Cleric Subclasses Ranked: D&D
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
8:28 The Cleric
15:26 Arcana Domain
17:33 Death Domain
21:27 Forge Domain
23:43 Grave Domain
28:12 Knowledge Domain
30:24 Life Domain
34:07 Light Domain
36:33 Nature Domain
39:12 Order Domain
41:54 Peace Domain
44:22 Tempest Domain
46:59 Trickery Domain
48:57 Twilight Domain
51:36 War Domain
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Due to an editing error - the outro music comes on a bit early, sorry about that.
is it related to the timestamps, they also seem a few seconds off.
Content-wise, I give you an S ranking: OP
It's the video telling you stop talking I think ;)
@Treantmonk's Temple this isn't the first video of yours where this happened lol. At least this time I wasn't as confused.
Reminds me of the old Academy Award speeches, when the orchestra would not-so-subtly remind the recipient that their time to speak was up, for sure lol
Never knew a guy to play himself off.. still like these videos.
I actually like it when Domain spells are niche and/or utility, because that means I would be less likely to take them (or something like them) with my chosen spells, but now I get to have these additional spells for "free" that augment the abilities and flavor of my character.
The irony is Life Cleric is best specifically because all the domain spells are cleric spells you would already prepare which frees you to take important cleric spells you usually do not have room to prepare.
Congratulations guys now you both get to pick spells you think are interesting/fun 🥳
@@nonenone4461 It's bizarre that more people can't seem to grasp this. Regardless of what type of cleric you play, you are almost certainly preparing revivify, lesser restoration, cure light wounds, spiritual weapon, and bless. These are the spells that people expect from you, same as they expect rogues to be stealthy and fighters to hit stuff. As a life cleric, your domain spell list is basically paying your "cleric tax" for you. With your basic kit more or less covered, you can prep whatever you want from the expansive cleric spell list.
What's more, you can completely change your loadout to become a drastically different spellcaster without compromising your main kit. You can double up on buffing and support to become the alpha healer, or you can focus on debuffs and offense while maintaining your key support options. You can even prepare a bunch of nonsense that no one ever casts and still do your job as a cleric. In practice, the life domain is actually way more versatile than other domains.
@@wholetyouinhere Except that doesn't happen they prepare the next spells on the optimized list and if every cleric domains were spells on the optimized list then every cleric would have the same spells prepared regardless of domain.
It's been so helpful having Command and Hold Person as an Order cleric!
LMAO you can hear the pain in his voice when he talks about peace and twilight
hahaha especially peace "hold on did you use your d4 ? You could use some d4" lmaoo
Ya, its funny when I hear people whine about those few subclasses that are actually strong. I mean really???
@@shadowmancer99 I mean when they are, not just strong, but straight up a whole level above any other subclass (also considering we are cleric and not monk here), probably not as funny when a dm is trying to balance encounters and puzzles for the party. Unless you like the one hit 999 kind of power level then consider this comment void lol.
@@sir_wffles Accepted! I DO like seeing that...cause its hilarious. And often times I think people over estimate combinations or features...lets face it, most players are casual, and wont be making the absolute best of it.
Treantmonk, rating the classes: Clerics are an A-Tier Class, Barbarians are a C Tier
Treantmonk, rating the subclasses: Most clerics are C Tier and I hate every Cleric above B Tier.
Barbarians are c tier, lol. I'll have to remember that when I am playing Squirbles the Barbarian. Kobold crossbow expert with pack tactics and ancestor guardians that can move faster than almost anything else.
Makes sense. Cleric baseline is a powerful class, but since it's power comes from strong class spells and good resilience independent of subclass features. It's subclasses are all pretty mediocre, and those that are good feel busted. Because adding good features to a good class results in... Eloquence bard levels of busted
@@nonenone4461 Wat. Those things don't even work together
@@nonenone4461 are the rest of your group just level 1 commoners because that sounds like a terrible build
@@ProfX501 (this is from a year ago so maybe youll get annoyed, so, sorry) yes, they do work, Ancestral protectors say "the first creature you hit with an attack on your turn becomes the target of the warriors", so it does´nt matter if its a ranged or melee , in fact, you could just hit them with a spiritual weapon and it would work since its not even a weapon attack, and spiritual weapon its not concentration. Is it optimal?, thats a whole another thing
Regarding the Twilight Domain spells, I'm surprised you didn't mention Circle of Power, which is essentially Evasion affecting ALL Spells on top of Magic Resistance (for the ENTIRE PARTY). The spell is usually exclusive for lvl 17 Paladins (unless you're a bard) which makes it really potent at just 9th.
Yep, and I hate it when they do this. Dawn or Dispel Evil & Good would make far more sense thematically, too.
He hasn't really said much about 5-th lvl spell as they are less relevant in majority of the games
Grave Cleric is probably underrated. It's party dependent, but if you have one that can properly exploit its nova capability with vulnerability imposition from Path to the Grave, just damn.
Pair with paladin or rogue, maybe warlock with eldritch smite, to get the most out of it.
@@probablythedm1669 Yeah in my party there is a grave and rogue combo and they really stack the damage with that vulnerability, once the rogue critted on top of the vulnerable and destroyed what was supposed to be a deadly encounter for our cr.
I once saw a grave domain one shot a demilich with path to the grave and an war caster op guiding bolt…
A character I want to try is an Aasimar Grave Cleric 2/Divine Soul Sorcerer X. Channel Divinity with your action, then quicken spell an Inflict Wounds or Chromatic Orb on the same turn. Favor of the gods and seeking spell take some of the risk out of upcasting attack spells, and if you have Radiant Soul/Necrotic Shroud/Radiant Consumption active you get to double that damage as well.
This is situational at best. The problem is its just one attack and note that it does not say spell attack. And you do not get to choose which attack.
This would be tits if you could. Smite, criticals or sneak attacks. But you can't so usually it gets eaten by someone doing 1 point of damage.
One note on Tasha's Blessed Strikes: it doesn't scale at level 14, unlike Divine Strikes. So there is technically some reason to pick Divine Strikes instead. The other technical niche is that Potent spellcasting is that it works on every hit of the cantrip. So if you are an Arcana Cleric using Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade you can add your wisdom twice. So I don't think Blessed Strikes is the automatic pick. (Whatever you pick is a pretty minor impact, though).
Maybe I worded that wrong, but there's a sage advice about this, which says Potent Spellcasting applies to both hits of Green Flame Blade: www.sageadvice.eu/does-the-arcana-clerics-potent-spellcasting-add-wis-mod-damage/
Again, super minor point--doubt it changes any rankings.
I was going to mention this to until I saw this comment. Blessed Strike is good if you want a Forge/Life Cleric to lean in on Spellcasting more or a Spellcasting Cleric to lean in on Martial Weapons more. But in a lot of cases Potent Spellcasting is a bit better. In some cases Divine Strike can still be better.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath did not know that, I've been missing out on that sweet +5 on the booming blade secondary damage for some time then D:
Thanks!
Why stop there? Pick up Shillelagh for triple the wisdom.
@@jamesrexus8555 unfortunately if you’re an Arcana cleric, you can’t get shillelagh as a cleric spell.
Aura of Vitality was such a big boon for Life Clerics. It may not always be the best bonus action in combat but between combats it generates an amazing amount of hp.
I feel like path to the grave is underrated. Vulnerability is great. Yeah it doesn't work on disintegrate, but it does work on a paladins or warlocks smite or a rogues sneak attack. As a cleric you are not in the same damage dealing range as the martials so its a solid use of your action. When your heavy weapon paladin turns 50 damage into 100 its pretty dang solid. And thats not even with a optimized one hit damage dealer. There is some luck involved but I've seen it turn a hit for 113 into 226. And I'm sure good optimizers could exceed that.
It requires teamwork to make it work really well. I play Adv League and have seen a lot of players in action - and I've met some reasonably experienced players who simply wouldn't/couldn't pull this combo off. To make it work, you don't just have a grave cleric and a striker paladin in the party. You also have to consider the initiative order. Let's say you're fighting a boss, and the wiz went first and hyp patterned all the minions. Now it's grave cleric's turn. He wants to use PttG but the monk comes next - then the pal. If he does PttG either the monk uses it, which wastes it - or the monk's turn is ruined. The Grave Cleric, to pull the PttG-Pal/Nova combo has to hold or "ready" his action so that he inflicts vulnerability right after the monk's turn - so the Pal gets use of PttG. Now here in youtube forum, that sounds so easy - but from my experience, that's actually an "elite" move that many players simply won't think of or won't want to do. Even players who've been playing 5e several years. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm just saying that at least in AL, it would be rare to see players cooperating at that level.
And even if players are willing to work together and try to pull this off, a mean DM can mess it up. After Grave cleric readies his action, DM uses a Legendary action for the boss to move just out of the grave cleric's range - or some shenanigans like that! /facepalm Again, not saying it's a bad one-two combo. When it works, it can hit very hard - as you point out. But a mean DM can mess with it.
I'll have to remember that the next time my evocation wizard is tossing a fireball every round in the middle of combat not effecting the other players.
@@nonenone4461 evocation wiz is easy - and can be very effective. Other thigs require more work - maybe cooperation - but can do more than an evo wiz fireballing. Try your evo wiz in the Avernus hardcover - most fights are with devils. Again, evo can be quite effective, but there are places where it is not optimal.
@@johneubank8543 you could ready your action so that affects the player you want to be the damage.
@@Dragoon42 Dude, that's _exactly_ what I said in that TLDR up there. You must have skimmed my post and not noticed it. I realize that the Internet has created TLDR culture, where no one has time to read more than two sentences But is this good?
Regarding Death Clerics, Spiritual Weapon also uses a melee spell attack, and that’s something you’ll definitely be casting, so you’ll definitely get plenty of opportunity to use your channel divinity. At level 6, that’s an additional 17 points of damage twice per short rest; if you focus it during the fights where it’s needed, that could be a bump of 11 points per round in a three round fight; a significant improvement. I don’t think a short rest cooldown for this bump stops you using it in most fights that matter, either.
The necrotic damage from Spiritual Guardians might still be worse than Radiant, but you don’t get that option for Toll the Dead, and neither for the Channel Divinity, so the Level 6 ability keeps you relevant against many creatures.
He also forgot to mention Death ward, a fantastic spell.
@@30vamshi But again, all clerics get death ward
@@adamkaris yes, that means they get to prepare an extra spell. Removes cleric tax a bit.
Yeah, I think he underrated the feature because of that. Spiritual weapon doesn't scale well after level 5, but is still worth casting because of this feature. If you can apply it twice per round you can approach paladin levels of nova.
@@michaelhenman4887 It uses your channel divinity, so you'll only be able to use it one or two times per short rest
45:46 From playing a Tempest Cleric the best use of Thunderbolt Strike I've found it actually to combine it with Wrath of the Storm. Reaction for 2d8 lightning damage and 10ft pushback can be useful, especially if they've used all their movement to get to you already, even better if you hit them with a booming blade on the previous turn.
One little tip if you or your player's struggle with keeping track of extra d4, or other dice they can use from features of other players. Let someone at your table (ideally the person using the feature) bring a set of dice that work for that feature. Now when they hand out Emboldening Bond, Bardic Inspiration, Bless or similar they can literally hand out the dice that the other player can put in front of them to remmeber. The online variant we use of this is just setting a side a place where you put your received dice and whenever you receiva one of such effects you just place one of your dice there to use. The downside of course is that there need to be a lot mor dice present at the table, but in my experience if someone has played DnD or other TTRPG for a longer time, they collected a few sets anyway. You could also replace the dice with other physical tokens such as a playing card that has the number of the die to roll. (So a Heart-8 could stand for a d8 bardic inspiration) We used it when we played a one shot with both a bard and a peace cleric recently and it worked well.
This is so cool, I'm excited to see all the classes eventually when you've gone through them all!
I love being my Dwarf 12th level Forge Cleric. I get to be on the front line with my fighter and paladin buddies, and just be a nice Rock that sort of anchors the group in fights.
I find Hill Dwarf to be such a strong choice for a melee cleric. Even if you build a melee cleric, their spells support their melee, so the +spell casting stat is still helping saving throws for your spirit guardians, which is good melee support, spirit weapon to hit rolls, ect. An upcasted spirit guardians on tank cleric. Yes. Think of it this way, tactically focused enemies will think, I need to break that concentration, or this will hurt. Hill dwarf shores up the HP with both their bonus to con and +1 HP per level. Granted, not as good after Tasha's, and that is one of the things I dislike about that is that it makes racial picks a little less dramatic. Then, there's the whole good not slowed by strength requirements on heavy armor, making it possible to build a tank/melee spell build without having to up your strength too much.
I as well. Love him. Great armor. Love my domain spells. Always have great things to with my action and bonus action.
The cool thing about Life Cleric is that the 1st and 6th lvl abilities can stack for you. On a Mass Cure Wounds you get the initial healing, that gets boosted by the lvl 1 ability, and if you healed other people with that spell you also get the 6th lvl kick back of healing.
In defense of Path to the Grave, a lot of Cleric's DPR is based around keeping spirit guardians up, which means that once its up, your follow up actions are typically on the lower end of your party, damage wise. If you have a burst character, say a rogue or GWM barbarian, after you in initiative order, you're pushing a lot more damage by expending a CD than you are by throwing out Toll the Dead or even by casting most leveled spells
I would 100% rule that a Healer’s kit made by a Life Cleric with Fabricate would benefit from Disciple of Life… that sounds brilliant
That makes the healer feat sound obscene with that kit.
It already is! I’m playing in a Gritty Realism game where short rests are 8 hours and long rests are a week. My Rogue (Thief) with the Healer feat out heals the Cleric by a huge amount, so much that he swapped his character to a damage dealer Ranger. Adding 6 hp (4th level Fabricate) per use (60 hp total) wouldn’t be that bad.
Admittedly, I also am cool with a Dragonmarked Halfling Life Cleric using Goodberry at first level… healing is a poor combat action anyway, why nerf it? Why not buff it and reward players for playing the way they want
@@kel8923 Well the phb specifically says hp isn't just about how mcub damage a player can take. A lot of it is luck to do with narrow misses. So if you want a justification for not using grotty realism it is that. Until you get to the last few hp, you aren't actually taking damage you are dodging it but are getting more fatigued until eventually you get hit.
I’ve always preferred the “heroic feel” of fighting at 100% even at low HP. I have been playing around with nasty Criticals and levels of Exhaustion for hitting 0 HP
I would too lol.
So...I predicted Clerics would mostly be Bs, zero As, with Twilight and Peace being S.
Looks like my prediction was slightly off--Cleric is a lot heavier on Cs than Bs. And mostly to the right within their tiers too.
Not quite sure how I feel about swords bard being higher than literally all of the PHB clerics (swords only really being good when multiclassed). Most of the other Bard subclasses, though sure--is a Lore Bard or Creation Bard better than all the PHB clerics? Yeah, that sounds right.
Swords bard is still a bard and has magical secrets getting the spells that make phb clerics okay.
@@justinstreet1254 Spirits and Whispers Bard are also bards, and they get rated in C tier below several Cleric subclasses, so it's not simply a case of Treantmonk believing all bard subclasses are better than all PHB cleric subclasses. (Mono-classed Spirits Bard is arguably better than mono-classed swords bard as well, so swords bard is certainly placed where it is due to multiclass builds and not mono-classed builds).
Maybe the multiclass builds are just that good, of course.
I’m a little surprised the B clerics weren’t As and a couple Cs moved to B. I guess Peace and Twlight broke the curve.
@@KaitlynBurnellMath I like the way the Dungeon Dudes break down their subclass ranking, they only compare them to each other, not to other subclasses, and they may touch on, but they don't base their rankings on multiclassing.
These rankings just feel like the different subclasses are being compared to something else instead of given rankings between one another. Like if you're only doing a straight power ranking, there may be entire classes that could just get dumped in the C-D tiers because you're comparing, say Monk to Wizards. For 8+ minutes of explaining his ranking, it still feels like the weighting of the different ranks is off and the analysis of why he ranks what he does isn't wrong as it's his opinion, it just doesn't really fit too closely with how I tend to view the different class features.
I respect the effort he puts into the videos, I just disagree with some of his opinions, and that's okay. I think. Lol
@@JoshuaKirtley I mean, yeah, he wanted to do something different than Dungeon Dudes.
Worth noting, though, Dungeon Dudes put Swords Bard in D-tier (their lowest rated bard). I do understand Treantmonk putting Swords Bard higher than Dungeon Dudes did (relative to other bards). I'm just thinking that maybe he moved Swords Bard up a bit too much?
100% here for Chris’s ongoing use of the word ‘banger’ 💥
A Level 1 dip into Knowledge Cleric for Wizards is amazing. You don't get heavy armor, but instead you really specialize into those skills that your party is going to need in clutch moments. With the usual Cleric goodies, like Medium Armor, Guidance and Healing Word.
I think Treantmonk was slightly unfair to Eyes of the Grave. Yes, it has a lot of things that could be improved about it. But one thing you don't touch on is the "is this thing undead or not" question that so often comes up. Especially as a high wisdom character, you're likely going to be the one who notices the strange figures stalking you in the mist or the shadows, and being able to confirm without a doubt if they're undead or actually something else can be incredibly useful. Especially if you are someone who doesn't like metagaming, it saves you from having to ask if your *character* would know that these are undead for the sake of using Turn Undead or Protection from Evil and Good against them, even if you as a player already know exactly what the threat is.
Is it the most useful ability? No. And I definitely agree that in combat it's not going to be a useful use of your action pretty much ever. But it does have its uses, especially if you're fighting weird things that you or your character may not recognize. After all, some information is always better than none, and that utility shouldn't be ignored.
This has been such a fun series so far. Thank you for taking the time to do all this
41:21 but they DO have a very strong action. they can use it for help action, or dodge action. it works wonders with a spiritual guardian. that way you have increased defences the turn you cast spiritual guardians (as an example)
I basically never see this mentioned, but the Tempest cleric can use the level 6 pushback feature with its level one reaction damage.
So the damage from the level one feature doesn’t scale, but you eventually get no-save 10ft pushback on a reaction up to five times per day. Situational, but that can be nice in combination with certain spells (including your own sleet storm) if you position yourself wisely.
You probably don’t have better uses for your reaction, so it is nice to have.
Overall I think Tempest and Grave clerics deserve a B (plenty of other comments have already discussed the merits of the grave cleric).
Honestly, I think most people see the damage synergy and completely miss that it's honestly a perfectly fine control subclass. Look at their Domain spells. Thunderwave, Fog Cloud, Sleet Storm, even Ice Storm isn't terrible. Combine it with Blue/Bronze Dragonborn, High Elf w/Shocking Grasp, or the Magic Initiate Feat and you can shove enemies around at whim.
Just wanted to say I’ve been loving this channel lately. I appreciate the thought and consideration that goes into everything. I love that it isn’t loud and there a flashy gif every 10 seconds. And I get a little emotional when I hear Treantmonk say, “D&D is for everyone.” It sure is and may it always be. Great job keep it up!
This series is absolutely immense. Thank you, Chris!
What a pleasent surprise! :) I didn't expect this video so soon after the one for Bards seeing as Clerics have by far the most subclasses.
I think he's doing it alphabetically.
I know this took a lot of work and time, but I appreciate this video handling all the cleric subclasses. Been looking forward to this one since you first announced you'd be doing rankings. Thanks Treanmonk!
If I was to re write light, I’d have a feature that gives races with sunlight sensitivity to see as normal, making at the counter part to twilight domain in that ‘do not fear the light as the twilight says do not fear the dark’
I've always found it weird tempest clerics only get like...one lightning spell. And then they get shatter and thunderwave which do identical amounts of damage. The domain list is pretty lame, just give them lightning bolt or chain lightning...anything but a concentration lightning spell.
Tempest cleric is not a true subclass, it is a 2 level dip for storm sorcerer, lightning dragon sorcerer, and evocation wizard
@@marsupialmole3926full tempest cleric>>>2lvl multiclass
Great rankings - been really enjoying these! Gonna give a bit of pushback on the Nature Cleric, though, as it offers the one thing clerics don't really have, and that is very effective crowd control.
The Nature Cleric gets to say "no, and no save to prevent it" to a lot of threats that are very common thanks to its spell list. Spike Growth has a saving throw, but it's not a save to take half damage or move at full speed: it's a save to notice it exists. So you're halving movement speed for non-flying, non-teleporting creatures (which is a lot of creatures), which can also be stacked with Plant Growth (so now you're at 1/8 speed, taking 2d4 damage for each square), and there's no saves. No way to stop this at all other than stand back, use Dispel magic, or go around (which, with Plant Growth, is a loooong way around). Heaven forbid you also have a druid in the party who can cast these too.
The Nature Cleric can also say, "No, and no save to prevent it" to ranged attacks thanks to Wind Wall - automatic failure scales very well in higher levels of play, so you can shield your party against crossbows, longbows, etc. for 10 minutes unless they come to your side of the wall.
And yes, while the Channel Divinity is very niche, it adds another negation option (most commonly for cavalry, which admittedly apparently not a lot of groups use? I guess? I've seen them a good bit, maybe my group is weird?) that technically has a save, but how many beasts are going to pass a Wisdom save against an optimized cleric? Not that many, and when combined with Speak with Animals, telling a bunch of mounts to go home is very easy.
And all of this is available as early as 3rd - 5th level: you get to play with this for most of the game. You get incredible crowd control, attack control, damage control, all standard in this build. And I feel like that's something that a lot of clerics would love to have, but don't have. So while maybe it's still a "C," I don't think it's as low as most people put it.
The classic "end theme plays while Chris is still talking" has returned, I see. It's even funnier the second time!
I am a little surprised by your assessment of the cleric spell list. I think clerics are one of the three best classes in the game, alongside wizards and paladins (though clockwork and aberrant mind give sorcs a run for that tier). But you're right; there's some very strong spells on the cleric spell list that are unique to the cleric, but not many of them. I love the gish-y melee cleric build, but we basically always see the same spells prepared: bless, healing word, guiding bolt, aid, lesser restoration, spiritual weapon (though telekinetic makes that less relevant), dispel magic, revivify, spirit guardians, etc. I think I'm drawn to this because the number of good spells available to me is pretty similar to the number of spells I can prepare anyways. And there's just enough versatility where if I expect to need another spell (enhance ability, tongues, zone of truth, water walk, sending), I can prepare it.
I disagree that Path to The Grave is an even trade, as there are attacks that other classes can make that deal far more damage than most cleric spells. For example, a surprise round with an Assassin Rogue, or any Sneak Attack, or a paladin's Divine Smite. Just a flat 2x modifier to the next incoming attack seems pretty good to me, for a coordinated party.
Predicting it now:
S tier will end up with 3 subclasses - the two Tasha's Clerics and the Chronurgy Wizard. I can't think of any other subclasses that are nearly as game breaking.
I could see Aberrant Mind, Clockwork Soul, and maybe Rune Knight and Hexblade making the list, the latter because of multiclassing.
I could make an argument for Vengeance Paladin and Moon Druid making S Tier.
Shepherd druid likely hits S tier.. but it’s highly DM dependant, so maybe A
@@seankeaney823 Vengence Paladin is good, but not OP. I generally believe it's pretty overrated.
And Moon Druid is OP only on early levels, but falls back greatly with time (up until lvl20 capstone that doesn't matter in 99% games). Not sure where it would get placed because of it.
@@seankeaney823 moon druid is only OP in levels 1-4 and 20. In other levels they aren't the best.
I'm honestly very surprised that Treantmonk did not make an S+ tier for Twilight and Peace.
I think the S tier was made for subclasses like those.
Alternatively, I'm pretty sure he made the S tier just for them. I don't think there's any other subclass he'll rank that high.
@@seacliff217 I'm expecting Chronurgist to also get an S-tier ranking, given how much he talks about needing to self-police when playing an Chronurgist.
Surprised that Forge doesn't at least get an A. That free +1 to make magical armor/weapons, then by level 5 you can make an additional two weapons *also* have +1(or more, with higher spell slots) is a massive party boost at low levels where magical weapons don't generally show up.
Given the fact that he intends to rank all classes on here, I actually think he's overrating Twilight. The darkvision may be cool, and it simply _solves_ one challenge (darkness) - but usually that challenge is pretty minor. The initiative boost is nice, but hardly crazy. The real boost here is Twilight Sanctuary. And the thing is: although this is absolutely huge and unreasonable set next to the other cleric subclasses - hit points simply aren't everything, especially not spread out like that. In pretty much all combats, the damage per round is going to be a significantly more than this, and it's often going to be focused too. And of course, it doesn't help avoid nasty effects. It's also not easily abusable via a dip because it needs 2 levels and depends on cleric level. Combat healing in general doesn't work very well in 5e, and the healing that works best is healing when somebody has dropped - but Twilight Sanctuary simply doesn't work then. Finally, let's not entirely elide the fact that this _mere healing effect_ also takes a full-fat action. Other casters might be casting entanglement, web, hypnotic pattern... is this really _enough_ better to not just compete but even raise it to the next level? I just don't think its *nearly* reliable nor cheap enough for that.
So while all that rolling is _annoying,_ this subclass just isn't *S* in terms of power (yes yes, IMHO), _when compared to other classes+subclasses._ Put it this way, is party really going to gain more in power from a twilight cleric than from most almost any other full caster, given the fact that it's most broken ability is only healing, doesn't heal the dropped, costs an action, and heals much less than a PC in a challenging combat is likely to receive in a round?
I understand the argument that it's poorly designed; that it's too much rolling; that it makes combats too swingy by making medium level threats irrelevant yet doing little against deadly threats - but all those are solid arguments that it's poorly designed, but not S tier.
The peace domain is on another level, however, especially given how dip-friendly it is.
On the note of the touch of death, spiritual weapon can work with it as it's a melee spell attack. So, that's a good thing to keep in mind.
This series is gold. I listen to them when they come out on Patreon and then again when released on CZcams. There is so much good stuff that it takes a second listen to get it all. I wish the designers of D&D would take note and make adjustments as needed.
You missed that Death Cleric's Reaper gives them unquestioned access to Sapping Sting from the Dunamancy list, since the ability explicitly pulls from "any list". Knocking two enemies prone as a cantrip is some strong at-will battlefield control.
No such thing as "unquestioned." Many DMs don't play with Dunamancy spells, and those that do could argue that the intent is to limit them to specific characters (e.g. those who come from a particular culture or who've had a mentor from that culture).
@@bigdream_dreambig the subclass gives the ability to choose the cantrip from any list. It’s a mechanical feature of the subclass. If the DM wants to limit the feature because they think the feature would be too powerful for some reason, that’s fine even if it’s not true.
DMs shouldn’t hide behind flavor or culture, you can re-flavor features to be what ever you want.
@@binolombardi "Any spell list" means any _available_ spell list. If your DM isn't playing with EGtW, you're out of luck. And even if they _are_ including EGtW content, the dunamancy spells are prefaced with the specific limitation that they "should not be simply added to the full spell lists of other spellcasting classes." The text goes on to make recommendations about how the DM can offer limited, DM-controlled access to these spells as _rewards_ -- not for simply existing at level 1.
Touch of death works extremely well with Vampiric touch because it would heal you half that extra damage. because that damage is necrotic and the spell says you heal half the necrotic damage you dealt but never limited it to a source .
Path to the grave . when I used that along side a paladin or a rouge next in line .... ooooooooweeeeee too much damage !!! and it would be worth to trade because a Cleric cant do that much damage hardly ever. lets say Asscrack got hit by a 70 piercing damage because of the rogue ! and it free your bonus action to cast a spell too.
and healing a downed creature for max healing ! that actually make healing useful in combat healing them for 40 esh HP ! doesnt make a wakomall effect happen as often
Try Path to the Grave with an Evil Affinity Divine Soul Sorcerer using Quicken Inflict Wounds, 30 damage with a 1st level slot. Upcast it for way more.
Never thought twilight was THAT strong, i like it for more thematic reasons (Eilistraee is my favorite Faerunian goddess and the twilight domain is really thematic for a drow or half drow that worship's her)
Twilight Cleric is ridiculously strong in a way that should be embarrassing to WOTC. Heck, they even buffed it from the UA, which was already overpowered (as UA generally is, which is fine for their playtesting purpose). The only saving grace is that it's most powerful features are support buffs to the whole party, rather than Main Character Syndrome features. If you have a group of players that will respond to what the twilight cleric is doing with "hell yes, thanks priest!" rather than "man I wish my character could do half of that, I feel like my abilities are really underwhelming in comparison", then you're going to have a great time. If your players like inter-PC balance, I recommend banning or nerfing it, for the reasons Treantmonk lists.
Order Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer X is by far my favorite support character. That 1st level ability can mean a hell of a lot more for a build like that, and the armor is a solid boon to your PC as well.
Fantastic analysis, thank you for your hard work.
the peace cleric is such an slap in the face to the oath of redemption paladin
Tasha's just seems like it was slapped together, with mechanics and playability pushed into a corner.
@@Joemantler I agree. I was pretty excited when it came out. But the more time goes by, I mostly wish it weren't there. Custom lineage, do whatever with race stats because they don't know how to really fix it which makes several races now even more mechanically inferior, broken subclasses. Heck, even with the expanded spells list, it feels like almost everyone gets access to revivify.
I chose to go Twilight domain for an upcoming campaign where I will have three melee characters on the front line to buff. I fully expect it to have an overwhelming benefit but I don't think anyone will mind. I otherwise would probably never have played cleric because of the reasons you gave around the spell list, but with the power of the Twilight domain I have really discovered the class and am excited about giving cleric a go. PS, I will be playing a Reborn Drow Twilight Cleric and enjoying the idea that I am a Zin-Carla spirit wraith brought back as a harbinger of a drow prophesy of manifest destiny to bring about eternal night. Every domain has a story to be told!
I got an ideo for an twiligt-kobold clerik i would love to pull of....
@@rogerjolly1358 I am playing a warlock kobold, pact of the chain with fire genie patron, and I am really enjoying the RP opportunities kobolds have, being little nasty creatures that are generally despised. Also, pack tactics are OP.
I wish there were this many subclasses for all the classes. A few classes feel like they’re lacking decent options
When the worst Bard subclass is still ranked higher than the best Artificer subclass...
Big fan of your ranking system. Please keep up these types of videos. I would agree with most of your tier rankings other than the Grave Cleric. As a 5th lvl Grave Cleric myself I find it should be a higher C or low B tier. Keep up the good work!
An even handed and honest ranking. The consideration of how powerful, high-level features don't come into most games is probably what kept most of these subclasses in C-tier.
While I don't necessarily disagree with your ranking, one thing I feel worth mentioning about Order Cleric that wasn't mentioned in your video is that Voice of Authority increases significantly in strength when you have a rogue in your party. Since sneak attack procs once per turn and not once per round, you can use your low level spells to allow your rogue to reliably sneak attack twice per round, which can lead to big damage spikes in important fights.
I agree. Or an Order Cleric allowing the Pal to smite yet again - if the Pal has the slots - can be devastating (works better w/ Sorcadin; they can nova more and smite at higher levels). But allowing rogue an extra s.a. is pretty good.
I never realized I needed this video. I usually don't care for class ranking and tier videos but for the first time I understand that there are definitely classes I need to permaban in my games on both ends of the spectrum. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Don't make it _too_ permanent. If we're lucky, they'll fix Twilight and Peace in the first errata publication next year.
Narrator: they did not fix Twilight and Peace in the first errata publication the next year.
For Life Clerics the difference between Goodberry and a Healer's Kit is that the Goodberry is infused with magic where the Healer's Kit is not (the berry even loses its magic if not used in 24 hours). I imagine that's the reason that Crawford mentions that he would allow it.
Good berry works like magic stone, and disciple of life only works on effects from magic that restore hp. And since good berry is a 1st level spell, disciple of life works.
Good berry and magic stone both can be used by the creature who cast them and any other creature who gets ahold of them. Which means disciple of life would also work on good berry if someone or something stole the good berries from the party. Much like someone stealing the magic stone within its duration can use it on the party.
These are set it and forget it spells that happen to create or modify items to express the intended magical ability. No concentration required
I've liked your stuff for awhile. I've used the written Wizard guide, and now the channel. All good stuff. But I gained a new appreciation for ya during the Peace Cleric bit. I play games with my family. I'm the only one that knows even a little bit about character optimization. I work hard to make sure I'm not overshadowing people. I can feel your pain. Good stuff :)
I think you did a really great job on this I am planning to do a one deep level of cleric for my party that doesn't have a dedicated healer to assist and I've decided that I'm going to make a tank year character with the forge instead of going for the peace Cleric because I believe in letting everyone shine
Regarding the two ‘S’ ranked classes. I’m mad at WotC for letting things so broken through. Seem like fun classes (I like my halfling getting some Darkvision, flying for a bit) but they showed no restraint. They showed plenty of restraint when making the PHB.
Nah. In practice, these things do not work as well as they do in theory crafting.
Playing with a Peace Cleric now in two different games. It really isn't that bad yet. Emboldened Bond's main issue is it's stackability: guidance, Bless, BI, Paladin auras can all stack with it as well. So if you give a party a chance to prep they can basically make every saving throw and pass every skill check if they want to.
Though honestly everyone forgets about all these little buffs most of the time, so they aren't used as much as they could be.
Path of the Grave + Rogue or Paladin crit = ouch.
A really gnarly dip for any nova damage build for sure. If you go for a cheesy Rogue/Paladin/Cleric MC you can be doing an obscene amount of damage with Grave. It also, when planned is horrifyingly effective with fellow players; in the CoS campaign I played in the Grave Cleric and Oathbraker Paladin literally one shotted Vladimir Horngaard at 8th level with a crit.
i had a lvl 3 paladin do over 80 damage because of this. The Grave cleric's vulnerability is very party specific, and really wants to play with a paladin, rogue or maybe barbarian.
The problem with this is, first you have curse the enemy and then hope the NEXT HIT crits.
@@meep6309 while i agree that is a fear for barbarian, from my experience, the non-crit paladin smite still does remarkably well when stacked with the ability. The crit is just gravy (our paladin did have the elven accuracy, so they did crit a bit more often, but far from every time) 9 times out of 10, he one shot things they did this to.
Yup, Path of the Grave absolutely rocks with paladin smites. That combo tore through some boss monsters I pit them up against. Tbh it’s one of the more powerful combos in the entire game, it’s an on-demand crit
Not sure if you have time to get through all the comments but keep up the great work! You come off as a very experienced player, but also someone who understands both sides of the table (player vs DM). The greatest strength in your channel is that you don't waste time and go straight into the nitty gritty which a lot of other bigger channels struggle to do.
I feel like I am in a legitimate wizards school getting lectured by a wise, powerful, but fair, wizard professor on all the crazy stuff we may encounter outside of the college. Even if your videos are an hour long, I am completely glued to the screen because my adventuring life depends on it!
What people overlook with the Knowledge Domain is that it takes being proficient in Arcana to create scrolls. In Tier two making first-level scrolls is only 25GP. So spamming a bunch of 1st level spells on scrolls in downtime is a huge boost. Cure wounds is half the price of a healing potion and you don't have to beg the DM to buy them.
On death cleric's you can combine the channel divinity option with vampiric touch, since vampiric touch reads: "On a hit, the target takes 3d6 necrotic damage, and you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt". Since you get healed for the amount of necrotic damage dealt, and your channel divinity adds extra necrotic damage, it's a cool synergy.
this also combos well with a Goblin's fury of the small or Fallen Aasimar's necrotic shroud damage.
Played a tempest cleric/storm sorcerer multiclass for Rime of the Frost Maiden, adding a 2 level paladin dip towards the end. Had a lot of fun and was definitely helpful/a good blaster. Became very powerful late game, and ended up being an ideal match for the module’s final boss. Just something satisfying about having a line of enemies taking 66 lightning damage on a failed dex save on an upcast lightning bolt.
Definitely what he’ll say:
Twilight cleric: This is definitely C tier. The 43,000 abilities it gets at level one are 100% balanced. Its channel divinity is pretty weak, a light cleric, can do 2d10 damage. The twilight domain channel divinity does absolutely no damage. It is perfectly balanced, like the peace cleric. Alchemist artificer is still the only S tier subclass.
LOL Thanks for the laugh.
The Order cleric’s 6th level Embodiment of the Law ability is actually really good considering it’s synergy with voice of Authority which I feel like it was designed to buff rather than buffing the cleric itself
I was very surprised to see Trickery as the frontrunner of the pack. But I haven't really revisited my thoughts on Clerics since before Tasha's.
Regarding Life Domain Cleric @ 31:43 "If I had the Healer feat and used the Fabricate spell to create a Healer's Kit, then I should get a +6 bonus to any healing I did with that kit."
Sounds good to me ... I'd allow this, and would be happy that my cleric player was so inventive.
Vampiric Touch plus the Death Domain's Touch of Death Channel Divinity can turn an otherwise pretty bad spell into a pretty good spell. At 5th level, the first round of it you can deal about 26 damage and heal 13hp with a third level spell.
I really love my dwarf Nature Cleric, elditch knight multi. It allows me to play a fighter based on wis (Druid cantrip), use shield, absorb elements and find familiar (thematic for nature), get a second attack, use spirit guardians with con proficiency allowing for aggressive use, action surge, lots of wonderful synergy. For a tank build the ability to be low ability dependent and get warcaster and such early is awesome, having healing and the offensive cleric spells is awesome, having more spell slots for the wizard spells is awesome! Has worked wonders for me in the past and works all the way to high levels with blessed weapon combing with action surge and multitrack for silly good damage. And I have never seen a better optimized dwarfs, bonus health is rad, and even the armor ability comes into play allowing you to use great armor wile having dex for initiative.
I started the build just looking to get con proficiency for spirit guardians, eventually decided the 3 levels for spell variation was worth it, and then just kept taking a level of fighter for every level of cleric and it felt awesome. Hedge Knight, Knight of Nature.
I was DMing with a Peace Cleric in the party recently and they are a rules lawyer to boot! Double slow down.
Also, my first 5e character is a Gloom Stalker 5 and then War Cleric 9. It started as a one level dip in War Cleric for extra spells and slots, but I liked it so much with every level I just keep going with War Cleric.
I'd like to see a "fun" ranking, after this awesome series is over. Where all the sub-classes are ranked by how much fun they should expect to bring to you and your table.
"Did you use your d4 ?"
Asking Every round !
Is not the problem of Peace cleric. It's the problem with players. When you forget the buffs given to you by your team, then what are you doing at the table ?
I guess we should say the samething about a Wizard casting haste and paladin casting bless and a bard casting bane ! Right Treantmonk ?
"Hey don't forget, you are hasted !"
"Hey don't forget, you are blessed !"
Let's see other rankings !
I agree, I only played with a Peace Cleric once and it was like that but that was when Tasha's only just came out so it was new for everybody. Presumably it will end up like bless or guidance and players will just remember their own way without needing to be reminded.
Wouldn't Grave Cleric be really really good on an extremely high damage hit. Something like in conjunction with a Sharp Shooter Rogue with high sneak attack damage? Later levels combining it with a high level spell with another party member. Honestly seems like a great way to encourage players to work together.
A grave cleric in a party with something like a paladin or battlemaster with sharpshooter (or great weapon master), or even a rogue with sneakattack is quite good, but it requires a bit of setup.
Gravecleric grants voulnerabillity, if paladin or the battlemaster/sharprshooter hits it really does a lot more damage than you as a cleric probably would do, considering how much damage they do. So giving up your clerics action (especially of you already have spirit guardians and spiritual weapon going, so your doing ok damage, btw it can be used in the same round as you cast spiritual weapon ofcourse)
I mean thats a bit like casting haste on a team mate, theur extra damage is essentiaöly your damage. I mean thats how i view it if my spell or abillity makes someone else better, then their improvement is essentially me.
Came here to say the same thing. It is extremely common for a party to include classes that do massive burst damage based on attack rolls. In fact it's far more common than not in my experience, making this a massively useful ability in most parties.
Also he brushes over that the ranged spare the dying cantrip has a bonus action casting time. Is that better than Healing Word? No. But if you're in a difficult campaign where people are often falling, that usually means you're eating up a whole lot of spell slots already. Plus stabilizing someone with a bonus action and dropping a big spell with your action may be a better use of resources in many cases.
This subclass is invaluable in a campaign like Tomb of Annihilation.
@@Jamhol3 "dropping a big spell with your action" Sadly no, If you cast ANY spell as a bonus action you can not cast a leveled spell as an action.
@@sunname6252 but the voulnerabillity causing effect isnt a spell
@@sunname6252 Though it's also a pretty stupid wording, and I think many DMs would likely be fine with saying that you just can't cast two leveled spells in the same turn (which accomplishes what was likely RAI)
@@benjoffe948 Maybe, but it gets even more stupid with Fighter's action surge. They can cast 2 leveled spells as an action and then go do something else with a bonus action as long as it isn't cast a spell.
You mad lad, you really did it.
Forge Cleric is EASILY A tier, if not S.
Permanent magic weapon from level 1 - that's HUGE. Not just for the +1, but for overcoming non-magical damage resistance (which pop up even on low CR monsters like fiends and undead).
When you find an already-magic weapon later, now you have +1 AC instead. And another +1 AC in heavy armor at level 6. Essentially a free shield (+2 AC) but with a free hand, so you can be a full caster and a battle tank at the same time. Add Spirit Guardians to the mix and you're an AC 20 beast on the battlefield in full plate dealing AOE radiant damage to everything around you, attacking, and bonus action healing word to pick up your party members as they fall around your glowing, heroic body.
And if that's just not enough for you, dip a level in Fighter for marital weapons, +2 to atk/dmg from Dueling (keeping your free spell hand), Con save proficiency, and a free d10 self-heal (conserving spell slots ftw). Second level for action surge. You're unstoppable.
I'm not convinced that just because a domain spell is already on the Clerics list is such a bad thing... in some cases. For example, my War Cleric is free to prep other buffs, heals, or utility spells because I don't have to worry about prepping Spiritual Weapon or Spirit Guardians. So, that's two preps that I can use for something like Sending or Calm Emotions or whatever.
@@RTukka I can see your point. For example, my Lvl 8 War Cleric has never cast Divine Favor, Magic Weapon, Crusaders Mantle, Freedom of Movement, or Stoneskin. I have only cast Shield of Faith once or twice because we were battling only one enemy. Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians I cast all the time. I could see Freedom of Movement being good.
After looking through the comments a bit and re-watching the video, I think more discussion needs to go into where you place sub-classes relative to each other outside of their broader class. You devote a lot of time to discussing where Cleric sub-classes are rated relative to each other but then say basically nothing about why certain cleric sub-classes are rated higher or lower than certain bard sub-classes.
I am really looking forward to Druids, they are my favorite class.
Hi Treantmonk I love your vids and have been really enjoying following this series I wonder where you’ll put circle of spores in the next one lol
I think the Arcana Cleric deserves more love. It has probably the best form of Potent Spellcasting paired with Arcane Initiate, and Spell Breaker is never bad to have. If it's expanded spell list had things like Misty Step, Fireball, Dimension Door, and Bigby's Hand, it'd be so much cooler and fall more into the half Wizard vibe it's going for.
Holy moly....see what i did there? not a Clerical error lol!!! Thanks Chris!!
I find the emboldening bond feat to be really fun with my group, we all really enjoy working together with it...
It's too bad that Twilight Clerics are so broken, because they are a very flavorful subclass, and one of the main reasons I bought Tasha's.
Agreed. I find it very difficult to wrap my head around being a cleric, but when I heard about the Twilight domain and read what its intended flavor was, I thought that might be a divinity I could (pretend to) serve. But that went out the window when pretty much everyone concluded it was very overpowered. I hope the first Tasha's errata document fixes it (and Peace, too).
To me it's difficult to connect with the fluff of the Twilight Cleric. It's a flying, full plated, martial weapon wielding, eagle-eyed battle priest who inspires calm and heals wounds by dimming the light. Gods given as an example of the class, like Helm or Ilmater, have nothing to do with twilight and I can't think of any archetypes that this character would fit into. I could make some backstory for it, sure, but I'm not too drawn to flying through the night in full plate, waving a sword around in a healing antistress bubble
@@johnnystulic42 It's a combination of 1) winding down and resting at the end of a hard day's work, and 2) being a sentry/guardian protecting the light from the dark. Helm is clearly an example of the latter. I would guess that the relevant aspect of Ilmater is the easing of suffering, which could be an example of the former if your typical days are quite difficult.
@@bigdream_dreambig seems like they couldn't decide between a "lady of the night" healer mystic and the "Watcher on the wall" guardian so they did both.. at the same time...
Ok, about Death domain.
1 - There's also Sapping Sting as a Necromancy cantrip; a cantrip that your melee buddies would love you to cast on a couple of enemies.
2 - Touch of death + Vampiric touch, is your self healing nova ability. Melee attack aren't only WEAPON attack.
Grave cleric's path to the grave, is the paladin or the rogue's best friend.
I'm still early on in the series, gonna watch em all :)
nice little bell curve so far
Off-topic but, I always have a difficult time figuring out wizard spell selection when the campaign starts at a higher level. You're sort of freed of that necessity to optimize one level at a time in terms of spell selection, but in its place you're left with a plethora of new options. What low slot level spells to choose for a 14th level wizard? What to choose in place of concentration spells that become obsolete, what spells best synergize with higher level ones? Which low slot level spells are still strong enough to keep because of their spammability? etc.
Do you think this could be a video idea?
Your voice at the very end is drowned out by what sounds like your intro theme.
Yes, a silly editing error.
@@TreantmonksTemple NP, thanks for the content.
The main appeal of Life's channel divinity is you can do it on the same turn as a mass healing word. Basically get downed people up to half, then aoe heal everyone past half. It's a fight reset. Not something you'd use every fight, or even every day. But if crap has hit the fan you can effectively hit a hard reset button on hp and go from there.
In aerois, the cleric found spell breaker to be a incredibly powerful feature
A note on Path to the Grave:
That feature is amazing with the right teamwork. My party has one-shot bosses using this because we'd pair it with Hold Person or Hold Monster, and then our hardest hitter would insta-crit with vulnerability, and dump every damaging resource he had into the enemy. At level 3, we did over 100 to a boss in one round and basically just exploded him into blood confetti.
By itself, if you're the only one in the party for some reason, then yeah, just attacking twice is safer and more reliable damage than this, but if you have anyone on your team more powerful than you in a single hit, and you pair it with advantage or paralysis to try to maximize damage even further, this is a solid feature. But that still makes it dependent on party composition, meaning not some S-tier power or anything. Capable of optimization, but also capable of being underwhelming.
I wish they would "update" the domain spells. The Tempest cleric with Insect Plague since somebody pointed it out just doesn't make any sense.
I just want the option to *officially* run an evil Sickening Radiance Light Cleric that worships gamma radiation at some point.
Insect plague is a natural disaster. It’s not much of a stretch
I would like to note that the path to the grave channel divinity is quite good if you have paladin or rogue in your party, or even with your own upcasted inflict wounds, to do a lot of damage.
Peace Cleric + Creation Bard: "Ah did you forget to add your d4?, and your Bardic inspiration?, and your Mote? Oh! and btw, you have bless"
Death Domain is honestly my favorite. War Caster, Magic Initiate, Resilent-- Spirit Guardians and Spiritial Weapon, or even dropping a Vampiric Touch with Touch of Death sprinkled on top is insane. Clerics are so powerful and, even though the domain spell list annoys me, it still has it's perks, like Death Ward and Vampiric Touch.
Ah, clerics. I keep seeing clerics casting lots of cure wounds, in combat, often upcasting it to 3-5th level.
Is there a polite way to tell them to stop that and play in an effective way? :\
No not really. You say something like oh you should try x spell it's really powerful, but if someone wants to play a cleric and cast bless and cure wounds instead of spiritual weapon and spirit guardians let them and don't let it bother you if other people have fun differently from you.
@@jagoob
What if them having fun differently causes the party to suffer casualties? :x
they should already be using spirit guardians and spiritual weapon that leaves their action open for either dodging or cantrip usage, if they then can use that action to bring up a party member while still doing amazing damage, then i dont see the problem
Do u think your storm lord tempest blood hunter would be S tier? If u do how would U recommend making it more balanced in homebrew? Like limiting thunderous strike to one per round, or u can only use it a number of times per short rest.
Out of curiosity: The Barbarian subclasses are all rearranged relative to each other from when you made the Barbarian video - and even when you show the previous rankings at the beginning of the video. Is this a mistake, or are your opinions changing?
The last session I had our cleric succeeded on turning every undead in the room, so we slowly picked them off one by one, it was too easy
for the tempest cleric, i often use the thunderbolt strike combined with wrath of the storm, it can help
On the life domain, I'd just use it to heal up after combat and save a bunch of hit dice, especially if you end up using a lot of them.
Also, for Tempest domain cleric, you can use Thunderbolt strikes with your 8th level feature. You can do thunder or lightning damage with attacks. So you can push creatures around with attacks as well.
Also also xD I'm not sure if you missed it, but Twilight has Circle of power, which is an absolutely amazing spell.
I am a fan of the grave cleric, to see it get the ranking that it did, i am suprised. IT basicly has unlimited healing becuase of a cantrip. You make that cantrip way better then it was, turning it into a bonus action and can now cast it at 30 feet. The class is reliant on your allies falling in battle, sure. however unless there is a lack of combat, the cleric always has to keep people alive, however the need to do is is now not as large. you don't have to be topping people off, you just have to wait till they fall in battle. You can combine him with the undying warlock to gain hp or combine him with a circle of sheapard to give aoe healing. pr ciircle of dreams to have another feature that heals without using spell slots.
Then there is keeper of souls. yes it is a 17th level ability, but it can be used every round that an enemy dies, and can have huge healing potential. This ability was not mentioned in the video. Starting at 17th level, you can seize a trace of vitality from a parting soul and use it to heal the living. When an enemy you can see dies within 60 feet of you, you or one creature of your choice that is within 60 feet of you regains hit points equal to the enemy’s number of Hit Dice. You can use this feature only if you aren’t incapacitated. Once you use it, you can’t do so again until the start of your next turn.
Grave cleric got shafted for many other classes.
Another option death clerics have now is sapping sting as a cantrip which is really powerful the opportunity to knock two enemies prone as a cantrip is very powerful the range on it is only 30 feet and the con save is typically resisted but the crowd control it provides is unrivaled
for the life domain, i cooked up a pretty decent multi-class. Going full druid. circle of stars with 1 in life cleric. it has a lvl 3 spike, falls off a bit and then gets decent again at lvl 11. you are still almost a full druid so your battle field control is through the roof with an emercany healing word that can heal for a max potential of 21 at 1st level. if your DM is nice and gives you or lets you make a non metalic set of full plate with a shield you can also be a sort of frontlines (if you take dwarf as your race). the best thing about it the shock of the DM when you do you first healing word, brining a lvl 3 character basically up to full.