I built a cleric paladin in the beta, which is what it sounds like you want to do.
1) Yes. You would max prayer, but only need ONE point in Meditation to inherit all of Prayer's healing pulse.
2) I made my cleric paladin with FOTH, holy bolt and prayer for pure undead killing, and healing. Didn't turn out so great. Prayer's healing is just a waste of time later in the game. I'd instead be inclined to focus purely on pumping holy bolt damage undead and something like smite + holy shield for dealing unresistable physical damage. FOTH sucks in hell, no two ways about it.
3) The aura of a prayer merc DOES stack with the healing properties of Meditation. Add the Prayer merc's healing to your Prayer skill level's healing to figure out how much your red bulb will fill per pulse.
I suggest the following:
Holy Bolt: 20
FOTH/Blessed Hammer: 20
Smite: 20
Holy Shield: 1-20 (Depends how much defense you want)
Conversion: 1-5 (Depending how much you want to convert)
Prayer: 1
Cleansing: 1
Meditation: 1-5 (Depends how many skill points you want to waste on the radius) PRIMARY AURA
Sanctuary: 1 (save yourself from the undead) SITUATIONAL AURA
Salvation: 1+ (lend resistances to all) SITUATIONAL AURA
This is a simple 'helper' build; you can pump Prayer up to 20 if you really want that passive healing tacked onto Meditation.. but IMHO it's not going to be of any help past Normal difficulty. Neither is a Prayer merc - get yourself an act 3 Iron Wolf to control crowds. A single point in Conversion with +skills can help tremendously. It's not really a cleric - although HB can be used to heal, it's underpowered (and won't save anyone from balrog breath anyway).
Smite is made useful through Crushing Blow/Open Wounds. You aren't going to kill quickly with it, but that's not your plan, either. You're a supporting char.
FOTH/Blessed Hammer is used only for synergistic purposes, to crank up HB's damage (50% per skill point omg). Pick one. Neither will be of any use to you past normal/nightmare in their proposed form - though FOTH might do enough damage to be useful through to the end of Nightmare. Blessed Hammer with no synergies and no Concentration --> :(
1) Yes. You would max prayer, but only need ONE point in Meditation to inherit all of Prayer's healing pulse.
2) I made my cleric paladin with FOTH, holy bolt and prayer for pure undead killing, and healing. Didn't turn out so great. Prayer's healing is just a waste of time later in the game. I'd instead be inclined to focus purely on pumping holy bolt damage undead and something like smite + holy shield for dealing unresistable physical damage. FOTH sucks in hell, no two ways about it.
3) The aura of a prayer merc DOES stack with the healing properties of Meditation. Add the Prayer merc's healing to your Prayer skill level's healing to figure out how much your red bulb will fill per pulse.
I suggest the following:
Holy Bolt: 20
FOTH/Blessed Hammer: 20
Smite: 20
Holy Shield: 1-20 (Depends how much defense you want)
Conversion: 1-5 (Depending how much you want to convert)
Prayer: 1
Cleansing: 1
Meditation: 1-5 (Depends how many skill points you want to waste on the radius) PRIMARY AURA
Sanctuary: 1 (save yourself from the undead) SITUATIONAL AURA
Salvation: 1+ (lend resistances to all) SITUATIONAL AURA
This is a simple 'helper' build; you can pump Prayer up to 20 if you really want that passive healing tacked onto Meditation.. but IMHO it's not going to be of any help past Normal difficulty. Neither is a Prayer merc - get yourself an act 3 Iron Wolf to control crowds. A single point in Conversion with +skills can help tremendously. It's not really a cleric - although HB can be used to heal, it's underpowered (and won't save anyone from balrog breath anyway).
Smite is made useful through Crushing Blow/Open Wounds. You aren't going to kill quickly with it, but that's not your plan, either. You're a supporting char.
FOTH/Blessed Hammer is used only for synergistic purposes, to crank up HB's damage (50% per skill point omg). Pick one. Neither will be of any use to you past normal/nightmare in their proposed form - though FOTH might do enough damage to be useful through to the end of Nightmare. Blessed Hammer with no synergies and no Concentration --> :(