D&D 5E Best blaster cleric

[Paul Smart]

What do people think is the best blaster cleric? Why? I like Arcane myself but want to get other people's opinions. Thanks.

 

[RogueJK]

Tempest, by a large margin. Good AoEs, and maximized damage.

And while it's technically not a Cleric, but still Divine, the new UA Wildfire Druid makes a dandy fire-based blaster, with Firebolt, Create Bonfire, Produce Flame, Flaming Sphere, Scorching Ray, Heat Metal, Fireball, Flame Arrows, Wall of Fire, Flame Strike, etc. Add on the Elemental Adept: Fire feat for even more fun. (And you still have good alternate element spell options for the times you run into Fire Immunity.)

 

[Seramus]

Order has the highest potential output across an entire day. Unless you are just counting Cantrip spam, then Arcane.

 

[Fenris-77]

Just as a straight blaster I think Light might outdo Tempest (or at least look like it) but I don't like the mono damage focus on the most commonly resisted damage type, and Tempest has better control spells, which I care about more than blasting anyway. Tempest is the better choice IMO. Still a fine blaster and with better peripherals.

 

[Weiley31]

Warlock with Eldri-oh bugger wait...

 

[Sacrosanct]

Played a tempest cleric up to level 15. The ability to maximize thunder and lightning damage, and cast aoe thunder and lightning spells makes it a very effective blaster.

Maximizing damage is no small thing, even if there might be fewer options of blaster type spells

 

[Blue]

I've been concerned about Tempest blasting that they are situational about being outside. From play is that a real thing, or am I overthinking it?

 

[Fenris-77]

Just Call Lightning, and even that is fine indoors so long as the ceiling is high enough. Other than that I think you're good.

 

[RogueJK]

Tempest is just fine indoors.

Call Lightning is the only spell affected, since it requires either an open outdoor area, or an indoor area that is at least 120 feet wide and over 15ish feet tall. (The original requirement of a 100 foot tall ceiling was errata'd out; now you just have to have room overhead for a 10 foot tall cloud.) So you'll occasionally come across large indoor rooms/caves where Call Lightning can still be used.

And you still have Thunderwave and Shatter (upcast and maximized, as needed) for AoE blasting in situations where Call Lightning isn't practical, plus Destructive Wave and Flame Strike, and Spirit Guardians for close-range AoE damage (the latter two are available to all Clerics).

Consider that a Thunderwave or Shatter spell, cast at 3rd level and Maximized, does 32 damage on a failed save. That's 4 points more than the average damage of a 3rd level Fireball from a Light Cleric. A 4th level upcast and maximized Thunderwave/Shatter does 8.5 points more than the average damage of a 4th level upcast Fireball. Granted, Fireball covers a larger area, but the smaller area of Thunderwave/Shatter is handy for careful positioning to avoid friendlies. And they're both doing Thunder damage, which is a less-resisted element than Fire.

Call Lightning does similar maximized damage to Thunderwave/Shatter (30 at 3rd, 40 at 4th), with the big difference being that instead of just doing that damage once, it can do its damage once per round for 10 minutes, all for the cost of one spell slot and your Concentration. (Okay, so no combat is going to last 100 rounds, but it's still very economical...) Only the first two bolts would be able to be Maximized, but then you're still tossing out an average of 16.5/21 damage with the up to 98 subsequent bolts. And since it's Lightning damage, you can push enemies around with those bolts, thanks to your Thunderbolt Strike ability.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Besides the ability to throw fireballs, the light domain cleric also has radiance of the dawn, a 30 foot AoE effect which does radiant damage (not fire) and only harms enemies. As a ribbon ability it also dispels darkness. This is very useful for taking out a large number of weak, low-level enemies. In general I find that fireball makes the light cleric good at long range bombs while spirit guardians and radiance of the dawn make it dangerous close up.