Tempest or Life Cleric

[Tyler Dunn]

So the party consists of

A variant human abjuration wizard
A half elf Oath of the Ancients Paladin
A feral Tiefling arcane trickster rogue
A Variant human battlemaster fighter (Archery fighting style)
And a Hill Dwarf Cleric

Should the Cleric be a Life cleric, or could a Tempest cleric fill the role of healer well enough while also being a reliable tank/dpr?

 

[Oofta]

What's going to be more fun? Either is fine, especially since you have a paladin as a backup healer. Since the paladin could use a tank buddy, I'd probably go tempest or consider war cleric. The best defense is frequently a good offense.

Then again, if you're going with a tank cleric you might want to consider mountain dwarf instead of hill. Yes, your heals will be slightly worse but if you focus on buff and healing spells a +1 to attack and damage with your weapon from strength is worth more than a +1 to your spell DC to me.

But there are a lot of options and builds that will work, there's too much variation in the game to have one answer so I always do what feels right. Have fun and good gaming!

 

[ClaytonCross]

Healer is pretty important role in the group and a 5 man group is pretty large making it harder for each character to find a niche role to shine in. I would recommend going Life Cleric and focusing on being the be best healer you can be so that you are a master of that role but don't take or diminish your paladin as a tank (& Melee smite DPS) or out shine the battlemaster as ranged DPR (because that's pretty much the only option for that PC). The Wizard hopefully focuses on interesting support spells and AoE damage. The rogue can act as a scout disarming traps and unlocking doors. That way everyone has some of their own thing having moments to shine.

If you had a smaller group of 2-3 I would recommend Tempest as safety but with 5 players and a spread of possible roles DPR is not much of a concern as effectively when you heal a party member that adds DPR to a fight for every round they are standing when they should not and focusing on Healing doesn't mean that you can't do damage just that you and your allies are aware that is not your focus. Your keeping the party alive and when they are at deaths door they will appreciate that. Also, if you don't like PC you can choose not to heal them for 2 death saves to they can learn why they should treat you better, lol.

 

[Blue]

You do have a bit of backup healing in terms of the paladin, especially to help the out-of-combat load or stand you back up. Abjuration is good at avoiding damage in the first place with their ward. A battlemaster fighter is quite sturdy. You can pull off the healing needed with either. It will be less spells needed for healing with a Life Cleric, so paradoxically the Life cleric will have more slots free for supporting the party in other ways.

You only have one melee front liner, but with Oath of the Ancients my guess is they willing to focus on tanking, not just DPR like an Oath of Vengeance. But still, with only one be prepared to tank. Luckily both get heavy armor.

Since you need to be in the front lines, you'll get hit more. Keeping Concentration won't be as easy, so casting low level spells that you can afford to lose the slot is a bit better.

A good number of the tempest spells take Concentration. Base cleric has a bunch of good concentration spells, tempest expands that list with some good area of effect damage.

Probably your best low level buff will be Bless. No big surprise, but this party has a lot of attack rolls being made. If you want to spend on DPR, Spiritual Weapon and later Spirit Guardians are both good. Tempest has some good AoE damage, but with a wizard that niche does already have coverage.

I think a life cleric, as much as people think it defensive and passive, would better be able to handle tanking and DPR, due to less slots needed for healing so more slots for everything else. The only problem is that without martial weapon proficiency, their Divine Strike to add to weapon damage at 8th is lackluster, doing a point or two less per hit then a character with martial weapons.

One oddity with dwarven clerics - since you don't need STR for heavy armor, and you want a shield/divine focus while tanking, it can often make sense to go for finesse weapons and push your DEX as an attack stat since of all the other goodies DEX brings. I just find it funny that being dwarven enables rapiers and daggers if you want to go that route.

(If you were open to other domains, have you considered Forge from XGtE? They can fill a tanking role even better.)

 

[Mistwell]

Just go Tempest. Life Cleric is overrated. Healing spells are overrated as hit dice do that better anyway (and Druids heal better much of the time as well). Your fighter has second wind, your wizard can have polymorph and safe resting spells like rope trick and a familiar to deliver some healing like a potion or (if you can get the spell somehow in the party) a goodberry. Paladin can do some healing. I say don't worry about it too much and play what you want to play.

Not that I would personally choose Tempest as the subclass - you already have a fighter and a paladin to get into melee so you're not needed in melee. But, it's not a bad subclass.

 

[FrogReaver]

So the party consists of

A variant human abjuration wizard
A half elf Oath of the Ancients Paladin
A feral Tiefling arcane trickster rogue
A Variant human battlemaster fighter (Archery fighting style)
And a Hill Dwarf Cleric

Should the Cleric be a Life cleric, or could a Tempest cleric fill the role of healer well enough while also being a reliable tank/dpr?

1. Characters are more durable because death doen't occur till death saves are failed.
2. Characters are more self sustainable because they can hit dice heal on short rests.
3. Healing in 5e is fairly inefficient compared with killing the enemies faster. You want to be able to heal, but you don't have to overly focus on it.
4. If the party needs more healing then the healer feat can be taken by the cleric or another pc.

You have a paladin who can heal with lay on hands and if he must can use a spell slot for healing. You have an abjuration wizard which gets a ward that can protect allies. The party is a lot more healing and defensive oriented than it might seem.

Between the paladin and fighter you have insane damage nova damage. The rouge adds in some nice sustain dpr alongside the paladin and fighter. The Wizard should give you plenty of control, or can haste the rogue for extra dpr if desired.

However, you only have 1 true front line character. The rogue may play ranged or may melee some, it's hard to say. I think you want the cleric that most wants to be in the melee with the Paladin. Spreading damage over 2 PC's is a very effective survivability strategy. I think tempest plays better as the melee cleric than the life cleric does. Tempest also helps out a lot more on Nova damage than the life cleric.

Due to all the above I would recommend tempest over life for your party.

 

[FrogReaver]

One thing to consider with the tempest is that he's also probably the best cleric to use cure light wounds in battle. Now hear me out before you flat out dismiss the notion.

When he's in melee and needs to pull away to cure light wounds an ally he can punish an enemy that dares to hit him with an OA with his wrath of storms ability. I can't say it's really a deterrant that will keep OA's from hitting you, but potentially sacrificing some of your hp to damage the enemy and give your ally that really needs it a good heal isn't a bad strategy and keeps your effective healing numbers comparable or maybe even surpassing a life clerics that simply attempts to use healing word when in combat.

 

[Coroc]

Just go Tempest. Life Cleric is overrated. Healing spells are overrated as hit dice do that better anyway (and Druids heal better much of the time as well). Your fighter has second wind, your wizard can have polymorph and safe resting spells like rope trick and a familiar to deliver some healing like a potion or (if you can get the spell somehow in the party) a goodberry. Paladin can do some healing. I say don't worry about it too much and play what you want to play.

Not that I would personally choose Tempest as the subclass - you already have a fighter and a paladin to get into melee so you're not needed in melee. But, it's not a bad subclass.

Agree with life cleric being a bit overrated. But how do druids heal better much of the time? Please give an example.

 

[FrogReaver]

Agree with life cleric being a bit overrated. But how do druids heal better much of the time? Please give an example.

Goodberry heals more than cure light wounds or healing word
Healing spirit held way more than anything the cleric has.

 

[Mistwell]

Agree with life cleric being a bit overrated. But how do druids heal better much of the time? Please give an example.

They get the best lower level healing spells in the game: Healing Spirit, Goodberries, Healing Word, and Cure Wounds. And of course they get the best higher level healing spells of Mass Cure Wounds and Heal, and all the ressurection spells (and reincarnate).

Some of those, the Cleric just does not get. Like Healing Spirit and Goodberries, which in my opinion are the two best lower level healing spells in the game.

Then you can look to subclasses and you might argue Life Clerics have them beat there. But not so fast - Circle of the Shepherd with Unicorn Spirit is essentially the same boost to healing (or arguably better).