That's nothing more than a testament to the skills of the people in the group that were doing the healing. Very little to do with Klubbir.
You should plan on your toons for the group (main and alt) being TR's. The only realistic way for you to catch up on the power curve is to start stacking up some past lives to go with the gear we've been funneling your way. Up to you which toons they are. I'd probably look at single class builds, too. Nothing exotic, but more survivable.
There's still a lot that a Barbarian or other fighter-type can do to be more survivable. Barbarians have the T5 self-heals at L12, healing amp, PRR/MRR, and boosting HP and saving throws make a huge difference. Remember the no-Healer's Friend WF Peter ran that time that soaked up JM's healing on her FvS. IIRC, Mirys' Barbarian life, she basically never needed healing after 12 because of the self-heals in one of the trees.
Klubbir didn't die as much as others did, so I'd say the build was a success.
I still have only Ahiania and Alrih at level 20, I think I'd rather use both to try out the epics. I didn't do that before.
So … My current alt, Senha, is in my opinion more likely to get TR'd, or Alrih, although i hesitate with Alrih, because she's such a good trapper right now I'd like to try her out as that in the epics and see how far i can get. her weakness is more on the combat / survivability side, though.
Apart from that, Amauna, my iconic sun elf caste-like cleric is at level 17 now. I'm having LOTS of fun with her, and I really want to do all lower level quests wit her. I'm stuill working on the survivbility side, though. It has improved, but she simply lacks strength, as a more or less pure caster. I have taken Falconry there to use WIS for her melee beats.
If needed, I could send her out as a healer into the alts or other groups, but she is more like a caster right now , and less as a healer.
The other one is my highly solo oriented Paladin Anrilkana, also at level 17 now, and yesterday I used hours to get her outfitted for that.
Since she was planned as a solo toon, her weakness is in having 2 levels of rogue, so that I could find and disarm traps. I had to rework her a lot to get Evasion going again (light armor, light shield, but used the suddenly found Pale Green Ioun Stone for her health - and to get her into the 20s, so that i could use my third Sentience Gem (the Dragon is currently being used by Ahiania, and the Kobold by Alrih).
The Pale Green Ioun Stone is imho a nice ting to farm. I forgot its level (Wiki is currently down), but it has +5 % xp and 40 points of health at the same time. It ain't upgradeable, though.
I think it drops somewhere in the early Wheelon quests.
Regarding early level toons, I have currently a level 3 quarterstaff cleric (Shifter) and a few others at level 4 & 5 (among them an iconic scoundrel and a cleric and a FVS).
Iconics have to be level 30 to do a TR, and need a specific heart, which costs the same Heart Seeds as an Epic TR. So any iconics you have will probably not be close to being used for a TR any time soon.
DDO really rewards focused builds more than hybrids. For example my Sorcerer Mureall has everything thrown into Evocation. That's because at higher levels, you pretty much need every single point of Evocation DC you can scrounge up to land spells reliably. Especially in some of the newer content, where everything and it's pet goat has evasion. Splitting that even for highly useful Enchantment spells would result in me being weaker overall.
Clerics built for casting aren't going to be able to be remotely effective at melee, even with a decent weapon. They simply can't split the focus enough, even with Falconry, to be useful. It's generally going to be Evocation-focused nuker, or Necro-focused or melee. Healing is the only thing that you don't really need to sacrifice; all you need is to slot the best devotion you can, and pay attention to the health bars of your party to heal. It comes down to player skill as a healer, not really build, at least for a Cleric or Favored Soul. Druids and Bards can heal, but need a bit more work since they lack the heavy hitting heals of the divine spell list. I've solo-healed raids on all four before, while offensively casting or fighting.
That's not to say a Cleric can't be built to fight; I've done a life or to of a pointy-stick focused Favored Soul and Cleric before. I had to devote the build to it however. Splitting it between casting and fighting would result in poor melee dps and spells that never land.
Hybrid builds work fine in normal content, but Elite and even some Hard stuff and they start to show their weaknesses quickly. Just an effect on the stat inflation of the game. It's been like that since I've been playing; so 11 or so years. There's only two things you don't have to "build" for, and that's healing on a Cleric/FvS, or trapping on a Rogue/Artificer. Healing just requires player skill, and trapping requires putting points into character skills, and having the gear to handle traps.
Most of us can help you with a build if you want, and CM and Peter have churned through so many lives that they know more than most.
I think I will take my level 30 paladin and ETR to 20 and then racial TR to level 1 and be a paladin again. Having a melee toon in a group will be good I think.
Looks like we're going to have a front line for the first time in a long time then, with both of us going for melee characters. It might be interesting to try a "traditional" party makeup, with a front line, caster, healer, and support. Probably should have two trappers in case one of the ones is out.
My typical Might and Magic 2-5 party is Paladin, Barbarian, Archer, Ninja, Cleric, Sorcerer. No real DDO equivalent to the Archer and Ninja, so Bard and Artificer could slip in the mid-rank instead, providing the support and more dps.
Peter - Paladin
Azrael - Melee Build of Unknown Providence
CM - Unknown
JM - Setting Fire to Peter
Corwin - Soulstone
Alrik - Unknown
Dte - Lost in Space
