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"Seriously. With how versatile and independently strong you can build a cleric, you can make up an entire party full of purely priests, call it The A-Men and bust down Tiamat's door, demanding her launch money. And she would just build her own toilet to give herself swirlies so she wouldn't have to endure the kind of bullying you were about to give her."
Damn right, that's why if I can Guiding Bolt or Inflict Wounds I will. And if I feel like things are going to shit and I don't want to be the one hitting 0, and I've got a near enough comrade down low, I can dimension door our asses out of range. Fuck Yeah Trickery Domain.
Lol my Life Domain Cleric would agree. "Sure, I COULD waste my action healing you, OR I could cast Spirit Guardians and just destroy everything around us?" 🤔
@@TheKillaShow In 5e? Very close to true; healing at 0 hp is the most effective strategy in most cases, since anything else risks the healing being insufficient to make a difference between the healed character acting or not acting next time his turn comes up.
Plus giving advantage on the next attack roll against that target. Which is an extra tasty treat for a party member. My Stars Druid makes great use of it.
That and Inflict Wounds for 3d10 necrotic. I had a 8th level paladin who managed to get downed in one hit after a cultist crit with the spell at 2nd lvl. most of the damage rolls were 8s.
Our session today: Me, the light cleric: "Alright how do we play this?" The Paladin: "Cast fireball." The Ranger: "Yeah, cast fireball." The Fighter: "Fireball. Definitely fireball." Me: "are we sure about this? I may need the spell slot later..." The DM: "This room is a 20 foot radius circle and there are 12 enemies in it. Cast fireball." Me: "Fireball it is..."
Had a paladin of Ilmater in one of my groups that only ever did the minimum to keep party members alive, because he believed the suffering would eventually teach them wisdom. He was greatly overestimating their capacity to learn, but it was neat philosophy.
I just want to appreciate Jimmy Dude knew the other players wanted a healer, but the current cleric didn't want to be a healer; so when he got a chance at a new character he took on the role, and was excited to help That's a good table to be at.
"The current cleric" still feels like it stigmatises it. Some clerics, given how many subclasses aren't specced for healing, aren't gonna be healers. They didn't "not want to" be a healer, they *weren't* a healer. Pointing out that there's a "current cleric" still just feels like you're saying they dropped out of their duty, like they're supposed to be healing and they weren't. Just say the party didn't have a healer. Roleplay-wise, they weren't one, and were never going to be. And if we're ignoring character stories and roleplay, then why play a *roleplaying* game at all?
@@StarClan4evr agreed! Like if I wanna play a war cleric then I want to be a mainline fighter cutting foes down with spells and my sword. Not sit in the back throwing out sacred flames and bashing things with spiritual weapon. I'm in the front with spirit guardians destroying my enemies.
@@StarClan4evr Honestly, yeah. Especially since Druids are actually better healers than clerics in 5e. Clerics and Druids both have access to healing word, which is the best combat healing spell. But Druids also get Goodberry, Aura of Vitality and Healing Spirit. While clerics have the 2 best damage spells in the game (spirit guardians and guiding bolt).
ok, but the party didn't need a healer, especially not a healer cleric as it undermines what Gallandan was trying to say. It allows the others to keep pigeon-holing clerics. It makes them right. He could have made a druid healer and been just as effective, but by doing this he undermines Gallandan.
@@thatoneguy1350 Dude thought that healer cleirc would work better and you cant really judge him for his choice here,if he thinks cleric works best,you cant say no
"Clerics are healers!" My Death Cleric: (hits a dude for 12 bludgeoning damage plus 20 necrotic damage, rotting his body to soup with a single attack) "We what? Since when?"
My grave cleric: (waltzes in pointing a hand at the bbeg, smacks them in the face with 8d8+5 radiant with vulnerability THEN raises the entire party up from 0hp to nearly half )
@@connormcgehee9349 The enemy casts fly next to the death cleric and attempts to move away. It takes 12 bludgeoning damage plus 20 necrotic damage, either turning into soup, or if it survives, needing to make a DC16 con save to maintain concentration. Even if it the reaction attack misses, or it makes the save, and it indeed flies 60 ft away? On the cleric's turn, it casts Spiritual Weapon next to the enemy, and does 12 force damage plus 20 necrotic damage, because the spiritual weapon's attack is, in fact, a melee attack you can hit a creature with, which also counts for your channel divinity, which, if you're doing 20 necrotic damage, you definitely have the levels to have a 2nd charge of. So either the enemy turns to soup, or makes another DC16 con save, at which point it falls if it fails, likely finishing the soup. Anyone who laughs at a death cleric because it thinks "flying=no melee=you lose" dies laughing. Not least because, even ignoring the channel divinity, a death cleric is still at the end of the day a cleric, and a guiding bolt or flame strike is just as good from them as it is from a life cleric. And any flier snarking "you can't melee me" to someone who is super best friends with GOD needs to remember where that dude lives: it ain't the ground, lol.
Don't forget Tempest Cleric with their "AOE nukes and you hit me? take 2d8 damage plz" Tempest Clerics are freaking nuts when it comes to damage output way higher than anyone else.
Fighter: Dude I am at 5 hp, help me! Jimmy: I cast Heal! Fighter: Yes! Jimmy: On MYSELF! Fighter: What? Why? you only took 2 hits! It was about 20 damage. Jimmy: Look, I saw what that undead creature did to you, I will not get downed by that!
I had an neutral evil light cleric reflavoured as dark. His healing manifested as brambles bursting from the wounds and knitting the flesh closed in the most painful way possible.
Here's an idea that will definitely not make your table hate you: if you're a cleric, charge your party 1 gp for every 1 hp of healing. Increase the price by 10x for each spell slot level. :^)
The richest party member turns out to be one of the supposedly least attracted to wealth, hmmmmm, sounds like a certain Catholic church in medieval times
That's actually how I play my high charisma CN half-orc cleric, either taxing the party or swiping loot before they see it. Father Jawn is a bastard but everybody loves him.
I never thought the wizard would offer good advice, but this is a excellent way to afford all those diamonds that will be needed.(ofc it's just to have them on hand, materials expended gets added with interest to the cost) stonks.
I read a manga where a little moon fairy was the healer of the group. She would always charge for the healing after the combat, even from her friends, but not because she was greedy. Her race was banned from the moon by the moon goddess, and said goddess now charges them gold to maintain their connection to the moon, if they don't pay they disappear.
My life cleric with a Healer feat was literally an ambulance. I joined friend's campaign at 13th level and basically pulled them through a dungeon and bossfights. xD DM told me I made around 250 points of healing in two rounds.
@@Tesoro1996 ok well now I want to play a cleric who is literally a sentient wagon full of health potions and also radiant missiles just for "self-defense"
@@thecandyman7807 party healing, banneret fighter allows you to affect allies with second wind, and indomitable. I'd heal everything, action surge, and rush potions around to allies
@@jynxezoir370 That can't possibly be a better healer than a cleric, divine soul sorcerer, or druid though. Don't get me wrong, Clerics are excellent damage dealers, but fighters are certainly not good healers, especially if you have to rely on healing potions and movement. It just has such low potential for healing.
I mean really, with the amount of subclasses the cleric has, it is *way* more than just a healer. You could have an entire party of clerics and they could all be unique providing useful roles to the party.
"Seriously. With how versatile and independently strong you can build a cleric, you can make up an entire party full of purely priests, call it The A-Men and bust down Tiamat's door, demanding her launch money. And she would just build her own toilet to give herself swirlies so she wouldn't have to endure the kind of bullying you were about to give her."
i mean...it doesn't matter if you can outheal damage. it'd still function as damage reduction, which has value. what *can* make mid combat inefficient is that 1. you don't always know who is going to take damage. so if you heal someone, and they don't take damage the rest of that combat, then you wasted that action. 2. compared to other options, the amount of damage reduction caused by the lower level healing spells is low. like..i could heal someone for 12 points, or i could paralyze an enemy, thus removing all of their damage output for at least a round.
As other commenters have said, Life Cleric outpaces most level-appropriate damage if they’re tactical about it. They’re the only ones in the game, though; 5e doesn’t have “healers”, it has “resuscitators”.
In combat healing is rarely good anyway, other than spells like "Heal." Look at the dice on a healing spell compared to monster damage output. With a few exceptions, best time to heal is when a party member gets knocked down. Prevention is better than cure, killing monsters or using control spells to prevent them from attacking will prevent waaaaay more damage than you can usually heal with the same spell slots.
Unless you're a life cleric or casting something big like heal, healing spells are for resetting death saves and hopefully giving a player a turn to do something before they get downed again.
@@TheRedAzuki Grave Domain isn't specced for Healing, it is specced for party recovery... and that's an important distinction. From the free revival spells to gentle repose to the fact your heals heal for max on people already OUT of the fight the Domain is designed to undo the bad situation your party has gotten into. You don't heal as a Grave Domain Cleric, you bring your party members back from the very edge of oblivion after they have been taken there by your enemies. In summary Grave Clerics don't heal that often instead you do damage much like the cleric example in the video and then usually only sink their spells into healing someone when they need to get back in the fight.
@@TheRedAzuki Meant to reply to the other guy, but to address your point. I hard disagree. You are in no way discouraged from playing in alternates ways with Grave Cleric until a party member is at 0. Up until that point, which usually doesn't happen until near the end of a fight, you can do whatever you want. I've played a Grave Cleric and pretty much every single one of my combats have gone differently because my party isn't full of suicidal idiots so I'm not forced into healing one of them from the brink until things are almost over. I can guiding bolt, top people off with healing, spirit guardians, command, get in melee and many other things without worrying about wizards forcing me to play any constrained way. Furthermore, even in the case of the 0 hp party member, are you really being forced to do something like getting a party member up when you'd want to do that usually? Same goes for all the spells and abilities you get there are used out of combat... like you get Gentle Repose and the Revive spells... but are you really telling you wouldn't take and use those normally? And even if you want to argue that where does that leave the other domains with their required spells? The only thing I can reasonably agree with you on is maybe the canceling a crit as a reaction ability... because your likely to always use your reaction on that. That said you very rarely get to use that ability so there is plenty of variation you can add if you have another reaction based ability. I just don't see how you are being forced to play anyway. As long as you are creative roleplay-wise or mechanically you can do as much as you want with the Domain as any others.
@@constrainedanacronysm1370 another grave cleric here^^ yes, i do it like that, i tell the other party members i am her so you dont die forever not to heal xD
There are 3 reasons in my mind I would heal in combat. 1. Someone is at 0. 2. You can heal someone above the amount of damage it would take to down them in a round on average AND that's the best thing there is TO do. 3. You are a stars cleric and haven't used your subclass feature yet.
I felt this. Cleric is my favourite class, and the domains allow for surprising versatility. But every time my party gets into a bad spot there's always this little voice in the back of my head that says "Why didn't you prepare more healing? You're the Cleric" regardless of the fact that I'm currently playing a Tempest Cleric that has been built to be the party's high AC/HP wall with added spell novas.
@@user-xf3bp7kr7w yeah, i don´t know about that, is a class very versatile that can fit any role really. For me at least, a player and a DM, the clerics are a little like the druid. The channel divinity is apropiate and the divine intervencion wich is broken really has a low porcentage to function.
Less variety than other classes though, by the nature of their power. You're forced to devote yourself to a deity and you're just a normal person if you take a day off. Even the paladin is free to be their own person, because their power stems from their personality and the oath they swore to effectively stay the same person they've always been. Everyone else is allowed individuality, and the cleric just isn't. Your god will dictate your character. It's one-dimensional... shallow. Boring.
@@dontmisunderstand6041 i think that depends more of your dm, a cleric can have a understanding and perception very different from other people of the church. A cleric don't have to want or accept his powers neccesarily. You can have a cleric that have a similar relationship with his god that the quimic of the warlock and his patron.
"fine, I'll drop a 5th level Cure Wounds on Thor" "Thor heals 20 HP, less than the damage he just took for 1 round. That really felt like an excellent use of a 5th level spell. I love healing in 5e *SO MUCH*."
Its good game design. Combat should have progress, where all the players slowly become closer and closer to death. If a healer can just reset that, it slows combat down and makes the whole thing a slog.
Yes the choice of cure wounds to "Heal Thor for 5d8+4" or inflict wounds "Hit the thing attacking Thor for 7d10+4". Unless it's one of those situations where one has a subclass to always heal or get healed for the maximum amount without rolling, healing is usually a very weak use of ones turn.
@@duckshallrule6937 Healing in fiction is always at its best out of combat. That includes when someone is already down since they are pretty much done fighting until healed. Healing magic that just fully restores people should always be insanely special.
That's one thing I love Grave Cleric for. You don't NEED to focus on direct healing, but you CAN do it if you feel it best serves the moment. Otherwise, your extra features to make you EXTREAMLY effective when your party is low on health, being able to quickly stabilize (or even pop up) downed allies, not to mention stopping an otherwise lethal crit, just makes you feel powerful AND useful. You don't have to be a "heal bot" if you don't want to. Also, very informative. I didn't realize Barbarian had ANY way to heal themselves. I really thought they were the only class that couldn't do that, and thus was expecting a potential subclass to come out to facilitate that.
They technically don't, the video uses specific subclasses to justify the cleric not healing, but in doing so also presents just how few ways of healing there is in the game outside of casters like bards, druids, and clerics.
@@eintorpid9101 Plus things like second wind are a 1 use option, and asking a wizard to use vampiric touch, go right into fricken melee without being a bladesinger, is just kinda ridiculous
@@nahlies2382 With Life Transference too, before Wither and Bloom, yeah it was the only healing option for Wizards but you have to damage yourself to heal your allies.
So you are just a really good necromancer and your party are your undead thralls. They fall down you get them up again. Sounds like a necromancer to me. "I didn't lose my healers license for nothing!"
@@eintorpid9101The statement was "Depending on subclass, any class has access to a self heal", as to infer "Why are you getting mad at me for not building my character to heal you, when none of you built your characters to heal yourselves either?" I mean come the fuck on, unless you're specifically opting towards a subclass that wants to heal, or heals passively off of other things like Beastbarian, healing in D&D sucks. What, you want me to cast Healing Word when you're on 6 hp? You want 1d4 more hp, buddy? If we're lucky, your health might even get to double digits!
In one of my tables, I play a Circle of the Stars druid with some Life Domain cleric levels (he's a druid who received solace from Ilmater and chose to follow his path) - the combination of the Chalice constellation + LD traits and spells almost feel better at healing than a pure LD cleric. In the other table, I play a War Domain cleric of Loviatar with some Bloodhunter levels (essentially, I wanted to recreate the Pain Domain in 5e), and she's still awesome at healing - but coming from Loviatar, her healing spells are painful, like a taser shock or a adrenaline shot to the heart. And yes, they both live in my head and hate each other passionately.
I think one of the best, worst healers I ever made was a variant human celestial warlock with the Healer feat. I've *never* seen mundane healing work that well in 5e before or since
Honestly? I accidentally created a good healer in a paladin I play. level 5, aasimar healing hands plus paladin lay on hands mean i have 30hp of guaranteed healing a day. Combine with the fact I can cast cure wounds, and blessed warrior let me take the Spare the Dying cantrip, and I accidentally made a healer.
My best healer was Thorick the Golaith. Grave domain Cleric. On 3 separate occasions I healed people that were within 5 HPs of unconsciousness. So my boy punched them out and then healed them.(with Grave domain you heal for max amount automatically if the player is nearly dead)
I love breaking stereotypes in D&D. My favorite honestly is the life cleric, but they *choose* who they heal. Suddenly the Rogue feels more careful about disagreeing with the Cleric out of battle when they almost die because the Cleric decides to cast Sacred Flame instead of Healing Word.
Some of the most fun I've had in D&D is playing a Cleric but building him as a tank and playing him like a paladin. All I'll say is this: 20AC(Heavy Armour+Shield), Cast Spirit Guardians, and use Dodge action every turn after. I am become DEATH WALL!
"We shouldn't pigeonhole classes into one function" "But we need healing" "Divine Soul lets you prepare Cleric spells" They say, themselves implicitly conflating "Cleric spells" with healing
@@adamloga3788 A few spells from their spell list -- on a class already stereotyped for healing -- isn't quite what I'm referring to. I meant more like the druid-equivalent of the Divine Soul.
Healing is only action economy efficient when it's bring someone from 0 to not 0. Which makes healing word the best for this because it allows you to buy a whole turn for 1 Bonus action. Depending on where you are in initiative cloaking someone in a sanctuary can save a lot more HP in a round then using a healing spell :). Plus you can then use your action to Attack, cast a cantrip, or dodge.
Single target healing in combat is a rookie move anyway unless an ally is at 0 hit points: monsters will always have more damage output than healers have healing output.
this is usually true, but for the campaigns where the DM makes it a house rule that you get a level of exhaustion if you are healed while making death saving throws, then it is best to heal your teammates before they drop. The thing that I do not get about this rule is that it more so punishes melee focused characters, and they usually also make more homebrew rules in favor of melee characters since they are of the opinion that melee characters get the short end of the stick in DnD 5e.
@@joemitchell5869 I would rule that a healer's kit (medic kit? Forget the name) or the Spare the Dying cantrip would prevent the level of exhaustion if used before a heal takes place, just to be forgiving but require some resources from your build and action economy. I've never understood why a melee attack gives you two failed saves while ranged gives one fail. I'd houserule that to 1 failed save for both.
@@joemitchell5869 IMO this house rule is a big red flag for me, unless it's a gritty realism campaign. 5e healing simply is not built for this classic "mmo" style of healing.
cast spiritual weapon at a higher level, and healing spirit. Problem solved. Your cleric can then go take a nap for a minute, or whatever else they want.
@@Smitty-hr2mg My guy, I hate to break it to you but those are both Bonus Action spells and they both rely on subsequent Bonus Actions to work properly. Can't have both.
Lol, I was prepping a cleric for CoS earlier this year and was trying to figure out how to balance healing spells with more aggressive options when another player created a Divine Soul with a 1 level dip into Life Cleric. Thanks, man. Made my job MUCH easier!
I feel this, I have an amazing War Cleric with the Great Weapon Master feat. I can deal amazing damage and have saved my party multiple times. But because I focus on damage and not healing, they try to force me to prepare Healing spells. They want me to be a backline healer when I just want to stab some beasts.
I know and get what you mean. But our party's cleric is usually always the first one to go down in a fight and being one of the only people with cure wounds (Halfing Ranger) I can't deal damage at half the rate I wish I could due to having to spend a spell slot on healing, I can't even prepare spells I want to choose, I have 3 I get to use in a day. So it's just kind of a kick in the teeth to watch the war cleric charge in, use sacred flame multiple times, and then just go immediately into death saves due to playing like a barbarian. How I'm playing my Ranger now, is probably the closest I'll get to feel like an actual healer cleric.
@@dr.blackwing1358 i feel bad for you my Tiefling ranger was also our party's healer for a while i get the struggle i love playing cleric's too but as long as you are playiing a class smart doesn't matter what class they can be built anyway to make cool characters your party cleric sounds like they aren't playing with the team which i know hurts the party
Funny mentioning “that’s kinda like a paladin”, I played a war domain cleric once and we were in a town visiting someone that didn’t like clerics. I asked if with my armor if I could pass myself as a paladin. Nothing really came from the encounter.
"I just don't think we should stereotype all of the classes into single abilities that they get. It can really dirty the image of a character." Me, a Barbarian: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The opposite is frustrating too. Cleric is my favorite class and one of my friends doesn't like them because he thinks all they do is heal and cast buff spells like bless. I'm going to play a light cleric next campaign to show him otherwise!
My party's life cleric rarely heals, because many classes have some basic healing spells. Last session he used Thaumaturgy to 1. confuse and intimidate enemies and 2. cause tremors and distract the townspeople while the bard and the rougue abducted a nobleman and 3. to turn a forest fire blue and weakening it.
How about this, play a life cleric/druid. The class synergy and massive spell list is awesome. Your heals are amazing, and your combat capabilities don't suffer either.
My fist character was a cleric of nature. That was more a demonic prince of corruption. He didn’t heel, he specialized in charisma and falsehoods. He utalized the command spell, and charisma checks for most confrentstions, and dipareged getting his own hands dirty. Was good fun, but yes every one complained about the lack of healing.... he covered it up, asking if the party were sick and wounded beasts, As he was a “cleric of nature”.
My *moon* druid got cornered into being the party's healer :'( So I'm switching to a cleric. I love playing clerics, but i just wanted my one druid, man. Is that so much to ask for? Le sigh.
i think any class that is that multifaceted is always going to be misunderstood. until someone actually roles up a cleric, druid, even a sorcerer or warlock and see the options for themselves.. other players will always assume clerics are just like the one note class they picked.
@@InLiquidColor If you are a moon druid then the party should know you aren't healing. You're turning into a bear. Being a bear is what you do. Bears don't cast spells natively. lol
only people who actually believe that have never rolled up a cleric... they can fulfill pretty much every role. i've seen a group of 5 all play different spins on a cleric (a tank, melee support, ranged/pet, support caster and burst healer.) in a single campaign.. it was glorious, well and truly outclassed any other party set up i'd ever seen. well. outclassed any "normal" party, not specifically designed to break the game.
My heavy armored, Warforged, Paladin / Forge Domain Cleric that can defeat an entire party of level 20 adventurers by himself would also like to volunteer an exhibition match.
Cleric is the perfect class for a villain arc. They become aware that they play (a) god essentially. The power could go to their head if you wanted it to
As I've read in some guide somewhere on the Internet: the best healer in the party is the one that prevents the enemy from damaging the party in the first place
That's only true because of the balance D&D has. It takes a special amount of effort to make anything from 3.5/Pathfinder/5e heal as much as the incoming damage. Actually, don't even know if it's possible in 5e. I just know that it takes a LOT in the other two. It can be done though, so long as you have a DM that's okay with it. Some DM's do not like healers that are that competent.
I've been playing an artificer artillerist and one of their turret abilities just give temp hp. Far better at preventing death than the cleric did at the time
One of the campaigns I was in had dropped from 6 to three players because of scheduling conflicts, and my Twilight Cleric basically carried us through combat that was designed for a much larger party. That shit would have been busted if we weren't always so behind in the action economy.
Grave Cleric is based around party recovery not healing, which is an important distinction. You usually only heal someone if they are already out of the fight and at 0 hp... or if they are already dead put them on ice with gentle repose and revive them with one of your many rivival spells after the fight. Your usually there as a Grave Cleric to undo a bad situation once people are down, not keep them topped off with healing each turn.
@@quendi5557 But only in service to the Domain's overall theme of staving off death just that bit longer. It also prevents crits, resurrects party members, preserves corpses indefinitely, outright prevents death with Domain spells like Death Ward. Healing people at Death's Door for max is just a small part of warding off the cold touch of the Grave from your worthy compatriots... and in of itself is the only directly healing related feature you get from the Domain.
A Divine Soul Sorcerer/Celestial Warlock Coffeelock makes a far better healer than an ordinary cleric. Near infinite spell slots, you never have to worry about the healer running out of juice.
@@CrusaderKnight2000 Coffeelocks are a build that abuses the way Font of Magic interacts with Pact Magic, allowing you to farm spell slots. It's not immediately broken, as you still need downtime, however, you can expect to see numbers like 300-600 spell slots on a character. I have a Wild Magic/Archfey one.
@@pagekawaii5488 It's worth saying obvious bot, now there's an inbuilt translation option in RU-vid, we can tell that most of this is total gibberish. The word carrot is in there for Christ sake.
As someone who plays cleric in almost every single adventure I go on as a player, I so appreciate your Jimmy character. I tend to prepare mostly supportive in healing spells and all my adventures. And it is so true. People just expect to play recklessly and expect that you're always there to heal them. But I so appreciate the packs that I get on the back from just simply healing them with word of healing or something dumb like that. I usually play as a life cleric because people are silly and don't know how to heal for themselves. This is by far the best video you have ever made. This is coming from a player of D&D who primarily sticks to the cleric. Thank you for making this content. It is hilarious! I'm so looking forward to when you do another class.
Been watching quietly for a while and this video made me laugh so hard as I am my group’s resident cleric and this conversation happens every week. Extremely well done I love the way you deliver the videos and I am happy to continue watching
"Sounds like a Paladin" Always annoys me. There's a reason Paladins don't choose domains. Faith in a God has no affect on their powers. Only the oaths they follow do. People be playin their Paladins like Clerics of War.
my first character was a paladin that didnt even know they are following a god :D (made the god be the "bad guy" manipulating her to take an outh to "save the world")
I was definitely waiting for them all to acknowledge the point, verbally hug it out, and then the Guiding Bolt to deal minimal damage followed immediately by a party wipe.
This cracked me up because I'm in a campaign right now where I'm playing a light cleric and another party member is a full heal/buffbot life cleric. Binglebok is real and we do love his healing magic
One of the most fun characters I've ever played was a Death Cleric who didn't have any healing magic. He was a traveling mortician, and had no use for such things. He handled the dead, and occasionally shifted people from one side of that line to the other when it suited him. Inflict Wounds was my most used spell, and my DM hated me for that. Lol
well its fine and dandy to not wanna indulge in cliches but if not the clerics, the embodiment of light and good, are compassionate enough to choose healing over harming it shows how less space peace and friendship takes place in a real d&d world.
Clerics can be the dps, the tank, the stealth, the glass cannon, and yes, the healer. As versatile as it can be, however, it is worth noting that they do still have a lot to offer as healers
Cleric is only played properly when your attitude is "Hey guess what... _I don't need to heal anyone if I kill all the enemies first."_ This is why my Light Domain Cleric starts out combat by calling out to the enemies like "Hello boys!" and launching a Fireball cast at her max level into the center of the battlefield.
As someone who mains healing/support let me tell you... There are SO many options from other classes. I've played an oath of the crown/protection paladin. I've played a circle of stars druid. I have fun plans for a college of creation bard and a divine soul sorcerer. I also have plans for a video series called "oops all..." Where I go through different classes and try to build out the four basic ttrpg roles (tank, DPS, healer/support, and burst damage) using one class (for example oops all artificers).
Cleric is great because you can throw in one or two healing spells for these situations, and then slam down those juicy burst damage abilities. 6th level shatter + channel divinity big daddy Tempest Cleric 😩
Ive been playing a yuan Ti cleric of Zehir, domain of Trickery, and he’s awesome. He is basically just a snake cultist that used poison spells, summons spiritual daggers, and uses stealth spells like “Pass Without Trace” . All the while, the literal only healing spell he has is “Cure Wounds.” So yeah, I agree, not all clerics need to ONLY be about healing
I still think the glasses-wearing Cleric from the Rogue video shuffling through an entire deck of spell cards trying to optimize his turn, and getting frustrated when something new happens and needs to start over, is the quintessential Cleric experience. It was literally me, playing my first Cleric, at level 1.
As a life domain cleric, I usually save heals for after the fights (unless a party member is knocked down). Casting things like guiding bolt, sacred flame, and bless are much more useful during combat. Also, turn undead is great when you're a low level party that's been outnumbered by undead. I used it recently and it turned the fight from a dire situation to us being able to deal with it just fine. Seeing all of those opportunity attacks that our barbarian, rogue, and paladin got off was glorious.
Also, I’d just like to throw it out there that clerics make don’t make the VERY best healers, because DRUID. The cleric has only two healing focused subclasses (life and grave) out it’s like, 14 subclasses, while the Druid has 3 (stars, wildfire, and dreams, 4 if you include shepherd, which I would) out of it’s 7(I think). Plus, Druids get almost all the same healing spells as clerics. The only one they don’t get is mass heal. And the druid also gets some healing options which I’d say are just straight up superior to that of the cleric, those being healing spirit and good berry. And I’d say the Druid has more debuff options that the cleric, who I find is mostly damage.
I played in a party that was shockingly similar to this. When another PC was banished and the player rolled a new character, they chose a Life Domain Cleric and literally said, "Now we have a real cleric!" It wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back in me quitting that table, but it sure was close.
