2024 DnD 5e Cleric Subclasses Guide

Introduction

Your Cleric’s subclass determines not only your character’s central theme as a divine spellcaster, but also your role on the battlefield and your general playstyle. Different Cleric subclasses emphasize different types of spells, different mechanics, and sometimes different roles within the party.

For legacy subclasses, see our 2014 DnD 5e Cleric Subclasses Guide.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

Cleric Subclasses

Life Domain (PHB)

Magical healing is one of the Cleric’s most important functions, and no character can compete with a Life Domain Cleric’s capacity for healing.

  1. Life Domain Spells: The low-level options are absolutely fantastic, and many of the Life Domain Spells are essentially required for a Cleric to take. Unfortunately, the high-level options are less useful.
    1. Level 1 Spells: Bless is nearly a win condition at low levels where adding 1d4 to a roll can exceed your proficiency bonus, and it remains a staple buff at basically any level so long as you don’t need your Concentration for something else. Cure Wounds is a fine healing spell, but in combat you want to rely on Healing Word and spend your Action on offense.
    2. Level 3 Spells: Lesser Restoration is nice to have handy, but much of the time the effects which it removes can wait until you can rest and prepare spells to fix them. Spiritual Weapon is a reliable combat option, but may become obsolete when you get Spirit Guardians.
    3. Level 5 Spells: Beacon of Hope is situational, but can be nice to cast before a rest to maximize the effectiveness of your healing spells when Hit Dice are running short. Revivify is the “Cleric Tax”, so getting it for free is really nice.
    4. Level 7 Spells: Two interesting options with 8-hour durations, but Death Ward is definitely the better of the two.
    5. Level 9 Spells: Mass Cure is redundant with Preserve Life, and, if you need Raise Dead prepared every day, something has gone horribly wrong.
  2. Disciple of Life: This isn’t a ton of healing all at once, but it will be especially useful with Healing Word, which is a good combination because it uses a Bonus Action, but normally doesn’t heal for a particularly large amount. Over the course of your career, the total amount of additional healing will be significant, so I encourage you to keep a running score if for no other reason than to remind your party members how badly they need you to survive.
  3. Channel Divinity: Preserve Life: Fantastic when you’re looking at a possible TPK. Since you’re healing so much, most characters of your level will go from 0 to half hit points, unless you’re looking at someone like a Barbarian with d12 hit dice and 20 Constitution or if you’re splitting the points between multiple allies. Even so, the scaling is excellent. As you gain additional uses of Channel Divinity this will quickly become your go-to option for large amounts of hit point recovery while in combat.
  4. Blessed Healer: There is now almost never a reason to cast a healing spell on yourself instead of helping your allies. However, casting a healing spell to restore hit points should not happen frequently during combat, so this may not trigger as frequently as you would like.
  5. Supreme Healing: As you add more and more dice, your rolls will skew toward the statistical average, meaning that each d8 from Cure Wounds is effectively 4.5 points of healing. Maximizing the die improves this to 8 points of healing, almost doubling the effects of your healing spells and thereby making your spell slots spent on healing much more efficient, allowing you to reserve high-level spell slots for more interesting things.

    If you need healing in a fight, most characters should cast Heal or Mass Heal, neither of which involve dice. But with Supreme Healing, Cure Wounds heals more per spell slot level than Heal does, making it a viable source of healing in combat.

Light Domain (PHB)

The Light Domain Cleric is a Blaster, Controller, and Striker, specializing in dealing damage both to single targets and to areas. Clerics already have the best Radiant damage spells in the game, and the Light Domain supplements those spells with some of the best Fire damage spells. If your party doesn’t have room for both a Cleric-equivalent and a Wizard-equivalent, Light Domain is a good choice because you can so easily replace the Wizard’s ability to quickly handle groups of weak enemies.

  1. Light Domain Spells: A fantastic set of offensive spells which close the gap between Clerics and Wizards.
    1. Level 1 Spells: Faerie Fire is a great way to handle invisible creatures, but it’s also helpful support option for allies that rely on attacks because it’s an easy source of Advantage against multiple targets. Burning Hands is a great low-level AOE damage spell, but resist the urge to burn all of your spell slots casting it or you won’t have any slots to heal with. At high levels, Faerie Fire remains incredibly potent, but Burning Hands will be obsolete after a few levels.
    2. Level 3 Spells: Scorching Ray is a great single-target option, especially if you have Bless or Faerie Fire running to boost the attack rolls. See Invisibility gives you an even better way to handle invisibile enemies than Faerie Fire.
    3. Level 5 Spells: Daylight is only situationally useful, but Fireball is the sledgehammer of offensive spells: sometimes you just need to hit your problems until they fall down. In terms of instantaneous area damage, there isn’t another spell that can compete with Fireball until 9th-level spells introduce stuff like Meteor Swarm.
    4. Level 7 Spells: Arcane Eye is my absolute favorite scouting option. Wall of Fire is among the best area control spells in the game.
    5. Level 9 Spells: Flame Strike is considerably less important since you get Fireball, but it’s only 2d6 damage behind Fireball, and avoiding common Fire damage resistances with half of the damage can make the spell more reliable against some enemies. Scrying is only situationally useful so it’s frustrating to have it prepared every day.
  2. Radiance of the Dawn: The damage isn’t great beyond low levels. Magical darkness can really cause problems, and a guaranteed way to remove it is very convenient, but you can also negate magical darkness with the spell Daylight, which you get prepared for free once you hit level 5. So there’s a small level window where this might be impactful, but once you get through low levels you’ll frequently get better results from the Harness Divine Power Optional Class Feature if your DM allows it.
  3. Warding Flair: You won’t get a ton of uses, so save this for enemies which can do a lot of damage on a single attack. This needs to be activated “before an attack hits or misses”, which is frustratingly vague, but I assume it means “before the result of the attack is determined”. So your DM could roll, ask “Does a 25 hit?” knowing full well that it does, and you could scream “Warding Flare!” before the DM says “you are hit” and the DM would then roll with Disadvantage (meaning that they roll a second die and choose the lower of the two results, not that they need to dump whatever they’ve already rolled).

    Of course, your DM might read that differently and take my portrayal of that interaction poorly, so check with your DM before you assume how this works. Tragically, Jeremy Crawford’s only response on the subject doesn’t actually clarify the answer.

  4. Improved Flare: Fantastic if you have allies who are squishier than you (like a Wizard) or if you need to buy time until you can heal someone.
  5. Corona of Light: If you’re anything like me, you want to make a joke about light beer whenever you see this ability. But, unlike light beer, this is fun. It’s essentially an overdrive button for your Fire and Radiant damage spells, which is especially nice with Light Domain Spells and with Cleric staples like Spirit Guardians.

    However, it’s an Action to activate, which can make it hard to use in combat. Start this before jumping into combat if possible.

Trickery Domain (PHB)

Trickery Domain turns the Cleric into an effective Scout, providing better stealth options through spells and through Blessing of the Trickster. Their signature feature, Invoke Duplicity, provides a powerful combat option which encourages you to confuse and misdirect your enemies.

  1. Blessing of the Trickster: Perpetual Advantage without Concentration. Fantastic and reliable.
  2. Invoke Duplicity: This can be difficult to use effectively, but once you get your head around it, it’s very potent.

    The best use case is to put the illusion somewhere visible while you’re hidden nearby and use the illusion as the origin point of your short-range spells. Options like Word of Radiance are much safer when you can walk your illusion into a crowd of enemies to cast it, and, since the illusion isn’t a creature, it’s not worried about things like Opportunity Attacks, area control effects, or even enemy creatures blocking spaces.

    You can use the illusion to get yourself Advantage in melee, but I’m nervous to recommend capitalizing on that as a go-to tactic. Weapon attacks aren’t a great option for Clerics. Easy access to Advantage may make weapons viable compared to cantrips, especially with Divine Strike, but don’t let that compel you to build around melee. This notably applies to all attacks, so you can deliver spells like Inflict Wounds and Spiritual Weapon with Advantage.

    If you’re happy using your illusory double as a distraction and as a courier for your spells, you can totally ignore the Advantage part of Invoke Duplicity and you’ll still do just fine.

    Placing and moving the duplicate allows you to place the illusion and move it around in the air. This may be helpful for targeting spells with less concerns about cover, or for targeting flying enemies.

    Strangely, Invoke Duplicity doesn’t offer details on how to handle interaction with the illusory double. What happens if the illusion is attacked? Can creatures disbelieve it, and if they do so, how do they then perceive the illusion? If creatures are aware that the double is an illusion, do you still get Advantage on attacks when you and your double are adjacent to a creature? Jeremy Crawford has confirmed that the duplicate is immune to damage and that weapons pass right through it, but that’s the only useful rules answer that I’ve found on the subject.

  3. Trickery Domain Spells: Lots of really fun options, many of which aren’t normally available to Clerics, and many of which can make your entire party stealthy.
    1. Level 1 Spells: Disguise Self and Charm Person can diffuse quite a few social situations. Charm Person can’t completely replace a real Face, but it gets pretty close.
    2. Level 3 Spells: Two of the best stealth spells in the game.
    3. Level 5 Spells: Hypnotic Pattern can shut down entire encounters with one spell. Nondetection is only situationally useful, but it does protect stealthy characters like the Trickery Cleric from magical detection.
    4. Level 7 Spells: Confusion sucks, but teleportation is great.
    5. Level 9 Spells: Modify Memory is very situational, but Dominate Person is a great way to turn a powerful humanoid enemy into a fun pet for up to a minute.
  4. Trickster’s Transposition: Teleportation like this can be very powerful, allowing you to move around easily in combat and to get around obstacles outside of combat by flying your duplicate to wherever you want to go, then switching places with it.
  5. Improved Duplicity:
    • Shared Distraction: You no longer need to be in melee with the target to benefit, and now your allies also benefit. Providing easy Advantage on attacks for your entire party is a huge benefit even if you’re not taking advantage of it.
    • Healing Illusion: Not a lot of healing, but potentially a good way to rescue a dying ally without spending a Spell Slot. You may be able to use this on yourself when you drop to 0 hit points since the illusion ends when you become Incapacitated.

War Domain (PHB)

War Domain makes a polite nod toward making the Cleric better at using weapons, but weapon use is among War Domain’s weakest options. Beyond very low levels, War Domain is primarily a Blaster, Striker, and Support build, offering ways to attack your enemies and buff your allies. War Domain keeps your action economy very busy, making it very satisfying to play in combat.

  1. Guided Strike: +10 is a huge bonus, almost certainly turning a missed attack into a hit. Channel Divinity uses scale from 2 at low levels to 4 at high levels, but that’s likely not enough to use Channel Divinity every time someone misses an attack. Reserve this for high-value attacks like powerful spells and Sneak Attack.
  2. War Domain Spells: War Domain’s spells strike a balance between direct, offensive options and defensive options, most of which have a decidedly martial feel.
    1. Level 1 Spells: Guiding Bolt is a fantastic spell, providing both excellent damage and Advantage on your party’s next attack. It remains a good use of a low level spell slot through your whole career, especially with Guided Strike to rescue a failed attack roll. Shield of Faith will remain useful at every level. +2 AC is big in 5e, and 10 minutes is a fantastic duration for a spell slot. However, it requires Concentration, which means that you can’t combine it with other great low-level buffs like Bless.
    2. Level 3 Spells: Magic Weapon is essential if you lack permanent magical weapons, but for allies that rely heavily on weapons, the +1 attack/damage bonus is also a huge boost to their damage output. If you’re expecting to face several encounters in the 1-hour duration, Spiritual Weapon is a staple Cleric option, and a great way to convert your Bonus Action into damage output while leaving your Action free for non-Concentration spells like Guiding Bolt. However, it competes for space with War Priest both conceptually and within the action economy.
    3. Level 5 Spells: Crusader’s Mantle is Divine Favor for the whole party. The damage per attack is still small, but if you have someone using Two-Weapon Fighting, allies with Extra Attack, or just a large party, the value adds up quickly. But it generally can’t compete with Spirit Guardians, which you also get. Spirit Guardians is among the most efficient damage options in the game, and many clerics prepare it every day.
    4. Level 7 Spells: Fire Shield is a great defensive buff if you’re on the front lines, especially if you’re not wearing heavy armor and a shield. Freedom of movement is situationally useful.
    5. Level 9 Spells: Hold Monster is a fantastic save-or-suck spell which you can immediately follow with an attack from War Priest for a guaranteed critical hit. Steel Wind Strike is simple, direct damage. Since you can use Guided Strike without an action for your own attacks, you can use it with multiple missed attacks within a single turn. Note that the damage is fixed regardless of your weapon, so you can wave a dart and still deal 6d10 damage to each of your targets if you don’t routinely wield a weapon.
  3. War Priest: A convenient use for your Bonus Action, allowing you to turn any spare Bonus Action into an attack. Once you hit 20 Wisdom, you might find yourself unable to use all of your War Priest uses in a given adventuring day, provided that your party remembers to take Short Rests.

    The biggest difficulty here is that you need to invest in either Strength or Dexterity to make these attacks effective, which is difficult for the cleric. Shillelagh helps, but it also competes for your Bonus Action. Your best bet is to use Guided Strike when you miss, but that does add another limited resource to the equation whenever you want to attack.

    There’s also a great deal of competition within the subclass for your Bonus Action, and nearly every use of your Bonus Action is more appealing than War Priest. Fortunately, these options start to come online right as you start getting ability score increases and decide that it’s time to leave your Strength or Dexterity at 16 in order to focus on Wisdom.

  4. War God’s Blessing: Casting Shield of Faith without Concentration is a significant buff at any point in your career, and since Channel Divinity recharges on a Short Rest, you can afford to use it frequently. Spiritual Weapon as a Bonus Action is similarly fantastic, and will be a much more reliable use for your Bonus Action than building yourself to use War Priest, but the damage may feel unappealing at high levels since it won’t scale.
  5. Avatar of Battle: Permanent resistance to the three most common damage types in the game.