What makes Clerics uber?

[Endarire]

I know first hand how powerful Wizards and Druids can be.  Clerics are part of the top tier, but I'm just not seeing their uberness.

I've played Clerics.  I've played with clerics.  The best ones went (Cloistered) ClericX/CrusaderX/Ruby Knight VindicatorX.

I can understand the potency of necromantic overlord Clerics.  I know that Divine Metamagic and Persistent Spell make buffs easier and last longer, and Clerics can buff themselves to be better fighters than some other martial classes.

I'm not seeing the "zilla" of a Cleric.  Druids and Wizards seem to do it better with polymorph, alter self, Wild Shape, animal companions, and crowd control.

[Solo]

Zilla is in comparison to fighters, paladins, and monks. I think we can all agree that Clerics are more uber than those.

[X-Codes]

One mid-level spell and Clerics make the Fighter obsolete.  Another and they surpass them to such a degree that it's silly.

Clerics are fully capable of obsoleting the Rogue, although not near as easily as they can obsolete a Fighter.  It takes quite a few low-level spells to achieve that feat over the course of a full day's adventuring.

The one area where clerics are somewhat lacking is crowd control/save-or-lose mechanics.  It's not that clerics can't cast them, it's that most of them come from Domain spells, and at any given level they're inferior to a save-or-lose spell as cast by a Wizard.

That said, Clerics can undo a LOT of the damage Wizards are capable of doing.  They get Freedom of Movement, Mind Blank is available through domains, and Death Ward is a simple-to-cast spell instead of needing to get it via alternative means.

Finally, the game-breakingness is really a lot of the usual culprits.  Miracle is fierce, if not quite as awesome as Wish, and Clerics can get free Miracles just as easily as Wizards get free Wishes.  Also, the Planar Ally line is almost as good as the Planar Binding line when each is optimized, and easily better than the Planar Binding line when the Wizard just casts it on occasion with little to no real thoughts of optimizing it.

[LordBlades]

First of all DMM: Persist. With enough nightsticks you can have a ridiculoulsly large number of buffs going on 24/7. Combine with Reach Spell/Ocular Spell to persist practically everything.

Insanely high CL. It's very easy to achieve huge CLs with a cleric, which means 2 things mainly: your Persistent buffs will be very hard to dispel, and you can make CL based 'just die' effects way more potent(beig able to cast a CL 25+ Holy Word at lvl 13 is pretty much an 'I win' button for many encounters).

Clerics are stull full casters with a very good spell list.

[SorO_Lost]

Divine Spells compared to Arcane Spells sucks.
Divine Spells compared to no spells is Amazing!

Having a half dozen buffs, each capable of making the fighter cry, applied to you 24/7 is great too.
Ray Deflection + Stormlord(or w/e) = immune to ranged attacks & flight & free ranged blasting = Blow shit up while invincible.
Divine Power > Fighter
Necromantic Empowerment + Visage Of The Deity + Bite Of The Whatever = Powerthirst!

Raising and commanding your own army without the -everyone-can-take-Leadership-feat is great too.
Did I mention you can still call favors from interplanar creatures too?

Being able to use Anyspell to cast almost any Arcane Spell is amazing.
Arcane Fusion anyone?

Being a better caster while being a better meleer than the classes that gave up some spells for melee (paladin/ranger) is great too.
Srsly, Fist of Razial in every possible way replaces the Paladin. 10 levels and it has more smites, better smites at that, and still full casting.

Let's not even go into how well the cleric out performs classes like the monk or fighter or the whole cast of wannabes like the hexblade, duskblade, spelltheif, samurai, ninja, warlock, shamen, marshal, healer, etc.

[JaronK]

You've got to really look through the spells.  Consider Divine Insight: now you're a better skillmonkey than the skillmonkey, at whatever you wanted.  And don't forget to chose well from your domains, as there's great stuff there.  You've already found that you can do crazy things with undead... but to make Rebuke Undead useful, you'll want turn resistance reducers (Rod of Defiance and Lyre of the Restful Soul).

JaronK

[Bloody Initiate]

"I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you."

Last I checked Tiers weren't based on PvP, they were based on filling party roles and overcoming challenges. Clerics may not be at the top of Tier 1, but they don't have to be because they're Tier 1. You don't have to beat a wizard to prove you can beat a fighter.

They also get an entirely unique class feature: Turning; or more accurately turn attempts.

The fact that they can do any job better than most of the people meant for that job is all they need to be uber. Believe it or not, there IS plenty of room at the top, and generally speaking monsters DON'T have to fight each other for space.

[Runestar]

The designers really screwed up on the planar ally/binding spells. Let's see...my lv11 cleric can gate in a trumpet archon npc to adventure with me for 2 weeks...which casts as a lv14 cleric?!?   And that's even without trying.

Divine favour replicates 3 fighter only feats (weapon focus/spec/melee weapon mastery).

War devotion gives a bonus on damage rolls = your highest war-domain spell prepared. Fighters get only +6 damage after investing in 5 feats.

And for sheer coolness, use miracle to replicate giant size and grow to colossal.

Seems their spells are all geared towards telling the fighter just how redundant he is.  

[Mixster]

IMO, clerics are awesome from the get-go.

Even at low levels, where Wizards seem to be on an even ground with everyone else, the cleric can run around permanently buffed with fast healing, effectively letting him ignore losing the HP resource in combat.

If you think of any situation a wizard can do, a cleric can properly do it too, although his tricks might be different. If he faces an encounter, he would more happily play the AC and hp game than the other characters. And he can still buff his other (more important) defenses.

[Bloody Initiate]

Back to Turning...

A wizard is entirely made of spells and the ability to change those spells every day. The fact that they get the best spells is what makes wizards amazing. There is NOTHING about the wizard class that is appealing outside of spells (Unless you want to sell your spellbook at level 1).

I dipped Cloistered Cleric and didn't even look at spells. I wanted skills points and turn attempts to fuel Travel Devotion (Also the Pride Domain ability). I knew my first level cleric spells generally sucked, so I didn't care what they were. On the days when I bothered to pick spells my character was even better. If I had dipped normal Cleric I would've enjoyed superior BAB and HD.

You don't dip wizard without picking spells.

My point is not that clerics > wizards or anything of the sort, just that clerics actually have a LOT going for them. The biggest thing is that they and all the other core classes received a TON of support in subsequent supplements. It didn't help all of the core classes much, but some, like clerics and bards, benefited tremendously from designers taking a pointed interest in the class AFTER it was first published.

A lot of classes have excellent base mechanics, but the lack of support after they were first published basically starved the class into a lower tier. Clerics have good mechanics and a fuckton of support. Turning used to just be a way to deal with undead.

[skydragonknight]

Persistent Delay Death with Beads of Karma, Ankh of Ascension, that Ioun Stone, Divine Spell Power and that ring that adds +4 to the dispel DC. If you haven't won the game than you've at least just made it hard to lose it. Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor and 14400 rounds in a day (double that if you extended Delay Death as you should have) and you really don't have to worry even if you hit -1000.

Pride Domain -> make autofail 1 in 400 instead of 1 in 20. Add in Superior Resistance and other magic items and you're virtually immune to saving throws that have not been thoroughly optimized. Except Reflex, but Delay Death covers damage.

All that's really left are the "Save: None" spells, and the majority of these can be guarded against.

[Hallack]

I think cleric awesome boils down to circumstance and opportunity.  Of course the same can be said of the other Tier one casters. 

If they have the time and information they can prep/prebuff/choose spells in such a manner as to make things much easier.

In a situation where they are adventuring a whole day with many encounters or where they do not know all they will face their power is modulated somewhat.

But even being blind to challenges there are good standard spells that will make them very tough and survivable.   

[RobbyPants]

Devotion feats were also a much unneeded power-up for clerics.  Especially how a cloistered cleric can effectively get Knowledge Devotion for free if they don't mind losing class access to all Knowledge skills (after all, you only need one rank per skill to use the feat).

Basically, at low level where attack rolls and AC matter, a cleric can run around during most or all of the fights with better modifiers than the fighter (Knowledge and Law devotion) without even spending a spell slot.  At mid-high levels, they can use spells to completely outstrip the fighter in all ways, and still have plenty to spare for healing, utility, and some random offensive goodies.

[veekie]

If they have the time and information they can prep/prebuff/choose spells in such a manner as to make things much easier.

The time factor is where they probably trump wizards, since they know their entire list and as clerics, don't need rest to reload, just the specified time of day. That said, it's still easier to have a rogue around than to try covering one with spells.

Whereas wizards at least need to go shopping, Clerics can be boring healbots one day and wake up CoDzilla the next.

[Sunic_Flames]

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=253669

I was holding back a fair bit when I made this. I could do much better.

Auto attacks for 1d6+29 * 3, not counting Knowledge Devotion (average result 3.2 on Religion, 2 for Arcana/Nature/Local, 1.45 for Dungeoneering/The Planes, does not count Collector of Stories, or any other skill boosts that are non constant). Damage can also be increased by 8/swing via a Brambles prebuff. To hit of +11/+11/+6 + Knowledge Devotion vs touch AC = auto hit vs most stuff or close to it if not.

Is still a Cleric, with spell DCs only 1 lower than a real Cleric and full casting.

There are also other Clerics I can link you to, but they did not go the CoDzilla approach.

[Ikeren]

Cleric chasis is straight up better than the wizard chasis as well: d8>>>d4, All simple weapons, armor, shields >>> handful of weapons, no armor, no shields, 3/4's BAB >>> 1/2 BAB, Fort save >>> no fort save, more spells per day >>> Less spells per day, easier access to a wider variety of spells >>> hard access to arguably better spells.

The fact that arcane spells generally pack slightly more punch in various ways is mitigated by clerics ability to grab whatever spell they want (especially if magic domain, spell domain, swap domain, and the create your own domain variants are in play) and better core chasis (which helps them survive at lower levels).

[RobbyPants]

Church Inquisitor is almost a given for Clerics.

[Kuroimaken]

Church Inquisitor is almost a given for Clerics.

And let's not even get into what Reserves of Strength does for them with those really high CLs...

[bearsarebrown]

They know all of their spells. That instantly gives them a leg above all arcane classes. Druids are still great thoug. But as we all know DMM is strived then Wildshape.

[lans]

Divine Power doesn't obsolete fighters, but it does go a long way towards doing so.