Optimizing Nature Clerics Post Tasha's

[Yakmala]

Personally, I like Nature Clerics. I played one in the early days of 5e and enjoyed it, but many folks I've played with, as well as folks on the internet, consider it a lower tier Cleric subclass. And I get it, a lot of their abilities are situational. But picking up Shillelagh without a feat is good. Spike growth is good. Dampen Elements is very useful.

Anyway, since it's been years since I've played one, and Tasha's is now out, I wanted to re-visit the subclass and I'm trying to decide how to optimize the build. This is what I've come up with so far and I'd welcome suggestions and feedback.

High Elf or Half Elf variant for the Booming Blade Cantrip
With point buy, 16 starting Wis and Con, 14 Dex. We're going to stick with medium armor.
Shillelagh as the starting Druid cantrip.
Two ASI's into Wisdom to get it to 20.
Pick up the Crusher, Polearm Master and Warcaster feats with the remaining ASI's.

The idea here being that hitting with Shillelagh/Booming Blade triggers the Crusher, moving the enemy back, and PAM + Warcaster allows us to use our reaction to hit them with Booming Blade again if/when they close to melee (assuming this still works the way Booming Blade is written in Tashas. I'm still not clear on that).

Does this seem like a good plan? Or am I wasting three feats on a maneuver that isn't worth it? I could, in theory, dump PAM and Crusher and just pick up Mobile, land Booming Blade and then scoot away safely.

[x3n0n]

Personally, I like Nature Clerics. I played one in the early days of 5e and enjoyed it, but many folks I've played with, as well as folks on the internet, consider it a lower tier Cleric subclass. And I get it, a lot of their abilities are situational. But picking up Shillelagh without a feat is good. Spike growth is good. Dampen Elements is very useful.

Anyway, since it's been years since I've played one, and Tasha's is now out, I wanted to re-visit the subclass and I'm trying to decide how to optimize the build. This is what I've come up with so far and I'd welcome suggestions and feedback.

High Elf or Half Elf variant for the Booming Blade Cantrip
With point buy, 16 starting Wis and Con, 14 Dex. We're going to stick with medium armor.
Shillelagh as the starting Druid cantrip.
Two ASI's into Wisdom to get it to 20.
Pick up the Crusher, Polearm Master and Warcaster feats with the remaining ASI's.

The idea here being that hitting with Shillelagh/Booming Blade triggers the Crusher, moving the enemy back, and PAM + Warcaster allows us to use our reaction to hit them with Booming Blade again if/when they close to melee (assuming this still works the way Booming Blade is written in Tashas. I'm still not clear on that).

Does this seem like a good plan? Or am I wasting three feats on a maneuver that isn't worth it? I could, in theory, dump PAM and Crusher and just pick up Mobile, land Booming Blade and then scoot away safely.

I've always kinda wanted to do PAM/BB/War Caster. This seems like a fine setup for it, although 19th level seems like a very long time to wait for it to come online.

Note that Mobile is a lot more effective at getting you out of melee range; you don't have to hit, you don't need to worry about their reach, and you get extra move.

Also note awkwardness with Shillelagh in the first round; no useful PAM stuff (neither reaction nor BA) until it's online.

[MrStabby]

Nature cleric weak? Really?

I mean it drops a bit due to three really strong options in Tasha's but it is, by my rating one of the better ones in the PHB (though most are sufficiently close in power I wouldnt quibble too much if people came with a different order).

Personally I am not that much of a fan of the investment melee clerics take. I played an arcana cleric with Shillelagh and booming blade when SCAG came out and regretted the build somewhat.

I think the most powerful way to play a Nature cleric is to lean in to its strengths. Dont worry about Shillelagh and weapons and so on. Focus on high wisdom, high constitution, resilient con, maybe the lucky feat... much of your damage for many levels will come from spirit guardians so keep being able to pass concentration saves and pull in enemies with thorn whip.

You might miss out on a bit of damage on your "perfect turn", but you will be more reliable and more effective overall.

If you can, take a look at the Eberron races and Ravnica backgrounds for extending the spell lists. There are a lot of good options added here.

[LudicSavant]

Personally, I like Nature Clerics. I played one in the early days of 5e and enjoyed it, but many folks I've played with, as well as folks on the internet, consider it a lower tier Cleric subclass. And I get it, a lot of their abilities are situational. But picking up Shillelagh without a feat is good. Spike growth is good. Dampen Elements is very useful.

Anyway, since it's been years since I've played one, and Tasha's is now out, I wanted to re-visit the subclass and I'm trying to decide how to optimize the build. This is what I've come up with so far and I'd welcome suggestions and feedback.

High Elf or Half Elf variant for the Booming Blade Cantrip
With point buy, 16 starting Wis and Con, 14 Dex. We're going to stick with medium armor.
Shillelagh as the starting Druid cantrip.
Two ASI's into Wisdom to get it to 20.
Pick up the Crusher, Polearm Master and Warcaster feats with the remaining ASI's.

The idea here being that hitting with Shillelagh/Booming Blade triggers the Crusher, moving the enemy back, and PAM + Warcaster allows us to use our reaction to hit them with Booming Blade again if/when they close to melee (assuming this still works the way Booming Blade is written in Tashas. I'm still not clear on that).

Does this seem like a good plan? Or am I wasting three feats on a maneuver that isn't worth it? I could, in theory, dump PAM and Crusher and just pick up Mobile, land Booming Blade and then scoot away safely.

You're in for a treat, because Nature Clerics have gotten some big, fat buffs in Tasha's. Namely...

- The addition of some important new spells to their list.
- Characters with Divine Strike and/or weaker Channel Divinities (like the Nature Cleric) benefit more from the alternate class features than those with Potent Cantrip or stronger Channel Divinities.
- New, more synergistic racial options (Variant High Elf, Half-High Elf, and Aberrant Mark Custom Lineage).

[DarknessEternal]

Why bother making a full caster completely optimized into cantrip spam?

[Evaar]

I think there's a decent case for Crusher using the Shillelagh/Booming Blade combo, but I wouldn't do the Warcaster/PAM combo. Maybe it'll end up being worth it because it enables an off-turn combo so you can still do your Booming Blades as reactions while using your actual turns to focus on casting spells, but I suspect there are just better uses for feats.

Mobile isn't really necessary since you can slide something away with Crusher, and that gets you a +1 Constitution in the deal. Although Mobile gets you the extra movement. Figure out which sounds better to you; I've found movement is quite nice to have in grid gameplay so if you're already at an even Con score then maybe it's better.

It's not that I think there's a ton of opportunity cost for using your late-game feats on those things, I just think you won't end up using them all that often. But I also understand not being thrilled by Lucky even if it's good.

I would still take Warcaster, then either Crusher or Mobile, and probably not PAM if it was me.

[Chronic]

Just to be clear BB only work within 5 feet now and it's intentional, to prevent it to be used with reach weapons. Not the most awful nerf for clerics but still a nerf. So going for PAM isn't very efficient. Someone told in an earlier post that it's probably better to go full caster. I am not really a fan of melee clerics outside the Arcana clerics build because it has very little moving parts and require a lot of things to truly shine. Funny enough the nature cleric actually isn't far from getting everything so it's not the worse for this kind of things. But honestly you'll probably still get more from going the caster way with the usual resilient/war aster feats. You'll still be decent in melee if needed and be a tanker caster.

[Evaar]

Just to be clear BB only work within 5 feet now and it's intentional, to prevent it to be used with reach weapons. Not the most awful nerf for clerics but still a nerf. So going for PAM isn't very efficient.

He's planning to use it with a quarterstaff, otherwise Shillelagh wouldn't work; so he's within 5 feet.

In theory this would allow him to use Booming Blade when an enemy approaches in 5 feet because of the PAM opportunity attack and Warcaster allowing him to cast a spell with an opportunity attack. Then Crusher would let him slide them back 5 feet, so they either stop moving and presumably waste a turn or move again and trigger the Booming Blade rider.

It's a good combo when it happens, but it has counters, takes 3 feats, only works once per round, eats your reaction, and only happens if an enemy tries to get within 5 feet of you. I expect at the level you have all of this, enemies will fall for it once per combat and then the DM will say they figured it out and attack from range/reach or swarm you. But again, figure out what your opportunity cost is - what other feats you'd buy instead of these. Maybe it's worth it anyway.

[DarknessEternal]

In theory this would allow him to use Booming Blade when an enemy approaches in 5 feet because of the PAM opportunity attack and Warcaster allowing him to cast a spell with an opportunity attack.
There's no transitive property between those two feats.

It's been discussed and answered many times. PAM and Warcaster do not allow you to cast a a spell when something enters your reach.

[x3n0n]

There's no transitive property between those two feats.

It's been discussed and answered many times. PAM and Warcaster do not allow you to cast a a spell when something enters your reach.

While I have seen statements that could be summarized that way, the most definitive one I've seen says that the reason is that PAM opportunity attack must be made with the wielded polearm, and that the tweeter in question would need to consider the case of Booming Blade in specific, presumably because the only interaction with the target would be an attack roll with the wielded polearm.

[Theodoxus]

There's no transitive property between those two feats.

It's been discussed and answered many times. PAM and Warcaster do not allow you to cast a a spell when something enters your reach.

Has it? A quick google search brings up the opposite. As long as you're using a staff for the 5' range, BB/GFB uses the weapon that triggered the OA. Appears legit.

[LudicSavant]

So you're probably going to want to pick up Booming Blade + Blessed Strike + Shillelagh. In which case there are a few good ways to do that, right from level 1.

- VHuman or Custom Lineage with the Aberrant Dragonmark feat (which will also give you 1 Shield per short rest and +1 Con).
- High Elf (if you want a skill proficiency, a bunch of tool proficiencies, and trance) or Half-High Elf (if you want a +1 to a tertiary stat).

And you can combine this with Bless or Guiding Bolt right off the bat. Then you'll soon pick up Spiritual Weapon, then Spirit Guardians, etc.

Summon Celestial is a fantastic spell in a 6th or 8th level slot and deals more single target damage than some entire martial PCs for an hour... on top of your entire action economy, making you a single target damage machine. And you'll have decent AoE via stuff like Spirit Guardians and Sunburst.

Use Harness Divine Power at every opportunity -- it's a major boon to the Nature Cleric since their Channel Divinity is relatively situational.

Warcaster is good because it'll help out your Concentration alongside making your OAs deadly. But PAM and Crusher seem more questionable to me. You already have useful reactions and bonus actions, and you aren't making a large number of attack rolls or raising your crit chance to proc Crusher. I'd probably rather just max my Wisdom or boost my Con saves or something.

Spike Growth is a good combo spell. Plant Growth is terrain dependent but really good when it applies (and doesn't take Concentration!). I'd say those are the main highlights of the domain list.

[RogueJK]

Someone told in an earlier post that it's probably better to go full caster. I am not really a fan of melee clerics outside the Arcana clerics build because it has very little moving parts and require a lot of things to truly shine. Funny enough the nature cleric actually isn't far from getting everything so it's not the worse for this kind of things. But honestly you'll probably still get more from going the caster way with the usual resilient/war aster feats. You'll still be decent in melee if needed and be a tanker caster.

I agree that as full casters, by partway into Tier 2ish (and certainly by Tier 3 and 4), Clerics typically end up with better things to do with their Action in a turn than hit an enemy once with a stick. Even leaning into Booming Blade and tacking on Divine Strike doesn't quite make up for it. Plus dumping all those ASIs into Warcaster/Crusher/PAM just to try to make it work decently.

Polearm Master wouldn't benefit you as much if you're planning on relying on Booming Blade, since PAM's Bonus Action attack requires the Attack action, not BB's Cast A Spell Action. So you're spending a whole ASI simply to potentially get one OA per round if an enemy closes with you.


As an alternative, if you want a more melee-focused Nature Cleric, and are willing to give up a bit of the full caster aspect in exchange, consider a Ranger/Cleric multiclass. I've played one of these before, and it was fun and flavorful. Something like Nature Cleric 1 -> Gloomstalker/Hunter/Swarmkeeper Ranger 5 -> Nature Cleric X. With mine, I ended up as a Gloomstalker 5/Nature Cleric 6. (But now post-Tasha's, I think Swarmkeeper could be even better.)

The Shillelagh'd Quarterstaff + Polearm Master would be more viable with that route, since you'll be using the Attack action so can fully benefit from PAM. You'd end up with 3 WIS-based quarterstaff attacks per turn with Extra Attack + PAM BA attack, with a damage boost from both the Dueling fighting style as well as your Ranger subclass (and eventual Divine Strike if you make it that far), some nice nature-related out of combat utility, and mid-level spellcasting with some higher level slots for upcasting certain spells.

Also doable as a Nature Cleric 1/Ranger X, if you really want to focus on melee and the Ranger subclass abilities at the cost of a lot of your spellcasting. But that would barely qualify as a Cleric...

[MrStabby]

The other thing I would add about PAM is that reactions come at a bit of a higher cost. At level 6 you get a really, really good reaction ability. In fights where there is a risk of elemental damage to the party you are sacrificing a lot to make an attack. I mean, I am not saying PAM isn't still nice - but it is a bit weaker than it would be on a different type of cleric.

[Evaar]

There's no transitive property between those two feats.

It's been discussed and answered many times. PAM and Warcaster do not allow you to cast a a spell when something enters your reach.

I don't see why it wouldn't work. Polearm Master's language says nothing about requiring you to take the attack action with the opportunity attack it allows - it explicitly calls it an opportunity attack, and that you can make it when you wield one of the eligible weapons and an enemy enters your reach. War Caster's language says "When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack..." which is consistent with the events happening in the scenario - a creature has moved into our reach, which provoked an opportunity attack, so now we can use our reaction "to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack."

Maybe someone out there theorized that the intent was to require an actual attack with the qualifying weapon, but that's not required by the language of the feats. Much like Crossbow Expert allows you to use an Eldritch Blast in melee without disadvantage, whether or not you've ever actually touched a crossbow. RAW, there's no reason this shouldn't work.

Happy to review any sources you have that make convincing arguments to the contrary.

[DarknessEternal]

Q: Do Polearm Master and War Caster combine to allow a magic user to make a spell opportunity attack when they enter reach?
A: No - polearm master applies only if you use the weapons it lists to make the attack

Booming Blade is a spell, not an attack. It then allows you to make an attack, but, in itself, it's casting a spell.

[x3n0n]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. Polearm Master's language says nothing about requiring you to take the attack action with the opportunity attack it allows - it explicitly calls it an opportunity attack, and that you can make it when you wield one of the eligible weapons and an enemy enters your reach. War Caster's language says "When a hostile creature's movement provokes an opportunity attack..." which is consistent with the events happening in the scenario - a creature has moved into our reach, which provoked an opportunity attack, so now we can use our reaction "to cast a spell at the creature, rather than making an opportunity attack."

Maybe someone out there theorized that the intent was to require an actual attack with the qualifying weapon, but that's not required by the language of the feats. Much like Crossbow Expert allows you to use an Eldritch Blast in melee without disadvantage, whether or not you've ever actually touched a crossbow. RAW, there's no reason this shouldn't work.

Happy to review any sources you have that make convincing arguments to the contrary.

Discussion here, including multiple Mearls tweets, one in specific about the intent of PAM.

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/129311/can-you-combine-polearm-master-with-war-caster-to-cast-booming-blade-as-enemies#129315
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/09/16/polearm-caster/

Agreement seems to be that:
* PAM only allows an opportunity attack with the weapon that was used to satisfy its precondition and
* Booming Blade counts as such an attack if you have War Caster.

[DarknessEternal]

Ok, if you don't like that, War Caster allows you to cast a spell at the target.

The target of Booming Blade, ever since Tasha's, is the caster.

[Man_Over_Game]

Why bother making a full caster completely optimized into cantrip spam?

Same reason you do it on a Warlock: Because you don't need to build around your spells. Nature Cleric is a better tank, EB Warlock is a better damage dealer, but same philosophies.

That way, you can just cast a Concentration Spell in combat and save the rest of your slots for utility (which the Nature Cleric has a lot of). Almost all of the tank-style Clerics are too focused on combat benefits, forgetting that the entire point of having heavy armor is being competent as a melee combatant (and so you already have more options for a fight than 50% of Clerics).

The Nature Cleric is one of the few clerics that has everything. You could make a crappy build as one, and you'd still have a full-casting tank that can talk to animals for information and has a few off-class cantrips.

[x3n0n]

Ok, if you don't like that, War Caster allows you to cast a spell at the target.

The target of Booming Blade, ever since Tasha's, is the caster.

FWIW, JC said in November that the post-Tasha BB and GFB are both intended to be eligible for War Caster (now that GFB's rider is optional).

I don't particularly feel like arguing the case, just that there is a case and that reasonable people can choose to think it's ok.

[Rashagar]

While I really like nature clerics, and I like their divine strike option, I don't think I'd invest that many feats in that weapon-based trick, personally.

If I was looking for options from Tasha's that would change up how a nature cleric feels to play, I'd probably go for something like Fey Touched so I could bampf my Spirit Guardians around the battlefield as needed, and maybe combo Spike Growth with some Dissonant Whispers or something. Might alternatively look at Metamagic Adept to have some fun with metamagic on the cleric spell list a couple of times a day.

I know the above aren't really nature cleric specific, so sorry if this isn't helpful btw. I just think I'd want weapon attacks, especially at higher levels, to be an afterthought rather than something I gave serious investment to.

*Edit*
Just thinking, my first ever 5e character was a nature cleric, I might need to rebuild and revisit him with the above now haha! Too many characters, not enough games.

[Yakmala]

Great feedback, thanks!

Some good points are brought up in this thread, namely, should a Cleric, even one with a high AC that has the potential to strike a reasonably good melee blow, be bothering with melee? Or is there always something better they could be doing with their action economy, especially at higher levels?

My only currently active Cleric, which I play at a weekly game and at some online conventions, is a Twilight Cleric. And I think he's only pulled out a melee weapon once in this entire career and in retrospect, it probably wasn't his best option. Typically, he's got Twilight Sanctuary up, using his Concentration for Spirit Guardians, his Bonus Action for Spiritual Weapon (unless an emergency Healing Word is needed) and his Action, once Twilight Sanctuary and Guardians are active, is typically a dodge to make him harder to hit. If he does need to go full offense, then it's typically bonus action Spiritual Weapon + Toll the Dead, but I find I get more value out of dodging, making myself harder to hit so I have less concentration checks.

It's making me re-think if melee is a good option for a Nature Cleric, or any Cleric really. Even Arcana Clerics, which get to double dip on their damage bonuses, can probably find something better to do with their actions.

[LudicSavant]

Great feedback, thanks!

Some good points are brought up in this thread, namely, should a Cleric, even one with a high AC that has the potential to strike a reasonably good melee blow, be bothering with melee? Or is there always something better they could be doing with their action economy, especially at higher levels?

My only currently active Cleric, which I play at a weekly game and at some online conventions, is a Twilight Cleric. And I think he's only pulled out a melee weapon once in this entire career and in retrospect, it probably wasn't his best option. Typically, he's got Twilight Sanctuary up, using his Concentration for Spirit Guardians, his Bonus Action for Spiritual Weapon (unless an emergency Healing Word is needed) and his Action, once Twilight Sanctuary and Guardians are active, is typically a dodge to make him harder to hit. If he does need to go full offense, then it's typically bonus action Spiritual Weapon + Toll the Dead, but I find I get more value out of dodging, making myself harder to hit so I have less concentration checks.

It's making me re-think if melee is a good option for a Nature Cleric, or any Cleric really. Even Arcana Clerics, which get to double dip on their damage bonuses, can probably find something better to do with their actions.

It’s not a binary case of “either melee is bad and you put nothing in it, or it’s good and you put as many feats in it as you can to the exclusion of other things.”

Warcaster is a very good investment; it helps your Concentration for general casting, and Warcaster OAs can be leveraged to make a meaningful impact even if you never spend on-turn actions on it, and it’s a meaningful improvement on your normal cantrips. You can combine it with spellcasting (such as Spirit Guardians and Summon Celestial) to put out huge amounts of single target damage (enough to outdamage quite a few martials that spent *their* feats on single target damage) in a very slot-efficient manner that you can keep going all day.

While still investing in maximizing your full caster-ness at the same time.

Additionally, it’s entirely possible to spend all of your spell slots in a day on worthwhile, slot-efficient things and still have actions left over (especially if you use spells like Summon Celestial or Spirit Guardians or Aura of Vitality or Spiritual Weapon or Death Ward or Animate Dead and lots of other things that often don’t compete for your in combat actions). You can seriously do both.

If you actually manage to create a “person who uses melee instead of casting” then the problem isn’t that melee clerics are bad, it’s that one didn’t make a proper melee cleric, because they are not supposed to be doing that. The problem isn’t the melee part, it’s the “instead of” part. If you somehow manage to not be able to use all your slots something went awry.

[DarknessEternal]

should a Cleric, even one with a high AC that has the potential to strike a reasonably good melee blow, be bothering with melee? Or is there always something better they could be doing with their action economy, especially at higher levels?.

Yes, there is always a better option for a full caster. That was my original point.

If you want to put up Spirits and spam cantrips, you're better off as any of the Cha based gish options.

Trying to be a full caster that doesn't cast is square peg territory.

[Evaar]

Q: Do Polearm Master and War Caster combine to allow a magic user to make a spell opportunity attack when they enter reach?
A: No - polearm master applies only if you use the weapons it lists to make the attack

Booming Blade is a spell, not an attack. It then allows you to make an attack, but, in itself, it's casting a spell.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/789145660968677376

The followup to what you're quoting, where Mearls says Booming Blade should work.

But just noting - Mearls has invented a rule here. The language of PAM does not say anything about requiring the attack with a PAM eligible weapon. Maybe that was the intent, but it's not the language. The way it's written, if you had a longsword in one hand and a staff in the other, you could absolutely attack with the longsword when someone approaches within reach of your staff. If they don't want it to work that way, they should issue an errata.