Why play a bow cleric?
There are many options for bow clerics out there now. What was
once a pure flavor option now has a wide variety of options that let you
combine the best parts of being a ranged cleric (healing, buffing,
radiant damage, and party friendly area attacks) with the strengths
of other classes: ranged damage, control, or enabling.
While this guide has a large empahsis on hybrids, there is also reason
for pure clerics to go this route since when you use a bow for your
implement you get access to cleric powers and paragon paths that others
can’t get, can take feats that enhance your regular powers, and
have easy access to a 19-20 crit range in epic.
You
generally want to do this for the feats and paragon paths since only a
few of the bow/ranged weapon powers are top options, which is one reason
why hybrids is a good idea for bow clerics.
For hybrids, some
play it like a ranger, monk, or rogue who uses many of his
minor actions, utility powers, and interrupts to help lead at the
expense of doing less damage than a pure striker.
There are also a few interesting hybrid leader builds using bard or
artificer that favor bows. A bard/cleric can be both a good healer
and enabler, with a strong minor in control. And with seeker you
have a mix of control and leading, while still doing decent damage.
Deities: Sehanine. You don’t have to have to worship sehanine, but it is the deity that by far supports bow clerics the most. Other choices are more dependent on domain: Luck, Sun, Darkness, and Freedom are all useful since those channel diviniity powers could be useful to you and open up some other options. Corellon is if you want to be a bow warpriest
3 Main Builds:
Templar with weapon and/or implement powers. This is a pure cleric build, probably with battle clerics lore and with a high wisdom.
Templar Hybrid. This is a hybrid cleric with bow powers who picks from monk, seeker, ranger, or bard usually. You usually draw on cleric for things like your minor and immediate powers. You can be a controller or striker with strong leader tendencies or a more diverse leader than a pure cleric this way.
Corellon Warpriest. This is from the Neverwinter guidebook, uses wisdom and your choice for secondary stat and lets you switch between melee and ranged if you want to. Technically you have a rider to healing word that sometimes keys to constitution, but you don't have to invest in con and because of that both dex and int can work as a secondary stat. Gives you lots of movement options, but you have no choice in your base at will or encounter powers and no hybrids. Allies can ignore difficult terrain and eventually shift and potentially go invisible when you use healing word. At late heroic you can teleport when you use a force or radiant encounter power.
