Wisdom

1st

Wisdom is the fount from which all your spellcasting modifiers flow. A high wisdom will let you heal more and cause your spells to hit harder and more often. You'll be able to prepare more spells daily to increase your versatility and use features such as War Priest more frequently as they have charges equal to your Wisdom modifier.

Strength

2nd

Heavy armour penalises the movement of anyone without a high strength, so you should aim for at least 15 points. If you plan to use melee weapons often more will be desirable, although you can also take the druid initiate feat, for the cantrip shillelagh. T𓂃his lets you substitute your strength with your wi♏sdom score while using certain melee weapons.

Constitution

3rd

There are very few legendary war clerics with a constitution below ten and that is because most of them die young. Constitution gives you more hit points, great🔴er resistance against trenchfoot and a hardy stoma🍸ch to subsist on war rations.

Dexterity

4th

A dexterity below ten will penalise your armour class, even in heavy plate. If you plan for your war cleric to make more use of ranged weapons such ಞas crossbows a higher dex is favourable, but this can otherwise be neglected.

Charisma

5th

It makes sense for clerics to be personable people with good speaking skills. Unfortunately, charisma doesn't impact any of your class features so is easily left by the wayside. If you plan to multiclass with paladin or another class you will want to have at least 13 points of charisma.

Intelligence

6th

Intelligence saving throws are primarily tied to mindflayers, which are normally brought up in the list of content warnings during a session zero. If you need a higher intelligence your GM is liable to warn you ahead of time.

Inflict Wounds

1st

This spell ❀deals a tremendous amount of damage for a first level spell slot,🌸 but is rarely used as few casters are willing to get close enough to cast it.

Silence

2nd

The main ജlimiting factor of this spell is that enemies can attempt to move out of it. With careful planning and positioning between your team you can fence in enemy casters to stop them lea🔯ving the area of effect.

Spirit Guardians

3rd

Spirit Guardians does a lot, dealing damage across an area, every turn, while slowing and it doesn't harm allies. Its big weakness is that it is centred on the caster and therefore requires a cleric willing to dive into the middle of an enemy group. Further improving your concentration saves with a feat such as Warcaster will make this spell even stronger.

Freedom Of Movement

4th

As spell levels go up it becomes harder to find spells that don't require concentration. Freedom of Movement is an incredibly useful exception to this: If you have enough spell slots, you can cast it on the entire party and grant them immunity to grapples, webs, or other forms of paralysis such as hold person.

Contagion

5th

Contagion inflicts downright debilitating debuffs that can single-handedly win fights but requires a touch attack. The strongest debuff it can inflict is Slimy Doom, which causes an enemy to become stunned whenever they take damage. A duration of seven days and no need for concentration mean that even if the enemy escapes, you'll have an easier time defeating them in the future.

War Caster

Advantage on concentration saving throws

Warcasters spend more time in melee combat so will face contests to their concentration more often. War Caster additionally lets you cast spells with both hands full, which a war cleric is liable to do while wielding a melee weapon and carrying a shield.

Magic Initiate (druid)

Shillelagh cantrip

The shillelagh cantrip allows you to use your wisdom modifier when using a club or staff in melee. This frees up your🅠 ability scores, allowing you to invest less in strength while still hitting people reliably in melee.

Magic Initiate (wizard)

Find Familiar spell

Touch-range spells can be cast through your familiar using your familiar's reaction. This allows you to land powerful melee spells such as contagion using the expanded mobility of your familiar. The owl is a good choice for a familiar as its flyby ability lets it evade attacks of opportunity, and it also has a bonus to perception checks. You can also choose a subtle familiar such as a rodent that won't be targeted in combat until after you have used it to cast a spell.

Shield Master

Improves your dexterity saves b🐠😼y your shield modifier

Halve o🦹r negate the damage of spells and effects that require a dexterity throws.

Shield Master is a useful feat for any heavily armoured character. Applying your shield's armour class to your dexterity saving throws makes up for the lower dexterity favoured by heavy armours. ꦦThe ✅comparable class feature, evasion, requires seven levels in either rogue or monk making it difficult to gain this benefit from another source.