Which AL approved cleric type is the tankiest?

[Klorox]

I’m wondering what the general consensus is on what cleric domain is considered the most tanky.

I have my own opinion here but would like some input from the crowd of people here before giving my opinion.

If you’re going to suggest a build, please make it single classed and use the standard array.

[Potato_Priest]

I’m wondering what the general consensus is on what cleric domain is considered the most tanky.

I have my own opinion here but would like some input from the crowd of people here before giving my opinion.

If you’re going to suggest a build, please make it single classed and use the standard array.

Ok, here's my build.

Hill Dwarf Nature cleric
STR doesn't matter, you can wear heavy armor cuz you're a dwarf
DEX doesn't matter, you're wearing heavy armor
CON 16 (14+2)
INT who cares
WIS 16 (15+1)
CHA whatever

At level 4 take magic initiate(bard) for the blade ward cantrip. At level 8 take war caster to help out your concentration saves.
Cast blade ward and spirit weapon (and if you feel like it spiritual guardians) to tank like a barbarian while still getting attacks and being a solid roadblock. If you get targeted by elemental damage you can use your reaction to halve that too after level 6.

[8wGremlin]

I'm gonna say it...

My Arcana Cleric, vhuman build phb+scag.

Arcane spells are chill touch and booming blade.
take magic initiate: druid, pick up thornwhip, shillelagh and either absorb elements, or longstrider

wisdom > dex (14) >= con
With breastplate + shield + dex you're rocking AC18.

All attacks and riders key off wisdom.

then at 4th take warcaster
at 8th up wisdom, now all cleric cantrips can add your wis mod to damage!

[Naanomi]

Life Cleric with Heavy Armor Mastery is pretty tanky... you heal yourself when you heal others, and with the damage reduction that healing goes farther. Better if you have someone else on the front line with you (to heal of course)

[lebefrei]

Now: Debatable
Next month: Forge

[Chugger]

Ok, here's my build.

Hill Dwarf Nature cleric
STR doesn't matter, you can wear heavy armor cuz you're a dwarf
DEX doesn't matter, you're wearing heavy armor
CON 16 (14+2)
INT who cares
WIS 16 (15+1)
CHA whatever

At level 4 take magic initiate(bard) for the blade ward cantrip. At level 8 take war caster to help out your concentration saves.
Cast blade ward and spirit weapon (and if you feel like it spiritual guardians) to tank like a barbarian while still getting attacks and being a solid roadblock. If you get targeted by elemental damage you can use your reaction to halve that too after level 6.

Can this Cleric instead do Spiritual Weapon (a bonus action) and Dodge for main action, if he doesn't want to do that feat at lvl 4? I'd go Resil Con or Warcaster at 4 if I could Dodge and still do B.A. Spir Weap (and maybe have Spir Guardians up), that'd be good.

I wonder if you can because the phb says to Dodge you "focus entirely on avoiding attacks". Now is this meant literally or figuratively? How can you take a bonus action at all if you're focused "entirely" on something else? But Dodge is your action. Meh. I dunno. Dodge is possibly better than Blade Ward because a better chance not to take damage at all (disadvantage on attacks, advantage on Dex rolls) seems to trump weapon type damage resistance (half). Note a sorc or sorc-multi could Quicken Blade Ward and have it all, Dodging (if it's allowed) on main action.

Anyway, I'd love to know what the answer is to this.

[LudicSavant]

Remember: Being a good tank is not just about having the highest AC score. The best tanks will
> Be extremely difficult to ignore or simply walk around.
> Be effective at shutting down any or almost any kind of attack (e.g. not only AC/hp based ones).
> Make it considerably more difficult to threaten their allies, not just themselves.

To this end, Arcana Cleric has some of the best options in the entire game... even if we're comparing to Forge Cleric, coming from someone who's seen both get extensive use.

[Chugger]

I've seen an Arcana Priest at an AL game. He had some Wiz cantrips iirc. Why is he so tanky, please? I'm pretty sure he doesn't get heavy armor or martial weapons. Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

[LudicSavant]

I've seen an Arcana Priest at an AL game. He had some Wiz cantrips iirc. Why is he so tanky, please? I'm pretty sure he doesn't get heavy armor or martial weapons. Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

A proper Arcana Cleric Tank build can do high melee damage (both to single targets and AoEs), and punish people pretty harshly for moving. One of the major reasons for their unusually high damage is because the synergy between the wizard melee cantrips and Potent Spellcasting allows them to add Wisdom to damage multiple times. This was even confirmed in Sage Advice.

Try combining that with the likes of Shillelagh, War Caster, Spirit Guardians, Dodge, Spiritual Weapon, and other such things. Enemies trying to get away from you tend to explode. Enemies trying to stay near you tend to explode. You tend to not take damage either way. And moving past you is difficult because you create a big old mobile area of cover and difficult terrain and angry smiting.

But that's not all. You also can remove crippling status effects on the entire party as a side effect of healing, thanks to the very powerful Spell Breaker ability. Whole party running in Fear? Not anymore! Enemies have to deal with you not only in order to keep allies down from hp damage (because of stuff like Healing Word), but *also* to keep allies locked down with status effects or battlefield control from spells (which is where a lot of the nastier status effects come from). Essentially, it's very difficult for the enemy to take anyone down without taking you down, and you're bloody hard to take down.

And we're not even through the list of goodies you get from Arcana Cleric yet. You also get Arcane Banishment, which means you can now use your turn attempts not only to lock down undead, but also celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends. That's a pretty significant chunk of the Monster Manual right there, not to mention that that chunk happens to include a lot of the trickier enemies who might actually have a chance of getting around you. And when you get to high levels, you get access to the high level wizard spell list, and you don't even need to prepare your options... which means you have more spells prepared at any given time than most other clerics, and from a better spell list.

Magic Initiate also synergizes well with Arcana Cleric, and can give you access to good tanking abilities like Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, and Absorb Elements.

Edit: As for martial weapons and heavy armor, these things do not make as big a difference as one might assume. A longsword only does an extra +1 damage over a quarterstaff before you use Shillelagh or something, and clerics don't get a lot of attacks to multiply that over. A suit of full plate is an extra +1 AC over a suit of half-plate with 14 Dex... and an extra 750 gp too (more than enough for an Uncommon magic item by DMG guidelines... potentially even multiple ones. And an Uncommon magic item can add +1 AC), as well as requiring a 15 Str investment to move around in properly. Martial weapons and heavy armor are nice things, but hardly necessary for every tank build.

[DarkKnightJin]

A proper Arcana Cleric Tank build can do high melee damage (both to single targets and AoEs), and punish people pretty harshly for moving. One of the major reasons for their unusually high damage is because the synergy between the wizard melee cantrips and Potent Spellcasting allows them to add Wisdom to damage multiple times. This was even confirmed in Sage Advice.

Try combining that with the likes of Shillelagh, War Caster, Spirit Guardians, Dodge, Spiritual Weapon, and other such things. Enemies trying to get away from you tend to explode. Enemies trying to stay near you tend to explode. You tend to not take damage either way. And moving past you is difficult because you create a big old mobile area of cover and difficult terrain and angry smiting.

But that's not all. You also can remove crippling status effects on the entire party as a side effect of healing, thanks to the very powerful Spell Breaker ability. Whole party running in Fear? Not anymore! Enemies have to deal with you not only in order to keep allies down from hp damage (because of stuff like Healing Word), but *also* to keep allies locked down with status effects or battlefield control from spells (which is where a lot of the nastier status effects come from). Essentially, it's very difficult for the enemy to take anyone down without taking you down, and you're bloody hard to take down.

And we're not even through the list of goodies you get from Arcana Cleric yet. You also get Arcane Banishment, which means you can now use your turn attempts not only to lock down undead, but also celestials, elementals, fey, and fiends. That's a pretty significant chunk of the Monster Manual right there, not to mention that that chunk happens to include a lot of the trickier enemies who might actually have a chance of getting around you. And when you get to high levels, you get access to the high level wizard spell list, and you don't even need to prepare your options... which means you have more spells prepared at any given time than most other clerics, and from a better spell list.

Magic Initiate also synergizes well with Arcana Cleric, and can give you access to good tanking abilities like Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, and Absorb Elements.

Edit: As for martial weapons and heavy armor, these things do not make as big a difference as one might assume. A longsword only does an extra +1 damage over a quarterstaff before you use Shillelagh or something, and clerics don't get a lot of attacks to multiply that over. A suit of full plate is an extra +1 AC over a suit of half-plate with 14 Dex... and an extra 750 gp too (more than enough for an Uncommon magic item by DMG guidelines... potentially even multiple ones. And an Uncommon magic item can add +1 AC), as well as requiring a 15 Str investment to move around in properly. Martial weapons and heavy armor are nice things, but hardly necessary for every tank build.

Thank you for having me want to (re)make the Arcana Cleric I had in mind. I tend to favor Heavy armor myself, to the point where I'm thinking of starting a Death Cleric with 1 level of Fighter for Fighting Style (Defensive), and Heavy Armor.

But an Arcana Cleric should be alright with Medium and some Dex. Then pump dat Wis for sick tricks.

[Willie the Duck]

I wonder if you can because the phb says to Dodge you "focus entirely on avoiding attacks". Now is this meant literally or figuratively? How can you take a bonus action at all if you're focused "entirely" on something else? But Dodge is your action. Meh. I dunno.

I think the number of illogical situations that would result from them ruling that you couldn't use bonus (or reaction) actions while dodging would be insurmountable, even if the wording kinda makes it sound like you shouldn't be able to do a bonus-action attack while doing so (and most other bonus-action attacks, like PAM, specify that they are only done in addition to your normal attack, so SW seems to be a very specific outlier.


Dodge is possibly better than Blade Ward because a better chance not to take damage at all (disadvantage on attacks, advantage on Dex rolls) seems to trump weapon type damage resistance (half).

I think moving an attack to an attack-with-disadvantage, in isolation, is equal to or better than damage resistance, especially for a high-AC class like a cleric. What has to be taken into consideration is that it isn't in isolation. There are other factors 'on the board' that could be giving disadvantage to attacks (which can't be doubled up) but very few other things that would be giving the cleric damage resistance. Of course there are also things that could give the attacker advantage too. So it seems like a really hard problem to 'solve with math', and more something you'd have to know your DM and campaign to answer.

[Willie the Duck]

But an Arcana Cleric should be alright with Medium and some Dex. Then pump dat Wis for sick tricks.

It's strong, not sick.

When SCAG was first released, there were a billion and one threads about making an Arcana Cleric with Booming Blade as an arcana-option cantrip, Magic Initiate (Shillelagh and Thorn Whip), and some combination of Polearm Master, Sentinel, War Caster, Resilient (Con), maxed Wisdom and Con, and preparing spells like Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon.

It's quite good, but it is only really sick if you start with rolled stats, and are lucky enough to get 14, 17, 18, x, x, x or so, which is a good enough roll to be good at whatever you set your mind to. That's because MI and concentration management feats are going to be in direct competition with getting your wisdom maxed, and yet you need both to make this significantly better than a run-of-the-mill Str 15-16 cleric with mace doing the same Spirit Guardians/Spiritual Weapon trick.

[Rogerdodger557]

I would probably say a light cleric with WIS>DEX, with CON either being similar to WIS or DEX. You get medium armor, if you get a +2 in DEX you can get an 18 AC, and warding flare imposes disadvantage as a reaction, and you can use it an amount equal to your WIS mod per long rest.

[Citan]

I’m wondering what the general consensus is on what cleric domain is considered the most tanky.

I have my own opinion here but would like some input from the crowd of people here before giving my opinion.

If you’re going to suggest a build, please make it single classed and use the standard array.
Well, honestly I'd probably say either Nature Cleric or Life Cleric, with Light and Tempest coming as decent third.
- Tempest gives heavy armor proficiency, and a reaction that does not prevent damage but may finish a creature off or at least dissuade it to come back.
- Light does not add armor proficiency, but gives a WIS-mod times reaction that imposes disadvantage on an attack, possibly transforming a hit into a miss.
- Nature gives heavy armor, but also a reaction to halve one instance of elemental damage, making it the objective best of all domains as far as "class resilience" goes.

With that said, how you play your Cleric will definitely change things much in terms of resilience.
For example, a Trickery Cleric may end as the most resilient, considering he gets Mirror Image and no heavy armor, meaning a strong incitation to get 14 or 16 DEX (so duplicates with decent 12-13 AC). Plus he can use his duplicate to cast (non-concentration) spells from a great distance, thus being able to keep further away from potential harm.
A Life Cleric that makes a point of keeping people alive with Healing Words or other spells will get 3+ HP on each cast. It's not much by itself, but if used onto another mechanic such as THP (Heroism) it make do a great deal over time. Plus their channel divinity is pure healing, they have Beacon of Hope prepared, and their capstone means always maximum healing.

Now let's consider the "aggro" part of the tank. Every Cleric gets Command. Only Nature provides other things as far as I remember: it is the only non-feat way to grab Thorns Whip which help keep creatures inside a Spirit Guardians, or Shillelagh to help use a PAM+Sentinel build, to answer the "aggro" aspect of a tank. Add to that Plant Growth and you are golden (beware friendly annoyance though, AOE is very large).
Now, a Trickery Cleric could certainly use Mirror Image to help deflect attacks from enemies attacking him to break SP, while a Life Cleric would risk concentration but offset some of the damage with auto-healing.
Besides that, only Arcana gets something to boast about with ability to grab Booming Blade, which is very good also. But beyond that it has nothing on resilience side. Plus, as any cantrip, you could get it with Magic Initiate if you so want (especially since Booming Blade does not care about your casting stat).

So considering a standard Hill Dwarf Cleric to start with 14 DEX, 16 CON, 16 WIS, my order top to bottom would be...
1. Nature, no hesitation. Trumps other without any special optimization with Shillelagh or Thorns Whip, while still opening the same options as any other domain on a SAD base: either go Thorns Whip + Warcaster, or Shillelagh + Sentinel + PAM, or Shillelagh + Magic Initiate (Booming Blade) + Warcaster.
2. Life & Trickery as long as they play all their strengths
3. Light (defense) & Arcana (offense) & Trickery (using only either CD or Mirror Image)
4. Tempest, Trickery (not using domain features), Life (playing as a normal Cleric, conservative with healing spells).
5. Others

Note that I didn't take any UA into account. Otherwise obviously Forge is the most tanky, between +1 magic armor and Shield. ;)

[PeteNutButter]

Pretty much all my AL characters at level 1 are life clerics with heavy armor mastery and 16s in str con and wis. 18 AC with the most healing and 3 DR. You will make it to level 2.

As for higher levels... life cleric is still great. I find most of the spells you want are core cleric spells, and even when you don’t plan on it you usually spend a fair amount of spells healing your not-so-tanky allies.

[EvilAnagram]

Tempest Cleric with Sentinel.

Attack me and you'll likely miss, but if you don't I zap you for damage. Attack my buddy and I'll hit you for even more damage.

[Citan]

Tempest Cleric with Sentinel.

Attack me and you'll likely miss, but if you don't I zap you for damage. Attack my buddy and I'll hit you for even more damage.

I really don't see how that qualifies as "the tankiest domain".*
Reaction ability is nice, but up to 5 per long rest. Hardly enough to consider it a sustainable feature. Plus you still take full damage.

As for Sentinel, any Cleric can take it. :)

*For single-classes. Now in some multiclass builds, it can indeed shine great. :)

[mephnick]

You need to be a threat to be a tank and I've never really found a reason to find a Life Cleric threatening. If you're using your actions to heal that means you're on a downward spiral to losing and they have no way to draw monsters away from their allies.

So I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to guess it's probably the good ol' War Cleric. You can't ignore that dude. Maybe Nature or Light for their unique defensive and offensive abilities.

[The Shadowdove]

Thematically, I love the Goliath Tempest Cleric I'm playing at the moment. He doesn't die and dishes out damage, while providing valuable utility and healing. Goliaths in forgotten realms setting have a very fun racial presence and traditions that are amusing in a party environment.

However, without feats, he is pretty much ignored even though he is constantly yelling challenges at monsters to attack him. It works somewhat, because he deals damage all the while and keeps people from dying usually, but he has few surefire mechanics to keep enemies glued on to him.

Considering Sentinel at level 8.

[Potato_Priest]

Can this Cleric instead do Spiritual Weapon (a bonus action) and Dodge for main action, if he doesn't want to do that feat at lvl 4? I'd go Resil Con or Warcaster at 4 if I could Dodge and still do B.A. Spir Weap (and maybe have Spir Guardians up), that'd be good.


You could dodge and do spiritual weapon on the same turn. there are some downsides, however.

Because you probably took advantage of your dwarven ancestry and heavy armor and dumped strength and dex, getting grappled puts a serious cramp in your style, giving you no benefit from the dodge action.

Once you get to higher levels blade ward is going to start looking more apealing again, as monsters' to-hit scores go through the roof while your AC stagnates. I think I'd want blade ward eventually, but you're probably right that resilient (constitution) or war caster is better at 4, and you could take blade ward later.

[Willie the Duck]

So considering a standard Hill Dwarf Cleric to start with 14 DEX, 16 CON, 16 WIS, my order top to bottom would be...
1. Nature, no hesitation. Trumps other without any special optimization with Shillelagh or Thorns Whip, while still opening the same options as any other domain on a SAD base: either go Thorns Whip + Warcaster, or Shillelagh + Sentinel + PAM, or Shillelagh + Magic Initiate (Booming Blade) + Warcaster.

Again, I do not understand using the shillelagh build with all these needed feats in a AL build. If you rolled an 18 for wisdom, and could quickly get to 20 (and would therefore not have to do the same for strength, but still get the +5 for combat) it would make sense. But just to get the +3 from the 16 wisdom? To my mind, you might as well go not-hill dwarf (perhaps Vuman) and go 16,16,15 on STR,DEX, CON (probably 15 in CON, since you'll want Resilient:con eventually), not bother with nature (or use it to grab thorn whip) and wield a mace (or actual polearm, if you go tempest or war). Why is shillelagh tempting if your Wisdom is going to be that close to your potential Strength, and you aren't going to have the ASIs to raise either for quite some time?

[Citan]

Again, I do not understand using the shillelagh build with all these needed feats in a AL build. If you rolled an 18 for wisdom, and could quickly get to 20 (and would therefore not have to do the same for strength, but still get the +5 for combat) it would make sense. But just to get the +3 from the 16 wisdom? To my mind, you might as well go not-hill dwarf (perhaps Vuman) and go 16,16,15 on STR,DEX, CON (probably 15 in CON, since you'll want Resilient:con eventually), not bother with nature (or use it to grab thorn whip) and wield a mace (or actual polearm, if you go tempest or war). Why is shillelagh tempting if your Wisdom is going to be that close to your potential Strength, and you aren't going to have the ASIs to raise either for quite some time?
Because Hill Dwarf allows you to dump STR as low as 8 and still be perfectly fine with heavy armor? :smallbiggrin:

Honestly I'm not fan either of the whole PAM+Sentinel build on a Cleric chassis (any Domain), even if I'd personally go Variant Human and medium armor instead, because even then it requires you to grab several feats so it comes online late, and it seems like much investment for what it brings.

Although I understand why some people love it, because if you just look at the investment spare, for someone that wants to play a maximized Sentinel Cleric (with or without PAM), using Shillelagh mathematically spares you 2 or more feats in the end (dump STR, start with 14 or 16 DEX depending on whether you plan on taking MAM: whatever your choice is, you only need 2 ASI to cover both melee offense and spellcasting offense, instead of 4). So it's a big win on the long run, it is just not very easy to notice at low levels as you stressed.

Hence I'd usually stick with Thorns Whip on Spirit Guardians, or take a dip in Rogue and go all grappler/shover, or use Shillelagh in a multiclass build to get at least 3 attacks per round (likely Fighter or Monk depending on how I view it).

However, in games when characters directly start at level 8 or more? I'd definitively play it for some change since I wouldn't suffer the leveling pain. :)

[EvilAnagram]

I really don't see how that qualifies as "the tankiest domain".*
Reaction ability is nice, but up to 5 per long rest. Hardly enough to consider it a sustainable feature. Plus you still take full damage.

As for Sentinel, any Cleric can take it. :)

*For single-classes. Now in some multiclass builds, it can indeed shine great. :)

I suppose that I should have clarified things a bit.

For starters, most people do not understand what a tank is. A tank is not simply a guy who can run up to enemies and take a ton of damage. It's much more than that, and if the extent of your tanking is the prolonging of your ability to take attacks, then you're a bad tank.

Certainly, it's important for a tank to be able to take a punch, but the most important thing about being a tank is your ability to limit the options of your enemies. Specifically, you should endeavor to make any option your enemy takes as painful as possible. In my example, it's painful to attack my allies, but it's also painful to attack me. Both options hurt the enemy, which makes my presence a limiting factor for them.

But I can take it further. Add Magic Initiate for Booming Blade, and now as long as Spirit Guardians is up I can rush an enemy and Booming Blade them. On their turn, they have to either stick next to me and take the SG damage, or run away and take the BB damage. If they attack me, they likely miss and risk a zapping if they hit. If they attack my ally, I can hit them and deal extra damage. If they move away, I can attack them and trap them in my aura for another turn. My presence on the battlefield shuts down the enemy's capacity to act freely by round two, and that makes me an important target despite the fact that I'm a scary target to hit.

Contrast this to the , "I can heal and wear armor," build I see popping up in this thread. That's incredibly unimpressive to my eyes.

To your specific point about the retaliatory taser, it's going to be a persistent feature in part because your AC will be high enough that you won't be using it every round.

[miburo]

As mentioned above, tanking is a combination of your ability to shrug off damage as well as to lock down opponents. Here's a possibility, using SCAG as the "+1" book.

The Mercykiller
Race: Half Elf (wizard cantrip variant, take Booming Blade)
Fighter 1/Life Cleric X
Str: 16, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 10
Take Defense Fighting Style at 1st level. Eventually with Plate and Shield you are AC 21.
For ASI/Feats, take War Caster and then alternate Wisdom and Strength.

You can lock down one opponent with Booming Blade, and possibly get BB on a reaction using Warcaster too. Eventually your Divine Strike adds additional damage to BB as well. Your Con save is good and you have advantage on Concentration checks, so stay on the front-lines and use Spirit Guardians to auto-damage and slow down enemies. Use Healing Word for bonus action heals that also heal you, and your Channel Divinity heals when things really start getting messy. If you need more damage, use Spiritual Weapon for your bonus action instead.

At some point enemies may start focusing on you (that's sort of your job though as a tank), so if you can find it grab an Amulet of Health for more hit points and even better Con saves.

[Willie the Duck]

I suppose that I should have clarified things a bit.

For starters, most people do not understand what a tank isnot everyone agrees with me regarding the definition of tank.

Proposed fix.


Because Hill Dwarf allows you to dump STR as low as 8 and still be perfectly fine with heavy armor? :smallbiggrin:

That, to me, sounds like a case of 'well, the hill dwarf has this ability, so we'd better find a way to use it.'


Although I understand why some people love it, because if you just look at the investment spare, for someone that wants to play a maximized Sentinel Cleric (with or without PAM), using Shillelagh mathematically spares you 2 or more feats in the end

If you ever end up getting to that 'end,' which seems unlikely if you are taking PAM, Sentinel, a Magic Initiate, and the two concentration-in-front-line feats you probably need to make a Spirit Guardians build work at all.

It sounds like we sorta agree that this is a concept that works great on in theory, but in practice...


Hence I'd usually stick with Thorns Whip on Spirit Guardians, or take a dip in Rogue and go all grappler/shover, or use Shillelagh in a multiclass build to get at least 3 attacks per round (likely Fighter or Monk depending on how I view it).

I'd usually stick with Resilient:con, War Caster, a domain which give wis to cantrips, and use that on Sacred Flame to supplement Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians. But I like simple.

[Citan]

I suppose that I should have clarified things a bit.

Certainly, it's important for a tank to be able to take a punch, but the most important thing about being a tank is your ability to limit the options of your enemies. Specifically, you should endeavor to make any option your enemy takes as painful as possible. In my example, it's painful to attack my allies, but it's also painful to attack me. Both options hurt the enemy, which makes my presence a limiting factor for them.

But I totally agree on this, I'm usually the one being scorned upon for defending that exact idea that tanking is not just about taking hits and surviving. That's why I made suggestions in how a Cleric can keep enemies tied to him. You could have noticed that if you had read the whole thread before posting. ;)

It does not help at all on the brutal, raw fact that your Tempest Cleric is as good (or as bad) as any other Cleric, and plain inferior to Nature Cleric.

Sentinel, again, is something that can be taken with any Cleric.
Booming Blade also is something that can be taken with any Cleric.
Sentinel does not work with Warcaster, so it's not like you can combine both to inflict a "Sentinel Booming Blade".

Finally, none of Tempest features has any special synergy as far as tanking goes, if you except a potential maximized Booming Blade that may end a creature, and the reaction shock that may also kill an enemy (or help convince him to move away and trigger BB secondary damage), which is a measly 5 times a whole day.
It would have been different if at least the level 6 ability (push on damage) also worked with thunder damage because it could have opened interesting combos with Booming Blade or other people's cantrips/spells, alas it's not the case.

The basis for tanking as a Cleric is Spirit Guardians. There are little ways around that. And none of the things you speak about (which, by the way, had already been told by me but that's irrelevant to the discussion) are exclusive to Tempest.

Meanwhile, a Nature Cleric can keep enemies inside Spirit Guardians as well or better as a Tempest with exactly the same choice of feat, except that...
- He can also be SAD if he wants to thanks to Shillelagh (meaning much easier for him to get Magic Initiate and Warcaster early for example).
- He can further reduce enemy movement inside and around SG thanks to Plant Growth (obviously he would also be affected but if you want to be the main target in the first place that shouldn't be a big inconvenience).
- He can further reduce enemy's effective threat to party by reducing elemental damage dealt to one ally or himself, which is something he can do every round.
And those only a Nature Cleric can do. Other Clerics will have to dip/multiclass to get the same benefits.

[EvilAnagram]

It does not help at all on the brutal, raw fact that your Tempest Cleric is as good (or as bad) as any other Cleric, and plain inferior to Nature Cleric.


The reaction. The reaction is an excellent tanking ability because it makes you less appealing as a target. A Nature Cleric that has every single thing that my build has still isn't punishing enemies for hitting him, meaning that there are preferable options for the enemy to take. Yes, he's a little stickier, but not much. Yes, being SAD is helpful, but not much. Yes, reducing elemental damage is helpful, but it uses your reaction and frees your enemy to move. The Tempest Cleric locks down an enemy and punishes them for every action they take, which is what makes them a better tank.

[Potato_Priest]

The reaction. The reaction is an excellent tanking ability because it makes you less appealing as a target. A Nature Cleric that has every single thing that my build has still isn't punishing enemies for hitting him, meaning that there are preferable options for the enemy to take. Yes, he's a little stickier, but not much. Yes, being SAD is helpful, but not much. Yes, reducing elemental damage is helpful, but it uses your reaction and frees your enemy to move. The Tempest Cleric locks down an enemy and punishes them for every action they take, which is what makes them a better tank.

Don't you, as a tank, want to encourage people to attack you rather than the squishies?

[Biggstick]

Nature Cleric.


Tempest Cleric.

Both archetypes have Spirit Guardians, and we'd expect that to be what's being run with concentration. If you get to start your combats by precasting spells, this is one of the best ones that can be put up. However, most of my combats don't allow for a spell like Spirit Guardians to be cast, and turn one is spent casting this spell.

Most combats don't start in melee range. Most of my combats are started anywhere from 10' to 300' away from the enemy. This means that at 300' how is the Cleric capable of acting like a tank? A Nature Cleric has two very powerful tools to control how combat moves forward, their level 6 ability Dampen Elements and level 3 spell Plant Growth. One ability protects self or an ally from elemental damage (which is a very tank-like ability) while the other does a pretty solid job at holding an enemy in place (even more so then Spirit Guardians). While closing the distance on an enemy, Nature Clerics have two great tools in their repertoire.

Moving on to Tempest Clerics, they have a spell that rarely gets used (in my opinion) called Sleet Storm. Now this spell has the same range as Plant Growth, and not only creates difficult terrain (though not 4x difficult terrain), it heavily obscures the area while making spell casters have difficulty maintaining concentration. This is a fantastic control spell, and an argument could easily be made for it being better then Plant Growth (and I would probably agree with that argument). The problem is that Sleet Storm is a concentration spell. This means you're not running Spirit Guardians at the same time as you're running Sleet Storm. A choice would have to be made as a Tempest Cleric for control while approaching (Sleet Storm) or control upon arrival (Spirit Guardians). As for what a Tempest Cleric can do for allies or self while approaching the enemy, they do not have a tool such as the Nature Clerics Dampen Elements, meaning there isn't anything they can do that a Nature Cleric can't do while approaching melee range.

Now, we've made it to melee range. Let's assume we already have Spirit Guardians up and running. Let's also assume that both the Nature and the Tempest Cleric have done the same amount of work with Racial choices and feats to gain Booming Blade and Warcaster (Half Elf for the cantrip, or two ASI's for Magic Initiate and Warcaster). The only bonus that Tempest Clerics have is the ability to inflict damage on the enemy when they get his a reaction. And it's 2d8, with a save for half. While this might be effective for the first 5 levels, the effectiveness and/or value of 2d8 damage tends to massively decrease the higher level you get. As you get higher level, your reaction as a Tempest or Nature Cleric is going to be better spent holding your reaction for if the enemy moves out of range so you can attack for even more damage (Divine Strike + BB does way more damage as you level up then Wrath of the Storm). Or, for a Nature Cleric, saving your reaction to reduce elemental damage to yourself or an ally.

TLDR; Tempest Clerics have a tool in which they can do a little bit of damage to an enemy that strikes them. This ability has the capability of knocking said creature back 10'. If a Nature Cleric is built exactly the same as a Tempest Cleric, a Nature Cleric has more tools unique to it's archetype that make it a stronger overall "tank" for the party then the Tempest Cleric.

[Biggstick]

Don't you, as a tank, want to encourage people to attack you rather than the squishies?

Exactly! Either encourage people to attack you (how a Barbarian might use Reckless Attack), punish people for not attacking you (Sentinel), or prevent people from reaching your squishies. This last bit is really how a Cleric does it, as Spirit Guardians is a pretty solid deterrent for most creatures to not proceed through the area that the Cleric is standing in.

The Tempest Cleric chassis doesn't really have any amazing tools to do these things. Tempest Clerics are great at killing targets, but it's great at killing targets for a Cleric. It won't be able to utilize abilities like Sharpshooter, GWM, or PAM in the ways a Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin/Ranger would. An enemy won't consider a Cleric, even a Tempest Cleric, a large enough threat based on the amount of damage they're putting out. There are obvious exceptions to this, if you roll unnaturally high on damage rolls for a round, an enemy might take notice of you that fight, but on average, a Tempest Cleric is getting out damaged by the martials, and not considered as big of a damage threat.

[Tanarii]

Hill Dwarf Nature cleric
STR doesn't matter, you can wear heavy armor cuz you're a dwarf
DEX doesn't matter, you're wearing heavy armor
CON 16 (14+2)
INT who cares
WIS 16 (15+1)
CHA whatever

How does this build deal with being grappled and pulled out of the line of combat, enabling enemies to walk around them and get to the squishies?

[Citan]

The reaction. The reaction is an excellent tanking ability because it makes you less appealing as a target. A Nature Cleric that has every single thing that my build has still isn't punishing enemies for hitting him, meaning that there are preferable options for the enemy to take. Yes, he's a little stickier, but not much. Yes, being SAD is helpful, but not much. Yes, reducing elemental damage is helpful, but it uses your reaction and frees your enemy to move. The Tempest Cleric locks down an enemy and punishes them for every action they take, which is what makes them a better tank.
You do realize that this trick (punishing enemies for attacking you) is actually working against "being a tank", right?
"Punishing "enemies that attack the Cleric with, let's recall, only 2d8 damage will either...
a) Have no effect on their decisions, because it's too low to really make any difference (which will generally be the case past CR 6 or so creatures).
a) Motivate them to instead go and pick other targets than you because you are too hard a nut to crack for the price, which basically is the exact opposite of what you would usually want as a tank (draw attacks), especially while under the influence of Spirit Guardians. Meaning that for a group of similar creature, once one of them has been affected by your reaction, they will all decide to flee from you (especially if they aren't in SG area yet).

The only shining moment of the reaction is when you can pair it with Booming Blade cast during your turn before, and level 6 ability, because then you can put the enemy in a catch-22 situation (reaction lightning damage + push = either creature wants to close in again, or it wants to instead flee from you, in both case it will trigger secondary damage).
And this will happen the, again, total great number of 3-4-5 times per day.

Compare to that Nature Cleric that chose Thorns Whip as his Domain cantrip, as well as Warcaster (at the time Tempest took Magic Initiate), with an identical creature attacking.

Let's remember that the creature we are speaking about is under the influence of Spirit Guardians. In both cases, it has two choices: either try to break your concentration by attacking you, or try to flee from Spirit Guardians.
As a Cleric, you want it to stay inside of Spirit Guardians because first while it tries to attack you it does not attack others, second Spirit Guardians since based on your WIS and WIS-save-based has usually a much better chance of damaging than anything else you do for most creatures.

Tempest and Nature have the same AC, which is 20, heavy + shield (good thing BB does not require "somatic" since it takes the form of weapon attack, otherwise you could not use it with a shield).

AC 20 will be very hard to hit for most creatures up to CR7, then you will get hit but still not that often.
So if the creature usually manages to hit you, then it's not great for you but you can also still damage it between cantrip, SG auto-damage and possibly Spiritual Weapon.
Now if the creature wants to flee?
Spirit Guardians halves speed.
Most creatures have between 30 and 40 speed.
So inside Spirit Guardians, those creatures would have between 15 feet and 20 feet. SG area is 15 feet.

Let's say the creature that attacked you decides to change tactic because "you are too tough a nut to crack", and SG is definitely a burden to it.
With Tempest Cleric, once you get Warcaster, you can use Booming Blade (provided you hit), but that won't happen before level 12 at best.
With Nature Cleric that picked Warcaster already, you can use Thorns Whip.
So, win goes for Tempest thanks to secondary damage?
In this situation, yes.

Now, would you really make the effort of casting and maintaining Spirit Guardians for one creature? I'd bet you wouldn't.
Here is where Nature Cleric (or rather, any Cleric with Thorns Whip and Warcaster) shines.

Imagine 3 or more creatures in random directions, with at least 2 of them being on a line with you between them.
As a Tempest Cleric, you will always have to run towards one creature to hit it with Booming Blade. Unless you go against very low-INT creatures such as -some- beasts or undead, chances are the creatures will try to dart in and out to attack you, or use ranged attacks to keep out of your dangerous SG area. So you will often "lose" one of them to "gain" another.

With Thorns Whip, you can "grab" a creature up to 30 feet away and, in addition to damage, pull it up to 10 feet closer to you.
Let's take a creature that put itself at range for daggers throw, so 20 feet: on success, you pull it 10 feet, so now 10 feet away from you, inside Spirit Guardians.
Let's take the creature that was in contact with you and try to escape: with 15 speed, it would just go up to the limit of SG without leaving it. With 20 feet it would have just enough to escape it. Anyways, it moves 5 feet away, provoking Opportunity Attack triggering Warcaster in turn: on a successful TW, not only did you deal damage on it, but you also nullified these 5 feet. So now the most it can do is moving up to 10 feet away (which won't be enough anyway to leave) or attack you in hope of breaking concentration.

See the pattern, where having a way to pull enemies naturally increases the global efficiency of SG, even when enemies are intelligent enough to try evasion or encirclement tactics (to limit how many of them are inside at a time)?

And you can do this all day, every day.
That's also one of the numerous cases where multiclassing into Sorcerer can really create a very powerful tank, by Quickening another Booming Blade. Sure, you could just instead use (upcast) Command to tell creature to close in, but you may prefer using quickened Thorns Whip so that the creature directly takes SG damage at the start of its turn. But this is yet another story. ;)

[Potato_Priest]

How does this build deal with being grappled and pulled out of the line of combat, enabling enemies to walk around them and get to the squishies?

Before level 5, there's not much you can do except spiritual weapon the guy who is spending actions to grapple you.

Edit: You can cast spike growth in front of the squishies as a secondary defense if you need to.

After that, though...

Grappling reduces the grappler's move speed by half, and spiritual guardians is difficult terrain.

You can drag this build around, but it is by no means a fast or efficient process. Further, the enemy has just wasted an action grappling you (and another couple turns moving you out of the way), which means you're doing your job by slowing the enemy down and keeping them off the squishies for a while.

Once you get to a high enough level, freedom of movement is on the cleric list.

[Deleted]

I’m wondering what the general consensus is on what cleric domain is considered the most tanky.

I have my own opinion here but would like some input from the crowd of people here before giving my opinion.

If you’re going to suggest a build, please make it single classed and use the standard array.

The best tank isn't about AC and there are very few abilities to make a creature stick to you, there is one class that lets you stick to the creature...

So really any Cleric domain combined with 2 levels of Rogue. With V Human your stats can be all decent and you will pick up Shield Mastery. As a cleric you will be an absolute tank that not too many creatures will be able to run away from.

[EvilAnagram]

Don't you, as a tank, want to encourage people to attack you rather than the squishies?

Usually, but you want that to be the less painful option, not the painless option. A grapple-tank would probably prefer the enemy make escape attempts. There are other niche builds, too.


snip

You make a lot of good points about the use of Thorn Whip, but I would correct you on how long it takes to escape Spirit Guardians. On a mat, because you take up a 5x5' space, an enemy only has to move a max of 10' to escape it from any point in the aura, unless you have it cornered.

Still, that's a solid defense of the Nature domain as a tank.

[Throne12]

Having played 2 Arcane clerics and is right now playing a tempest cleric. I have to say a Arcane cleric is a jack of all trades type and can make a really good tank. Being able to handle any type of enemy be it melee with a Decent AC and a average hit dice. Thanks to the wizard ranged cantrip option and magic missiles. The enemy's at range still have to fear you. And there are so many melee options as well.

For race I'll say v-human, goliath, any other wise boosting stat other then dwarf. Why not dwarf because of there 25 movement speed.

[Citan]

Usually, but you want that to be the less painful option, not the painless option. A grapple-tank would probably prefer the enemy make escape attempts. There are other niche builds, too.



You make a lot of good points about the use of Thorn Whip, but I would correct you on how long it takes to escape Spirit Guardians. On a mat, because you take up a 5x5' space, an enemy only has to move a max of 10' to escape it from any point in the aura, unless you have it cornered.

Still, that's a solid defense of the Nature domain as a tank.
Oh, ok, thanks for the precision. I admit I would have ruled it on roll20 or similar as "three cases" around the caster's one, seemed the most logical way to go. I realize my error thanks to you, I misunderstood the PHB...
I don't usually use grids though so (plus to be fair I would have used the same method for everything and everyone so it would have been equal)... ^^

EDIT: It makes me understand why you valued Tempest (or rather, Booming Blade ;)) so dearly. Indeed on a mat SG area is much lesser, so it means lessened max number of enemies, easier for enemies to escape, and more difficult to bring one enemy that is somewhat away into the area.
Indeed, even Warcaster's Thorn Whip wouldn't be enough to keep a creature inside as long as it had at least 20 feet in SG area... For those Booming Blade would be a much better incentive to stay put at high level (honestly I don't think any creature, unless it has no more than 20 HP or less left, would stop moving just to avoid ~5 damage. >=~15 damage though? It starts being difficult to ignore ;)).