Wasn't this supposed to be a discussion about a UA Article? 

I wanted it to stay because I was honestly kinda jazzed about the thematics.  There were a ton of different ways to play a "cleric of the Love domain", from the wedding-crazed comedy route of old grandma trying to marry off all her kids to the aforementioned "Love is also a form of insanity" hyper-intense cleric of the old 'Love' gods.

Absolutely fuggoff none of those cool, interesting thematic tangents are applicable to "Unity" as a divine domain.  "Unity" is lame.  I said it before, I'll say it again - 'Unity' is not a divine domain, it's a hippie buzzword.  A unified party is just a thing that should happen, not the special prerogative and duty of a divine being.  This "Unity" version of the domain has no teeth, no fire, and no interest.  Its domain spell list was significantly weakened.  Its Channel Divinity is more powerful but a lot less broadly useful and interesting.

Every single member of my current gaming group that saw the original Love Domain is in unified agreement that this "Unity" variation is weaker and a lot less interesting.  I had people talking to me about the Love domain.  Nobody gives a toss about "Unity".

All of this was done off the crack of somebody's ass because Wizards is afraid of getting sued.  There was no nobility here, no "we screwed up, we're sorry and we're owning up to that mistake".  This was pure CMA hornswoggle and the "Unity" cleric suffered because of it.  I will not allow people to hide behind abuse victims and use their pain as an excuse.

What is a good excuse to change something, because you say it's not good?

If you don't like the term "Unity" or miss the old spell list I think that's a "Fix it at the Table" problem.  Unless that should only be done by "Hippies" because they aren't good enough to have a say in the game they actually enjoy.

Quote from Zoken44 >>

Let me ask you this:  If so many people were vocal about how uncomfortable and problematic they found the subclass WHY do you want it to stay?  Why do you want those people feeling that Wizards encourages that behavior? 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't know the sample size here. I also don't have Twitter, so I don't know how many of those replies were just piling on because they heard about Rohypnol, Cleric of Venus and didn't read the PDF. It took about 40 minutes from when I found out about the PDF to when I got to work to download it and it was expunged to digital purgatory. It seemed VERY reactionary.

When I finally got to read the thing, it wasn't as bad as people made it out to be, which sounded like Austin Powers status Clerics of Lust. The markings for abuse are there - for sure - but I'm also a moral, intelligent person; I didn't read it that way, and I can't imagine I'm the outlier here. And for perspective, I've been sexually assaulted. Twice.

I'm not saying the people who think the class would have worn three popped collars and sunglasses are wrong, I'm saying I don't think it got a fair shake.

If I was running a game, and a player walked up and said, "My priest's name is William Riker, and I'm here to increase the population of this town, if you know what I'm saying..."

I'd say, "Oh, look at that. Lightning struck you. Right in the junk. Gods are fickle, aren't they?"

Quote from Zoken44 >>

Okay, I'm getting annoyed and opinionated again.
ONE: I will still be referring to the "Unity Domain" as Love if I ever play it, because it fits and I like it.

TWO: The original Love Domain from the leaked document was mechanically confused.  Half it's domain spells and it's channel divinity were about manipulating the mind, offensive control spells.  While the rest of the class features focused on buffing allies and protecting them.  This is bad mechanical design, it sends a confused message about what the class should be doing.  The redesign is more focused and clear: you are a mid to back line buff support.  That's awesome.  I like the mechanics of this.

THREE: They took feed back and adapted.  that's what UA play-test is for.  In this case they adapted out a mechanic that a lot of their players were REALLY uncomfortable with, might even have triggered others (Trigger being a medical term for something that aggravates PTSD).  That's not my case, but I could definitely see it happening.

FOUR: You now want to proclaim we'll never see it because it's garbage now and Wizards will never release it again, just like you said we'd never see this subclass in the official release, and yet here it is.  Try saying something positive, try to find how it would be useful for a change, instead of deciding it's garbage and been ruined by "Ess-Jay-Dubyas".  That that characterization of you offends, I'm sorry, but that is what you remind me of.

Oh, and not on topic, but I'm playing the new artificer and I'm loving it.  :P

 I disagree with this analysis.  What you call confused I call layered.  The Unity domain is now a one note bore, the Love domain had a bit of variety and teeth that gave it strength.  It was good design before, promoting more than one fixed role, now they have one thing to do and do it all the time they shall, what a snooze.  The Unity domain now is the perfect example of something being too focused.

As regards to the feedback, not all feedback is good.  knee-jerk emotional appeals that greatly overstate the actual likelihood of problematic role-playing scenario's had no basis in any data analysis that I could see, and ignored that the mechanisms that can lead to such behavior already exist.  How many people have actually had someone play a creepy enchanter or bard or whatever in their experience through all the editions these conditions existed?  Yet somehow we are supposed to reasonably believe now that the Love domain would have promoted a statistical increase in such undesirable behavior?  WotC reacted just as quickly and the boring uninspired Unity domain 'fix' reflect this.

I would actually really like some data on this, this could have been a good opportunity for WotC to actually address the issue and either let us know that things are as good as we think, or the opposite.  My instinct and personal experience tells me people fear it way more than the number of real situations warrant, but I am will also admit to optimism, I am prepared to be told otherwise.  Wild doom-saying and hyperbolic negativity is not the sort of discourse that really helps anyone imo.

Man.  I'm torn between disappointment that you're not being any fun anymore and mild amusement at you trying to throw my words back in my face.

Sadly, one cannot homebrew an Expanded Spell List in DDB.  Or rather, you can, but you're only allowed to use the extremely limited and entirely insufficient spell selection from the SRD to do it.  I discovered this myself whilst trying to fix the Alchemist Artificer - you cannot reproduce or expand on things like Domain spell lists in DDB because their weird, unintuitive licensing requirements means that you're not allowed to put spells on a homebrew subclass, item, or feat that are not for-free SRD resources.  You get slapped with the "THIS IS LICENSED CONTENT F&*# YOU PEON" warning and your homebrew gets canned.  So fixing the "Unity" domain to not be a magic guidance counselor is sorta off the table.  Sure, you could just take paper notecard notes on the spells you actually have instead of the ones the sheet says you have, but if you're doing that why are you bothering with the expensive-ass whizzbang digital tool in the first place?

So, sadly, this one cannot be Fixed At The Table the way somebody being a creeper can be.  

Anyways.  @CRebew.

Apologies, missed your post.  It is, but unfortunately there's other issues tied up with this one.  People hiding behind other folks' damage pisses me off pretty badly, and frankly my day-to-day is boring enough that I tend to jump at the chance to get down to digital fisticuffs with someone.  Watching a player I've been trying to reach out to and help with her own issues for weeks light up at a new UA option, only to wilt as a bunch of ******** on the Internet force Wizards to neuter it also pisses me off, and Zoken's volunteered to be the face of said batch of ********.  

My bad.  I suppose I'll  try and let it be.  Doesn't matter in the end anyways, the mindless faceless swarm that is The Playerbase will have their way regardless.  Damnit.

I personally like the Unity Domain. I think Shared Burden is interesting in that you could split the damage with someone who gets resistance to the damage like through your Emboldening Bond feature upgrade at 6, through the resistance granted by rage, or through absorb elements if the damage was elemental. Emboldening Bond feature also works well with Warding bond spell.

Yes, like all of a Life cleric's abilities being related to healing has bad it unplayable.  I get that it isn't your playstyle, but it isn't "ruined".

And not all feed back is good.  what, just feed back form people who agree with you?

The attitude that this wouldn't be abused THAT often.  is the same as the people who say "Oh he's not THAT bad" about these creeps.  It's the attitude that discourages people form coming forward because they get met with dismissal.  People voiced a real concern, but you've never had to deal with it, so it can't be THAT big a problem.  (To be clear this is not a personal you directed at any of the three people I'm speaking to, but a general one directed at a reader who identifies with these topics.  I've been trying my best to avoid personal attacks.  not always successfully but I'm trying not to be a dick).

I agree, that the "Unity" name on the domain is boring, and an over correction.  It's still preferable to what we had.

And it can be fixed at the table, it's just inconvenient to you.  And also, stop condescending about the player-base like you are a part of it.

EDIT:

Sigh.  Post withdrawn.  One too many unpleasant PMs.

Have fun, folks.  Y'all are right.  I'm a terrible person and a killer of fun.  Sorry to disrupt the thread.  Carry on.

Here is my opinion on this cleric, no hyperbole, no exaggeration, just me trying to get it across:
Although I dislike the unfortunate implications of the original UA subclass, they have removed the good parts of the "love" flavor with the bad, and replaced it with what is either a weak replacement or a "nudge nudge you get it right?" version of itself. I do not hate the Unity cleric mechanically, but i wish it had retained the flavor of serving a love deity. Unfortunately, the narrative being pushed right now is that love would never work because of the reaction that people had to the subclass (and not the specific abilities that were reacted to), and therefore a love cleric is impossible, which I personally find to be disappointing.

Welp, I just woke up and already my day is proving to be interesting again.  8|

In any event, I've had time to think these over, and am still sufficiently sleep-addled to hopefully have interesting thoughts so here goes.

College of Creation Bard:  Interesting, I guess?  Pet builds aren't really my thing, but whatever.  The Note of Potential is a nice flexible buff, albeit one that requires other players to know your features; not that that doesn't happen at tables to some degree already (*cough, cough*useHunter'sMark*cough*).  Animating Performance tacks on a pet which does nothing special, except for two things:  1) it's got 40 ft of movement, and  2) It can dodge and attack on the same turn; I can see this being used to get up in the grill and harass things that don't want to be harassed, like spellcasters et al.  Performance of Creation is a more flexible and time limited Fabricate; not my thing, but I can see people getting a lot of use out of this and it's more creative than "You can cast X spell for free" (lookin' at you, Eloquence bard) so I can dig it.  The thing that REALLY interests me though, is that Note of Potential is tied to your Bardic Inspiration, is granted by your BI, but doesn't actually use your BI; now THAT is cool!

Barry Manilow Cleric (revised):  Eh.  Spell list is boring; most of it is stuff base Cleric gets anyways.  Emboldening Bond issss...ooookaaaay I guess?  It's basically a revised Bless that gets other features that key off it in higher levels; the only thing I really find interesting about it is it takes a page from Artificer subclasses and lets you use a spell slot to regain it, but otherwise?  Eh.  The Channel Divinity option, on the other hand, I can REALLY dig!  Maybe not so useful if all of the party is on low HP, but if you're in a situation where the squishy PC is on low HP and takes a crit and one or more PC's can afford to take damage, this is gonna be a lifesaver!  Protective bond is a nice defensive buff to your 1st level ability that requires the targets to use their reaction to help each other, so I give it more of a "huh" than an "eh".  Enduring unity?  Eh.  Overall, the revised Barry Manilow Cleric is a big "eh" for me; I do like the channel divinity enough to maybe ask my DM if I can use it sometime with another subclass instead of whatever option they get, but otherwise, don't see myself playing Barry Manilow anytime soon.

Clockwork Soul Sorcerer:...

...

...Holy ****balls Batman, THIS IS AMAZING!!!!

The additional spell list I was initially opposed to for the Aberrant Mind largely because of how much it blew the other Socerer subclasses out of the water, but if this is going to be a regular thing for Sorcerer Subclasses going forwards then I'm in!  Restore Balance is amazing, negating advantage/disadvantage is never going to NOT be useful!  Bulwark of law is pretty dang good, the only problem I see is this will eat more and more of your precious sorcery points if you want it to keep up in higher levels.  Trance of Order is suuuuuuuper stronk; again, negating your enemy's advantage is always going to be useful, as is never rolling below a 10, and all this is easily worth the 5 sorcery points in order to recharge AFTER YOU'VE ALREADY USED IT!  Same with Clockwork Cavalcade: healing, object repair, and negating spells of up to 6th level is ridiculously good, and definitely worth the 7 points FOR A FREAKIN' RECHARGE AFTER YOU'VE USED IT FOR FREE!!!  The only downside I see is, this ***** is going to be thirsty for sorcery points.  The only thing I think I'd change is do something to make Bulwark of Law less dependent on sorcery points, whether that be replacing them with a limited number of free uses, a pool of d8's that can be spent similarly to other subclasses, or adding something akin to cantrip scaling when you spend a point; maybe that last suggestion is too strong, but there's enough competition for your points as it is, sooooo...conclusion: YAAASSS QUEEN!!!

I do find the Life cleric pretty boring too.  I have a player in my campaign that chose it and he is the only one complaining currently he doesn't have as much interesting stuff as the other players.  Unity is focused and strong but that is not what I look for, and for me it is ruined.  Analysis of the sub-class should not be solely focused on the numbers and ultimately should answer the question 'will this be fun to actually play?'.

No-one is discouraging people from coming forward, in fact WotC and the d&d community as a whole is incredibly supportive.  D&D is a rather intimate game and there has always been the potential creepy factor there, no one is disputing this.  The variety of safety tools being created reflects that the fear certainly exists.  The pertinent question though is would the Love domain have in any way added to the problem, and I find it hard to believe that it would.  It certainly reminded people that this fear exists but that does not in any way indicate a growth in the bad behavior.

I think you could propose the idea that with all the community guides to establishing good guidelines in session 0's, and the safety tools and general culture now, that it is the best time to have more nuanced grey characters like the Love domain than back in the day when the hobby was such a niche male thing.  It would be sad if we still just clung to the fears of 20 years ago and ignored the progress made and lost these other role-playing opportunities.

So... if this Cleric domain is now focused more on "unity", why can you only unite two people at a time? If it's more of a friendship thing, what's the reason to stick to the two people buff with Emboldening Bond? I mean, romantic love can also be among more than two, but I'm not expecting support for polyamory anytime soon. But calling it unity, talking about family, community and camaraderie and then creating an exclusive two people bond seems... silly.

It's also a very weird domain to begin with. It's one where your fellow players will have to ask you what you're even about. Neither real world deities nor any D&D lore deities, that I'm aware of, have this as a their main thing. The first things that come to my mind with promoting unity, are authoritarianism and cults. They're usually the ones harping on about "unity" and crushing dissent. The perfect domain for a "family values" villain.

Man, I was excited for a Cleric domain for the first time with the love domain. Now I guess cleric will remain at the bottom of my preferred classes to ever play.

Yurei,, I may not really agree with a lot of your points, but hot damn I find your posts entertaining. You'd be fun to argue with, when I have the energy to really do it well. 

Just wanted to say that. Please don't delete your posts because of the opposition PM-whining. That's basically defeat. Also because it deprives the audience of some fun reading.

Anyways, carry on. 

Also when they updated the document to change Love Domain to Unity Domain they made changes to both the other subclasses as well. Just pointing it out there in case it was missed.

In my case I actually covered that back before Zoken offered to dance again.  The Clockwork Soul looks excellent, and I'm deeply hopeful it's the second of a new breed of Sorcerous Origins given that it follows the Aberrant Mind's pattern more than the PHB subclass patterns.

The bard is boring.  Feels like somebody's pet homebrew more than an official development.  I'd rather play Lore, Valor, or Glamour.  Well, not Glamour because Glamour's grapey and we can't be havin' no grape in our D&D, but if I wasn't an awful human being who can't be trusted to keep my raging libido in check, I'd dig Glamour.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

EDIT:

Sigh.  Post withdrawn.  One too many unpleasant PMs.

Have fun, folks.  Y'all are right.  I'm a terrible person and a killer of fun.  Sorry to disrupt the thread.  Carry on.

 You and I seem to have similar options about what happened to the subclass, but your fervor just outpaced mine. :-D

@Cyb3rm1nd  It may have been a mod saying to ease off, but if that's not the case then yeah, I'd rather not have people feeling like they need to delete their posts to appease others.

About the clockwork sorcerer, I still maintain that I'd like to control order, not stymie chaos.

Trance of Order is the only feature that feels that way.

Clockwork Sorcerer is good, very good (I'd put it with Wildfire Druid in terms of universally liked UA subclasses)
Creation Bard is ok but needs work.

Unity/Love cleric needs a rehaul of something, but nobody can agree what that is.