First 5e cleric... where my buffs at? (Advice on running a cleric/spells)

[Odessa333]

Hey there!

So I'm building a level 6 cleric of life (variant human) my first cleric for this edition. I imagined myself casting buff spells quite a bit, but to be frank, I'm a little underwhelmed by my spell selection. Playing arcane casters, I usually have too many spells demanding concentration, and here I'm having trouble picking one. I feel I'm going into this wrong, and was hoping to get some feedback on others on how you play a cleric.

Thanks for your time!

[Byke]

Unless you have someone else doing it....Bless....it's the only thing most pasty members want active all the time.

[Specter]

Bless, Beacon of Hope, Enhance Ability (if anyone's using Athletics/Stealth in combat). At this level, that's it, really.

[WereRabbitz]

Ohh and get someone casting AID as well. It's usually worth having!

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Hey there!

So I'm building a level 6 cleric of life (variant human) my first cleric for this edition. I imagined myself casting buff spells quite a bit, but to be frank, I'm a little underwhelmed by my spell selection. Playing arcane casters, I usually have too many spells demanding concentration, and here I'm having trouble picking one. I feel I'm going into this wrong, and was hoping to get some feedback on others on how you play a cleric.

Thanks for your time!

5e has gotten away from all the endless buffing that parties used to do before battle. You have far fewer buff spells and you can only have one operating at a time due to concentration. It takes a little bit getting used to but I think it's one of the things that makes playing 5e a faster, more fun experience.

Your cleric is there to buff, debuff, heal, cast Spiritual Weapon, and occasionally throw out an offensive spell like Spirit Guardians. Oh, you can get in the mix with melee/ranged if you like, as well.

[Odessa333]

Is bless really that good? It's not bad by any means, but it hardly seems build worthy.

I'm honestly thinking of ditching the class altogether, as there doesn't seem much to DO besides wait to heal. I played a 5e Bard who could use healing word as needed, and still could fight, cast spells, and so on. Cleric doesn't seem to have anything useful to add in this edition, and it's quite disappointing.

[Linker2k]

Dont, i have a fighter 1 cleric of the life 5 and its OP.

I hace 64hp heavy armor, shield. ( I choose ham for the -3 damage bonus), then when you combo espiritual weapon and guardian angel there is no stopping you.

I have never gotten to 0HP and are the key for thw entire party survival.

Dont think this edition cleric as support, but as an all around heavy tank, support, cc (silence, bestow curse, Magic cone, Bane, hold persona, water walk etc) as well with insane healing, (prayer of healing, healing word, spare the dying, channel divinity)

Just get creative and this can be crazy fun!

EDIT: i meant spirit guardians, also thaumaturgy can be really fun to misguide.

[Shining Wrath]

Bless is awesome-sauce. Guidance is a great cantrip. Silence can help your sneaky people do that sneaky stuff. Death Ward at level 4 is wonderful

Spirit Guardians lets you draw a lot of attention your way. If you're a plate + shield Life Cleric, getting the enemy to spend attacks on your 20 AC is in fact a big boost to everyone's chance of living thru the fight. Especially when your ability to heal yourself every time you heal someone else kicks in.

[Sir cryosin]

Is bless really that good? It's not bad by any means, but it hardly seems build worthy.

I'm honestly thinking of ditching the class altogether, as there doesn't seem much to DO besides wait to heal. I played a 5e Bard who could use healing word as needed, and still could fight, cast spells, and so on. Cleric doesn't seem to have anything useful to add in this edition, and it's quite disappointing.

You are sadly mistaken clerics are powerful and very versatile. I did not like clerics for the longest time. But I'm playing a arcane domain cleric and I'm loving it even at first lv were I don't lake any class. Are last game I used shield of fate on the barbarian to give her a higher ac which helped a lot the used my last spell to keep her from dying. My free wizard cantrips I picked frostbite and greenflame blade I was using frostbite a lot which negated a lot of hits. Then I ran in hit two creature with GFB killing one and I'm a vhuman with the healer feat which is a god sent. I have seen many clerics played and non of them have been heal bots and all have been very powerful.

[Fflewddur Fflam]

Is bless really that good? It's not bad by any means, but it hardly seems build worthy.


Getting a +1d4 to attacks and saves for multiple party members is really, really strong in this game. As others have said, stuff like Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians is great, and you can tank and mix it up melee, etc. etc.

Clerics are very good, you just have to stop looking at 5e through some earlier edition's eyes, buffing is different and really toned down, hence you shouldn't look at a 5e cleric like that.

[Yorrin]

Shameless plug for my Cleric guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?374604-The-Devout-and-the-Dead-a-guide-to-Clerics), which seems to be generally well regarded around here. Clerics can do pretty much anything in 5e, from weapon-user to blaster-caster to support casting to tanking and in some niche cases even skill monkey. And you can usually fit two or three of those into your build with ease.

[JellyPooga]

I really like the Cleric as a debuffer, myself.

Bane is a heinous spell if you can get it to stick. Most people will advocate Bless over Bane, because there's no Saving Throw to worry about, but that 1d4 penalty to all further Saves is (literally) a killer in anything but an all-melee-all-starz team.

Blindness/Deafness, Silence, Bestow Curse, Dispel Magic, Contagion, Gaes and Insect Plague are all solid debuffs you can pick up before 10th level, but it's really Bane you want; other Classes can get other debuffs, even better ones, but only Clerics and Bards get Bane and Clerics are just a little tougher than Bards (and as such are less likely to lose Concentration) and Bane is one of the only spells or abilities (if not the only spell/ability) that inflicts a direct penalty to Saving Throws (as opposed to Disadvantage).

[NNescio]

Is bless really that good? It's not bad by any means, but it hardly seems build worthy.


Assuming a 50/50 hit chance, Bless boosts the damage of DPR classes by an average of 25%. As hit chance decreases Bless boosts DPR even more. As such, Bless can boost damage even more when combined with Sharpshooter or GWM.

The bonus to saves is also good, and you get to Bless up to three targets.



I'm honestly thinking of ditching the class altogether, as there doesn't seem much to DO besides wait to heal. I played a 5e Bard who could use healing word as needed, and still could fight, cast spells, and so on. Cleric doesn't seem to have anything useful to add in this edition, and it's quite disappointing.

As Cleric you can:
-Bless to increase damage of DPR classes significantly and bump their saves.

- Turn Undead to dust weaker mobs of undead (which are more relevant in 5e thanks to Bounded Accuracy), or CC higher-level undead. You can target an unlimited number of undead so long as they fit within 30 ft. of you. You also have easy access to radiant damage to negate regeneration and/or resurrect-on-death effects that some undead have.

- Bonus action Sanctuary to protect the squishy Wizard or any caster concentrating on a BFC or CC spell (including yourself).

- Bonus action Healing Word to bring a downed and dying ally ip from range. True, Bards can do this too.

- Blind enemies without eating Concentration. Good against casters and Beholders.

- Silence enemy spellcasters and use it as a utility ritual spell (i.e. Cleric's lockpick). They also get other anticaster options like Dispel Magic and Antimagic Field, and unlike the Bard this doesn't eat up their spells known because they can choose to prepare those spells only when they expect to face spellcasters.

- Efficient Healing via Prayer of Healing and Heal, as well as the potential to reverse a party wipe (multiple downed allies) with Mass Healing Word.

- CC and deal damage via Cleric Fireball Spirit Guardians. Sanctuary yourself and take the Dodge action, or use it in conjunction with Spiritual Weapon and normal attacks/cantrips for respectable damage. Note that Spirit Guardians can potentially last more than one encounter due to the long duration.

- Ritual Casting and access to divination and mobility spells like Detect Magic, Commune and Water Walk. Detect Poison and Disease can also be useful in intrigue campaigns, or against a den of poisonous monster (as it lets you detect them). if you have time to set it up, Forbiddance is also an extremely powerful ritual that can trivialize "Den of Undead" type dungeons, incursions of extraplanar creatures (like demons/devils) or against casters/creatures with teleportation abilities in general (note that the party Wizard will probably not appreciate you for this). Due to a significant oversight Forbiddance doesn't actually eat up the powdered ruby component, so this ritual is spammable.

- Resurrect your teammates via the Revivify/Read Dead/Resurrection/True Resurrection line. For spells other than Revivify this doesn't even take up spells known/preparation slots since you can prepare it the next day to fix when necessary. For Bard taking one of these spells might be questionable because you have to spend a spell known (and a rare Magical Secrets spell known at that) for a spell with an expensive material component that you will only cast on the rare occasion.

-Remove other long-term debilitating effects from your teammates via Lesser Restoration/Remove Curse/Greater Restoration. Again, you don't actually need to prepare those spells until you have a need to.

- No-concentration Bestow Curse (cast it at a higher level) to CC an enemy or make him weaker at a save to combo with the Wizard or other BFC/CC classes.

- No-concentration Contagion to potentially perma-stun an enemy (so long as your other party members can consistently hit them at least once per round).

- No-concentration Death Ward to provide a long-term (8 hours) one-use get-out-of-death card for you (and your allies, but you need it more, because it's highly likely there's no second Cleric to fix you up). Particularly good against instadeath (or disintegrate on 0 HP) effects.

- Access to most anti-extraplanar creature spells like Protection from Evil and Good, Banishment, Dispel Evil and Good, Divine Word and Holy Aura. Also the aforementioned Forbiddance. Hallow is a bit too circumstantial to use, and is more for protecting permanent bases.

-Access to Plane Shift, which can be used as a Save or Die spell (or a Save-or-be-removed-from-combat if you aren't feeling particularly nasty with your choice of plane), or as party transport option at high levels where extraplanar spells are needed. Banishmentl can also be used on yourself (or allies) if you're trapped on an plane you're not native to.

- An okayish teleport (more like town portal)/GTFO option via Word of Recall. Word of Recall does trump over Teleport in one way though -- it doesn't suffer from planar restrictions. The spell can be nearly useless though if you pick an obscure deity with barely any temples around though (then again this does offer an RP opportunity to set up more temples).

- An okayish summoning spell with Conjure Celestial. True, this is not as good as a Bard taking Magical Secrets for Conjure Animals or Conjure Woodland Beings, but again, opportunity cost for the Bard.

- Animate Dead for more allies (might be an RP issue for clerics of most good-aligned deities though). This is effectively a no-concentration buff. At higher level they can Create Undead, or alternatively Planar Ally or use Planar Binding in conjunction with Magic Circle on a summon by another spellcaster to get a long-term minion (alternatively, you can have the party Wizard Planar Bind your Conjured Celestial instead). Note that Planar Allies might potentially even waive their fee depending on circumstances.

- Divine Intervention starting at Level 10 to get effective access to high level spells out of battle like True Rezzing somebody (this is prolly allowed by most deities except for some Death domain ones) or potentially decimate an army via Control Weather and Earthquake (this is up the alley for most Tempest deities). Repeat begging your deity each day if you fail.

And all of this on a good chassis with d8 hit die and access to medium armor plus shields.

And this is all just with the base cleric features. Tempest and Light get blasting (Tempest also has some control), and Arcana Clerics get some Wizard utility spells plus the ability to play with the big boys at later levels because they get access to Wish. Life Clerics don't really get extra options, but their domain spells are generally good picks that you want prepared always anyway, and they get to heal with using spell slots via their Channel Divinity. Plus their healing spells are more efficient, so they get more spell slots to play around with if your teammates regularly take damage beyond their ability to spend hit dice to fix.

Really, I'd say that the Cleric is the most game-changing class in combat, and a lot of nasty monsters are designed with the expectation you have a Cleric (or at least a Druid) in the party to fix the 'damage' (e.g. death and petrification) later. Death Ward can also flat-out protect against instadeath effects.

Otherwise, well, you have to abandon the current plothook to head back to town to hopefully get access to the spells you need (and at a marked up price if there's nobody with the Acolyte background), which might not even available or require a side quest. All this while the guy who needs clerical services will either be forced to sit around and twiddle his thumbs, play an NPC or low-level backup PC, or play with a significantly weakened character (assuming he can even still act in the first place, which is not the case if he's stoned or dead). With the Cleric around the party can afford to take more risks in combat without playing too conservatively or needing the DM to pull punches.

(Heck, even Bless itself shifts the curve for Bounded Accuracy so much it's not even funny for the DM sometimes, especially when Sharpshooter and GWM are on the table.)

(The Wizard, meanwhile, is the most game-changing class out of combat).

[khachaturian]

i have been playing as a tempest cleric, and the spells have all been useful lately

**no concentration required buff
death ward

**concentration
bestow curse- very, very nasty
spirit guardians
protection from evil
hold person
bless

**bonus action
spiritual hammer
healing word

**blast (maximized)
shatter
thunderwave

**out of combat utility
dispel magic
silence
locate object