Divine magic DPS?

[Zeraph]

I would like to make sure this game allows me to play the way I want before I actually buy it.

Is it possible to be a divine magic caster in the role of DPS? From my observation, it should be in one of the subclasses of the cleric.
If yes, how would you rate it out of 5 in terms of damage output, comparing to that of a real DPS (wizard I suppose)?

[psychotron666420]

Cleric is regularly rated one of the best classes in DND 5e because it can be everything, including dps.
There's also a subclass of cleric in this that gets more DPS spells like the fireball.

[Ommamar]

Clerics can get some very powerful spells then there are the mentioned subclass that further helps. Paladins are very strong and with their smite attacks can dish out a lot of damage, their is also a subclass that gives them some high damage spells like fireball. The Druid is nature based but they get some powerful spells particularly at lower levels although they seem to fall of as damage dealers at later levels compared to the Paladin and Cleric.

I am not sure if you will consider this as a game that will allow you to play the way you want. It has a rule set from the 5th edition SRD it follows pretty closely so that may hinder you playing as you want. You can make things like a face character but in the main campaign it has limited application really only allowing you to get out of a few fights which can limit the experience you can get.

[DiceWrangler]

Just wait until you see how powerful Spirit Guardians is. . .plus Spiritual Weapon is always nice to use for inflicting a little extra damage each round -- for a mere Bonus action -- and NO Concentration is required.

[Doombringer]

Not as good as the direct damage (Shock Arcanist) wizard sub-class.
The elemental cleric gets lightning bolt, ice storm, wall of fire, cone of cold... also get Fly which is more important honestly.
Battle gets fireball for some reason. (Battle gets a 2nd melee attack and channel divinity is burst melee damage, so it is weird that they are also a fireball spammer...)
Clerics always get guiding bolt, spirit guardians and flame strike, and if nothing else to do with bonus action can spiritual hammer.

If 100% all you care about is AoE damage, you really should use Shock Arcanist...
Shock Arcanist cast all the good damage spells as if 1 lvl higher & gets 1/long rest: 10rounds of +(Int mod + Prof Bonus) to spell damage, so 8d6+10 scorching ray or 9d6+10 fireball (saving doesn't reduce the +10), where as a cleric/paladin/other wizards with those spells would be 6d6 or 8d6 instead.
At higher level Shock Arcanist gets another ability that prevents rolling less than 50% max damage on spell damage dice. (so all 1 & 2s become 3s on d6 while active, etc.)

And if you want to beat things with sharp sticks, that is what fighters/paladins are for.
(Paladin is more burst damage + buffs)

[Zeraph]

Correct me if I was wrong, it appears that Sun domain seems to be the closest to what I am looking for (a caster, who never swing his weapon at all). Yet, battle domain seems to be the most effective

[Doombringer]

Sun gets scorching ray which is good at level 3-4 (DPS wizard does it better though)
After the tutorial you are level 2 in the main campaign, level 3 after the 1st mission, and by the start of the 3rd mission you should be almost level 5, so that phase is short.
(The first 2 main quest missions are much shorter than the rest.)
gets fire wall later which is nice, but so does elemental cleric.
Disadvantage on sacred flame puts it on about the same level as to hit roll cantrips
(which are more reliable than (no disadvantage) save to negate ones and can crit)

They get a self AoE which is low damage. (at lvl 5 1d8+10, compare to fireball which has range does 8d6... yes it is a short rest ability, so that is something, but this game lets you long rest every 1-2 fights if you want to.)

As far as spell damage output past level 4 they really aren't that much different from generic cleric (aside from fire wall).

You are taking a sort of generalist class and focusing on something they aren't specialized for, and compared to a sub-class that specialize in that thing:
Can you do it?
Sure.
Is it optimal?
No.


As far as battle cleric: weapons in this game are pretty strong, like 1d8+1d10+Str damage or 1d8+2d6+1+Str/Dex damage, so an extra attack is pretty nice.
Also fireball. (you can use all your lvl3+ slots spamming it non-stop if you really want to (and if you rest often))
Clerics generally use spirit guardians to do damage, which is short range self-AoE, so are usually close to enemies to make that work.

[Alealexi]

Here is a crap guide to D&D 5e cleric which is somewhat informative.

https://youtu.be/y84OYRwzZU8

[Zeraph]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Sun gets scorching ray which is good at level 3-4 (DPS wizard does it better though)
After the tutorial you are level 2 in the main campaign, level 3 after the 1st mission, and by the start of the 3rd mission you should be almost level 5, so that phase is short.
(The first 2 main quest missions are much shorter than the rest.)
gets fire wall later which is nice, but so does elemental cleric.
Disadvantage on sacred flame puts it on about the same level as to hit roll cantrips
(which are more reliable than (no disadvantage) save to negate ones and can crit)

They get a self AoE which is low damage. (at lvl 5 1d8+10, compare to fireball which has range does 8d6... yes it is a short rest ability, so that is something, but this game lets you long rest every 1-2 fights if you want to.)

As far as spell damage output past level 4 they really aren't that much different from generic cleric (aside from fire wall).

You are taking a sort of generalist class and focusing on something they aren't specialized for, and compared to a sub-class that specialize in that thing:
Can you do it?
Sure.
Is it optimal?
No.


As far as battle cleric: weapons in this game are pretty strong, like 1d8+1d10+Str damage or 1d8+2d6+1+Str/Dex damage, so an extra attack is pretty nice.
Also fireball. (you can use all your lvl3+ slots spamming it non-stop if you really want to (and if you rest often))
Clerics generally use spirit guardians to do damage, which is short range self-AoE, so are usually close to enemies to make that work.

So in short, if I want to be a DPS cleric, the battle domain is the way to go. Yet, as the name of the domain suggests, I will be doing more melee than a normal caster will do. Is that the case?

[magritte]

Yes. Clerics are normally melee fighters in D&D, not just spellcasters. The trouble really is that you're trying to force-fit D&D classes into roles derived from other systems when they're generally designed to be more versatile than that. Even for a wizard or a sorcerer, focusing purely on damage dealing spells is not optimal.

[Doombringer]

You don't have to do melee, but with 2 attacks it will be way better than cantrips.
You can cast damage spells every turn once you get enough slots, but there is a wizard and sorceror sub-class that get bonuses to spell damage, and no cleric sub-classes that do.
Wizard and sorceror get better options in their base spell list for doing damage than cleric, but some cleric sub-classes get some of those spells.
Clerics can do other things, like bless, aid, raise dead, heroes feast, etc.

Honestly the most useful spells for me in this game were Fly and Pass Without Trace (and goodberry so I could ignore food mechanic).
Stealth giving full surprise rounds every time is super strong (and not how it typically works in 5e...).
Fly gives great mobility (and makes it easy to get the hard to reach lootboxes) and Flying way above mobs lets you avoid their auto-detect zones and ignore non-flying melee mobs.
Casting at higher level can allow the entire party to fly.

[bobdaball]

Check a look at this tier list. It'll answer most questions.

https://www.neoseeker.com/solasta-crown-of-the-magister/guides/Class_Rankings

[Doombringer]

A ranking list where C is 'average', but almost everything is A.
Yeah, I don't think that is a particularly good tier list...
(If 34 are above average, 4 are average, and 2 are below average, the writer doesn't know how grades are supposed to work.)

Also that looks like it was made when the level cap was still 10.
(Important difference, since fighters get 3rd attack at 11, marksman gets bonus action attack at 11, hunter gets volley at 11 (which is busted since using it doesn't start combat), etc.)

[bobdaball]

Fighters still aren't worth using over Paladins even with extra attack(2), especially since Paladins also get a damage boost in the form of Improved Divine Smite. Paladins are just too good to pass up with their aura and spell.

Also, bonus action attack at 11 isn't good. Like, at all. Rangers are already rather busy with their bonus action, so having yet another bonus action dependent move only ends up clogging its action economy. Furthermore, even if it were good, the level 11 being good isn't really a saving grace, given that the campaign ends at level 12. It's effectively the same as saying, it's bad 90% of the game, but hey it somewhat catches up at the very end so it deserves a higher tier. No, it doesn't work like that.

As for the tier lists, if you take a closer look into it, there are 'class tier score' and 'subclass tier score', where the base class tier list acts as an anchor for the subclass tier list for most cases (that is to say, it's difficult to get a bad subclass tier if the base class is extremely powerful, as in the case of Clerics and Wizards). The Marksman is the only exception where it gets several tier below its base class tier as it barely adds anything to the base class, unlike other subclasses.

Furthermore, 5E has never been good in balancing between different classes. It's always been known that caster classes are step above non-casters, which is reflected in the tier list, where all the A tier+ are able to cast spells. When you categorize them by base class, the spread is a lot better, where it's A(Cleric), A(Wizard), A(Paladin), A(Sorcerer), A(Ranger), B+(Druid), C+(Rogue), C(Fighter), C(Barbarian). Looking at this way, it basically shows the huge discrepancy in power levels between casters and non-Casters, which is quite accurate in both Solasta and tabletop. It really doesn't help that the best subclasses of Fighters are not in Solasta.

[Doombringer]

Getting a Bonus Action attack with a bow does actually matter, as it is better than hunters mark (which if you use Pass Without Trace you can't use anyways, and Pass Without Trace is the best reason to use rangers...).
Also ranger isn't bad 90% of the game lol.

Recommending a tier list that does averages wrong, ignores sub-class abilities, ignores level 11-12 stuff, etc. is weird.

Dismissing Action Surge as if it were nothing it kind of weird.
You get to use it every fight and do 2x damage for 1 round (which can be +76.5avg damage...)
short rest is literally click a button after a fight.
Ignoring tunnel fighter can get advantage on most attacks due to sub-class abilities is weird.
(Which is way more important than sometimes +2AC.)
The biggest downside to wizard is they cost a lot of $$, and you are gold limited in this game (unless you use duping exploit), but that isn't even mentioned.
A tier list that just flat out ignores stuff like that and then rates based on it is ♥♥♥♥.
It reads like a list made by someone who read abilities off a wiki instead of actually playing the game...


The problem with defining C as average and giving everything an A is you lose fidelity.
For example: Wizard is better than the other As, but when you compress the scores like that list does you can't really show it properly.
That is why properly made tier lists re-center the scores if overall ratings come out too high.

[bobdaball]

...? CC spells far outweighs action surge or anything else you've mentioned. Disabling multiple enemies >>>> double damage for one round.

Compare Fighters with, say Paladins who get Aura, Divine Smite, and bless. Their overall combat contribution to the party is far greater than what you've just said.

Also, Ranger class is ranked as A. The Marksman ranking is simply because there is no real reason to pick that subclass over the other ones.

Point still stands about BA only coming in at level 11 does little to change its effectiveness in 90% of the game.

In Solasta, there's a lot of really good subclasses with different niches, and handful of trash, with little in between. Not sure what else to add to it.