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Baldur’s Gate 3, the epic role-playing game set in the iconic Dungeons & Dragons universe, offers players a diverse range of character classes, each with its own unique subclasses. Among these, the Cleric class stands out with seven distinct specializations, or ‘Domains,’ for players to choose from. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll rank these Cleric subclasses from best to worst, helping you find the divine path that best suits your style.
Life Domain
The Life Domain is the most used and popular domain because of how well it ties in with the role of a healer and protector. At its core, this subclass focuses on enhancing your ability to restore health to yourself and your allies. The standout feature of the Life Domain is the Disciple of Life ability. This divine gift allows your healing spells to become more powerful, like Cure Wounds. One of the most important spells if you want your cleric to be your main support for your party.
This subclass also grants you the Heavy Armor Proficiency, allowing you to wear heavy armor without sacrificing your ability to heal effectively. This extra durability ensures you can stay on the front lines, providing healing and buffs without fear of being incapacitated.
As you advance in levels, the Life Domain continues to enhance your Cleric’s healing spells. You gain access to spells like Revivify, which can bring fallen comrades back to life during battle. For those who relish the role of the dedicated healer and guardian of the group, the Life Domain is the pinnacle of Cleric specialization.
Tempest Domain
The Tempest Domain offers a striking departure from the traditional Cleric archetype, focusing on the destructive power of nature. This subclass provides a unique blend of offensive capabilities and crowd-control spells that can turn encounters in your favor.
At the heart of the Tempest Domain is the Wrath of the Storm ability, which allows you to unleash lightning damage in response to attacks, turning the tables on your enemies. This reactive ability not only inflicts damage but also discourages foes from targeting you directly. This subclass also grants you access to the Thunderwave spell that can clear the battlefield of weaker enemies away from you.
One of the standout features of the Tempest Domain is Fog Cloud, which can obscure the vision of your enemies. This spell is particularly valuable when your party members want to take a stealthy approach or when you need to disengage from a sticky situation. You also gain proficiency in Martial Weapons and Heavy Armor, ensuring that you remain the tank in your party.
War Domain
If you’re seeking a Cleric that specializes in both martial might and divine powers, the War Domain is for you. This subclass transforms you into a divine warrior, ready to charge into battle with both your weapons and spells.
The War Domain shares the Heavy Armor Proficiency with the Life and Tempest Domains, ensuring you can don the heaviest of armor without hindering your spellcasting abilities. What sets the War Domain apart is its proficiency in Martial Weapon Proficiency, granting you access to a wider range of weapons, making you adept in combat.
The standout feature of the War Domain is the War Priest ability, which allows you to make a bonus action during combat. This feature not only increases your damage output but also gives you a distinct edge in close combat encounters. You also gain the Divine Favor ability, which lets you imbue your weapons with divine energy, enhancing your damage output even further.
This specialization offers a straightforward and effective way to play a combat-focused Cleric, making it an excellent choice for those who want to smite their enemies in the name of their deity.
Nature Domain
The Nature Domain represents a unique fusion between Cleric and Druid classes. As a Nature Domain Cleric, you gain access to spells and abilities that connect you to the natural world.
While the Nature Domain retains the Heavy Armor Proficiency, much of its focus is on abilities typically associated with Druids. You gain spells like Speak with Animals and Animal Friendship, allowing you to communicate with animals and creatures.
The Acolyte of Nature ability lets you learn a Druid cantrip right from the start, offering more spellcasting choices. You also become proficient in Animal Handling, Nature, or Survival.
One of the standout features of the Nature Domain is the Shillelagh cantrip, which allows you to transform a simple club or quarterstaff into a melee weapon.
While the Nature Domain provides intriguing abilities and spells, its primary focus is not on healing or damage-dealing like some of the other subclasses. Instead, it offers a more niche playstyle for players who want to embrace nature.
Light Domain
The Light Domain Cleric takes a different approach, focusing on spells that harness the power of light and fire. While this specialization loses proficiency in heavy armor, it compensates with abilities centered around light and radiant damage.
One of the spells that stand out in this domain is Daylight, which you can learn at level five. This spell dispels darkness and shadows, making it difficult for stealthy foes to manage a sneak attack from the shadows. This ability is especially valuable when exploring dimly lit dungeons or battling creatures of darkness, especially in Act 2.
Radiance of the Dawn is another unique feature of the Light Domain. It allows the Cleric to channel holy light and deal radiant damage to nearby enemies.
While the Light Domain offers intriguing spells and is on brand for Cleric’s divine nature, it may not be as universally useful as some of the other subclasses. Nevertheless, for those who want to play a heroic character who can banish darkness, the Light Domain is the one for you.
Knowledge Domain
The Knowledge Domain is the scholarly side of the Cleric class. This subclass enhances your knowledge, control over spells, and ability to cast confusion and fear on the battlefield.
One of the primary features of the Knowledge Domain is the enhancement of the Command spell, allowing you to control your enemies’ actions. You also gain a Sleep spell, which can be helpful for crowd control.
At level two, you gain Knowledge of the Ages, which improves the proficiency of all skills in a chosen Ability. This action can be used in both exploration and combat.
Trickery Domain
The Trickery Domain stands out as a unique and unconventional Cleric subclass. Unlike many other subclasses, it doesn’t focus on strong defensive capabilities or direct combat skills either. Instead, it excels in deception and manipulation, bringing rogue-like abilities to the Cleric class.
The ability that stands out for the Trickery Domain is Blessing of the Trickster, which gives you a huge advantage in stealth. This ability is ideal for aiding your allies in infiltrating enemy strongholds or avoiding dangerous encounters. The domain offers spells like Charm Person and Disguise Self, allowing you to confuse and manipulate enemies or other NPCs to your advantage.
However, the Trickery Domain’s focus on deception may feel somewhat unnecessary in a party that already has a rogue or other classes that excel in stealth and trickery. While it offers a unique playstyle, it may not be the most efficient choice in all situations if you want to have the best cleric build in the game.
That’s mostly all of the subclasses available for the Cleric class in Baldur’s Gate 3. So far, Life Domain is the best subclass for a Cleric. Picking and choosing what’s best to build can be overwhelming at first, but that’s the fun part of the game. But don’t let this stop you from choosing what you want for your character. Create a character that speaks and resonates with you, and just have fun.
