D&D 5e Cleric Subclasses (2014): All Fourteen Divine Domains Ranked

Introduction

The Cleric is the only class in D&D 5e 2014 that chooses its subclass at first level. Every other class gets two or three levels of being a generic version of itself before the decision arrives. The Cleric does not. You pick a Divine Domain before you have cast a spell, and that choice has already decided what armor you wear, which spells you will never have to prepare, and what your Channel Divinity does at level 2.

That early timing is why this decision carries more weight here than anywhere else in the game, and it is also why the domains differ so much from one another. A Forge Cleric in plate at 20 AC swinging a warhammer and a Knowledge Cleric with Expertise in History reading an enemy's surface thoughts are not variations on a theme. They are different characters who happen to share a spell list.

Three things separate them, and all three land before level 3:

• The domain spell list. Ten spells, always prepared, never counting against your daily limit. Light gets Fireball, which is not on the Cleric list at all. Twilight gets Faerie Fire at level 1 and Circle of Power at 17.
• Whether you get heavy armor. Seven of the fourteen do. That single line decides whether you are a frontliner in plate or a backline caster in a breastplate, and it sets your ability scores from level 1.
• Your Channel Divinity. Every Cleric turns undead. What else you can spend that short-rest resource on varies enormously, from maximising lightning damage to erasing a critical hit to healing everyone you walk past.

This guide covers all fourteen domains, rates every feature, and is direct about which ones front-load their power and which ones are waiting for a campaign that may never arrive.

The Fourteen Domains at a Glance

The Three Things a Domain Decides

The spell list is a permanent widening of the class. Ten spells that are always prepared and never count against your limit is worth more than it looks, because the Cleric prepares from the whole list and preparation slots are the real constraint. A domain that hands you spells you would have prepared anyway, like War giving you Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon, is effectively giving you free preparation slots every day. A domain that hands you spells no Cleric can otherwise touch, like Light giving you Fireball, is giving you a capability the class does not have.

Heavy armor splits the class in two. Seven domains grant it: Life, Nature, Tempest, War, Forge, Order and Twilight, with Tempest, War, Forge and Twilight adding martial weapons on top. Those builds want Strength 15 for plate, sit at 18 AC or better, and stand in the front line. The seven without it, Arcana, Death, Grave, Knowledge, Light, Peace and Trickery, want Dexterity, medium armor and a shield, and fight from range. Death is the odd one out: it grants martial weapons but not heavy armor. This decision is made at level 1 and it is effectively permanent.

Channel Divinity is the domain's signature. Every Cleric can Turn Undead. What separates the domains is the second option, and the gap between the best and the worst is enormous. Twilight Sanctuary generates temporary hit points for the whole party every round. Destructive Wrath maximises your lightning damage. Preserve Life distributes five times your level in healing. Charm Animals and Plants affects beasts and plants, which most campaigns do not feature.

There is also a fork at level 8, and it tells you what the designers intended. Every domain gets either Divine Strike, adding a damage die to one weapon attack per turn, or Potent Spellcasting, adding your Wisdom modifier to cantrip damage. Divine Strike domains want you in melee. Potent Spellcasting domains want you casting Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead from the back. The table above shows which is which, and it is worth checking before you commit, because a domain whose level 8 feature does not match how you intend to play is telling you something.

One practical note that applies to all fourteen: almost every Cleric build ends up holding a concentration spell while doing something else with its action. War Caster or Resilient with Constitution is closer to mandatory here than on any other class, and it matters more than your third ability score.

Hot Take: Read the armor and 8th-level columns before the domain spell list. Whether you get heavy armor, and whether your 8th-level feature adds damage to weapon attacks or to cantrips, shapes far more of how a Cleric actually plays than which handful of extra spells you always have prepared.

Twilight Domain

The strongest Cleric domain in 5e 2014, and it is not especially close. Twilight gives you heavy armor, martial weapons, the best darkvision feature in the game, and a Channel Divinity that quietly generates more effective hit points than most parties take damage.

Twilight domain spells ●

Faerie Fire and Sleep at 1st, Moonbeam and See Invisibility at 3rd, Aura of Vitality and Leomund's Tiny Hut at 5th, Aura of Life and Greater Invisibility at 7th, Circle of Power and Mislead at 9th.

Faerie Fire is one of the best 1st-level spells in the game and you have it always prepared from level 1: advantage on every attack against everything in the area, plus it reveals invisible creatures. Aura of Vitality is a 30-foot healing aura that heals 2d6 as a bonus action every round for a minute, which across ten rounds is up to 20d6 of healing distributed as you choose. Circle of Power at 9th is one of the best party protection spells in the game: allies in a 30-foot aura get advantage on saves against spells and take no damage at all on a successful save that would normally halve it.

Greater Invisibility is a strong concentration buff to hand your Rogue. Moonbeam and Aura of Life are solid situational picks, and Aura of Life is excellent against necrotic damage. Sleep and Mislead are the weak entries, Sleep because it scales badly against rising enemy hit point totals.

Twilight bonus proficiencies - Level 1 ●

Heavy armor and martial weapons.

Twilight joins War, Tempest and Forge in granting both. Here they matter more than usual, because Twilight Sanctuary is a 30-foot aura centred on you and you want to be standing where it covers the most allies. That means the middle of the fight. Plate armor at 18 AC and a real weapon are what let you survive being there.

Eyes of Night - Level 1 ●

Darkvision out to 300 feet. As an action you can grant the same 300-foot darkvision to a number of creatures within 10 feet for one hour, once per long rest, and a creature that already has darkvision has its range extended instead.

The best darkvision feature in the game. Standard darkvision is 60 feet; 300 feet is effectively unlimited indoors. More importantly you can hand it to the party at the start of a dungeon, which means nobody carries a torch, nobody casts Light, and no enemy gets to use darkness as an advantage against you.

Vigilant Blessing - Level 1 ●

As an action, give one creature you touch advantage on its next initiative roll. It ends once that creature rolls, and you can only grant it to one creature at a time.

Advantage on initiative is worth roughly +4.5, and handing it to whoever in your party most wants to act first, the Fighter with Action Surge or the Rogue looking for a first-round Sneak Attack, meaningfully shapes how encounters open. Reapply it after every rest so it is always sitting on someone useful when a fight starts.

Channel Divinity: Twilight Sanctuary - Level 2 ●

As an action, a 30-foot radius sphere of dim light appears centred on you and moves with you, lasting until you dismiss it, fall unconscious or leave it. Whenever a creature ends its turn inside, you can grant it either 1d6 plus your Cleric level in temporary hit points, or end one effect causing it to be charmed or frightened.

This is the best Channel Divinity in the game, and the reason Twilight sits at the top of this list.

The arithmetic is what makes it absurd. At level 2 that is around 5.5 temporary hit points per ally per round. At level 10 it is 1d6+10, roughly 13.5 per ally per round. With three allies standing inside across a ten-round fight, you have generated something in the region of 400 temporary hit points from a resource that recharges on a short rest and costs no spell slots at all. Temporary hit points do not stack with each other, but refreshed every round they do not need to.

The condition option is not a lesser choice, it is a different tool. Charmed and frightened are among the most encounter-warping conditions in the game, and being able to strip one from a different ally every round means no dragon's Frightful Presence and no vampire's charm survives more than a turn. You choose per creature, so the Fighter can be taking temporary hit points in the same round the Wizard is being freed from a fear effect.

It requires concentration. War Caster or Resilient with Constitution is not a recommendation on this domain, it is part of the build.

Steps of Night - Level 6 ●

As a bonus action while in dim light or darkness, gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed until the end of the turn. Uses equal your proficiency bonus per long rest.

The interaction is the point: Twilight Sanctuary fills a 30-foot radius with dim light, so you are always standing in your own activation condition regardless of the actual lighting. You make your own dim light and then fly in it.

The cost is your bonus action, which competes with Spiritual Weapon and Healing Word. Usually positioning wins, because flying 30 feet up puts you out of reach of melee entirely while your aura keeps covering the allies below.

Twilight Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 radiant damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Radiant is the best damage type Divine Strike comes in, resisted by very little and actively bad for undead. For a Twilight Cleric already standing in melee to keep the aura centred well, this turns your weapon attacks into a third source of output alongside the aura and Spiritual Weapon.

Twilight Shroud - Level 17 ●

You and your allies inside Twilight Sanctuary gain half cover, unless they already have cover of half or better.

Half cover is +2 AC and +2 to Dexterity saves, applied automatically to everyone in a 30-foot radius with no action and no resource. Stacked on top of the temporary hit points the aura was already generating, a Fighter in plate standing next to you effectively has 20 AC, a refreshing damage buffer, and a better chance against every area spell in the game.

Twilight in play

Open serious fights with Twilight Sanctuary and then protect that concentration above everything else. The aura is worth more than almost any spell you could be concentrating on instead, which is an unusual thing to be able to say.

Stand where the aura covers the most people. That is the whole positional game, and it is why the heavy armor matters. Build Strength 15 for plate, Wisdom primary, Constitution 14 or better, and take War Caster at the first opportunity.

Switch deliberately between temporary hit points and condition clearing. New Twilight players pick temp HP every round out of habit; the domain is at its best when you read what the encounter is doing and strip the fear effect the round it lands.

Peace Domain

The best pure support domain in the game and a serious rival to Twilight for the top slot. Peace gives the entire party a bonus to almost every roll they make, without concentration, from level 1.

Peace domain spells ●

Heroism and Sanctuary at 1st, Aid and Warding Bond at 3rd, Beacon of Hope and Sending at 5th, Aura of Purity and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere at 7th, Greater Restoration and Rary's Telepathic Bond at 9th.

Warding Bond is the standout: one creature gains resistance to all damage, +1 AC and +1 to saves, at the cost of you taking the same damage they take. On a Peace Cleric that pairs with Emboldening Bond to build an extremely hard-to-kill frontliner. Beacon of Hope grants advantage on Wisdom and death saves and makes all healing on the affected creatures roll maximum, which stacks with your own healing. Greater Restoration always prepared at 9th removes almost any lingering condition, and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere is a superb 4th-level tool that can protect a downed ally or remove an enemy from the fight entirely.

Aid is excellent and should be cast every morning, since it is permanent hit points rather than healing that decays. Aura of Purity covers a wide band of conditions. Heroism, Sanctuary, Sending and Rary's Telepathic Bond are the weak entries.

Implement of Peace - Level 1 ●

Proficiency in Insight, Performance or Persuasion.

The domain's weakest feature, and worth naming as such: a single skill proficiency at level 1. Take Persuasion for the social utility. It does no harm; it is simply irrelevant next to what sits beside it.

Emboldening Bond - Level 1 ●

As an action, choose willing creatures within 30 feet up to your proficiency bonus, including yourself. For 10 minutes, while any bonded creature is within 30 feet of another bonded creature, it can roll a d4 and add it to an attack roll, an ability check or a saving throw. Each creature can do this once per turn.

One of the strongest level 1 features in the game, and the comparison that makes it obvious is Bless. Bless adds 1d4 to attacks and saves for three creatures for one minute and eats your concentration. Emboldening Bond adds 1d4 to attacks, checks and saves, for proficiency-bonus creatures, for ten minutes, without concentration, without a spell slot, renewable throughout the day.

That freed concentration slot is the real prize. Your Peace Cleric can have Emboldening Bond running on the whole party and still be concentrating on Beacon of Hope or Warding Bond or Spirit Guardians.

The constraint is proximity: bonded creatures only benefit while within 30 feet of another bonded creature, so a party that scatters loses it. Position deliberately, and at level 17 Expansive Bond doubles that radius.

Channel Divinity: Balm of Peace - Level 2 ●

As an action, move up to your speed without provoking opportunity attacks. When you move within 5 feet of another creature during this action, you can restore 2d6 plus your Wisdom modifier hit points to it. Each creature can benefit once per use.

This solves the problem that makes battlefield healing miserable, which is that reaching the people who need healing means walking through threatened squares. Balm of Peace lets you move through the fight untouched, touching each injured ally as you pass.

At level 5 with Wisdom 18 that is around 11 hit points per person, and with a 30-foot move you will commonly reach three of them. Thirty-three hit points distributed across three allies in one action, with no spell slot spent and a short rest recharge, compares favourably to a 5th-level Mass Cure Wounds.

Protective Bond - Level 6 ●

When a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond is about to take damage, another bonded creature within 60 feet can use its reaction to teleport to within 5 feet of it and take all of the damage instead.

Full redirection, not a split. This is the feature that prevents character deaths that were otherwise going to happen: the Barbarian teleports in and eats the blow aimed at the Wizard, or a healthy ally intercepts the hit that would have finished someone already at 0.

Use it with the numbers in front of you. The intercepting creature takes the entire amount, so it needs the hit points to survive what it is absorbing. A raging Bear Totem Barbarian with resistance is the ideal volunteer.

Peace Potent Spellcasting - Level 8 ●

Add your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips.

The standard backline level 8 feature, and Peace is squarely a backline domain. Sacred Flame at 60 feet with a Dexterity save is the natural pick, since it lets you contribute damage from where you already want to be standing. At Wisdom 20 and level 17 that is 4d8+5, averaging 23, on every turn you have nothing better to do.

Expansive Bond - Level 17 ●

Emboldening Bond and Protective Bond now work at 60 feet instead of 30, and a creature using Protective Bond gains resistance to the damage it takes.

The resistance is the bigger half. Intercepting a 60-damage hit and taking 30 turns Protective Bond from a desperate sacrifice into a routine tactic, and the doubled radius means the party can spread across a real battlefield and keep the d4.

Peace in play

Apply Emboldening Bond before every encounter and every skill challenge, not just fights. It covers ability checks, which means it is helping during the heist and the negotiation too.

Your concentration is free, which is the domain's hidden advantage. Use it on the strongest spell you have rather than treating Emboldening Bond as though it were Bless.

Build Wisdom first, Constitution second, Dexterity for medium armor. You have no heavy armor, so plan to stay at range and let Balm of Peace bring you in and out when healing is needed.

Life Domain

The definitive healer, and the best domain to hand a new player. Life is the most straightforward subclass in this guide: heavy armor so you survive, and a passive that makes every healing spell you will ever cast better.

Life domain spells ●

Bless and Cure Wounds at 1st, Lesser Restoration and Spiritual Weapon at 3rd, Beacon of Hope and Revivify at 5th, Death Ward and Guardian of Faith at 7th, Mass Cure Wounds and Raise Dead at 9th.

Bless is one of the three best spells in the game and you have it from level 1: 1d4 to every attack roll and saving throw for three characters, every round, and it stays relevant for twenty levels. Spiritual Weapon is bonus action damage with no concentration, which frees your action for healing and your concentration for Bless. Beacon of Hope maximises healing dice and grants advantage on Wisdom and death saves. Revivify at level 5 is the spell that changes how dangerous your campaign feels, so keep 300gp of diamonds on you at all times.

Death Ward and Raise Dead are insurance. Lesser Restoration and Guardian of Faith are reliable filler. The list is narrow but almost every entry earns its slot.

Life heavy armor proficiency - Level 1 ●

Proficiency with heavy armor.

Plate armor at 18 AC on a full caster, which is the same defensive baseline as a Fighter. It also resolves the ability score question: you do not need Dexterity, so you can run Wisdom primary with Strength 15 and be durable. That is what makes the melee support playstyle work, standing in the danger zone and delivering healing where it is actually needed.

Disciple of Life - Level 1 ●

Whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that restores hit points, the target regains an additional 2 plus the spell's level.

This is the feature that makes the domain. It is always on, costs nothing, requires no decision, and scales with every healing spell you will ever cast.

The comparison that matters: a 5th-level Life Cleric casting Healing Word at 1st level restores about 9.5 hit points where any other Cleric restores 6.5. That gap widens with every upcast. It is what turns healing from an action-economy trap into something worth doing, and it is the reason the Life Cleric is the only healer in the game whose healing keeps pace with incoming damage.

The practical consequence: upcast your heals. A 3rd-level Cure Wounds carries +5 rather than +3, so the bonus rewards spending the bigger slot.

Channel Divinity: Preserve Life - Level 2 ●

As an action, restore hit points equal to five times your Cleric level, divided as you choose among creatures within 30 feet. It cannot raise a creature above half its hit point maximum.

At level 10 that is 50 hit points distributed across whoever needs it, with no concentration, no spell slot, and a short rest recharge. The half-maximum cap sounds restrictive and rarely is, because the moment you reach for this is the moment several people are badly hurt.

Spend it earlier than feels comfortable. The common mistake is holding Preserve Life until someone drops, when its value is highest spread across three people who are all about to.

Blessed Healer - Level 6 ●

When you cast a healing spell of 1st level or higher on a creature other than yourself, you regain 2 plus the spell's level in hit points.

Quiet self-sufficiency. Every heal you cast on someone else patches you up too, which over a long fight adds up and means you are not spending slots on yourself. Cast Mass Cure Wounds at 5th level and you pick up 7 hit points for free.

Life Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 radiant damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Reasonable rather than defining. Radiant is a good damage type and the Life Cleric is already in melee thanks to heavy armor, so this fills the turns where nobody needs healing: swing your mace with your action while Healing Word covers emergencies with your bonus action.

Supreme Healing - Level 17 ●

When you would roll dice to restore hit points with a spell, use the maximum result for each die instead.

One of the strongest capstones in the class. Mass Cure Wounds at 9th level restores 56 plus the Disciple of Life bonus to each of six creatures, which is over 400 hit points delivered in a single action. Even at a routine 5th-level slot every target receives 31 guaranteed with no variance.

At the tier where a bad round can wipe a party, this is the feature that reverses it.

Life in play

Upcast your healing and use Healing Word as a bonus action so your action stays free. The Life Cleric's turn should rarely be "I heal and do nothing else."

Take War Caster or Resilient with Constitution. Bless and Beacon of Hope are both concentration and both are things you want running.

Build Wisdom to 20, Strength 15 for plate, Constitution 14. Variant Human for War Caster at level 1 and Hill Dwarf for the Wisdom and hit points are the two strongest racial picks.

Forge Domain

The most durable Cleric in the game. Forge stacks armor bonuses until you are harder to hit than the Fighter, then hands you fire immunity at level 17. It also gives a free magic item every single day from level 1.

Forge domain spells ●

Identify and Searing Smite at 1st, Heat Metal and Magic Weapon at 3rd, Elemental Weapon and Protection from Energy at 5th, Fabricate and Wall of Fire at 7th, Animate Objects and Creation at 9th.

Heat Metal is the standout and one of the most punishing spells in the game against armored humanoids: a Constitution save or the target drops its metal weapon, plus 2d8 fire as a bonus action every round you keep concentration. Against knights and armored cultists it effectively removes them from the fight. Wall of Fire at 7th is excellent area denial, and Animate Objects at 9th is one of the best damage spells available to any class.

Protection from Energy is strong pre-buff insurance before a dragon. Elemental Weapon is reasonable for a weapon build. Searing Smite, Identify and Magic Weapon are weak entries, the latter two outclassed by real magic items by the time you get them. Fabricate and Creation are crafting tools that reward a creative player and a willing DM.

Forge bonus proficiencies - Level 1 ●

Heavy armor and smith's tools.

Heavy armor is the foundation everything else in this domain builds on, because Forge is the only domain that keeps adding to your AC. Plate at 18, plus Blessing of the Forge, plus Soul of the Forge, and you arrive at 20 AC without a shield and without a single magic item.

Blessing of the Forge - Level 1 ●

At the end of a long rest, touch one nonmagical suit of armor or one simple or martial weapon. Until your next long rest it becomes magical, granting +1 AC if armor or +1 to attack and damage if a weapon.

One of the strongest level 1 features in the class. A free +1 item every day, with no action cost during play, no spell slot and no attunement. At level 1 that is remarkable: +1 plate is 19 AC at a tier where most characters are sitting at 15 or 16.

The flexibility is part of the value. Put it on your own armor most days; hand it to the party's main weapon user on the days that matters more. Its relative worth declines as the party accumulates real magic items, but the AC point keeps converting hits into misses for the whole campaign.

Channel Divinity: Artisan's Blessing - Level 2 ●

An hour-long ritual that creates a nonmagical metal item worth no more than 100 gp, consuming metal of equal value.

Out-of-combat utility, and useful in campaigns with crafting, scarcity or infiltration: duplicate keys, replacement tools, ammunition, a specific piece of equipment nobody thought to buy. The cost is that it spends a Channel Divinity charge, so early on you are choosing between this and a combat option. From level 6 with two charges per short rest, that stops being a real sacrifice.

Soul of the Forge - Level 6 ●

Resistance to fire damage, and +1 AC while wearing heavy armor.

Two meaningful defensive upgrades in one feature. Fire is one of the most common damage types in the game, from red dragons and fire giants down to every Fireball an enemy caster throws, and halving all of it is a large ongoing contribution to your survival.

The +1 AC stacks with Blessing of the Forge. Plate at 18, +1 from the Blessing, +1 from Soul of the Forge is 20 AC with no shield and no magic items, which is as hard to hit as a character can normally get at that level while leaving your off hand free.

Forge Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 fire damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Fire is a middling damage type for this purpose, since fire giants, red dragons and many fiends resist or ignore it, and those are exactly the enemies a Forge Cleric expects to meet. There is a neat thematic loop in dealing fire while being resistant to it, and against everything that is not fire-resistant the extra die is solid. Save Heat Metal for the armored enemies who shrug the Divine Strike off.

Saint of Forge and Fire - Level 17 ●

Immunity to fire damage, and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks while wearing heavy armor.

One of the best capstones in the class. Fire immunity at the tier of red dragons, pit fiends and fire elementals means you simply walk through a category of encounter that threatens everyone else, with no concentration and no resource spent.

The physical resistance matters less at a tier where most serious attacks are magical, but against armies, constructs and ordinary warriors it makes you close to untouchable. Combined with 20 AC, the level 17 Forge Cleric is among the most durable characters in the game.

Forge in play

Apply Blessing of the Forge every single long rest. It is free and forgetting it is the most common Forge Cleric mistake.

Take War Caster. Heat Metal is your best spell for a large stretch of the campaign and it is concentration, held while you stand in melee, which is the exact situation that breaks concentration.

Build Wisdom to 20 and Strength 15 for plate. Mountain Dwarf and Variant Human are the two strongest picks, the first for Strength and Constitution together, the second for War Caster at level 1. A single level of Fighter for Constitution proficiency and the Defense fighting style pushes you to 21 AC if you want to lean all the way into the durability.

Grave Domain

The anti-crit, anti-death domain, and the best damage amplifier in the class. Grave is defensive on the surface and one of the strongest offensive enablers in the game.

Grave domain spells ●

Bane and False Life at 1st, Gentle Repose and Ray of Enfeeblement at 3rd, Revivify and Vampiric Touch at 5th, Blight and Death Ward at 7th, Antilife Shell and Raise Dead at 9th.

Revivify always prepared at 5th is the important one, and together with Raise Dead at 9th it gives Grave the most complete life-and-death toolkit of any domain. Bane is a strong opening debuff against a cluster of enemies. Death Ward is the insurance you cast on the most fragile party member before a boss.

Vampiric Touch suits a melee build with its self-healing. Blight is respectable single-target necrotic. False Life, Gentle Repose, Ray of Enfeeblement and Antilife Shell are the weak entries, the last being particularly awkward since it does nothing to the undead and constructs you will be fighting.

Circle of Mortality - Level 1 ●

When you would roll dice to restore hit points to a creature at 0 hit points, use the maximum for each die instead. You also learn Spare the Dying, it does not count against your cantrips known, its range for you is 30 feet, and you can cast it as a bonus action.

Two excellent benefits in one level 1 feature. The maximised healing only applies at 0 hit points, which is precisely the moment it matters: Healing Word on a downed ally restores 4 plus your Wisdom modifier rather than an average 2.5, and that difference is often whether they stay up.

The Spare the Dying upgrade is the underrated half. Stabilising someone from 30 feet as a bonus action means you never spend a whole turn walking across the battlefield to touch a dying ally, which is one of the classic ways a fight spirals.

Eyes of the Grave - Level 1 ●

As an action you can detect the presence of undead within 60 feet that are not behind total cover, for a number of uses equal to your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

Entirely campaign-dependent, which is why it sits at orange rather than green. In Curse of Strahd or any undead-heavy game it is constant, useful intelligence: the hidden ghast, the disguised wight, the vampire spawn stalking the party. In a campaign with a varied monster roster it will go untouched for whole sessions.

Channel Divinity: Path to the Grave - Level 2 ●

As an action, curse one creature you can see. The next time you or an ally hits it with an attack, the creature has vulnerability to that attack's damage, and the curse ends.

The strongest burst amplifier in the game. Vulnerability doubles the damage of the triggering hit, and the trick is choosing which hit that is: a Paladin's smite, a Rogue's Sneak Attack turn, the Fighter's Action Surge, or your own Guiding Bolt at 4d6 doubled to 8d6.

Coordinate it out loud. Path to the Grave used on the party's biggest single hit of the encounter can remove a boss phase entirely, and used on the first attack that happens to land it is worth a fraction of that.

Sentinel at Death's Door - Level 6 ●

As a reaction when you or a creature you can see within 30 feet suffers a critical hit, turn that critical hit into a normal hit. Uses equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

One of the best defensive features in the class. Critical hits are what turn a manageable fight into a dead character, because they double the damage dice and often carry a rider effect. Cancelling one commonly prevents 20 to 60 damage in a single reaction, and against undead with paralysis or drain effects on their crits it removes the entire secondary consequence.

The 30-foot range covers the whole party from a safe position, and Wisdom modifier uses is a generous pool. Spend them on boss crits and on hits that would drop someone, not on routine damage against a healthy Barbarian.

Grave Potent Spellcasting - Level 8 ●

Add your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips.

Grave is a backline domain by design, holding a reaction for Sentinel at Death's Door and casting healing at range, so the turns where you have nothing better to do are common. Sacred Flame and Toll the Dead with your full Wisdom modifier attached make those turns productive.

Keeper of Souls - Level 17 ●

When an enemy you can see dies within 60 feet, you or one creature you choose within 60 feet regains hit points equal to the enemy's number of Hit Dice. Once per turn, and only while you are not incapacitated.

Passive healing with no action cost, accruing steadily through any fight that contains more than one enemy. Against a group of ten two-Hit-Dice goblins that is 20 hit points distributed across the encounter for free.

The once-per-turn limit means simultaneous deaths only trigger it once, and against a single boss it generates nothing until the boss is already dead. It is at its best exactly where the Grave Cleric expects to be: fighting hordes of undead.

Grave in play

Hold your reaction. Sentinel at Death's Door is the feature, and new Grave players spend their reaction on an opportunity attack and then watch a critical hit land on the Wizard.

Call your Path to the Grave target before the party's big hitter acts, not after. The difference between a coordinated vulnerability and an uncoordinated one is often a doubled smite.

You have no heavy armor, so build Dexterity for medium armor and a shield, Wisdom to 20, Constitution 14. Variant Human for War Caster, or Shadar-kai for necrotic resistance and a bonus action teleport that fits both the theme and the backline positioning.

Tempest Domain

The damage domain. Tempest maximises its own spells, controls the battlefield with every lightning hit, and wears the heaviest armor in the class while doing it.

Tempest domain spells ●

Fog Cloud and Thunderwave at 1st, Gust of Wind and Shatter at 3rd, Call Lightning and Sleet Storm at 5th, Control Water and Ice Storm at 7th, Destructive Wave and Insect Plague at 9th.

Call Lightning is the engine of the whole build: a bonus action each round to drop 3d10 lightning for a full minute, which pairs with Destructive Wrath for a maximised opening bolt and with Thunderbolt Strike to push whatever it hits. One concentration spell that keeps producing damage for ten rounds is exactly what a Cleric wants, because it leaves your action free.

Destructive Wave at 9th is an underrated nova: 5d6 thunder plus 5d6 radiant in a 30-foot radius with prone on a failed save. Shatter is your maximising target at levels 3 and 4 before Call Lightning arrives. Sleet Storm, Ice Storm and Control Water are solid situational control. Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind and Thunderwave are the weak entries once you are past the first few levels.

Tempest bonus proficiencies - Level 1 ●

Heavy armor and martial weapons.

Together these make the Tempest Cleric the best-equipped physical combatant among the domains. Plate at 18 AC and a maul or warhammer, combined with Spiritual Weapon and later Divine Strike, gives you a melee platform that rivals a Paladin for durability while you also hold the party's best damage spell.

Wrath of the Storm - Level 1 ●

When a creature within 5 feet that you can see hits you with an attack, use your reaction to force a Dexterity saving throw, dealing 2d8 lightning or thunder damage, halved on a success. Uses equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

A deterrent that also happens to be free damage. Standing in melee as a Tempest Cleric means enemies hitting you take an average of 9 back, and across a long fight that accumulates without costing a spell slot or an action.

Choose lightning rather than thunder when you have Thunderbolt Strike, because the push comes attached and shoves the attacker back out of melee.

Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath - Level 2 ●

When you roll lightning or thunder damage, use the maximum result instead of rolling.

One of the three best Channel Divinity options in the Player's Handbook, and the simplest. Call Lightning goes from an average 16.5 to a flat 30. Shatter goes from 13.5 to 24, applied to everything in the radius.

It does not need multiple targets to be worth spending. A maximised single bolt into a boss is excellent on its own. The timing skill is in holding it: against a creature with Legendary Resistance, spend it after the resistance is burned, and in a long fight open with a maximised bolt and then coast on ordinary rolls for the remaining rounds.

Thunderbolt Strike - Level 6 ●

When you deal lightning damage to a Large or smaller creature, you can push it up to 10 feet away.

This converts every lightning source you own into battlefield control, with no save, no action and no resource. Every Call Lightning bolt, every Wrath of the Storm reaction, every Lightning Bolt you cast now also repositions the target.

The applications are broad and worth planning around: push enemies off ledges, out of a doorway your party needs, away from a downed ally, or into a hazard your Druid put down. A consistent 10-foot shove every round is a real tactical tool.

Tempest Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 thunder damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Thunder is reasonably resisted but far from the worst option. For a melee Tempest Cleric this is an automatic addition to a turn that already contains a weapon attack and a Spiritual Weapon attack, and it costs nothing.

Stormborn - Level 17 ●

While you are not underground or indoors, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed.

An outstanding capstone. Permanent outdoor flight completely changes your positioning: you call lightning from above the fight, use Thunderbolt Strike to keep enemies away from you, and become unreachable to anything ground-bound.

At the tier where dragons, angels and planar threats are the standard encounter, and where much of the fighting happens in open sky, this makes the Tempest Cleric a specialist in exactly the environment that matters.

Tempest in play

Call Lightning is the turn structure. Cast it once, then spend each subsequent bonus action on a bolt while your action attacks, heals or controls. Very few Cleric builds get that much out of one concentration spell.

Take War Caster and treat it as mandatory. You are standing in melee holding the concentration spell that is your entire damage output.

Build Strength 15 for plate, Wisdom to 20, Constitution 14. Mountain Dwarf and Variant Human are the standout races, and a single Fighter level for Constitution proficiency and a fighting style is the best dip available.

Light Domain

The blaster. Light is the closest a Cleric gets to playing an Evocation Wizard, and it is the only domain that hands you Fireball, a spell that is otherwise not on the Cleric list at all.

Light domain spells ●

Burning Hands and Faerie Fire at 1st, Flaming Sphere and Scorching Ray at 3rd, Daylight and Fireball at 5th, Guardian of Faith and Wall of Fire at 7th, Flame Strike and Scrying at 9th.

Fireball is the reason this domain exists. Eight d6 in a 20-foot radius at level 5, always prepared, on a character who also wears armor and heals, is a capability no other Cleric has. Faerie Fire at level 1 is superb, granting advantage on every attack against everything caught in it. Wall of Fire at 7th is one of the best combined control and damage spells in the game.

Flaming Sphere and Scorching Ray are solid mid-tier damage. Burning Hands, Daylight, Flame Strike and Scrying are the weaker entries, though Scrying earns its place in an investigation campaign.

Bonus cantrip: Light - Level 1 ●

You know the Light cantrip, or a different Cleric cantrip if you already know it.

An almost entirely dead feature. Light is available to any Cleric and you had probably already taken it, in which case this converts into one more cantrip. Budget for it as nothing and be pleasantly surprised if the swap is useful.

Warding Flare - Level 1 ●

When a creature you can see within 30 feet attacks you, use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. Uses equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

One of the better level 1 features in the class and the reason Light Clerics survive without heavy armor. Disadvantage on an attack is worth roughly 3 to 5 points of effective AC against that swing, and you get to choose which swing.

Spend it on the dangerous single attacks, a dragon's bite or a giant's club, rather than on routine damage. With Wisdom modifier uses you have enough to cover the moments that matter in most adventuring days.

Channel Divinity: Radiance of the Dawn - Level 2 ●

As an action, dispel magical darkness within 30 feet, and each hostile creature within 30 feet makes a Constitution saving throw, taking 2d10 plus your Cleric level radiant damage, halved on a success.

An excellent Channel Divinity and one of the best in the Player's Handbook. At level 10 that is an average 21 radiant to every enemy in range, with no concentration and no spell slot, on a short rest recharge.

Radiant is resisted by very little, and the damage happens on a successful save too. Constitution is a strong save for most monsters, but since half damage still lands, the feature never fully whiffs. Use it when three or more enemies are inside the radius.

Improved Flare - Level 6 ●

You can use Warding Flare when a creature attacks a creature other than you within 30 feet.

This turns a personal defence into party protection, and it is what makes the Light Cleric a genuine guardian from the back line. Protect the Wizard's concentration, or blunt the alpha strike aimed at whoever is most fragile.

The uses do not increase, so you are now splitting the same pool between yourself and four other people. Prioritise by what the hit would actually cost.

Light Potent Spellcasting - Level 8 ●

Add your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips.

The natural level 8 feature for a domain built around casting, and Light uses it better than most because you will be at range with a free action on the turns you are not spending a slot. Sacred Flame at level 17 with Wisdom 20 averages 23 damage with no attack roll required.

Corona of Light - Level 17 ●

As an action, emit bright light in a 60-foot radius and dim light for 60 feet beyond for one minute. Enemies in the bright light have disadvantage on saving throws against any spell that deals fire or radiant damage.

One of the best capstones in the class, because it amplifies nearly everything you own. Fireball, Wall of Fire, Flame Strike, Sacred Flame and Radiance of the Dawn all deal fire or radiant, so a single action buys a full minute of every enemy in a 60-foot radius rolling their saves twice and keeping the worse result.

The compounding with a high-slot Fireball at this tier is severe, and one action for a minute of it is exceptional value.

Light in play

You are a backline caster, so build Dexterity for medium armor and a shield and accept that you will be around 16 AC rather than 18. Warding Flare is what covers the gap.

Hold your reaction for Warding Flare the way a Lore Bard holds one for Cutting Words. It is the domain's defining defensive tool and it does nothing sitting unused.

Take War Caster for the concentration on Faerie Fire, Flaming Sphere and Wall of Fire. Alert is the other strong pick, because going before the enemy is how a Fireball catches them still clustered.

Arcana Domain

The Wizard's domain. Arcana gives a divine caster the arcane spell list in pieces, starting with two Wizard cantrips at level 1 and ending with four of the best Wizard spells in the game permanently added to your list.

Arcana domain spells ●

Detect Magic and Magic Missile at 1st, Magic Weapon and Nystul's Magic Aura at 3rd, Dispel Magic and Magic Circle at 5th, Arcane Eye and Leomund's Secret Chest at 7th, Planar Binding and Teleportation Circle at 9th.

Magic Missile is guaranteed damage with no attack roll and no save, which makes it the reliable answer when you cannot afford to miss. Dispel Magic always prepared from level 5 means the party never lacks an answer to a magical effect. Teleportation Circle is serious late-campaign infrastructure.

Magic Circle and Planar Binding together give the domain a complete toolkit for dealing with extraplanar creatures, which pairs with Arcane Abjuration. Detect Magic, Nystul's Magic Aura and Arcane Eye are narrow utility. Magic Weapon and Leomund's Secret Chest are the weakest entries, both outclassed by the time you receive them.

Arcane Initiate - Level 1 ●

Proficiency in Arcana, and two cantrips of your choice from the Wizard spell list, which count as Cleric cantrips for you.

The cantrips are the value, and the fact that they count as Cleric cantrips is what makes this feature matter later: they qualify for Potent Spellcasting at level 8. Fire Bolt is the strongest pure damage cantrip in the game and the Cleric list has nothing comparable.

That combination, Wizard cantrips plus Potent Spellcasting, is unique to this domain and it is the reason an Arcana Cleric should plan to be a backline cantrip caster. At level 17 a Fire Bolt with Wisdom 20 deals 4d10 plus 5, averaging 27, every single turn for free.

Channel Divinity: Arcane Abjuration - Level 2 ●

As an action, one celestial, elemental, fey or fiend you can see within 30 feet must make a Wisdom saving throw or be turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage. If its challenge rating is at or below a threshold set by your Cleric level and it is not on its home plane, you can banish it instead.

Turn Undead pointed at a different set of creature types, plus a free banishment rider. In a planar campaign, or any campaign where demons and devils show up on the Material Plane, this is outstanding: removing a fiend entirely without spending a 4th-level slot.

The restriction is the whole story. Against undead, constructs, beasts, humanoids and aberrations it does nothing at all, so this is either excellent or dead depending on what your DM runs.

Spell Breaker - Level 6 ●

When you restore hit points to an ally with a spell of 1st level or higher, you can also end one spell on that creature, provided the spell you end is of a level equal to or lower than the slot you used.

An exceptional passive that turns every heal into a targeted dispel. Cast Cure Wounds with a 3rd-level slot and you both heal the ally and strip Hold Person, Slow, Blindness or Confusion off them in the same action.

The design rewards deliberate slot choice: upcast the heal to match the level of the thing you are trying to remove. A 5th-level heal frees someone from Dominate Person. This is the feature that makes an Arcana Cleric feel like the answer to enemy casters.

Arcana Potent Spellcasting - Level 8 ●

Add your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips.

Arcana gets more from this than any other domain that receives it, because Arcane Initiate's Wizard cantrips also qualify. Fire Bolt and Sacred Flame both carry your full Wisdom modifier, giving the Arcana Cleric the highest cantrip output in the class.

Arcane Mastery - Level 17 ●

Choose four spells from the Wizard list, one each of 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th level. They become domain spells, always prepared, and count as Cleric spells for you.

The single best level 17 feature in the class. Four of the most powerful spells in the game, permanently prepared and never counting against your limit.

The picks worth considering: Globe of Invulnerability at 6th for the best defensive option at that level, Forcecage at 7th because it has no saving throw, Maze at 8th as arguably the strongest single-target removal in the game, and True Polymorph or Wish at 9th. Ask your DM about Wish specifically before you build around it.

This turns the Arcana Cleric into the most versatile caster at the table, and it is the reason the domain is worth playing in a campaign that will actually reach level 17.

Arcana in play

Commit to the backline. You have no heavy armor, so build Dexterity for medium armor and a shield, keep Wisdom primary, and treat Fire Bolt as your default action on turns that do not need a spell slot.

Hold Dispel Magic and Spell Breaker as your identity. In a campaign with enemy spellcasters, the Arcana Cleric is the character who undoes what they do, and that is a more reliable contribution than trying to out-damage a Light Cleric.

Variant Human for War Caster and High Elf for a third Wizard cantrip are the two strongest racial picks.

Order Domain

The support-damage hybrid. Order turns your healing spells into free attacks for your allies, which makes it one of the strongest party multipliers in the class when the party has people worth multiplying.

Order domain spells ●

Command and Heroism at 1st, Hold Person and Zone of Truth at 3rd, Mass Healing Word and Slow at 5th, Compulsion and Locate Creature at 7th, Commune and Dominate Person at 9th.

Mass Healing Word always prepared at 5th is the centrepiece, because it is a bonus action that heals up to six allies and triggers Voice of Authority. Command is a strong level 1 control spell with real combat applications in Flee, Grovel, Halt and Drop. Hold Person paralyses, which means every attack against the target is made with advantage and every hit within 5 feet is a critical.

Slow is excellent multi-target debuffing and Dominate Person at 9th can simply end an encounter. Heroism is a reasonable concentration buff. Zone of Truth, Locate Creature, Compulsion and Commune are narrow, mostly out-of-combat picks.

Order bonus proficiencies - Level 1 ●

Heavy armor, and proficiency in Intimidation or Persuasion.

Heavy armor gives you the option of standing in melee, where Voice of Authority reaches the allies next to you and Divine Strike has something to do. Most Order Clerics hover at the edge of the fight rather than in the middle of it, but the plate makes that survivable.

The social proficiency fits the domain's law-and-authority theme and is a genuine if minor addition to a class with few skills.

Voice of Authority - Level 1 ●

If you cast a spell of 1st level or higher that targets an ally, that ally can use its reaction to make one weapon attack against a creature of your choice. If the spell targets more than one ally, you choose which one attacks.

Read that last clause carefully, because it is the most commonly misunderstood line in the domain. Even Mass Healing Word, hitting five allies, produces one reaction attack, not five. Some tables play it the other way; settle it with your DM before you build around it.

Even at one attack it is excellent. Every healing or buffing spell you cast now also generates a weapon attack from whoever in the party hits hardest, which means no round where you heal feels like a round where you did nothing offensive. Across a ten-round fight that is up to ten extra attacks that cost the party nothing.

The loop that defines the domain: Healing Word as a bonus action on your melee ally, they attack with their reaction, and your action is still free for Spirit Guardians, Bless or a control spell.

Channel Divinity: Order's Demand - Level 2 ●

As an action, each creature of your choice within 30 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed until the end of your next turn, and each creature that fails drops whatever it is holding.

A disarm with a short crowd-control rider. The charm lasts one turn and breaks on damage, so the lasting part is the disarm: a creature that drops its weapon has to spend an action picking it up.

Wisdom is a reasonably strong save for many humanoids, so aim this at Fighters, Barbarians and Rogues rather than at Clerics, Druids and Monks. Against a line of armed guards it is excellent; against a spellcaster holding a focus it can interrupt a turn.

Embodiment of the Law - Level 6 ●

If you cast an enchantment spell of 1st level or higher with a casting time of one action, you can change that casting time to a bonus action. Uses equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

This does not spend Channel Divinity, which means you have it alongside Order's Demand rather than instead of it.

What it buys is a doubled turn on the rounds that matter. Bonus action Command while your action attacks. Bonus action Hold Person on the dangerous enemy while your action casts something else. Bonus action Slow to blunt a whole group while your action casts Mass Healing Word and triggers Voice of Authority. Wisdom modifier uses is enough to cover the important fight in each part of the day.

Order Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 psychic damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Psychic is one of the least resisted damage types in the game, which makes Order's version of Divine Strike quietly above average. If you built for melee it lands on every swing with no immunity concerns in most encounters.

Order's Wrath - Level 17 ●

If you deal your Divine Strike damage to a creature on your turn, you can curse it until the start of your next turn. The next time an ally hits the cursed creature, it takes an extra 2d8 psychic damage and the curse ends. Once per turn.

Solid in a party with several attackers, since the curse will reliably be triggered by the Fighter or the Rogue on the following turn. It is a modest capstone by comparison with Twilight Shroud or Expansive Bond, both of which keep delivering value every round to the whole party rather than adding one instance of 2d8.

Order in play

Cast Healing Word almost every round, even when nobody is badly hurt. On this domain the heal is not the point; the free ally attack is, and a bonus action spent generating an extra weapon attack is almost always correct.

Coordinate who gets the reaction. Voice of Authority lets you choose, so point it at the Paladin who can smite or the Rogue who can land another Sneak Attack, not whoever happens to be nearest.

Build Wisdom to 20, Strength 15 if you want the melee option, Constitution 14. A single Fighter level for Constitution proficiency and the Defense fighting style is the best dip on this domain.

War Domain

The frontline Cleric. War has the most straightforward martial package in the class: heavy armor, martial weapons, an extra attack, and a Channel Divinity that converts a miss into a hit whenever you need it.

War domain spells ●

Divine Favor and Shield of Faith at 1st, Magic Weapon and Spiritual Weapon at 3rd, Crusader's Mantle and Spirit Guardians at 5th, Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin at 7th, Flame Strike and Hold Monster at 9th.

Spirit Guardians is the most important spell on the list and the engine of the whole build. Cast it, walk into the middle of the enemy, and everything within 15 feet takes damage every round without you spending another action. Spiritual Weapon is the perfect partner because it is a bonus action and requires no concentration, so it stacks on top of Spirit Guardians rather than competing with it.

Crusader's Mantle is underrated in a party with several melee characters, adding 1d4 radiant to every one of their weapon hits. Hold Monster at 9th works on anything, unlike Hold Person. Shield of Faith is a reasonable pre-buff. Divine Favor, Magic Weapon, Freedom of Movement, Stoneskin and Flame Strike are situational, and Divine Favor in particular falls off hard once Spirit Guardians exists.

War bonus proficiencies - Level 1 ●

Heavy armor and martial weapons.

The standard melee Cleric package. Plate at 18 AC with Strength 15 puts you on the same defensive footing as any martial class, and martial weapons give you a maul or a longsword instead of a mace.

War Priest - Level 1 ●

When you use the Attack action, you can make one weapon attack as a bonus action. Uses equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest.

The most discussed War Domain feature, and the honest verdict is that it is good rather than transformative. The problem is competition: from level 3 onward your bonus action usually belongs to Spiritual Weapon, which produces damage every round for a minute rather than once.

Where it earns its place is on the rounds after Spiritual Weapon is already conjured and attacking, when your bonus action would otherwise go unused. Wisdom modifier uses per long rest covers roughly one per meaningful fight.

Channel Divinity: Guided Strike - Level 2 ●

When you make an attack roll, you can use Channel Divinity to gain +10 to the roll, deciding after you see the result but before the outcome is announced.

Exceptional because of the timing. You never waste it: you look at the d20, and you only spend the charge when +10 converts a miss into a hit. That makes it, in practice, free damage.

Save it for the attack in the round that carries the most weight, which on a War Cleric usually means the one that lands while Spirit Guardians is up and the target is about to act.

Channel Divinity: War God's Blessing - Level 6 ●

As a reaction when a creature within 30 feet makes an attack roll, grant it +10, deciding after seeing the roll.

Guided Strike handed to your allies, with the same excellent timing rule. Spend it on the party's biggest single hit: the Paladin's smite, the Rogue's Sneak Attack, the Fighter's critical-range swing against a boss.

Having two Channel Divinity options also means your charges always have somewhere useful to go, which is not true of every domain on this list.

War Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 damage of the weapon's type, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Matching the weapon's damage type is both the strength and the limitation. You will never be in the position of dealing a type the enemy resists while the bonus die uses a different one, but you also cannot choose a better type. Pick a weapon whose damage is broadly applicable and commit.

Avatar of Battle - Level 17 ●

Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.

It reads better than it plays. By level 17 most of what threatens you is magical or elemental, so the resistance often does nothing against the encounters that matter.

Where it shines is against numbers: skeleton armies, cult warriors, massed soldiers. In those fights the War Cleric becomes nearly immune to the entire enemy force and can ignore them to deal with the one real threat.

War in play

The core turn is Spirit Guardians up, stand in the enemy, attack with your action, Spiritual Weapon with your bonus action. That is a large amount of damage from a full caster and it requires no cleverness.

Take War Caster and treat it as part of the build. Spirit Guardians is your damage and you are holding it while being attacked.

Build Strength 15 for plate, Wisdom to 20, Constitution 14. Two levels of Paladin for Divine Smite and Constitution proficiency is the strongest multiclass on this domain, since both classes want you in melee and neither needs a new ability score.

Death Domain

The necromancer. Death is presented in the Dungeon Master's Guide as a villain option, so ask before building one, but the mechanics are solid: it doubles every necromancy cantrip from level 1 and eventually ignores the resistance that necrotic damage usually runs into.

Death domain spells ●

False Life and Ray of Sickness at 1st, Blindness/Deafness and Ray of Enfeeblement at 3rd, Animate Dead and Vampiric Touch at 5th, Blight and Death Ward at 7th, Antilife Shell and Cloudkill at 9th.

Animate Dead is the headline for a necromancer build and it doubles at level 17 through Improved Reaper. Blight is strong single-target necrotic that benefits fully from Inescapable Destruction, and it is devastating against plant creatures.

Vampiric Touch gives a melee build real self-sustain. Cloudkill is reliable zone damage. Death Ward is insurance. False Life, Ray of Sickness, Blindness/Deafness, Ray of Enfeeblement and Antilife Shell are the weak entries, and Antilife Shell is actively awkward in a domain that expects to fight undead.

Death bonus proficiency - Level 1 ●

Proficiency with martial weapons.

Note the gap: Death gives martial weapons but not heavy armor, which separates it from War, Tempest, Forge and Twilight. That means a melee Death Cleric is standing in the front line in medium armor, and needs to build Dexterity accordingly or accept a lower AC than the other martial domains.

The retired Death Domain guide claimed heavy armor as well. That is inconsistent with the Dungeon Master's Guide as published, so check with your DM rather than assuming plate.

Reaper - Level 1 ●

You learn one necromancy cantrip from any spell list, and when you cast a necromancy cantrip that targets only one creature, it can instead target two creatures within 5 feet of each other.

One of the best level 1 features in the Player's Handbook family of subclasses. From the first session, every necromancy cantrip you cast hits two targets.

Toll the Dead is the pick: 1d8 against a healthy creature, 1d12 against an injured one, on a Wisdom save with no attack roll. Hitting two adjacent enemies with that every turn is a real damage contribution from a cantrip, and it costs nothing.

Channel Divinity: Touch of Death - Level 2 ●

When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can use Channel Divinity to deal extra necrotic damage equal to 5 plus twice your Cleric level.

At level 10 that is 25 extra necrotic on a single hit, which is a substantial spike for a resource that recharges on a short rest.

The constraint is that it needs a melee attack to land, which makes it less reliable than an area Channel Divinity like Radiance of the Dawn. The retired leaf described this feature under two different names in the same section and placed a differently-worded version at level 6; the version above is the one to use, and it is worth checking against your DM's printing.

Inescapable Destruction - Level 6 ●

Necrotic damage dealt by your Cleric spells and Channel Divinity options ignores resistance to necrotic damage.

This fixes the structural problem with building around necrotic. Ghosts, wights, wraiths, demons, devils and a long list of undead resist it, and those are exactly the creatures a Death Cleric expects to fight. Removing that mitigation makes every necrotic source in your kit land at full value.

It compounds with everything: Toll the Dead through Reaper hitting two targets, Blight, Vampiric Touch and Touch of Death all stop being halved.

Death Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 necrotic damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Necrotic would normally be a mediocre choice for the same resistance reasons, except that Inescapable Destruction arrives before it and covers it. A Death Cleric in melee is dealing unreduced necrotic from the weapon rider, from Vampiric Touch and from Touch of Death simultaneously.

Improved Reaper - Level 17 ●

When you cast a necromancy spell of 1st through 5th level that targets only one creature, it can target two creatures within 5 feet of each other. If the spell consumes material components, you provide them for each target.

Reaper extended from cantrips to real spell slots, and it is one of the strongest capstones in the class. Blight at two targets is 8d8 necrotic each, ignoring resistance. Animate Dead raises two at once. Every necromancy slot you spend for the rest of the campaign does double duty.

Death in play

Take Toll the Dead and build around Reaper from level 1. Two targets on every cantrip is your baseline contribution and it never stops being relevant.

Decide early whether you are a caster or a melee build, because without heavy armor the melee version is riskier than the other martial domains. The caster build, Toll the Dead plus Blight with Inescapable Destruction, is the safer and probably stronger option.

Ask your DM before you commit. This is a Dungeon Master's Guide villain subclass and some tables do not allow it at all.

Knowledge Domain

The scholar. Knowledge is the only Cleric domain that hands out Expertise, and it owns the investigation and social pillars more completely than anything else in the class. It is also the weakest of the fourteen in a fight.

Knowledge domain spells ●

Command and Identify at 1st, Augury and Suggestion at 3rd, Nondetection and Speak with Dead at 5th, Arcane Eye and Confusion at 7th, Legend Lore and Scrying at 9th.

Suggestion is the strongest entry and one of the best social spells in the game, since a reasonable-sounding instruction delivered to the right NPC can reroute an entire session. Confusion is respectable area control at 7th. Scrying and Legend Lore together make the Knowledge Cleric the party's answer to "what is actually going on", which is exactly the domain's remit.

Command is a reasonable level 1 pick. Identify, Augury, Nondetection and Speak with Dead are narrow, though Speak with Dead is superb in a mystery. Arcane Eye is the weakest entry here, since divine divination already covers most of what you want from it.

Blessings of Knowledge - Level 1 ●

Two languages of your choice, proficiency in two skills from Arcana, History, Nature and Religion, and your proficiency bonus is doubled on any check using those two.

Expertise at level 1, which outside this domain belongs to Rogues and Bards only. At proficiency +3 that is +6 on both chosen skills before your ability modifier, rising to +12 by level 17.

Published adventures lean on Arcana, History and Religion checks constantly, so this compounds across an entire campaign. No other Cleric domain gives Expertise on anything, and it is the single best reason to pick Knowledge.

Channel Divinity: Knowledge of the Ages - Level 2 ●

As an action, gain proficiency with one skill or tool of your choice for 10 minutes.

The broadest utility Channel Divinity in the Player's Handbook. Thieves' tools for the lock in front of you, Medicine for the wounded NPC, a vehicle proficiency for the chase. It covers nearly any non-combat check a DM can produce.

Its limits are real: it grants proficiency rather than Expertise, ten minutes runs out quickly, and it competes with Read Thoughts for the same charges.

Channel Divinity: Read Thoughts - Level 6 ●

As an action, a creature within 60 feet makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure you read its surface thoughts for one minute while it stays within 60 feet, and during that time you can use your action to end the effect and cast Suggestion on it without a spell slot, with the creature automatically failing its save against it.

The interrogation package. Learn what the target actually wants or fears, then hand them a Suggestion built from that information, free of charge. In a social or investigation campaign this is close to unfair.

In combat it is mostly dead, since dangerous monsters tend to have strong Wisdom saves and legendary creatures simply refuse. Reserve it for the conversation before the fight.

Knowledge Potent Spellcasting - Level 8 ●

Add your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips.

The best combat feature the domain gets, which tells you something. Toll the Dead is the pick here: 1d12 against an injured target plus your full Wisdom modifier is the strongest single-target cantrip a Cleric can throw, and it keeps your turns productive on the many rounds where you are not casting a real spell.

Visions of the Past - Level 17 ●

Spend at least a minute in meditation to receive shadowy glimpses of recent events relating to an object you hold or your immediate surroundings.

A storytelling feature rather than a mechanical one, and its value is entirely a function of how your DM handles it. In a campaign built on mysteries, ancient sites and artifacts, it can resolve plots that would otherwise take sessions. In a combat-focused game it will sit unused.

Discuss it with your DM before level 17 rather than discovering at the table that they have not thought about it.

Knowledge in play

Be honest about the trade. You are picking the best investigation and social Cleric in the game and accepting the weakest combat kit. In a campaign with a real social and mystery component that is a good trade; in a dungeon crawl it is not.

Take Toll the Dead as your damage cantrip and Potent Spellcasting does the rest. Your combat contribution is cantrips, Bless, and whatever control you prepare from the general Cleric list, which is still substantial.

Build Wisdom to 20 first, then Intelligence to 14 or 16, because Blessings of Knowledge doubles proficiency but your Intelligence modifier still adds on top. Gnome and Variant Human are the strongest picks, and Observant is a feat worth considering for the passive scores.

Nature Domain

The druidic Cleric. Nature has one excellent feature, one useful cantrip trick, and a Channel Divinity and capstone that most campaigns will never use.

Nature domain spells ●

Animal Friendship and Speak with Animals at 1st, Barkskin and Spike Growth at 3rd, Plant Growth and Wind Wall at 5th, Dominate Beast and Grasping Vine at 7th, Insect Plague and Tree Stride at 9th.

Spike Growth is the best spell on the list and one of the better control spells in the game: a 20-foot radius of difficult terrain dealing 2d4 for every 5 feet moved through it. Position it between the enemy and your party and watch approaching creatures shred themselves. Plant Growth is a strong pre-combat area denial that cannot be dispelled. Insect Plague at 9th is reliable damage and difficult terrain in one.

The rest is thin. Animal Friendship, Speak with Animals, Wind Wall and Grasping Vine are narrow. Barkskin is one of the weakest 2nd-level spells in the game. Dominate Beast and Tree Stride are the weakest 7th-level pair any domain receives, since beasts become rare at that tier and Tree Stride needs a forest.

Acolyte of Nature - Level 1 ●

One Druid cantrip of your choice, and proficiency in Animal Handling, Nature or Survival.

The cantrip is the feature, and the correct pick is Shillelagh. It makes your quarterstaff deal 1d8, count as magical, and use Wisdom for attack and damage rolls, which removes the Cleric's multiple-ability-score problem entirely. You become a Wisdom-primary character who can also fight in melee, without spending a single point on Strength.

Thorn Whip is the alternative for a ranged build with a pull effect. The skill proficiency is minor.

Nature heavy armor proficiency - Level 1 ●

Proficiency with heavy armor.

Plate at 18 AC, and combined with Shillelagh this is what makes the Nature Cleric work: full Wisdom primary, plate armor, and melee attacks that key off the same stat as your spellcasting. Very few builds in the game get that clean an ability score spread.

Channel Divinity: Charm Animals and Plants - Level 2 ●

As an action, each beast and plant creature within 30 feet that can see you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed for one minute, treating you and creatures you designate as friendly.

The weakest Channel Divinity in the Player's Handbook. It requires multiple beast or plant creatures clustered within 30 feet, which most campaigns produce rarely and dungeon campaigns produce almost never.

In a jungle campaign, a fey crossing, or against a Druid who summons, it has its moment. Do not choose this domain expecting those moments to arrive.

Dampen Elements - Level 6 ●

When you or a creature within 60 feet takes acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage, you can use your reaction to grant resistance to that instance of damage.

The best feature in the domain by a wide margin, and the reason to play it. Five of the most common damage types in the game, halved, as a reaction, for anyone in the party, with no usage limit beyond having a reaction available.

Against a dragon's breath weapon aimed at your Wizard, or a Lightning Bolt down the party's line, this is the difference between a casualty and a bruise. You can use it every round of every fight where elemental damage appears.

Nature Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 cold, fire or lightning damage, your choice, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

Choosing the type each time is a genuine advantage over the fixed-type versions, letting you route around whatever the enemy resists. All three options still have meaningful resistances in the monster manual, but between them you will usually find one that lands.

On a Shillelagh build this stacks neatly: 1d8 plus Wisdom from the staff, plus 1d8 from Divine Strike, on a character who never invested in Strength.

Master of Nature - Level 17 ●

While creatures are charmed by your Charm Animals and Plants, you can use a bonus action to command what they do on their next turn.

An upgrade to a feature you have spent sixteen levels not using. The constraint that made Charm Animals and Plants situational is unchanged, so this inherits the same problem and adds command on top of it.

One of the weakest capstones in the class. If your campaign genuinely features beast and plant encounters at level 17 it has a moment; otherwise budget for it as nothing.

Nature in play

Take Shillelagh and build pure Wisdom. That is the domain's real identity and the reason to pick it over Life, which also grants heavy armor: you get a melee attack that scales with your casting stat.

Hold your reaction for Dampen Elements whenever elemental damage is plausible. It has no daily limit, so the only way to waste it is to not use it.

Spike Growth is your concentration spell for most of the campaign. Take War Caster to keep it, and pair it with Sentinel so enemies that reach you cannot leave the thorns.

Trickery Domain

The illusionist, and mechanically the weakest domain in this guide. Trickery has a strong spell list attached to a set of features that mostly fight your own action economy.

Trickery domain spells ●

Charm Person and Disguise Self at 1st, Mirror Image and Pass Without Trace at 3rd, Blink and Dispel Magic at 5th, Dimension Door and Polymorph at 7th, Dominate Person and Modify Memory at 9th.

This is the best part of the domain and it is not close. Pass Without Trace gives the entire party +10 to Stealth for an hour with no concentration, which is one of the strongest non-combat spells in the game. Polymorph at 7th can remove the most dangerous enemy in an encounter by turning it into something harmless. Dispel Magic always prepared is a permanent answer to enemy magic.

Dominate Person and Modify Memory are strong high-level control. Mirror Image is solid personal defence. Charm Person, Disguise Self, Blink and Dimension Door are the weaker entries, with Blink being awkward on a Cleric since it randomly removes you from the fight.

Blessing of the Trickster - Level 1 ●

As an action, touch a willing creature other than yourself to give it advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks for one hour. It ends if you use the feature on someone else.

One of the weakest level 1 features in the class. One skill, one creature, and you cannot target yourself. Set beside Tempest getting heavy armor, martial weapons and Wrath of the Storm, or Knowledge getting Expertise in two skills, the gap is stark.

In a party with a Rogue who already has Expertise in Stealth, it is close to irrelevant.

Channel Divinity: Invoke Duplicity - Level 2 ●

As an action, create an illusory duplicate within 30 feet for one minute, requiring concentration. You can move it up to 30 feet as a bonus action, cast spells as though you were in its space, and use your reaction to swap places with it. Creatures within 5 feet of the duplicate have disadvantage on saving throws against your spells.

The signature feature, and it is fun to use while being mechanically expensive. The disadvantage rider is the real payoff: place the duplicate next to a priority target and cast Polymorph, Hold Person or Dominate Person through it with the target at disadvantage.

The cost is everything else. It takes your action to set up, your concentration to maintain, and your bonus action to reposition, which means it competes with Spiritual Weapon, Healing Word and every control spell you would otherwise be concentrating on. A turn spent setting up Invoke Duplicity is a turn not spent casting the spell it improves.

Channel Divinity: Cloak of Shadows - Level 6 ●

As an action, become invisible until the end of your next turn. It ends if you attack or cast a spell.

A second Channel Divinity option that ends the moment you do anything useful. In practice it is a retreat button: break away from melee, reposition, escape a bad situation.

That has value, but spending a Channel Divinity charge on repositioning is expensive, and the feature is dead on any turn you intend to contribute.

Trickery Divine Strike - Level 8 ●

Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, add 1d8 poison damage, rising to 2d8 at level 14.

The worst version of Divine Strike in the class. Poison is the most widely resisted and outright ignored damage type in the game: every undead and construct is immune, and a long list of monsters resist it.

It also sits on a domain with no heavy armor, so you were unlikely to be making weapon attacks in the first place.

Improved Duplicity - Level 17 ●

Invoke Duplicity now creates four duplicates instead of one, and you can move any number of them up to 30 feet with one bonus action.

Four duplicates sounds like four times the effect and is not. The save disadvantage depends on a duplicate being within 5 feet of the target, which one duplicate already achieved. What you gain is positional flexibility and a harder read for the enemy.

At a tier where you hold 9th-level spells, a capstone that improves a feature you avoided because of concentration conflicts is a poor return.

Trickery in play

Play this domain for the spell list and the character concept, not for the features. Pass Without Trace, Polymorph and Dominate Person genuinely carry it, and in a heist or infiltration campaign the package works.

If you do commit to Invoke Duplicity, take War Caster and Alert. You need to survive the concentration and you want to act before the enemy so the setup turn costs less.

Build Wisdom to 20 and Dexterity for medium armor. There is no heavy armor here and no reason to be in melee, so treat yourself as a backline controller who occasionally turns invisible.

Ability Scores

Every domain wants the same first two stats, and then splits on the heavy armor question.

Get Wisdom to 20 as early as your ability score increases allow. This is true without exception across all fourteen domains, and there is no domain where a third stat competes with it.

Constitution is the stat new Clerics underrate. Bless, Spirit Guardians, Call Lightning, Spike Growth, Warding Bond and Twilight Sanctuary are all concentration, and most of them are held while something is hitting you. Target 14 at minimum.

The third slot is decided by your domain, not your preference:

• Heavy armor domains (Life, Nature, Tempest, War, Forge, Order, Twilight) want Strength 15 for plate and nothing more, unless you intend to make weapon attacks seriously, in which case 16 or higher.
• The rest (Arcana, Death, Grave, Knowledge, Light, Peace, Trickery) want Dexterity 14 to 16 for medium armor and initiative.
• Nature is the exception that escapes the choice. Shillelagh makes your melee attacks use Wisdom, so a Nature Cleric can take plate with Strength 15 and never invest further.
• Knowledge is the only domain that wants Intelligence, at 14 or 16, because Blessings of Knowledge doubles your proficiency but your ability modifier still adds on top.

Races

Variant Human ● is the strongest pick for every domain in this guide, for one reason: War Caster at level 1. The Cleric's central weakness is losing concentration, and solving it before it ever costs you a spell is worth more than any ability score bonus.

The rest of the list is about when something beats that.

• Hill Dwarf ● is the best generic alternative: Wisdom plus Constitution plus extra hit points every level. It suits Life, Peace, Light and Order equally.
• Mountain Dwarf ● is the pick for the plate-wearing damage domains, Tempest, War, Forge and Twilight, because Strength and Constitution together cover exactly what those builds need.
• Wood Elf ● gives Wisdom, extra speed and Mask of the Wild, which suits the backline domains and Peace in particular, where the extra movement improves Balm of Peace.
• High Elf ● hands Arcana a third Wizard cantrip beyond Arcane Initiate's two, and gives Light a Fire Bolt that Corona of Light later amplifies.
• Shadar-kai ● brings necrotic resistance and a bonus action teleport, which fits Grave, Death and Twilight both thematically and mechanically.
• Aasimar ● suits Life, Light and Peace, where Radiant Soul adds to exactly the damage types those domains already deal.
• Firbolg ● is the thematic and mechanical fit for Nature, with Wisdom and Strength together.
• Gnome ● gives Knowledge and Arcana an Intelligence bonus plus Gnome Cunning, which is advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saves against magic.
• Half-Orc ● offers Strength, Constitution and Relentless Endurance for the frontline domains, at the cost of no Wisdom bonus.

Feats

War Caster ● is the closest thing to a mandatory Cleric feat in the game. Advantage on concentration saves, the ability to cast with a weapon and shield occupied, and spells as opportunity attacks. On Twilight it is not optional at all, since the entire domain is one concentration effect.

Resilient (Constitution) ● is the alternative: Constitution save proficiency plus a stat point. At high levels, where save DCs climb, proficiency is arguably more reliable than advantage. Take one of these two on every Cleric you build.

Alert ● matters more on this class than most, because so many domains want to act before the enemy does: Light casting Fireball into a cluster, Peace applying Emboldening Bond, Order landing Slow, Grave setting up Sentinel at Death's Door.

Polearm Master ● and Sentinel ● belong on the melee domains, and Sentinel has a specific synergy worth naming: it locks enemies inside your Spirit Guardians, Twilight Sanctuary or Spike Growth, where they keep taking damage every round.

Spell Sniper ● doubles the range of Sacred Flame, Toll the Dead and Fire Bolt and ignores cover, which suits Arcana, Light, Grave and Death. Observant ● is a Knowledge pick. Lucky ● is generically strong and especially good on the reactive domains.

Multiclassing

The Cleric multiclasses poorly in the sense that every level taken elsewhere delays your spell slots, and spell slots are the class's real resource. The dips that earn their place are short.

Fighter, 1 level ● - The best dip available to any armored domain. Constitution save proficiency solves concentration without spending a feat, the Defense fighting style adds +1 AC, and Second Wind is a free heal. On a Forge Cleric that takes you to 21 AC.

Paladin, 2 levels ● - Divine Smite, Lay on Hands, a fighting style and Constitution proficiency. It suits War and Life, both of which are already in melee with spell slots to spend. The cost is two levels of Cleric progression, which is steeper than it sounds.

Paladin, 6 levels ● - Only for Peace. Aura of Protection stacks with Emboldening Bond to produce saving throw numbers nothing else in the game reaches. It is a real commitment and it delays your high-level slots significantly.

Wizard, 2 levels (Divination) ● - Portent lets you replace a roll outright, and Arcane Recovery gives back slots. It suits Arcana and Knowledge, where you have probably invested in Intelligence anyway.

Sorcerer, 1 to 2 levels ● - Constitution save proficiency plus Metamagic. Twinned Spell on a control spell or Quickened Spell for action economy suits Light and Order.

Rogue, 3 levels (Arcane Trickster) ● - Thematically perfect for Trickery and mechanically expensive. Three levels is a lot to give up.

Druid, 2 levels (Moon) ● - Wild Shape for scouting and mobility on a Nature Cleric. Fun, not optimal.

Warlock, 1 to 2 levels (The Undead) ● - Short rest slots and a thematic fit for Death and Grave. The mechanical overlap with what you already do is small.

Barbarian, Ranger or Bard ● - Wrong ability scores and no meaningful synergy. Rage in particular cannot coexist with the concentration spells that define most domains.

Choosing by Campaign

• A standard mixed campaign, any level range: Twilight, Peace or Life. All three are excellent from level 1 and none needs a particular kind of table.
• You want to stand in the front line: Forge for maximum durability, Tempest for damage, War for the simplest martial package.
• You want to be the party's healer: Life, without question. Peace is the better overall support, but Life is the better healer.
• You want to deal damage: Light for area burst, Tempest for sustained lightning, Arcana for cantrips at high level.
• A campaign heavy on investigation, mystery or politics: Knowledge, and it is the only real answer.
• Undead-heavy campaigns such as Curse of Strahd: Grave first, then Life or Twilight.
• A planar campaign with fiends, fey, celestials and elementals: Arcana, whose Channel Divinity targets exactly those types.
• A campaign ending around level 10: favour the domains that front-load, which means Twilight, Peace, Life, Forge and Tempest. Arcana and Knowledge both save their best for level 17.
• You want a Wisdom-only build with no second stat: Nature, via Shillelagh.

Related Guides

• D&D 5e Cleric Guide - the full class guide: Channel Divinity, Turn Undead, Destroy Undead, Divine Intervention, and level-by-level build advice.
• Best Cleric Spells - spell selection by level for every domain.
• Best Feats for Cleric - a deeper level-banded look at the feats summarized above.
• D&D 5e Class Guides - every class in the 2014 rules, compared.