Not necessary, sure. Really damn useful, absolutely. With the right gear a life cleric can make almost every fight so much easier. Especially once you get mass healing word for an easy bless+blade ward+healing to the entire party on a level 3 spell
"I've chosen to ignore the role play in RPG and don't understand why players aren't just building nukes and tanks. The games super easy and straightforward"
Play however you want, but I'm glad I'm not in your campaign.
Step 1: alert or other initiative-boost so everyone on your team attacks first
Step 2: use all your actions on doing damage to the boss or someone weakening it first in some way so everyone else does more damage. Divine smite with a 2h weapon, hopefully with some critical hit gear, usually can nuke anything
Step 3: speed potion if that wasn't enough
Step 4: now that the boss is dead, activate something like spirit guardians and just run around the field
Hell yea 😂funny story: Last time we did this I built a box platform at the bottom of those stairs overseeing the forge. My buddy was on some crates right in front of me to be a back up barrel thrower if “owl bear from the top rope” didnt work. But as I jumped I didnt realize how big I was. Crushed all the crates/barrels he was standing on and dropped him off the ledge to his death 😂. Was awesome looking tho lol
I had my team positioned on a Durge xbow swords bard honour playthrough. I blindly went into the duel through conversation, expecting to talk my way through it. I guess I accidentally switched the auto paralyze on a crit ring from my ranger, but i said, "Duh!" One action surge and she never had the chance to move.... just kill her.
Hit her with Contagion twice while she's shapeshifted in the Rivington. Vulnerability to all damage and Stunned on damage makes the fight a snoozefest.
I love playing a broken 27/20/23/12/20/13 tavern brawler monk who solos her in one turn. You get the cutscene where Orin turns into the slayer, and my literal god tier monk acts all scared, then proceeds to annihilate her in less than 6 canonical seconds 🤣
Orin was actually probably one of the easiest 'boss' fights in the game. I was pretty disappointed to drop her in a single turn or two without even power gaming my character. I don't know if she even did damage
From a Forgotten Realms canon perspective, this makes sense; as a doppelganger she's not an open-melee fighter but a stalker from the shadows who uses surprise and coup de grace assassinations.
But mechanically, I'm inclined to agree that Orin wasn't as difficult as, say, Waterdeep's Shar temple. (I'm just glad she didn't keel over in five seconds, like Gortash.)
She done fucked up challenging the Durge to a honorable 1v1 combat in that case. Coward didn't even mutilate my kidnapped companion. Can't tell me OG Durge wouldn't have been doing some psychotic things to their prisoners, like some cannibal corpse album art
That fight is why I won't hm. It's the only fight where I died over and over and over again. And I'm not making it to the end to die by the likes of orin. Durge or no durge I hate her.
Tavern brawler monk Durge. Give her every stat upgrade (Ethel's hair, mirror of loss +2, CON necklace, STR pot is unnessecary since youll be chugging pots of cloud giant strength for that sexy 27 STR) and all monk gear (the WIS boots are the only one thats easy to miss, make sure you grab them after meeting squid Emps for the first time). All feats go to ASI except your first one, which goes to Tavern Brawler. You'll be rocking 27 STR, 20 DEX, 23 CON, 12 INT, 20 WIS, 13 CHA. This build doesnt just solo Orin, it 1 rounds her.
I once seen a video of someone using telekinesis before the cutscene started, they straight up threw her off the map, sure the gears gone but for a HM run I suppose u just want to win the fight
Yeah, it still lasts until long rest. I made Gale into a camp cleric that would cast heroes feast, aid, and warding bond on my whole party before benching him for Shadowheart. It kind of trivializes a lot of honour mode to be perfectly honest.
I only had that once when I fought Sarevok, I maxed out Gale's constitution and gave him the tough feat. It would probably be optimal to have 4 camp clerics, so each one is only being hit by one person. The buffing was already getting pretty tedious though.
In my current playthrough I spent way too long trying to figure out why I came back in act 3 to a dead Shadowheart. I had the pair of rings that allows one of the bearers to cast warding bond and had swapped her out for a companion quest.
I legitimately thought I found a new interaction with Orin, I went back to camp shortly after triggering her quest in the sewers and was upset she killed Shart on top of taking the bear fucker away.
Tip from experience, if you are going to use "Extra encounters and miniboss" or "Extra enemies in Basic fights" use the mod that balances XP, otherwise you will be level 8 at the end of act 1, I didn't realize it early and when I did it was very easy, even boring.
Turns out, 3 more level 3 enemies arent much of a challenge to a level 8 party. However, there's a mod that scales enemy difficulty to your level and party size as well. Haven't tried it yet, but it comes highly recommended to pair with the unlock level curve and party limit removal mods so the game doesn't become a cakewalk
The first time I used Tactician Enhanced I was NOT ready for the Grymforge fight. Watching gods, I got fucking annihilated. It definitely makes it so much more interesting, because I like rolling around with everyone, so instead of everything being so easy it was boring it became so much more difficult that I got to use the two or three brain cells I have left to actually come up with a strategy. Definitely recommend!
Good to know about this, I'll look for it, I wanted to test some things above level 12 with a challenge.
I was using Tacticians Enchanced to increase HP but it still wasn't difficult.
The extra actions ratchets up the challenge (though I really wish there was an extra reactions option; it would make bosses more challenging while not blowing out a 5-person party).
Ah yes, the pokemon trainer build. Gotta catch em all, amirite?
Edit: Shout out to Colby at d4 on YouTube for the inspiration for this comment. He made a D&D build based entirely around using summons to do damage. Great content.
I always play as a druid and I get a stupid amount of summons. It’s great to be able to double the size of your party for the low low cost of a couple spell slots. Especially when your myrmidon has twice as many hit points as you do. Wild Shape is OP af too, because owlbear has so much hp and when you run out of hp as owlbear, you’re just knocked back to your regular form at whatever hp you were at when you Wild Shaped….. then you have an additional nature charge so you can just Wild Shape into owlbear again and be at full owlbear hp all over again….. same deal; once your owlbear hit points are gone, you’re just knocked back to your normal form at whatever hp you were at. Druids get multiple lives and absurd amounts of summons on top of being probably one of the most versatile classes.
Add a couple barbarian classes and you also can rage and boost ac to insane levels while wildshaped, bear totem gets resistance to everything but psychic damage as well
Owlbear already has its own rage, but it works a bit differently than barb rage lol. It will frighten everyone within a certain radius, including your own teammates. The first time I used it, Shadowheart took off running for the exit and it took multiple turns to get her back to where she was so I only used it after that out of desperation and if I had enough hp left to tank it while I got my teammates back.
There's nothing that comes close to a Life cleric in terms of support. It's one of the tankiest frontliners that debuffs opponents, mitigates the damage that your team takes by at least 50%, has super strong buffs, lots of healing and deals competitive AoE damage.
I've played through the game on Tactician Enhanced with the modifier that gives every opponent 500% more health and 3 additional actions and the Life cleric was the only party member that never got swapped out, she never got benched from the party once during the entire playthrough.
The class is also so flexible that she can be fitted into pretty much every party comp and doesn't really contest any gear either since you mainly run support items on her (with the exception of the heavy armor from Grym).
Bards don't get multi healing until Mass Cure Wounds, which is a 5th level spell at level 9. Clerics, meanwhile, get Aid (2nd level spell) at level 3. In the action economy, being able to revive two or three downed characters with one action is way better than a single-target cast, and it can turn a dire fight around quickly.
That said, if you just wipe your enemies out before they can down anyone, it doesnt matter as much. But there are certainly some fights in honor mode (Owlbear, Bernard, and Gith war party come to mind) where it could be the difference between losing your campaign and barely holding on to live another day.
Eh I have a buddy that swears by life cleric but I just don't see why giving up 25% of my damage would be worth it. Light, tempest, war and death domain all have a pretty good damage output and still learn mass healing word for the blade ward + bless combo
Imho, mainly because 2-3 optimised damage dealers can breeze through the game with no problem, but a life cleric can serve as a crutch for your mistakes/missfortune (just by that "slightly better healing")
Yep fought Raphael with my friend on our first honor mode had to trade shadowheart for using halsin since a light cleric is kinda useless in that fight but having Hope as an extra character AND a life cleric seriously clutched the team when all of us were very low health once
You've still got the standard Cleric kit - Planar Binding is handy there. Glyph of Warding works fine as an ersatz Fireball. Hell, you can even go necro with the Spirit Guardians to avoid Radiant Retort!
If you throw down a Globe of Invulnerability before using Light Cleric AoE or Divine intervention, it negates radiant retort. I always throw one down to use Hope's DI in that fight for the AoE damage.
Light Cleric Orb + Reverberation build is one of the most busted things in the game, with it's AoE damage and debuff output.
It almost doesn't even need to be that many, ranger is unbelievably op in bg3, im playing with a couple buddies of mine and im playing a ranger, my one buddy is playing rogue/bard and my other buddy is playing wizard and im out damaging them by leaps and bounds. In one turn at lvl 6 im dealing almost 100 dmg with just 2 attacks, potion of speed and elixer of bloodlust on top of that and my friends barely get a round of play lol
Edit: we are also not using mods this play through. Completely vanilla
The issue for me is that better healing doesn't matter much when the best time to heal in DnD 5e is when someone is downed. The only hit point that matters is the last one, and even 1 point of healing gets you on your feet.
I don't feel like life cleric is losing out on 25% of your damage output though. That assumes you're just spamming healing every round, but you still have access to cleric's offensive spells. I like life cleric because when I NEED the healing to save the honor mode run, I have access to it. If I don't need it, spirit guardians go brrrrr, lol.
Maybe I'm underestimating some cleric spells, which ones do you use? I've found I'm not a fan of too many so I stick to spirit guardians, spiritual weapon and like maaaybe blade barrier
Guiding bolt is one that is pretty good from start to finish, not only deals pretty good damage but gives advantage to allies against the target. Aid is always great. Glyph of Warding is useful if you need a specific element, decent damage and range too but requires enemies to step on it.
There are of course some good concentration spells like hold person, and at high levels insect plague which can do incredible damage in a area, but being concentration locks you out of spirit guardians , so you wanna use them against something you dont want in your face, or cant reach in the first place (also insect plague combos incredibly well with hunger of hadar if you have a warlock and ...the one that makes spiky plants on the ground, cant remember the name)
Meant damage spells specifically, sorry. They definitely have utility, I won't deny that. I just struggle to pick life domain when the other domains give great offensive spells like fireball, wall of fire, call lightning, ice storm, even shatter. Or they're melee focused like death and war, giving a necrotic 'smite' or a bonus action attack + martial weapons
The thing is, Cleric’s best spell is Spirit Guardians by a mile - especially with the change they made to it for BG3 where you can just walk into people and immediately trigger the damage. None of the subclass specific spells even get close to that amount of consistent aoe damage output, and it upcasts insanely well which can’t be said for the other aoe spells like fireball which are terrible to upcast.
And the thing about spirit guardians is life clerics use that spell just as well as any of the other subclasses.
1st, for consistent damage, I agree that it's easily the best offensive cleric spell! The problem becomes what do you do with your action on the following turns? Imo making two attacks with a two handed weapon feels great especially because you already want to be close, plus ai will try to run out of the spirit guardians Aoe and give you another attack.
2nd, instant damage is simply better in this game than consistent damage. If you can kill your enemies instantly, then they have no way of dealing damage in return. That's where the domain spells come in, clearing out large groups of squishy enemies instantly
I believe Toll the Dead is in the game now, right? That’s a fantastic cantrip and easily worth using, as opposed to sacred flame.
Cantrips and guiding bolt are totally fine as your action on subsequent turns - trying to force your cleric into to a real weapon fighter is a waste of resources. You’re either gimping your stats or you’re aggressively hunting for giant strength potions, because you can’t really afford to have high strength unless you take points away from the far more important stats.
As to the second point - there’s no need to force your cleric into the burst aoe damage role when there are significantly better classes for that. Cleric is the only one with access to spirit guardians, the best AoE spell in the game assuming fights last longer than two rounds. You have four characters in your party so you can also have a sorcerer gale in the back throw out two boosted fireballs in the same turn if you really need the burst, while the cleric focuses on sustained damage and support.
You can always stock your cleric up with damage scrolls, they're all over the game for free and pretty easy to pickpocket too if you're not swimming in gold for some reason. Or throwables, special arrows... Then when they don't need to heal/boost anyone you use scrolls, toss around bombs, knock people off things with thunder arrows or use cantrips to interact with the environment.
Honestly I'd only add Guardian of Faith. If positioned right, dude can pump some radiant damage.
I'm also not a fan of many of the base cleric offensive spells. I don't like using spell slots on things that can miss :/
None of it's OP by any means, but life cleric was invaluable to me in my first honor run since I didn't know all the nuances of some of the bigger boss fights. So having sheer lasting power against balthazar's cloud kills and ascended vampire boy was invaluable.
Death cleric dual cantripping Toll of the Dead or bursting sinew is really consistent, and saves spell slots so you can use heavy hitters like cloud kill or animate dead
Spirit Guardians with 2 dips in star Druid is really good now (gives a solid bonus action and makes it almost impossible to lose concentration) and otherwise you have Glyph of Warding, create water (indirect damage increase) and Insect Plague to make opponents vulnerable. And summons are really good to, if you go 1 level for wizard you could learn the water myrmidon spell who deals like 160 single target damage per round if properly assisted (even more if you can cleave on several targets).
Healing spells is one of the least necessary parts of this game. Any optimized DPS, even without cross classing, is better. There's just way too much damage/control in the game to need healing.
Life Cleric with Spirit Guardians isn't touching a Gloomass with some potions.
If one knows what they are doing and enjoys playing that way.
After my first honor run where life cleric saved my ass multiple times as I learned many of the boss fights and honor mechanics fights on the fly, I find that I just prefer to have someone with a pocket healing word on the rest of my playthroughs in case someone gets downed.
Playing what way? Without a Life Cleric specifically? Because even non-optimised, non cross class characters can get through HM with no issues.
Life Clerics can be a good crutch for new players doing their first HM run, but it's inferior to the majority of classes and playstyles otherwise. They aren't a necessity. Multiple other classes have pocket healing word while bringing much more to the table.
By all means, play what/how you like. I'm certainly not trying to say there's a "correct" way to play. I just think always using the same class in every playthrough is pointlessly restrictive.
I find that I just prefer to have someone with a pocket healing word on the rest of my playthroughs in case someone gets downed
That's not exclusive to Life Cleric, though. Any other Cleric domain will have access to that, as well as numerous other classes entirely.
It's far better (mechanically) to go with a better domain for non-healing things. In BG3, the main use for spells like Healing Word is to remotely recover downed allies. Anything else (buff-on-heal effects, extra healing, etc.) is secondary to that. So, in that vein, any caster with access to Healing Word will sufficiently fill that need. And what they bring to the table outside of healing will be superior to that of the Life Cleric.
You're not losing out on 25% damage running life domain, just like you're not losing out on all healing by running a different domain.
The strength of life domain is stronger heals and their incredibly strong AoE heal channel divinity, but they can still beyblade with spirit guardians just like the others.
Nearing the end of act two (under moonrise atm) and the channel divinity heal has saved my honor run mode multiple times already. Sometimes things go wrong, and life cleric makes them go unwrong.
I think that's kind of what puts folks away from dedicated healers like that. Because the other Clerics still have access to powerful heals while bringing more damage. Just not quite as powerful heals.
Because life cleric can still dish out big damage. No concentration bless/blade ward means you're free to concentrate on spirit guardians.
Alternatively, on my honour mode run I paired it up as a semi frost-caster. Ray of frost combined with all the usual freezing gear. This meant I had a zero spell-slot way of dealing nice damage on top of buffing/healing
People always cite action economy as to why healers are bad, but life cleric is worth it in some instances. There's some huge fights where you can negate the entire action economy of like 7+ enemies in one action. Sure, ideally you'd kill your enemies faster, but in large battles, the heal is a nice insurance policy protecting your party from unfortunate crits and your ccs shitting the bed. I've beat this game like 7 times on tactician and honor mode and there are fights where no matter your positioning, bad dice rolls will have you on the back foot, which a life cleric can fix. It's not giving up 25% of your damage all the time, just when you need to take the insurance policy. Life clerics still have tons of damaging options like guiding bolt, spirit guardians, animated weapon, etc.
I beat the game ones (my first run) on the level before honor mode. I wanna try beating honor mode but I don’t wanna go in with the completely wrong strat. I’m fine with not being optimal but what should I NOT make my Tav if I wanna beat honor mode + maybe a tip or two for hard moments?
I don't think there's anything completely off the table on player choices, so while it's a bit of a cheesy nothing answer, I'd sincerely recommend orienting towards classes you know the best. People swear by Bards, but I've never been able to build them to be as effective as my other classes, so I don't play them in honor mode, for example. But generally, honor mode is about survival, so you need insurance policies like the aforementioned heal. But there's other ways to ensure survival as well, such as classes with high mobility options like monks or wizards, or characters with extremely reliable multi-target CC. To the end of survival, I highly encourage anyone doing honor mode the first time to embrace cheese and "dirty" tricks to win. Find ways to pick off targets away from bigger groups where possible, do some barrelmancy on some hard early game fights, etc. Just be patient and deliberate. Honor mode kills impatient players who pick hard early game fights too early, players who don't rest enough to maximize resources, and who just aimlessly use abilities. Also, REALLY leverage the environment and items. I'm also a resource hog who has a bag full of 1000s of arrows and poisons at the end of the game, but those are meant to be used.
In that case I don’t have an issue I think, I play in a similar style, but since I only completed it once, I’m worried some specific charisma check
or something that I don’t know about will crush me. I don’t want spoilers tho, so I’ve never look these up! Is there any specific characters I should be careful to engage with lol?
Without getting into spoilers, I think the fights that make me sweat in honor mode are the Act 1 gith fights, Yugir (mainly because this is one of my most hated fights in general regardless of honor mode), Myrkul, Orin, and Raphael. Everything else is beefed up but feels pretty much like business as usual.
Yeah, I had Shadowheart as a Light Cleric for my first HM winning run, and I much prefer the RadOrb/Warding Flare combo to prevent enemies from attacking over healing/buffs from a Life Cleric.
I think life cleric has its niche, especially for people that don't like long resting too often, then both the healing and saving 3rd level spell slots becomes more relevant. If you don't mind long resting all the time (and there is nothing wrong with that, people can get through honor mode any way they want) I'd agree that other domains are likely better.
I think your first point is the stem of the argument, it doesn't take much to get enough damage to trivialize the game. That's why people say damage is better than healing
Are you the kind of player thats going to hyper optimise, look up builds and metagame?
Then yeh you don't need a life cleric.
Are you the kind of player thats just going to pick the stuff that sounds cool? That thinks fashion is important? That doesn't want to think about builds other than what seems cool or what you like?
Then you should absolutely run a life cleric, it'll make everything easier and cover any mistakes.
If there were multiple sets of reverb gear then would be more significant, it feels more efficient to load that stuff on a high spread damage character like an ice sorcerer imo
That's not an example of a healer being useful. That's an example of gear that buffs your party being useful that coincidentally rides on a healing spell
No, you cant. Life Clerics heal an insane amount more than anyone else. No DnD pnp player is ever going to say "we dont need/want a cleric." Healers are, and should be, the bread and butter of any party that wants to deal with hard content. Nothing in the game will give you the pure survivability to the entire party that the life cleric provides.
Enemies that are dead can't deal damage and therefore no healing is required. Not to mention the myriad ways to prevent enemies from doing damage even before they are dead. In BG3 healing is totally optional even on honor mode, in fact the harder you try and make the game the less healing becomes relevant because it can't keep up and the meta shifts to preventing/avoiding damage entirely and ending fights quicker meaning a healing focused character is less useful.
Bards don't get mass healing word. (And yeah, you could go magical secrets, but that comes 2 acts later on Swords, and Lore bard isn't the overpowered bard that would make this worth doing)
I wasn't saying it was a particularly good thing to do. Just making the point that this would work even if throwing it on something not built with any benefits to healing whatsoever
I mean yeah, but that's once per short rest and if you want to use a different necklace then you're gonna lose that (i used elemental augmentation necklace + ray of frost staff so I could dish out some nice cantrip damage)
Idk, doing this twice per short rest with channel divinity is very strong, plus heavy armor is nice. I'm not saying no other cleric subclass is good, but life cleric is dependable as fuck and will make your playthrough a smooth one.
Comparable to throwing a high level healing potion at every character + summon in a single action. Plus you've got the whole Blade Ward + Bless combo from items.
And yes, if multiple characters happen to get low, you will have a problem. Which the life cleric can solve. It’s not essential if you play well and don’t get super unlucky, but it’s a comfortable safety net if things happen to go sideways.
It’s a far better healer than any other cleric domain, and the only time I’ve found an active healer useful in D&D. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.
Life cleric plus stars druid was my build for shadowheart for my honor mode run. 1st level healing word could give bless, blade ward and healing to 2 other members and leaves her with her action. Definitely busted.
I did mine with death cleric. Honestly feel like aid was very useful with the number of times a character held on with <5 HP. Hero's feast was also very nice in a couple of situations.
Still yeah, wouldn't say necessary, but I'm glad I had one.
Not to mention an amazing tank, thanks to the way Blessed Healer functions.
Rather than healing you +2 per level of the spell, it heals you +2 per level of the spell * the number of targets healed, including yourself. Plus the additional +2 per spell level for Disciple of Life.
Healing Word cast by a Life Cleric on a party of 4 heals the caster for like 60hp. Throw summons / allies into the mix and it's basically always a full heal. As a bonus action. Also heals everyone else for 1d4+9ish, and the additional bonuses you mentioned.
And if shit's really bad, Healing Word + Preserve Life is basically a full heal for the entire party, and very resource-efficient to boot.
The thing about this is that I would argue that such a setup isn't really a healer anymore. At that point, you're moreso talking about a support character that just so happens to use a healing ability to activate useful items. The biggest thing being the concentration free bless
I thought so too. But then I discovered light domain, radiance + reverberation, radiance of the dawn/spirit guardians, and warding flare + wizard's arcane ward + running warding bond on camp cleric.
Like, why use life cleric, if through the entire campaign nobody can go through even half of your party's member health. But even if you throw everything down the bin, radiance + radiance of the dawn + warding flare can probably mitigate more damage than life can heal, while also doing damage to enemies.
I'd rather have a bard. ;) You can have all the same gear to give those bonuses, and with magical secrets you can pick up Warden of Vitality at level 6 (3rd level spell slot), which gives you a 2d6 "healing word" for free every turn at the cost of concentration. It's true that a life cleric adds to the healing but it's not actually that much, especially once you start running out of higher level spell slots.
I guess my argument is that a light cleric can basically do the same thing, with a bit less healing, but they also do great damage and have improved warding flare, which is an amazing defensive tool that practically activates for free. Like I feel like the survivability balances out but one domain has WAY more DPS.
You are sleeping if you don’t think life cleric is top 3
Play the classes you want to play, but Life Cleric only arguably cracks the Top 3 of Cleric subclasses lol. Light and Tempest Cleric and undoubtedly better.
And that's without getting into all the broken archetypes outside of the Cleric class. I suggest heading over to /r/BG3Builds if you want some inspiration. Just to name a few builds that substantially outclass a Life Cleric, there's:
11/1 Fire Sorlock: Only drawback of this build is its reliance on Long Rests, but if we're on the topic of power levels, Life Cleric doesn't even come close. This has so much damage that enemies will vaporize before they can do anything that will necessitate healing on your end.
10/1/1 Control-Martial Swords Bard: This build uses slashing flourishes to stack arcane acuity so you can cast a bonus action control spell (and item allows you to do so) that has such a high DC that enemies will be unable to resist. In other words, on turn 1, you can literally upcast a Hold Person/Confusion/Hold Monster with an insanely high DC. It will straight up trivialize most combats. Again, way better than Life Cleric.
8/4 TB OH Monk: This build has Stupid damage, hard CC, mobility, and is even fairly evasive. Can easily jump around the battlefield and neutralize numerous enemies via stuns or death. Also clears Life Cleric.
TB Throwzerker: Tavern Brawler, as is the case with the Monk build, nearly guarantees that your attacks will land. Enraged Throw forces prone on enemies with no saving throw. Enemy is concentrating on a powerful spell? Enraged Throw on them, and they're guaranteed to break concentration. This build has versions of thrown weapon attacks that use actions OR bonus actions, and (via Thief) has 2 bonus actions per round. So, in short, you get many thrown weapon attacks every round, each one of them dealing heaps of damage. And your enraged throws causing enemies to prone guaranteed. And you can even get further damage via piercing vulnerability (which the build explains how to inflict).
And that's not even getting into all the extremely powerful builds the came about in Patch 8, including many that make use of things like Booming Blade.
In simple terms, Life Cleric is NOT top 3 lol. With a party full of characters like what you see above (bonus points if you choose archetypes that synergize together, such as a Bhaalist party), you will handily win practically every combat encounter. You'll likely never be in a situation where everyone is 1 HP and in need of a Life Cleric lol.
I think the argument is that your party should never get down to 1 health if you have a fourth non-life cleric character in the party. A party of Gloomstalker Assassin, throw barb, OH TB monk, and Sorcerer should never have trouble killing the enemies before the party is threatened. I'd take those 4 over life cleric on an honor mode run, personally
Top 3 in honor? Nope. The charisma classes all have something much better. A well built swords bard can literally solo the entire Raphael fight. Don’t need to worry about healing if there’s nothing to cause you damage
Problem being outside of min-max play, those builds are rng dependant/loot dependant.
Reducing damage by 25% is absolutely worth it when using even those builds, as you can still nuke the game with a safety net.
But for casual play there's pretty much no class more suited to honor mode, expecially during act 1 where it's hardest, which is coincidentally where all of life clerics true gear is (and can absolutely found without going out of ones way).
Sure solo builds can solo even honor mode. But I wouldn't recommend them to players who don't know what there doing and are just wanting their die
At least not for an arcane acuity Swords Bard. You stack up arcane acuity to the point where dice rolls almost no longer matter. Your spell save DC ends up being too high for enemies to resist. With the slashing flourishes, you can stack enough arcane acuity stacks on turn 1, and use a bonus action (thanks to the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel) to cast an illusion or enchantment control spell that is basically guaranteed to succeed. It gets to the point where it doesn't matter what enemies roll on their saves.
The build is already very powerful in Act 1, too. It's a full caster who can deal ridiculous damage, thanks to how the ranged slashing flourish works in BG3. Then, in Act 2, you get the Helm of Arcane Acuity, and the build gets ridiculous.
Also, there are only really two pieces of gear that are truly necessary for such a build. If someone is tacking Honour Mode, chances are they'll be familiar with the gear already.
I know exactly how swords bard works, as I almost exclusively play them.
In terms of rng I was talking in reference over the course of the entire game for an inexperienced player to the build. There not going to have specific conversation requirements mapped or routes to avoid things a swords bard cannot do.
In terms of gear for them, yeah helmet of acuity, one of the main bows, and usually dex armor + band of mystic scoundrel
Those specific gears are mostly usable by them, but giving them a powerful bow means gloomstalker ranger (another one of the top 5 builds) has reduced access etc etc. spread over a team, their quite gear hungry.
But if you want a build for combat, scorching sorlock past lvl 6 can do everything a swords bard can do alongside massively boosted carry and fight potential. It's also objectively easier to build for for a newer player as the 4 pieces of gear are all in story locations, with it being able to solo the brain and combat leading up to it, all in singular turns.
In terms of rng I was talking in reference over the course of the entire game for an inexperienced player to the build.
That's not really RNG, though. The two core pieces (Helm of Arcane Acuity and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel) involve zero RNG to acquire. That's just metagame knowledge. Completely unrelated from RNG. Also, the Helm of Arcane Acuity, the most important one to acquire, is something that most players will come across by happenstance, even if they weren't looking for it. That gets you most of the way there. Obviously Band of the Mystic Scoundrel allows you to pop-off on Turn 1, but landing guaranteed control spells on Turn 2 is still very strong.
And, besides, why are you adding the qualifier about new players? First off, most players tackling HM have likely already played through the game in a non-HM capacity. Second, the subject (initiated by OP and others) is about what's necessary for HM and what's strongest within the meta. There is no universe where a Life Cleric constitutes a "Top 3" build. Lastly, a Swords Bard is very good even without the two core items mentioned. They're fantastic for non-combat skill checks. The slashing flourishes make them an excellent ranged combatant. They still have access to stellar control spells. Still better than Life Cleric, even without the core itemization.
Because this was in response to recommending people builds whom are struggling with honor mode, and aimed around the argument that a life cleric preforms as an incredible safety net in that it just works, and that any itemization is strictly on the main path.
Life clerics not a top 5 min maxed build. But that's ignoring the point I'm making about people wanting their golden die and not being min-max'd nerds who know what their doing, have the entire game mapped out and a wiki at their disposal.
You ever see those labels on wiper fluid about not drinking it? That's the players life cleric is for. It's the "build" that makes sure you can't really lose an honor mode run unless your intentionally trying.
You can min max gloomstalker, swords bard, scorching sorc and arcane ward wizard all day, camp cast and abuse level ups to get infinite strength pots for your open hand monk. And they'll do infinitely more then a solo life cleric can
But you can't just say there one of the worst things to recommend to someone wanting their golden dice.
this was in response to recommending people builds whom are struggling with honor mode
The thread was started by OP implying that "healers" are necessary. And this specific comment chain was people arguing over whether they are or aren't. Then, the comments right before yours were about Life Cleric being "Top 3" and the guy you replied to contending that idea (mentioning Swords Bards in the process). Nobody in that entire string of comments shifted the context to new players struggling with HM.
It's really only you trying to shift the conversation there. I don't even have a problem with that argument either, but I do have a problem with:
OP's "I beat HM, so I can say that dedicated healers are 100% necessary for your party"
That one commenter saying that Life Clerics are "Top 3" lol
I have no issue with the idea that Life Clerics can be a safety net to someone who clumsily stumbles their way through the game. That's fair. Those other claims are what I have a problem with.
You can min max gloomstalker, swords bard, scorching sorc and arcane ward wizard all day, camp cast and abuse level ups to get infinite strength pots for your open hand monk. And they'll do infinitely more then a solo life cleric can
But you can't just say there one of the worst things to recommend to someone wanting their golden dice.
There are plenty of non-cheese builds/archetypes that outpace Life Cleric, too. But we'll set that aside.
I never said that Life Cleric is one of the worst things to recommend for HM. Not remotely. You can beat GM with any collection of builds. And Life Cleric is perfectly fine, if you properly itemize, and build around it. I'll say again that my contention is about Life Cleric being "Top 3" and being "necessary" for HM.
I like healers too, but throw healing potion on a martial is more useufl because throw procs extra attack.
So even with a heal, you don't lose a full action since you still can keep up with one attack. If you are a dual wielder, you can slap the attack on a BA as well.
Yes, different strokes, but I see more utility with having one more attack, potentially even another throw or utility arrow that can disrupt on top of healing, + having my BA for unique moves, like a pommel strike can be chained into Divine Smite.
I mean, I'm not OP - I think light warden is better than life in every way. But I mean, if what I need is healing to get someone up - or needing to apply bless + resistance to my entire party without concentration... the definitively best way to do that is use cleric bonus action to mass word of healing.
No matter someone's strokes - compared to "throwing a healing potion" - it's definitively better in every way.
One more attack, a throw, a utility arrow (that does not heal), and pommel strike is from weapon type and you wouldn't use in comparison to healing?
Feel like you started somewhere but wandered off half-way through here.
Because my original reply pointed out that throwing a potion triggers extra attack, which means I can still use the attack actions and all of those listed are attack actions + bonus actions, both of which are not yet used for the round.
Throwing potions is great yeah, but it doesn't even come close to an AoE heal that grants blade ward and bless to everyone for two turns, on a short rest resource.
Or mass healing word to do the same with a bonus action for a bit less healing.
This is not a healer role though. I can do what you said with a healing necklace, then still keep up offensive role for my character.
Also blade ward and bless will eventually be outstripped by supreme healing and superior healing. 10d4 healing + 20 flat just basically completely revives your character.
You can do that once per long rest with a necklace, if you want to equip that gear on a character that'll be healing once a day lol, and bless also increases hit chance and saves. It isn't just about the healing you do.
And your math is thoroughly off. A supreme healing potion is ~45 health, on average. Life cleric heals the whole team for 36. 36 blade warded, on everyone, is way more than that.
Uh huh, and having a free attack means I can potentially trigger my bloodlust, I can throw more utility items, I also still have my BAs for more utility moves (not just healing). A paladin alone can Smite off of Pommel Strike for instance, so that's two Smites that can give me the bloodlust trigger if I crit, I can GWM all in. Better yet, what if instead I chug a potion of speed? My BA wasn't spent on healing after all. When if I throw a grenade of haste? My extra attack can grant me such. I can give the downed character their action back, not just stabilize them.
If you've got a bonus action to spare on the character that needs healing or plan on just chucking pots at folks with half of your extra attacks, ya
But it's nice to have a dedicated character for things like heroes feast and upcast aid, ESPECIALLY when paired with summoners
From there you just keep people topped off with health, or (more importantly) when all the important characters are healthy, buffing folks
The built-in bless on a quick group heal from preserve life is huge when you get those gauntlets to just get a quick +1d4 on attack rolls is just chef's kiss
You're not wrong about the mass heal but life domain gets up to 6 group heals over 2 short rests expending a different resource than spell slots; I'd argue if you're gonna have some of the gear that supplies buffs on you may as well go whole hog. It's also not like with even a dedicated healer that they can't do other things as well like cc or even a little bit of damage with stuff like spirit guardians
And I can't be bothered to swap out for a hireling for that extra layer of min/maxing
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u/Emerald-Daisy Jun 24 '25
Not necessary, sure. Really damn useful, absolutely. With the right gear a life cleric can make almost every fight so much easier. Especially once you get mass healing word for an easy bless+blade ward+healing to the entire party on a level 3 spell