D&D 5E Zard's S Tier Archetypes

[Paul Farquhar]

Light cleric gets potent cantrip, has radiance of the dawn, the flare ability and is still a cleric.

I rate potent cantrip and the new Tasha's ability over divine strike.
I've seen light clerics cope fine on the elemental plane of fire and forge cleric does get fireball.

Light clerics really good blaster, good at nova, good if it's 6-8 encounters etc.

Basically it runs rings around the forge cleric imho.

I would rate a light cleric as better than a forge cleric myself, but don't undervalue tradition and theme when people evaluate a class. Clerics wearing heavy armor and hitting things with a hammer is the traditional old school cleric experience, not to mention playing a dwarf.

After all, both are vastly inferior to twilight, so neither are "S".

 

[Zardnaar]

Thing is, I wouldn't rate RotFM as exceptionally undead heavy. And yes, there was a Twilight cleric, who did fine, despite having failed on all her turn attempts so far. But a death cleric would have had to really on non-themic spells, if they even had them prepared.

Thematic lol I'll use whatever's good. Espicially for situations like that.

The new death clerics I've bee seeing wear medium armor, smite with inflict wounds, use toll the dead and prepare the usual suspects that most clerics should probably prepare.

Hell they can use channel divinity with vampiric touch and not only inflict more damage they also get the lifegain effect from the spell plus channel divinity effect.

And they have radiant damage on tap. And force damage.

Counterargument to your Time adventure. I ran there is no honor. It had some skeletons in it and I used a wight iirc.

The death cleric this time around is only a dip (1/divine soul 5).

Last game we had a Minotaur death cleric of Anubis in undead heavy not Egypt. Nuria Natal Midgard.

I used more undead than current campaign. How many varies by what adventure you run.

Undead heavy isn't a major problem.

Personally with 0 information I would pick a death cleric over forge to play. Both spell lists are a bit meh, DC had better channel divinity, forge better granted powers with it's armor and weapons.

Death negates necrotic resistance as well so there's that and necrotics a lot better than fire.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That's another way where we play differently. If someone in our game plays a death cleric, they probably won't take radiant damage spells, because it's "against the character's religion".

But whatever way you play it, a death cleric is still decidedly average, and easily inferior to Twilight. Whether or not it's better or worse than another decidedly average cleric (forge) is a matter of taste.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's another way where we play differently. If someone in our game plays a death cleric, they probably won't take radiant damage spells, because it's "against the character's religion".

But whatever way you play it, a death cleric is still decidedly average, and easily inferior to Twilight. Whether or not it's better or worse than another decidedly average cleric (forge) is a matter of taste.

Yeah twilight's better. Online people really over rate forge cleric though. And grave imho.

Life domain is boring as but also strong.

Death not all DMs allow one and most can't play it right from what I've seen.

I've got one player who usually ends up with the cleric (or bard/druid) she's the death/divine soul character.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Life domain is boring as but also strong.

I tend to rate Life quite low. It simply has TOO MUCH healing. Unless things are going really badly and everyone is taking tons of damage is special shtick just isn't needed.

Death not all DMs allow one and most can't play it right from what I've seen.

It's in the DMG, and listed as an NPC class, so sure. But I'm pretty sure powergamers would have picked up on it anyway if it was particularly strong.

 

[Zardnaar]

I tend to rate Life quite low. It simply has TOO MUCH healing. Unless things are going really badly and everyone is taking tons of damage is special shtick just isn't needed.

It's in the DMG, and listed as an NPC class, so sure. But I'm pretty sure powergamers would have picked up on it anyway if it was particularly strong.

I think it's pretty good and underated.

I play clerics as primary caster and even if they melee they're using spells at least from level 5+.

Hence why I rate potent cantrip higher, and a death clerics toll the dead is kinda like a twin toll the dead (it's funny seeing quickened toll the dead on two targets level 5+).

For rogues lower level maybe thief with healer feat or assassin with XBE feat might be S tier, outside that can't think of anything.

 

[Aldarc]

Light cleric gets potent cantrip, has radiance of the dawn, the flare ability and is still a cleric.

I rate potent cantrip and the new Tasha's ability over divine strike.

Okay? Well I don't rate Potent Cantrip higher than Divine Strike and the New Tasha Ability is also accessible to a Forge Cleric. So what?

I've seen light clerics cope fine on the elemental plane of fire and forge cleric does get fireball.

Again, your double-standards are showing where you dock points from the Forge Cleric for a fire-based Divine Strike but are perfectly cool overlooking fire-based spell attacks from the Light Cleric. Also, the Forge Cleric does not have Fireball on their domain spell list, so I'm getting suspicious about your analysis, though I suppose this likely means you will dock further points from the Forge Cleric with your inscrutable standards.

Light clerics really good blaster, good at nova, good if it's 6-8 encounters etc.

Basically it runs rings around the forge cleric imho.

Blasters IMHO are overrated, particularly Cleric ones. Clerics IME don't have the tools to make blasting particularly effective.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is no particular reason why a Forge Cleric can't Magic Initiate shillelagh and be not-MAD.
But actually, a forge cleric does fine if they put ASIs in STR and leaves wisdom at 16. Post Tasha's your dwarven cleric can start with 17 in both wisdom and strength, and have both maxed by level 12.

 

[TheSword]

Wow, you can always tell a thread with potential for pain when the first five pages are arguments about terminology.

Incidentally I spend far too much time playing computer games and yet I only just learnt what S meant by playing Bloodborne. And only then by looking it up online. That was in relationship to weapon scaling by stats and you had to search for it. 35 years of computer gaming. Never heard of S before.

It is by no means ubiquitous in gaming. Neither is the Japanese examination marking scheme or buying theatre tickets in Japan... though once covid is over maybe I’ll get chance.

 

[TwoSix]

What about Peace Cleric? I don't think they're S tier, but a decent spell list and a concentration-free, stacking bless is nothing to sneeze at. If the party has some other characters grab SS and GWM in the early going, that early +2d4 to hit is a major source of damage.