The power of a maelstrom at your fingertips, conjured hurricanes throwing goblins left and right, devastating shockwaves tearing up the ground around you. That’s Tempest Cleric. Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening, all that stuff.

Thanks to their devotion, Tempest Cleric’s are empowered with the ferocity of a storm. They’re an area-of-effect specialist, employing some of the best control and multi-target damage spells in the game to take charge of the battlefield. All this while being able to use healing and buff spells like any other Cleric.

A Tempest Cleric worships gods like Auril, Talos, or Umberlee, deities that embody chaotic and destructive natural forces. It’s a complete package stuffed with great roleplay and powerful mechanics. So if you’re asking, “how do you play a Tempest Cleric?” read on and find out!

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.

🛡️ Don’t know where to start? Check out our guide on how to play a Cleric

How to Play a Tempest Cleric

Tempest Cleric is one of the best Cleric subclasses for casting ongoing magical effects that disrupt your enemies en masse (Controller). You also get lots of powerful damage spells that synergize with your subclass features to blast hordes of beasties (Striker). Overall, you are best at fighting large groups of enemies that other party members may not be able to handle on their own.

Being an Effective Controller

Many of your best control spells set up obstacles to inconvenience crowds of enemies. Throw down these spells in confined spaces so baddies are forced to walk through them, either taking damage or wasting time. This will make it easier for your party to fight them one at a time.

Being an Effective Striker

Using area-of-effect damage spells to soften up crowds of enemies is a great strategy. Start off combat with a big spell and then turn to little spells to clean up whatever remains. You’re also good at finishing off a big group of weakened enemies, but save this for when an ally is at risk of being overrun.

You also have the punch to deal melee damage. Save your weapon attacks for when a damaged enemy is up close and away from its buddies, so you can kill it with one hit.

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

Tempest Domain Subclass Features

Your features encourage the use of lightning or thunder damage spells, which are rare enough that you’ll need to make an effort to pick them up. You’ll be able to manipulate the battlefield with your magic, but you’re also capable of joining the brawl as a magically-empowered melee fighter. But no lightning resistance, sadly.

✅ Domain Spells

1st Level

✅ Fog Cloud

A versatile basic control spell. Blocks line-of-sight to protect your party from ranged attacks as they retreat.

✅ Thunderwave

Nice if you’re surrounded so you can push enemies away. Like many of your Domain Spells, this is ranked higher because it deals lightning or thunder damage (see your Channel Divinity for why).

2nd Level

🆗 Gust of Wind

A good delay tactic to keep even big enemies at bay. The line is rather narrow, but if you use this in a corridor, it’s incredible.

✅ Shatter

Reliable, ranged, and thunder damage. A great area-of-effect damage spell that you’ll cast often.

3rd Level

✅ Call Lightning

Absurd range and a very long duration make this so good. The damage is meh for a 3rd-level spell, but with some patience, you’ll be racking up kills.

✅ Sleet Storm

That is a lot of difficult terrain. Plus, it weakens spellcasters. Very strong control spell to prevent enemies from moving while your party picks them off.

4th Level

🆗 Control Water

Some excellent utility and control uses, but you need a large body of water nearby for it to work well.

🆗 Ice Storm

Nice area-of-effect damage that excels at hurting flying enemies. The difficult terrain is a neat bonus, too.

5th Level

✅ Destructive Wave

Tons of damage (including thunder damage), a big area-of-effect, and knocks enemies prone. This has a huge impact for a single-spell slot. Just be sure you don’t hit your friends.

✅ Insect Plague

Hits the control spell trifecta: obscuring, damaging, and difficult terrain-ing. Creates a brutal obstacle with a long duration and longer casting range.

✅ Bonus Proficiencies

Heavy armor lets you focus on killing enemies and healing allies rather than playing defensively. And martial weapons give you flexibility in how you do the killing.

🆗 Wrath of the Storm

Helps make up for only having one attack while in melee combat.

✅ Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath

A powerful, synergistic way to use your spells. Dealing a static amount of damage rather than rolling makes your spells much more predictable and can turn “okay” spells into crowd-killers. The backbone of many of Tempest Cleric’s favorite tricks.

✅ Thunderous Strike

Turns damage spells into control spells, helping keep you out of harm’s way. Or push an enemy into an ongoing area-of-effect spell for even more damage.

✅ Divine Strike

Makes you a viable melee fighter, but combine this with your Channel Divinity, and you can deal crazy damage.

✅ Stormborn

Flying is always good, and this has mostly-irrelevant caveats.

⚔ Player Tip: Getting More Lightning and Thunder Spells ⚔

There aren’t many such spells available to Clerics, so you might consider a multiclass build. Wizard gets you access to booming blade and lightning bolt, as does the flavorful Storm Sorcerer. In your backstory, this could be written as an arcane caster bonding with a Tempest Domain god and entering their service. Just be aware that Wizard and Sorcerer don’t share their spellcasting ability with Cleric, hurting your optimization.

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

The Perfect Tempest Domain Build

Ability Scores

🆗 Strength

When you enter melee combat, you’ll need a high Strength to land your attacks. Also a requirement for heavy armor.

⛔ Dexterity

Dump stat.

✅ Constitution

Maintaining your concentration is crucial for Tempest Clerics, who love using ongoing area-of-effect control spells.

⛔ Intelligence

Dump stat.

✅ Wisdom

While you can use weapon attacks, you’ll make the most impact with your spells, which use Wisdom. Crank this higher than any of your other stats so enemies can’t resist your spells and get caught in your magical typhoons.

⛔ Charisma

Dump stat.

Races

✅ The best race for Tempest Cleric may just be Variant Human since the subclass benefits so much from a good feat. Hill Dwarf, Lizardfolk, Loxodon, Tortle, and Warforged all make you tankier and are good for a defensive build. The Eberron-based Mark of the Storm Half Elf gives you lots of great tempestuous control spells, though no Wisdom bonus.

🆗 Protector Aasimar, Centaurs, Firbolgs, Water Genasi, Harengon, and Kalashtar are decent picks, excelling on defense. Dragonborn is an unorthodox choice, but a lightning breath weapon is flavorful.

Feats

🆗 Elemental Adept

Bypassing resistance on your strongest spells can be huge. Not many creatures resist thunder damage anyways, but a good many resist lightning damage.

✅ Metamagic Adept

A bit of metamagic can work wonders, especially Careful Spell to protect your allies from your spells or Empowered Spell to reroll damage.

✅ War Caster

Your control spells and area-of-effect spells need concentration to shine, so this feat is a no-brainer.