feat advice for Tempest cleric 8

[Waazraath]

Background:
We played the first part of Out of the Abyss a few years ago. It was a no-feat no-multiclass campaign. After playing a lot of other stuff, the DM wants to finish it, and he told us to update our characters to level 8, and that from this point, feats are on the table.

The other characters are:
- Bugbear Berserker Barbarian (might deceide to change the subclass retroactively, if the DM allows);
- Half-Elf Chain Warlock
- Half-Elf Ancients Paladin

The pally and barbarian are usually the frontline, the warlock is face/single target ranged/scout, and I provide healing, buffing, battlefield control, area damage and play secondary melee (Booming Blade from High Elf helps here), if opportune to do so.

The stats I rolled were quite good, being atm:
Str 12
Dex 18
Con 16
Int 12
Wis 18
Cha 14

So I don't think I'm gonna spend the lvl 8 ASI on another stat increase. Given that all my stats are even, half-feats are less attractive.

Logical feats imo would be:
- war caster (always good for concentration, makes casting in melee also easier)
- alert (going first is great with battle field control)
- defensive duelist (getting hit less is nice)
- mobile (works well with Booming Blade)
- gift of the chromatic dragon (some protection against elements few times/day is nice, especially without having to spend spell slots)
- metamagic adept (for extended aids / death wards, cast before long resting and lasting 16 hours, and subtle spells for casting with full hands
(- actually I wanted to take inspiring leader in the first place, but both Cha based chars also want to take it so I'm not wanna step on toes)

What makes it less streightforward a choice: I adjust my role per combat based on what's needed most - sometime walking into the frey with spiritual weapon and / or spirit guardians, sometimes opening with a maximized upcast shatter and then blasting from the backline, and at other times casting some BFC like fog cloud or sleet storm to hamper ranged enemies, before dropping concentration and spending it on a bless and then starting to hit people. If I would always be at the front, war caster or mabye defensive duelist would be most logical, but those are less needed at the backline.

My questions:
- am I forgetting obvious choices?
- what would you folks do / recommend?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Right now you're losing concentration about 1/3 of the time you take 1-20 points of damage unless you're near the Pally. That just seems too much to me, so I'd be hard pressed to do much other than Warcaster unless the Pally has a high Cha and you're using that a lot.

[RogueJK]

Yep. Concentration is King for a Caster.

So Warcaster at 8. Then +2 WIS at 12. Campaign ends at ~15.

In addition to boosting Concentration, it synergizes well with your racial Booming Blade. When an enemy is stuck in your Spirit Guardians radius and wants to try to leave to avoid further damage, you get to Booming Blade them as an OA, forcing them to choose between staying put and taking damage or continuing to move and take damage.

[solidork]

There is a conversation to be had between Resilient: Con and Warcaster, but the fact that Cleric has some pretty good spells to use with the reaction and that you have Booming Blade puts Warcaster over.

I just like getting up to a +9 in Con saves so that the little stuff can't possibly break your concentration.

[CTurbo]

Warcaster all the way IMO

+2 Wis would be the next choice

[KorvinStarmast]

Warcaster all the way IMO

+2 Wis would be the next choice
In order I'd suggest:
1. Warcaster if you use conc based buffs a lot. I noticed that my buffing character got hit a lot as we got into late Tier 2 / early Tier 3.
2. Alert (get your buffs/debuffs up first more often, +9 to initiative is niiiiice) and you cannot be surprised.
3. +2 wis. (Waiting for level 12 will be fine for that).

[Hairfish]

Magic Initiate, so you can dip into Wizard to take Shocking Grasp and Find Familiar. Yeah, you'll be making your Shocking Grasp attacks with INT, but that's a small price to pay for using your familiar to joy buzzer enemies into pits.

[Waazraath]

Thanks for all replies!

The consensus is pretty strong towards warcaster. I'd like to sharpen my thoughts on it and will play a bit devils advocate, if you don't mind. A few things in advance:


In addition to boosting Concentration, it synergizes well with your racial Booming Blade. When an enemy is stuck in your Spirit Guardians radius and wants to try to leave to avoid further damage, you get to Booming Blade them as an OA, forcing them to choose between staying put and taking damage or continuing to move and take damage.

This is interesting, hadn't thought about it before.


Right now you're losing concentration about 1/3 of the time you take 1-20 points of damage unless you're near the Pally.

- bolded for emphasis: this is important imo, because often I have the chance to position the character next to the pally. And playing smart, I will do so when casting a concentration spell.

- what I forgot to mention in the OP was that the character received a blessing earlier in the campaign, giving it a +1 to AC and saves. That makes it's con save +4 (and +7 when next to the pally)

- a Cleric has pretty good non-concentation spells: Aid, Healing Word, Spiritual Weapon, Revivify Blindness/Deafness - and even more so a Tempest which can use above average powerfull aoe damage spells like maximized Shatters. And this character is build so it can walk in melee as well and be relevant with Booming Blade (and standard Tempest goodies). So basicly, there almost always will be the option to do other useful stuff aside from concentration spells, and that leads me to the assuption that usually I can choose to cast concentration spells under optimal circumstances (when being relative safe in the backline or close to the pally)

Of course, real maths is not possible when comparing these feats; there are simply too many unknown variables in play. Will the character be targeted a lot, will the encounters allow staying close to the pally, who will win initiative, what tactics will the baddies use, etc. But my line of thinking is that under the assumption that I will usually be near the pally when using concentration spells, the chance of failing a save is only 10% (maybe even 5%, I'm not sure whether his cha is +4 or +3). So: how many times during an adventuring day will it come up that warcaster saves my spell? My estimation is: pretty rarely. Having said that, it has two other advantages which situationally can be nice as welll.

But a feat like Alert, assuming 6-8 encounters, will have worth every adventuring day, often several times. Going first will be able to set the battlefield, can prevent damage and do damage (and again preventing damage because enemies are down earlier). A feat like Metamagic adept, when used for extend aid every eavening, will provide the party with 15-45 extra hitpoints - without resources used that adventuring day! It will be effective almost always. Even a feat like defensive duelist, while not very strong, will be usefull most adventuring days, prevent damage and when used often enough prevent failed concentration saves (a hit not landing won't cause concentration to fail).

Of course, one could argue that loosing a concentration spell is more important than preventing a few attacks/day from landing, but I'm not sure about that.

Thoughts?

[Emongnome777]

A feat like Metamagic adept, when used for extend aid every eavening, will provide the party with 15-45 extra hitpoints - without resources used that adventuring day! It will be effective almost always.

I'd take healer first. This costs a feat plus spell slot every day (the spell slot you use in the evening still needs to go unused throughout that day, so it isn't "without resources"). at 8th level for 4 party members is an average of 104 healing per day assuming only 1 short rest: (1d6+12) x 4 characters x 2 times, though this assumes every character needed that amount of healing twice and it does cost 8 uses of a healer's kit per day.

What about Fey Touched at 8th then Shadow Touched at 12th? That'll get your Wis to 20 at 12th level plus 4 spells added to prepped and 4 more spells cast per day. Taking Gift of Alacrity (if allowed) and self-casting it would give you close to the +5 you get from Alert plus other goodies. Just another idea if Warcaster doesn't do it for you.

[x3n0n]

Thanks for all replies!

The consensus is pretty strong towards warcaster. I'd like to sharpen my thoughts on it and will play a bit devils advocate, if you don't mind. A few things in advance:



This is interesting, hadn't thought about it before.


If you would enjoy wading into melee with spirit guardians active, War Caster is pretty great. For example, cast SG. Next turn, Dodge and walk into melee adjacent to some opponent. Now they are unlikely to hit you and you can Booming Blade them if they try to walk away, imposing a LOT of additional damage.
If you're *not* interested in booming blade (or other single-target damage) opportunity attacks, then I agree that much of the benefit is lost. At that point, you might be better off with Resilient(Con) even with the wasted half-bump, especially given your info below: Con (+3) and boon (+1) and proficiency (+3, soon +4) and Paladin (+3 or +4) means you'd *always* pass a 10. Even without the Paladin, you'd soon be in the "95% to maintain" category. R(Con) would benefit your other Constitution saves as well, like non-Dex AoE damage effects (potentially saving a lot of HP).


But a feat like Alert, assuming 6-8 encounters, will have worth every adventuring day, often several times. Going first will be able to set the battlefield, can prevent damage and do damage (and again preventing damage because enemies are down earlier). A feat like Metamagic adept, when used for extend aid every eavening, will provide the party with 15-45 extra hitpoints - without resources used that adventuring day! It will be effective almost always. Even a feat like defensive duelist, while not very strong, will be usefull most adventuring days, prevent damage and when used often enough prevent failed concentration saves (a hit not landing won't cause concentration to fail).

Alert is pretty awesome for initiative and potentially to say "I'm not surprised!". As a secondary benefit, a fog cloud in melee lets you do the "Alert trick": you both get disadvantage on attacks because you can't see, you get counteracting advantage for them not being able to see you, and they do *not* get that advantage because of Alert, so your attacks roll straight and theirs are at disadvantage.

Defensive Duelist is a lot of fun, but it's not at its best yet (since it scales with PB), and it creates some unnecessary tension on your reaction. If you *would* be hit, do you deflect it, retaliate with Wrath of the Storm, or tank it and threaten an OA (which you can't do once you've spent your reaction on deflecting).

Mobile is fun with booming blade, but it sounds like you'll typically have other frontliners anyway, so free "Disengage" still (likely) leaves your teammates in melee range. You also don't have Extra Attack to use Mobile to negate multiple enemy frontline OAs on the way to their back line.

Metamagic Adept (Extended, maybe Subtle for casting without breaking stealth) seems fun too. In addition to aid, you also have death ward as an obvious rest-trick candidate.

As you said, it's really good that *someone* in the party takes Inspiring Leader.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Well, if you're near the Paladin a lot and they have the good sense to have a high Chr, then Warcaster has less benefit.

Here's a thought that you should take with a grain of sand, particularly as I haven't taken a look at the Tempest spell list. I played a Light Cleric through OotA and Elemental Adept Fire worked really well, because Fireball and pretty much all the Demons are resistant to Fire damage, but not immune. A quick look at a couple of demons shows me they're generally Lightening resistant, but not not Thunder, so there wouldn't be the same benefit. But might be worth a look.

[Waazraath]

Thnx again. Wasn't aware of the fog cloud/alert trick, that makes it even more appealing. And I hadn't considered fey touched / shadow touched combined, but that indeed gives some strong options and wis 20 at level 20.

Gonna sleep a few nights over it, talk to the rest of the group and the DM (how he would rule alert/fog cloud and whether gift of alacrity is on the table or not).

[Akal Saris]

I have a 9th level Tempest Cleric with booming blade. I've found warcaster useful so I can booming blade on AOOs, even discounting the benefit to concentration (which I've actually forgotten to roll a few times...) and casting with your hands full. My other slot went to getting Cha from 16 to 18.

If I were in your shoes, I'd go with Fey Touched and either Shadow Touched or Elven Accuracy, because Cha 20 is still better than Cha 18. Elven accuracy's value would depend if you have a source of advantage from your allies (like prone, etc.).

Alternatively, Alertness and War Caster seems like a great combo as well.