Great Dexterity as standard Epic Feats and will have to use your Cleric bonus Feats for Greater and Epic spell focii and possibly increasing your base Wisdom to access higher level spells, however in return for this you will end up with a significantly higher final AC, Reflex save and the ability to wear the Dextrous Defiance half kickback armuor.

Utility

Having multiple spell focus feats allow access to several benefits:

  • Transmutation grants the party wide Instruments of Faith.
  • Enchantment has Girding of the faithful - a handy build for increasing the ac of the party and also boosts your own Greater Magic Weapon .
  • Divination has Miracle but doesn't have provide soak with gate due being a quasiclass. Still, due being an amazing crowd control / wipe prevention spell, it might be worthwhile even picking up Paragon Spell Knowledge for Serendipdity and using it twice.
  • Illusion (with nature domain) allows Creeping Doom to stack up to 25% physical vulnerability infliction with no save and no SR allowed and boosts the ranged conceal by 15%.
  • Abjuration Magic Vestment, Energy Immunity Resist Elements on top of the epic Aegis for exotic and esoteric immunities and resistances.
  • Spell penetration allows both your Battletide and Prayer to work like a regular cleric - for the same respectable -8 saves drop a CL 60 cleric has.

Another option would be going for Planar Turning while foregoing its DC. This allows the slinger, who suffers no penalty for turn undead beyond requiring the strength domain, to stun lock many targets as long as you pick relevant domains and no one attacks them. The requirement of Wisdom 25 and Charisma 25 isn't that terrible as zen archery uses Wisdom for AB while the higher charisma provides additional damage and duration with Divine Might.

Damage choices

  • Going pure Cleric 60 ensure a bigger built in damage bonus and DC. A single splashed level costs in average about 13 damage, while 5 levels cost another 5 damage.
  • A single level of Fighter during epic levels allow you to pick Epic Weapon Specialization and its legendary and paragon versions later on for a total of +18 added damage.
  • Divine Might feat adds Charisma mod as physical damage for that same amount of round. The duration is doubled at cleric level 21 and tripled at at character level 41 if the character has 21 levels of cleric or more.
  • Overwhelming and Devastating critical have a small relative positive impact on DPS due to sling weapons having just a 20/x2 critical threat/multiplier and lacking keen for most part. The required base strength will also increase physical damage due the mighty modifier on many slings.
  • Illusion (with nature domain) allows Creeping Doom to stack up to 25% physical vulnerability infliction. This is particularly interesting due increasing the physical damage of all the party as most clerics and druids don't have Illusion Focus anyway.
  • Several Cleric spells increase your own damage output: Divine Favor, Divine Power and Battletide.

Class-specific forum

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