D&D 5E (2014) Tempest Cleric seems VERY strong

[Ancalagon]

Is the light domain really that strong? I mean sure it has blasting spells... but blasting spells aren't great in 5e...

 

[CTurbo]

Yeah I'm wondering what I'm missing with the Light and Nature domains. I'm really familiar with the War, Life, Death, and Tempest, but not the others.

 

[cmad1977]

One of the gems of the Tempest cleric is access to sleet storm as a form of battlefield control often lacking in the cleric. This spell can often be more devastating a call lightning with channel divinity applied. The Temprst cleric is a gem, but like all the domains, they each peak in power at different levels and in different situations. by the end of the game this is somewhat homogenized which I feel is a sign of good design, my only complaint is that at upper levels there is usually only one or two spells to choose from and they are usually binary, either offence or defense. If a cleric wants to apply their 9th level spell to offense the choice is gate. Defense is Mass heal. There is little choice beyond this one binary and it applies to all clerics. I am hopeful the November release will offer more diversity if for no other reason than the sake of diversity.

Sleet storm is so nasty.


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[DaveDash]

Is the light domain really that strong? I mean sure it has blasting spells... but blasting spells aren't great in 5e...

Light Domain Cleric feels like a bit of Wizard and a bit of Cleric at the same time, and potent cantrip damage really adds up after a while. Their flare ability is also actually quite good.

Having access to Wall of Fire and Fireball as well are very very good. There's tons of blasting to do in official WoTC modules that throw tons of low level creatures at you. Wall of Fire is also a great battlefield control spell.

I've played a Light Cleric to level 18 and a War Cleric to level 16. The melee based Clerics IMO suffer too much from identity crisis and MAD, the pure caster type Clerics can just focus on pure Wis.

 

[Zardnaar]

Is the light domain really that strong? I mean sure it has blasting spells... but blasting spells aren't great in 5e...

Spell list+flare and radiance of the dawn which is roughly on par with a short rest fireball almost. Its like having and extra 6 level 2 or 3 spell slots. Also you can focus on wisdom and be fine with 14 dex and con.

The melee clerics tend to have MAD issues, you are in heavy armor and want a 15 strength but you also want wisdom, but you are trying to do melee so you want constitution as well. And you may as well rule out medium armor. If you have decent rolled stats a lot of the MAD issues go away.

Even something like the war cleric is not going to be that great at melee by say level 8 assuming you have an 18 strength for example. The light cleric is one of the best blasters in the game probably better than invokers even vs fire immune stuff you can switch to radiant.

The Tempest and War clerics are not actually good at melee after a few levels. If you min/max the hell out of them you can sort of get them to the good range but light, nature, and arcana can just feed off wisdom (shillelagh, green flame blade, wis damage to cantrips).

Life domain good at healing
Nature Cleric/Arcana cleric good at melee *by cleric standards)
Light Cleric good at blasting
Tempest Cleric ok at fighting, OK at blasting
War Cleric may not actually be good at anything.

 

[CTurbo]

I'm curious as to what people are considering "good" at melee. I think I'm gonna start a thread about it, I think the War and Tempest, and even the Life Cleric to an extent, are GOOD at melee.

 

[DaveDash]

I'm curious as to what people are considering "good" at melee. I think I'm gonna start a thread about it, I think the War and Tempest, and even the Life Cleric to an extent, are GOOD at melee.

The Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, and Hunter Ranger for example are good at melee.

The Clerics generally are not. I seriously considered multiclassing my War Cleric to fighter to make him better in melee, but I ultimately decided against it due to spells being too useful - which is inherently part of the problem.
As you level up, casting spells becomes way more useful than just hitting things since you can never hit hard enough to really effect the outcome of a battle with your weapon. This means ultimately you suffer as a melee Cleric because you're much better just focusing on pure Wisdom instead of Str, Con, and Wis.

This doesn't mean melee clerics are useless, far from it, as I still had a lot of fun playing my War Cleric from level 1-16. Mechanically though I found him very unsatisfactory compared to the Light Cleric I played. I always felt like I was compromising on something with the War cleric.

 

[KahlessNestor]

My half orc tempest is level 11 and awesome. I don't care if he isn't super optimized for melee. It doesn't matter. He's up there keeping the squishies safe with his plate, shield, and cloak of displacement and blasting the heck out of things.

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[Sacrosanct]

The Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, and Hunter Ranger for example are good at melee.

The Clerics generally are not.

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In our Tyranny of Dragons campaign, with my dragonborn tempest cleric, I was probably one of the best at melee. Very high AC, spirit guardians on, and spiritual hammer also going (doesn't require concentration). So I was attacking twice, often at different locations, and damaging anything on the front lines while being able to be quite tanky with high AC. Additionally, with the ability to cause lightning damage as a reaction to anyone who hits me, combined with being able to push an opponent 10ft whenever they suffer lightning damage, I was doing significant damage AND battlefield control at the same time. And if I wanted to nova? Destructive wave, maxing out the thunder damage with yet another of my tempest features.

 

[Istbor]

Life domain good at healing
Nature Cleric/Arcana cleric good at melee *by cleric standards)
Light Cleric good at blasting
Tempest Cleric ok at fighting, OK at blasting
War Cleric may not actually be good at anything.

I couldn't disagree more with your assessment.