Dragonflight, Roughly a Month In

 In 5 days, we'll have had a month of Dragonflight, World of Warcraft's 10th iteration (9th expansion).

The first wing of the first raid is now on LFR, and things are settling in as the expansion is now in full swing.

So, what do I like, and what do I think they could do better on?

General Class Mechanics:

The new talent system is great. I think this is true for a couple reasons:

The first is that it brings back the sense of incremental progress to leveling. With level scaling as introduced in Legion, the downside was that levels where you didn't get a new ability or talent actually made you feel less powerful rather than more. Your secondary stat ratings would give you less, and even if your overall numbers went up, the enemies you fought would as well.

Now, that's still kind of true. But now, your class gets more complex, and thus more powerful, as you level. I haven't played any low-level characters yet since the 10.0 patch, but at least in the 60-70 climb, while there's the usual dip in power as the epics you had from the end of Shadowlands become less impressive and are replaced by questing greens, by the time you hit the high 60s, your power level seems to climb back as you get more talents to shore up your power.

Secondly, I love that you can just change them when outside of combat. Not only that, but the fact that you can save different loadouts with their own action bars just like you get with different specs makes it very easy to swap between a build that's ideal for solo content, or for blasting trash in dungeons, or for zeroing in on bosses in raids.

Renown instead of Reputation:

So, here I'm mostly positive, though I have a couple quibbles. What I love is that anything that isn't directly tied to player power is account-wide. I realized I didn't have enough Expedition Resources or whatever they're called to buy the black scale options for the dragon mounts on my main after I hit "True Friend" with Wrathion, but I was able to just hop on my Death Knight and fly over there and buy them on him, despite the DK favoring Sabellian.

The fact that renown opens up new types of world quest and other options - which are all account-wide - makes this change extremely welcome.

Dragonriding:

So, I recommend that one of the first things you do on your main is find all the Dragonriding Glyphs. It took me only an hour or two (without a guide, except maybe in one or two cases) and it has made flying around the Dragon Isles very easy. (Again, this is a wonderful thing to make account-wide - finding them once was fun, having to go through all that on every character would be torture).

The only downsides I see with this system are:

A: that the diversity in mounts used in this expansion has plummeted. I swapped by main from Blacksmithing to Engineering back in 2.3 so I could make the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, and it remains his main flying mount. While the drake customization options (also account-wide) are fun, it does mean everyone's ultimately riding on one of four mounts this expansion.

B: Flying mounts have often served as a "pause" button for World of Warcraft. If I need to go use the bathroom, letting my character hang in the air for a while is very convenient.

But that aside, I'm so happy to see really for the first time since Cataclysm an environment that is built for flying. From Mists through Shadowlands, flying was a "reward" for "completing the world," and was seen more as a way to skip through content than an opportunity for cool environments. But now, you get a zone like Thaldraszus, which is incredibly vertical in nature.

The Evoker:

My Evoker just hit the item level to run LFR, though I haven't taken him in there yet.

As a class, they certainly came up with something new. I remain a little skeptical of the decision to make all Dracthyr have to be Evokers - while I can understand limiting Evokers to them, I feel like in the long run we should see Dracthyr be able to try out different styles of combat.

I also don't like the fact that almost none of your armor shows up on your Dracthyr unless they're in visage form. I get that they have a very different profile from other WoW races (though I'd argue not so much more profoundly different from a human than the Tauren or Worgen).

Rhythm-wise, I think the Evoker runs into some issues with either lag or just bugs that have not yet been worked out entirely. Often it feels like the game doesn't quite register when I press the button for either of my empowered spells, or it will hold the button down too long. And for some reason, the display of how much Essence I've got to spend doesn't match the pseudo-cooldowns of my abilities the way that they do with Death Knight runes - I'll seem to have three Essence to spend but then be unable to cast Disintegrate for another second or two.

Still, I must commend them on making a class that truly feels different than others. The 25-yard range tends not to be too much of an issue until it's a big one - especially with a lot of enemies that have front cones and tanks who... tend not to face them away from the party (and to be fair, often these cones are not obvious, and so as a tank I've often not know to face them away).

Professions:

Ok, this I have very mixed feelings about.

In general, I think they've made professions a lot more interesting. And I think the crafting order system allowing for Bind-on-pickup reagents to be used by other players to make your gear is a great solution to the problem with powerful gear.

But.

The system is barely tutorialized at all.

First, you can apparently never ever get your invested profession knowledge points refunded to reassign. And so, on my main, picking the path of "funky engineering toys" as his main focus to start with became a huge liability. I had to grind materials and cross my fingers to just barely level to 75 Engineering in order to open the category that allows the crafting of actual useful gear (and the secondary-stat-setting components to make a huge material investment worth it).

Furthermore, I only realized today that the Sparks of Ingenuity served to limit how many crafted pieces you could equip at a time, and that we wouldn't just be getting a new one each week. Nowhere are you warned "hey, make sure you want to invest this thing in your helm and not some other piece you might want to have control over."

Also, I kind of hate having multiple qualities of most ingredients. Even with an extra bag slot and a 32-slot bag, I am scrounging for bag space given that I now have almost every profession thing in triplicate.

There's also this open question of how long it will take us to max out our professions. Getting to 75 was an absolute slog, and given that pretty much the only things that level me up are massively-material-intensive goggles and bracers (which use those limited sparks of ingenuity,) I wonder if the only way I'll ever hit 100 is after hitting the Darkmoon Faire quests every month for the better part of a year (I think they skill you up by 3?)

Professions needed a revamp, and I think the philosophy behind this is mostly sound, but we needed a much better sense of what we were getting into, and honestly, it was probably too much to throw at us in a single patch.

The Dragon Isles:

So... The Dragon Isles are pretty, sure. But maybe this is an unfortunate side effect of our access to fast flying mounts early on, but it feels a bit like the Dragon Isles are kind of small. Thaldraszus in particular feels like just a handful of valleys with just a little going on in each. The Azure Span is massive, but I think perhaps they might have hit it too hard on the expectation of nostalgia for Grizzly Hills. The cold and dark vibe to it practically gives me seasonal affective disorder.

The approach here was clearly to go back to more conventional fantasy settings - less otherworldly than the literally otherworldly Shadowlands, and more like a recognizable world that is just heightened. I'll confess my tastes tend more toward the truly strange and bizarre (while it shows its age, I still think Netherstorm is one of my favorite zones in terms of look and feel). 

Story:

So, I think that we get some good character-focused story here. The draconic politics between Alexstrasza, Wrathion, and Sabellian is juicy, especially if they remain committed to the idea that none of these people are bad guys (it would be pretty easy to Baron Sablemane, a name he seems to have totally dropped at this point, to turn out evil, but I think it'd be far more interesting if his conflict with Wrathion remains more complex and nuanced.)

Where I worry is the Primalists. The dragons, sure, were locked up for millennia, but that only happened because of the efforts of the Primalists themselves. And we have zero idea whatsoever where they came from. You might guess they were the remnants of Twilight's Hammer, but we get a quest in Waking Shore specifically pointing out that Twilight's Hammer is a pale shadow of its former self.

I think it's interesting that the Primalists, while definitely evil, believe that the Titans are the real bad guys. While most evil people (some would argue all) think of themselves as the good guys, these seem to genuinely be confused as to why we're fighting to preserve the legacy of the Titans. But again, who the hell are they?

We don't really have a sense of who is leading the Primalists other than Raszageth (and then the Primal Incarnates in general,) though we know that Kurog Grimtotem released her. Now, the Grimtotem did have some ties to Twilight's Hammer, but their matriarch Magatha was sort of playing her own game.

But still, we somehow have this giant cult of elementalists that emerged out of nowhere and are now a major force threatening the world - or at least the part of the world we're focusing on.

I am very curious to see where the rest of the story goes. It could be relatively straightforward and simply build to a confrontation with Iridikron as the likely final boss.

I've suspected the Incarnates might be a red herring, though I wonder to what extent that's simply based on my relative disinterest in them as characters. We don't really have a sense of why they hated the Titans so much and why they resented the Aspects. What were they up to when Galakrond was causing so much trouble?

Now, I'm obsessed with time travel and that kind of stuff, and so the Bronze Dragonflight has always been by far my favorite, and I find the Infinite Dragonflight to be one of WoW's most fascinating antagonists. But could Dragonflight shift its focus entirely to that plot? Or is Nozdormu/Murozond more of a side story?

Vault of the Incarnates - Wing One

 So, I made a decision - I'm not going to force myself to tank in LFR. My main is a Protection Paladin, and he has been since 2006 (literally since I hit level 10 and had my first talent point to invest). Obviously, dual-spec in Wrath and then the much looser approach to specs in later expansions have allowed him to go as Retribution for soloing, but he's had a very firm Prot identity in basically all instanced content.

To be fair, this isn't the first time I've done this. I think around Tomb of Sargeras I was rocking the Ashbringer. But I found that I've been kind of too stressed out to run LFR for a good long while - I only ever did the last fight of Battle for Dazar'alor on my Horde Shaman because you needed to for the campaign, then I never did anything other than the first wing of Sanctum of Domination (which was more about my weird feelings around Blizzard at the time) and just didn't get around to Sepulcher of the First Ones (which is a shame because it seemed cool).

Tanking in LFR, you have a ton of responsibility. If a dps messes up, usually it's not the end of the world, but tanks can really screw up the fight. And this isn't the patient, guild-run environment where errors are easily forgiven. So, in order to actually enjoy myself I've decided to start running LFR as Ret, at least at first.

Of course, on my main I just got into the last fight (but won the tier gloves! Also, apparently Need/Greed is back for raids?) But I ran the whole wing on my Death Knight (who sadly rolled like garbage for loot - I think his highest was like 16).

Anyway, the first wing (I think it's The Primalist Bulwark) has three fights: Eranog, the Primalist Council, and Dalthea, Ascended.

Eranog (whom you might remember from the Thaldraszus campaign quests) has basically three major mechanics to look out for as DPS. You need to avoid patches of fire (and stay behind the boss, as he has a big cleave). Also, people get debuffs on them that then summon a portal that spawns an add. The adds fixate on a random player, and DPS needs to burn them down. My DK's Abomination Limb ability was fantastic for this. Third, periodically Eranog summons a ring of fire elementals that converge toward the center with a ring of death that contracts on the party - similar to the Sylvanas fight in End Time with the ghouls. The raid needs to focus down one of these elementals and escape through the gap.

The Primal Council (Primalist?) is the most complex in the first wing, but makes sense once you get the hang of it.

There's four members of the council, one for each element. The Earth and Fire ones get tanked (and I believe tank-swapped) while the Air and Water ones are casters - you'll want to interrupt them to get them to reach the tanks. The key to this fight is balancing elements. The air boss puts a debuff on players that deals nature damage to them, but can be dispelled if you just walk up to one of the pillars the earth boss summons. However, this debuff will link to anyone you walk near, so the whole raid really needs to be good about running to the pillars and dumping the debuff together or it will just endlessly spread. Periodically, the water boss will channel a spell that puts a stacking debuff on everyone dealing a ton of damage and slowing them, but if you step into the pools of fire that the fire boss puts down, it'll clear your stacks, so you want to dip a toe in to clear stacks. The bosses do not share a health pool, so you want to take them down at about the same rate.

Finally, Dalthea, Ascended (the RP before the fight implies her brother was on the council, but the name is also Dalthea Stormlash, so I don't really know) is actually the simplest fight. Basically, you want to stay away from people with a debuff, run away from the boss when she tries to suck you in, avoid getting hit by gusts of wind, and then kill adds. When the adds die, they knock everyone back quite far, so you want to pull the adds to the center and get closer to the center so you aren't knocked off the edge (alternatively, just get on the side of the add that faces the center of the platform).

Anyway, big enemies in the raid drop tokens you can turn in for Dragonscale Expedition reputation. We are, of course, in the period where people are taking their mains into the raid, so we'll have to see how smooth the raid continues to be on LFR. My sense, though, is that things are skewed a little easier so far this expansion - whether intentionally or because Blizzard hasn't seen quite how much more powerful the new talent system has made player characters. I'm fine with it - I don't need LFR to be a painful slog.

Waiting for the Lore Shoe to Drop in Dragonflight

 On paper the Primal Incarnates are set up to be the big bads of the expansion, right? We're told Raszageth (and as someone whose name is Hungarian, let me tell you it always hurts a little when fantasy names pronounce "sz" as "z," but oh well) is the youngest of the Incarnates, and we even get, presumably, the name of her oldest and most dangerous sibling, Iridikron, in the expansion-launching cutscene.

And it's totally possible that that's where this expansion is going to go: straightforward, these are the bad guys, we fight them, that's the end of it.

But you don't really believe that, do you?

First off, I think we've got to look at the Primalists' motivations. Yes, they're doing a lot of destructive stuff, causing chaos and attacking characters that we're generally friendly to. Warcraft is an unusual fantasy property in that dragons, generally speaking, are presented as good, and the evil dragons we've faced have tended to be fallen heroes rather than pure monsters.

There are obviously a lot of parallels between this expansion and Cataclysm - both have a focus on Dragons and Elementals, and there's a humanoid cult that is channeling elemental magic to strike against us.

But Twilight's Hammer was apocalyptic and served the Old Gods. The Primalists' stated goal is to remove what they see as the "corruption" of the Titans from Azeroth, which includes the Titan-altered dragons (the dragons we've spent most of our time dealing with).

Essentially, while their methods are not great, it's not really clear that this is done with malicious intent. The Primalists are chaotic in D&D terms, but it's not clear that they are strictly evil.

The thing is, we've generally looked at the Titans as good - certainly the narrative of Sargeras rebelling against the Pantheon painted them, in contrast, as the good guys (obviously, Deathwing's turn is a parallel). But at the same time, we've seen how some Titan-based beings have acted in rather horrific ways. Probably the first example was the Mogu in Pandaria (we did encounter friendly Mogu later on in BFA, but the Mogu were mostly known as tyrants). And then, while we worked for him and on his side in Legion, the more we learn about Odyn, the more he seems to be a real dick - and possibly just plain evil. After all, he basically forced Helya into becoming an undead Val'kyr, while also gaining the knowledge to do so by trading his eye to Mueh'zalla, and through him, to the Jailer.

In the new Uldaman dungeon, you can find a few (I've found 3) lore books, one of which suggests that Odyn decreed a propaganda campaign to paint the history of the Black Empire in black and white terms, lest anyone be tempted by the Void, when, evidently, there were "advancements" the Black Empire made. And the waters of Tyrhold (Titan name: Uldorous) have evidently been conditioning dragons to get on the "order" program of the Titans - it's the reason the Primalists attack the Ruby Life Pools, which they see as "corrupting" dragons with Titanic influence.

Essentially, at this point I think it would be weird for the story to remain being told in such simple terms.

Admittedly, before the expansion, I suspected we'd be getting a lot more mentions of Galakrond, whose corruption and mutation appears to have been the result of failed experiments by Tyr (perhaps to create a singular Dragon Aspect) but so far at least, I haven't seen a lot about him.

And then there's Murozond. Yes, we "killed" him in Cataclysm (in one of my favorite dungeons of all time) but given that he's a time-traveler, that's no reason to think we won't see him pop up. Nozdormu's fate has hung over everything involving the Bronze Dragonflight, and I think there's a decent chance that this expansion is when we're going to see the change take place.

Now, between when I started writing this post and when I'm writing now, the ending cinematic for Vault of the Incarnates has been posted online. I'm going to put a spoiler cut here.

SPOILERS FOR VAULT OF THE INCARNATES ENDING

Dragonflight is Making Me Want to Level Alts for their Professions

 We're now only a few days into Dragonflight, but I'm noticing something remarkable: the thing I'm most excited about in the expansion right now is professions.

When my Junior year roommate in college first introduced me to WoW in 2006, he was playing his Orc Warlock, running around Durotar. He showed me that the linen cloth he was collecting off of enemies could be turned into bolts of linen, and then those could be turned into cloth armor he could wear. It kind of blew my mind - believe it or not, but there was a time when crafting systems were not ubiquitous in video games. It's honestly part of why I picked the game up.

Now, over time, professions got pretty boring - not really because they lost anything, but because they didn't really keep up.

One perennial problem with them is that part of their appeal is that they can be used to craft powerful and useful gear, but old design philosophies have tended to want to limit that, because it creates a scenario where having a bunch of gold equals player power, and people could get amazing gear without ever facing challenging content.

Soulbound items make that a little better - if you need a special component out of a raid in order to make raid-worthy loot and you can't just sell that loot to someone who hasn't done the raid, then you don't have that issue. But this then creates other limits - do I need to be a Blacksmith if I'm a plate-wearing class?

The crafting order system in Dragonflight fixes that to a large extent - you can put in an order with another player using your own components (including, importantly, the Titan Training Matrix items that set item levels and are soulbound) but their profession skill. For example, I ran Heroic Legacy of Tyr on my Paladin the other day and was sad that I didn't get any loot - just a Titan Training Matrix. Then I realized: I had gotten a piece of loot. I went to the crafting orders NPCs, put in an order to make some boots, and came away with a pair of 363 boots with my best stats (thanks to a missive,) which is actually higher item level than the stuff out of heroic dungeons anyway.

The thing is, we've had a lot of systems in previous expansions to get fancy loot: Benthic Gear in Nazjatar, Sandworn Relics in Zereth Mortis, those crystals in Argus. It seems like in Dragonflight, Blizzard has said "hold on, we have a complicated system for acquiring gear already!" and just took professions and made them that new system.

Cleric & Species: Ardlings, Dragonborn, and Goliaths

 One thing that has not yet been commented on in any official videos is that it looks like "Race" has been renamed "Species," which is perhaps not a huge deal or is maybe a big deal.

Just to unpack this: "Species" is a much more specific word that denotes a sort of scientific classification. While "race" is a term that is fraught with (and really born out of) a history of bigotry, "species" is, I think, a pretty neutral term, used scientifically to describe various kinds of life. We humans are Homo Sapiens (or Homo Sapiens Sapiens, though I can't recall if that second "sapiens" is a subspecies... taxonomy is complicated).

While I don't know if it feels very "fantasy," I do think that this choice reflects the specific notion that they're trying to portray in playable options: the biological, physiological elements of your character's genetics, and not culture and history. We saw with some of the redesigns in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and especially the Character Origins UA a move to shift cultural elements out of what was then called race, but still keeping the sort of physiological distinctions that can be fun in fantasy, like a dragon-person naturally being able to breath fire (or other elements).

With that in mind, let's look at the specifics.

Dragonborn:

First, as the most established species, Dragonborn got tweaked a little. The Character Origins version had a breath weapon that was better than the 2014 version, but many (including myself) were surprised to see that it didn't simply work like the one found in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. I'm honestly still not sure why they didn't just use those for this, but I'll say that this latest version is actually quite appealing.

Like in Fizban's, your Breath Weapon can now be swapped out for any single attack during your turn - if you have Extra Attack, you can do a breath and then attack with a weapon with the other attack (my tier 3 Fighter really likes this - or would if I'd been able to play him since Fizban's came out).

Indeed, the breath weapon is actually improved over the Fizban's version because you can now choose each time you use it whether you want to do a 15-foot cone or a 30-foot line - an excellent change, if you ask me.

Like in the Character Origins UA, Dragonborn now have Darkvision. They do not, however, inherently learn Draconic. Given the prevalence of Draconic in most D&D worlds, I think they might just consider making it a Standard Language, which can be shared by Dragonborn, Kobolds, Lizardfolk, etc.

The totally new thing, though, is that at level 5, Dragonborn get to sprout elemental wings (of the energy related to your draconic ancestry) as a bonus action and gain a fly speed for 10 minutes (or until you're incapacitated). You get to do this once a day.

This was said to be addressing what they felt was a big oversight - for a species based on dragons, it seems odd they can't do that very iconic dragon thing of, you know, flying.

Ardling:

The reaction to the Ardling was somewhat unenthusiastic. One question was why they would add this race to be the Upper Planar version of the Tiefling when the Aasimar already exists. So, what they're doing instead is leaning into the bestial element of the Ardling, connecting it specifically to the plane of the Beastlands.

You'll choose an Animal Ancestry, from among Climbers, Flyers, Racers, and Swimmers (with multiple examples given for each).

Climbers get a Climb Speed and get to deal extra damage with an unarmed strike once per turn by an amount equal to their proficiency bonus.

Flyers have vestigial wings, and can use a reaction to drift down and avoid fall damage. Additionally, when you jump, you get advantage on the Jump Action's ability check (which is a thing).

Racers, when they take the Dash action, get a bonus to their speed for that action equal to ten times their proficiency bonus (so at level 1, you can run 30 feet and then dash for 50. By level 17, you dash for 90 feet. Monk at that level could run 60 feet, dash 90, and step of the wind dash for another 90, for a total of 240 feet - not quite Tabaxi speeds, but close).

Swimmers get a Sim Speed, can hold their breath for an hour, and have resistance to cold damage.

Furthermore, all Ardlings get Thaumaturgy (and can replace that cantrip with a different Divine cantrip on a long rest). They also all get Keen Senses (proficiency in Perception).

    So, I think this gives the species a clearer identity - the previous version was trying to do a lot, and I think really stepped on the toes of the Aasimar, who feels like it should really be the mirror to the Tiefling. I still think that maybe they should consider putting the Aasimar in the PHB, but this is looking more like a possibility.

That being said, I think this might be somewhat underpowered compared to other options.

One note is that in my homebrew world, I have creatures in the Shadowfell called Taheen, which is a reference to Stephen King's Dark Tower series. The Taheen are, like the Ardlings, basically human-like but with animal heads, though they're far from Upper Planar, and really more representative of banality.

Goliaths:

Goliaths were not in the Character Origins UA, but Jeremy Crawford was saying that one reason they might include them is that they can give an alternate option for players who want the "big burly character" in addition to the Orc.

Furthermore, the Goliath is being expanded (a bit like the Tiefling in Character Origins) to sort of retroactively make the current version just one subspecies of the whole species. Goliaths are now explicitly connected to Giants, being humanoid descendants of the giants, and your Giant Ancestry includes options from the major giant types.

But before we get to that: Goliaths get a 35 foot movement speed - which is sort of surprising, but welcome.

Additionally, all Goliaths get to, at 5th level, use a bonus action to grow to Large size (if there's room) for 10 minutes. During this, you get advantage on Strength checks and your speed increases by 10 feet. And you can do this once per long rest.

Goliaths have Powerful Build as well.

Now, let's talk ancestries.

Each ancestry gives you an ability which you can use PB times per long rest.

Cloud's Jaunt (Cloud Giant) lets you teleport as a bonus action up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see.

Fire's Burn (Fire Giant) lets you add 1d10 fire damage to a target when you hit it with an attack roll.

Frost's Chill (Frost Giant) lets you add 1d6 cold damage to a target when you hit it with an attack roll, and also reduce its speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn.

Hill's Tumble (Hill Giant) lets you knock a Large or smaller creature prone when you hit it with an attack roll and deal damage to it.

Stone's Endurance (Stone Giant) is the familiar one - when you take damage, you can use a reaction to reduce the damage by an amount equal to 1d12 plus your Constitution modifier.

Storm's Thunder (Storm Giant) lets you use a reaction when you take damage from a creature within 60 feet of you to deal 1d8 Thunder damage to that creature.

    So, I think this is very cool. The most recent version of the Goliath, from Monsters of the Multiverse, does lose a couple things - its Cold resistance (and adaptation to high altitudes - which is actually quite paradoxical given that Stone Giants prefer the Underdark) and the automatic proficiency in Athletics. But the Large Form and the versatility of these options is pretty great.

Fire, Frost, and Hill can all serve very well for any melee character, and having Misty Step for free is basically always good. Basically, none of these are bad options - I think maybe the Storm one could be slightly underpowered.

Pages in the PHB are precious, so I wonder what the ultimate roster is going to wind up being.

One D&D UA 3: Cleric and Species: The Cleric

 The 3rd One D&D playstest document is out. Breaking with the pattern I had assumed we'd get after the Expert Classes UA, the only class getting previewed here is the Cleric, while the other two Priest classes - the Druid and Paladin - will have to come later.

The UA also gave us revisions to the new Dragonborn and Ardling, as well as a broader version of the Goliath that really explicitly ties them to Giants - giving us new varieties of Goliaths and considering the old-school one to be the Stone Giant-affiliated one.

For this post, I want to focus on the Cleric.

The biggest changes to the class come in the early levels. Because the levels at which one gains subclass features, including the first, are being standardized as 3, 6, 10, and 14, Clerics will now actually pick their subclass a bit later. But Clerics will nevertheless get some interesting choices to make at level 2. Let's get into it:

At 1st level, Clerics will get Channel Divinity, which no longer recharges on a short rest, and instead, you get PB uses of it per long rest. Now, while usually this sort of change means ultimately more uses, the 2014 Cleric later gets multiple uses of Channel Divinity per short rest, getting a second use at level 6 and a 3rd at level 18. Assuming a single short rest per adventuring day, this will be nearly even, but the Cleric can more easily burn through these in a particularly tough encounter (or regret having done so later in the day).

Channel Divinity has two baseline options, and I believe each subclass is likely to get their own option at level 3.

The base options are Turn Undead and Divine Spark.

Turn Undead works a little differently. Undead that fail their save are now Dazed - a new condition that limits a creature to only an Action or a Move on their turn, not both, and no bonus actions or reactions. The Dazed undead creatures can only take the Dash action (in other words, they can either Move or they can Move) and if they move, they can only end their turn farther from you. Damage breaks this effect, which otherwise lasts 1 minute (unless you become incapacitated or die).

    The big takeaway is that the Undead are not forced to run from you - they can stand their ground if they really want to, though they won't be able to do anything other than stand there.

We'll also get into what's becoming of the Destroy Undead feature a bit further down.

The other option, Divine Spark, lets you either heal someone or blast them with radiant damage. You target a creature within 30 feet of you and roll d8s equal to your PB. You can heal the creature for that much or force them to make a Constitution saving throw, taking that much radiant damage on a failure or half as much on a success.

    I actually really like Divine Spark, as it's a little extra healing, but if you're insistent on playing a damage cleric, you can use it for a bit of extra damage. Getting 4d8 healing or damage 4 times a day at level 9 is not bad.

Spellcasting uses the entire Divine Spell list (not exactly a surprise - given they share the list only with the Paladin, who else would be using 6-9th level Divine Spells?) Once again, they have you only prepare spells of each level for each spell slot of that level you have, which I still don't love (in other words, a 5th level cleric must have 2 3rd level spells, 3 2nd level spells, and 4 1st level spells prepared - they can't, say, leave out a 2nd level spell to get another 1st level).

Now, at 2nd level, the big change is Holy Order. This takes some minor features out of subclasses and puts them into a secondary choice (not unlike a Warlock's Pact Boon). At 2nd level, you choose between Protector, Scholar, or Thaumaturge.

Protectors get Heavy Armor Training and Martial Weapon Proficiency.

Scholars get proficiency in two of the following: Arcana, History, Nature, Persuasion, and History. They can then add their Wisdom modifier to ability checks made with these skills.

Thaumaturges get an extra Divine Spell cantrip, and they regain one Channel Divinity use when they finish a short rest.

    So, I think these are all pretty interesting. Scholar lets you basically turn these skills into Wisdom-based skills (though if you have a good Intelligence, or Charisma in the case of Persuasion, all the better). Thaumaturge feels like probably the best option overall if you have a good Channel Divinity option. The only downside is that no one is going to be able to start off with heavy armor training, which means that you'll need to wait a level to get that Chain Mail.

At 5th level, Smite Undead is the replacement for Destroy Undead. Rather than automatically killing creatures that fail the save of a certain CR, you now get to add radiant damage to the creatures that fail their saves, with a roll of d8s equal to your PB.

    This, I think, is a nerf. It's also something that could be phrased a little differently - it might be good just in case to clarify that this damage doesn't end the Dazed effect. But still, 3d8 at level 5 is an average of 13.5 - meaning that you're not going to destroy Zombies with that most of the time. On the other hand, this will put a bit of damage even on high-level undead creatures if they fail - if you've got a bunch of vampire spawn, you've now just slammed them all with radiant damage (though unlike Divine Spark, this is a "save for none" trait.)

At level 7, Blessed Strikes has become the default for all Clerics - you add 1d8 radiant damage to one cantrip or weapon attack's damage roll. Notably, this is no longer only on your turn, but rather says "once used, you can't add this damage again until the start of your next turn." That means that this will work on Opportunity Attacks.

    If you preferred Divine Strikes, this is a slight nerf given that you never upgrade to 2d8, but its versatility might make up for it. Also, 1d8 is slightly less than the 5 you can eventually get from Empowered Cantrips, but only slightly.

At 9th level, you get to pick a second Holy Order option - so at mid-to-high levels, you're really choosing which of these you're not taking.

Divine Intervention now comes at level 11. It still works by having you roll at or under your level with percentile dice. The rules now specify that casting any cleric spell (of any level) would be a reasonable representation of Divine Intervention, though it still leaves it up to the DM to interpret it. The "cooldown" on it has also changed from 7 days (after a success) to 2d6 days - meaning if you're lucky, you could get it back in two days. Or 12, if you're not.

With 20th-level capstones moved to 18th level, you now get "Greater Divine Intervention" at 18, which causes it to automatically succeed and also reduces the cooldown period to 2d4 days.

    So, ultimately, I think the intent is to keep the Cleric relatively similar to how it is now. It's still going to get a lot of its power out of its spell list (though we need to talk about one particular staple spell) and, I think, has some more interesting tools at early levels.

We're going to touch on the Life Domain subclass first. Appropriately, Life is kind of the "default" subclass, and is very similar to its 2014 version.

At 3rd level, you get Lesser Restoration, Prayer of Healing (which has gotten some revisions), Mass Healing Word, Revivify, Aura of Life, Death Ward, Greater Restoration, and Mass Cure Wounds as Domain Spells.

    This does see a few swapped out, I think in part owing to some formerly Paladin-only spells now simply being "Divine" spells. Everything here is very on-brand and makes it clear that you're a healer. The other real notable thing here, though, is the lack of any 1st-level Domain Spells. Currently Life gets Bless and Cure Wounds as domain spells. While you do have 2nd level spells when you get this subclass, I don't see why you'd remove those 1st level domain spells.

At 3, you also get Disciple of Life, which is nearly identical, except that it requires you cast the spell with a spell slot to get the benefit. If you, for example, have a free Healing Word thanks to taking Magic Initiate or something (the new Cleric Initiate) it will not apply.

At level 6, you get Channel Divinity: Preserve Life. This works identically to its 2014 version, with the exception being that it does not exclude Undead and Constructs (I hope we'll see that applied to other healing spells and thus open the door to more diverse player race creature types - we do have the Autognome already).

At 10, you get Blessed Healer, which is once again nearly identical, but has the same change as Disciple of Life.

Finally, at 14, you get Supreme Healing, which... again is nearly identical except for the requirement you spend a spell slot.

    So, basically, Life Domain is almost exactly the same subclass it was before. The levels you get these features, of course, have changed, requiring a bit more investment in the class to get most of them, though Supreme Healing comes in 3 levels earlier, which is quite nice.

Now, let's go over some changes to some classic Cleric Spells.

Guidance:

Once again, Guidance has been changed, but rather than the kinda-buff, probably nerf that we got in the Expert Classes version, this is a near pure buff - it's a reaction you use when someone fails an ability check, but unlike the previous UA's version, there's no limit to how many times you can use it on someone. Honestly, I think that this solves the problem I have with the spell as a DM, given that people will only be shouting out Guidance if a check fails. There's now even less of a reason not to pick this up... except that another spell got a similar buff.

Resistance:

While Guidance has been historically easier to use because it's generally used outside of combat, Resistance sees less play. Now, however, it's a perfect reflection of the new Guidance, only for saving throws rather than ability checks. This makes it... actually very good, and very in keeping with a Cleric's role supporting the group. To be clear: it's a reaction spell that you use when someone fails a saving throw, and you add a d4 to their roll, potentially turning the failure into a success.

Prayer of Healing:

This spell now affect creatures equal to your Spellcasting Ability Modifier - which is a nerf, as the old version can get 6. The creatures gain the benefit of a Short Rest and regain 2d8 hit points. The creatures cannot be affected by the spell again until they finish a long rest. Upcasting adds 1d8 hit points of healing per spell level.

    Now, the healing is similar, and the once-per-day thing is clearly a real restriction on it but... hold on, what was that? They get the benefits of a Short Rest? Assuming Warlocks, Monks, and Fighters are still very much Short-Rest-based classes, they will adore you for casting this spell. And let's not forget that that also means players can roll hit dice to heal up if that 2d8 wasn't enough. I think this is probably a buff - how often are you casting this multiple times a day anyway?

Spiritual Weapon:

At first I thought this was a buff, because the spell now adds 1d8 damage to its attacks for every upcast level, rather than every 2 levels. But the huge nerf here is that the spell now requires concentration. The spell is otherwise the same, but I think that fact is going to be a big deal, as one of the classic Cleric set-ups was to pop that out in every fight and feel free to toss up Spirit Guardians or other concentration spells. It also becomes vulnerable to broken concentration if the Cleric takes damage. While Jeremy Crawford cited this as just an intentional nerf to the power of an overpowered spell, I'd sort of thought it was there to intentionally overpower the Cleric and encourage players to play a healer.

    So there you have it. I'll confess I'm a bit sad we didn't get more classes, but at the very least this one seemed easy to roll out, given how limited the changes are. I personally love the 2014 Paladin, so I hope we don't see that changed too much - I wonder if they're going to try to align it more as a potential primary healer - if they do, I hope they still let it be a beast in melee combat, because that, to me, has always been the appeal of the Paladin class (my main in World of Warcraft is a Protection Paladin, and I've never healed on him as Holy in 16 years playing the game).

New One D&D UA Coming Tomorrow (Today): Cleric, Other Things

 While I've been spending the past two and a half days riding around on dragons in Azeroth, another of my great nerd obsessions is going to be dropping their next playtest document for the 2024 revision of 5th Edition D&D (whatever it eventually winds up being called - for now the development name is One D&D).

While most of the information we've gotten in the latest Jeremy Crawford/Todd Kenreck interview video is about the survey for the Character Origins UA that came out months ago (apparently 39,000 people filled the whole thing out, and the core D&D team is only like 20 people,) we did get a preview of what we can expect to see tomorrow:

First off, the Dragonborn and Ardling from the Character Origins document are getting revised. Ardlings will lean more heavily into their "beast-person" identity (I wonder if they might not even be linked to the Upper Planes anymore?) while Dragonborn are getting some tweaks - I wonder if we'll see their breath weapon changed to match the Fizban's version.

We will also be seeing the Cleric class. We got a little bit about class spell lists - Crawford mentioned that in the case of the Cleric and the Wizard (and I have to assume the Druid,) these classes will get full access to the Divine and Arcane (and presumably Primal) lists respectively.

However, it does not look like we'll be getting all three Priest classes tomorrow, part of the intent being to have a smaller document to test (hopefully also meaning more frequent releases).

A few other notes:

Eldritch Blast is still going to be part of the game, and still part of the Warlock's gameplay, even if it's not on any spell list.

Feats like Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter had their bonus damage nerfed because they were just too powerful, and supposedly Warrior classes are going to be able to do interesting things with different weapon types.

There's a move to try to remove "Mother May I" class features, where the player is reliant on the DM to allow something to work - this is the motivation behind removing "Use an Object" as a bonus action for the thief, as this is often left for DMs to adjudicate how that counts. (We'll likely see similar revisions to the Wild Magic Sorcerer and, I'd have to assume, the Illusion Wizard).

Bastions will be a new rules system for a party's home base.

WotC is aware that some of the things they throw out there are tough sells - the Ardling, for example, came out of nowhere. But they're trying to see what people think of the ideas they throw in, and will sometimes throw in conflicting concepts in subsequent UAs to get a sense of how people think about the two possibilities in comparison - the Character Origins D20 Test stuff (like crit success and failure on ability checks) is an example.

When the UA drops tomorrow, I'll do a full review of it.