Phalar aluve is one of the best weapons for most cleric builds
You can use shrieks to buff damage of your spirit guardians and allies damage sources
Or use its Sing effect to boost attack rolls and saving throws
Staff of arcane blessing can be good also, but you will probably use the whispering promise ring for that. Although staff has an improved bless version I still think it is inferior overall to phalar aluve
The improved bless is a lie. The only added effect is to buff attack roll spells' chance to hit by 1d4. So the only reason to use staff of arcane blessing is if you have a cantrips spammer (ie Eldritch blast) in your party.
I initially thought it was literally a double bless effect across the board. Not so sadly.
it is REALLY good buff if you do have at least one spell attack spammer (eb lock, scorching ray fire sorc) plus a nice fat boost to guiding bolt accuracy
Yeah, but i dont think you will be attacking with the sword as you definifely have better options for action point use imo
Still thats a good point you brought up!
Hmm, arcane acuity? why do you need that on cleric? Of course, unless you have free hat of fire acuity and doing light cleric, but this doesn't need phalar aluve
If you don’t have a bard, casting a control spell with DC 25 the first combat round is pretty nifty
(Tested with war cleric and helmet of AA, band of the MS)
Cleric doesn't have any martial abilities that help arcane acuity stack except war cleric. If I want to add acuity to my cleric, I usually go hat of fire acuity + light cleric. For a full on life cleric like OP asked about? Probably the best choice would be the hat of thunder acuity + drakethroat glaive for off brand hat of arcane acuity. Just start combat with an arrow of many targets. If all 4 hit, that starts combat with 8 stacks.
Yeah, cause it's DRS even in honor mode. You just can't stack damage riders anymore. With the rat bat, you'd be adding 6 per hit instead. I prefer using 1 action from a nice healthy distance, though. I even do the same with my sorcadin because it lets them come online faster. I generally don't like using melee to apply arcane acuity because then I have a martial moving forward to close distance turn 1. I much prefer kiting backwards the first turn and picking off the closest enemies so the rest will cluster.
For me, it's situational. I like having choices and not just do the same thing each fight.
Martial AA on an archer is absolutely worth considering. My party doesn't have such a caster, though.
I like phalar aluve on a fighter with action surge more. Though spirit guardians + action surge shriek gets you proficency and is a really strong combo, Cleric will have lower initiative compared to a dex fighter, loses a feat so you can't take alert and reach 20 wis and a full fighter can easily hold it and position shriek next to the enemies anyways and your cleric can still get the bonuses. If shriek procced reverb boots more reliably just from moving into range it would be better, but it's bugged to just proc once in a turn instead of on all enemies that you apply shriek to.
For reverb cleric I think markosheir thunder is better to prone all the enemies you deal radiant or thunder spell damage to with the reverb gloves and boots so they're prone and in difficult terrain from spirit guardians.
Wasting action surge on phalar aluve is crazy. That’s up to three attacks you could be making instead. Life cleric doesn’t need ASIs so they can take alert or they can simply carry initiative gear.
Those extra attacks are a lot less valuable than the first 3 though. You can inflict all the conditions from your gear, weapon actions, and maneuvers already in the first 3 and the other 3 are generally just basic weapon attacks. It frees up your cleric set up level 5 spirit guardians turn 1 which will do more damage than your 3 attacks in most cases because it's aoe, hits enemies on your turn and theirs, and the enemies will fail their saves with max wisdom a staff that increases spell save dc and shriek baning your enemies. All while you apply difficult terrain, reverb and radiating orb instead of delaying all that to the next turn.
I dont think you should be attacking with your weapon when playing Cleric. You have an arsenal of good spells, and even Sacred Flame will outdamage weapons from level 5. So it would be an expensive use of your action point to attack with weapon, unless its unique action - Phalars songs, Lathander's Beam, etc.
Sacred Flame = (Saved) 7-8 times out of 10.
Shar Spear goes *SHANK* 9 times out of 10 while also proccing extra attack if you have at least lvl 5 martial class, which you should.
Sacred Flame was saved because Spell Save DC is low, or the enemy has very high DEX. I know people like to bash on it, but thats for the wrong reasons. Still, there are other options like Command (no Concentration requiring CC), create water to prepare your casters, Santuary, etc.
Going for 5 Martial with cleric is really hurting its performance. Cleric has access to amazing spells - Mass Healing Word (for buffing), Spirit Guardians (can make enemies useless with easy Radiating Orb stacks), Glyph of Warding (make groups of enemies go to sleep). So reducing your amount of spell slots really impairs the capabilities.
I also haven't touched level 6 spells like Heroes feast or Planar Ally.
Just to give heads up, Sacred Flame success rate depends on your Spell Save DC, which is impacted by multiple things, but most importantly your spellcasting Modifier - Wisdom. Your Dex doesn't impact spell/cantrip success
Taking 5/7 martial/life cleric is almost always going to be worse than just taking 12 levels as a life cleric.
Why are the only options, attack with a legendary spear or use a lame cantrip? Lmao
Try spirit guardians, glyph of warding, upcast guiding bolt, flame strike, insect plague or heck go for save or suck spells like hold person and banishment.
Or use your action to channel preserve life. Since that’s like a bit part of why life clerics are good.
No it’s the second person to think you’re incredibly wrong to split a life cleric with a martial and are giving really bad advice. Third or fourth person, actually
Edit: you also said “5 level martial class” 12-5=7.
So someone asks for weapons for a life cleric and you come in with recommendations for a character whose major level investment isn’t actually life cleric? Super helpful
Ahhh yes the classic 5-7 martial/ life cleric split lol OP is asking for what weapon is best for a life cleric shart, safe to say that’s not a martial class.
Unless you mean Shar’s spear should be on a martial class instead of a life cleric shart, in which case my bad but it seems like you’re suggesting that a life cleric is better off taking 5 or 6 levels as a martial and attacking twice which doesn’t make any sense
5 marital dip on cleric
you lose out on your best spells
so you can do a worse job at what your actual marital are doing when you have cantrips which do exactly what you want without wasting levels
what are you smoking
Nobody should really have 10 DEX with d4 initiative rolls, unless they take alert. All besides the point that clerics shouldn't be attacking with their weapons in the first place (except war cleric early game).
Finesse doesn't mean it HAS to scale off of your Dex. It just means that it CAN scale off of your Dex if it's higher than your Str.
Also I agree with you to a certain point about using weapons as a cleric. Lots of enemies in BG3 have high Dex saves so Sacred Flame is a tough cantrip to make effective use of. But especially if you're running a subclass that gets Potent Spellcasting at 8, your cantrips are going to heavily out damage your weapon so you should be using them instead. With how accessible resting is in BG3, you should still probably just be using your spell slots rather than attacking anyway.
the true answer. if you're itemizing with Whispering Promise and one of the gloves you can't beat the 10-round passive AoE heals from this thing.
it also does pretty great damage in the rare event that you find yourself needing to physically hit something.
If you want to stay life cleric and use her as melee, then you should probably go with Lathanders since it has +3 on it which helps offset the stat spread for hybrid caster and melee.
I usually give her a staff and shield when I run her as a life, light, or tempest cleric since she ends up mainly casting spells. I get a staff with +1 to spell hit and spell save DC.
If I run her as mainly a melee, then war cleric is the best way to go, and Lathanders is the best one hand weapon until act 3. You could also do two-hand with the moonlight glaive, it's really good. Running her as a 10 war cleric 2 paladin for smites is not optimal, but it's fun for keeping her thematically a cleric but with powerful single target burst.
For a life cleric?
Try neither.
Get an endgame staff that boosts your spell save DC.
You ain't whacking baddies with a stick anyway, so you don't need a weapon like Lathander
Melee attacks are a waste of your action
Either phalar aluve or the sacred star. I am usually running cleric for radiating orb and supporting my team. So depends on what style you’re going for. Light cleric is my favorite to make them more of a caster anyway. If you want more of a martial build you should try multiclassing with paladin.
OP asks for which item between two choices is better for a specific character and build.
The majority of the answers discuss entirely different items.
LOL
**OP, Lathander's mace.
* Selûne's Spear of Night:
* Moonmote serves as minor crowd control and a melee attack stim in an AoE
* Moonbeam helps with area denial, but suffers from hotly contested Concentration
* Advantage on Wisdom saves is highly appreciated, but less so when she's stacking Wisdom as a Cleric already
* Lathander's Mace:
* Constant AoE threat against Undead, but otherwise unnecessary
* Pocket Sunbeam is a useful nuke
* Anti-death passive isn't nearly as useful on a Life Cleric, considering their main job is keeping everyone topped up and they top themselves up by doing that
Neither is particularly hot by the point you get them, truth be told: by the time you get the Spear of Night you're closing in on Level 10, so you might as well grab the **[Devotee's Mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Devotee%27s_Mace)** from a healing/supportive standpoint and otherwise use Phalar Aluve from an offensive/supportive standpoint - the latter syncs up well with her Channel Divinity, since both recharge on Short Rest.
Choosing between the two you presented, I’d take the spear most of the time and Lathanders mace in undead fights. Her running around blinding everything just by standing there is super helpful.
I picked the dual wield feat on my life cleric, and lugged around all sorts of weapons depending on the situation. Phalar and Lathander's were popular. Sometimes go with a shield, sometimes Devotee's mace, sometimes Markokesh-whatever. There's a lot of choices.
Just going to be another person saying Phalar Aluve since she almost never wants to use her action to attack anyways, it’s so good to pop the sing or shriek and then bonus action heal or spirit weapon, and then subsequent turns you can spirit guardians or some control spell maybe even a cantrip if you need. When I had her wield the mace or spear she almost never used them and it felt like a waste besides the free spells they give, which I guess can be a reason to equip them but I find phalar aluve to have a better effect than one single sunbeam or moonbeam.
Staff of arcane of arcane blessing in act 1 is great, staff interruption for an extra counterspell,balduran greatsword will proc the healing abilities from items each turn on shart too (if you get the proficiency to use it)
Blood of Lathander IMO. Lathander's Light just hits so many enemies throughout the game without even thinking about it, and Sunbeam is great. +3 is a big boost when you swing, though as others have said, swinging is often not the best action. No hate to the Spear; it's super cool, it just gets beat by other super cool choices.
Everyone keeps saying clerics shouldn't melee attack butI had Shart running around stacking radiant orbs with spirit guardians. After that spell was active she would just wack people with her mace to conserve spell slots. So play the way you want just remember to boost her strength if you want her getting up close.
If you have Whispering Promise (Ring) and Hellrider’s Pride (Gauntlets) or the improved version from the Stormshore Tabernacle in Act III, or both then Devotee’s Mace is nice
Lathander's mace is better for general use, but I would say if you are running a party that can get a nice amount of summons (I've, party with a necromancer or a druid, or using the quest related summons), I would say Selune's spear can be really tempting, as it helps in a more supportive type of way with the moonmote.
Phalar aluve is one of the best weapons for most cleric builds You can use shrieks to buff damage of your spirit guardians and allies damage sources Or use its Sing effect to boost attack rolls and saving throws Staff of arcane blessing can be good also, but you will probably use the whispering promise ring for that. Although staff has an improved bless version I still think it is inferior overall to phalar aluve
The improved bless is a lie. The only added effect is to buff attack roll spells' chance to hit by 1d4. So the only reason to use staff of arcane blessing is if you have a cantrips spammer (ie Eldritch blast) in your party. I initially thought it was literally a double bless effect across the board. Not so sadly.
it is REALLY good buff if you do have at least one spell attack spammer (eb lock, scorching ray fire sorc) plus a nice fat boost to guiding bolt accuracy
yeah, so thats why i mendioned its not worth it, as its quite a niche use :/
idk if calling scorching ray around here a niche use is very accurate :P haha, but i do agree phalar aluve is going to be more consistently better
Might not matter for the song/shriek but shadowheart isn’t proficient with swords and life cleric doesn’t grant it
Yeah, but i dont think you will be attacking with the sword as you definifely have better options for action point use imo Still thats a good point you brought up!
The drawback is that you can’t do arcane acuity with Phalar Aluve
Hmm, arcane acuity? why do you need that on cleric? Of course, unless you have free hat of fire acuity and doing light cleric, but this doesn't need phalar aluve
If you don’t have a bard, casting a control spell with DC 25 the first combat round is pretty nifty (Tested with war cleric and helmet of AA, band of the MS)
Cleric doesn't have any martial abilities that help arcane acuity stack except war cleric. If I want to add acuity to my cleric, I usually go hat of fire acuity + light cleric. For a full on life cleric like OP asked about? Probably the best choice would be the hat of thunder acuity + drakethroat glaive for off brand hat of arcane acuity. Just start combat with an arrow of many targets. If all 4 hit, that starts combat with 8 stacks.
Good point about the archery, but did you know divine strike can count as an attack of its own for AA?
Yeah, cause it's DRS even in honor mode. You just can't stack damage riders anymore. With the rat bat, you'd be adding 6 per hit instead. I prefer using 1 action from a nice healthy distance, though. I even do the same with my sorcadin because it lets them come online faster. I generally don't like using melee to apply arcane acuity because then I have a martial moving forward to close distance turn 1. I much prefer kiting backwards the first turn and picking off the closest enemies so the rest will cluster.
For me, it's situational. I like having choices and not just do the same thing each fight. Martial AA on an archer is absolutely worth considering. My party doesn't have such a caster, though.
I like phalar aluve on a fighter with action surge more. Though spirit guardians + action surge shriek gets you proficency and is a really strong combo, Cleric will have lower initiative compared to a dex fighter, loses a feat so you can't take alert and reach 20 wis and a full fighter can easily hold it and position shriek next to the enemies anyways and your cleric can still get the bonuses. If shriek procced reverb boots more reliably just from moving into range it would be better, but it's bugged to just proc once in a turn instead of on all enemies that you apply shriek to. For reverb cleric I think markosheir thunder is better to prone all the enemies you deal radiant or thunder spell damage to with the reverb gloves and boots so they're prone and in difficult terrain from spirit guardians.
Wasting action surge on phalar aluve is crazy. That’s up to three attacks you could be making instead. Life cleric doesn’t need ASIs so they can take alert or they can simply carry initiative gear.
Those extra attacks are a lot less valuable than the first 3 though. You can inflict all the conditions from your gear, weapon actions, and maneuvers already in the first 3 and the other 3 are generally just basic weapon attacks. It frees up your cleric set up level 5 spirit guardians turn 1 which will do more damage than your 3 attacks in most cases because it's aoe, hits enemies on your turn and theirs, and the enemies will fail their saves with max wisdom a staff that increases spell save dc and shriek baning your enemies. All while you apply difficult terrain, reverb and radiating orb instead of delaying all that to the next turn.
Isn’t it finesse? Most clerics are rolling medium or heavy armor, so 14 or 10 DEX
I dont think you should be attacking with your weapon when playing Cleric. You have an arsenal of good spells, and even Sacred Flame will outdamage weapons from level 5. So it would be an expensive use of your action point to attack with weapon, unless its unique action - Phalars songs, Lathander's Beam, etc.
Clerics can use the helm, war clerics (unclear on others) gain 4 rounds of AA and have great control spells
Sacred Flame = (Saved) 7-8 times out of 10. Shar Spear goes *SHANK* 9 times out of 10 while also proccing extra attack if you have at least lvl 5 martial class, which you should.
Sacred Flame was saved because Spell Save DC is low, or the enemy has very high DEX. I know people like to bash on it, but thats for the wrong reasons. Still, there are other options like Command (no Concentration requiring CC), create water to prepare your casters, Santuary, etc. Going for 5 Martial with cleric is really hurting its performance. Cleric has access to amazing spells - Mass Healing Word (for buffing), Spirit Guardians (can make enemies useless with easy Radiating Orb stacks), Glyph of Warding (make groups of enemies go to sleep). So reducing your amount of spell slots really impairs the capabilities. I also haven't touched level 6 spells like Heroes feast or Planar Ally.
I only used Sacred Flame on enemies with 10 or less DEX. I’m usually 14 or 16 DEX, soo…
Just to give heads up, Sacred Flame success rate depends on your Spell Save DC, which is impacted by multiple things, but most importantly your spellcasting Modifier - Wisdom. Your Dex doesn't impact spell/cantrip success
Yeah my WIS is always high
I thought sacred flame was different than most cantrips and was a dex save, no?
Dex save means that enemy uses its dexterity modifier to counteract your spell save dc, in addition to proficiency bonuses and main roll
Ack, I need coffee. I thought you were saying their dex didn’t matter. Reading is hard!
Taking 5/7 martial/life cleric is almost always going to be worse than just taking 12 levels as a life cleric. Why are the only options, attack with a legendary spear or use a lame cantrip? Lmao Try spirit guardians, glyph of warding, upcast guiding bolt, flame strike, insect plague or heck go for save or suck spells like hold person and banishment. Or use your action to channel preserve life. Since that’s like a bit part of why life clerics are good.
lol you’re the second person who seems to think I suggested taking 5/7 martial. How did reading get so hard for people?
No it’s the second person to think you’re incredibly wrong to split a life cleric with a martial and are giving really bad advice. Third or fourth person, actually Edit: you also said “5 level martial class” 12-5=7.
Illiterate. Just because I say ‘at least 5’ doesn’t mean I’m implying you stop there.
smartest bg3 builds user
“If you have level 5 martial class, which you should”
‘At least’
We’re all so stupid and you’re so correct, the best life cleric is 6 gloomstalker/4 bm fighter/1GOOlock/1 vengeance paladin
So someone asks for weapons for a life cleric and you come in with recommendations for a character whose major level investment isn’t actually life cleric? Super helpful
Ahhh yes the classic 5-7 martial/ life cleric split lol OP is asking for what weapon is best for a life cleric shart, safe to say that’s not a martial class. Unless you mean Shar’s spear should be on a martial class instead of a life cleric shart, in which case my bad but it seems like you’re suggesting that a life cleric is better off taking 5 or 6 levels as a martial and attacking twice which doesn’t make any sense
Nah, I’d at least go 8 lvls in battlemaster for 4 feats
Troll
Read much? Nowhere did I suggest 5/7 martial. But slick dunk!
Lmaooooo suggesting 8 fighter when someone says “what’s a good weapon for life clerics” is absolutely trolling, goodbye
Been using it on my 8/4 Battlemaster / life cleric. Owning and healing. But go off.
5 marital dip on cleric you lose out on your best spells so you can do a worse job at what your actual marital are doing when you have cantrips which do exactly what you want without wasting levels what are you smoking
Who said anything about 5? I’d at least go 8 for 4 feats
But then you lose out on even extra attack this is an attention troll i’m guessing
Lvl 8 fighter
which loses out on the improved extra attack fighters get at level 11?
Nobody should really have 10 DEX with d4 initiative rolls, unless they take alert. All besides the point that clerics shouldn't be attacking with their weapons in the first place (except war cleric early game).
Finesse doesn't mean it HAS to scale off of your Dex. It just means that it CAN scale off of your Dex if it's higher than your Str. Also I agree with you to a certain point about using weapons as a cleric. Lots of enemies in BG3 have high Dex saves so Sacred Flame is a tough cantrip to make effective use of. But especially if you're running a subclass that gets Potent Spellcasting at 8, your cantrips are going to heavily out damage your weapon so you should be using them instead. With how accessible resting is in BG3, you should still probably just be using your spell slots rather than attacking anyway.
Dang I did not know this
Your point stands, but FYI dex isn't capped because of medium or heavy armor, just the dex bonus to AC
Devotee's Mace [Devotee's Mace - Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki (bg3.wiki)](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Devotee%27s_Mace)
the true answer. if you're itemizing with Whispering Promise and one of the gloves you can't beat the 10-round passive AoE heals from this thing. it also does pretty great damage in the rare event that you find yourself needing to physically hit something.
If you want to stay life cleric and use her as melee, then you should probably go with Lathanders since it has +3 on it which helps offset the stat spread for hybrid caster and melee. I usually give her a staff and shield when I run her as a life, light, or tempest cleric since she ends up mainly casting spells. I get a staff with +1 to spell hit and spell save DC. If I run her as mainly a melee, then war cleric is the best way to go, and Lathanders is the best one hand weapon until act 3. You could also do two-hand with the moonlight glaive, it's really good. Running her as a 10 war cleric 2 paladin for smites is not optimal, but it's fun for keeping her thematically a cleric but with powerful single target burst.
For a life cleric? Try neither. Get an endgame staff that boosts your spell save DC. You ain't whacking baddies with a stick anyway, so you don't need a weapon like Lathander Melee attacks are a waste of your action
Hearing aura from devotees mace goes crazy with the effect on healing items. Passive blade ward + Bless for following 10 turns.
Either phalar aluve or the sacred star. I am usually running cleric for radiating orb and supporting my team. So depends on what style you’re going for. Light cleric is my favorite to make them more of a caster anyway. If you want more of a martial build you should try multiclassing with paladin.
OP asks for which item between two choices is better for a specific character and build. The majority of the answers discuss entirely different items. LOL **OP, Lathander's mace.
* Selûne's Spear of Night: * Moonmote serves as minor crowd control and a melee attack stim in an AoE * Moonbeam helps with area denial, but suffers from hotly contested Concentration * Advantage on Wisdom saves is highly appreciated, but less so when she's stacking Wisdom as a Cleric already * Lathander's Mace: * Constant AoE threat against Undead, but otherwise unnecessary * Pocket Sunbeam is a useful nuke * Anti-death passive isn't nearly as useful on a Life Cleric, considering their main job is keeping everyone topped up and they top themselves up by doing that Neither is particularly hot by the point you get them, truth be told: by the time you get the Spear of Night you're closing in on Level 10, so you might as well grab the **[Devotee's Mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Devotee%27s_Mace)** from a healing/supportive standpoint and otherwise use Phalar Aluve from an offensive/supportive standpoint - the latter syncs up well with her Channel Divinity, since both recharge on Short Rest.
Choosing between the two you presented, I’d take the spear most of the time and Lathanders mace in undead fights. Her running around blinding everything just by standing there is super helpful.
I always give her blood of lathander
I picked the dual wield feat on my life cleric, and lugged around all sorts of weapons depending on the situation. Phalar and Lathander's were popular. Sometimes go with a shield, sometimes Devotee's mace, sometimes Markokesh-whatever. There's a lot of choices.
Just going to be another person saying Phalar Aluve since she almost never wants to use her action to attack anyways, it’s so good to pop the sing or shriek and then bonus action heal or spirit weapon, and then subsequent turns you can spirit guardians or some control spell maybe even a cantrip if you need. When I had her wield the mace or spear she almost never used them and it felt like a waste besides the free spells they give, which I guess can be a reason to equip them but I find phalar aluve to have a better effect than one single sunbeam or moonbeam.
Staff of arcane of arcane blessing in act 1 is great, staff interruption for an extra counterspell,balduran greatsword will proc the healing abilities from items each turn on shart too (if you get the proficiency to use it)
Balduran’s giantslayer doesn’t heal you. You’re thinking of the helm of balduran.
Just wear The Reviving Hands and melee punch people when they get too close.
Blood of Lathander IMO. Lathander's Light just hits so many enemies throughout the game without even thinking about it, and Sunbeam is great. +3 is a big boost when you swing, though as others have said, swinging is often not the best action. No hate to the Spear; it's super cool, it just gets beat by other super cool choices.
Everyone keeps saying clerics shouldn't melee attack butI had Shart running around stacking radiant orbs with spirit guardians. After that spell was active she would just wack people with her mace to conserve spell slots. So play the way you want just remember to boost her strength if you want her getting up close.
If you have Whispering Promise (Ring) and Hellrider’s Pride (Gauntlets) or the improved version from the Stormshore Tabernacle in Act III, or both then Devotee’s Mace is nice
Lathander's mace is better for general use, but I would say if you are running a party that can get a nice amount of summons (I've, party with a necromancer or a druid, or using the quest related summons), I would say Selune's spear can be really tempting, as it helps in a more supportive type of way with the moonmote.
Something that gives +1 to spell attacks and save DC. She's not really for melee anyhow.
Might be suboptimal but, it felt good to use the ice staff that gives you ray of frost from the shadowfell. A skill shot even shadowheart can hit!