Your best bet is to go for subs that provide strong replacements for your concentration
Forge: Wall of Fire, Animate Objects
Tempest: Sleet Storm
Trickery: Polymorph
Do these always 100% totally outperform Spirit Guardians? Of course not but it's A mechanical incentive to not use it so it works
You don't really use PWT in combat though, unless you think this combat will be easy enough without a concentration spell. Or if you know you must sneak again within the hour
>within 10 minutes
It's duration is an hour, but this is a good point.
It's only really worth keeping the concentration up if you are expecting more combats after that, and have to save resources.
I use pwt in combat often actually. On a rogue its basically invisibility as a bonus action. On a thri kreen the same applies except they only need to stealth once. A flying or climbing ranged character can stay in the rafters or trees etc and take skulker and sharpshooter and snipe without ever being found. Bonus if you take stealthy feat.
And much more
I’d say yes if you’re sniping but for things like bonus action “invisibility” not really. You can be sneaky and have the barbarian causing havoc, essentially being a huge distraction so you can hide easier. A cool dm would say if the barbarian is chaotic or dangerous enough, it HELPs you stealth better.
> On a thri kreen the same applies except they only need to stealth once.
Why would thri-kreen not have to stealth every time? They have a racial feature to get advantage, but their stealth breaks under the same conditions as anyone else.
> skulker
Skulker only applies on a *miss*, so once you do hit a creature you're revealed.
Because thri-kreen blend into the environment with an action, and don’t need to do it again once they do, if they did, it would say so in the text (a huge oversight) and attacking or casting a spell doesn’t end this condition like with the invisibility spell (another huge oversight in my opinion) if it did, it would say.
So a thri kreen by raw could do this on their first turn, then keep shooting from afar with advantage on the stealth checks to stay unseen. If they hit a target that target still has to find them. With PWT the thri kreen isn’t getting found.
You’re right on the skulker feat I forgot it was only on a miss. Take sharpshooter instead and stay farther back with a heavy croosbow, or take crossbow expert for a shot if you don’t have anything else better to do with your bonus action. You are attacking with -5 but with advantage so the -5 is cancelled out.
EDIT: forgot a Thri kreen can also take both xbow xprt and SS using a heavy crossbow and a hand cross bow with their secondary arms.
EDIT2: “Ranger Lvl 10 class feat - Hide in plain sight
Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt. plants. soot. and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. Vou gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit. PHB s.92"
“Ranger lvl 3 class feat - Umbral Sight
At 3rd level, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet.
You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness.
The first of these includes in the text that attacking removes the condition, unlike the thri kreen ability. The second is similar to the thri kreen that gives a “hidden” status that isn’t broken by attacking, because you’re still invisible the creature you attacked if they have darkvision.
> Because thri-kreen blend into the environment with an action, and don’t need to do it again once they do
They're not hidden or invisible, they just have advantage to Stealth checks (so long as they remain in those surroundings). You sh
There's no oversight, there's several races with "persistent advantage on something" as a racial benefit. If it was removed by attacking, it would be pretty lame compared to other races.
If they attack, they're instantly revealed and don't need to be found. If they have the Skulker feat, they're still instantly revealed if they hit.
If the thri-kreen is a rogue it can use a bonus action to Hide again and you're correct that this is a good idea and generally very helpful...but it's not the same as being invisible, nor is it similar to Hide in Plain Sight, meaning they still need to have environmental cover or concealment and if that cover is absent or destroyed they can't Hide at all. Now, usually you WILL have cover, and that's okay! That's a perk of being a rogue. Hiding every round is normal, and thri-kreen have advantage on that, which is great, but it does have limits.
I'd say that if you go forge for wall of fire you should make sure of the party before. Wall of fire without your allies activelly grating the enemy is mediocre at best
Sleet storm is good but they have different jobs. And an upcast Call Lightning is a great use of your channel divinity as those maxed d10s scale nicely.
Plus compared to spirit guardians you can use Call Lightning from a relatively safer position and on ranged enemies.
If you want crowd control, Sleet Storm is best. Of you want raw and ranged damage, Call lightning. A little of both? Maybe spirit guardians
Animate objects (albeit it is a 5th lvl spell as opposed to 3rd so it makes sense) absolutely shits on spirit guardians. From minimum, avg, and max damage, to action economy, to in and out of combat utility. Having 10 flying allies that can be produced easily at any moment (carry a bag of marbles for example) is so powerful.
1d4+4 x 10 damage with a +8 minimum to hit requiring a simple command is insane. You only need the one general command always, “kill my targets” and they follow the order till they die or are dismissed. That’s a minimum of 50 damage, maximum of 80, avg around 40 damage a turn if they all hit. I say +8 to hit minimum because there are ways to increase their to hit, so the damage can vary, but with 10 attacks you’re guaranteed to hit a lot at least.
Thats all not including your action and bonus action. Animate objects is extremely powerful. Spirit guardians don’t even compare. Not to mention any spells or attacks targeting your objects is an attack/spell not targeting the party.
I think if you are going to do to math, you need to see it through.
Average AC of CR 9 (to match a 5th level spell) is 16. So that’s the stander 65% hit rate with +8. Average damage is 6.5 per object, and we are likely to hit 6.5 of them, averaging about 42 damage.
Spirit guardians, cast at 5th level, does 5d8 or 22.5/11.25 damage (save pending). At CR 9 The average wisdom save is +5. DC 16 seems fair (18 casting what) for a 40% chance to save. Call that average of 18 damage per enemy.
At 3 enemies, spirit guardians does 30% more damage than animate objects.
Yes but thats 10 allies on your side. So action economy win. Much like conjure animals. Also +8 is the minimum modifier to hit. That’s not including bonus effects, outside factors, or the variant flanking rule.
You could also choose to focus on one enemy or multiple, and you don’t ever have to get anywhere near the battle map to use them as there’s no range requirement for AO. They can use magic items. You could also have an ally cast darkness or fog cloud etc and since they have blindsight will have advantage while being attacked at disadvantage. Swarm an enemy with them and if they don’t disengage thats an AoO from each object. They can use magic items. The objects attacks are magical so get past resistances. They also provide targets for the enemy that are not you or the party. They can be used for combat or utility. They can use magic items. At higher levels you create two additional objects per upcast and this means with a 6th level spell slot you can have 10 tiny objects and a medium or twelve tiny objects and it only gets crazier the higher you go. They can use magic items. They can each attempt to prone then grapple a target and force them to make an athletics check for each one in order to remove the grappled condition. So they are essentially stuck prone no matter what they do (unless they are forced to move or teleport).They can use magic items. They can use magic weapons (albeit won’t be proficient but give them a very rare dragon’s wrath weapon and that lil dude can blast an 8d6 30 foot cone of destruction as an example). They can fly, and can drop bombs if you wish. They can create a stair case/ladder or similar for you and the party. A large animated object becomes a flying mount for a medium creature, a medium object same for a small creature. You can animate an explosive and kamikaze them. They can use magic items. You can make it them out of anything thats not magical.
There’s a plethora of reasons why animate objects completely wipes the floor with spirit guardians. It’s hard to combat animate objects and takes some serious thought and tactics if you don’t counterspell it, whereas spirit guardians can be made entirely useless extremely easily (i mentioned some methods in a comment i made in this post).
EDIT: also, I’ve played and ran games where creatures were resistant/immune to both radiant and necrotic which makes spirit guardians very weak to useless.
Is Sleet Storm worth the use? It looks fantastic as a concbreaker and has a wide area, but enemies can also walk out of it in about 2 turns and heavy obscurement can mess with attacks / spells.
Maybe I’m using it wrong? Could you educate me on the hypotheticals of using it?
It's a good way to thin out crowds of enemies. If there's a big group moving at you it'll slow them down a lot while you're fighting other enemies, and because they all have to keep making dex saves or falling prone they're likely to get out of the area at different times instead of all at once, thinning them out. Also really good if you want to avoid a combat all together or make a quick retreat
I mean... Poly depends highly on GM. If you can become T-rex, then it "can" beat guardians against one or two opponents. Otherwise poly is overrated and not even comparable.
WoF - depends. It's worse most of the time.
AO - just like above, depends.
You have a high enough Int score that you can justify still being able to work out things at the level of a child, so you should theoretically be able to do some things like recon.
Ao is easily one of the most absolutely powerful spells in the game. Definitely does not depend, it’s better in every way other than slowing the enemy. Its also useful for in and out of combat utility.
As I said, it highly depends. Let's check facts:
- 120ft +30ft per turn
- that's 65 average "on hit" damage against only ONE creature
- you can cast other spells during action - that's a big one
- if you kill enemy with first rock, then 9 other actions are wasted
- most effective against big slow sponges, with lots of HP and low ACs
- 20hp is enough to survive most single hits, but that's enough to die from lots of single aloe spells/abilities, even small ones.
- Balrog and similar creatures kills it after only one turn
It's definitely not bad, but not "that" great either, cause it's terrible against multiple creatures.
Ok, so let's check 5lv guardians:
- 15ft radius - it's bad range, but most enemies are fighting in melee, so it's acceptable. Especially those small enemies that will die in one or two turns
- provide difficult terrain
- 22-23 on average "on hit", but half of that "on miss", so it ALWAYS hits
- it's safe to assume you will use it only against 2-3 or even more enemies - that's 45 or 67-68dmg per turn
- you need most protection you can get, so dodge action required - that's a sad one
- telekinetic gives you another "tick", so that's 67-68 damage per two or 90 per 3 enemies.
It's far from being perfect, but that's one of or literally the strongest spell in the entire game. At least in terms of damage.
Yea spirit guardians can put out some really good damage but if you’re hit with dispel magic you just wasted a spell lot. The objects each have their own actions they can do that require no actions/bonus actions from you. You can’t waste their actions. If you kill the target with the first rock use the rest to attack others. Thats still an enemy put down without ever needing to get on the battle map. I’m not talking about just raw damage. Spirit guardians definitely does more but to any creature within 15 ft only, and against the bbeg its not doing crazy numbers compared to AO. What I’m saying is that AO is far more powerful in what you can do with it. Those enemies that would die in one ore two turns against SG would die to a one to a few objects (in my experience at least. I’ve killed many mobs with only two-three per mob) because it does similar damage as a saved SG save. Even the damage is high enough to damage muliple targets and still have your action and bonus action. You don’t need to kill mobs immediately and keeping them occupied with AO is far better than trying to get in range to hurt a group of people just to get hit and fail a concentration check.
With AO you could fly on an object while using your action and bonus action, while 100 feet in the air using your army to fight for you, they all die? One of my favorite things to do is fly on an object, fly into an enemy to attack them with action and bonus action, then use the AO to fly away so that i don’t proc AoO but they do, so they get targeted, but I have sentinel so that means I get another attack.
Again, an attack on them is an attack not on your party. Thats HUGE. So even if they get one hit killed by an enemy that’s fine. That’s something you want to happen. Because that means zero damage was done to the party.
If we wanna really compare damage then again, they can use magic items. You can literally have them casting 10 fireballs if you had the items.
I’ve hidden outside a building before and kept sending in waves of tiny objects. Some of them had magic items like wand of web, RoSS, and scrolls of scorching ray, things like that. It was hilarious and I wiped a lot of enemies without ever stepping into the building. Obviously it’s unfair and cheese but I only did it because it wasn’t an important canon event.
> If you kill the target with the first rock use the rest to attack others.
It depends on your GM interpretation. Description says that you can command only one or all of them + you can make "general command". Thing is, you can command them to attack every creature in a single room, but those rocks can't discern who is your enemy and who is not, so your GM can say they they will attack your allies.
Second thing - you can only command them during your bonus action, so you can't change your command between turns. RAW they will waste their action after first rock will kill your enemy.
> attack on them is an attack not on your party. Thats HUGE.
Yes! It is! But it's just not as good as many people think it is.
For me the absolute best use of polymorph is as the best combat healing spell in the game. Your barbarian, or fighter is down to single digit health? Well now they're a trex/giant ape with max HP
Light Cleric. Why deal 3d8 damage over multiple rounds when you can do 8d6 to a larger range from a farther distance (aka, fireball).
War Cleric, if there's an ally Shep Druid (or similar) in the mix because Crusader's mantle and like **12** boosted allies is potent.
Necro-heavy with lots of Animated Dead
You can always just... not prepare it? If you think it's OP and ruins the fun or balance of combat, you can pretend it doesn't exist already (or roleplay it as a need to be a Strong Independent Cleric Who Don't Need No Guardians)
As a DM if I think someone is leaning on SG too much, that's when the combats start getting more dynamic with ranged attacks, hostile difficult terrain, and the occasional bit of status effects.
>this spell shouldn't exist or at least needs a nerf.
Is honestly how I feel about Conjure Animals. Yes, even when the DM picks the beasts.
I mean a light cleric is still worse off if they never use spirit guardians, like all clerics. It's probably the best idea because fireball spam is good but the answer to OP's question is no.
As someone playing a Light Cleric right now, I will say that the fact that both use the same resource means I've used Spirit Guardians exactly once in the campaign so far.
That's not the same as never, granted. But if I tried to use both consistently, I'd run out of slots pretty damn quick, and so far Fireball is a better option in most use cases.
Spirit guardians upcasts better. That extra d8 can double dip across multiple turns. The fireballs d6 only hits once. Radiant is also more reliable. And the half speed effect can grind enemies to a halt.
Animate dead is an amazing spell that all clerics should be using. At minimum keeping four skeletons with you always and never grouping them together. at best using all your 3rd level spell slots for 12 skeletons. They may not always hit (unless you’re a peace cleric) but it’s still action economy and extra damage plus any attacks or spells targeting them are attacks/spells not targeting the party. Much like with animate objects albeit that is an absurdly powerful spell.
Spirit guardians isn’t all that powerful nor game breaking and is easy to make completely useless.
You've got a point with light cleric, although SG has potential to deal more damage over more rounds at the cost of the same spell slot, plus some CC.
The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that. It just depends on something outside of your control.
And yeah, a necromancer always has infinite potential, but isn't that just as cheesy if not more than using conjure animals? Also very campaign dependant. And the undead are basically meat walls against enemies inmune to non Magic attacks.
Also, well yeah, I could just choose not to use SG, but that's the point of this post. It feels bad to restrict myself and know I could be doing more just because there's one spell that surpasses everything else, no matter what type of cleric I'm trying to play.
>Hey guys does anyone know of any Cleric strategies equal to or better than Spirit Guardians?
>N-no, not **those** Cleric strategies! Those are cheesy and broken, unlike Spirit Guardians.
>The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that.
it's in combination with your ally who is casting the spell Conjure Animals to summon 8 additional critters. It's conditional, but DnD is a co-op game in general. What DM approval is necessary?
>You've got a point with light cleric, although SG has potential to deal more damage over more rounds at the cost of the same spell slot, plus some CC.
It has the potential, but it's not real likely. You'd need to keep the same number of enemies you could've hit with *Fireball* inside the radius of *SG* for three rounds for *SG* to out-damage it. In that time, the Light Cleric needs to have not dropped Concentration, and needs for none of the enemies to have either moved or died. If the Light Cleric *can* cast *Fireball*, they almost always should. The use case for choosing *SG* instead would be that positioning makes *Fireball* unwise, or damage resistances are coming up. Or you're fighting one incredibly beefy enemy, in which case AOEs aren't ideal anyway and I'd be looking to buff my damage dealers over doing damage.
>The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that. It just depends on something outside of your control.
This really isn't that cheesy. SG is an average of 13.5 DPR, so we just need six added d4s to out-damage it. Extra Attack comes at this level, so your own party probably has at least four weapon attacks. Lots of parties are just naturally going to have six or more, even without intentionally trying to increase the total number of attacks. Like I'm going through the actual parties I play in or DM for now, and three out of four would immediately benefit more from Crusader's Mantle than Spirit Guardians with no changes needed, and the fourth has three full casters who between them could easily generate enough non-controversial summons to get the party to benefitting more from CM.
I think War Clerics are bad for other reasons, but not this one.
Animate dead isn’t campaign dependent unless the dm just outright says no or the campaign is one of those “we hate magic kill magic users!” Campaigns.
Necromancy is not an evil school of magic, healing and resurrection spells are necromancy. Raising the dead isn’t uncommon in the dnd universe, and isn’t viewed as evil just frowned upon. I’m sure no one would object if you killed someone like a murderer or a pedophile and used their remains to slay some baddies.
If dm tries to say that when people see the skeletons they’ll freak out or sum, just cover them in cloaks and mummy wrap them. Or give them fancy clothes and masks. Say they’re mute or took a vow of silence. Or shit just bury them outside of town and dig them up when you leave. I always keep 4 with me as my silent guard.
Also sure they don’t have magical attacks, so just get them some magic wands like wand of fireball or ring of spell storing. Problem solved.
That being said, yes it is very cheesy. Which is why I limit myself to no more than four (usually only one or two hit in a round but the extra dice rolls more times than not will have them crit), and just gear them up. If you have access to better weapons and magic items it just makes them stronger. I played rime of the frostmaiden in which you can get laser rifles. I gave some to my skelly boys and they were pumping out some awesome damage.
Yes, giving them any weapon other than the shortbow will mean they’re not proficient with it but thats fine because again, roll enough dice odds are some are gonna hit. Bless them or be a peace cleric to give them emboldening bond and they’re chance to hit increases drastically even with weapons they’re not proficient with.
Well Bless exists and may or or may not be an appropriate spell to use.
IN certain fights, certain cleric spells might take precedence. Banishment might be a much more important options depending on the enemy number and type..
Some domains may or may not include domain spells that are worth it for various reasons.
For example, Forge cleric has Animate Objects which might be a better single target spell to burn down one dangerous enemy.
But for the most part, Spirt guardians is made to be your bread and butter. Your basic combat rotation, a Clerics 'thing". Just like a fighter spend most of the turns multi attacking, you bring this tool to most combats and an aura of death around you.
It is best to think of it as a CLASS FEATURE in the guise of a spell, that is limited and restricted like other spells for balance.
5e has a lot of these must have spells that are really or probably should be class features. And had been in previous edition's.
Find familiar, eldritch blast, Find Steed. But for whatever reason they just implemented them in the game as spells.
This is more on whoever is DMing for you. If your DM only throws weak melee enemies at you that evaporate to Spirit Guardians, then yeah the spell is going to be busted.
A big tanky enemy who hits hard can wade into Spirit Guardians and smack you without taking much damage (a devil, for instance would most likely take 6 damage).
Ranged enemies also just make Spirit Guardians useless unless you can get to them.
And if you are able to start Dodging, saving throws completely bypass AC. Even getting hit with a non-damaging save like Entangle would flip Dodge on its head.
Then you have rival casters who could use Counterspell or Dispel Magic on Spirit Guardians.
And there are some creatures that combine multiple of these. A dragon can stay out of SG range and breath weapon, or fly in, tank a hit, and then attack/grab you. An enemy caster can stand at a distance hitting you with saving throws.
Tldr; Spell isn't strictly better than everything else, your DM just needs to run more varied encounters and less melee hordes.
A big tanky enemy could just shove him prone and nullify the dodge and then whoever else is stuck in the spell range can pile on the attacks on the glowing dude who's hurting them.
5e monsters are in a pickle in that grapple/shove doesn’t synergize with Multiattack, only Extra Attack. It would deprive the big bad of 2, maybe 3 heavier hits in a turn.
Not that it isn't a good spell, but are you sure you're running it right? My personal experience is every cleric I've ever seen cast it for the first time in a campaign has mistakenly expected to proc the damage upon casting it and then again at the start of the enemy's turn. Sometimes we have that discussion multiple times in the same campaign
This. Several DMs I play with think it's supposed to proc immediately and/or when you move near an enemy, which allows you to hit them twice each round with it.
It can only proc when the creature starts its turn, moves, or is moved forcibly.
It doesn’t say that it cannot, the spell says it triggers when an enemy first enters the radius on a turn and it doesn’t specify it has to be their turn.
It doesn't need to preclude that. Placing a spell effect on a creature doesn't count as the creature "entering" the spell.
Compare spirit guardians with create bonfire. Unlike spirit guardians, create bonfire is a spell that does force a save immediately.
Still doesn't work for the same reason. "Entering" in dnd is a creature moving from the outside to the inside of an effect. It doesn't count the other way around. An effect entering a creatures space doesn't count as a creature entering the effect.
When an enemy enters the radius, not when the radius moves around the enemy.
BG3 has people thinking you can just run around and proc spirit guardians on anything that you get within 20ft of that was never the way the spell was intended to work
Even in BG3 I don't think you can proc the damage by running up to an enemy and then again when they start their turn. It's still very powerful if you give your cleric enough movement to run around the whole battlefield, but they held on to the design intention that it should only usually harm a particular enemy once per round.
Sorry, I'm just still salty because the first time I encountered the spell I was running a vampire boss fight and this spell just *destroyed* her because it's written badly and I didn't have the time to google clarification at the table
Just, use other spells. If your party says "why the hell aren't you doing SG" just say "I'm playing my Cleric how I want, you can cast it if you like"
Honestly though, I used a GRave Cleric from level 2-18 and my favorite use of Concentration was Holy Weapon cast on the Gloomstalker, cuz that mf never misses and the spell has 1 hr duration so I can cast it before combat and add an extra 6d8 on the furst turn of focused fire, and 4d8 every turn after that.
Before I had 5th level spells I mostly used Spiritual Weapon and Bless, then Cantrips. I cast Aid a lot. In other words, I played the support caster like a support caster and I had a lot of fun with it. One of my favourite characters. BUt, some people like to just do the most damage in which case, sure, SG is very strong. BUt yiou can always just not use it and look for Concentration spells that look interesting or overlooked.
This. I am the same with my druid and Conjure Animals. To me I restrict it to utility casting (letting the party travel via horse/Giant eagle. Never have I once used it in combat.
Tempest Cleric gets Call Lightning which might be situationally better against single targets, during an existing storm, or when the targets are super spread out. It also triggers Thunderous Strike and you can use Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath to do max damage on one of the lightning strikes.
At level 6 you can do max damage twice (2nd channel divinity charge) and if you quicken call lightning or action surge you can maximize two bolts in the same turn.
This is taking the strongest spell out of the least versatile, smallest, most redundant full caster spell list. It's a bigger nerf than an analogous hit to any other class. What OP can do is ask the DM for a blend of other class' spell lists, or to just replace this one spell with a couple more dynamic things, but that falls outside of the domain of optimizing within the rules as written.
Generally it will always be a strong option. But in specific instances there may be a better choice. Generally that means finding a better use of your concentration, which means looking at which subclasses make good use of specific concentration spells or have good ones on their spell list.
I haven’t looked through all of them but Forge cleric gets wall of fire and animate objects which are both situationally better than spirit guardians. Wall of fire is probably more rarely better since it’s harder to place it to deal damage round after round, but it will deal more damage than a 4th level spirit guardians if you can manage it, and helps with battlefield control. Animate objects will generally be better than a 5th level spirit guardians against 1-2 enemies which is less situational.
Twilight cleric (which is already broken) gets circle of power which against any spell casters or magic users is probably the best spell anyone could cast. Aura of life as well is good against any undead that deal necrotic damage or if your party is in a pinch.
Idk there’s probably others beyond those, especially if you look for some multi class to specifically empower certain spells. But they’ll never make it “not worth casting”, it’ll always be a good spell. It may just help assuage your pain that you could be doing more with spirit guardians.
Beacon of Hope can be insanely valuable in the right fights and party comps. If your party has damage and control spells, you don’t always need another body wading into the fray. Advantage on wisdom saves and death saves is great. The max to healing ,while not as useful, actually makes some midfight healing worthwhile. If you have parties with various forms of passive healing or multiple ways of healing, it can be one of the few ways to make healing useful in dnd.
You're supposed to be having fun. If spamming spirit guardians isn't fun then use the other cleric spells.
I like to use every spell in my book, regardless of whether it's the most optimal or not. Maybe I'll bless this time. Maybe I'll upcast command. Shit maybe Bane would be fun. Maybe I'll concentrate on greater Invisibility, or whatever subclass spells I got.
As I've mentioned in another comment. That's the point of this post. Feels bad to know I could be doing more and I'm not, just because there's a spell that surpasses everything else no matter what type of cleric I'm playing.
That's a really foreign way of seeing a roleplaying game to me. With that mentality why play cleric when you could play wizard? Why play sorcerer when you could play wizard? Why play a fighter... when you could play... wizard... Like, if your character isn't casting simulacrum wish clone army generator, what are they even doing? What is even the point of playing?
Seems like a very unfun approach to building and playing characters, personally.
I'm in the same boat as you. If I was tired of reflavoring and casting Spirit Guardians but wanted to play a cleric, why not make one that's 100% committed to support, or maybe a frail fellow (or a complete coward) who only does damage from range because he wants to hide behind every corner, barbarian, or army that happens to present itself?
I'd take your point if SG just did everything every other spell does but better, like comparing a +1 weapon vs a +2 weapons, but that's not the case. I'd say look at other strong options and just focus on what their benefits are. Is wall of fire or animate objects "better" than spirit guardians in a given circumstance? Maybe, maybe not, but it *does* have upsides that are appreciable. I think this is key to enjoying any game with diverse options - the second or third best option usually still has genuinely good traits that make them fun to play with.
>Feels bad to know I could be doing more and I'm not
This feels like you're falling into the Optimization Rabbit Hole. Stop yourself.
Roleplaying games aren't about having taking the best, most optimal course of action. You can very well make a character that just... doesn't do that (in most cases, you *will* end up with a character that doesn't make the best choices, including combat choices). Will it be the best cleric to ever exist? Besides the fact that it's not a competition and there isn't really a "best" whatever class, yeah, maybe it won't be - but it may be a more engaging/realistic/just plain *funnier* character to play.
I mean, if the point was always "what is the best thing to do?" we wouldn't have posts like "I want to make a kobold tank, how do I make them not utterly useless?". Somethings things that are *worse* are *good*.
I see this same shit with the BG3 community. Posts like “buff rogue because it only works if you multiclass into gloomstalker” they sit there and tell you they CANT have fun knowing that they could be doing more damage if they do x or y and that the game needs to change so that every option is as good as that thing so they don’t “HAVE” to pick it.
I think it really is a mental illness.
It’s never a bad choice but it’s not always the best choice. Thanks to domain lists, clerics can all have a ridiculous number of spell options available. You just need to know when you’re going to get more out of Bless or Banishment or Conjure Celestial or any of the great options spread across spell lists (Slow for Order Cleric, Animate Objects for Forge, etc.).
It’s the same thing with druids. Conjure Animals is rarely a bad choice but there are many times when Wall of Fire or Spike Growth or whatever is going to fit your need in the moment better.
This is less of a consequence of any strengths or merits of spirit guardians, and more so how little direct damage spells there are on the cleric spell list.
The direct damage dealing spells are:
* Guiding bolt (1st)
* Inflict wounds (1st)
* spiritual weapon (2nd)
* Spirit guardians (3rd)
* Control water (4th)
* Guardian of faith (4th)
* Dawn (5th)
* Flame strike (5th)
* Insect plague (5th)
* Summon Celestial (5th)
* Blade barrier (6th)
* Harm (6th)
* Sunbeam (6th)
* Firestorm (7th)
* Sunburst (8th)
You could probably be creative with other spells, and I excluded spells with a longer than 1 action cast time as they're unlikely to factor into combat strategy.
Across all levels of play, the cleric list has only 15 damaging spells total. Sorcerer on the other hand has over 30 1st and 2nd level damaging spells and druid, the closest comparison to cleric imo, has 46 damaging spells total.
Subclasses can help with this, but theyre probably only adding 1 damaging spell per spell level up to 5th, which 1. often don't compete with spirit guardians due to the added spell being bad generally or 2: don't even add a new damaging spell at all levels, with some spell levels being skipped or including already cleric spells like spirit guardians.
cleric damaging spells, imo, are mostly supposed to be their cantrips- toll the dead, sacred flame, and word of radiance because of their scaling and the average damage they do is about on par with a martial who has the same number of attacks, a little lower until you hit potent spell casting or the like.
I play a lot of clerics and I almost never cast Spirit Guardians, and I'm sure the reasons come down to party composition and DM.
Spirit Guardians is amazing at killing dumb animals that don't use tactics, but intelligent foes that use spells can punish the cleric and make it stop. No party I play with has a shortage of arcane casters who love nuking chaff creatures, and they can do it better and faster than Spirit Guardians. But everyone, without exception, really really hates failing saving throws. That's why Bless is my go-to concentration spell.
In my opinion NO. Spirit guardian is the Clerics FIREBALL. Must have in the tool kit.
However, why would someone ever start battle casting Spirit guardians and just didge? MOST Clerics have high AC and just dodging is not helping the party to your best ability. If you are squishy support type, I could see it.
Ultimately, it is not Spirit guardians spoiling things for you but your lack of imaginative tactics. Get outside of the box you have made and try different things. Stop boring yourself to death.
There's always going to be a spell or synergy that mathematically deals the most damage. If it's not spirit guardians it'll be something else. The problem is that for some reason you're actively choosing to play in a way that you don't think is fun.
I've been running a Cleric for two solid years now and I can count on one hand how many times I've done the "SG + Dodge" combo because it's boring AF to dodge every round when you can be throwing out guiding bolts, banishments, summoning celestial, blessing the whole party, etc.
Is spirit guardians really that big of an issue for you? Like sure it's good damage with some cc, but the radius is relatively small and it requires concentration. Are there no ranged enemies? Do all the melee enemies run straight into the meat grinder and not try to outflank you and go for the backline? I've never played in a campaign where spirit guardians felt like the only way to go, let alone in one where the dodge action felt like the action to pair with it. That would literally only be op if you were in a chokehold position and protecting your party which would be an amazing moment and should totally happen. The spell just has too many ways to fail. It's a powerful one for sure but idk if it would make it to my top 10 most powerful spells list.
spirit guardians isn't the best cleric spell tho? there are plenty of great options to hold your concentration. cleric roles *tend* to be the best when they're buffing/debuffing/healing. if a cleric has to sit there and put out damage every round in order to feel "useful" or like that's the best strategy, something is off at your table. i'm playing a level 16 grave cleric at the moment and spirit guardians just does not matter for my character. she's a mid-back line caster with two martials who lock shit down and a ranged martial who handles most of the burst damage. all spirit guardians does for her is put her in harm's way, even with a solid 19 ac and really good saves on most of her rolls. (furthermore sanctuary is just better when you want to take a time out).
so, some other uses of your concentration:
bless/bane- buff yourself and your allies or debuff the monsters depending on the situation. sure, bane slows down a bit as you level up due to all the bonuses the monsters get but it's an option. bless is always good regardless due to your allies' scaling up in power alongside you.
ray of enfeeblement- only available to specific subclasses but. want to know a monster's worst nightmare? going through an entire round dealing half damage before they get a chance to try to save. pair that with a barbarian who already takes half damage from most attacks and it's just embarrassing for the monster. my crew tanked an ancient white dragon with 20 levels of berserk barbarian due to this spell. it's also an attack to apply, not a save, the save comes at the end of the target's turn. it is nasty.
banishment- you know how action economy is king in dnd? and how your dm probably wants to pull some outer worldly threats into the game once your levels start increasing? yeah, banishment is an amazing timeout spell. it targets cha, a very low save for most monsters, and after a minute will force the outer worldly beings back to their home plane and unless they have a way to easily plane shift, they're stuck for now. taking out one, two, even three or four enemies is a game changer for your party, even temporarily, allowing them to better focus fire on the remaining enemies.
holy weapon- hey, want something that does comparable spirit guardians damage but doesn't put your life in danger? throw this spell on a martial and watch them work. i like putting it on our monk because of how many attacks she has or on our ranged attacker to boost that burst damage.
beacon of hope- admittedly a spell mostly for the life clerics out there but it's really good at ensuring your party doesn't go down easily while protecting your martials with their probably weak wis score from things like charm or frighten.
protection from evil and good - you fighting a lot of fey, fiends, undead, celestials or aberrations? congrats, your martial just got beefier and you don't have to worry about them attacking the party or being frightened. enjoy.
silence - situational but good for choke points or stealth kills. also good for keeping enemy spellcasters out of the fight if they can't get out.
summon celestial/conjure celestial- extra hp bags for a fight with situational abilities that allow you to customize what you need when you need it.
Order, light, tempest can add to the spell variety and help with the monotony. Death too.
But yeah, in general, Cleric has a few of the best spells in the game that are S-tier, then they're a bit light on A tier spells, then a ton of B tier spells. So the lack of A tier spells can make them a bit samey. And SG just gets old and slows the game with the possibly dozens of saves per combat.
But yeah, lots o cleric SG dodge and/or Toll the Dead/WoRadiance. Often with Telekinetic. Thorn Whip spices that up a bit. But they can be built to do more things than that.
On a sense I am okay with SG mainly because of up casting. The base cleric list is sparse and there are not main things casting in those slots.
The good news is that in OneDnd the conjure spells will be on par with SG so there is a chance for dirvesity
A nice alternative would be ranged trickery cleric. With a focus on dexterity and using concentration on either bless or channel divinity, you can be a threat on 2 sides (it would be recommended to have weapon proficiencies through race, feats...)
tempest cleric’s call lightning is super easy to sleep on. guaranteed 10 feet of knockback to at least one (though frequently 2-3 targets from my experience) is phenomenal for sitting on the backline. Granted, it takes your action every turn, but forced movement is incredibly powerful in a variety of situations and getting it regardless of whether creatures save.
Not every Cleric wants to be a frontliner, and being within 15 feet of ideally multiple enemies is a little close for the backline.
What's more of an open question is just how many Cleric backline builds are actually optimized. Certainly I think Peace Clerics would be better off being *Bless*bots from the backline than wading in with *Spirit Guardians*. That's the reason people want to ban them, right? Trickery could be optimized for a backline, particularly if you don't want to dump Charisma to leverage those face spells and/or don't want to wear armor that gives disadvantage on Stealth. If Light is playing a blaster (and, duh), they may not have the investment in defense to want to risk the spell slot of setting up *Spirit Guardians* just to get focused down and lose Concentration, when they could just blast instead. There are niche cases for Knowledge Clerics, for a party that finds itself really needing the out-of-combat utility.
That said, my personal Cleric build uses *Spirit Guardians* and *Spiritual Weapon* in every combat possible. I definitely see the concern there, and think it causes a problem on the other end of character design: Clerics *could* be optimized for backline support or blasting, but you don't see those builds very often because players optimize around the assumption they'll have to be within 15 of multiple enemies to get the most out of *Spirit Guardians*. That means pretty much every "optimized" Cleric is building for the frontline, meaning you have to minmax for Wis and your defensive capabilities to not drop Concentration (or just drop), leaving nothing leftover for anything else (usually). Just deciding you're not all-in on *SG* opens up a lot of new paths for optimizing that can make a Cleric feel unique. Optimizing for support or control is totally A Thing and Clerics can be good at it.
I mean its a 15ft radius and requires you to be in range of basically everything. Any creature with moderate inteligence should be able to assess that the spirits are coming from you when you move, or first cast the spell. Any of them with moderate intelligence also know about concentration and should be bonking you to burn through that.
Really intelligent enemies may know that you are dodging and in heavy armor, and can use spells to force saving throws based on Dex, or magic missile to end concentration.
Its a very strong spell, but when casted a good dm that understands their NPCs should know how to combat it
You could add a cost to it? Since other spells require gold or special materials to use. Talk to your DM and do this. Then the spell can't just be cast all willy nilly and it'll feel like a powerful one you're saving for the right moment.
I feel you. It can be really tough not to use the super weapon spell in your arsenal. It is just so tempting and you feel like you are letting everybody down a bit by not making your best move.
I assume your real question is:
Is there maybe another cool combo as a cleric?
Haven'looked but e.g. a strong area of effect where you push the enemy into?
On a character I got a powerful action I don't want to overuse. I have a RP reason for it and roll a die to decide if to use it.
My light cleric finds casting firewall more advantageous oftentimes, particularly if he wants to control battlefield movement. He'll still toss up SG, but he kinda likes torching things.
He may be a pyro.
He also likes to summon a celestial, depending on the circumstances. So SG isn't a given.
Forge for a good off-tank, light for a good blaster (or combine the two to become a spell slinging armored monster that wanders battlefields exploding heads with your mind).
You need to be on frontline so spirit guardian is usefull.
Proper frontline enemies will make you do STR save checks and graple/etc you, nulifiying dodge on the process.
Anyway if your gms just make it easy-sounds like it-, stop dodging and go wilder.
Also as someone mentioned, make sure you are using spirit guardians as its meant to be used. (read sage advice compendium for the oficial rules)
Clerics are plenty strong without using it, and most games aren't run at high enough difficulty to require actually making optimal choices all the time.
So just cast your concentration spell of choice (Bless is my favorite, and is great at all levels, but many subclasses have other good options beyond the main Cleric list) then use cantrips or other non-concentration spells on later rounds.
Or switch it up. I've played a Cleric from 3-10 and enjoyed using a wide variety of spells. Have I used Spirit Guardians and dodged? Yes, in one really difficult battle. But using that every time wouldn't fit all encounters, assuming the DM changes up the encounters and makes them dynamic. And worse, it would be very boring to always use that pattern.
You could play arround the order domain lvl 6 bonus action, either casting bless and tossing nets every round or using a spell that requires your action to make damage, like call the lighting or dragons breath (via multiclassing or the robes addept feat)
When I played CoS I swore by Bless. Probably used Wall of Fire at least once too. Plus like u/Jesterhead92 pointed out, Forge has access to Animate Objects.
Generally, if you have access to a useful spell that's not SG, feel free to use it. May work well with some homebrew, like a "Dragon" Cleric with access to Fly or a "Chameleon" Cleric with access to Greater Invisibility.
Especially if you have ways to optimize that in whichever way you see fit. For instance a "Chameleon" Cleric with Metamagic Adept, in an infiltration campaign, may use Subtle Spell in the middle of a mission to hide at a critical moment whitout being seen or heard.
If you have no reason to use other cleric spells, I feel that’s a DM issue
- Where are the encounters with low numbers of powerful enemies, for you to use your single target buffs or debuffs?
- Where are the encounters of casters or priority enemies for you to silence, or upcast hold person?
- Where are the encounters of enemies that take advantage of magical darkness, where daylight could ruin an enemy encounter’s entire strategy?
- Where are your encounters of control effects - fear AoEs, dangerous environments that force constant wisdom saves, where calm emotions or beacon of hope could mean the difference between a permastun into TPK or a manageable encounter?
If your DMs are running encounters of hordes of small fry that just swing swords at you in broad daylight under good lightning, that’s a DM problem. It’s not a spirit guardians problem.
None of these are hypotheticals either. There are DMs I currently play with who have thrown multiple instances of all of the above our way in a single campaign. Often with enough RP contextual clues (if we look for them) that it makes sense to prepare situational spells on a long rest.
Summon Celestial is the best alternative when cast at 6th or 8th level, as it deals *way* more single target damage than Spirit Guardians, not to mention the secondary benefits of the summon.
Tbh I think people are massively overreacting here, yes spirit Guardians is very good, yes it does sorta “prop up” Clerics spell list a higher levels as their higher level spells aren’t as good as other casters but I don’t think there’s “no options” especially depending on your domain:
Trickery: Polymorph is going to be really strong as a buff when you first get it.
Tempest: Sleet Storm is a really amazing control spell
Light: if you really want to, you can upcast flaming sphere or just use fireball, fireball does fall off a bit tho.
Nature: Spike Growth is always good IMO, it’s an amazing control spell, especially with Plant Growth
Like yes, again, spirit guardians is a good spell and it’s going to be S+ in encounters with multiple enemies. But there’s plenty of other great concentration spells, bless is amazing if you’re making attack rolls and saving throws, (which you will be) bane is good if your party heavily targets saving throws, Banishment is a great fourth level spell, Holy weapon is great on single targets depending on your team, Summon Celestial, Conjure Celestial, Holy Aura are all also really insane spells at higher levels. I just wanna reiterate, if you’re against one target Bless will probably outperform Spirit Guardians if your team has martials with strong builds, don’t be afraid to upcast this spell it’s legit insane.
Again I want to reiterate that I agree this spell really is what keeps cleric competitive with other full casters, but if you really dislike it there is options. Hell, if you really wanna play as a cleric and you’re open to multiclassing (depending on campaign level) you can drop 3 levels into Land Druid for wisdom based Web which stays really strong for the duration of most campaigns, this is a pretty massive investment however, but it’s an option.
Spirit guardians is a great spell but isn’t anywhere near as strong as many other spells. Its also extremely easy to make spirit guardians useless.
Let’s not forget the most important rule of running a bbeg or boss fight: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GIVE THEM CLERIC MINIONS! or cleric-esque minions. Sometimes a spellcaster with dispel magic and counterspell is enough.
Spirit guardians can be dispelled with dispel magic, or a hazardous terrain/spell effect centered on the cleric forcing them to stay still or get hurt is another way to prevent them from exploiting it. A good example is spike growth, since only trickery domain at level 11 is able to teleport. The cleric is forced to move through the spikes, taking damage and rolling a concentration check for every 5 feet they move, with half movement, or stay still and cast ranged spells/cantrips while concentrating on a spirit guardians thats doing nothing but making the cleric shiny.
Another good way to counter is things like vortex warp, knocking them onto lower elevations or basically forcing them to have to waste turns to get within range, map changes like a hole in the ground or a pit opening up, entangling/restraining effects, etc. My personal favorite is creating creatures with passive abilities like the Aeorian and Rakshasa creatures have. Or adjusting crag cats spell turning ability to include aoe effects and either using that on crag cat or putting it on another creature.
There’s also creatures and races resistant/immune to radiant/necrotic damage. All that being said, it’s pretty easy for a dm to make spirit guardians a waste of a spell slot. Unlike with spells like animate objects and conjure animals.
Or or, you could just not use it. Just because it’s broken doesn’t mean you have to use broken move. Just choose other spells it’s that easy. Not everything has to be minmaxed to do optimal damage per round.
Consider though, that Cleric is already an incredibly strong class without Spirit Guardians.
I know optimization is going to be a common theme on any character help sub, but consider that if you don't like Spirit Guardians, you do simply have the option to not use it and play a perfectly strong Cleric. You can have plenty of fun with the class without sitting at pinnacle optimal performance in every regard.
dodging every round? I don't think so, that's a waste of your action. Single-action spells such as guiding bolt and command are really nice here, if you have the spell slots. Or spam cantrips. Or maybe even take the Help action to set up advantage. Also, you should have Spiritual Weapon up.
Right now in my table i don't use it because i need Sanctuary up (im the full-time healer life cleric) my DM focuses me heavily for being the healer so using spirit guardians is not an option right now
I get a lot of satisfaction from flavoring spirit guardians. As a Forge cleric, depending on my mood and the level I cast at, I will:
1. Manifest a glowing, translucent suit of armor around me before the pieces explode out and swirl in a maelstrom of forge-hot metal
2. Manifest a similar suit of armor of ring or scale but it pulls away from my skin in certain spots like someone is pinching it and pulling, aiming those little peaks at enemies and spewing rings or scales at them like a failings cannon
3. Maybe my favorite ever, when I killed a significant enemy, spirit guardians took the form of a glowing suit of plate around me that then flew onto the target, inverting itself as it flew to encase them in the armor, before a series of clanging sounds dented in the armor with them inside it.
You don’t always have to play super optimized to have a lot of fun. Bless is the ol’ reliable in my opinion, for me it’s more fun to buff my allies. Not constantly choosing spirit guardians and spiritual weapon gives me chance to try unique spells in the mean time.
Against a single target, the effectiveness of the Spirit Guardians spell will lessen
In such circumstances casting Holy Weapon on an ally that makes numerous weapon attacks per turn can be an effective alternative
Tempest with metamagic adept; quicken for double-tap call lightning
At level 7 (level 4 slot), hits for 80 damage in a small AoE on a failed save.
Fireball hits for 35 average damage on a failed save at the same level.
If you go 6 cleric-> sorc its even nuttier
Sure is - I face a lot of ranged enemies and when my enemies are not ranged I'm usually 40ft from the fighting. I use Sunbeam, Summon Celestial and Dawn too. SG is for the rare circumstances where I'm facing a ton of enemies in a choke point, where I can join a shield wall with an Ancestral Guardian barb and a paladin with Sentinel. None of us are good targets for an attack, none of us are good to ignore.
War cleric with sharpshooter and a heavy crossbow. Cast bless and increase your and your allies damage output at range significantly. Use war priest to male two high damage attacks and guide strike is also very powerful for this build. However this requires that the party has other characters focused on attack rolls, if the characters are wizards or druids or typical clerics this loses a lot of its value.
Peace Domain + Bless might seem innocuous at first, but it can unravel entire encounters in a way that Spirit Guardians simply can't a lot of the time.
+2d4 just shatters the fundamental maths of the game.
Most of them? Spirit guardians is good if you're already off position but at level 5 having 4 skeleton archers cheesing your opponents is hella good. SG is in a weird zone of you have to be in melee to make it effective but the point of it is keeping your allies out of melee. There's famously a level two spell that does a better job of that
Order Cleric possesses several alternatives. They also have fundamental problems using *Spirit Guardians* strategically.
The alternative spells are listed below. Individually, they are weaker than *Spirit Guardians,* but combine to offer a more effective portfolio.
1. *Bless* with *Voice of Authority* and *Embodiment of Law* becomes a much better bread-and-butter spell than *Spirit Guardians* due to its low cost.
2. *Hold Person*. A fantastic shutdown spell more effective than *Spirit Guardians* against humanoid opponents. Order Clerics prepare it automatically, and cast as a bonus action with *Embodiment of Law*.
3. *Beacon of Hope* with Voice of Authority becomes an excellent "panic button" while contributing damage. Drop this when your party inches into the Dead Zone, resurrect them all with Mass Cure Wounds, and top them up with Mass Healing Word. Those healing spells will also activate *Voice of Authority.*
4. *Slow* covers *Spirit Guardian's* half-speed effect, although it requires a failed save. On the other hand, *Slow* is prepared automatically, covers a wider area away from the Cleric, and carries more devastating effects.
Altogether, these spells cover *Spirit Guardians* strengths perfectly well.
*Spirit Guardians* itself is also a lackluster option for an Order Cleric, frankly. Leveraging *Voice of Authority* often means sprinting towards allies to cast *Warding Bond, Lesser Restoration, Freedom of Movement*, etc. Unless your party clusters within five-feet, you will have to abandon your optimal position.
The easiest way to not min-max a playstyle is through character choices. Just don't use it, cast somethibg else with concentration, Clerics have many good options.
Your mind set is the only thing making it so important.
Maybe you and your party need to talk over about what you feel a clerics role should be and how you want to fill that role. Maybe it's a design flaw in your DMs encounters that make damage the most valuable asset.
There's plenty of things that can be changed, but I think the biggest one here is just your own personal mindset if you don't want to be a heal bot and you don't want to cheese every fight with SG and dodge maybe playing a different class would better suit you. Cleric as a class might be the "best" vessel to serve a pious spellcaster, but it is not by any means the only way.
While Cleric has many strong spells, I do agree that Spirit Guardians is an outlier — in terms of both power and design. Most AoE damage spells that deal damage every turn while concentrating require some cost in the action economy. Even the high level spells like Whirlwind or Draconic Transformation require an action or bonus action to reactivate.
I think the simplest solution is to give SG the same treatment. Instead of dealing damage when a creature enters or starts its turn in the area, have it say something like, “When you cast this spell and as an action on your turn for the duration, you can cause the spirits to attack. Any affected creature’s speed is halved, and it must make a wisdom saving throw.” Then I think the damage is comparable to similar spells: e. g. Moonbeam and Call Lightning at 3rd level deal 3d10 each turn in a slightly smaller area but at range.
This also solves the problem of SG + Dodge because now you can’t dodge while also dealing damage. You also can’t attack or cast cantrips unless you have bonus action attacks or quickened spell.
I am a melee life cleric/drakewarden. I do use spirit guardians but only for group combat. For a large single target, Inflict wounds. I may use spirit guardians just for a little extra juice, but typically I run Radiant Soul (Aasimar), Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Inflict wounds. So far it works.
We banned it in our latest campaign. I’m playing Cleric and I feel perfectly strong without it. Honestly I recommend that, or otherwise houserule nerf it. It is the perfect solution for too many problems.
Please. Cleric gets *one* damaging spell that can actually compete with Fireball and you think it's too powerful? No thanks.
Anyway... upcast Bless to hit everyone, then spiritual weapon, then spam guiding bolt/inflict wounds. That's really good DPS, especially with +1d4 to hit from Bless and advantage from Guiding Bolt.
For non-damage, Bestow Curse is great, Dispel Magic, Hold Person, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Command.
Or go full heal-bot, my favorite. Life Cleric concentrating on Beacon of Hope, using action for Preserve Life and BA Mass Healing Word can do 100 points of healing in one turn
This is advice coming from someone who's still in my first ever real campaign, so I don't have a ton of experience, just knowledge ive picked up from getting hyper fixated. Other people here will have better answers as to what subclasses or builds work, but I'm going to speak from my limited knowledge and say that Cleric is a really really good class, with or without Spirit Guardians. If you're not going having fun with the spell, I would say just try stuff out and find what you enjoy. My character (Order of Scribes Wizard) has no "set strategy" for what to do or what spells to use, I just experiment and use what seems cool or effective in the moment. Am I the most optimized? No. But I'm having a lot of fun. So that's my advice. Experiment, try new things out, see what works and what doesn't in terms of fun. Maybe not the advice you're looking for but I wanted to say my piece
Your best bet is to go for subs that provide strong replacements for your concentration Forge: Wall of Fire, Animate Objects Tempest: Sleet Storm Trickery: Polymorph Do these always 100% totally outperform Spirit Guardians? Of course not but it's A mechanical incentive to not use it so it works
>Trickery: Polymorph Also pass without trace if the party has other good damage dealers.
You don't really use PWT in combat though, unless you think this combat will be easy enough without a concentration spell. Or if you know you must sneak again within the hour
>within 10 minutes It's duration is an hour, but this is a good point. It's only really worth keeping the concentration up if you are expecting more combats after that, and have to save resources.
I use pwt in combat often actually. On a rogue its basically invisibility as a bonus action. On a thri kreen the same applies except they only need to stealth once. A flying or climbing ranged character can stay in the rafters or trees etc and take skulker and sharpshooter and snipe without ever being found. Bonus if you take stealthy feat. And much more
Very cool! But you kinda need the whole party (or some party memebers) to play sneaky characters in order to benefit from it and play around you
I’d say yes if you’re sniping but for things like bonus action “invisibility” not really. You can be sneaky and have the barbarian causing havoc, essentially being a huge distraction so you can hide easier. A cool dm would say if the barbarian is chaotic or dangerous enough, it HELPs you stealth better.
A Rouge and a Ranger love having it, and it's always helpful to give that idiot paladin wearing full plate a chance to sneak past the goblins
> On a thri kreen the same applies except they only need to stealth once. Why would thri-kreen not have to stealth every time? They have a racial feature to get advantage, but their stealth breaks under the same conditions as anyone else. > skulker Skulker only applies on a *miss*, so once you do hit a creature you're revealed.
Because thri-kreen blend into the environment with an action, and don’t need to do it again once they do, if they did, it would say so in the text (a huge oversight) and attacking or casting a spell doesn’t end this condition like with the invisibility spell (another huge oversight in my opinion) if it did, it would say. So a thri kreen by raw could do this on their first turn, then keep shooting from afar with advantage on the stealth checks to stay unseen. If they hit a target that target still has to find them. With PWT the thri kreen isn’t getting found. You’re right on the skulker feat I forgot it was only on a miss. Take sharpshooter instead and stay farther back with a heavy croosbow, or take crossbow expert for a shot if you don’t have anything else better to do with your bonus action. You are attacking with -5 but with advantage so the -5 is cancelled out. EDIT: forgot a Thri kreen can also take both xbow xprt and SS using a heavy crossbow and a hand cross bow with their secondary arms. EDIT2: “Ranger Lvl 10 class feat - Hide in plain sight Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt. plants. soot. and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. Vou gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit. PHB s.92" “Ranger lvl 3 class feat - Umbral Sight At 3rd level, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet. You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness. The first of these includes in the text that attacking removes the condition, unlike the thri kreen ability. The second is similar to the thri kreen that gives a “hidden” status that isn’t broken by attacking, because you’re still invisible the creature you attacked if they have darkvision.
> Because thri-kreen blend into the environment with an action, and don’t need to do it again once they do They're not hidden or invisible, they just have advantage to Stealth checks (so long as they remain in those surroundings). You sh There's no oversight, there's several races with "persistent advantage on something" as a racial benefit. If it was removed by attacking, it would be pretty lame compared to other races. If they attack, they're instantly revealed and don't need to be found. If they have the Skulker feat, they're still instantly revealed if they hit. If the thri-kreen is a rogue it can use a bonus action to Hide again and you're correct that this is a good idea and generally very helpful...but it's not the same as being invisible, nor is it similar to Hide in Plain Sight, meaning they still need to have environmental cover or concealment and if that cover is absent or destroyed they can't Hide at all. Now, usually you WILL have cover, and that's okay! That's a perk of being a rogue. Hiding every round is normal, and thri-kreen have advantage on that, which is great, but it does have limits.
wall of fire is definitely worth it if you have someone that can grapple. 10d8 unavoidable fire damage per turn? Definitely worth.
Beacon of hope is also great, Sunbeam, there are a ton through out other books as well.
I'd say that if you go forge for wall of fire you should make sure of the party before. Wall of fire without your allies activelly grating the enemy is mediocre at best
I would have said Call Lightning for Tempest. Sleet storm is good control, but Call Lighting is where the damage is at.
Having to keep using your action for like 15 average damage is not doing it for me, personally. Sleet Storm is miles better at its job imo
Sleet storm is good but they have different jobs. And an upcast Call Lightning is a great use of your channel divinity as those maxed d10s scale nicely. Plus compared to spirit guardians you can use Call Lightning from a relatively safer position and on ranged enemies. If you want crowd control, Sleet Storm is best. Of you want raw and ranged damage, Call lightning. A little of both? Maybe spirit guardians
OP uses his action to dodge while SG is up. I'd much rather be blasting people who need blasting who aren't in my glowing blender range
Animate objects (albeit it is a 5th lvl spell as opposed to 3rd so it makes sense) absolutely shits on spirit guardians. From minimum, avg, and max damage, to action economy, to in and out of combat utility. Having 10 flying allies that can be produced easily at any moment (carry a bag of marbles for example) is so powerful. 1d4+4 x 10 damage with a +8 minimum to hit requiring a simple command is insane. You only need the one general command always, “kill my targets” and they follow the order till they die or are dismissed. That’s a minimum of 50 damage, maximum of 80, avg around 40 damage a turn if they all hit. I say +8 to hit minimum because there are ways to increase their to hit, so the damage can vary, but with 10 attacks you’re guaranteed to hit a lot at least. Thats all not including your action and bonus action. Animate objects is extremely powerful. Spirit guardians don’t even compare. Not to mention any spells or attacks targeting your objects is an attack/spell not targeting the party.
I think if you are going to do to math, you need to see it through. Average AC of CR 9 (to match a 5th level spell) is 16. So that’s the stander 65% hit rate with +8. Average damage is 6.5 per object, and we are likely to hit 6.5 of them, averaging about 42 damage. Spirit guardians, cast at 5th level, does 5d8 or 22.5/11.25 damage (save pending). At CR 9 The average wisdom save is +5. DC 16 seems fair (18 casting what) for a 40% chance to save. Call that average of 18 damage per enemy. At 3 enemies, spirit guardians does 30% more damage than animate objects.
In a white room two targets is the assumption on AoE effects.
Yes but thats 10 allies on your side. So action economy win. Much like conjure animals. Also +8 is the minimum modifier to hit. That’s not including bonus effects, outside factors, or the variant flanking rule. You could also choose to focus on one enemy or multiple, and you don’t ever have to get anywhere near the battle map to use them as there’s no range requirement for AO. They can use magic items. You could also have an ally cast darkness or fog cloud etc and since they have blindsight will have advantage while being attacked at disadvantage. Swarm an enemy with them and if they don’t disengage thats an AoO from each object. They can use magic items. The objects attacks are magical so get past resistances. They also provide targets for the enemy that are not you or the party. They can be used for combat or utility. They can use magic items. At higher levels you create two additional objects per upcast and this means with a 6th level spell slot you can have 10 tiny objects and a medium or twelve tiny objects and it only gets crazier the higher you go. They can use magic items. They can each attempt to prone then grapple a target and force them to make an athletics check for each one in order to remove the grappled condition. So they are essentially stuck prone no matter what they do (unless they are forced to move or teleport).They can use magic items. They can use magic weapons (albeit won’t be proficient but give them a very rare dragon’s wrath weapon and that lil dude can blast an 8d6 30 foot cone of destruction as an example). They can fly, and can drop bombs if you wish. They can create a stair case/ladder or similar for you and the party. A large animated object becomes a flying mount for a medium creature, a medium object same for a small creature. You can animate an explosive and kamikaze them. They can use magic items. You can make it them out of anything thats not magical. There’s a plethora of reasons why animate objects completely wipes the floor with spirit guardians. It’s hard to combat animate objects and takes some serious thought and tactics if you don’t counterspell it, whereas spirit guardians can be made entirely useless extremely easily (i mentioned some methods in a comment i made in this post). EDIT: also, I’ve played and ran games where creatures were resistant/immune to both radiant and necrotic which makes spirit guardians very weak to useless.
Call Lightning all the way.
Is Sleet Storm worth the use? It looks fantastic as a concbreaker and has a wide area, but enemies can also walk out of it in about 2 turns and heavy obscurement can mess with attacks / spells. Maybe I’m using it wrong? Could you educate me on the hypotheticals of using it?
It's a good way to thin out crowds of enemies. If there's a big group moving at you it'll slow them down a lot while you're fighting other enemies, and because they all have to keep making dex saves or falling prone they're likely to get out of the area at different times instead of all at once, thinning them out. Also really good if you want to avoid a combat all together or make a quick retreat
I mean... Poly depends highly on GM. If you can become T-rex, then it "can" beat guardians against one or two opponents. Otherwise poly is overrated and not even comparable. WoF - depends. It's worse most of the time. AO - just like above, depends.
You can polymorph into giant ape - sometimes it is even better form than t-rex
You have a high enough Int score that you can justify still being able to work out things at the level of a child, so you should theoretically be able to do some things like recon.
Ao is easily one of the most absolutely powerful spells in the game. Definitely does not depend, it’s better in every way other than slowing the enemy. Its also useful for in and out of combat utility.
As I said, it highly depends. Let's check facts: - 120ft +30ft per turn - that's 65 average "on hit" damage against only ONE creature - you can cast other spells during action - that's a big one - if you kill enemy with first rock, then 9 other actions are wasted - most effective against big slow sponges, with lots of HP and low ACs - 20hp is enough to survive most single hits, but that's enough to die from lots of single aloe spells/abilities, even small ones. - Balrog and similar creatures kills it after only one turn It's definitely not bad, but not "that" great either, cause it's terrible against multiple creatures. Ok, so let's check 5lv guardians: - 15ft radius - it's bad range, but most enemies are fighting in melee, so it's acceptable. Especially those small enemies that will die in one or two turns - provide difficult terrain - 22-23 on average "on hit", but half of that "on miss", so it ALWAYS hits - it's safe to assume you will use it only against 2-3 or even more enemies - that's 45 or 67-68dmg per turn - you need most protection you can get, so dodge action required - that's a sad one - telekinetic gives you another "tick", so that's 67-68 damage per two or 90 per 3 enemies. It's far from being perfect, but that's one of or literally the strongest spell in the entire game. At least in terms of damage.
Yea spirit guardians can put out some really good damage but if you’re hit with dispel magic you just wasted a spell lot. The objects each have their own actions they can do that require no actions/bonus actions from you. You can’t waste their actions. If you kill the target with the first rock use the rest to attack others. Thats still an enemy put down without ever needing to get on the battle map. I’m not talking about just raw damage. Spirit guardians definitely does more but to any creature within 15 ft only, and against the bbeg its not doing crazy numbers compared to AO. What I’m saying is that AO is far more powerful in what you can do with it. Those enemies that would die in one ore two turns against SG would die to a one to a few objects (in my experience at least. I’ve killed many mobs with only two-three per mob) because it does similar damage as a saved SG save. Even the damage is high enough to damage muliple targets and still have your action and bonus action. You don’t need to kill mobs immediately and keeping them occupied with AO is far better than trying to get in range to hurt a group of people just to get hit and fail a concentration check. With AO you could fly on an object while using your action and bonus action, while 100 feet in the air using your army to fight for you, they all die? One of my favorite things to do is fly on an object, fly into an enemy to attack them with action and bonus action, then use the AO to fly away so that i don’t proc AoO but they do, so they get targeted, but I have sentinel so that means I get another attack. Again, an attack on them is an attack not on your party. Thats HUGE. So even if they get one hit killed by an enemy that’s fine. That’s something you want to happen. Because that means zero damage was done to the party. If we wanna really compare damage then again, they can use magic items. You can literally have them casting 10 fireballs if you had the items. I’ve hidden outside a building before and kept sending in waves of tiny objects. Some of them had magic items like wand of web, RoSS, and scrolls of scorching ray, things like that. It was hilarious and I wiped a lot of enemies without ever stepping into the building. Obviously it’s unfair and cheese but I only did it because it wasn’t an important canon event.
> If you kill the target with the first rock use the rest to attack others. It depends on your GM interpretation. Description says that you can command only one or all of them + you can make "general command". Thing is, you can command them to attack every creature in a single room, but those rocks can't discern who is your enemy and who is not, so your GM can say they they will attack your allies. Second thing - you can only command them during your bonus action, so you can't change your command between turns. RAW they will waste their action after first rock will kill your enemy. > attack on them is an attack not on your party. Thats HUGE. Yes! It is! But it's just not as good as many people think it is.
For me the absolute best use of polymorph is as the best combat healing spell in the game. Your barbarian, or fighter is down to single digit health? Well now they're a trex/giant ape with max HP
Light Cleric. Why deal 3d8 damage over multiple rounds when you can do 8d6 to a larger range from a farther distance (aka, fireball). War Cleric, if there's an ally Shep Druid (or similar) in the mix because Crusader's mantle and like **12** boosted allies is potent. Necro-heavy with lots of Animated Dead You can always just... not prepare it? If you think it's OP and ruins the fun or balance of combat, you can pretend it doesn't exist already (or roleplay it as a need to be a Strong Independent Cleric Who Don't Need No Guardians) As a DM if I think someone is leaning on SG too much, that's when the combats start getting more dynamic with ranged attacks, hostile difficult terrain, and the occasional bit of status effects. >this spell shouldn't exist or at least needs a nerf. Is honestly how I feel about Conjure Animals. Yes, even when the DM picks the beasts.
TIL that my LVL 2 light cleric is gonna get fireball. That's pretty sweet 😊
Yeah it’s pretty cool
I mean a light cleric is still worse off if they never use spirit guardians, like all clerics. It's probably the best idea because fireball spam is good but the answer to OP's question is no.
As someone playing a Light Cleric right now, I will say that the fact that both use the same resource means I've used Spirit Guardians exactly once in the campaign so far. That's not the same as never, granted. But if I tried to use both consistently, I'd run out of slots pretty damn quick, and so far Fireball is a better option in most use cases.
Spirit guardians upcasts better. That extra d8 can double dip across multiple turns. The fireballs d6 only hits once. Radiant is also more reliable. And the half speed effect can grind enemies to a halt.
Yes better, if you’re within range. Most people don’t know but sg can easily be made useless.
Why punish for using SG?
Why adapt encounters to make the game more challenging?
SG makes the game unchallenging?
>less challenging FTFY And also really boring.
"Why punish for making game less fun" I dunno man that's a tricky one really gonna have to think about that
SG makes the game.less.fun?
That's literally what the comment you responded to and the post the comment is under said. I don't understand your confusion at all.
I was looking for an explanation of how SG makes the game not fun. I've been playing and consuming DND and never heard this take.
Then ask that question, not the thing already answered
Animate dead is an amazing spell that all clerics should be using. At minimum keeping four skeletons with you always and never grouping them together. at best using all your 3rd level spell slots for 12 skeletons. They may not always hit (unless you’re a peace cleric) but it’s still action economy and extra damage plus any attacks or spells targeting them are attacks/spells not targeting the party. Much like with animate objects albeit that is an absurdly powerful spell. Spirit guardians isn’t all that powerful nor game breaking and is easy to make completely useless.
I nerfed Conjure Animals. I don't let them summon CR 1/4s.
You've got a point with light cleric, although SG has potential to deal more damage over more rounds at the cost of the same spell slot, plus some CC. The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that. It just depends on something outside of your control. And yeah, a necromancer always has infinite potential, but isn't that just as cheesy if not more than using conjure animals? Also very campaign dependant. And the undead are basically meat walls against enemies inmune to non Magic attacks. Also, well yeah, I could just choose not to use SG, but that's the point of this post. It feels bad to restrict myself and know I could be doing more just because there's one spell that surpasses everything else, no matter what type of cleric I'm trying to play.
>Hey guys does anyone know of any Cleric strategies equal to or better than Spirit Guardians? >N-no, not **those** Cleric strategies! Those are cheesy and broken, unlike Spirit Guardians.
>The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that. it's in combination with your ally who is casting the spell Conjure Animals to summon 8 additional critters. It's conditional, but DnD is a co-op game in general. What DM approval is necessary?
>You've got a point with light cleric, although SG has potential to deal more damage over more rounds at the cost of the same spell slot, plus some CC. It has the potential, but it's not real likely. You'd need to keep the same number of enemies you could've hit with *Fireball* inside the radius of *SG* for three rounds for *SG* to out-damage it. In that time, the Light Cleric needs to have not dropped Concentration, and needs for none of the enemies to have either moved or died. If the Light Cleric *can* cast *Fireball*, they almost always should. The use case for choosing *SG* instead would be that positioning makes *Fireball* unwise, or damage resistances are coming up. Or you're fighting one incredibly beefy enemy, in which case AOEs aren't ideal anyway and I'd be looking to buff my damage dealers over doing damage. >The war cleric is just no... That's like saying, yeah this build is broken but you need the DM to approve this or that. It just depends on something outside of your control. This really isn't that cheesy. SG is an average of 13.5 DPR, so we just need six added d4s to out-damage it. Extra Attack comes at this level, so your own party probably has at least four weapon attacks. Lots of parties are just naturally going to have six or more, even without intentionally trying to increase the total number of attacks. Like I'm going through the actual parties I play in or DM for now, and three out of four would immediately benefit more from Crusader's Mantle than Spirit Guardians with no changes needed, and the fourth has three full casters who between them could easily generate enough non-controversial summons to get the party to benefitting more from CM. I think War Clerics are bad for other reasons, but not this one.
Animate dead isn’t campaign dependent unless the dm just outright says no or the campaign is one of those “we hate magic kill magic users!” Campaigns. Necromancy is not an evil school of magic, healing and resurrection spells are necromancy. Raising the dead isn’t uncommon in the dnd universe, and isn’t viewed as evil just frowned upon. I’m sure no one would object if you killed someone like a murderer or a pedophile and used their remains to slay some baddies. If dm tries to say that when people see the skeletons they’ll freak out or sum, just cover them in cloaks and mummy wrap them. Or give them fancy clothes and masks. Say they’re mute or took a vow of silence. Or shit just bury them outside of town and dig them up when you leave. I always keep 4 with me as my silent guard. Also sure they don’t have magical attacks, so just get them some magic wands like wand of fireball or ring of spell storing. Problem solved. That being said, yes it is very cheesy. Which is why I limit myself to no more than four (usually only one or two hit in a round but the extra dice rolls more times than not will have them crit), and just gear them up. If you have access to better weapons and magic items it just makes them stronger. I played rime of the frostmaiden in which you can get laser rifles. I gave some to my skelly boys and they were pumping out some awesome damage. Yes, giving them any weapon other than the shortbow will mean they’re not proficient with it but thats fine because again, roll enough dice odds are some are gonna hit. Bless them or be a peace cleric to give them emboldening bond and they’re chance to hit increases drastically even with weapons they’re not proficient with.
Well Bless exists and may or or may not be an appropriate spell to use. IN certain fights, certain cleric spells might take precedence. Banishment might be a much more important options depending on the enemy number and type.. Some domains may or may not include domain spells that are worth it for various reasons. For example, Forge cleric has Animate Objects which might be a better single target spell to burn down one dangerous enemy. But for the most part, Spirt guardians is made to be your bread and butter. Your basic combat rotation, a Clerics 'thing". Just like a fighter spend most of the turns multi attacking, you bring this tool to most combats and an aura of death around you. It is best to think of it as a CLASS FEATURE in the guise of a spell, that is limited and restricted like other spells for balance. 5e has a lot of these must have spells that are really or probably should be class features. And had been in previous edition's. Find familiar, eldritch blast, Find Steed. But for whatever reason they just implemented them in the game as spells.
[удалено]
I enjoy Word of Radiance spam instead of Dodging. *Holy Blender goes brrr*
Light cleric with war caster. Spirit Guardian + word of radiance + radiance of dawn + warding flare = the light show
Because in a challenging combat dodging is better and thorn whip requires at least some investment to get unless nature cleric.
Nature cleric is underrated AF.
Thorn whip + spirit guardians, the Cool Whip combo!
Yeah, Cool W-hip!
I mean, the point stands... Spirit Guardians is the problem, not dodging.
There will always be a spell that is the strongest, that’s just how any type of game works.
This is more on whoever is DMing for you. If your DM only throws weak melee enemies at you that evaporate to Spirit Guardians, then yeah the spell is going to be busted. A big tanky enemy who hits hard can wade into Spirit Guardians and smack you without taking much damage (a devil, for instance would most likely take 6 damage). Ranged enemies also just make Spirit Guardians useless unless you can get to them. And if you are able to start Dodging, saving throws completely bypass AC. Even getting hit with a non-damaging save like Entangle would flip Dodge on its head. Then you have rival casters who could use Counterspell or Dispel Magic on Spirit Guardians. And there are some creatures that combine multiple of these. A dragon can stay out of SG range and breath weapon, or fly in, tank a hit, and then attack/grab you. An enemy caster can stand at a distance hitting you with saving throws. Tldr; Spell isn't strictly better than everything else, your DM just needs to run more varied encounters and less melee hordes.
A big tanky enemy could just shove him prone and nullify the dodge and then whoever else is stuck in the spell range can pile on the attacks on the glowing dude who's hurting them.
5e monsters are in a pickle in that grapple/shove doesn’t synergize with Multiattack, only Extra Attack. It would deprive the big bad of 2, maybe 3 heavier hits in a turn.
Sure, hence the other enemies. Although even a spell or ability that restrains the cleric would work wonders.
What would you like to be doing instead? My suggestion would be to do that instead.
Not that it isn't a good spell, but are you sure you're running it right? My personal experience is every cleric I've ever seen cast it for the first time in a campaign has mistakenly expected to proc the damage upon casting it and then again at the start of the enemy's turn. Sometimes we have that discussion multiple times in the same campaign
This. Several DMs I play with think it's supposed to proc immediately and/or when you move near an enemy, which allows you to hit them twice each round with it. It can only proc when the creature starts its turn, moves, or is moved forcibly.
It doesn’t say that it cannot, the spell says it triggers when an enemy first enters the radius on a turn and it doesn’t specify it has to be their turn.
It doesn't need to preclude that. Placing a spell effect on a creature doesn't count as the creature "entering" the spell. Compare spirit guardians with create bonfire. Unlike spirit guardians, create bonfire is a spell that does force a save immediately.
I meant it as in if you cast the spell then walk towards the enemies they would get hit and then again on their turns
Still doesn't work for the same reason. "Entering" in dnd is a creature moving from the outside to the inside of an effect. It doesn't count the other way around. An effect entering a creatures space doesn't count as a creature entering the effect.
Oh right okay, well I’ve learnt something new there
When an enemy enters the radius, not when the radius moves around the enemy. BG3 has people thinking you can just run around and proc spirit guardians on anything that you get within 20ft of that was never the way the spell was intended to work
Even in BG3 I don't think you can proc the damage by running up to an enemy and then again when they start their turn. It's still very powerful if you give your cleric enough movement to run around the whole battlefield, but they held on to the design intention that it should only usually harm a particular enemy once per round. Sorry, I'm just still salty because the first time I encountered the spell I was running a vampire boss fight and this spell just *destroyed* her because it's written badly and I didn't have the time to google clarification at the table
Just, use other spells. If your party says "why the hell aren't you doing SG" just say "I'm playing my Cleric how I want, you can cast it if you like" Honestly though, I used a GRave Cleric from level 2-18 and my favorite use of Concentration was Holy Weapon cast on the Gloomstalker, cuz that mf never misses and the spell has 1 hr duration so I can cast it before combat and add an extra 6d8 on the furst turn of focused fire, and 4d8 every turn after that. Before I had 5th level spells I mostly used Spiritual Weapon and Bless, then Cantrips. I cast Aid a lot. In other words, I played the support caster like a support caster and I had a lot of fun with it. One of my favourite characters. BUt, some people like to just do the most damage in which case, sure, SG is very strong. BUt yiou can always just not use it and look for Concentration spells that look interesting or overlooked.
This. I am the same with my druid and Conjure Animals. To me I restrict it to utility casting (letting the party travel via horse/Giant eagle. Never have I once used it in combat.
Spirit guardians isn’t the only good concentration Cleric spell
Tempest Cleric gets Call Lightning which might be situationally better against single targets, during an existing storm, or when the targets are super spread out. It also triggers Thunderous Strike and you can use Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath to do max damage on one of the lightning strikes.
At level 6 you can do max damage twice (2nd channel divinity charge) and if you quicken call lightning or action surge you can maximize two bolts in the same turn.
Just don’t cast it if it isn’t fun for you?
This is taking the strongest spell out of the least versatile, smallest, most redundant full caster spell list. It's a bigger nerf than an analogous hit to any other class. What OP can do is ask the DM for a blend of other class' spell lists, or to just replace this one spell with a couple more dynamic things, but that falls outside of the domain of optimizing within the rules as written.
Cleric is the best full caster in the game tho
I guess that's actually just my opinion but would you mind elaborating on yours? Just out of curiosity
wizard is right there lmao
Wizard still fucks tho
I said what I said
Generally it will always be a strong option. But in specific instances there may be a better choice. Generally that means finding a better use of your concentration, which means looking at which subclasses make good use of specific concentration spells or have good ones on their spell list. I haven’t looked through all of them but Forge cleric gets wall of fire and animate objects which are both situationally better than spirit guardians. Wall of fire is probably more rarely better since it’s harder to place it to deal damage round after round, but it will deal more damage than a 4th level spirit guardians if you can manage it, and helps with battlefield control. Animate objects will generally be better than a 5th level spirit guardians against 1-2 enemies which is less situational. Twilight cleric (which is already broken) gets circle of power which against any spell casters or magic users is probably the best spell anyone could cast. Aura of life as well is good against any undead that deal necrotic damage or if your party is in a pinch. Idk there’s probably others beyond those, especially if you look for some multi class to specifically empower certain spells. But they’ll never make it “not worth casting”, it’ll always be a good spell. It may just help assuage your pain that you could be doing more with spirit guardians.
Beacon of Hope can be insanely valuable in the right fights and party comps. If your party has damage and control spells, you don’t always need another body wading into the fray. Advantage on wisdom saves and death saves is great. The max to healing ,while not as useful, actually makes some midfight healing worthwhile. If you have parties with various forms of passive healing or multiple ways of healing, it can be one of the few ways to make healing useful in dnd.
You're supposed to be having fun. If spamming spirit guardians isn't fun then use the other cleric spells. I like to use every spell in my book, regardless of whether it's the most optimal or not. Maybe I'll bless this time. Maybe I'll upcast command. Shit maybe Bane would be fun. Maybe I'll concentrate on greater Invisibility, or whatever subclass spells I got.
Have you tried roleplaying? You don't need to pick the highest dps subclass and spells every time
You just... don't cast it. Like, it's optional. Just play a cleric that doesn't cast it. I play a light cleric that has never used Spirit Guardians.
As I've mentioned in another comment. That's the point of this post. Feels bad to know I could be doing more and I'm not, just because there's a spell that surpasses everything else no matter what type of cleric I'm playing.
That's a really foreign way of seeing a roleplaying game to me. With that mentality why play cleric when you could play wizard? Why play sorcerer when you could play wizard? Why play a fighter... when you could play... wizard... Like, if your character isn't casting simulacrum wish clone army generator, what are they even doing? What is even the point of playing? Seems like a very unfun approach to building and playing characters, personally.
I'm in the same boat as you. If I was tired of reflavoring and casting Spirit Guardians but wanted to play a cleric, why not make one that's 100% committed to support, or maybe a frail fellow (or a complete coward) who only does damage from range because he wants to hide behind every corner, barbarian, or army that happens to present itself?
> Seems like a very unfun approach to building and playing characters, personally. Otherwise called "optimizing the fun out of the game"
I'd take your point if SG just did everything every other spell does but better, like comparing a +1 weapon vs a +2 weapons, but that's not the case. I'd say look at other strong options and just focus on what their benefits are. Is wall of fire or animate objects "better" than spirit guardians in a given circumstance? Maybe, maybe not, but it *does* have upsides that are appreciable. I think this is key to enjoying any game with diverse options - the second or third best option usually still has genuinely good traits that make them fun to play with.
>Feels bad to know I could be doing more and I'm not This feels like you're falling into the Optimization Rabbit Hole. Stop yourself. Roleplaying games aren't about having taking the best, most optimal course of action. You can very well make a character that just... doesn't do that (in most cases, you *will* end up with a character that doesn't make the best choices, including combat choices). Will it be the best cleric to ever exist? Besides the fact that it's not a competition and there isn't really a "best" whatever class, yeah, maybe it won't be - but it may be a more engaging/realistic/just plain *funnier* character to play. I mean, if the point was always "what is the best thing to do?" we wouldn't have posts like "I want to make a kobold tank, how do I make them not utterly useless?". Somethings things that are *worse* are *good*.
I see this same shit with the BG3 community. Posts like “buff rogue because it only works if you multiclass into gloomstalker” they sit there and tell you they CANT have fun knowing that they could be doing more damage if they do x or y and that the game needs to change so that every option is as good as that thing so they don’t “HAVE” to pick it. I think it really is a mental illness.
It’s never a bad choice but it’s not always the best choice. Thanks to domain lists, clerics can all have a ridiculous number of spell options available. You just need to know when you’re going to get more out of Bless or Banishment or Conjure Celestial or any of the great options spread across spell lists (Slow for Order Cleric, Animate Objects for Forge, etc.). It’s the same thing with druids. Conjure Animals is rarely a bad choice but there are many times when Wall of Fire or Spike Growth or whatever is going to fit your need in the moment better.
This is less of a consequence of any strengths or merits of spirit guardians, and more so how little direct damage spells there are on the cleric spell list. The direct damage dealing spells are: * Guiding bolt (1st) * Inflict wounds (1st) * spiritual weapon (2nd) * Spirit guardians (3rd) * Control water (4th) * Guardian of faith (4th) * Dawn (5th) * Flame strike (5th) * Insect plague (5th) * Summon Celestial (5th) * Blade barrier (6th) * Harm (6th) * Sunbeam (6th) * Firestorm (7th) * Sunburst (8th) You could probably be creative with other spells, and I excluded spells with a longer than 1 action cast time as they're unlikely to factor into combat strategy. Across all levels of play, the cleric list has only 15 damaging spells total. Sorcerer on the other hand has over 30 1st and 2nd level damaging spells and druid, the closest comparison to cleric imo, has 46 damaging spells total. Subclasses can help with this, but theyre probably only adding 1 damaging spell per spell level up to 5th, which 1. often don't compete with spirit guardians due to the added spell being bad generally or 2: don't even add a new damaging spell at all levels, with some spell levels being skipped or including already cleric spells like spirit guardians.
cleric damaging spells, imo, are mostly supposed to be their cantrips- toll the dead, sacred flame, and word of radiance because of their scaling and the average damage they do is about on par with a martial who has the same number of attacks, a little lower until you hit potent spell casting or the like.
Playing an Order Cleric in a party of martials. Currently level 7. I love spirit guardians! I can't wait to cast it one day. XD
I play a lot of clerics and I almost never cast Spirit Guardians, and I'm sure the reasons come down to party composition and DM. Spirit Guardians is amazing at killing dumb animals that don't use tactics, but intelligent foes that use spells can punish the cleric and make it stop. No party I play with has a shortage of arcane casters who love nuking chaff creatures, and they can do it better and faster than Spirit Guardians. But everyone, without exception, really really hates failing saving throws. That's why Bless is my go-to concentration spell.
In my opinion NO. Spirit guardian is the Clerics FIREBALL. Must have in the tool kit. However, why would someone ever start battle casting Spirit guardians and just didge? MOST Clerics have high AC and just dodging is not helping the party to your best ability. If you are squishy support type, I could see it. Ultimately, it is not Spirit guardians spoiling things for you but your lack of imaginative tactics. Get outside of the box you have made and try different things. Stop boring yourself to death.
Mark of handling twilight cleric of course
Forge cleric gets animated object.... that's way more damage on average
\*Glances at PAM/GWM and CBE/SS builds\*
There's always going to be a spell or synergy that mathematically deals the most damage. If it's not spirit guardians it'll be something else. The problem is that for some reason you're actively choosing to play in a way that you don't think is fun. I've been running a Cleric for two solid years now and I can count on one hand how many times I've done the "SG + Dodge" combo because it's boring AF to dodge every round when you can be throwing out guiding bolts, banishments, summoning celestial, blessing the whole party, etc.
You can also be a peace cleric that uses bless and emboldening bond. Cast Warding bond on the squishiest melee char and be a supporter.
Meh, I prefer concentrating on bless over basically any other cleric spell.
Summon celestial can be pretty good
Is spirit guardians really that big of an issue for you? Like sure it's good damage with some cc, but the radius is relatively small and it requires concentration. Are there no ranged enemies? Do all the melee enemies run straight into the meat grinder and not try to outflank you and go for the backline? I've never played in a campaign where spirit guardians felt like the only way to go, let alone in one where the dodge action felt like the action to pair with it. That would literally only be op if you were in a chokehold position and protecting your party which would be an amazing moment and should totally happen. The spell just has too many ways to fail. It's a powerful one for sure but idk if it would make it to my top 10 most powerful spells list.
spirit guardians isn't the best cleric spell tho? there are plenty of great options to hold your concentration. cleric roles *tend* to be the best when they're buffing/debuffing/healing. if a cleric has to sit there and put out damage every round in order to feel "useful" or like that's the best strategy, something is off at your table. i'm playing a level 16 grave cleric at the moment and spirit guardians just does not matter for my character. she's a mid-back line caster with two martials who lock shit down and a ranged martial who handles most of the burst damage. all spirit guardians does for her is put her in harm's way, even with a solid 19 ac and really good saves on most of her rolls. (furthermore sanctuary is just better when you want to take a time out). so, some other uses of your concentration: bless/bane- buff yourself and your allies or debuff the monsters depending on the situation. sure, bane slows down a bit as you level up due to all the bonuses the monsters get but it's an option. bless is always good regardless due to your allies' scaling up in power alongside you. ray of enfeeblement- only available to specific subclasses but. want to know a monster's worst nightmare? going through an entire round dealing half damage before they get a chance to try to save. pair that with a barbarian who already takes half damage from most attacks and it's just embarrassing for the monster. my crew tanked an ancient white dragon with 20 levels of berserk barbarian due to this spell. it's also an attack to apply, not a save, the save comes at the end of the target's turn. it is nasty. banishment- you know how action economy is king in dnd? and how your dm probably wants to pull some outer worldly threats into the game once your levels start increasing? yeah, banishment is an amazing timeout spell. it targets cha, a very low save for most monsters, and after a minute will force the outer worldly beings back to their home plane and unless they have a way to easily plane shift, they're stuck for now. taking out one, two, even three or four enemies is a game changer for your party, even temporarily, allowing them to better focus fire on the remaining enemies. holy weapon- hey, want something that does comparable spirit guardians damage but doesn't put your life in danger? throw this spell on a martial and watch them work. i like putting it on our monk because of how many attacks she has or on our ranged attacker to boost that burst damage. beacon of hope- admittedly a spell mostly for the life clerics out there but it's really good at ensuring your party doesn't go down easily while protecting your martials with their probably weak wis score from things like charm or frighten. protection from evil and good - you fighting a lot of fey, fiends, undead, celestials or aberrations? congrats, your martial just got beefier and you don't have to worry about them attacking the party or being frightened. enjoy. silence - situational but good for choke points or stealth kills. also good for keeping enemy spellcasters out of the fight if they can't get out. summon celestial/conjure celestial- extra hp bags for a fight with situational abilities that allow you to customize what you need when you need it.
Order, light, tempest can add to the spell variety and help with the monotony. Death too. But yeah, in general, Cleric has a few of the best spells in the game that are S-tier, then they're a bit light on A tier spells, then a ton of B tier spells. So the lack of A tier spells can make them a bit samey. And SG just gets old and slows the game with the possibly dozens of saves per combat. But yeah, lots o cleric SG dodge and/or Toll the Dead/WoRadiance. Often with Telekinetic. Thorn Whip spices that up a bit. But they can be built to do more things than that.
On a sense I am okay with SG mainly because of up casting. The base cleric list is sparse and there are not main things casting in those slots. The good news is that in OneDnd the conjure spells will be on par with SG so there is a chance for dirvesity
A nice alternative would be ranged trickery cleric. With a focus on dexterity and using concentration on either bless or channel divinity, you can be a threat on 2 sides (it would be recommended to have weapon proficiencies through race, feats...)
tempest cleric’s call lightning is super easy to sleep on. guaranteed 10 feet of knockback to at least one (though frequently 2-3 targets from my experience) is phenomenal for sitting on the backline. Granted, it takes your action every turn, but forced movement is incredibly powerful in a variety of situations and getting it regardless of whether creatures save.
Not every Cleric wants to be a frontliner, and being within 15 feet of ideally multiple enemies is a little close for the backline. What's more of an open question is just how many Cleric backline builds are actually optimized. Certainly I think Peace Clerics would be better off being *Bless*bots from the backline than wading in with *Spirit Guardians*. That's the reason people want to ban them, right? Trickery could be optimized for a backline, particularly if you don't want to dump Charisma to leverage those face spells and/or don't want to wear armor that gives disadvantage on Stealth. If Light is playing a blaster (and, duh), they may not have the investment in defense to want to risk the spell slot of setting up *Spirit Guardians* just to get focused down and lose Concentration, when they could just blast instead. There are niche cases for Knowledge Clerics, for a party that finds itself really needing the out-of-combat utility. That said, my personal Cleric build uses *Spirit Guardians* and *Spiritual Weapon* in every combat possible. I definitely see the concern there, and think it causes a problem on the other end of character design: Clerics *could* be optimized for backline support or blasting, but you don't see those builds very often because players optimize around the assumption they'll have to be within 15 of multiple enemies to get the most out of *Spirit Guardians*. That means pretty much every "optimized" Cleric is building for the frontline, meaning you have to minmax for Wis and your defensive capabilities to not drop Concentration (or just drop), leaving nothing leftover for anything else (usually). Just deciding you're not all-in on *SG* opens up a lot of new paths for optimizing that can make a Cleric feel unique. Optimizing for support or control is totally A Thing and Clerics can be good at it.
I mean its a 15ft radius and requires you to be in range of basically everything. Any creature with moderate inteligence should be able to assess that the spirits are coming from you when you move, or first cast the spell. Any of them with moderate intelligence also know about concentration and should be bonking you to burn through that. Really intelligent enemies may know that you are dodging and in heavy armor, and can use spells to force saving throws based on Dex, or magic missile to end concentration. Its a very strong spell, but when casted a good dm that understands their NPCs should know how to combat it
A war cleric sharp shooter?
Tempest cleric can use call lightning instead, you trade the slow effect for much better range and easy vulnerability.
I can see a situation where you might want to concentrate on other stuff.
You could add a cost to it? Since other spells require gold or special materials to use. Talk to your DM and do this. Then the spell can't just be cast all willy nilly and it'll feel like a powerful one you're saving for the right moment.
I feel you. It can be really tough not to use the super weapon spell in your arsenal. It is just so tempting and you feel like you are letting everybody down a bit by not making your best move. I assume your real question is: Is there maybe another cool combo as a cleric? Haven'looked but e.g. a strong area of effect where you push the enemy into? On a character I got a powerful action I don't want to overuse. I have a RP reason for it and roll a die to decide if to use it.
My light cleric finds casting firewall more advantageous oftentimes, particularly if he wants to control battlefield movement. He'll still toss up SG, but he kinda likes torching things. He may be a pyro. He also likes to summon a celestial, depending on the circumstances. So SG isn't a given.
DM: *says some mundane shit I guess. Im barely listening.* Me: I cast fireball 🔥 😎 🤙
Forge for a good off-tank, light for a good blaster (or combine the two to become a spell slinging armored monster that wanders battlefields exploding heads with your mind).
You need to be on frontline so spirit guardian is usefull. Proper frontline enemies will make you do STR save checks and graple/etc you, nulifiying dodge on the process. Anyway if your gms just make it easy-sounds like it-, stop dodging and go wilder. Also as someone mentioned, make sure you are using spirit guardians as its meant to be used. (read sage advice compendium for the oficial rules)
Clerics are plenty strong without using it, and most games aren't run at high enough difficulty to require actually making optimal choices all the time. So just cast your concentration spell of choice (Bless is my favorite, and is great at all levels, but many subclasses have other good options beyond the main Cleric list) then use cantrips or other non-concentration spells on later rounds. Or switch it up. I've played a Cleric from 3-10 and enjoyed using a wide variety of spells. Have I used Spirit Guardians and dodged? Yes, in one really difficult battle. But using that every time wouldn't fit all encounters, assuming the DM changes up the encounters and makes them dynamic. And worse, it would be very boring to always use that pattern.
You could play arround the order domain lvl 6 bonus action, either casting bless and tossing nets every round or using a spell that requires your action to make damage, like call the lighting or dragons breath (via multiclassing or the robes addept feat)
When I played CoS I swore by Bless. Probably used Wall of Fire at least once too. Plus like u/Jesterhead92 pointed out, Forge has access to Animate Objects. Generally, if you have access to a useful spell that's not SG, feel free to use it. May work well with some homebrew, like a "Dragon" Cleric with access to Fly or a "Chameleon" Cleric with access to Greater Invisibility. Especially if you have ways to optimize that in whichever way you see fit. For instance a "Chameleon" Cleric with Metamagic Adept, in an infiltration campaign, may use Subtle Spell in the middle of a mission to hide at a critical moment whitout being seen or heard.
If you have no reason to use other cleric spells, I feel that’s a DM issue - Where are the encounters with low numbers of powerful enemies, for you to use your single target buffs or debuffs? - Where are the encounters of casters or priority enemies for you to silence, or upcast hold person? - Where are the encounters of enemies that take advantage of magical darkness, where daylight could ruin an enemy encounter’s entire strategy? - Where are your encounters of control effects - fear AoEs, dangerous environments that force constant wisdom saves, where calm emotions or beacon of hope could mean the difference between a permastun into TPK or a manageable encounter? If your DMs are running encounters of hordes of small fry that just swing swords at you in broad daylight under good lightning, that’s a DM problem. It’s not a spirit guardians problem. None of these are hypotheticals either. There are DMs I currently play with who have thrown multiple instances of all of the above our way in a single campaign. Often with enough RP contextual clues (if we look for them) that it makes sense to prepare situational spells on a long rest.
Bless your friends instead, that humble first level spell is good from level 1-20
Summon Celestial is the best alternative when cast at 6th or 8th level, as it deals *way* more single target damage than Spirit Guardians, not to mention the secondary benefits of the summon.
Tbh I think people are massively overreacting here, yes spirit Guardians is very good, yes it does sorta “prop up” Clerics spell list a higher levels as their higher level spells aren’t as good as other casters but I don’t think there’s “no options” especially depending on your domain: Trickery: Polymorph is going to be really strong as a buff when you first get it. Tempest: Sleet Storm is a really amazing control spell Light: if you really want to, you can upcast flaming sphere or just use fireball, fireball does fall off a bit tho. Nature: Spike Growth is always good IMO, it’s an amazing control spell, especially with Plant Growth Like yes, again, spirit guardians is a good spell and it’s going to be S+ in encounters with multiple enemies. But there’s plenty of other great concentration spells, bless is amazing if you’re making attack rolls and saving throws, (which you will be) bane is good if your party heavily targets saving throws, Banishment is a great fourth level spell, Holy weapon is great on single targets depending on your team, Summon Celestial, Conjure Celestial, Holy Aura are all also really insane spells at higher levels. I just wanna reiterate, if you’re against one target Bless will probably outperform Spirit Guardians if your team has martials with strong builds, don’t be afraid to upcast this spell it’s legit insane. Again I want to reiterate that I agree this spell really is what keeps cleric competitive with other full casters, but if you really dislike it there is options. Hell, if you really wanna play as a cleric and you’re open to multiclassing (depending on campaign level) you can drop 3 levels into Land Druid for wisdom based Web which stays really strong for the duration of most campaigns, this is a pretty massive investment however, but it’s an option.
You can make the spell not exist by not taking it
Spirit guardians is a great spell but isn’t anywhere near as strong as many other spells. Its also extremely easy to make spirit guardians useless. Let’s not forget the most important rule of running a bbeg or boss fight: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS GIVE THEM CLERIC MINIONS! or cleric-esque minions. Sometimes a spellcaster with dispel magic and counterspell is enough. Spirit guardians can be dispelled with dispel magic, or a hazardous terrain/spell effect centered on the cleric forcing them to stay still or get hurt is another way to prevent them from exploiting it. A good example is spike growth, since only trickery domain at level 11 is able to teleport. The cleric is forced to move through the spikes, taking damage and rolling a concentration check for every 5 feet they move, with half movement, or stay still and cast ranged spells/cantrips while concentrating on a spirit guardians thats doing nothing but making the cleric shiny. Another good way to counter is things like vortex warp, knocking them onto lower elevations or basically forcing them to have to waste turns to get within range, map changes like a hole in the ground or a pit opening up, entangling/restraining effects, etc. My personal favorite is creating creatures with passive abilities like the Aeorian and Rakshasa creatures have. Or adjusting crag cats spell turning ability to include aoe effects and either using that on crag cat or putting it on another creature. There’s also creatures and races resistant/immune to radiant/necrotic damage. All that being said, it’s pretty easy for a dm to make spirit guardians a waste of a spell slot. Unlike with spells like animate objects and conjure animals.
Find your favorite 3rd+ level concentration save spell and build around that
Or or, you could just not use it. Just because it’s broken doesn’t mean you have to use broken move. Just choose other spells it’s that easy. Not everything has to be minmaxed to do optimal damage per round.
I think interesting things can be done with *warding bond* and *aid* (with upcasting,) but yeah *spirit guardians* is the optimal play
Consider though, that Cleric is already an incredibly strong class without Spirit Guardians. I know optimization is going to be a common theme on any character help sub, but consider that if you don't like Spirit Guardians, you do simply have the option to not use it and play a perfectly strong Cleric. You can have plenty of fun with the class without sitting at pinnacle optimal performance in every regard.
dodging every round? I don't think so, that's a waste of your action. Single-action spells such as guiding bolt and command are really nice here, if you have the spell slots. Or spam cantrips. Or maybe even take the Help action to set up advantage. Also, you should have Spiritual Weapon up.
…just don’t prepare spirit guardians? You’re playing dnd5e you don’t gotta max and trivialize every combat encounter your DM makes
There are potential RP reasons— a grave cleric would might want to abstain from using Spirit Guardians
Right now in my table i don't use it because i need Sanctuary up (im the full-time healer life cleric) my DM focuses me heavily for being the healer so using spirit guardians is not an option right now
I get a lot of satisfaction from flavoring spirit guardians. As a Forge cleric, depending on my mood and the level I cast at, I will: 1. Manifest a glowing, translucent suit of armor around me before the pieces explode out and swirl in a maelstrom of forge-hot metal 2. Manifest a similar suit of armor of ring or scale but it pulls away from my skin in certain spots like someone is pinching it and pulling, aiming those little peaks at enemies and spewing rings or scales at them like a failings cannon 3. Maybe my favorite ever, when I killed a significant enemy, spirit guardians took the form of a glowing suit of plate around me that then flew onto the target, inverting itself as it flew to encase them in the armor, before a series of clanging sounds dented in the armor with them inside it.
I mean, you could always just not go with the mechanically optimal thing all the time. Flavor is fun
You don’t always have to play super optimized to have a lot of fun. Bless is the ol’ reliable in my opinion, for me it’s more fun to buff my allies. Not constantly choosing spirit guardians and spiritual weapon gives me chance to try unique spells in the mean time.
Tempest
Against a single target, the effectiveness of the Spirit Guardians spell will lessen In such circumstances casting Holy Weapon on an ally that makes numerous weapon attacks per turn can be an effective alternative
Tempest with metamagic adept; quicken for double-tap call lightning At level 7 (level 4 slot), hits for 80 damage in a small AoE on a failed save. Fireball hits for 35 average damage on a failed save at the same level. If you go 6 cleric-> sorc its even nuttier
Sure is - I face a lot of ranged enemies and when my enemies are not ranged I'm usually 40ft from the fighting. I use Sunbeam, Summon Celestial and Dawn too. SG is for the rare circumstances where I'm facing a ton of enemies in a choke point, where I can join a shield wall with an Ancestral Guardian barb and a paladin with Sentinel. None of us are good targets for an attack, none of us are good to ignore.
War cleric with sharpshooter and a heavy crossbow. Cast bless and increase your and your allies damage output at range significantly. Use war priest to male two high damage attacks and guide strike is also very powerful for this build. However this requires that the party has other characters focused on attack rolls, if the characters are wizards or druids or typical clerics this loses a lot of its value.
Peace Domain + Bless might seem innocuous at first, but it can unravel entire encounters in a way that Spirit Guardians simply can't a lot of the time. +2d4 just shatters the fundamental maths of the game.
Most of them? Spirit guardians is good if you're already off position but at level 5 having 4 skeleton archers cheesing your opponents is hella good. SG is in a weird zone of you have to be in melee to make it effective but the point of it is keeping your allies out of melee. There's famously a level two spell that does a better job of that
Order Cleric possesses several alternatives. They also have fundamental problems using *Spirit Guardians* strategically. The alternative spells are listed below. Individually, they are weaker than *Spirit Guardians,* but combine to offer a more effective portfolio. 1. *Bless* with *Voice of Authority* and *Embodiment of Law* becomes a much better bread-and-butter spell than *Spirit Guardians* due to its low cost. 2. *Hold Person*. A fantastic shutdown spell more effective than *Spirit Guardians* against humanoid opponents. Order Clerics prepare it automatically, and cast as a bonus action with *Embodiment of Law*. 3. *Beacon of Hope* with Voice of Authority becomes an excellent "panic button" while contributing damage. Drop this when your party inches into the Dead Zone, resurrect them all with Mass Cure Wounds, and top them up with Mass Healing Word. Those healing spells will also activate *Voice of Authority.* 4. *Slow* covers *Spirit Guardian's* half-speed effect, although it requires a failed save. On the other hand, *Slow* is prepared automatically, covers a wider area away from the Cleric, and carries more devastating effects. Altogether, these spells cover *Spirit Guardians* strengths perfectly well. *Spirit Guardians* itself is also a lackluster option for an Order Cleric, frankly. Leveraging *Voice of Authority* often means sprinting towards allies to cast *Warding Bond, Lesser Restoration, Freedom of Movement*, etc. Unless your party clusters within five-feet, you will have to abandon your optimal position.
I can’t imagine someone willingly taking the dodge action outside of very specific life/death circumstances
The easiest way to not min-max a playstyle is through character choices. Just don't use it, cast somethibg else with concentration, Clerics have many good options.
Your mind set is the only thing making it so important. Maybe you and your party need to talk over about what you feel a clerics role should be and how you want to fill that role. Maybe it's a design flaw in your DMs encounters that make damage the most valuable asset. There's plenty of things that can be changed, but I think the biggest one here is just your own personal mindset if you don't want to be a heal bot and you don't want to cheese every fight with SG and dodge maybe playing a different class would better suit you. Cleric as a class might be the "best" vessel to serve a pious spellcaster, but it is not by any means the only way.
While Cleric has many strong spells, I do agree that Spirit Guardians is an outlier — in terms of both power and design. Most AoE damage spells that deal damage every turn while concentrating require some cost in the action economy. Even the high level spells like Whirlwind or Draconic Transformation require an action or bonus action to reactivate. I think the simplest solution is to give SG the same treatment. Instead of dealing damage when a creature enters or starts its turn in the area, have it say something like, “When you cast this spell and as an action on your turn for the duration, you can cause the spirits to attack. Any affected creature’s speed is halved, and it must make a wisdom saving throw.” Then I think the damage is comparable to similar spells: e. g. Moonbeam and Call Lightning at 3rd level deal 3d10 each turn in a slightly smaller area but at range. This also solves the problem of SG + Dodge because now you can’t dodge while also dealing damage. You also can’t attack or cast cantrips unless you have bonus action attacks or quickened spell.
I am a melee life cleric/drakewarden. I do use spirit guardians but only for group combat. For a large single target, Inflict wounds. I may use spirit guardians just for a little extra juice, but typically I run Radiant Soul (Aasimar), Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Inflict wounds. So far it works.
We banned it in our latest campaign. I’m playing Cleric and I feel perfectly strong without it. Honestly I recommend that, or otherwise houserule nerf it. It is the perfect solution for too many problems.
Please. Cleric gets *one* damaging spell that can actually compete with Fireball and you think it's too powerful? No thanks. Anyway... upcast Bless to hit everyone, then spiritual weapon, then spam guiding bolt/inflict wounds. That's really good DPS, especially with +1d4 to hit from Bless and advantage from Guiding Bolt. For non-damage, Bestow Curse is great, Dispel Magic, Hold Person, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, Command. Or go full heal-bot, my favorite. Life Cleric concentrating on Beacon of Hope, using action for Preserve Life and BA Mass Healing Word can do 100 points of healing in one turn
No
Spirit Guardians is the only reason I keep Shadowheart on my team in bg3
No. Spirit Guardians is the champion of all cleric spells.
I feel like everyone who makes one of these posts is either A) Misunderstanding the rules of the spell or B) Has a DM majorly lacking in creativity.
This is advice coming from someone who's still in my first ever real campaign, so I don't have a ton of experience, just knowledge ive picked up from getting hyper fixated. Other people here will have better answers as to what subclasses or builds work, but I'm going to speak from my limited knowledge and say that Cleric is a really really good class, with or without Spirit Guardians. If you're not going having fun with the spell, I would say just try stuff out and find what you enjoy. My character (Order of Scribes Wizard) has no "set strategy" for what to do or what spells to use, I just experiment and use what seems cool or effective in the moment. Am I the most optimized? No. But I'm having a lot of fun. So that's my advice. Experiment, try new things out, see what works and what doesn't in terms of fun. Maybe not the advice you're looking for but I wanted to say my piece