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Clerics are one of the most powerful classes inBaldur’s Gate 3, and light clerics are one of the more attack-focused subclasses. This makes them an excellent force of both damage and support on the battlefield. Wielding the power of holy light and fury, they both deal damage to enemies themselves and create opportunities for their team to deal more damage, too.
Since they serve gods of light that harness the power of radiant damage, this build utilizes the Radiating Orb and Reverberation conditions. Clerics are good at inflicting conditions, good and bad, and this build takes full advantage of this to keep enemies vulnerable.
Best Races and Backgrounds For A Light Domain Cleric
Your race and background won’t make or break your light domain cleric. However, they could benefit from some extra health to keep them standing, and an extra cantrip couldn’t hurt.
Features
Gold Dwarf
Gold Dwarves have Darkvision and Advantage on saving throws against poison, as well as resistance against poison damage, as well. They also benefit from an extra hit point every level,increasing your overall hit points by 12 once you reach max level.
High Elf
Like all elves, high elves have Perception proficiency, Darkvision, an Advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and can’t be magically put to sleep. Atop this laundry list of useful advantages, they gain an additional cantrip. Whilethis cantrip won’t benefit from your class’s damage boost, it’s always nice to have another.
Character creation will start out with a +2 bonus to Widom and +1 to your Strength.Change your +1 bonus to Constitution, instead. This will give you more health and boost saving throws. Your strength is not as important because this build is not weapon-focused.
Your background will grant you two additional skill proficiencies. It will also determine how you gain inspiration throughout the game sinceyou obtain inspiration points by making choices that align with your background.
Sage
Acolyte aligns well with the religious focus of the class. The Sage background grants proficiencies in two intelligence skills, which could be helpful since intelligence is your dump stat as a light cleric.
you’re able to’t change your race or background after you leave character creation, so choose something you like.
Recommended Spells For A Light Domain Cleric
While your light domain spells are mostly offensive,the rest of the cleric spell listoffers support spells, too.Spirit Guardiansis an essential offensive spell you’ll need to grab on top of your domain spells, though.
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Heroes' Feast,Create Undead,Planar Ally
How To Level A Light Domain Cleric
Your features as a light clericgrant you offensive spells and defensive abilities, such as Warding Flare.
New Domain Spells
Warding Flare
Your new domain spells are the Light cantrip,Burning Hands, andFaerie Fire.
Warding Flare is a Reaction you can use togive an attack roll against you Disadvantage, potentially causing an attack that would have hit to miss instead.
Channel Divinity Charge
You unlock your Channel Divinity abilities, Turn Undead and Radiance of the Dawn. Radiance of the Dawn allows you to dispel magical darkness and deal radiant damage.
New Cantrip
Feat
For your first feat,take War Caster, which grants Advantage on concentration saving throwsand the ability to cast Shocking Grasp as a reaction. This is an offensive build that will rely on concentration for some central spells, such asSpirit Guardians.
Improved Warding Flare
You can now use Warding Flare to protect an ally, rather than just yourself.
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Potent Spellcasting
Your cleric cantripsProduce FlameandSacred Flamenow have your wisdom modifier added to their damage roll.
Take an Ability Improvement for this feat andincrease your wisdom to 19.
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Divine Intervention
Divine Intervention allows you to call upon your deity for a powerful ability, but only once. Sunder the Heretical is a particularly good option for this build, but be sure to save it for a very challenging fight.
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For your third and final feat, you’ll want to take another Ability Improvement toboost your wisdom up to 20, and increase either your constitution or dexterity by one. Constitution will increase your health, and dexterity will increase your armor class and initiative rolls.
Boosting your wisdom is especially important as an offensive spell caster. The more effective and accurate your spells are, the more often enemies take damage.
While there is armor that grants Advantage on concentration saving throws as opposed to taking the feat War Caster, this build will pass on it in favor of armor that inflicts Radiating Orb or Reverberation.
Best Equipment For A Light Domain Cleric
This build focuses on equipment that inflicts the conditionsRadiating OrbandReverberation. Because light clerics make for good offensive spell casters,these conditions turn your attack spells into support actions, too, through the debuffs they inflict.
Reverberation
All the armor for this build isavailable well before the end of Act 2, with a couple of items available as early as the Underdark in Act 1.
Armor
Act 1
Found in a chest in the Selûnite Outpost of the Underdark
Found in a chest in the Ruined Battlefield
Found in a chest in thecellar of Last Light Inn
Found in a chest in The Gauntlet of Shar
Boots
Sold by Omeluum in the Ebonlake Grotto after completing his quest.
Your armor does a lot of the heavy lifting for inflicting those debuffs passively. With your weapon, you’ll want something thatmakes your spells harder to evade, grants extra spells, or both.
Complete the quest Find the Blood of Lathander
How To Play A Light Domain Cleric
Given your speciality with offensive spell attacks, your light domain cleric should bejust as much of an attacker as they are a support and control spell caster.Burning Hands,Scorching Ray, andFlaming Sphereare excellent sources of damage early on. Once you get your hands onFireball, you have quite the set of damage-dealing spells.
As a cleric, your job is still to support your team, as well.Hold PersonandBlessare essential spells to give your team attack advantages.
Glyph of Warding, for earlier levels, and your domain spellWall of Fireare defensive AOE spells that can turn the tide of a fight with many enemies.Wall of Firecan be placed at a choke point,so enemies are forced to take damage in order to get closer to your team.
Perhaps your most powerful offensive spell is your domain spellDestructive Wave. This spell is not on the usual cleric spell list, and light clerics are lucky to benefit from thishigh-damage spell with a huge AOE. This is another great spell for fights with a lot of small enemies at once.
