Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-38854975-20190905144044/@comment-26397825-20191010022752

You've obviously never played with access to all the extra Cleric spells from the supplementary books, because I can tell you that I've seen Clerics because heavier hitters and more effective crowd controllers than Wizards at a much faster rate, and maintain their strength throughout gameplay with maybe 3 spells.

One family favourite was a head on cleric build that basically made you a weretiger for 12 hours, giving you increased str, dex, con, and then pairing it with knockdown spells that targeted everyone in a cone effect in front of you, plus extra buffs to make the damage they dealt go through the roof. The best part? you can cast those spells on targets, not just yourself. So suddenly you're running a party of fake weretigers who just decimate everything in front of you. At 5th level in 3.5.

And that's just one example of a player pulling on available resources to buff the entire party. Who needs a fireball or lightning bolt when you smack for more damage, even as a rogue?