Rift Cleric Sentinel Guide

Rift Cleric Sentinel Guide by Ahov

The specs

Raid: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00…Rq.x0Voz.c.-11 – 61 Sentinel/12 Warden/3 Inquisitor

5-man: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=00…dusRq.Vx0x.-11 – 61 Sentinel/15 Purifier/0 Warden

Buffs

Universal: Healer’s Blessing, Faith Rewarded, Marked by the Light, Wrathful Exuberance (on tank), Light of Redemption (on tank)

Raid only: Armor of Devotion

5-man only: Sign of Wrath, Wisdom of the Ages, Heroic Resolve

Macros

Raid spot heal

#show healing breath
suppressmacrofailure
cast @mouseoverui healing breath

5-man spot heal

#show healing breath
suppressmacrofailures
cast @mouseoverui healing breath
cast @mouseoverui healing flare

Raid TTL

#show Touch the Light
suppressmacrofaulures
cast tidal surge
cast touch the light
cast crucial invocation

5-man TTL

#show Touch the Light
suppressmacrofailures
cast touch the light
cast crucial invocation

Cleanse

#show Cleansing Prayer
suppressmacrofailures
cast @mouseoverui Cleansing Prayer

Raid aoe-heal

#show Healing Cataract
suppressmacrofailures
cast Healing Cataract
cast Healing Flood

Cooldown

#show Nyol’s Hope
suppressmacrofailures
cast Nyol’s Hope
cast Healer’s Haste
cast Healing Invocation

5-man shield

#show symbol of the torch
suppressmacrofailures
cast @mouseoverui symbol of the torch

Run-speed

#show Urgency
suppressmacrofailures
cast @self Urgency

5-man AoE 

#show Divine Call
suppressmacrofailures
cast divine call
cast healing communion

Other skills to have on your bar

Universal: Healing Invocation, Crucial Invocation, Empowering Light, Fullness of Life, Healing Spray, Liberty of Thought, Renewed Altruism, Healer’s Covenant, Vigilance, Reverent Supplication

Raid: Divine Call (or you may use the above 5-man AoE macro; Communion won’t be used in a raid though)

Sentinel Concepts

The raid spec is built with maximum utility in mind. The points in Warden offer you a 10-target aoe heal in Healing Cataract to take full advantage of Faith Rewarded. Many people underestimate a Sentinel’s power as a raid healer. There are certain mechanics which almost always drop the raid below 50%, and Faith Rewarded is some incredible burst HPS for when you need it the most. The Cataract/Flood macro is designed for Faith Rewarded procs and preemptive healing. If you are moving but need an instant aoe heal, tapping the macro while people are below 50% will proc Faith Rewarded, just like Cataract does.

The 5-man spec is built around maximum heal values, a bit of added dps via Sign of Wrath and slightly more mobility with spot-healing/shielding. While dodging mechanics you can spam Healing Breath/Healing Flare on tank, or preemptively shield your group with Symbol of the Torch. It’s exceptionally useful to apply shields before damage, as long as the tank is staying alive.

Always maintain Light of Redemption on your active tank. Sometimes you will simply be assisting the chloros, so try to predict which tank will need the most help.

Rotation-wise, spam Healing Invocation on your tank. Every now and then you will get an off-gcd Healing Breath available. Use this wisely, but don’t be too conservative. If the tanks are currently taking minimal damage, it can be useful to reserve this proc for a raid member who accidentally stands in fire. In a 5-man environment Healing Breath serves as an extraordinary group heal, generally preferable to healing communion.

Crucial Invocation is noticeably more powerful than Healing Invocation, but costs much more mana. You should generally avoid using this skill as a standalone ability, and instead prefer using your real cooldowns firsts (listed below).

While raid encounters are not designed around most of a Sentinel’s cooldowns, they can serve as a buffer between player mistakes and wipes during progression. In 5-mans, you will find yourself rotating through all of these as undergeared and inexperienced tanks may require them.

1. Healer’s Covenant: This is a preemptive mitigation cooldown, best used when the tank is already topped off but you are predicting heavy movement or a large spike in tank damage.

2. Nyol’s Hope/Healer’s Haste: This can be used either preemptively or reactively. It provides a large burst in healing and generally shouldn’t be reserved for a specific mechanic. Use at your own discretion. One thing to note is Healer’s Haste does not affect Crucial Invocation very much (since your GCD is 1.5s already). If you want to use an extra button you can make a Nyols/CI macro and Healer’s Haste/HI macro. As well, Healer’s Haste can be further utilized in a raid environment with Healing Cataract. Cannot be fully utilized while moving.

3. Fullness of Life: Very high base heal, improved by wearing more endurance gear (which is great for progression). This is about as reactive of a heal as it gets. If the tank dips, pop this to bring them back up.

4. Touch the Light (in both forms): Reactive heal, generally interchangeable with Fullness of Life.

5. Vigilance: often the cooldown of last resort. If you cannot top the tank off for whatever reason and you fear for their life, use this to squeeze out precious seconds and potentially save the attempt. This can be useful if the tank has eaten too many stacks of a debuff (primary context is raid here) and their health is gimped or they are receiving too much damage and your Covenant has already been used.

With all of these healing/mitigation cooldowns, you also have Renewed Altruism. This resets all of the above cooldowns. Unless I know I am reserving skills for a particular mechanic, once I’ve blown a couple of cooldowns I continue using them up, and then I refresh them with Renewed Altruism. In a 5-man this can be rather helpful, chain-cooldown rotation on a tank, then resetting all of them and either beginning again or having them all available in case extra trash packs are pulled

Crucial Invocation is noticeably more powerful than Healing Invocation, but costs much more mana. You should generally avoid using this skill as a standalone ability, and instead prefer using your real cooldowns firsts. While Vigilance is the cooldown of last resort, if literally all other “cooldowns” are unavailable, you may have some excess mana to spare and in that case Crucial Invocation may be necessary to keep a tank alive.

Sentinel can be a very mana-intensive role, particularly when you’re burning through cooldowns or Crucial Invocation. Make sure you stock up on Stellar Mana Tonics, and make intelligent use of Reverent Supplication.

Final Notes

On most current encounters I would argue Sentinel is not optimal to bring. For whatever reason, be it you lack competent chloromancers or feel you have enough dps to overheal an encounter, you can bring a Sentinel to fill in gaps. There are a few fights where Sentinel shines: Regulos and Crucia. On Regulos, 100% of the significant aoe damage will drop the raid below 50%, which means every Cataract you get off is taking advantage of Faith Rewarded on all targets. As well, the tank damage is significant and Sentinel is great for assisting chloromancers in that regard. On Crucia Sentinel can provide key cooldowns for Lightning Breath and assist with AoE healing during Orbital Strike.