Other Clerics: "My son/My child." War Clerics: *Boy*

*Thunder and lightning are underutilized damage types in D&D* Acid: cryes in corner

Light clerics are often associated with the sun, but I love the idea of a Drow cleric of Elistraee who's fire and radiant spells all look like moonlight.

Regardless of where the sub-classes are ranked, dipping into few levels of Cleric is S-tier. Even just for one level, you get so much.

Correction: light domain’s channel divinity deals RADIANT damage, not fire damage. It also dispels any magical darkness in the area it deals damage to.

Sometimes when I watch these videos, I just stare at the person who's not speaking for the whole time that the other is speaking. I don't exactly know why, I just get so much joy out of it, it's amazing.

Kelly gave the Light Cleric an S, so now he's my favorite. Also, * Fireball joke *

2:38 Light Domain: S/A+ 7:19 Nature Domain: B/B 12:18 Order Domain: B/B 16:12 Tempest Domain: S/A+ 21:07 Trickery Domain : A/B 27:00 War Domain: : C/C

Ah yes, the two easiest house rules I ever implemented: war priest can be used after casting a spell, and invoke duplicity doesn't require concentration

Currently playing Tomb of Annihilation with a Tempest Domain Cleric who worshipped Talos. My man is a champ. Control water got us out of some sticky situations. He was a variant human with the observant feat and a sentinel shield. Had a passive perception of 29. DM did not enjoy that sometimes.

I really agree with the whole damage type subclass point Kelly brought up with the Tempest cleric. I've always wanted a ice themed subclass in the vein of the Tempest cleric or storm sorcerer. The only ice themed subclass is the Arctic land druid.. :/

Monty: “[The Trickery Domain] requires skillful play to be well-executed.” Me: *laughs in Laura Bailey*

The face Monty made when Kelly prounounced clearly "CORONA of light". The look of desperation like "oh shit, goodbye monetization" was hilarious XD

I was so happy to see the Tempest Cleric get the S-Tier. The Cleric in general is my favorite spellcasting class and I LOVED playing my Tempest Cleric

This is the best format for these videos. Y'all's rankings and then the players' rankings. Much better flow than the other vids in the series so far. Overall great video. Makes me want to try a cleric in D&D.

The community never looks at spell lists for this, trickery domain is so obviously powerful with the amazing spells it gets.

That dice monty was holding is an absolute unit of a Dice

I used fog cloud during combat to cover a wizard and archer on a roof. The archer tripped and fell off the roof and our Ranger finished him off. Love my Tempest Cleric

When Kelly mentioned his destructive fire while talking about the light domain, I think I saw a year's worth of pain in Monty's eyes when he remembered Sebastian Crowe.

You gave me a great idea. I need to talk my sons into playing tempest/trickery domain clerics in the same campaign

Voice of Authority to cast Healing Word on the full-health Rogue so they can do their Sneak Attack damage one more time...

finally!! big fan of the first one could not wait for this one. cleric is def one of my favorite classes

One adjustment. Light cleric's Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn deals radiant damage, not fire. This is significant in terms of overcoming potential resistance. Keep up the great work!

Life Domain: "Man, it rocks that the spell list has all these spells I was going to take anyway." War Domain: "Man, it sucks that the spell list has all these spells I was going to take anyway." Community Rankings: "Dudes."

Love how when even you don't agree on your individual rankings, you work together to come up with a solution. Need more of that today.

I'm ready. Praise the sun lads

Previous editions: Yo if your party’s got a cleric you’re rich son 5e: Is it a question of if, Burr, or which one?

Corona of Light makes it so that enemies in your range have disadvantage against saving throws against any spell that deals fire or radiant damage. Not just the cleric's spells. I recommend pairing this with sickening radiance.

In low levels at least, the War domain really shines, a couple of extra attacks thrown in, the ability to conserve spells for utility and healing when need be, as well as the heavy armor and martial weapon proficiency lends itself to a strong frontline tank. Recently the War cleric we had soloed Landerosa Cyanwrath, using shield of faith, the war domain features, and some lucky rolls. As you get more spells and options, I can see it not really standing up as well to the other sublcasses; but at low levels it excels due to good armor, good weapons, and options to enhance both on a very limited spell budget.

I think what people see in the Warcleric is +10 to Ally attacks at lvl 6 giving the Greatweaponmaster / Sharpshooter +10 if they would have missed.

As a war domain cleric I enjoy being able to tank for my party while keeping them alive. I'm not really in it for the power that swinging my warpick occasionally offers. Generally the spells I have access to are much more damaging than simply slapping monsters can measure up to anyway. I did take the sentinel feat though which means I get into the fray and keep people off of my party members

Tempest Domain is insane combined with the party's wizard, just due to Sleet Storm, which I consider one of the most underrated and powerful spells in the game (massive AOE, heavy obscurement protects from many spells which require sight, forces difficult concentration checks, and the prone/difficult terrain sets up the wizard spell). Combine Sleet Storm with Slow, Sickening Radiance, Cloudkill, Stinking Cloud, Evard's, etc. and enemies are easily neutralized. Can even kill extremely resilient creatures with Sickening Radiance because it gives exhaustion levels and it's easy to keep them in the AOE with Sleet Storm and perhaps Walls (looking at you, level 20 Moon Druid).

Having duplicates is always fun. Had a wizard who would have deep conversation ms with his mirror images. Yeah they were him, but he was slightly unstable. Surprised it is poison damage on the Trickery domain. Psychic damage would make more sense.

I was expecting this vid! Guys keep up this more in deep analisis of the sub classes, its awesome that you go point by point

One of the things I really have enjoyed playing both a tempest cleric and a trickery cleric is the amount of sessions where other players or the DM would say, "Woah! You can do what? Are you sure you are really a cleric?" In many ways I find the life cleric to be the worst cleric because they really only do what you expect them to, which as noted, is very useful and good, but definitely can often lead to unintentionally putting the character in a smaller box than they can be.

So psyched! I just started a campaign playing a cleric for the first time and it's a light Domain so I've been looking forward to this!

I love Kelly's shirt, the Cornetto trilogy are some of my fav films

I've been playing an Order Domain Cleric, and we just finished up Tomb of Annihilation. Honestly, the ability to grant an extra weapon attack is more powerful than people realize. 5e combat is all about action economy, and granting your Rogue an extra sneak attack or giving your Fighter or Barbarian an extra attack is very strong, especially since you aren't usually dealing as much damage as they would be anyway. Also, using spells that buff them, heal them, or remove some debilitating effect usually combos well with this class ability. The ability to cast an enchantment as a bonus action has been a little limited, but when it works, its powerful. A lot of the enchantments you have access to are great buff spells, or incredibly debilitating debuff spells for your opponents. Combo that with the little extra damage you could be doing with an attack or cantrip, and you've had a pretty good turn.

Just want to say really great job guys! I especially appreciated that you kept the subclasses from part 1 on the tier list to help contextualize all of the rankings

Heck yes, part 2! Really enjoyed part 1, can't wait to watch this tomorrow morning :D Thank you guys for all the great content you make every week.

Order domains voice of authority feature is incredibly versatile. -it’s not limited to cleric spells -it’s not limited to beneficial spells -it’s a 1st level ability -it is not limited by the spells casting time. This makes it great for dips and synergizes well with the clerics abilities. Healing word is a decent option to proc reaction attacks, but needs to be balanced against spiritual weapon. your chosen ally, hopefully a rogue with sneak attack conditions met, can weaponize their reaction to potentially deal great damage. The ability to cast bless as a bonus action later on further increases the likelihood of that weapon attack landing. I’d also like to point out how potent the heroism spell can become if upcast for multiple creatures AND cast as a bonus action. Replenishing temporary hitpoints can really add up if you can consistently hold your concentration. My war wizard uses this dip to thematically and mechanically represent a more tactical way to cast. That being said, evocation wizards ability to cause allies to automatically pass their saves and take no damage from your evocation AOEs further weaponizes your spellcasting. Casting a fireball on a crowd that includes your allies who are safe and take no damage, then choose an ally to mop up a creature that still lives.

Do this for every class in DnD, i love these types of videos and learn so much from them, not only because they can show me every possible subclass but i get to know 2 opinions at the same time, valuable, since no one at the people we play with are not that knowledgable at the game! (we still have fun though, tons)

Keep up the good works guys, I love watching your vods and comparing it to how I personally rank the classes, and you always bring up some great points that make me want to play a sub class I wasn't considering before.

I like a lot, how you put yours ranking list and community rankings in the end of the video, and not after each subclass. It is much more convenient and easy to compare now. Good job!

I can watch y'all again after checking out at the end of the D of D Season One. Separated does not feel right. Enjoyed every bit of it, how the rat king ended up as a major piece of the story, the myst flesh breakdown, economy, and the consistency of providing an calm and tight frame on the story. The Structure for the battle breakdowns were amazing as was the respectful theater of the mind segments. Thanks to the sponsors (whom i was happy to buy my first fire dice set from, even they left a nice hand written note on the sale of the dice I still keep) and thanks to the folks that helped this whole altruistic-all-inclusive-clan come together.

Trickery is always underrated because players just read the abilities and see how lacklustre they are instead of looking at the spell list and ruining their PHB with drool. Spell lists might not be as glamorous but they are more important for the majority of play.

I like that you showed the two different tier lists at the end. It's nice to see the community's rankings all cleanly displayed for comparison.

Great content! extensions that let me speed up video playback is so amazing for videos like these!

One of my favourite characters was Imotep, with the face o Rami Malek, he was a Clerig of order, worshipper of Anubis and a man of The Azorius Senate.

This feels a bit contradictory Life domain gives you all the spells you would pick anyway "great, now I can pick other interesting spells" War domain gives you all the spells you would pick anyway "this is too restrictive, I'd prefer more spells from other players"

Thank you for all your good work on DD5. I'm a french fan and I much appreciate your excellent pronociation and the fact that you speak not too fast which allow us, your foreingn fans, to understand all your great contents. Kind regards 😊

Another great video. I enjoyed the slight change of format

I wonder if people like the War Domain Cleric a lot because of the consistency melee attacks bring. While a Wizard can bring a lot of firepower and crowd control with Fireball, Slow, and other similar spells, there is a bigger risk attached with that power, namely half damage or even complete spell negation on successful saves. I've never played a War Cleric before, but I think getting two attacks in during the early levels of a campaign before your fighter hits level 5 can be quite huge, especially if the DM allows your cleric to have a big weapon, such as a greatsword, greataxe, or even a glaive or halberd. It's sort of like having multiple Action Surges between long rests starting at level one. Perhaps that's why the community (myself included) thinks so highly of the War Domain Cleric

Early level War domain clerics are crazy, but yes, extra attack makes a lot more sense

I like how you rate the Light domain. I've got a variant-human light cleric with the Lucky feat. It's so great being able to both force disadvantage and reroll attacks and and saving throws. It just works so great when role-playing a preacher who believes he is protected by the holy light, to the point of being reckless.

I was very curious to see where some of these ended up and i was not let down with your breakdown across the 2 cleric videos. Like yourselves am happy to see the class really does not have a dead option just maybe options not so great as others. I also found it interesting that no other class yet and maybe ever will had you wanting to rank at letter with + or - another example of how well the cleric class does.

Great analysis of the subclasses. I’m a fan of trickery domain as well, I just need to find a DM who is too! 😀😀

My problem with Thunderbolt Strike, the Tempest Domain 6th level feature, is that no Cleric spells deal lighting damage, and the only spell you get that deals lightning damage is Call Lightning. The only other source that deals lightning damage is your reaction Wrath of the Storm. So unless you're multiclassing for other lightning damage spells this won't be used that much.

This was fantastic. As an idea for a video or even mini series, I'd suggest something like this but with a focus on "what class/subclass/domain etc" would be best for new players

I love your content as both a player by choice and a DM by necessity, so hopefully you guys will find this helpful. Try looking at the other person when they are talking. This will help emphasize that the person has something important to say and will help you feel less awkward about trying to find a place to look while you aren't talking. Thanks guys, keep up the great work!

I main a war cleric. I chose this domain primarily for the flavor regarding her background. Tempest cleric wouldn't fit for this character, and I personally just don't want to play a Forge cleric. I personally can't see myself utilizing their channel divinity or having fun role playing this domain. War priest has been my biggest gripe and I've also constantly bitched that it should have been a 2nd attack to better utilize the smite you later get. [Edit, the following works fantastic in the group of players I game with (2 paladins, 1 fighter, 1 bard, 1 monk, 1 druid). YMMV] I have ended up mostly utilizing her as a tertiary tank to our Paladins and running her as more like a full caster, only using melee when I have to. I do appreciate having a bunch of spells I constantly use already prepared, which allows me to prepare spells I can utilize outside of combat. Wading into battle, in heavy armor&shield, with spiritual guardians (already prepared), casting spiritual weapon (also already prepared) as a bonus action, and utilizing my action by tolling the dead (which I gained with magic initiate (cleric) to access more cantrips) or sacred flame depending on the battle. And if I do get hit, I have war caster to make it far more likely that I succeed in keeping SG up. Also, pre-prepared Shield of Faith on a Pally with a base of 23 AC already is just broken and my DM would hate us more than he already does. Having heavy hitting combat spells already prepared can't go without a huge bonus in my book, because then you have the ability to prepare utility spells (ritual cast divination based spells, bless, heals, death ward, revivify, guiding bolt (for adv on said heavy hitting teammates), dispel magic, etc) or other heavy hitting spells (inflict wounds, Harm, basically every necro spell) to round out your spell list. Also, Hold Monster and telling the team to beat it's ass has been absolutely clutch in throwing the DMs plan awry. Is she min-maxed? No. Do I sometimes wish I went with a different domain? Sometimes, though War Gods blessing is fantastic when I know our hardest hitting player just missed the enemy. But I genuinely love playing her. In another campaign I play in while the above one is on hiatus, I rolled a Light cleric to be more of a blaster caster. As another person said in the comments, their channel divinity is radiant (not fire) damage and disspells magical darkness. It hits hard in early game with 2d10+your cleric level (full dmg on a fail, half on a success), too. It's been fun to partner up with the Wizard and blast the battle field. Also, double fireball with said Wizard. I have, however, found myself less attached to this cleric but that is likely mostly due to having played her for a significantly less amount of time as the one mentioned above and having dedicated far less time to figuring out who she is as a character fully due to knowing this is planned to be a short campaign.

War domain really shines on a multiclass with a martial that has extra attack, effectively giving them three attacks by burning their bonus action. A paladin could also use the channel divinity and the extra spell slots to smite more often and ensure a crucial smite lands.

Great video as always - definitely leaning toward B for Nature Cleric because of the powerful control elements of the subclass (and that, in perhaps a hot take, makes it one of the best control mages generally in 5e at early/mid levels). The spells that you gain grant automatic bonuses that you can count on with absolute certainty: 1) Spiked Growth (potentially with Plant Growth) to grant quartered speed + difficult terrain (no save to avoid) with damage for each tile (no save to reduce) as long as the opponent walks through it. So any walking creature will be battered up (not to mention able to be shot by cleric spells and other party members) for a long time. 2) Wind Wall grants an automatic failure to non-siege/boulder ranged weapons through the wall, shielding the party against archery at all tiers of play as long as they're not using siege weaponry. 3) If enemies come riding in on horses, direwolves, sharks, etc., you charm them and have them run away. Suddenly cavalry are not an issue. And all of this gets added to the standard cleric array that you can take for control (like Hold Person, Destroy Undead Channel Divinity feature, etc.). So while yes, it's probably not an A subclass, it does create one of the best control mages in the game coupled with the buffing/supporting magic innate in the cleric.

Great videos guys. I look forward to your stuff. In the vid, you ask us to describe why we like War Clerics. Kelly touched on one key aspect, and that is that because we automatically get the cool battle spells prepared, it leaves a lot of freedom for other generic cleric spells selections. Back that with an 18-20 Wisdom, and you have some real potent diversity from buff to utility to attack to heal. At the early levels, your divine gifts, martial weapons, and heavy armor keep you effective - almost game-changing. There is nothing like being able to go into melee, stomp an enemy, then turn around and blast another one from 120 feet away with a guiding bolt - while your Spiritual Weapon is on the other side dishing out damage. Then, at level 5, your cantrips scale-up, plus you have your default battle spells with enough slots to upcast them. Combine that with the right feats, you have a battlefield monster. So, at the end of the day, I think that clerics by themselves are awesome, but if you realize the effective uses of your divinity bonuses and when to use what, War Clerics can be battlefield powerhouses.

Nice work dudes! Love your assessments and couldn't agree more. Especially for the War domain. I honestly don't know why Wizards was so worried about give extra attack to the Cleric (a full caster), when there is already precedence with the Bard (also a full caster). *shrug* oh well...

My Trickery cleric disguises self as a naked homeless man and then invokes duplicity to streak across the city's capital building. S-tier just for this

So glad to see someone giving props to the Trickery Cleric. It is my favourite character class to play, though I'd agree that the fact Duplicity taking concentration is irritating.

Having finished now both videos, it would seem that the Cleric has the enviable position of being a class that can be roleplayed without a min/max problem. Bravo!

I think War Cleric should be either A or B, all of the abilities are decent. War Priest competes with Spiritual Weapon but it's still useful for those times when you don't want to use spell slots. They get both Martial Weapon and Heavy Armor which is the best martial Proficiency (some only get one or the other). Channel Divinity is great +10 is a huge bonus and it's an "attack roll" which means spell attack rolls also count. And you get to decide after seeing the roll, and most of the time you'll have an idea whether the +10 would matter or not, so in practice the +10 bonus is almost more than once per channel divinity. At level 1 that can be a Guiding Bolt or Inflict Wounds, which normally is a bad spell, but with +10 bonus that's almost always gonna hit which makes these spells suddenly a great reliable damage spell. If you also take Feats like Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master suddenly you get one attack with +5 attack roll +10 damage. At level 6 it doesn't even have to be you dealing the damage, so you can give it to your Sharpshooter/GWM Fighter or a blaster caster,which means you can focus on other Cleric things and take other Feats or ASIs. The domain spells is decent, but most notable is that they have both Spirtual Weapon and Spirit Guardians which all damage Clerics would take anyway, meaning you'd get extra spell options since you basically get a free "tax" on these spells. Magic Initiate or a Dip in a class with Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade makes makes a decent damage dealer. BB/GFB + Spiritual Weapon on level 5 deals more damage than two weapon attacks that martials without Polearm Master or Crossbow Expert usually get. At level 8 you get another slight damage increase (it works with BB/GFB). And that's just single target damage, with Spirit Guardians that also a lot of AoE damage, which I think the Cleric does best. Granted this is not unique to War Cleric but also other Martial Clerics.

i would... love to see this with sorcerer subclasses but i get the feeling id get defensive over my one true love, divine soul sorcerers (as someone who loves to be both support and full arcane spellcaster this one GETS me)

This video was great! I can’t wait until you guys eventually do a breakdown of explorers guide to Wildemount

Would you guys consider making a tier list of the damage types in dnd? Your discussion of it seemed to indicate some behind the scenes discourse on it that I'd be very interested to learn about. Great video as always!

I’ve always wanted to try playing a war domain cleric but every time I start putting it together I talk myself into just playing a Fighter or another front line cleric like Forge.

26:05 I was not expecting to be given homework while watching this 😂

Thanks again for making good quality and informative videos

I’m relatively new to DND and I wanted to play a Cleric character, thanks to these videos I went with Tempest Domain Cleric. I took a some inspiration from what y’all said and gave my Cleric a different backstory than most making him a former sailor who dedicated his life to serving Thor after he saved his ship from being destroyed in a storm. So he willingly took to serving Thor but mostly due to not wanting to die. We start next week and I can’t wait to get into the role playing and the combat aspect of this character.

I wish Light Domain Cleric got something like adding Wis to their Fire and Radiant damage spells instead of their Potent Spellcasting (similar to Draconic Sorcerer's Elemental Affinity)

As a tempest cleric main i love that you gave it S.

Its so nice seeing them together at the table again. :)

I like the new style of putting the polls at the end.

Never would have believed that Clerics would be the super heroes of DnD

My first and current character is light cleric Can't beat casting a fireball with a AC of 17 while being level 5 👌

Huge fan of the Cleric class, thanks guys!

Your conclusion on the Order Cleric was prophetic. Those spell options are here now with the inclusion of Silvery Barbs. Especially with a rogue, gaining free advantage via Silvery Barb's, triggering sneak attack.

I like to rank the trickery domain S tier too, I think no party will ever have enough spell slots to cast polymorph. But unfortunately this is D&D and you rarely need creativity or skill to play and have fun, so I just really can't say it is as good as I see them.

Nature Cleric, when paired with a Free Cantrip race like High or Half Elves, is the best "out of the box" Gish in 5e.

thank you for going so in depth about your choices!

I have played 2 tempest domain clerics in short term low-level campaigns and both of them were amazing. I took out an entire goblin hovel with a well-placed shatter using destructive wrath. 24 damage (maxed out 3d8) with a DC 14 con save for half just killed all but 1 of the goblins (who I couldn't get into the area), and next round (after the rest of my party had some crappy rolls) I finished it off with my warhammer.

I want Kelly's t shirt.

I can only imagine what was edited out after Monty said "skillful play"

I just started playing a couple of months ago and the tempest domain cleric was my first pic and it’s been a blast to use all the the low level features the reaction at low level is so amazing to use especially when it finishes of a foe. Number 1 in my book.

Great rankings guys. Now I really want to roll my Dwarf Forge Cleric!

What are your guy's thoughts on the Twilight Cleric? S - D on it? I really want to know :)

6:23 The light cleric's corona of light ability is actually unlimited.

In the future, for these types of videos it would helpful if you visually presented what differentiates the subclasses (i.e. show the description of the level and capstone abilities, like you do the bonus spell lists). Thanks for the content and keep up the good work!

I have an illusionist wizard and convinced the dm to let me homebrew a feat similar to the invoke duplicity. It is amazing! Definitely liked your thoughts on these subclasses and are well reasoned.

Tempest gets an S. Not eve waiting for them to finish their analysis to type this out 🧜🏻‍♂️🌊⛈

“When talking about the trick domain, I think of Loki” yeah yeah, but what about JESTER?

I'm loving this series. Keep em coming (faster?)!

Love the rankings content! Can't wait for Warlocks. :)