The fastest way to make friends in D&D is through healing. You may be essentially bribing your friends with heals, but you can guarantee your party will be devoted to keeping you alive. And no subclass beats the Life Domain for sheer healing prowess.

Life Cleric might seem like you’re healing 24/7, but your subclass features make you so dang good at it that you actually finish the job early and have extra time to blast baddies with radiant rays.

Your typical gods as a Life Cleric are going to be Chauntea, Eldath, Helm, Ilmater, Lathander, Lliira, Selune, and Sune. If you’re looking for a classic archetypal Cleric that still has enough variety to be fun, that’s Life Cleric. Read on to find out the best way to build D&D’s equivalent of a field medic!

Using This Guide

Everything in this guide has an emoji, ranking how useful a given ability or feature is to playing this class effectively.

✅ — An absolutely crucial feature. Often forms the backbone of a class’ look and feel. Will provide some bonus that can’t be found through other means.

🆗 — A solid feature that does its job well. Not game-breaking, and certainly replaceable, but a strong choice that shores up some weakness.

⚠️ — A debatable choice. Could work for a specific build, but otherwise is either a wasted opportunity or is just weaker than other alternatives.

⛔ — Outright bad and detrimental. This weighs down the class and just takes up space on the character sheet. A weakness you will have to accommodate for.

These rankings are meant to help you create an optimized class build but remember—DnD isn’t a game where you need to win to have fun. Weaker but flavorful builds also have their place and can make for fulfilling characters.

How to Play a Life Cleric

There is one thing Life Cleric can do better than any other Cleric subclass: heal. That means your primary focus during combat will be casting healing spells and keeping your allies from falling (Support). Your spell slots will be almost entirely devoted to these goals. Only when your party is safely healed should you look to deal damage, either with spells or melee attacks.

Outside of combat, you can use your utility magic to make your party’s life easier, but try and allow other spellcasters to handle utility. You’re one of only a few classes that get healing magic, so saving your spell slots for heals is important. Also, try and keep a spell slot in reserve for a resurrection spell in case of emergencies.

Being an Effective Support

There are two ways you’ll support your party: healing and buffs. Buffs are easy enough; use your concentration to maintain a buff spell, either strengthening a weaker ally if they’re in danger of attack, or overclocking a powerful ally to help them shred your enemies.

On the other hand, healing is a delicate science because you often can’t outheal the incoming damage your party will suffer. Instead, you’ll have to prioritize healing whoever is closest to death. Observe the average damage of your enemy’s attack and make sure none of your party members get so low on health that a single attack could knock them down. Don’t be afraid to blow a bigger spell slot on a healing spell so you don’t spend several turns continually topping up your Barbarian’s health pool. More healing over fewer turns is just better optimization.

🛡️ Looking for another Cleric subclass? Check out our guide to Order Domain Cleric

Life Domain Subclass Features

Your features are all healing-centric, designed to help you squeeze more value out of your healing spells. Since you’re so efficient at healing, there’s actually room to sneak in some damage-dealing spells. After all, you’re more about quality-over-quantity when it comes to healing.

✅ Domain Spells

1st Level

🆗 Bless

Straightforward buff for your party. A decent spell to maintain concentration on if you have nothing better to cast.

✅ Cure Wounds

Your staple heal spell. Nets you plenty of healing and scales well. As a healing-first subclass, taking a full turn to heal isn’t a problem, so this only has upsides.

2nd Level

🆗 Lesser Restoration

Good if you’re desperate, but always feels like you’re wasting your turn.

✅ Spiritual Weapon

Damage? On my Life Cleric spell list? Getting free damage as a bonus action lets you double-up, healing with your action while simultaneously getting kills.

3rd Level

✅ Beacon of Hope

Failed Wisdom or death saves can tear apart an unprepared party, and the maxed-out healing simply gives you bigger numbers. And having it all in one spell is incredibly useful.

✅ Revivify

Having this on hand is indispensable since it’s a reliable resurrection spell with no downsides as long as you cast it quickly enough. Good at any level.

4th Level

✅ Death Ward

Reliably gives your allies a second chance. You can repeatedly cast this on several party members, too, for complete protection.

🆗 Guardian of Faith

60 guaranteed damage is quite strong. This is good for blocking off a doorway and covering a retreat.

5th Level

✅ Mass Cure Wounds

One of the best group heals in the game. Perfect for getting your whole party back in action.

🆗 Raise Dead

A good resurrection spell that doesn’t ask you to rush to cast it. More downsides than revivify, but the more forgiving timeline is valuable.

✅ Bonus Proficiency

Heavy armor lets you worry about healing others rather than yourself. Very handy.

🆗 Disciple of Life

You get the most out of this bonus by repeatedly healing one target. The bonus can add up to the equivalent of an extra healing spell.

✅ Channel Divinity: Preserve Life

This gives you access to group healing early, instead of relying on spells. And it’s still a respectable amount of healing at higher levels when good group heal spells are available.

✅ Blessed Healer

A very important feature. If your party relies on you to keep them alive, having to spend a turn healing yourself is dangerous. This feature keeps you healthy and prevents such a disaster.

⚠️ Divine Strike

If you end up not needing to heal on your turn, this is fine, but a cantrip is often better.

✅ Supreme Healing

Takes a lot of the guesswork out of healing and gives you reliable results. Improving your core focus like this is perfect for a subclass’ capstone.

🛡️ Not convinced yet? Try playing a Tempest Domain Cleric instead

The Perfect Life Domain Build

Ability Scores

🆗 Strength

Heavy armor has Strength requirements, and if you opt for weapon attacks, you’ll want this high for your attack rolls.

⛔ Dexterity

Dump stat.

🆗 Constitution

High Constitution gives you more health to improve your survivability and strengthens your concentration to help maintain your ongoing buff spells.

⛔ Intelligence

Dump stat.

✅ Wisdom

You’ll almost always cast a spell on your turn, and Wisdom is your spellcasting ability. Many healing spells add your Wisdom modifier, so bumping this up before any of your other stats improves your healing rate.

⛔ Charisma

Dump stat.

Races

✅ When looking for the best race, the HP boost that Hill Dwarf gets is perfect for a Life Cleric, Githzerai and Loxodon both make you harder for enemy spellcasters to take out, and Firbolg is always a strong option. Protector Aasimar gives you another way to heal without using a spell slot, which, combined with its other bonuses, makes it an excellent pick.

🆗 For a defensive build, Water Genasi, Kalashtar, Lizardfolk, Reborn, Tortle, and Warforged all offer solid bonuses. You might also consider Centaur so you can quickly run around between injured allies.

Feats

🆗 Heavy Armor Master

This can make attacks from hordes of weak enemies irrelevant. A simple defensive upgrade since you already have heavy armor proficiency.

✅ Lucky

Best used on defense. Passing a difficult saving throw or forcing an enemy to swing with disadvantage can save your skin.

✅ Tough

When your party relies on you for healing, you don’t want to die yourself. Extra HP is an obvious solution.

🆗 War Caster

Maintaining concentration makes your buffs or ongoing healing spells much more efficient. The only reason this feat isn’t rated higher is because Life Domain relies on concentration spells less than other Cleric subclasses.