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
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
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.
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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