Yeah, I think @Sludge Khalid and @Stabbey are making the same point and it's spot on -- the analysis of how bless and sacred flame are nerfed is fantastic. Same goes for hold person. Hold person is really one of the cleric's most powerful spells and has been so since 1st edition. But in the current BG-DOS hybrid it's not a spell worth casting.
I think people people who don't know 5ed are just concluding that clerics just suck. Look at all the threads complaining about SH stats. * But I don't think the flaw is in the build as much as the rules, right now you can't build a cleric caster you should build melee clerics.
In 5th ed -- 7hp, 15 AC goblin fails savings throw and the next round the cleric gets a guaranteed hit and crit which is good. In a "hard to hit / easy to kill" scenario this is a useful spell. You get a certain hit that worth two hits in two rounds.
But, if you are dealing with 15 hp goblins with a really high "to hit" chance it's a bad use of a spell slot -- better to attack three times in row and take the goblin down that way. You chances of hitting are much higher than the goblin losing the saving throw. It makes a class based game in which clerics combine support and offensive spells into a one where the cleric can only be effectively used as martial / healer.
I had lots of fun playing with other classes I got bored playing my cleric of mystra. I built her as a caster (because Mystra) only to find that, under current rules, I should have built her as a front line basher and backup healer.
* (although I do agree that strength and dex should be flipped -- why build a strong trickery cleric?)
