D&D 5E Light Cleric Build Advice

[daendil]

Greetings!

I'm in a group gearing up to run Curse of Strahd and the Light domain Cleric caught my fancy. This will be only my second 5e campaign so I could use some advice for my build.

I'm going with Variant Human, standard array. Final ability scores are: STR 10, DEX 14, CON 14, INT 12, WIS 16, CHA 8. Scale Mail, Shield. No melee weapon (yet).

Leaning toward War Caster for my starting feat. I shouldn't HAVE to be in the front lines, despite my 18 AC at 1st level, but still thought that the Warcaster benefits would be nice. However, would Elemental Adept (Fire) be a better choice, particularly if I don't need to be in the front, and considering the campaign?

I've read that I should use the level 4 and 8 boosts to get to 20 WIS ASAP. Has anyone played a similar build far enough to judge the benefit?

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

 

[Zardnaar]

Warcaster is decent along with resilient: con. YOu have a few radiant spels and abilities on top of normal cleric stuff so having fire shut of is no real biggie with Radiance of the Dawn and other cleric spells available.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I'd probably swap CHA and INT around, personally, for saves. Apart from that, a Light Cleric seems perfect for CoS.

Buffing your WIS stat at level 4 is probably wise; by level 8 you may need a feat instead of the bump.

 

[mellored]

I would avoid elemental adept, at least early on. It adds a modest 1.07 damage to fireball, and you have radiant to fall back on if needed.

You also don't need 20 Wis ASAP. Particularly if your doing 1/2 on a miss.
For instance,

8d6 (28) fireball * .55% + half (14) * 45% = 21.7 damage
With +2 wis
28 * .60 + 14 * .40 = 22.4

So you get 0.7 damage.

Likewise, Healing spells arn't affected by Wis much. And buff spells not at all.
Much more important if your going for control spells like command.

Not that you want to dump it as it's a saving throw and gives you an extra spell, but it's possible to take something else instead.


Also, you're going to want to be in melee for your channel divinity. So defensive feats like resilient, healer, or +2 Con work. Defensive duelist also works well, but wait till level 8 at least. Warcaster is good if you plan on doing buffs.

 

[upogsi]

I would agree that a having 14-15 Wis should be fine at first. Secondary skills will really help you down the line. Bounded accuracy means that there is a bit less of a requirement to go all in on your primary stat. Decide if you want to be on the front lines or hitting with cantrips from range, also what secondary roles you will have if any. Warcaster is good for being in the fray, or just the concentration checks. Spell sniper might be an interesting option as well. It also might help to use a feat to grab a cantrip or two from another spell list that benefits from your increased damage.

 

[Dasem]

I'd go Resilient: Con over Warcaster. Warcaster's two main attractions are opportunity attacks, and advantage on Concentration.

The Concentration aspect, at this point, is less important than proficiency in Con saving throws. Resilient will help you in both, while Warcaster only helps with one.

For the opportunity attack aspect of Resilient, you shouldn't be near the front very much anyway. Enemies should not be getting to you much.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Variant human is a possibility. As a light cleric, wisdom is actually used a bit. So I would put a 16 there. Con 16 is achieved with reilence con and going down to str 8 or int 10. Since you are going standard array, you can't have con 16 and wis 16 and dex 14 so a part of resilent con is lost for a while.

Assuming 14 con and the usual DC 10 checks, you need an 8 or higher without res. So 35% fail chance. With res. it goes down to 25%.
With warcaster you are down to only 0.35*0.35=0.1225 So warcaster is better for concentration checks. Quite a bit better actually.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes at lower levels. No at higher levels.

Variant human is a possibility. As a light cleric, wisdom is actually used a bit. So I would put a 16 there. Con 16 is achieved with reilence con and going down to str 8 or int 10. Since you are going standard array, you can't have con 16 and wis 16 and dex 14 so a part of resilent con is lost for a while.

Assuming 14 con and the usual DC 10 checks, you need an 8 or higher without res. So 35% fail chance. With res. it goes down to 25%.
With warcaster you are down to only 0.35*0.35=0.1225 So warcaster is better for concentration checks. Quite a bit better actually.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Its a long time till then. even with a +4 proficiency bonus you are still behind.
So it really depends when you want to take advantage of the feat. And once wis is 20, you are free to take resilence con on top (or even before then).
As a cleric with a shield, warcaster is really not wasted. You can also once in a while get a good inflict wounds as an opportunity attack.

 

[Valetudo]

You can also use sacred flame cantrip as reaction withwar caster wic h is good against all the undead you will be facing.