Need help 5e Cleric

[arishardin]

Looking for optimized builds of varying types for 5e Cleric.
I have so far considered a Melee Cleric(I was thinking of Polearm Master might be viable to get more attacks), a Light Cleric, and a Crossbow Cleric(not sure if this is a thing).
Just a note, I have read the guides linked to this forum. I’m looking for specific builds. Although, if there are more primers other than the one’s linked here, I will gladly read them too.

[Samayu]

I played a cleric not long ago, from L5 to L16. I started out with weapons that I used occasionally. I think the latest I ever swung/fired a weapon was level 7?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I played a Light Cleric through Out of the Abyss and got pretty good mileage out of Elemental Adept. It's one of those subclass/ module combos where it just works. Basically decent access to only one damage type and pretty consistently running across baddies that have resistance to it. Obviously that may not apply to whatever you are playing though.
I played a Hill Dwarf, which was pretty tanky; the Cleric is a good class to start with, so it's hard to go too far wrong.

[CTurbo]

The 5e Cleric is great, and you can optimize one for weapon use, but I don't recommend it.

Several Cleric domains can make GREAT "melee" range Clerics without ever swinging a weapon. You just need a high AC, good concentration saves, high Wis, and Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon.

Tempest, Forge, Life, and Nature make the best Cleric tanks.

[Bilbron]

Looking for optimized builds of varying types for 5e Cleric.
I have so far considered a Melee Cleric(I was thinking of Polearm Master might be viable to get more attacks), a Light Cleric, and a Crossbow Cleric(not sure if this is a thing).
Just a note, I have read the guides linked to this forum. I’m looking for specific builds. Although, if there are more primers other than the one’s linked here, I will gladly read them too.

Twilight is the most powerful in terms of abilities.

Life Cleric + Druid Magic Initiate gets OP Goodberries, which basically create unlimited healing that can be applied via Summon Actions (as an example, my familiar can feed me an 8hp Goodberry every round). Note that they have a 24-hour duration so you can dump all your unused high level spells right before a Long Rest and get them all back after.

Tempest Cleric gets Sleet Storm, so combo with your Wizard for tons of fun (Slow, Stinking Cloud, Sickening Radiance, Dawn, Cloudkill, et al.).

Trickery Cleric gets Project Image which an inventive player can use to make the DM ban the subdomain.

UA Strength Cleric gets Magic Stone, which if you dip with Wizard means 3x Tiny Servants to unlock MS.

None of the others really appeal to me.

[Foxhound438]

I played a cleric not long ago, from L5 to L16. I started out with weapons that I used occasionally. I think the latest I ever swung a weapon was L7?


The 5e Cleric is great, and you can optimize one for weapon use, but I don't recommend it.

Several Cleric domains can make GREAT "melee" range Clerics without ever swinging a weapon. You just need a high AC, good concentration saves, high Wis, and Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon.

Tempest, Forge, Life, and Nature make the best Cleric tanks.

these guys have it about right. As you get more and more spells of higher power, the damage you get from weapons is just going to continually fall off in comparison.

I've played a few clerics, the one I was always most fond of was light cleric, as you do get a lot of good offensive options. As others have said, pick up war caster and/or resilient: Con and the rest is pretty easy in terms of building. The only other thing you have to choose at that point is your spells, which you can switch out every day if you find something isn't performing for you.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

In order to make a melee cleric you want 3 things.
Booming Blad/Green Flame Blade(feat)
Heavy Armour
Divine Strike

I prefer the Forge as I see him and the Life domains as the tankiest
Life just make you cast healing spells for extra tankinees while Forge just make you use heavy armour for the extra tankinees.

War caster and Res Cob make you better at it.

Take spiritual weapon and Spiritual Gaurdians as your go to spells and every turn use your melee cantrip or dodge as an action, Spiritual Weapon as bonus action and make sure you make as many enemies stay in your Spirits Gaurdians AoE.

Enemies will want to hit you to break tour concentration but with War Caster and Res con it will be hard to do.

[Verble]

I'm playing an arcana cleric right now and having a blast. Mine is very similar to the build from this link which does a good job explaining abilities.

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds

Booming blade and war caster make you tough to slip by and deal decent melee damage thanks to shillelagh.

Thorn whip is great for pulling enemies into hazards, like your spirit guardian aoe. If Hold Person lands, those autocrits make short work of the enemy.

[RogueJK]

Spiritual Weapon + Spirit Guardians + Booming Blade (or Dodge action) is a great option for a single-classed melee Cleric.


However, if you're not dead-set on playing a single classed Cleric, consider a Ranger/Cleric as a melee-focused divine caster. 5 levels of Ranger gets you Extra Attack, some subclass abilities, some spell slot progression for upcasting, and a few additional Ranger spells known.

I'd recommend going Cleric 1 -> Ranger 5/Cleric 1 -> Ranger 5/Cleric X

Pick a Cleric subclass that eventually gets Divine Strike, although that won't come online until relatively late (Character Level 13). Choose either Hunter or Gloomstalker for your Ranger subclass, going Hunter with Colossus Slayer if you want straight added damage, or Gloomstalker if you want a bonus attack and some added damage in the first round of the fight plus a bunch of other useful abilities. (Horizon Walker is another option for consistent added melee damage, but its Bonus Action to activate will eventually compete with Spiritual Weapon's Bonus Action attack.)


I played a Gloomstalker/Nature Cleric to level 11 (R5/C6) and it was a blast.

(I took Thorn Whip, but if you go Nature Cleric and choose Shilelagh as your Druid cantrip, you can be fairly WIS-SAD.)

Two attacks per round, plus 3rd attack with extra damage during first round of combat from Gloomstalker, plus occasional Bonus Action attacks from Spiritual Weapon, plus eventual extra damage from Divine Strike, with a healthy dose of spellcasting to boot.

[Eldariel]

PAM Cleric is pretty bad after the first few levels since you have other solid use for your Bonus Action (Spiritual Weapon, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, etc.) and you don't get Extra Attack so you don't want to be taking the attack action past level 5 where you are using a cantrip (either Booming Blade or Toll the Dead most of the time). Crossbow Cleric faces the same issue: lacking Extra Attack in the chassis means you lose out in terms of weapon-based combat power and simply have better options available.

Spell-based subclasses are pretty great: Potent Spellcasting is a nice small damage bump in your at-will department and if you combine it with Booming Blade/GFB you can actually reasonably expect to use combat actions on higher levels. BB + War Caster, if still run by the DM, is pretty solid use of your Reaction to keep enemies engaged too and you have the usual Spirit Guardians + Spiritual Weapon setup with Death Ward/Freedom of Movement providing extra value and an array of great low level spells. Which way you go depends on your exact preferences but all of them are more or less fine as suggested earlier.


But I do have to warn about the feat-based options: again, they just don't really pan out with no Extra Attack and few in-class attack enhancers. Indeed, Cleric, Rogue and Druid are basically the only classes that don't get combat action boost natively (Wizard, Bard & Warlock can do it and Sorc is kinda-sorta weird with metamagic but they got changed now so it's again up in the air if they can or not), making them extremely poorly suited for non-Cantrip weapon based combat. Divine Strike just isn't really worth all that much. I generally prefer Potent Spellcasting even if I wanna hit things in the face with a hammer. Of course, you have to always gauge whether your action is better spent on Dodge action or some such than on attack; if you're keeping up a key Concentration like Spirit Guardians that's not actually out of the ordinary. Puts the enemy between rock and a hard place: move out slowly and take a superpainful AoO or try and hit you and miss.

[TheMango55]

Made this build last year

Melee powerhouse Cleric build

**Sorcerer 1, Nature Cleric 17, Paladin 2:**

Single target damage in a turn at level 20 (technically you reach this at 17):

* Spirit Guardians at 5th level = 5d8 (could be higher if you want to spend a higher level spell)
* Shillelagh = 1d8 + 5
* Spiritual Weapon = 1d8 + 5 (also could be higher)
* Booming Blade = 3d8
* Booming Blade if they move = 4d8
* Divine Smite at 4th level = 5d8
* Divine Strike = 2d8

Potential damage = 21d8 + 10 damage (Breakdown- 10d8 Radiant, 1d8 + 5 force, 1d8 + 5 Bludgeoning, 7d8 Thunder, 2d8 Fire/Cold/Lightning)

If they don’t move you don’t get the 4d8 extra Booming Blade damage, but if they don’t move that means you’ve possibly kept a melee only enemy from moving into range of anyone for a whole turn. That’s better than doing 4d8 damage.

Spirit Guardians also does 5d8 to anyone else within 15 feet when they start their turn within it. Cast Spirit Guardians before combat if possible because it lasts 10 minutes.

**COMBAT:** Assuming you can cast Spirit Guardians before rolling initiative, round 1 you cast Shillelagh as a bonus action and Booming Blade with your action, round 2 you use Booming Blade and cast Spiritual Weapon as your bonus, and in subsequent rounds you strike with Booming Blade and attack with the spiritual weapon as your bonus action. If enemies are clustered you can use Green Flame Blade instead of Booming Blade. If you can’t cast Spirit Guardians before rolling initiative everything is pushed back a round but you can still do the spirit guardians damage plus hinder enemies with difficult terrain.

Besides this nice burst damage you are still a full cleric with access to 9th level spells and all the utility that provides.

Build guide:

* Hill Dwarf (great stat buffs, +1 hp per level, no speed penalty to wearing heavy armor without required STR)
* Standard Array: Str 13, Dex 10, Con 12 (+2), Int 8, Wis 15 (+1), Cha 14
* Sorcerer 1st level for Con saves, Origin doesn’t matter but ability to move 10 feet with no enemy opportunity attack after casting a spell with Storm Sorcerer is nice.
* Sorcerer Spells: Booming Blade, Green Flame Blade, and whatever other 2 cantrips you want, Shield and whatever other 1st level spell you want.
* 8 levels of Nature cleric
* Druid cantrip: Shillelagh. Cleric cantrips: whatever you want
* ASIs: 2 Wisdom, War Caster (for advantage to concentration saves and to hit with Booming Blade on a reaction, doing all 8d8 + 5 damage immediately if they try to move away or past you)
* 2 levels of Paladin: Defensive fighting style
* 9 more levels of Cleric
* ASIs = 2 Wisdom, Tough or Mobile (so you can move 5 ft away after hitting someone with booming blade to draw them towards you without taking an attack of opportunity)

Armor Class 21 (26 with Shield spell) with no magic items (plate armor, shield, club)

HP 163 (if you took mobile, 203 with Tough)

As a reaction - Dampen Elements: Resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage to yourself or anyone within 30 feet

**Obviously** this is a level 20 theorycrafting build but I think it can be effective throughout the game (if you can survive level 1) even if you don’t get to 20 in your campaign.

Here is that single target damage breakdown from the chart up top at level 6, which is when IMO this starts to get pretty good:

* Spirit Guardians at 3rd level = 3d8
* Shillelagh = 1d8 + 4
* Spiritual Weapon = 1d8 + 4
* Booming Blade = 1d8
* Booming Blade if they move = 2d8

Total potential damage is 8d8 + 8

Sorry about the formatting, copied from my Reddit post and on mobile.

[Gignere]

Made this build last year

Melee powerhouse Cleric build

**Sorcerer 1, Nature Cleric 17, Paladin 2:**

Single target damage in a turn at level 20 (technically you reach this at 17):

* Spirit Guardians at 5th level = 5d8 (could be higher if you want to spend a higher level spell)
* Shillelagh = 1d8 + 5
* Spiritual Weapon = 1d8 + 5 (also could be higher)
* Booming Blade = 3d8
* Booming Blade if they move = 4d8
* Divine Smite at 4th level = 5d8
* Divine Strike = 2d8

Potential damage = 21d8 + 10 damage (Breakdown- 10d8 Radiant, 1d8 + 5 force, 1d8 + 5 Bludgeoning, 7d8 Thunder, 2d8 Fire/Cold/Lightning)

If they don’t move you don’t get the 4d8 extra Booming Blade damage, but if they don’t move that means you’ve possibly kept a melee only enemy from moving into range of anyone for a whole turn. That’s better than doing 4d8 damage.

Spirit Guardians also does 5d8 to anyone else within 15 feet when they start their turn within it. Cast Spirit Guardians before combat if possible because it lasts 10 minutes.

**COMBAT:** Assuming you can cast Spirit Guardians before rolling initiative, round 1 you cast Shillelagh as a bonus action and Booming Blade with your action, round 2 you use Booming Blade and cast Spiritual Weapon as your bonus, and in subsequent rounds you strike with Booming Blade and attack with the spiritual weapon as your bonus action. If enemies are clustered you can use Green Flame Blade instead of Booming Blade. If you can’t cast Spirit Guardians before rolling initiative everything is pushed back a round but you can still do the spirit guardians damage plus hinder enemies with difficult terrain.

Besides this nice burst damage you are still a full cleric with access to 9th level spells and all the utility that provides.

Build guide:

* Hill Dwarf (great stat buffs, +1 hp per level, no speed penalty to wearing heavy armor without required STR)
* Standard Array: Str 13, Dex 10, Con 12 (+2), Int 8, Wis 15 (+1), Cha 14
* Sorcerer 1st level for Con saves, Origin doesn’t matter but ability to move 10 feet with no enemy opportunity attack after casting a spell with Storm Sorcerer is nice.
* Sorcerer Spells: Booming Blade, Green Flame Blade, and whatever other 2 cantrips you want, Shield and whatever other 1st level spell you want.
* 8 levels of Nature cleric
* Druid cantrip: Shillelagh. Cleric cantrips: whatever you want
* ASIs: 2 Wisdom, War Caster (for advantage to concentration saves and to hit with Booming Blade on a reaction, doing all 8d8 + 5 damage immediately if they try to move away or past you)
* 2 levels of Paladin: Defensive fighting style
* 9 more levels of Cleric
* ASIs = 2 Wisdom, Tough or Mobile (so you can move 5 ft away after hitting someone with booming blade to draw them towards you without taking an attack of opportunity)

Armor Class 21 (26 with Shield spell) with no magic items (plate armor, shield, club)

HP 163 (if you took mobile, 203 with Tough)

As a reaction - Dampen Elements: Resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage to yourself or anyone within 30 feet

**Obviously** this is a level 20 theorycrafting build but I think it can be effective throughout the game (if you can survive level 1) even if you don’t get to 20 in your campaign.

Here is that single target damage breakdown from the chart up top at level 6, which is when IMO this starts to get pretty good:

* Spirit Guardians at 3rd level = 3d8
* Shillelagh = 1d8 + 4
* Spiritual Weapon = 1d8 + 4
* Booming Blade = 1d8
* Booming Blade if they move = 2d8

Total potential damage is 8d8 + 8

Sorry about the formatting, copied from my Reddit post and on mobile.

You can duplicate this by using Arcana cleric and picking Magic Initiate to grab shillelagh. This way you don’t need to dip sorcerer. This will also give you ASIs faster and probably a smoother level up.

You can even just do Nature cleric and use magic initiate to grab booming blade and green flame blade. 2 levels of Paladin is still good for the smite but it is quite MAD. Since you only need wisdom you do have the luxury of grabbing resilient con and likely warcaster too.

[TheMango55]

You can duplicate this by using Arcana cleric and picking Magic Initiate to grab shillelagh. This way you don’t need to dip sorcerer. This will also give you ASIs faster and probably a smoother level up.

You can even just do Nature cleric and use magic initiate to grab booming blade and green flame blade. 2 levels of Paladin is still good for the smite but it is quite MAD. Since you only need wisdom you do have the luxury of grabbing resilient con and likely warcaster too.

First the sorcerer dip gives constitution proficiency so you don't need resilient con. Also gives double the cantrips and spells compared to magic initiate (4 cantrips 2 level 1 vs 2 cantrips 1 level 1)

Second it's a little hard to justify your reasoning of faster ASI's when you're using an ASI for magic initiate.

Also arcana cleric doesn't get heavy armor.

You will still only need wisdom with my build, other than the 13 str and cha you need to multiclass.

Since your dips are another full caster and a half caster, your spellcasting in cleric will be slowed somewhat but your actual spell slots will be negligiably impacted. This means that you will have a couple of levels of level 9 spell slots with no level 9 spells. This is a blessing in disguise as you cast spirit guardians at 9th level doing 9d8 damage every round to every enemy nearby.

[Gignere]

First the sorcerer dip gives constitution proficiency so you don't need resilient con. Also gives double the cantrips and spells compared to magic initiate (4 cantrips 2 level 1 vs 2 cantrips 1 level 1)

Second it's a little hard to justify your reasoning of faster ASI's when you're using an ASI for magic initiate.

Also arcana cleric doesn't get heavy armor.

You will still only need wisdom with my build, other than the 13 str and cha you need to multiclass.

Since your dips are another full caster and a half caster, your spellcasting in cleric will be slowed somewhat but your actual spell slots will be negligiably impacted. This means that you will have a couple of levels of level 9 spell slots with no level 9 spells. This is a blessing in disguise as you cast spirit guardians at 9th level doing 9d8 damage every round to every enemy nearby.

You admit it that your build would be behind, when I mean earlier ASI I am considering when the 2 Paladin levels occur too, you basically have 3 dead levels with respect to ASI. You should map out the leveling I think you will find that there isn’t a good place to squeeze in the Paladin levels without pushing back ASIs and spell levels significantly. Level 20 theorycrafting is literally 20 theorycrafting when does your multi come on line fully? How does it play before it does?

I don’t think Paladin levels are necessary if you go straight arcana or straight nature. You basically get all the damage but smite but with 1 attack per turn that can smite it’s not a sure thing you can anyway, given how much options you have on your one action.

I think a feat is less of a drag than cleric levels. True you save resilient con but you’d likely need resilient wis as you level, and starting cleric gets this.

Arcana cleric doesn’t get heavy armor but it opens up all sorts of race options that your build can’t due to having only 13 strength and using heavy armor.

[TheMango55]

You admit it that your build would be behind, when I mean earlier ASI I am considering when the 2 Paladin levels occur too, you basically have 3 dead levels with respect to ASI. You should map out the leveling I think you will find that there isn’t a good place to squeeze in the Paladin levels without pushing back ASIs and spell levels significantly. Level 20 theorycrafting is literally 20 theorycrafting when does your multi come on line fully? How does it play before it does?

I don’t think Paladin levels are necessary if you go straight arcana or straight nature. You basically get all the damage but smite but with 1 attack per turn that can smite it’s not a sure thing you can anyway, given how much options you have on your one action.

I think a feat is less of a drag than cleric levels. True you save resilient con but you’d likely need resilient wis as you level, and starting cleric gets this.

Arcana cleric doesn’t get heavy armor but it opens up all sorts of race options that your build can’t due to having only 13 strength and using heavy armor.

If you read my post you would know that I said that the build comes online at level six and the only level it’s specifically weak is level 1. If you are more concerned about being a full spellcaster than about doing melee damage, then certainly you can skip the paladin levels. But I think I’ve shown that even though you don’t get spells as quickly, you can still make good use of those spell slots. If you really wanted those spells as soon as possible, you could certainly hold off on the paladin levels until character level 18, after you have 9th level spells already.

I really don’t think you need resilient wis if you have 20 wis.

Also, yes, this is a dwarf specific build. But the OP said he wanted specific builds, so that’s what I gave him.