Which Domain do you guys prefer on a caster cleric?

[Bacab]

I breezed through a "Fire Cleric" life on my last Dwarven Cleric.

I obviously took Fire Domain and the Scorching Ray helped a good bit while leveling.

Wall of Fire was amazing while leveling...but I don't use it as much in Epics.

Firestorm was a game changer all the way to 30.

At 20, I used Draconic ED and Fire for the Breath Weapon and it worked extremely well. I also used Exalted Angel and it worked really well too.

Well, I will be ETRing soon after maintenance, and I was wondering if there are other Domains you guys recommend.

I was strongly looking at Sun Domain, for Sunbeam and Sunburst.

Or does Fire Domain and the synergy with Draconic ED and Firestorm SLA just out perform Sun domain?

Sun domain does get Fire Spellpower too, so I think Draconic Breath weapon will still be really solid.

Any thoughts?

[Ereshkigal]

I breezed through a "Fire Cleric" life on my last Dwarven Cleric.

I obviously took Fire Domain and the Scorching Ray helped a good bit while leveling.

Wall of Fire was amazing while leveling...but I don't use it as much in Epics.

Firestorm was a game changer all the way to 30.

At 20, I used Draconic ED and Fire for the Breath Weapon and it worked extremely well. I also used Exalted Angel and it worked really well too.

Well, I will be ETRing soon after maintenance, and I was wondering if there are other Domains you guys recommend.

I was strongly looking at Sun Domain, for Sunbeam and Sunburst.

Or does Fire Domain and the synergy with Draconic ED and Firestorm SLA just out perform Sun domain?

Sun domain does get Fire Spellpower too, so I think Draconic Breath weapon will still be really solid.

Any thoughts?

I prefer Sun Domain for Heroic Leveling, because Sunbeam and Sunburst are pretty awesome. Putting a few points into Dark Apostate as well means you can get 6 SLAs that all function off of light spellpower.
* 3 AOEs Holy Smite, Bane, and Sunburst. (you could grab the Prayer SLA too, but it is centered on self and costs 3x the number of spellpoints as Bane(12 vs. 4)
* 3 single target Nimbus of Light, Searning Light, and Sunbeam.
* the Domain SLA for Searing Light frees up 3 action points to put into a different Enhancement.

It's flat out wonderful for Heroic leveling.

===

For Epics, though I find Luck Domain to be superior.

+4 to all saving throws ( +1 at levels 2, 6,12, & 18 )
10 sp displacement clicky at level 5
+2 to all spell DCs at level 9
No more auto-fail for all saving throws when rolling a 1 at level 14

Sunburst and Sunbeam just aren't needed once you have access to epic SLAs

[Seph1roth5]

I really enjoyed air domain. It's not quite as synergistic as fire for cleric, but if you're just doing a life and it's not a final build type thing, why not? Chain lightning is much easier to use than the slowass fire spells, and less stuff is immune.

[peng]

I did a life as fire domain, and just ER'd to sun. Those are probably the best nuking domains, along with air and water. They all have a single target and aoe nuke sla along with other goodies.

Fire pros:

• 2 fire spell power per cleric lvl
• fire/light shared spellpower
• single target sla good at low lvls
• cheapest and highest scaling aoe sla of the 4 nuking domains, with a *huge* area
• fire spellpower synergizes with cleric enh trees and destinies

Fire cons:

• single target sla scales very badly and is almost useless once you hit epics
• firestorm has a slight delay between casting and landing
• lots of fire immune and resistant mobs
• divine disciple crit bonuses can benefit your elemental spells *or* your light/alignment spells, not both

Sun pros:

• 2 fire and light spell power per cleric lvl
• 2 *very* good single target slas that are even better vs undead
• aoe sla that can blind mobs, deals double dmg to undead, and instakills certain undead (bonus points if you have the sla and spell when running thth)
• turn undead gives 10% light vulnerability
• fire and even more so light spellpower synergizes with cleric enh trees and destinies
• very few mobs are immune or resistant to light

Sun cons:

• no shared spellpower
• searing light sla shares cooldown with divine disciple sla
• sunburst has a slight delay between casting and landing
• aoe has the worst scaling of the 4 nukers

Air pros:

• up to +4 to evocation DCs
• elec/light shared spellpower
• decent single target slas, 1 of which can be aoe if you line mobs up properly
• good aoe sla with easy-mode targeting
• few mobs are resistant or immune

Air cons:

• no spellpower bonus
• not much synergy with traditional cleric destinies
• aoe has longest cooldown of the nukers (12 vs 8 sec)
• divine disciple crit bonuses can benefit your elemental spells *or* your light/alignment spells, not both

Water pros:

• 2 cold spell power per cleric lvl
• cold/positive shared spellpower
• single target sla has highest damage potential if you can wait 12 seconds
• aoe comes at level 9 instead of 14

Water cons:

• single target sla comes late at 14
• lots of cold immune and resistant mobs
• aoe is cone rather than ranged
• divine disciple crit bonuses can benefit your elemental spells *or* your light/alignment spells, not both

[Matuse]

Luck.

You don't auto-fail any save on a 1.
+4 to all saves for you.
Temporary +10 to all saves for your party when you do a turn undead ability.
Displacement.

The divine spell list is plenty strong enough to carry you through whatever you are doing. Luck Domain means you just don't die.

[nobodynobody1426]

I breezed through a "Fire Cleric" life on my last Dwarven Cleric.

I obviously took Fire Domain and the Scorching Ray helped a good bit while leveling.

Wall of Fire was amazing while leveling...but I don't use it as much in Epics.

Firestorm was a game changer all the way to 30.

At 20, I used Draconic ED and Fire for the Breath Weapon and it worked extremely well. I also used Exalted Angel and it worked really well too.

Well, I will be ETRing soon after maintenance, and I was wondering if there are other Domains you guys recommend.

I was strongly looking at Sun Domain, for Sunbeam and Sunburst.

Or does Fire Domain and the synergy with Draconic ED and Firestorm SLA just out perform Sun domain?

Sun domain does get Fire Spellpower too, so I think Draconic Breath weapon will still be really solid.

Any thoughts?

People are going to give you tons of bad advice based on feelings.

Sun domain is trash for a DPS caster, it could be better if Sunbeam / Sunburst were not preemptively nerfed with U48.4. The recent nerf to alignment spells was the last nail in the coffin to that domain, since we used to be able to make those deal decent damage at higher levels. It's actually decent on a RS healer setup since it gives them some cheap offensive power to supplement their massive healing potential.

Here is the harsh math on it. Spell selection for DPS casters is all about damage per caster level, especially since CL/MCL is very linear with the new destiny system. The generic formula is 1D6+<Spell Level> for multitarget spells and 1D6+<Spell Level x 2> for single target spells. Fireball is a level 3 spell and does 6.5 [1D6+3] damage per CL. Searing light is also a level 3 spell and does 9.5 [1D6+6] damage per CL. Fire storm is a level 8 spell and does 11.5 [1D6+8] damage per CL, Sunburst is also a level 8 spell and does .. 7.5 [1D6+4] damage per CL. Yep it does about 35% less damage then it is supposed to, and it's your strongest AoE light spell on a reasonable CD (Divine Wrath is 12.5, 1D6+9 but has a 20s CD). Sunbeam is a level 7 spell and does ... 10.5 [1D6+7] per CL, instead of the 1D6+14 it is supposed to do. The reason given back in u48.4 was that those spells had a MCL over 20, back then ED's gave +CL but not +MCL so that actually mattered. With the current ED system giving both CL/MCL every 2 levels, any MCL over 20 doesn't really matter. Then we have Celestial Bombardment, a fire spell, which as far as I can tell is over 30 damage per CL but has a 30s CD.

Assuming you are in DD, Sun Domain doesn't give you anything you don't already have. The only real benefit is that you can get dual Sunbeam (SLA + spell) instead of single Sunbeam and it's a decent upgrade over Searing light, at least until 24 and the option of MoL (if you really want). Unfortunately Sunbeam use's a reflex save while Searing has no save so MoL'd Searing ends up being an amazing single target spell all the way into legendary. There also is not ED support for a light heavy DPS caster, instead there is support Fire and Light with stuff like Dragons breath, Holy Fireball, and PA, DI and EA Mantles.

Now putting that all aside, Air Domain is decent after fire because while there isn't any real support for electric in heroic cleric and moderate support in epic destinies, Air also provides +4 Evocation DCs which is always useful on a DPS caster. In order for Sun domain to be "competitive", Sunbeam / Sunburst need their damage dice upgraded to be in line with their levels, and/or there needs to be a set of level 7 or 8 "greater" alignment spells that dead level appropriate damage dice.

For heroic leveling, especially going "slow", almost any build can "work". I once leveled 1-20 solo R1 doing a "Swim Cleric", it wasn't hard but took noticeably longer. If you want to experience a sun domain, then by all means go have fun with it, DDO is about new experiences and customization. Just don't let people blow smoke up your butt and go in knowing the limits of light based spells.

[peng]

I could be wrong, but I believe part of the reasoning why sunbeam and burst have half the added damage of other spells of their level is because they blind on a failed save, and deal double damage to undead. That being said, yes it sucks that the dmg is nerfed. However, sunbeam is *still* the best single-target dmg spell available to clerics unless you take word of balance (or searing light with master of light and more than 15% of mobs save vs sunbeam). Having access to 2x sunbeam and 10% light vulnerability from turns probably makes sun the highest possible single-target spell dps cleric. Yes the aoe is a bit worse, but you also rarely have to worry about damage immunities. Also, don't forget that sun gives bonuses to both light *and* fire spellpower, so your fire aoes don't fall behind, you just don't have fire slas.

Air does give DCs, but has no spellpower bonus, and chain lightning is on a longer cooldown, which means it's probably less dps overall.

Edit: I forgot about greater creeping cold. That spell is nuts if you can get it to last the entire duration: it deals about twice as much total damage as sunbeam or upgraded searing light

[Bacab]

I am up to 26 on this ETR. It's going super fast.

I do think Fire Cleric is the way to go. The 2 Firestorms is nice for clearing trash.

Sunburst is great on the Forgewraiths and in Ravenloft though.

I think leveling 1-20, the Fire Domain would be way better because of how strong Scorching Ray, and Wall of Fire is and of course Firestorm.

I can definitely also see where Luck domain would be nice. I have never run an Lightning Sorc, so I am unsure how good that would be on a Cleric. But it seems like that's the strongest option or at least it's a popular option.

Thanks for all the feedback

[axel15810]

My divine nuker is a FVS but if I played it as a Cleric I'd definitely go with Fire Domain Tiefling.

[nobodynobody1426]

I could be wrong, but I believe part of the reasoning why sunbeam and burst have half the added damage of other spells of their level is because they blind on a failed save, and deal double damage to undead. That being said, yes it sucks that the dmg is nerfed. However, sunbeam is *still* the best single-target dmg spell available to clerics unless you take word of balance (or searing light with master of light and more than 15% of mobs save vs sunbeam). Having access to 2x sunbeam and 10% light vulnerability from turns probably makes sun the highest possible single-target spell dps cleric. Yes the aoe is a bit worse, but you also rarely have to worry about damage immunities. Also, don't forget that sun gives bonuses to both light *and* fire spellpower, so your fire aoes don't fall behind, you just don't have fire slas.

Air does give DCs, but has no spellpower bonus, and chain lightning is on a longer cooldown, which means it's probably less dps overall.

Edit: I forgot about greater creeping cold. That spell is nuts if you can get it to last the entire duration: it deals about twice as much total damage as sunbeam or upgraded searing light

We had this discussion with Lyn/Lich during the U48.4 preview, Sunbeam / Sunburst were deliberately held back because of MCL, which mattered during that era. WoB destroys sunbeam in damage as it follows the proper spell damage scaling of 1D6+12 [15.5] damage per CL, but can also hit twice for 31 damage per CL, no save, no SR, no absorption, just take damage. To give an idea of what WoB would be at level 32, with a CL of 28 [20+6+2], 434 base damage per hit, 868 for both hits on something like a reaper (Lawful/Evil). Ruin has a base damage of 500, Greater Ruin has 1000, so WoB ends up stronger then Ruin and almost as strong as Greater Ruin for cheap and low CD.

I am up to 26 on this ETR. It's going super fast.

I do think Fire Cleric is the way to go. The 2 Firestorms is nice for clearing trash.

Sunburst is great on the Forgewraiths and in Ravenloft though.

I think leveling 1-20, the Fire Domain would be way better because of how strong Scorching Ray, and Wall of Fire is and of course Firestorm.

I can definitely also see where Luck domain would be nice. I have never run an Lightning Sorc, so I am unsure how good that would be on a Cleric. But it seems like that's the strongest option or at least it's a popular option.

Thanks for all the feedback

Air domain is mostly a heroics thing, Chain Lightning is very strong and you just need a Magnetism / Lightning lore item. In epics your really just using the +4 Evo, which is pretty nice but not as strong as Fire Domain.

[Mindos]

We had this discussion with Lyn/Lich during the U48.4 preview,

This reminds me of when rogue got dagger crit/multi bonus or something, my memory is hazy. I probably got the details wrong. But it was great. Everyone was rejoicing, you could spec into this, and the devs said it was intentional too, etc. Then the very next update they redid crit ranges (I might be confusing updates/reasons) and all the advantage from the rogue daggers was gone, it didnt stack and you weren't special anymore. Silence was the answer when we brought it up.

It's as if people get "stuck" in whatever belief they hold, be it balance, or status of the game, or about being "finished and done already". No amount of data or numbers can ever convince them to give up their conviction.

[dr_cheeseball]

For me, it does depend on my goal with my cleric lives, on my 1-20, sun was the way to go. for 1-32 fire was my jam, death domain was fun, but that was as a dark apostate, not sure on a standard cleric.
The reason I prefer sun to fire for 1-20 is of course, sharn, dang you iron golems! Good thing cleric itself is a dang fine class, and can tend to cover issues with spell immuntiy or healing from damage type. The reality is, cleric can level with out a domain, but I am glad they added them.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I've been looking into trying out caster cleric again (it's been a few years) & wondering this myself, at the moment I'm leaning more towards earth domain for the earthquake SLA as a crowd control option or magic domain for the extra spellpower & evocation DCs for implosion.

[Enoach]

For caster my preference is Death Domain

However, I did a life as a Dragon Marked Half-Elf with Air and it was fun with all the electric spell options.

Keep in mind that elemental damage for domains uses the higher spell power such as the element vs light or Positive

I'm doing a CC style cleric this life with my static group and using Earth Domain for the Earthquake option - I'm not focused on DPS

I also like the Law Domain for a CC life with the SLA of Divine Wrath and Greater Command

[QuantumFX]

I like Death and Luck domains.

Luck gets absolutely silly if you mix it with a couple levels of Sacred Fist.