[AL, Tasha’s]Optimizing a Twilight Cleric

[prototype00]

So I know that this is a bit of “gilding the lily” as Twilight Cleric is already widely regarded as one of the best cleric subclasses, but just wanted to check if I was missing anything while planning things out:

- Race will be Half Elf, with racial heritage High Elf to access the blade cantrips for free (will probably be booming blade for synergy). +2, +1, +1 is also a good stat line to have.

- Will go heavy Armor sword and board to really boost the AC (is the 14 Dex/Medium Armor path worth considering?)

- 4th level will take Warcaster, basically required.

- 8th level will take Crusher to enjoy synergy with booming blade (you hit them, push them back and they have to take booming blade damage to step up to engage you again)

- 12th and 16th to max wisdom

- Not that it’s likely to come up but what should I consider for 19th Lvl? Heavy armor master?

Aside from that I didn’t have any obvious other synergies pop out at me, just maximise AC and make the rest of the party immortal. Did I miss anything?

[ATHATH]

Remember to, immediately after each long rest, use your Channel Divinity (with the rest of your party standing near you for a minute) and then take a short rest to get it back. The THP should last until a long rest is taken, I believe, since a duration for the THP isn't given.

[prototype00]

Remember to, immediately after each long rest, use your Channel Divinity (with the rest of your party standing near you for a minute) and then take a short rest to get it back. The THP should last until a long rest is taken, I believe, since a duration for the THP isn't given.

Oh yeah, that's a real good one. I'll keep that in mind.

[Chronic]

Your build is playable, but since this thread is about optimisation, I would argue that your build isn't optimal.
Honestly, twilight clerics are rather bad melee cleric, you will invest a lot to deal sub-par damage.
In my opinion, going medium armor with 14 dex and taking a proficiency in stealth, which goes really well with the domain, while staying at mid range casting cantrips with blessed strike and spells is the way to go. Beside a melee cleric without shillelag is fairly mad, and you will lag being in accuracy for your melee, while having worst spell DC than clerics that boost their wisdom early. And nothing prevents you from going into melee once your channel divinity is up, you cast spirit guardians, spiritual weapons of you want to and you take the dodge action while being in melee range.
Between the dodge, the thp and you high ac with a shield, you'll be one tanky cleric.

[prototype00]

Ah, I should mention, in AL Historic the various grades of giant's strength belts are fairly available, especially if you DM, I should have no problem having the highest Str in the party while maxing Wis, actually.

Does that change your calculus?

[RogueJK]

Your build is playable, but since this thread is about optimisation, I would argue that your build isn't optimal.

In my opinion, going medium armor with 14 dex and taking a proficiency in stealth, which goes really well with the domain, while staying at mid range casting cantrips with blessed strike and spells is the way to go. Beside a melee cleric without shillelag is fairly mad, and you will lag being in accuracy for your melee, while having worst spell DC than clerics that boost their wisdom early.

Agreed. Even with BB, Clerics quickly reach a point past Tier 1ish where they often have better things to do with their Action than swing a melee weapon 1x per turn. And as noted, pursuing that path detracts from your casting by delaying you maxing out your WIS and eating up more of your ASIs that are going towards STR.

Especially now that any Cleric can take the Blessed Strike option to gain +WIS to Cleric cantrip damage, so there's even less incentive than before for even the more martial Clerics (who'd normally be stuck with just Divine Strike) to invest resources towards swinging a weapon.

It's totally fine if you want to play that way. And pursuing Heavy Armor and STR-based melee does make you a potentially good "all arounder", being able to stick to the front with a high AC and Warcaster BB OAs when the party needs a tanky frontliner, or hang back a bit with cantrips and support spells if there's enough frontline allies already. That flexibility might be handy for AL, where party configuration can vary from sessions to session. It just won't necessarily be "optimized".

[sayaijin]

Ah, I should mention, in AL Historic the various grades of giant's strength belts are fairly available, especially if you DM, I should have no problem having the highest Str in the party while maxing Wis, actually.

Does that change your calculus?

That does change things. When I DM, I always wonder when to pull the anti-magic field to punish players for dumping Str in heavy armor builds - don't know what kind of DM you have, but hopefully they're not so vindictive.

[prototype00]

That does change things. When I DM, I always wonder when to pull the anti-magic field to punish players for dumping Str in heavy armor builds - don't know what kind of DM you have, but hopefully they're not so vindictive.

Usually late T3 or T4 for that, they kind of have to follow the written mods (some leeway provided, but I think the line is drawn somewhere before "break glass to give boss AMF").

Besides, I'm also a DM and for the local playerbase, they know what goes around, comes around.

[quindraco]

That does change things. When I DM, I always wonder when to pull the anti-magic field to punish players for dumping Str in heavy armor builds - don't know what kind of DM you have, but hopefully they're not so vindictive.

-10 feet of movement unless you're a dwarf is unlikely to be all that crippling.

[lordshadowisle]

Ah, I should mention, in AL Historic the various grades of giant's strength belts are fairly available, especially if you DM, I should have no problem having the highest Str in the party while maxing Wis, actually.

Does that change your calculus?

I think a melee cleric is actually further away from optimal if DM-reward magic items are considered. Giant strength belts are powerful in AL, but those are typically pure melee builds with extra attack, GWM, PAM. Considering that a magic weapon is probably necessary if you intend to melee, that's two magic item slots used (which could be other powerful magic items instead).

I don't think it's terrible, just not optimized given the feat and item investment. In any case, AL Historic is now free rebuilds, so there's no harm trying it out.

[sayaijin]

-10 feet of movement unless you're a dwarf is unlikely to be all that crippling.

I meant more from the attack and damage stats as opposed to armor penalty, but the ten feet of movement is rough for someone wanting to get into melee.

[Chronic]

Ah, I should mention, in AL Historic the various grades of giant's strength belts are fairly available, especially if you DM, I should have no problem having the highest Str in the party while maxing Wis, actually.

Does that change your calculus?

It would improve your damage a bit and feel better since you will hit more reliably, but in the end it's still fairly unimpressible melee damage. This is totally playable tho.

If this is AL, consider getting a mitral plate armor, all the advantages of plate armor without the 15 str requirement and the stealth and acrobatics penalties. It's not a very expensive item, at 2000 gold.

[Quietus]

I meant more from the attack and damage stats as opposed to armor penalty, but the ten feet of movement is rough for someone wanting to get into melee.

I'd argue that if there's an AMF, your cleric probably doesn't want to get in melee, actually.

It would improve your damage a bit and feel better since you will hit more reliably, but in the end it's still fairly unimpressible melee damage. This is totally playable tho.

If this is AL, consider getting a mitral plate armor, all the advantages of plate armor without the 15 str requirement and the stealth and acrobatics penalties. It's not a very expensive item, at 2000 gold.

In AL, you cannot buy magic items with gold. You have to find them, and you can only have a certain number of magic items based on tier (1/3/6/10, respectively). Gold is also extremely limited, which OP is no doubt aware of. If you want to buy a suit of full plate, you have to go from level 1-11 or 12 before you will have earned the 1500 gold to buy it.

Prototype - I think the only issue you'll have with this build is that you're leaving wisdom at 16 for an extremely long time, and that will hurt your DCs for things like spirit guardians. You've chosen a very feat-heavy approach, which does sound like a lot of fun, but you'll definitely feel that delay. I'd consider starting as a variant human, with a 1 level Divine Soul sorcerer dip. That allows you to get an early feat, constitution save proficiency, pick up booming blade out of Sorcerer, plus Shield and Absorb Elements, and the Divine Soul's "Oh No" 2d4 button. Grab Crusher as Vhuman so you have the BB + Crusher combo from level 1. This being AL, if you ever do reach level 19, you can do a rebuild to be 100% cleric and use magic initiate instead of sorcerer dip to keep your spells.

[Stangler]

In my experience unless your party is really thinking about trying to take advantage of the extra damage from the creature moving you won't be benefiting from it that often. BB isn't terrible but I also wouldn't worry about building around it that much. I definitely think investing an ASI into crushing in an attempt to take advantage of the extra damage is a bad idea as is multiclassing just to get it. Going Elf to get it is a solid choice but personally I would rate RPing over the benefit of the cantrip and strongly consider other races.

That said, you will be optimized enough with those choices even the crusher one. I would consider resilience and crusher for +2 con instead of war caster.

[ATHATH]

Prototype - I think the only issue you'll have with this build is that you're leaving wisdom at 16 for an extremely long time, and that will hurt your DCs for things like spirit guardians. You've chosen a very feat-heavy approach, which does sound like a lot of fun, but you'll definitely feel that delay. I'd consider starting as a variant human, with a 1 level Divine Soul sorcerer dip. That allows you to get an early feat, constitution save proficiency, pick up booming blade out of Sorcerer, plus Shield and Absorb Elements, and the Divine Soul's "Oh No" 2d4 button. Grab Crusher as Vhuman so you have the BB + Crusher combo from level 1. This being AL, if you ever do reach level 19, you can do a rebuild to be 100% cleric and use magic initiate instead of sorcerer dip to keep your spells.

Won't being both a Divine Soul Sorcerer and a Twilight Cleric cause you to break the PHB+1 rule? Does Tasha's not count for that or something?

[Chad.e.clark]

Won't being both a Divine Soul Sorcerer and a Twilight Cleric cause you to break the PHB+1 rule? Does Tasha's not count for that or something?

PHB +1 is no longer a thing, as of a few months ago.

[Chronic]

-10 feet of movement unless you're a dwarf is unlikely to be all that crippling.

I am of the opinion that movement is paramount in combat, that said, it's a personal view.