Generally, most cleric domains play fairly differently, and most are really solid.
The more offensively oriented domains I'd recommend (no particular order).
- Death
- Light
- Tempest
- Order
- War (honorable mention)
The more defensively oriented domains I'd recommend.
I'm going to compare and contrast a bit.
- Death - makes cantrips really appealing. A good opening round with death cleric at level 3 might be something like inflict wounds (2nd level slot) + Channel Divinity: Touch of Death to do 4d10+11 damage (avg 33) assuming you hit.
- Light - Nice AOE for channel divinity and gets fireball. Decent other abilities. Nice combo is you can also use spiritual weapon and the channel divinity on the same turn for improved action economy. Less dependent on concentration than other clerics.
- Tempest - Channel Divinity Max damage on shatter/call lightning lets you hit like a truck, but not really that much harder than fireball. Tempest gets a bit better control style spells. Fog Cloud, Sleet Storm and Ice Storm are all deceptively strong in the control department.
- Order - With a good part comp you can use rogue, barbarian or archer ranger to do 3d6+3 or 2d6+5, 1d8+1d6+3 while still attacking with a cantrip or simple weapon yourself. Potential for something like a turn 1 that does 20 damage, while also granting an ally a buff like +2 AC. Unlike the other clerics, this can be done for every spell slot you have if desired. and typically gets better with higher level rogues or magical weapons. Contrast with using that 1st level slot on something like inflict wounds (16.5 damage) and you can see it's 'better'. Additionally order clerics get solid control options, the channel divinity and access to slow spell are both good.
- War - Channel Divinity: Guided Strike + Guiding Bolt is an amazing combo (or inflict wounds). It let's you open up combat almost guaranteeing a high damage hit. Can be done once per short rest (twice at level 6). However, means little is left for healing. The ability to get some bonus action attacks is nice.
- Twilight - great abilities all around - however, the biggest downside is turn 1 in combat is often going to be spent starting up your channel divinity. Where the other clerics are doing things like fireball, maximized shatter, or death clerics huge melee damage hit, you are stuck doing nothing really strong offensively. *I should note that sometimes you'll be able to prebuff the Twilight Sanctuary. However, other clerics would pre-buff something like spirit guardians or bless, so maybe not quite as strong action economy wise. Also, Twilight Sanctuary encourages the DM to focus fire more to chew through the temp hp so that he can challenge the party in an encounter. So while a strong ability, you may find the ability has a fairly natural tactical counter.
- Life - Life is a very boring Cleric to play and most people play it wrong. You should be using his spells mostly for offense and using the channel divinity to keep allies up. You should be using very few healing spells, making your non-channel divinity features not count for much. That said this means you function as a strong healer while getting to use all your slots for buff/offense/control. While Life Clerics don't have a ton of options there (thus the boring part) they do shine due to the number of slots they can throw at things while still being a great healer. One suggestion here is to use one higher level slot to cast Aid on your lower hp party members, as it means your channel divinity can do more for them.
Other considerations with clerics
Fey touched is really good - silvery barbs is an amazing spell
Lucky - works great for any cleric wanting to land guiding bolt or inflict wounds
Resilient Con - concentration is important for many clerics
Picking up Booming Blade via any feat is good for any Cleric that's going to be attacking alot.
