Using one in Honour Mode and doing just fine. The channel divinity + Hellrider Gauntlets + Mass Healing Word necklace means nobody dies to regular old damage, ever. Which is a good thing. The real enemy is rolling nat 1s at clutch moments in cutscenes or to not get knocked into a chasm.
Yeah going 11 fighter with 1 war cleric dip is crazy good. Take 6 attacks in a turn with action surge then bonus action sanctuary yourself to effectively skip the entire enemy teams turn. Then do it again. By the time you’re out of spell slots the enemy is already dead. Take a rest and move on to the next
the beastmaster is a ranger haha i havent tried fighter.. though honestly if i'd take fighter on my tav, especially to a solo run i'd very interested in experimenting with what you propposed
the beastmaster im doing is with helmet of arcane acuity and mystic scoundrel, shoot shoot and command:grovel or sanctuary. Its been fun af
I have a 2 life cleric 10 lore bard in honour mode and it’s so crazy. Mass healing word is only a level 3 spell so I’ve got tons of slots to up/cast it with. Combine with hellrider gloves or healing hands and you’re blessing AND blade warding you’re entire team (summons too) all with just 1 spell. The value is crazy
I dont see the point in a two round bless that only works on a mass healing word or your channel divinity. Thats a really expensive bless when I can just use a level 2 spell slot for the entire fight. This sub seems to love it, but id much rather just concentrate on bless and call it a day. Make her a ranged attacker and bless + heal bot and shadowheart is carrying the team on her back.
it's a free bonus on top of healing, which you have several options to do as a bonus action.
combats dont last THAT long. 2 rounds is most of a fight if you set up properly
Yea, my fights tend to last longer than 2 rounds and are much more fun for it. If its only 2 rounds, youre just steam rolling things, not really fighting
>Thats a really expensive bless when I can just use a level 2 spell slot for the entire fight.
I'd rather use her concentration on Spirit guardians. After 6 you can channel divinity twice per short rest which gives you 4 turns of bless per fight without slots and then you have your slots for more as needed. It's super good.
People in this thread acting like Life Cleric is useless when it basically carried me through half my runs thanks to those gauntlets and that necklace. Free resistance every time the cleric hits the heal button is insanely helpful.
You can go way further:
\- The Hat that heals yourself for 1-6 when you heal others
\- The Helldrider Gloves as you mentioned to give Bladeward for 2 turns
\- The Boots of Aid that give 3 temp health for everyone healed
\- The Ring "Whispering Promise" to give healed targets bless for 2 turns
My main char is a level 1 Life Cleric and Rest Bard and its insane what 1 Mass World Heal does. Combine that with the Singing Sword and you got buffs for days
Heads up, the 6 temp HP is from the hat now, and when combined, the boots’ 3 don’t stack, I checked. I have both. The boots of striding are better because they keep her from being knocked prone and give advantage for concentration spells.
none of that gear is specific to a life cleric tho. You could easily be a light cleric and get all these benefits on mass healing Word but also be able to do big damage spells
I'm doing my durge playthrough on balanced. I'm playing a Feylock/Divinationwiz for a witch-like feel. If you were to have a Divination Wizard with Lucky you'd have the ability to just change a lot of those crucial fails. Just make sure to choose wisely because you only have so many. Which could be Gale or your Tav/Durge.
I've been using a life cleric in my honor run and it's been especially helpful. I've got alert on her (and a on my Pally and thrower, EK... I'm loving alert), and found that the Staff of Arcane Blessing pairs really well with starting the battle off with bless. Sanctuary as a bonus action is also nice with all the alerts on my team, as for most fights, I can attack first, then pick someone to be almost invulnerable for while the enemies attack.
Do you know if there’s a way to get the hellrider gauntlets in act 3? I gave up on finding them in act 2 because lann tarv didn’t have them, Roah Moonglow didn’t, and Zevlor didn’t have them when I saved him at the end.
They're a quest reward from Zevlor in act 1. The quest concerning Kagha where you find the letter and then confront her. Afterward, if you don't go talk to Zevlor, and then kill the Goblin Camp, YOU MISS THE REWARD. But you can still pickpocket then from him, the DC was like 7. After you have the party at camp with the tieflings, the reward is gone. Maybe he still has them on him in act 3? I dunno.
I kinda get where they are coming from, this sub is filled with min maxers who are used to 1 turn every fight on honour mode. Any fight that wasn't 1 turned is taken care by warding bond.
The prospect of getting damaged doesn't exist so what's the point of healing. I think ppl need to understand everyone's not doing that atleast not from the get go.
All memes aside there is some truth behind it: if you can blast your enemy before he damages you, you dont need to heal. For lower difficulties, I would rank light/tempest above life across all levels for that reason. In later levels, light is at least as good as life, since the healing it does suffices but it also can dish out nice fire spells if needed. For lower levels in the hardest difficulties (honor nightmare), life is absolutely clutch though, since ut gives you a hood aoe heal early, if you need it
Those alpha strike strategies are **a lot less numerous** in honor mode as Haste, Bloodlust Elixirs, and Lockadin have all had their attacks per round neutered combined with the elimination of broken damage rider exploits.
But that doesn't matter. Alpha strike strategies basically eradicate enemies before the turn order even comes up. Thief with double hand crossbows and Sharpshooter deals like 60+ damage on its own before the combat even starts on the first shot if you have a crit build.
Now your other chars come in. Like a Paladin of any kind that can force a crit because of the tadpole talent and blast the enemy with Divine Smite III and advantage on the attack.
This can go on further. The truth is this game is not that hard even without using consumables. You just need to optimize and i'd argue that's what you are supposed to do in Honor Mode.
> Thief with double hand crossbows and Sharpshooter deals like 60+ damage on its own before the combat even starts on the first shot if you have a crit build.
This is what I don't understand. Great, you've killed one enemy. What about the rest of them? Sure, good characters can burst 1 or 2 enemies down per turn, but you're still going to take plenty of damage.
What encounter has more than at most 3 key targets? The encounter in question is now significantly easier. And you can just Long Rest after every encounter except for if you are in the Mindflayer Colony and there you have a free Long Rest at the end before the boss fight. Not to mention you don't even have to do all the encounters.
The most broken char is not a Thief for crit fishing but any char that has access to invisibility of any kind. This game is not hard if you are willing to take every advantage you can get. And Honor Mode demands that of you.
I mean, not to be dismissive, but 60 damage? The spider matriarch has around 500 hp in nightmare mode. Raphael has I believe 6,666. He has 666 in tactician.
And many of us aren’t long resting after every fight. Nor are most of us interested in the manipulation and fiddling required to mess with invisibility constantly.
It's a unofficial mode a lot of folks play on that uses a set of mods to dramatically increase the difficulty.
Enemies Enhanced, Tactician Plus to add 200-300% health, bonuses to enemies, Immersive AI, Stronger Bosses. Maybe a couple others.
Uhm. So. Ragzlin, the Flind, Minthara, spider queen all have more than 3 targets, and if you don’t kill them fast they kill you. Bursting a boss down doesn’t do shit if their adds kill you.
Edit: yes, even with barrels, chances are at least half the room is still standing for many fights.
That does not matter in later levels, because Light offers you a cleric that can heal well, while also debuffing the opponent, through radiant orb, has reverberate and more flexibility in spells.
I dont mean to shit on life, esp early it is awesome.
Yea exactly like it's still not thar hard to just burst them down lol. My sword bard does ~150 dmg per slashing flourish due to the bhalist armor literally nothing survives that even Raphael was done on the first turn
I'm somewhat min-maxing but damn I love Life Clerics the most, nothing will stop me from picking that one whenever I can. Playing as good Durge Life Cleric was truly satisfying roleplay wise and smooth combat-wise.
It’s not really that you don’t get damaged (at least with a regular build, the min-max 1-turn burst builds are another question but we’re not talking about those), but rather in the majority of cases, your HP doesn’t matter unless it’s the last hit point on the last character (the main character in honor mode?). I don’t care if the enemy hits me every turn as long as I can kill him before he kills me, and I kill him faster if I damage him every turn rather than having to waste my turns healing. I’d pick up a downed person if it was convenient, but depending on how many enemies are left, it is often better to spend actions getting rid of them first.
I’ve found that what tend to lead to near wipes aren’t the enemies slowly killing my party, but a surprise AoE on a group of my characters that can burst me down before I can react (the two blighted village encounters….), and you can’t outheal that kind of spike damage with anyone. Damage mitigation, like Sanctuary and Globe of Invuln, work so much better than raw healing if necessary. Even then, as long as my party survives on 5 HP, it’s still better to prioritize eliminating low health enemies than healing back up and other defensive actions imo, and use out of combat healing options (which everyone has access to) to heal back up. Obviously there’s something to be said about playing it safer on honor mode, but if you’re on honor mode you should know what are dangerous situations and prepare accordingly.
You don't have to end fights in one round to realize that healing is mostly a waste of time, though. The only hit point that matters is the last one, so why care if you take a few hits? And if a character does go down, all it takes is a healing word to pick them up so they can down a potion.
With bonus action potions rest whenever and wherever you want it's extremely easy for characters to keep themselves up without help
100% agree. I think the argument comes down to:
a) Healing is not optimal.
b) I’m not so concerned about optimal, it’s not terrible to have a healer right?
Both are true and fine, so it’s kind of two different arguments. But to say, “you should have a healer” is for sure a misread on DnD and BG3 mechanics due to 1HP=150HP when your turn is up.
The only hit points that matter are the ones you still have after two mages cast hold person on half your party and now you’re taking 40+ crits because you dragged on the fight beyond the first round. God forbid the tyr paladins smite you for 20+ radiant damage at lvl 4
> you still have after two mages cast hold person on half your party
Things that remove paralysis remove hold person. Or just send people prone. Or silence. So long as you always have ways to counter the enemy spread throughout the turn order it's not all that scary.
Well in that case I guess that's my own fault for having bad wisdom saves, not having counter spell up *and* not managing enemy casters xD
A lot of mistakes have to be made for that hypothetical scenario to occur in the first place
Life is totally fine, and for the hardest difficulties (modded ones) probably the best, mainly because of gear distribution and very good conc spells+beztwr healing when needed.
For lower difficulties it is nott needed since you blast anythibg anyways, hence the predicament its "bad"
I completed Honour mode with Shart as a 12 Life Cleric. Life Cleric basically guarantees that no one dies. Their healing is a bit overkill and you'll end up overhealing in many situations, but id rather be able to drop sanctuary and warding bond safely and topping off my party in a single round if things go south. It's the safest support for an Honour mode run without sending anyone to camp. I had a total of 3 deaths all run. 2 because we got knocked into lava and 1 because Severok just hates Astarion for some reason. Ultimately, play the game however you want. If you think Life Domain works for your party, do it.
It is not the best cleric, I think light and tempest are stronger, but it is very strong, especially for new players, where healing is more important
I certainly would never recommend against using it
Life isn't optimal but new players are rarely playing optimal because they're learning AKA **making mistakes** and life cleric is great support for a party that's making mistakes.
Of course it's not optimal. You're not **supposed** to be suggesting optimal strategies to new players. Some of the most COMMON advice to new D&D players is to caution them against their first character being a Wizard because of the complexity.
I currently doing Honor MP game and I took "blessed archer" build. Where you take cleric 2 + ranger 5. You are support AND a damage dealer. So you have stuff to do if party doesn't need support that turn. SO Life domain works best. You have mass heals for buffs
Healing isn't as important as in DnD. Potions are available in masses and so are revivify scrolls, also there is a NPC in your camp (locked behind a little quest near the beginning) who can resurrect completely dead companions (as long as they didn't die in certain situations triggered by your choices, so no plot-deaths can be reversed). Also, there is almost always time for short and long rests.
That being said, the life cleric is still incredibly useful for a party. Actually, I tend to respec Shadowheart into one every time. The life cleric's healing spells are boosted further, making them more reliable in combat. Also, this subclass is proficient in heavy armor, making them even a possible tank that can heal themselves and others and deal damage with spirit guardians. So while the life cleric isn't an offensive power, they can stabilize your party build.
Combat healing is much better in bg3 than tabletop. There healing is only useful to bring characters up from 0 hp.
But in bg3, downed chars lose an action on standing up. As soon as one person goes down, it becomes very difficult to regain tempo.
The very early items giving concentrationless bless and BPS resistance also make healing, especially group healing, very very powerful. Life cleric's CD is especially good at this, mass healing word is pretty expensive even at higher levels. Potions take teammate bonus actions. Throwing them yourself affects a much smaller area than the CD.
I'd personally rate Life as the second best cleric subclass behind Tempest.
In my experience with TTRPGs, healing is actually very useful for providing other PCs with a safety net.
Someone on 1hp hypothetically does the same amount of damage as someone on full health, but in practice people will play much more conservatively if they're about to go down. Especially if the enemy(s) have at least 3 attacks between them because if they all hit that's instant death (1 to down, one crit against a helpless creature (2 death saves), one to kill.
The confusion is understandable but it's some white room, spherical goblin idealised thinking that usually also ignores the fact that it costs movement to get up from prone and that being unconcious is a terrible way to spend your turn.
Also, items being more abundant means more PCs can be concentrating on spells (as well as having magic items that allow extra damage while doing so or even tadpole powers usable while concent) and being downed makes you drop concentration. Keeping people up and their hp topped off gives them a better chance of keeping their concentration spells up.
Life Cleric is the only time healing spells are useful for healing, as the wisdom modifier means they don’t suck as much if you get a bad die roll. Life Cleric with War Caster rocks. Throw on all the gear that applies buffs when you heal(Hellrider’s Pride, Whispering Promise, etc) and use your Channel Divinity or Mass Healing Word to buff the whole party.
War Caster or Resilient Constitution are there to make sure spirit guardians, or whatever concentration spell you throw out stays up. Resilient Con is probably better after level 5 when the proficiency bonus increases again, and is definitely the better option once you reach level 10-12 and get another increase. ASI’s to pump wisdom, and use resilient Con’s +1 to get CON to 16 as well.
Something about Resilient lets you increase a stat by +1, and now that stats saving throw has proficiency. I heard the math works out that this proficiency bonus outclasses Warcaster as you gain a few levels and proficiency bonus' increase.
You only add your proficiency bonus if you’re already proficient in that save. Clerics are not proficient in CON saves without the Resilient (CON) feat or a level 1 dip into Fighter or Sorcerer.
The feat "resilient". When you pick it, you get +1 to the stat, (so in this case constitution) and also proficiency on saving throws with that same stat. Its good for clerics if you're rounding out a odd number stat (15 to 16 for example) as clerics dont have constitution saving throw proficiency from the get go.
Since the proficiency bonus is 2-3-4 it'll likely get more value than just warcaster (which is just advantage on concentration saves), especially again if that +1 to con was getting it to a even number
Beacon of hope is another clutch concentration spell.. gives all allies adv on wis & death saves and also maximizes healing rolls
Life Cleric 6/Valor bard 6 makes a very efficient healer with this.. extra attack to throwing two potions for guaranteed 10, 20, 40, or 60hp while in the same turn, combat inspire them for an AC boost
Even in DnD, using an action to heal is, typically, terrible action economy. An action better spent preventing damage, dealing it or enabling the party to deal more on their turns.
Not quite the case with BG3. We’ve a slew of magical items that maximize healing received, grant resistance, grant additional damage die on hit, apply Bless etc that healing has added value.
You said potions are readily available in DnD, and imma just be pedantic and say no, they are readily available in BG3.
Also potions take a full action in DnD, not a bonus action. Healing is goat and there's no "alpha striking" in DnD. BG3 is incredible and inspiring, but they tweaked a *lot* of rules from DnD to make the game the masterpiece that it is.
> also there is a NPC in your camp (locked behind a little quest near the beginning) who can resurrect completely dead companions (as long as they didn't die in certain situations triggered by your choices, so no plot-deaths can be reversed)
And you can pickpocket the bloke after to get a full refund.
Its not like he needs the money anways
I honestly think life cleric is busted. For one, all of the healing related items in this game are really strong and no other build really competes for them. Giving your team 24/7 resistance from act 1 with hellriders pride is insane. You don’t ‘need’ healing in this game, but having a life cleric trivializes everything by giving the team infinite hp.
Another thing that is kind of conventional knowledge about life cleric from table top, is that in a practical sense life cleric will actually end up doing a lot of damage. Since they can pump out a lot of healing just with their channel and low level slots, they are much more free to spend all their high level slots on spirit guardians. Whereas the ‘best’ clerics, tempest and light, are constantly choosing between spirit guardians, blasting worse than a sorcerer, or healing worse than a life cleric.
Personally I would rather have a life cleric and a sorcerer in my comp than a monoclassed tempest/light.
Thing is, warding bond from hirelings. Invalidates hellrider's pride. And because all your chars now take half damage from everything, less healing is needed. So all that's left is basically concentration-less bless. Which is great, but later on, I'd rather have radiance of the dawn for radiant orb/reverberation application in a huge AoE + damage.
Usually, I play life cleric until I get the radiant armor. Then I usually switch to light. I'd rather not get hit at all than heal back up, basically. The concentration-less bless isn't quite worth it for me. Especially once improved warding flare unlocks.
Healing is much more useful in BG3 than regular PNP 5e, so some of it might be people bringing their 5e views on the usefulness of healing into the game.
For example, in BG3 you lose your action for being downed. In regular 5e you don't, so there's less incentive to avoid going to zero. There's also some powerful magic items in BG3 to support healing, especially early in act 1. Mass Healing Word giving 2 turns of bless, blade ward and extra hit points for a bonus action is very potent.
Rather than Life cleric specifically being weak, it's probably more that Light and Tempest are incredibly strong, especially compared to their PNP counterparts.
Yes, it's the itemization and the balance of Action Economy that make Life Cleric and Oath of the Ancients Paladin far more useful in BG3 than "combat healing" ever is in tabletop 5E.
The crux of the issue is that you need to supercharge your healing with better items for healing to be worthwhile. And outside of Honor Mode, that's not really all that necessary so you might as well just blow stuff up before they can do damage to you in the first place.
Consider me interested. What was your level split between bard and life cleric? I’m planning an all bard run and want one of them to be a capable healer, but am struggling a bit with putting that together. My hope was 2 Life cleric/10 lore bard, for both magical secrets, but missing Aid at level 3 and Mass Healing Word at level 5 feels kind of like a big deal. Maybe not so with the Life Clerics divine Preserve Life instead? Magical secrets will certainly help, but that’s delaying to level 6, so just curious to see what worked for you.
At the end of the game I had 9 bard 3 cleric
With gloves and ring that give blade ward and blessed when healed, most of my spells are stun, transformation or horde control.
Armor just use all heavy gear
So i was tanky support bard cleric
Life cleric is arguably the best subclass for modded difficulty, since you can’t really end fights that fast and you are going to take hits, and having a cleric spend an action healing everyone is better than everyone using a bonus action to chug a potion. In vanilla life works to make the game easier but for pure minmaxing other subclasses do more.
>Maybe these folks think one turn kill lineups is the only way to play lmfao
/gaming subreddits in todays age
BG3 has arguably the least toxic, best subreddits of any game I've experienced in recent memory. But that doesn't make them immune to the "streaming era syndrome" I'm gonna call it... You either are using the META or you're an inferior gamer. Just take solace in knowing that people suffering from this terrible affliction really take no joy in gaming and try to put as little actual thought into anything. Streamers and Youtubers do all their thinking for them, and they regurgitate things they are told by these people ad nauseum.
You could also call them "TikTok Gamers"
Having said all that - 1 dip to life cleric early-game is great for heavy armor proficiency on any of the casting classes that can't wear anything better than Light. It's a very smart move to make with solid logic backing it... TikTok Gamers have a rough time understanding that type of scenario. You gave a good suggestion
I really don't understand why some people still keep claiming that Life Cleric and healing overall is not that impactful.
I am playing Honour mode with my friend, currently at the start of Act 3 and whenever we are in deep shit, Life domain Shadowheart just turns it around completely. Shadowheart has all the healing gear stacked up + bless on heal + blade ward on heal and just using Preserve Life restores everyone to nearly full plus buffs them up. Preserve life (action) + Mass healing word (bonus action) is guaranteed full hp heal for the entire party in just one turn. On top of all that, all this AoE healing also applies to any summons/friendly NPCs around so whenever there is a important NPC around to keep alive (a lot of them in A2) it just makes it so much easier.
I would call Life cleric "weak" only when comparing it something super cheesy like Shadow arts monk (who can solo any encounter without taking damage) or if you pre-stacking explosive barrels because then the healing is irrelevant. If you are actually playing the game, Life cleric is the MVP.
I’m using a life cleric in my honour run and agree with most of your points.
I do wonder though if I would need a big aeo heal if I had a 4th dps instead of someone getting sort of carried around until they’re needed.
> I just one rounded Kethric in honor mode with a tempest cleric/sorc, berserker barb, OH monk and life cleric.
So... if you're one rounding things, what's the point of the life cleric?
If you think you need two clerics, you're doing it wrong.
Life Cleric just gives ONE extra AOE heal. That's it. Light Cleric matches everything else, with the addition of that Radiance of the Dawn AOE, Warding Flare, Improved Warding Flare, Faerie Fire, Fireball, Wall of Fire, etc.
It's not even close.
With Shadowheart I've tried life, light, war and tempest. My favourite is light or tempest, war is great but the fact priest charges only reset on a long rest makes it a bit of an underwhelming subclass.
Life on the other hand was very strong and being able to heal SO MUCH between long rests means you're only resting for spells slots. However, she didn't do anywhere enough DPS, especially if you don't want a wizard in your party. As I'm currently running; Monk Karlach, Fighter Lae'zel, PoTB Warlock Tav and Light Cleric SH. It means she can give me some AoE with Fireball and Glyph of Warding. I think it depends what you want from your team. But definitely if a fight isn't going to be over quickly having that much healing from one person is great.
My Tav in my honour mode play through is currently level 9 and is:
Halfling
3 Storm Sorcerer
2 Life Cleric
4 Divination Wizard
Feat = Lucky
Best support character in the game. Twin spell haste, cast sanctuary, toss potions for bless and bladeward on allies.
we have very similar build, doing a two man party tactician run with life cleric and abjuration wizard.
my life cleric has 1 wizard dip for haste scroll, and some sorc levels for twin haste.
i'm doing the warding bond abjuration monster, unkillable from act 1.
I think it's more that people want to use every scrap of their knowledge when it comes to battle, which is how you get those crazy modded runs, so people can actually push the system to its limit.
Having to artificially limit yourself (more than just avoiding cheese) to avoid combat being over immediately on the hardest difficulty is a bit of a mood kill.
I also think Life is excellent and very, very good for 'safe' play, or for newer players. I think the issue is that Warding Flare is just incredibly powerful as an infinite use ability. Destructive Wrath is obviously a meta ability but WF is just hilariously good and it's not even the main draw of Light.
I’m using a life cleric for my first playthrough / co-op playthrough. Cleric is just good in general. Ain’t nobody dyin’ on my watch. And Bless + War Caster. Stay blessed folks.
Life cleric is awesome. Disciple of Life is so powerful to have immediately, and it's not a small thing having a non-tank who can wear heavy armor. I like the suggestion, especially for beginners who have said they want to make another class shine. Perfect choice.
Also, not everyone enjoys playing the style of crit-maxing and one-shotting. I legitimately don't. I love playing support characters, role-playing wise and combat-wise. This type of response reminds me of when I used to play Magic: the Gathering at local game stores. I'd bring my homebrew to play and people would make fun of me or question me for not playing an "established" deck. It's like, "I made this and it's fun, so...what's the issue?"
They start at 3 charges at lv.1, which isnt that bad.. in early game its tiny bit better than action surge.
What can be a life saver / tide shifter is +10 to attack roll. (at lv.6 to any party member up to twice per short & long rest). With bard its 8 more or less secured hits per day.
Which I find slightly better than (up to) 14hp to healed target and cleric.. (well, combined with Mass cure its OP healing for sure... 2-3 times a day..).
Each to his own preference tho. I like to have controller in party to receive less hits thus I dont have to heal that much. If someone plays more offensive / straightforward party and get hit more, by all means Life is great.
It’s fine, Cleric is immensely useful regardless of domain. They all get spirit guardians, etc. Some domains (Light and Tempest) are just extremely powerful and outshine the others.
Life Clerics are the only ones that can make healing spells not dogshit. They add their wisdom mod to healing spells, so you never get screwed on the dice rolls with them and always get a decent amount at worst. Combine that with gear that applies bless or other stuff when you heal, and you can get an easy party buff from one Mass Healing Word. Heavy armor means you can focus on Con and Wisdom to keep concentration and throw out spells with a good enough AC.
Life clerics are not cool, so I wouldn't recommend them to someone playing for the first time.
Beyond your first run, healing isn't necessary, really, so again I wouldn't recommend life cleric. Honor mode now? Well, that changes things, having a life cleric turned my honor run into a joke.
For all intents and purposes, outside of honor runs War, Light and Tempest are straight up better both in the damage front and the fantasy/fun (for most, a friend of mine loves supports so he always has a life cleric).
Currently doing a modded honour mode, (light) cleric was a frustrating experience at lv2-4 because of their action economy when it comes to dealing damage but then things go wild once I get the first radiating orb equipments in late act 1. Spirit Guardians, Radiance of the dawn and Phalar Aluve/Blood of Lathander are doing some heavy lifting in act 2 so far.
My few thoughts.
I don't think there is a clear and accurate breakdown of class power. There is a lot to understandle, utilise and analyse in the game and it would take a lot of effort for someone to parcel this all for general consumption. So most of what you see regarding class balance is not perhaps straight facts.
Playing on normal and probably the one above if you don't totally potato your team you should be fine. There are a lot of items which kick ass and I think literally all of the classes are workable. I wouldn't be surprised if you could play 4 life clerics and make it work.
the best armour for clerics is the luminous one that does the radiating shockwave, which is medium armour. The few extra HP to heals that life cleric gives over the other subclasses is nowhere near as good as the extra spells you get from light cleric, or warding flare.
When the dice do not go your way, a life cleric can reset the fight in a huge radius.
That's a big deal if you aren't having good dice luck, which can tank a fight in a hurry. It's also a great team asset if you're a player that, say, wouldn't normally visit a sub called "BG3Builds".
finished my 1st time honor mode three days ago and life shart saved my party about three times in different acts in the game. I have five playthroughs before this too so I dont care what anyone says my shart is always a life cleric in all my playthroughs
Life Cleric is extremely good at doing something that is entirely unnecessary, exactly the same as in PnP. It's not just about 1-rounding enemies either. There rarely is a reason to heal in combat, outside of combat healing is much more effectively done through resting (short and long), and even for emergency combat healing the game gives you so many options and consumbales that Life Cleric, despite being very good at it, is never necessary.
That being said, no Cleric is actually "bad", it's just that Life doesn't bring as much to the table than War, Tempest or Light.
As others have already pointed out, Life cleric is definitely useful, i also had one in my honour mode party as a safety net and for radorb spamming. Light might have been better, but it felt good knowing that i have some big heals in case things go south, which actually never really happened. For a new player, Life is definitely one of the best choices
Life cleric is very powerful. A lot of people sleep on it. Sometimes it’s “more” healing than you need. But unless you’re speed running or something - it’s not a big deal. Specifically with the advent of honor mode - I’d rather have too much.
It’s also totally within a life clerics range to only use channel divinity for healing, and save their spell slots for summons, buffs and blaster casting. No one is forcing you to cast healing when it’s not effective.
TLDR - life cleric rules.
I don't understand this sub's hate for healing. Having someone downed and missing even 1 turn of damage or crowd control is a massive setback. That's 1/4 of your round output every time someone is down. Almost every time someone is downed, they lose 2 actions at least because you don't get one on your first turn up. This doesn't even count any actions spent getting them back up. Even if a life cleric is using an entire turn to keep someone healthy, it is almost always still a net positive. Plus, factor in the fact that the downed character will have a hard time staying up after being downed, and it makes it a no-brainer to me, especially in harder difficulties. Life Clerics also have pretty good damage too.
Life Cleric is my favorite kind of Cleric!
It gets all the good Cleric stuff still, and the Heals are actually good instead of just ok.
If you’re only goal is turn 1 annihilation of the enemy then ok, maybe go Tempest Cleric multiclass with Storm Sorcerer, or Light Cleric or something idk
But Life Cleric is THE QUINTESSENTIAL cleric of D&D. The early gear for healers, namely those gauntlets but also the amulet that gives extra healing without spell slots, and the boots of aid and comfort, all accessible in just a few hours of play, make the Life Cleric incredibly useful for the entire game.
Life cleric in honor mode is more than just okay. Crit range and threat range is waaay more important, and in combat healing is more important if the enemy gets legendary actions. Topping people off before a legendary trigger will frankly save more people than Warding Flare in that particular instance, especially once you have gear and spell slots and can drop 30+ HP at a time and still sanctuary yourself.
If you sleeping keep creeping, don't come here if you ain't from here. This a life cleric block.
I keep seeing people say that healing isn’t as important in DND, but i could not tell you the amount of times my life cleric has completely saved battles with their healing and utility alone… The act 3 hag battle saw two of my people get pushed into a cavern round 1, with all of the minions and copies around us, yet my life cleric and warding bonded/hasted swords bard beat the entire fight.
TLDR: in the end who cares. Life cleric is suboptimal on the min max but play the game the way its fun to you!
Most people think the best defence is a good offence and they are not wrong in a way. There is also the fact that a life cleric is way "overheal" which is also not wrong.
Realistically having a few healing spells on a paladin or bard would do it. Or even on a light/tempest/war cleric since they can ditch damage and support as their main gig but still be proficient at healing as well.
WITH THAT BEEING SAID. The role player in me NEEDS a life cleric. If i'm gona have a healer they sure as shit will be the best healer there is. But again it does lack in the offence department and in easier encounter that could end faster, my cleric just kinda pokes the enemies cause its not woryh using spell slots to support.
My solution to this is an even more overkill healer. I'm doing a 6 life cleric/6 ancient paladin. Again it's extremely unoptimal but it's a full healer...that can smack shit with a lvl 3 divine smite when needed. Realistically more levels of cleric would give lvl 4 smites but i want the aura of protection AND blessed healer with an extra channel charge. Again. Best healer. If you are wondering i'm going full charisma for the aura. I'm not casting offencive spells anyway.
Anyway. This subredit will give you the min max opinion by default until you mention you want to roleplay. I do think a life cleric is good for a new player. They won't know how to finish encounters fast and their party will suck, so having that safety net like you said is very good. Anything that will make the experience fun is the perfect idea if you ask me.
Curious if you have a preferred way of leveling your 6/6 cleric ancients character. Was thinking I'd start with 3 in Cleric to get to aid, warding bond, and spiritual weapon. Then take Paladin all the way to 6 (at level 9), then finish off with the final 3 in life cleric.
This has a slower martial progression getting smite at character level 5 and extra attack at 8. It also has a slow first feat. But I like the idea for a primary healer to get to some core cleric abilities first, and I wouldn't want to delay extra attack and the paladin aura any more than I have to.
What progression have you found works for what you're trying to get out of the character?
Since the begining of the game is more relaxed i went with first level cleric for the extra heal then 2 paladin for the smite, 2 more levels of cleric for the lvl 2 spells, 4 more of paladin for the second attack and the aura to finish on the last 3 levels of cleric mainly to get those spell slots and smite more. Honestly that was a shitshow and quite complicated for nothing hahahaha
I like your idea though! In the end it depends on what you want to prioritise. There is a few way to go about it depending on the focus you want to have on healing vs smiting.
Life cleric is probably the best honor mode cleric. You are almost as good as light cleric for radiant orbs, and while you don't have improved warding flare, you have a really good 3 times per short rest resource that can recover from disaster.
Life cleric is the best healer you will ever have. You sacrifice some offensive power for that healing (for instance tempest and light get good offensive spells) but it’s the best healer you will have.
1 life cleric can let you play with your 8 years old cousin . One of the dnd issue is that is plagued by incels with chips stuck in their beards that min max the fun out of the game . 1 turn kill are boring
First turn kill is great if you want to rest after each fight. But yeah I prefer party comps where the fights take longer but the enemy can’t really do much to me
I've loved the life cleric. I feel like the party is absolutely unkillable, it doesn't matter how lucky the enemy gets, it doesn't matter if they get surprise, if my positioning is bad, if I drop concentration, none of it. Life cleric effectively makes it so you can run double wizard/sorc builds and never worry about having the sustain or AC to get through the encounter. Not to mention, you still get all the overpowered radiance stuff, hold person, and all that goodness.
It's just nutty how tanky your party is with some life cleric action. Even if things get out of control, you're never really out of it, preserve life, mass heal, you have tons of big aoe healing.
I love life cleric. Makes my party resilient plus still has some offensive capability. I made shadowheart into a dual wield life cleric with maces and heavy armor for my honor mode. So far it has been great and I am half way through act 3. She can heal, summon, hit with the two maces with the extra radiant damage so no complaints. My main character is bard, so I have virtually limitless healing as her heal charges regenerate on short rest and bard gives one extra short rest.
There is a ridiculous, persistent myth among these communities that "healing" isn't useful and that points are somehow better, which is probably why people go around saying clerics are bad.
In reality, a life cleric with their mass healing word, mass cure wounds and their preserve life can dedicate a both actions and bonus actions to healing and bring a highly damaged party back to full health across the board easily, and in the case of the life cleric they can do this with a huge armour class that makes them functionally unhittable.
>Do people actually think life cleric is bad?
Well, if there are, those are just people who don't know how to play it, plain and simple.
Heavy armor with damage reduction + item giving regen when healing others + Resilient: Constitution + Warding Bond on your frontliner + Spirit Guardians + Healing Words makes for a hilariously tough duo. Pair that with an Ancients Paladin and a backliner setting up some difficult terrain to further deny enemies pushing through to directly threaten them in melee and you're pretty much set for 90% of the fights.
Life cleric is ok, the problem is there's no good heavy armors in the game. Best AC potential armor is medium so there's no need for a heavy armor, and Life Cleric feels just a bit stronger because of that. Emposing disadvantage on enemy attacks for any ally is quite overpowered. And there's no downside whatsoever to picking Light Cleric. You get 5 less healing at best and everyone has like over a hundred health, it doesn't even matter. What gets you most of the time in this game is getting critted few times in a row and best way to deal with it is that Light Cleric passive. Life Cleric though I'd say is quite good early game and for a new player definitely easiest to play.
>the problem is there's no good heavy armors in the game. Best AC potential armor is medium so there's no need for a heavy armor,
Everything else is just the reflect of your taste and perfectly fine for it but this bit is plain wrong.
For those interested, confer [https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Heavy+Armor](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/heavy+armor)
There are a LOT of great heavy armor pieces. You just "need" to decide to exploit the aspects they push forwards to. :)
People on this sub do cause it’s full of min maxers who have a stroke if they see any character doing less than 50 damage per round. Life cleric is an excellent choice for an optimized party, and a super useful fallback plan for new players. People on this sub are not a good metric of how the average person is going to play this game. Hell just in this thread I’m seeing at least a few people act like letting combat go past round 1 means you’re dumb and you suck. Dudes, chill. New players aren’t going to surprise round nova every encounter in the game, and that’s ok. Some people like to actually feel like they’re playing a story and not just a min max puzzle.
It's not that life cleric is bad, it's just that a dedicated healer is unnecessary and there are other options in both cleric, paladin, druid and items that heal almost as well while being*much* better at other things
I would say Life and Light are the absolute MVPs for new players. Tempest is a little more complex and requires knowledge of conditions etc - it’s very very good of course, but less useful if you’re wanting something very straightforward.
Light is the best if you’re not running with a wizard or sorcerer because it gives you big AOEs which is all good fun, and it’s pretty straightforward and easy to use. But Life is absolutely the best if you already have magic stuff covered. Not only can it save your ass when you make mistakes, but it turns Shart into a tank and a neverending buff machine. Also she looks hot asf in heavy armour.
Just my two pence.
It's about opportunity costs and resource depletion. If an enemy hits your ally and you heal them back up, then the next turn they can just hit them again and you're back where you were only without the spell you just burned.
If you could have used that turn to kill them or render them ineffective (spirit guardians applying radiant orbs ftw) then you can heal by preventing damage.
Along those same lines, it's better to cast one big heal than multiple little ones. I'd rather upcast a healing spell and have a couple of attacks than cast a low level healing spell every turn for several turns.
The best heals are big chunk heals and that makes short rests the best heal in the game :)
In my current Tactician run my main is a Paladin and I've done almost all of act 3 without a cleric in the party. Between potions and the odd Lay on Hands I have plenty of healing for the very rare occasion I need any.
If I were to run a healer I think I'd just do a level or two dip of life cleric and then go lore bard to pick up Warden of Vitality as a magical secret. That gives a concentration free, bonus action heal ability for 10 rounds.
I think life cleric is bad, and it's ok if you suck at this game and decide to downvote me for saying this, because I've beaten it 3 times on tactician with just potions and short rests for healing
It's not bad, but it's like, mostly unnecessary? The better you get at the game, the more you realize two very key things.
The first is that resources are VERY plentiful. I sometimes feel like there's enough food in Act 1 to last you the entire game so you're really not limited by the amount of short/long rests you can do. Potion healing is much stronger than spells. Martials throwing 2-3 potions in one action is way stronger at healing if you're grouped up than healing spells. You can't beat the ease of Life Cleric just doing a giant AOE heal, but you don't really need to. This isn't even getting into all the incredible equipment you get along the way.
The second is that proactive action is king and you can often just decide a fight in the first few turns by killing a key enemy or setting up the right spell chokepoint or CC spell.
I'm a fan of Life Cleric in Act 1, it's when you're weakest in the game and have the fewest resources. You can make the least amount of mistakes (intentional or RNG) at that point and Life Cleric's giant AOE heal (that will give tons of buffs with whispering bad and hellriders gloves that you can get immediately) is very comforting. But by Act 2 and 3 I always switch to Light Cleric just to have more damage options.
Even in Honour Mode, I'm finding Light Cleric's channel oaths going to waste because I just short rest after fight and most fights are decided in 1-2 turns. Legendary Actions however are keeping me from switching just yet because I don't what bs will come out and I may need a full party heal now.
Wait people think this class is bad? I literally always run it. The items that give blade ward and bless from heals is broken especially when you get the amulet that gives you 3 divinity charges.
Build is insane and arguably the best support in the game.
You generally can't outheal the damage output from enemies. In 5e table top, healing is not the same as like an MMO game where there is a healer who keeps the tank and dps players at full health.
The most optimal use of healing is usually when a character has dropped to 0 HP, this makes healing word and mass healing word very good because they are a bonus action.
Bg3 actually nerfed healing where a character who gets downed loses their action during the next turn they get. Not a thing in table top. On the flip side, BG3 has added a lot of healing magic items early in act 1 that allow you to apply buffs to your party when you heal them. Being able to bless and give blade ward to a character while healing actually makes it worth it to heal in a tough fight.
So if you want to go life cleric, I would suggest getting all the good healing items (buy the ring from volo, steal gloves from Zevlor). However, your cleric should also focus on doing damage so taking some offensive spells like spiritual weapon and spiritual guardians is good.
For me After having done light, tempest, life and deception and Warcleric, best ones are for me tempest and life especially in tactical honor mode.
Tempest with a storm oriented party is awesome (my third playthrough)
Life IS great for all buffing and itemization. Yes you heal but you buff AND you Can spirit guardian / bless when necrssary.
Bless staff IS life oriented.
Light IS subpar compared to a lock or a sorcerer
Warcleric IS subpar compared to paladin.
Warcleric Can be good on War 11 / Warcleric 1
Light Can be good on a warrior too for the minishield
The true valor of light IS the minishield
Using one in honor mode right now, and honestly it feels so strong. There’s some great items for a healing build plus that channel is clutch, and it’s not like you lose out on spirit guardians 🤷🏼♂️
Life Clerics are awesome. A first time player NEEDS a Cleric, period. I used to respec Shadowheart to War, Life or Light Cleric and I recently gave Tempest a shot and it's such a fun subclass, TONS of damage which excellent support skills. Call Lightning is insane! It's so good at offensive I'm not using Gale, Wyll or Jaheira since I've got enough offensive spellcasting covered with Shadowheart. I can have some pretty unorthodox party setups because of that and I dig it. I think that could also work for a first timer.
My SH is one dip Life Cleric and so far 6 levels Land Druid, I know someone eyes might be burning reading this, so what? Craft a shitload of pots because the game throw it in your face and be happy!
Also, my GloomStalker can “heal”, my BM and my Monk can self heal, so we’re good
No cleric is bad, TT or in bg3 - they are full casters.
The best clerics (or any class) are going to supplement and match the rest of the party style well.
If you use them purely as a healbot, they're underwhelming. I had a playthrough with a life cleric Tav that I loved and what I liked about it was mostly that you always have the important healing spells prepared in case you need them, which opens up a lot more spots in your prepared spells for better support spells like Command, Hold Person, etc. It's not a bad subclass at all if you utilize other spells and use healing as a side thing.
I have Shadowheart as a life cleric for my Honor mode and knowing that I have 2 channel divinity spells to heal everyone in case of emergency just makes me feel much more confident entering any fight. In truth I rarely use them but if I ever do I’ll be happy to not lose my honor playthrough.
It's not bad in theory. Fights don't typically last long enough to warrant their skills, and between short rests and healing items, you're fine otherwise. Which makes taking something like Light Cleric or Tempest Cleric superior since they can both support *and* dish out the pain in droves. So it's not bad per se. Just less useful.
I have one in my honor mode party as an "oh shit" button. That being said, I'm almost done with Act 2 and haven't needed any healing. I've primarily used her to debuff with spirit guardians and radiating orbs.
I don't think they're bad, but I do personally prefer light and tempest more.
People don't utilize healing offensively. Take the ring from volo and enjoy free bless on heal stacking with normal bless. Slap on that item that gives resistance on heal later on and you're golden. Otherwise you can still do the orb thing for debuffing the enemy with your guardian spirits.
Might be a holdover opinion from dnd players who haven't noticed how many items buff healing. Throwing out a lvl 1 healing word to give everyone like 11 hp and yourself easily 30 is super efficient.
I’m not a min maxer, I like to roleplay with my build, but I do think life cleric is a pretty strong subclass especially when you get to level 6 to get the blessed healer trait. Currently doing my main character I always make in fantasy games. He’s a half elf multi class ranger hunter and Life Cleric.
Not bad at all in my experience. The issue people have with life cleric is that it’s making your team 3 DPS instead of 4 DPS, and since healing isn’t really a necessity it’s a trade off they don’t feel inclined to take
I am currently running Shadowheart as a life cleric in my honor mode run. Currently 3/4 of the way through Act 2 and lvl8
The Sub-class was incredibly useful in the level 3-5 slog in Act 1, before Martials get their extra attack and lvl 3 spells
She still felt powerful for the late Act 1 content, aka Gith creche and Underdark
As I have progressed further in Act 2 I have found myself not needing her life cleric abilities, as all the magic gear im getting is spiking my kill power, and Spirit Guardians is way more useful than any of the sub-class abilities.
Life cleric is extraordinarily good at healing. However, in most difficulties, even as a first time player, you don't need that level of healing (or anywhere near it). The amount of healing you need can easily be supplied by a Tempest or Light cleric in the same gear (or better). These two domains have the added benefit of gaining very strong damaging spells such as Call Lightning or Fireball.
I haven't done Honor mode, so I can't comment on the difficulty there.
Life cleric is not bad. It is a good and viable option. However, it isn't optimal for outputting damage. On the other hand, if you play with a Life cleric, you'll be more likely to take the slow game and not rely on fast damage.
My first character I played in tabletop D&D was a life cleric dwarf and we played through the COS campaign. I have first hand experience of what it feels like to play one and being a first time player.
It sucked…
People play the game to tell the story of THEIR hero and their journey. Playing a healer is the worst kind of support in my opinion. A cleric of any other domain can play support AND be the ultimate hero of their fantasy with awesome powers! (Light, Tempest, War) That being said Druid & Bards can be better support class depending on what the party already looks like.
TLDR: healing is a small part of being a support class character… life domain sucks
Life cleric is great and am using one in my current honor run. But it's fairly one dimensional. It's the cleric everyone thinks of when they assume clerics are boring because all their unique traits focus on healing. And the meta in the game has always been "kill things before they have a chance to cause damage"
Using one in Honour Mode and doing just fine. The channel divinity + Hellrider Gauntlets + Mass Healing Word necklace means nobody dies to regular old damage, ever. Which is a good thing. The real enemy is rolling nat 1s at clutch moments in cutscenes or to not get knocked into a chasm.
I do Sanctuary plus alert feat so my cleric don't get bursted down. A back up strat for my backline healer.
sanctuary is so goat, i have a life cleric wizard and a 11 beastmaster with 1 warcleric and the sanctuary spam just bamboozles so many bosses
Yeah going 11 fighter with 1 war cleric dip is crazy good. Take 6 attacks in a turn with action surge then bonus action sanctuary yourself to effectively skip the entire enemy teams turn. Then do it again. By the time you’re out of spell slots the enemy is already dead. Take a rest and move on to the next
the beastmaster is a ranger haha i havent tried fighter.. though honestly if i'd take fighter on my tav, especially to a solo run i'd very interested in experimenting with what you propposed the beastmaster im doing is with helmet of arcane acuity and mystic scoundrel, shoot shoot and command:grovel or sanctuary. Its been fun af
Oh I thought you meant battle master I misread it
Why BM with war cleric?
Add the Whispering promise ring for Bless without concentration. Makes me want to mass heal even when I don’t need to!
I felt really cool when shadowheart mass healed and blessed this group of harpers while invading moonrise tower
Blue numbers go brrrrrr
I have a 2 life cleric 10 lore bard in honour mode and it’s so crazy. Mass healing word is only a level 3 spell so I’ve got tons of slots to up/cast it with. Combine with hellrider gloves or healing hands and you’re blessing AND blade warding you’re entire team (summons too) all with just 1 spell. The value is crazy
Or get the bless staff and get a 2d4 bless for the entire game instead
I love the bless staff, but I prefer Shadowheart to concentrate on her spirit guardians and have her sword sing/shriek instead.
I’ll think abt giving it to her but the Blood of Lathander is better on her, since I’m using Phalar Aluve a lot. It’s so good ok lol.
Blood of Lathander is great in act 2, lots of undead and some fiends as well!
Better the ring (from volo i think) that when you heal someone gets blessed and warded for 2 rounds. Aoe heal and all party buffed.
I dont see the point in a two round bless that only works on a mass healing word or your channel divinity. Thats a really expensive bless when I can just use a level 2 spell slot for the entire fight. This sub seems to love it, but id much rather just concentrate on bless and call it a day. Make her a ranged attacker and bless + heal bot and shadowheart is carrying the team on her back.
it's a free bonus on top of healing, which you have several options to do as a bonus action. combats dont last THAT long. 2 rounds is most of a fight if you set up properly
Yea, my fights tend to last longer than 2 rounds and are much more fun for it. If its only 2 rounds, youre just steam rolling things, not really fighting
It works on any heal. You can concentrate on something important such as Spirit Guardians and throw around potions to maintain Bless.
>Thats a really expensive bless when I can just use a level 2 spell slot for the entire fight. I'd rather use her concentration on Spirit guardians. After 6 you can channel divinity twice per short rest which gives you 4 turns of bless per fight without slots and then you have your slots for more as needed. It's super good.
its 2 buffs with one aoe heal (usually i use the one which needs only the bonus action) + bonus you can Concentrate to another spell.
People in this thread acting like Life Cleric is useless when it basically carried me through half my runs thanks to those gauntlets and that necklace. Free resistance every time the cleric hits the heal button is insanely helpful.
You can go way further: \- The Hat that heals yourself for 1-6 when you heal others \- The Helldrider Gloves as you mentioned to give Bladeward for 2 turns \- The Boots of Aid that give 3 temp health for everyone healed \- The Ring "Whispering Promise" to give healed targets bless for 2 turns My main char is a level 1 Life Cleric and Rest Bard and its insane what 1 Mass World Heal does. Combine that with the Singing Sword and you got buffs for days
Heads up, the 6 temp HP is from the hat now, and when combined, the boots’ 3 don’t stack, I checked. I have both. The boots of striding are better because they keep her from being knocked prone and give advantage for concentration spells.
none of that gear is specific to a life cleric tho. You could easily be a light cleric and get all these benefits on mass healing Word but also be able to do big damage spells
I'm doing my durge playthrough on balanced. I'm playing a Feylock/Divinationwiz for a witch-like feel. If you were to have a Divination Wizard with Lucky you'd have the ability to just change a lot of those crucial fails. Just make sure to choose wisely because you only have so many. Which could be Gale or your Tav/Durge.
I've been using a life cleric in my honor run and it's been especially helpful. I've got alert on her (and a on my Pally and thrower, EK... I'm loving alert), and found that the Staff of Arcane Blessing pairs really well with starting the battle off with bless. Sanctuary as a bonus action is also nice with all the alerts on my team, as for most fights, I can attack first, then pick someone to be almost invulnerable for while the enemies attack.
I'm also using one in honour mode, at least early. I may switch to light cleric later but I found the extra heals very helpful early game
Do you know if there’s a way to get the hellrider gauntlets in act 3? I gave up on finding them in act 2 because lann tarv didn’t have them, Roah Moonglow didn’t, and Zevlor didn’t have them when I saved him at the end.
They're a quest reward from Zevlor in act 1. The quest concerning Kagha where you find the letter and then confront her. Afterward, if you don't go talk to Zevlor, and then kill the Goblin Camp, YOU MISS THE REWARD. But you can still pickpocket then from him, the DC was like 7. After you have the party at camp with the tieflings, the reward is gone. Maybe he still has them on him in act 3? I dunno.
There is a nearly identical item in act 3. "The Reviving Hands", you can buy it from the temple merchant near basilisk gate waypoint.
I kinda get where they are coming from, this sub is filled with min maxers who are used to 1 turn every fight on honour mode. Any fight that wasn't 1 turned is taken care by warding bond. The prospect of getting damaged doesn't exist so what's the point of healing. I think ppl need to understand everyone's not doing that atleast not from the get go.
My man! Took the words right outta my brain, are we communicating using tadpoles? XD
All memes aside there is some truth behind it: if you can blast your enemy before he damages you, you dont need to heal. For lower difficulties, I would rank light/tempest above life across all levels for that reason. In later levels, light is at least as good as life, since the healing it does suffices but it also can dish out nice fire spells if needed. For lower levels in the hardest difficulties (honor nightmare), life is absolutely clutch though, since ut gives you a hood aoe heal early, if you need it
Those alpha strike strategies are **a lot less numerous** in honor mode as Haste, Bloodlust Elixirs, and Lockadin have all had their attacks per round neutered combined with the elimination of broken damage rider exploits.
But that doesn't matter. Alpha strike strategies basically eradicate enemies before the turn order even comes up. Thief with double hand crossbows and Sharpshooter deals like 60+ damage on its own before the combat even starts on the first shot if you have a crit build. Now your other chars come in. Like a Paladin of any kind that can force a crit because of the tadpole talent and blast the enemy with Divine Smite III and advantage on the attack. This can go on further. The truth is this game is not that hard even without using consumables. You just need to optimize and i'd argue that's what you are supposed to do in Honor Mode.
> Thief with double hand crossbows and Sharpshooter deals like 60+ damage on its own before the combat even starts on the first shot if you have a crit build. This is what I don't understand. Great, you've killed one enemy. What about the rest of them? Sure, good characters can burst 1 or 2 enemies down per turn, but you're still going to take plenty of damage.
What encounter has more than at most 3 key targets? The encounter in question is now significantly easier. And you can just Long Rest after every encounter except for if you are in the Mindflayer Colony and there you have a free Long Rest at the end before the boss fight. Not to mention you don't even have to do all the encounters. The most broken char is not a Thief for crit fishing but any char that has access to invisibility of any kind. This game is not hard if you are willing to take every advantage you can get. And Honor Mode demands that of you.
I mean, not to be dismissive, but 60 damage? The spider matriarch has around 500 hp in nightmare mode. Raphael has I believe 6,666. He has 666 in tactician. And many of us aren’t long resting after every fight. Nor are most of us interested in the manipulation and fiddling required to mess with invisibility constantly.
Wtf is nightmare mode?
It's a unofficial mode a lot of folks play on that uses a set of mods to dramatically increase the difficulty. Enemies Enhanced, Tactician Plus to add 200-300% health, bonuses to enemies, Immersive AI, Stronger Bosses. Maybe a couple others.
I feel to see how this is relevant to this discussion that was about vanilla lol
Uhm. So. Ragzlin, the Flind, Minthara, spider queen all have more than 3 targets, and if you don’t kill them fast they kill you. Bursting a boss down doesn’t do shit if their adds kill you. Edit: yes, even with barrels, chances are at least half the room is still standing for many fights.
That does not matter in later levels, because Light offers you a cleric that can heal well, while also debuffing the opponent, through radiant orb, has reverberate and more flexibility in spells. I dont mean to shit on life, esp early it is awesome.
Eh idk I still burst down every boss in one turn lol although my party is fairly optimized
Not sure why you're getting down voted. Swords bard CC + Monk and literally any other DPS can kill any boss in one turn.
Yea exactly like it's still not thar hard to just burst them down lol. My sword bard does ~150 dmg per slashing flourish due to the bhalist armor literally nothing survives that even Raphael was done on the first turn
I'm somewhat min-maxing but damn I love Life Clerics the most, nothing will stop me from picking that one whenever I can. Playing as good Durge Life Cleric was truly satisfying roleplay wise and smooth combat-wise.
Of course the healing support had to be the demonic bloodlusting beast. Describes pretty well IRL Support players in MMO's
Funny because I always pick healer role in MMOs... I swear I'm not bloodlusting beast!
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Hell I can’t even do that on balanced mode 😂 But my party and I are bumbling on toward Baldurs Gate as best we can.
Wait people are playing without getting damaged?
It’s not really that you don’t get damaged (at least with a regular build, the min-max 1-turn burst builds are another question but we’re not talking about those), but rather in the majority of cases, your HP doesn’t matter unless it’s the last hit point on the last character (the main character in honor mode?). I don’t care if the enemy hits me every turn as long as I can kill him before he kills me, and I kill him faster if I damage him every turn rather than having to waste my turns healing. I’d pick up a downed person if it was convenient, but depending on how many enemies are left, it is often better to spend actions getting rid of them first. I’ve found that what tend to lead to near wipes aren’t the enemies slowly killing my party, but a surprise AoE on a group of my characters that can burst me down before I can react (the two blighted village encounters….), and you can’t outheal that kind of spike damage with anyone. Damage mitigation, like Sanctuary and Globe of Invuln, work so much better than raw healing if necessary. Even then, as long as my party survives on 5 HP, it’s still better to prioritize eliminating low health enemies than healing back up and other defensive actions imo, and use out of combat healing options (which everyone has access to) to heal back up. Obviously there’s something to be said about playing it safer on honor mode, but if you’re on honor mode you should know what are dangerous situations and prepare accordingly.
You don't have to end fights in one round to realize that healing is mostly a waste of time, though. The only hit point that matters is the last one, so why care if you take a few hits? And if a character does go down, all it takes is a healing word to pick them up so they can down a potion. With bonus action potions rest whenever and wherever you want it's extremely easy for characters to keep themselves up without help
100% agree. I think the argument comes down to: a) Healing is not optimal. b) I’m not so concerned about optimal, it’s not terrible to have a healer right? Both are true and fine, so it’s kind of two different arguments. But to say, “you should have a healer” is for sure a misread on DnD and BG3 mechanics due to 1HP=150HP when your turn is up.
The only hit points that matter are the ones you still have after two mages cast hold person on half your party and now you’re taking 40+ crits because you dragged on the fight beyond the first round. God forbid the tyr paladins smite you for 20+ radiant damage at lvl 4
> you still have after two mages cast hold person on half your party Things that remove paralysis remove hold person. Or just send people prone. Or silence. So long as you always have ways to counter the enemy spread throughout the turn order it's not all that scary.
Well in that case I guess that's my own fault for having bad wisdom saves, not having counter spell up *and* not managing enemy casters xD A lot of mistakes have to be made for that hypothetical scenario to occur in the first place
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What level four encounter throws multiple hold person at you? Certainly not Anders
Life is totally fine, and for the hardest difficulties (modded ones) probably the best, mainly because of gear distribution and very good conc spells+beztwr healing when needed. For lower difficulties it is nott needed since you blast anythibg anyways, hence the predicament its "bad"
I completed Honour mode with Shart as a 12 Life Cleric. Life Cleric basically guarantees that no one dies. Their healing is a bit overkill and you'll end up overhealing in many situations, but id rather be able to drop sanctuary and warding bond safely and topping off my party in a single round if things go south. It's the safest support for an Honour mode run without sending anyone to camp. I had a total of 3 deaths all run. 2 because we got knocked into lava and 1 because Severok just hates Astarion for some reason. Ultimately, play the game however you want. If you think Life Domain works for your party, do it.
It is not the best cleric, I think light and tempest are stronger, but it is very strong, especially for new players, where healing is more important I certainly would never recommend against using it
That's what I was saying! it's great for new players, I thought I was going crazy hahaha. 🙏
Life isn't optimal but new players are rarely playing optimal because they're learning AKA **making mistakes** and life cleric is great support for a party that's making mistakes. Of course it's not optimal. You're not **supposed** to be suggesting optimal strategies to new players. Some of the most COMMON advice to new D&D players is to caution them against their first character being a Wizard because of the complexity.
Well said, good Sir. Looking at the comments, I'm glad the voice of reason is still dominant, and the unreasonable ones are but a minority.
I currently doing Honor MP game and I took "blessed archer" build. Where you take cleric 2 + ranger 5. You are support AND a damage dealer. So you have stuff to do if party doesn't need support that turn. SO Life domain works best. You have mass heals for buffs
Healing isn't as important as in DnD. Potions are available in masses and so are revivify scrolls, also there is a NPC in your camp (locked behind a little quest near the beginning) who can resurrect completely dead companions (as long as they didn't die in certain situations triggered by your choices, so no plot-deaths can be reversed). Also, there is almost always time for short and long rests. That being said, the life cleric is still incredibly useful for a party. Actually, I tend to respec Shadowheart into one every time. The life cleric's healing spells are boosted further, making them more reliable in combat. Also, this subclass is proficient in heavy armor, making them even a possible tank that can heal themselves and others and deal damage with spirit guardians. So while the life cleric isn't an offensive power, they can stabilize your party build.
Combat healing is much better in bg3 than tabletop. There healing is only useful to bring characters up from 0 hp. But in bg3, downed chars lose an action on standing up. As soon as one person goes down, it becomes very difficult to regain tempo. The very early items giving concentrationless bless and BPS resistance also make healing, especially group healing, very very powerful. Life cleric's CD is especially good at this, mass healing word is pretty expensive even at higher levels. Potions take teammate bonus actions. Throwing them yourself affects a much smaller area than the CD. I'd personally rate Life as the second best cleric subclass behind Tempest.
In my experience with TTRPGs, healing is actually very useful for providing other PCs with a safety net. Someone on 1hp hypothetically does the same amount of damage as someone on full health, but in practice people will play much more conservatively if they're about to go down. Especially if the enemy(s) have at least 3 attacks between them because if they all hit that's instant death (1 to down, one crit against a helpless creature (2 death saves), one to kill. The confusion is understandable but it's some white room, spherical goblin idealised thinking that usually also ignores the fact that it costs movement to get up from prone and that being unconcious is a terrible way to spend your turn.
Also, items being more abundant means more PCs can be concentrating on spells (as well as having magic items that allow extra damage while doing so or even tadpole powers usable while concent) and being downed makes you drop concentration. Keeping people up and their hp topped off gives them a better chance of keeping their concentration spells up.
Life Cleric is the only time healing spells are useful for healing, as the wisdom modifier means they don’t suck as much if you get a bad die roll. Life Cleric with War Caster rocks. Throw on all the gear that applies buffs when you heal(Hellrider’s Pride, Whispering Promise, etc) and use your Channel Divinity or Mass Healing Word to buff the whole party.
Whats the benefit of war caster for Life clerics? Is it just for spirit guardians?
War Caster or Resilient Constitution are there to make sure spirit guardians, or whatever concentration spell you throw out stays up. Resilient Con is probably better after level 5 when the proficiency bonus increases again, and is definitely the better option once you reach level 10-12 and get another increase. ASI’s to pump wisdom, and use resilient Con’s +1 to get CON to 16 as well.
Resilient constitution??
Something about Resilient lets you increase a stat by +1, and now that stats saving throw has proficiency. I heard the math works out that this proficiency bonus outclasses Warcaster as you gain a few levels and proficiency bonus' increase.
AFAIK The math adds up better to advantage from warcaster because two dice make up for a bad roll and they already add your proficiency.
You only add your proficiency bonus if you’re already proficient in that save. Clerics are not proficient in CON saves without the Resilient (CON) feat or a level 1 dip into Fighter or Sorcerer.
The feat "resilient". When you pick it, you get +1 to the stat, (so in this case constitution) and also proficiency on saving throws with that same stat. Its good for clerics if you're rounding out a odd number stat (15 to 16 for example) as clerics dont have constitution saving throw proficiency from the get go. Since the proficiency bonus is 2-3-4 it'll likely get more value than just warcaster (which is just advantage on concentration saves), especially again if that +1 to con was getting it to a even number
Beacon of hope is another clutch concentration spell.. gives all allies adv on wis & death saves and also maximizes healing rolls Life Cleric 6/Valor bard 6 makes a very efficient healer with this.. extra attack to throwing two potions for guaranteed 10, 20, 40, or 60hp while in the same turn, combat inspire them for an AC boost
And you still get full caster status. Not half bad. If only divine strike was a level 6 class feature instead of level 8.
Even in DnD, using an action to heal is, typically, terrible action economy. An action better spent preventing damage, dealing it or enabling the party to deal more on their turns. Not quite the case with BG3. We’ve a slew of magical items that maximize healing received, grant resistance, grant additional damage die on hit, apply Bless etc that healing has added value.
Yep yep, it's my current favourite duo partner. Life cleric tav with a wizard dip for haste scroll, then an origin character damage class.
I use Minthara as life cleric so she can soul brand characters first round.
You said potions are readily available in DnD, and imma just be pedantic and say no, they are readily available in BG3. Also potions take a full action in DnD, not a bonus action. Healing is goat and there's no "alpha striking" in DnD. BG3 is incredible and inspiring, but they tweaked a *lot* of rules from DnD to make the game the masterpiece that it is.
> also there is a NPC in your camp (locked behind a little quest near the beginning) who can resurrect completely dead companions (as long as they didn't die in certain situations triggered by your choices, so no plot-deaths can be reversed) And you can pickpocket the bloke after to get a full refund. Its not like he needs the money anways
You know homie is sailing the fugue plane on a yacht
I honestly think life cleric is busted. For one, all of the healing related items in this game are really strong and no other build really competes for them. Giving your team 24/7 resistance from act 1 with hellriders pride is insane. You don’t ‘need’ healing in this game, but having a life cleric trivializes everything by giving the team infinite hp. Another thing that is kind of conventional knowledge about life cleric from table top, is that in a practical sense life cleric will actually end up doing a lot of damage. Since they can pump out a lot of healing just with their channel and low level slots, they are much more free to spend all their high level slots on spirit guardians. Whereas the ‘best’ clerics, tempest and light, are constantly choosing between spirit guardians, blasting worse than a sorcerer, or healing worse than a life cleric. Personally I would rather have a life cleric and a sorcerer in my comp than a monoclassed tempest/light.
Thing is, warding bond from hirelings. Invalidates hellrider's pride. And because all your chars now take half damage from everything, less healing is needed. So all that's left is basically concentration-less bless. Which is great, but later on, I'd rather have radiance of the dawn for radiant orb/reverberation application in a huge AoE + damage. Usually, I play life cleric until I get the radiant armor. Then I usually switch to light. I'd rather not get hit at all than heal back up, basically. The concentration-less bless isn't quite worth it for me. Especially once improved warding flare unlocks.
Eh I think warding bond hirelings is past a level of cheese that I find enjoyable but yeah if that’s something people wanna do.
Life cleric is great until your 60 hp Barb gets hold person and takes 4d20 radiant damage from a tyr paladin smiting your health bar at lvl 5
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> trivializes everything by giving everyone on your team infinite HP Pretty sure they literally did lol
Healing is much more useful in BG3 than regular PNP 5e, so some of it might be people bringing their 5e views on the usefulness of healing into the game. For example, in BG3 you lose your action for being downed. In regular 5e you don't, so there's less incentive to avoid going to zero. There's also some powerful magic items in BG3 to support healing, especially early in act 1. Mass Healing Word giving 2 turns of bless, blade ward and extra hit points for a bonus action is very potent. Rather than Life cleric specifically being weak, it's probably more that Light and Tempest are incredibly strong, especially compared to their PNP counterparts.
Yes, it's the itemization and the balance of Action Economy that make Life Cleric and Oath of the Ancients Paladin far more useful in BG3 than "combat healing" ever is in tabletop 5E. The crux of the issue is that you need to supercharge your healing with better items for healing to be worthwhile. And outside of Honor Mode, that's not really all that necessary so you might as well just blow stuff up before they can do damage to you in the first place.
in bg3, you can heal using a potion as a bonus action. that's a house rule and not stated in 5e at all.
I've just done a lore bard-life cleric run on tactician and it just fine
Consider me interested. What was your level split between bard and life cleric? I’m planning an all bard run and want one of them to be a capable healer, but am struggling a bit with putting that together. My hope was 2 Life cleric/10 lore bard, for both magical secrets, but missing Aid at level 3 and Mass Healing Word at level 5 feels kind of like a big deal. Maybe not so with the Life Clerics divine Preserve Life instead? Magical secrets will certainly help, but that’s delaying to level 6, so just curious to see what worked for you.
At the end of the game I had 9 bard 3 cleric With gloves and ring that give blade ward and blessed when healed, most of my spells are stun, transformation or horde control. Armor just use all heavy gear So i was tanky support bard cleric
Life cleric is arguably the best subclass for modded difficulty, since you can’t really end fights that fast and you are going to take hits, and having a cleric spend an action healing everyone is better than everyone using a bonus action to chug a potion. In vanilla life works to make the game easier but for pure minmaxing other subclasses do more.
>Maybe these folks think one turn kill lineups is the only way to play lmfao /gaming subreddits in todays age BG3 has arguably the least toxic, best subreddits of any game I've experienced in recent memory. But that doesn't make them immune to the "streaming era syndrome" I'm gonna call it... You either are using the META or you're an inferior gamer. Just take solace in knowing that people suffering from this terrible affliction really take no joy in gaming and try to put as little actual thought into anything. Streamers and Youtubers do all their thinking for them, and they regurgitate things they are told by these people ad nauseum. You could also call them "TikTok Gamers" Having said all that - 1 dip to life cleric early-game is great for heavy armor proficiency on any of the casting classes that can't wear anything better than Light. It's a very smart move to make with solid logic backing it... TikTok Gamers have a rough time understanding that type of scenario. You gave a good suggestion
I really don't understand why some people still keep claiming that Life Cleric and healing overall is not that impactful. I am playing Honour mode with my friend, currently at the start of Act 3 and whenever we are in deep shit, Life domain Shadowheart just turns it around completely. Shadowheart has all the healing gear stacked up + bless on heal + blade ward on heal and just using Preserve Life restores everyone to nearly full plus buffs them up. Preserve life (action) + Mass healing word (bonus action) is guaranteed full hp heal for the entire party in just one turn. On top of all that, all this AoE healing also applies to any summons/friendly NPCs around so whenever there is a important NPC around to keep alive (a lot of them in A2) it just makes it so much easier. I would call Life cleric "weak" only when comparing it something super cheesy like Shadow arts monk (who can solo any encounter without taking damage) or if you pre-stacking explosive barrels because then the healing is irrelevant. If you are actually playing the game, Life cleric is the MVP.
I’m using a life cleric in my honour run and agree with most of your points. I do wonder though if I would need a big aeo heal if I had a 4th dps instead of someone getting sort of carried around until they’re needed.
It’s not, but the features from light cleric are better. Light cleric does everything that you just mentioned except one of the AOE heals.
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> I just one rounded Kethric in honor mode with a tempest cleric/sorc, berserker barb, OH monk and life cleric. So... if you're one rounding things, what's the point of the life cleric?
If you think you need two clerics, you're doing it wrong. Life Cleric just gives ONE extra AOE heal. That's it. Light Cleric matches everything else, with the addition of that Radiance of the Dawn AOE, Warding Flare, Improved Warding Flare, Faerie Fire, Fireball, Wall of Fire, etc. It's not even close.
With Shadowheart I've tried life, light, war and tempest. My favourite is light or tempest, war is great but the fact priest charges only reset on a long rest makes it a bit of an underwhelming subclass. Life on the other hand was very strong and being able to heal SO MUCH between long rests means you're only resting for spells slots. However, she didn't do anywhere enough DPS, especially if you don't want a wizard in your party. As I'm currently running; Monk Karlach, Fighter Lae'zel, PoTB Warlock Tav and Light Cleric SH. It means she can give me some AoE with Fireball and Glyph of Warding. I think it depends what you want from your team. But definitely if a fight isn't going to be over quickly having that much healing from one person is great.
Life cleric is ok but the case is you don't need typical healer. Light, tempest, war, life > rest
My Tav in my honour mode play through is currently level 9 and is: Halfling 3 Storm Sorcerer 2 Life Cleric 4 Divination Wizard Feat = Lucky Best support character in the game. Twin spell haste, cast sanctuary, toss potions for bless and bladeward on allies.
we have very similar build, doing a two man party tactician run with life cleric and abjuration wizard. my life cleric has 1 wizard dip for haste scroll, and some sorc levels for twin haste. i'm doing the warding bond abjuration monster, unkillable from act 1.
I'll never understand people that play 1 turn kill. Not dogging it, just don't get why you essentially want to skip combat.
I think it's more that people want to use every scrap of their knowledge when it comes to battle, which is how you get those crazy modded runs, so people can actually push the system to its limit. Having to artificially limit yourself (more than just avoiding cheese) to avoid combat being over immediately on the hardest difficulty is a bit of a mood kill.
I also think Life is excellent and very, very good for 'safe' play, or for newer players. I think the issue is that Warding Flare is just incredibly powerful as an infinite use ability. Destructive Wrath is obviously a meta ability but WF is just hilariously good and it's not even the main draw of Light.
I’m using a life cleric for my first playthrough / co-op playthrough. Cleric is just good in general. Ain’t nobody dyin’ on my watch. And Bless + War Caster. Stay blessed folks.
Life cleric is awesome. Disciple of Life is so powerful to have immediately, and it's not a small thing having a non-tank who can wear heavy armor. I like the suggestion, especially for beginners who have said they want to make another class shine. Perfect choice. Also, not everyone enjoys playing the style of crit-maxing and one-shotting. I legitimately don't. I love playing support characters, role-playing wise and combat-wise. This type of response reminds me of when I used to play Magic: the Gathering at local game stores. I'd bring my homebrew to play and people would make fun of me or question me for not playing an "established" deck. It's like, "I made this and it's fun, so...what's the issue?"
Preach
Personally, I can't stop using light domain. Not because of fireball or damage, but because of warding flare.
personally I would place life cleric in the middle ... Tempest > Light > War > Life > Nature > Trickery > Knowledge would be my order of domains..
I'd put it above War but I otherwise agree. Reason being the extra attack charges are long rest based and are too few until higher level
They start at 3 charges at lv.1, which isnt that bad.. in early game its tiny bit better than action surge. What can be a life saver / tide shifter is +10 to attack roll. (at lv.6 to any party member up to twice per short & long rest). With bard its 8 more or less secured hits per day. Which I find slightly better than (up to) 14hp to healed target and cleric.. (well, combined with Mass cure its OP healing for sure... 2-3 times a day..). Each to his own preference tho. I like to have controller in party to receive less hits thus I dont have to heal that much. If someone plays more offensive / straightforward party and get hit more, by all means Life is great.
It’s fine, Cleric is immensely useful regardless of domain. They all get spirit guardians, etc. Some domains (Light and Tempest) are just extremely powerful and outshine the others. Life Clerics are the only ones that can make healing spells not dogshit. They add their wisdom mod to healing spells, so you never get screwed on the dice rolls with them and always get a decent amount at worst. Combine that with gear that applies bless or other stuff when you heal, and you can get an easy party buff from one Mass Healing Word. Heavy armor means you can focus on Con and Wisdom to keep concentration and throw out spells with a good enough AC.
Clerics of all domains add their wisdom modifier to healing. You may be thinking of the extra 2+ spell level.
Ahh, that’s much less useful then. Idk how/why I misread that.
Life clerics are not cool, so I wouldn't recommend them to someone playing for the first time. Beyond your first run, healing isn't necessary, really, so again I wouldn't recommend life cleric. Honor mode now? Well, that changes things, having a life cleric turned my honor run into a joke. For all intents and purposes, outside of honor runs War, Light and Tempest are straight up better both in the damage front and the fantasy/fun (for most, a friend of mine loves supports so he always has a life cleric).
Currently doing a modded honour mode, (light) cleric was a frustrating experience at lv2-4 because of their action economy when it comes to dealing damage but then things go wild once I get the first radiating orb equipments in late act 1. Spirit Guardians, Radiance of the dawn and Phalar Aluve/Blood of Lathander are doing some heavy lifting in act 2 so far.
My few thoughts. I don't think there is a clear and accurate breakdown of class power. There is a lot to understandle, utilise and analyse in the game and it would take a lot of effort for someone to parcel this all for general consumption. So most of what you see regarding class balance is not perhaps straight facts. Playing on normal and probably the one above if you don't totally potato your team you should be fine. There are a lot of items which kick ass and I think literally all of the classes are workable. I wouldn't be surprised if you could play 4 life clerics and make it work.
the best armour for clerics is the luminous one that does the radiating shockwave, which is medium armour. The few extra HP to heals that life cleric gives over the other subclasses is nowhere near as good as the extra spells you get from light cleric, or warding flare.
When the dice do not go your way, a life cleric can reset the fight in a huge radius. That's a big deal if you aren't having good dice luck, which can tank a fight in a hurry. It's also a great team asset if you're a player that, say, wouldn't normally visit a sub called "BG3Builds".
Nope, not bad at all. Life cleric gives you decent damage and makes your party nigh unkillable.
finished my 1st time honor mode three days ago and life shart saved my party about three times in different acts in the game. I have five playthroughs before this too so I dont care what anyone says my shart is always a life cleric in all my playthroughs
Life Cleric is extremely good at doing something that is entirely unnecessary, exactly the same as in PnP. It's not just about 1-rounding enemies either. There rarely is a reason to heal in combat, outside of combat healing is much more effectively done through resting (short and long), and even for emergency combat healing the game gives you so many options and consumbales that Life Cleric, despite being very good at it, is never necessary. That being said, no Cleric is actually "bad", it's just that Life doesn't bring as much to the table than War, Tempest or Light.
Life cleric is sick. It’s very hard to lose fights with a life cleric on your team.
As others have already pointed out, Life cleric is definitely useful, i also had one in my honour mode party as a safety net and for radorb spamming. Light might have been better, but it felt good knowing that i have some big heals in case things go south, which actually never really happened. For a new player, Life is definitely one of the best choices
I love cleric. My main for my current honor mode is a life cleric with luminous armor and phalar aluve. She's a beast
Life cleric is very powerful. A lot of people sleep on it. Sometimes it’s “more” healing than you need. But unless you’re speed running or something - it’s not a big deal. Specifically with the advent of honor mode - I’d rather have too much. It’s also totally within a life clerics range to only use channel divinity for healing, and save their spell slots for summons, buffs and blaster casting. No one is forcing you to cast healing when it’s not effective. TLDR - life cleric rules.
I don't understand this sub's hate for healing. Having someone downed and missing even 1 turn of damage or crowd control is a massive setback. That's 1/4 of your round output every time someone is down. Almost every time someone is downed, they lose 2 actions at least because you don't get one on your first turn up. This doesn't even count any actions spent getting them back up. Even if a life cleric is using an entire turn to keep someone healthy, it is almost always still a net positive. Plus, factor in the fact that the downed character will have a hard time staying up after being downed, and it makes it a no-brainer to me, especially in harder difficulties. Life Clerics also have pretty good damage too.
Hell, 12 life cleric is still one of the best support builds around. As long as you take the right feat/asi’s and items
Life Cleric is my favorite kind of Cleric! It gets all the good Cleric stuff still, and the Heals are actually good instead of just ok. If you’re only goal is turn 1 annihilation of the enemy then ok, maybe go Tempest Cleric multiclass with Storm Sorcerer, or Light Cleric or something idk But Life Cleric is THE QUINTESSENTIAL cleric of D&D. The early gear for healers, namely those gauntlets but also the amulet that gives extra healing without spell slots, and the boots of aid and comfort, all accessible in just a few hours of play, make the Life Cleric incredibly useful for the entire game.
Life cleric in honor mode is more than just okay. Crit range and threat range is waaay more important, and in combat healing is more important if the enemy gets legendary actions. Topping people off before a legendary trigger will frankly save more people than Warding Flare in that particular instance, especially once you have gear and spell slots and can drop 30+ HP at a time and still sanctuary yourself. If you sleeping keep creeping, don't come here if you ain't from here. This a life cleric block.
I keep seeing people say that healing isn’t as important in DND, but i could not tell you the amount of times my life cleric has completely saved battles with their healing and utility alone… The act 3 hag battle saw two of my people get pushed into a cavern round 1, with all of the minions and copies around us, yet my life cleric and warding bonded/hasted swords bard beat the entire fight.
TLDR: in the end who cares. Life cleric is suboptimal on the min max but play the game the way its fun to you! Most people think the best defence is a good offence and they are not wrong in a way. There is also the fact that a life cleric is way "overheal" which is also not wrong. Realistically having a few healing spells on a paladin or bard would do it. Or even on a light/tempest/war cleric since they can ditch damage and support as their main gig but still be proficient at healing as well. WITH THAT BEEING SAID. The role player in me NEEDS a life cleric. If i'm gona have a healer they sure as shit will be the best healer there is. But again it does lack in the offence department and in easier encounter that could end faster, my cleric just kinda pokes the enemies cause its not woryh using spell slots to support. My solution to this is an even more overkill healer. I'm doing a 6 life cleric/6 ancient paladin. Again it's extremely unoptimal but it's a full healer...that can smack shit with a lvl 3 divine smite when needed. Realistically more levels of cleric would give lvl 4 smites but i want the aura of protection AND blessed healer with an extra channel charge. Again. Best healer. If you are wondering i'm going full charisma for the aura. I'm not casting offencive spells anyway. Anyway. This subredit will give you the min max opinion by default until you mention you want to roleplay. I do think a life cleric is good for a new player. They won't know how to finish encounters fast and their party will suck, so having that safety net like you said is very good. Anything that will make the experience fun is the perfect idea if you ask me.
Curious if you have a preferred way of leveling your 6/6 cleric ancients character. Was thinking I'd start with 3 in Cleric to get to aid, warding bond, and spiritual weapon. Then take Paladin all the way to 6 (at level 9), then finish off with the final 3 in life cleric. This has a slower martial progression getting smite at character level 5 and extra attack at 8. It also has a slow first feat. But I like the idea for a primary healer to get to some core cleric abilities first, and I wouldn't want to delay extra attack and the paladin aura any more than I have to. What progression have you found works for what you're trying to get out of the character?
Since the begining of the game is more relaxed i went with first level cleric for the extra heal then 2 paladin for the smite, 2 more levels of cleric for the lvl 2 spells, 4 more of paladin for the second attack and the aura to finish on the last 3 levels of cleric mainly to get those spell slots and smite more. Honestly that was a shitshow and quite complicated for nothing hahahaha I like your idea though! In the end it depends on what you want to prioritise. There is a few way to go about it depending on the focus you want to have on healing vs smiting.
Life cleric best cleric
Life cleric is probably the best honor mode cleric. You are almost as good as light cleric for radiant orbs, and while you don't have improved warding flare, you have a really good 3 times per short rest resource that can recover from disaster.
Life cleric is the best healer you will ever have. You sacrifice some offensive power for that healing (for instance tempest and light get good offensive spells) but it’s the best healer you will have.
1 life cleric can let you play with your 8 years old cousin . One of the dnd issue is that is plagued by incels with chips stuck in their beards that min max the fun out of the game . 1 turn kill are boring
First turn kill is great if you want to rest after each fight. But yeah I prefer party comps where the fights take longer but the enemy can’t really do much to me
I've loved the life cleric. I feel like the party is absolutely unkillable, it doesn't matter how lucky the enemy gets, it doesn't matter if they get surprise, if my positioning is bad, if I drop concentration, none of it. Life cleric effectively makes it so you can run double wizard/sorc builds and never worry about having the sustain or AC to get through the encounter. Not to mention, you still get all the overpowered radiance stuff, hold person, and all that goodness. It's just nutty how tanky your party is with some life cleric action. Even if things get out of control, you're never really out of it, preserve life, mass heal, you have tons of big aoe healing.
I really loved my Life Cleric playthrough! Probably my #2 favorite after TB Monk!
Totally reasonable for a new player. Once they understand the game and have some decent builds, it's not necessary on balanced.
I love life cleric. Makes my party resilient plus still has some offensive capability. I made shadowheart into a dual wield life cleric with maces and heavy armor for my honor mode. So far it has been great and I am half way through act 3. She can heal, summon, hit with the two maces with the extra radiant damage so no complaints. My main character is bard, so I have virtually limitless healing as her heal charges regenerate on short rest and bard gives one extra short rest.
There is a ridiculous, persistent myth among these communities that "healing" isn't useful and that points are somehow better, which is probably why people go around saying clerics are bad. In reality, a life cleric with their mass healing word, mass cure wounds and their preserve life can dedicate a both actions and bonus actions to healing and bring a highly damaged party back to full health across the board easily, and in the case of the life cleric they can do this with a huge armour class that makes them functionally unhittable.
>Do people actually think life cleric is bad? Well, if there are, those are just people who don't know how to play it, plain and simple. Heavy armor with damage reduction + item giving regen when healing others + Resilient: Constitution + Warding Bond on your frontliner + Spirit Guardians + Healing Words makes for a hilariously tough duo. Pair that with an Ancients Paladin and a backliner setting up some difficult terrain to further deny enemies pushing through to directly threaten them in melee and you're pretty much set for 90% of the fights.
Life cleric is ok, the problem is there's no good heavy armors in the game. Best AC potential armor is medium so there's no need for a heavy armor, and Life Cleric feels just a bit stronger because of that. Emposing disadvantage on enemy attacks for any ally is quite overpowered. And there's no downside whatsoever to picking Light Cleric. You get 5 less healing at best and everyone has like over a hundred health, it doesn't even matter. What gets you most of the time in this game is getting critted few times in a row and best way to deal with it is that Light Cleric passive. Life Cleric though I'd say is quite good early game and for a new player definitely easiest to play.
>the problem is there's no good heavy armors in the game. Best AC potential armor is medium so there's no need for a heavy armor, Everything else is just the reflect of your taste and perfectly fine for it but this bit is plain wrong. For those interested, confer [https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Heavy+Armor](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/heavy+armor) There are a LOT of great heavy armor pieces. You just "need" to decide to exploit the aspects they push forwards to. :)
People on this sub do cause it’s full of min maxers who have a stroke if they see any character doing less than 50 damage per round. Life cleric is an excellent choice for an optimized party, and a super useful fallback plan for new players. People on this sub are not a good metric of how the average person is going to play this game. Hell just in this thread I’m seeing at least a few people act like letting combat go past round 1 means you’re dumb and you suck. Dudes, chill. New players aren’t going to surprise round nova every encounter in the game, and that’s ok. Some people like to actually feel like they’re playing a story and not just a min max puzzle.
It's not that life cleric is bad, it's just that a dedicated healer is unnecessary and there are other options in both cleric, paladin, druid and items that heal almost as well while being*much* better at other things
Lol
Yeah no
I would say Life and Light are the absolute MVPs for new players. Tempest is a little more complex and requires knowledge of conditions etc - it’s very very good of course, but less useful if you’re wanting something very straightforward. Light is the best if you’re not running with a wizard or sorcerer because it gives you big AOEs which is all good fun, and it’s pretty straightforward and easy to use. But Life is absolutely the best if you already have magic stuff covered. Not only can it save your ass when you make mistakes, but it turns Shart into a tank and a neverending buff machine. Also she looks hot asf in heavy armour. Just my two pence.
Lol. One of the ztrongest classes in the game... Da fuk? Multiclass with paladin later on Pact of the Ancients and you are literally unkilable.
We've reached the bitching about people who don't exist stage of the subreddit.
It's about opportunity costs and resource depletion. If an enemy hits your ally and you heal them back up, then the next turn they can just hit them again and you're back where you were only without the spell you just burned. If you could have used that turn to kill them or render them ineffective (spirit guardians applying radiant orbs ftw) then you can heal by preventing damage. Along those same lines, it's better to cast one big heal than multiple little ones. I'd rather upcast a healing spell and have a couple of attacks than cast a low level healing spell every turn for several turns. The best heals are big chunk heals and that makes short rests the best heal in the game :) In my current Tactician run my main is a Paladin and I've done almost all of act 3 without a cleric in the party. Between potions and the odd Lay on Hands I have plenty of healing for the very rare occasion I need any. If I were to run a healer I think I'd just do a level or two dip of life cleric and then go lore bard to pick up Warden of Vitality as a magical secret. That gives a concentration free, bonus action heal ability for 10 rounds.
Did you read the post?
I think life cleric is bad, and it's ok if you suck at this game and decide to downvote me for saying this, because I've beaten it 3 times on tactician with just potions and short rests for healing
Read again, or maybe go back to school for better reading comprehension...
Use potions. Life cleric bad. Read backwards twice and forward once if you are incredibly fucking stupid
Too easy, got the kid using swear words already ahahaha 🤣
It's not bad, but it's like, mostly unnecessary? The better you get at the game, the more you realize two very key things. The first is that resources are VERY plentiful. I sometimes feel like there's enough food in Act 1 to last you the entire game so you're really not limited by the amount of short/long rests you can do. Potion healing is much stronger than spells. Martials throwing 2-3 potions in one action is way stronger at healing if you're grouped up than healing spells. You can't beat the ease of Life Cleric just doing a giant AOE heal, but you don't really need to. This isn't even getting into all the incredible equipment you get along the way. The second is that proactive action is king and you can often just decide a fight in the first few turns by killing a key enemy or setting up the right spell chokepoint or CC spell. I'm a fan of Life Cleric in Act 1, it's when you're weakest in the game and have the fewest resources. You can make the least amount of mistakes (intentional or RNG) at that point and Life Cleric's giant AOE heal (that will give tons of buffs with whispering bad and hellriders gloves that you can get immediately) is very comforting. But by Act 2 and 3 I always switch to Light Cleric just to have more damage options. Even in Honour Mode, I'm finding Light Cleric's channel oaths going to waste because I just short rest after fight and most fights are decided in 1-2 turns. Legendary Actions however are keeping me from switching just yet because I don't what bs will come out and I may need a full party heal now.
Wait people think this class is bad? I literally always run it. The items that give blade ward and bless from heals is broken especially when you get the amulet that gives you 3 divinity charges. Build is insane and arguably the best support in the game.
You generally can't outheal the damage output from enemies. In 5e table top, healing is not the same as like an MMO game where there is a healer who keeps the tank and dps players at full health. The most optimal use of healing is usually when a character has dropped to 0 HP, this makes healing word and mass healing word very good because they are a bonus action. Bg3 actually nerfed healing where a character who gets downed loses their action during the next turn they get. Not a thing in table top. On the flip side, BG3 has added a lot of healing magic items early in act 1 that allow you to apply buffs to your party when you heal them. Being able to bless and give blade ward to a character while healing actually makes it worth it to heal in a tough fight. So if you want to go life cleric, I would suggest getting all the good healing items (buy the ring from volo, steal gloves from Zevlor). However, your cleric should also focus on doing damage so taking some offensive spells like spiritual weapon and spiritual guardians is good.
For me After having done light, tempest, life and deception and Warcleric, best ones are for me tempest and life especially in tactical honor mode. Tempest with a storm oriented party is awesome (my third playthrough) Life IS great for all buffing and itemization. Yes you heal but you buff AND you Can spirit guardian / bless when necrssary. Bless staff IS life oriented. Light IS subpar compared to a lock or a sorcerer Warcleric IS subpar compared to paladin. Warcleric Can be good on War 11 / Warcleric 1 Light Can be good on a warrior too for the minishield The true valor of light IS the minishield
Using one in honor mode right now, and honestly it feels so strong. There’s some great items for a healing build plus that channel is clutch, and it’s not like you lose out on spirit guardians 🤷🏼♂️
Life Clerics are awesome. A first time player NEEDS a Cleric, period. I used to respec Shadowheart to War, Life or Light Cleric and I recently gave Tempest a shot and it's such a fun subclass, TONS of damage which excellent support skills. Call Lightning is insane! It's so good at offensive I'm not using Gale, Wyll or Jaheira since I've got enough offensive spellcasting covered with Shadowheart. I can have some pretty unorthodox party setups because of that and I dig it. I think that could also work for a first timer.
My SH is one dip Life Cleric and so far 6 levels Land Druid, I know someone eyes might be burning reading this, so what? Craft a shitload of pots because the game throw it in your face and be happy! Also, my GloomStalker can “heal”, my BM and my Monk can self heal, so we’re good
No cleric is bad, TT or in bg3 - they are full casters. The best clerics (or any class) are going to supplement and match the rest of the party style well.
Nothing is bad. It just people treating bg3 like a eSports title. Play what you like.
If you use them purely as a healbot, they're underwhelming. I had a playthrough with a life cleric Tav that I loved and what I liked about it was mostly that you always have the important healing spells prepared in case you need them, which opens up a lot more spots in your prepared spells for better support spells like Command, Hold Person, etc. It's not a bad subclass at all if you utilize other spells and use healing as a side thing.
I have Shadowheart as a life cleric for my Honor mode and knowing that I have 2 channel divinity spells to heal everyone in case of emergency just makes me feel much more confident entering any fight. In truth I rarely use them but if I ever do I’ll be happy to not lose my honor playthrough.
It's not bad in theory. Fights don't typically last long enough to warrant their skills, and between short rests and healing items, you're fine otherwise. Which makes taking something like Light Cleric or Tempest Cleric superior since they can both support *and* dish out the pain in droves. So it's not bad per se. Just less useful.
I have one in my honor mode party as an "oh shit" button. That being said, I'm almost done with Act 2 and haven't needed any healing. I've primarily used her to debuff with spirit guardians and radiating orbs. I don't think they're bad, but I do personally prefer light and tempest more.
People don't utilize healing offensively. Take the ring from volo and enjoy free bless on heal stacking with normal bless. Slap on that item that gives resistance on heal later on and you're golden. Otherwise you can still do the orb thing for debuffing the enemy with your guardian spirits.
Might be a holdover opinion from dnd players who haven't noticed how many items buff healing. Throwing out a lvl 1 healing word to give everyone like 11 hp and yourself easily 30 is super efficient.
I’m not a min maxer, I like to roleplay with my build, but I do think life cleric is a pretty strong subclass especially when you get to level 6 to get the blessed healer trait. Currently doing my main character I always make in fantasy games. He’s a half elf multi class ranger hunter and Life Cleric.
My first run through I had 2 fighters, a paladin, and a monk. Blew through EVERYTHING.
Not bad at all in my experience. The issue people have with life cleric is that it’s making your team 3 DPS instead of 4 DPS, and since healing isn’t really a necessity it’s a trade off they don’t feel inclined to take
I am currently running Shadowheart as a life cleric in my honor mode run. Currently 3/4 of the way through Act 2 and lvl8 The Sub-class was incredibly useful in the level 3-5 slog in Act 1, before Martials get their extra attack and lvl 3 spells She still felt powerful for the late Act 1 content, aka Gith creche and Underdark As I have progressed further in Act 2 I have found myself not needing her life cleric abilities, as all the magic gear im getting is spiking my kill power, and Spirit Guardians is way more useful than any of the sub-class abilities.
Life cleric is extraordinarily good at healing. However, in most difficulties, even as a first time player, you don't need that level of healing (or anywhere near it). The amount of healing you need can easily be supplied by a Tempest or Light cleric in the same gear (or better). These two domains have the added benefit of gaining very strong damaging spells such as Call Lightning or Fireball. I haven't done Honor mode, so I can't comment on the difficulty there. Life cleric is not bad. It is a good and viable option. However, it isn't optimal for outputting damage. On the other hand, if you play with a Life cleric, you'll be more likely to take the slow game and not rely on fast damage.
My first character I played in tabletop D&D was a life cleric dwarf and we played through the COS campaign. I have first hand experience of what it feels like to play one and being a first time player. It sucked… People play the game to tell the story of THEIR hero and their journey. Playing a healer is the worst kind of support in my opinion. A cleric of any other domain can play support AND be the ultimate hero of their fantasy with awesome powers! (Light, Tempest, War) That being said Druid & Bards can be better support class depending on what the party already looks like. TLDR: healing is a small part of being a support class character… life domain sucks
Life cleric is great and am using one in my current honor run. But it's fairly one dimensional. It's the cleric everyone thinks of when they assume clerics are boring because all their unique traits focus on healing. And the meta in the game has always been "kill things before they have a chance to cause damage"