What subclass are you thinking of? Life cleric is probably the best for healing and you get heavy armor proficiency. Light Cleric allows you to cast fireball if you have the spell slots and might be good if you are used to playing a full caster. I love playing Grave Clerics being able to knock at a critical hit has saved many a party member. All of the other subclasses have their pluses and minuses. I've heard Tempest Cleric is really good but haven't tried it. Each subclass will give you Domain Spells so it's always good to look those over.
If you don't intent to be a tank-y cleric, don't bother with STR, and put as much into WIS and CON as you can, maybe put DEX third to keep your spot in initiative from being too low (and a little bump to AC depending on your armor)
Past that, unless you intend to go Light or Tempest domain, remember that you're not going to be the primary damage dealer. Worry less about attack spells, and focus more on good healing spells, and battlefield control (Bless, Bane, Banishment, etc..)
Also remember that Spiritual Weapon for some reason is not a concentration spell, so you can have that up to make good use of your bonus actions, and still maintain concentration on one of the above, and still be able to cast cantrips with your action. This gives you great action economy, and really lets you feel like you're contributing in a big way to action.
I think al the sub-classes are solid, life focuses on healing, for buffs,things like Grave's ability to double an attacks damage when the rogue uses sneak attack of the paladin smites are great, Forge clerics can make an allies (or their own) weapon or armor into a +1. Twilight is probably the strogest class, giving the party 300ft dark vision as soon as yo spotthe bad guys (with your permanent dark vision) really good and giving all your allies who end their turn within 30ft of you temportary hit points (or removal of frightened or charmed) every turn for a minute is super powerful.
If you want to be a healer / buffer then you will rarely be attacking with a weapon, so do not need strength for that, Wis should be your primary stat but how you balance Dex, Str and Con is up to you.If you want to go heavy armour then you will need str 15 by the time you wear plate (i.e. you can use your level 4 ASI to get there), If you are not using encumberance (or it will only be a light constraint, you can go dwarf or wood elf or something so have a speed of 25 while wearing heavy armor). If you go medium armor then you only really need strength of encumberance (if used). High con is good to get as high as you can not just for HP but also concentration.
If your DM uses RAW for somantic components (i.e. you need a free hand for spells with somantic but not material components), you will find it hard to wield a weapon without warcaster anyway as you will needa hand free to cast a LOT of your spells.
A lot depends on the rest of the party, if it is melee focused you will probably take a lot less hits than if you are expected to be the meat shield for a range focued party. In the later case warcaster or resiliant con (or even both) are required so concentrations spells like bless and spirtit guardians are not wasted.
At low levels bless is the goto concentration spell, when you reach level 5 spirit guardians will compete with it. As Slothfist said spritual weapon is a great spell to use your bonus action.
If you can only affrd to prepare one of prefer healing word to cure wounds I would go with healing word, while it does less damage it only uses a bonus action often you can got get withing touch range of the friend in need. Clerics can prepare their spells each morning form the entire spell list so you can swap uout your spells each morning depending on what you expect to need that day.
Healing is an overrated part of the game. It's useful to cast Healing Word if someone is down on the ground at 0 health, but otherwise, it's usually better to deal damage than it is to heal your teammates.
Buffing and cleansing/curing is quite useful, though. Aid is going to be one of your best spells (cast it before combat, obviously). Bless will be the spell you should use most of the time for levels 1-4.
Clerics also are damn good damage dealers. Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians make Clerics really powerful damage dealers. Once you get Spirit Guardians, you'll have to decide between that and Bless, and it's a pretty easy decision because Spirit Guardians provides crowd control and area of effect damage, and if those aren't necessary in the fight, you can just go with Bless.
Yes, Clerics have other spells, too. But Aid, Healing Word, Bless, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians will be a huge huge portion of what you should be casting as a Cleric.
As above, you can go Life domain for just full healing capabilities.
Twilight and Peace domain for full support and utility. Forge domain can also be support with upgrading the equipment but can also be a pretty good damage dealer type.
Light, Tempest, Grave, and War domain are damage dealer types.
Trickery is not bad either but I have yet to try.
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So I am thinking of making a cleric and trying it out for my next character because I really enjoy spell casters and haven't tried cleric yet.
Anyone have any advice on what I should pick for spells or how to build a decent cleric?
My main goal is to be a healer and buff my party members.
Nope....
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
What subclass are you thinking of? Life cleric is probably the best for healing and you get heavy armor proficiency. Light Cleric allows you to cast fireball if you have the spell slots and might be good if you are used to playing a full caster. I love playing Grave Clerics being able to knock at a critical hit has saved many a party member. All of the other subclasses have their pluses and minuses. I've heard Tempest Cleric is really good but haven't tried it. Each subclass will give you Domain Spells so it's always good to look those over.
If you don't intent to be a tank-y cleric, don't bother with STR, and put as much into WIS and CON as you can, maybe put DEX third to keep your spot in initiative from being too low (and a little bump to AC depending on your armor)
Past that, unless you intend to go Light or Tempest domain, remember that you're not going to be the primary damage dealer. Worry less about attack spells, and focus more on good healing spells, and battlefield control (Bless, Bane, Banishment, etc..)
Also remember that Spiritual Weapon for some reason is not a concentration spell, so you can have that up to make good use of your bonus actions, and still maintain concentration on one of the above, and still be able to cast cantrips with your action. This gives you great action economy, and really lets you feel like you're contributing in a big way to action.
I think al the sub-classes are solid, life focuses on healing, for buffs,things like Grave's ability to double an attacks damage when the rogue uses sneak attack of the paladin smites are great, Forge clerics can make an allies (or their own) weapon or armor into a +1. Twilight is probably the strogest class, giving the party 300ft dark vision as soon as yo spotthe bad guys (with your permanent dark vision) really good and giving all your allies who end their turn within 30ft of you temportary hit points (or removal of frightened or charmed) every turn for a minute is super powerful.
If you want to be a healer / buffer then you will rarely be attacking with a weapon, so do not need strength for that, Wis should be your primary stat but how you balance Dex, Str and Con is up to you.If you want to go heavy armour then you will need str 15 by the time you wear plate (i.e. you can use your level 4 ASI to get there), If you are not using encumberance (or it will only be a light constraint, you can go dwarf or wood elf or something so have a speed of 25 while wearing heavy armor). If you go medium armor then you only really need strength of encumberance (if used). High con is good to get as high as you can not just for HP but also concentration.
If your DM uses RAW for somantic components (i.e. you need a free hand for spells with somantic but not material components), you will find it hard to wield a weapon without warcaster anyway as you will needa hand free to cast a LOT of your spells.
A lot depends on the rest of the party, if it is melee focused you will probably take a lot less hits than if you are expected to be the meat shield for a range focued party. In the later case warcaster or resiliant con (or even both) are required so concentrations spells like bless and spirtit guardians are not wasted.
At low levels bless is the goto concentration spell, when you reach level 5 spirit guardians will compete with it. As Slothfist said spritual weapon is a great spell to use your bonus action.
If you can only affrd to prepare one of prefer healing word to cure wounds I would go with healing word, while it does less damage it only uses a bonus action often you can got get withing touch range of the friend in need. Clerics can prepare their spells each morning form the entire spell list so you can swap uout your spells each morning depending on what you expect to need that day.
Healing is an overrated part of the game. It's useful to cast Healing Word if someone is down on the ground at 0 health, but otherwise, it's usually better to deal damage than it is to heal your teammates.
Buffing and cleansing/curing is quite useful, though. Aid is going to be one of your best spells (cast it before combat, obviously). Bless will be the spell you should use most of the time for levels 1-4.
Clerics also are damn good damage dealers. Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians make Clerics really powerful damage dealers. Once you get Spirit Guardians, you'll have to decide between that and Bless, and it's a pretty easy decision because Spirit Guardians provides crowd control and area of effect damage, and if those aren't necessary in the fight, you can just go with Bless.
Yes, Clerics have other spells, too. But Aid, Healing Word, Bless, Spiritual Weapon, and Spirit Guardians will be a huge huge portion of what you should be casting as a Cleric.
Life/Peace/Twilight Cleric. Variant human with Healer feat. Focus on Wisdom. Cast bless/aid.
There are several ways to do this.
As above, you can go Life domain for just full healing capabilities.
Twilight and Peace domain for full support and utility. Forge domain can also be support with upgrading the equipment but can also be a pretty good damage dealer type.
Light, Tempest, Grave, and War domain are damage dealer types.
Trickery is not bad either but I have yet to try.