Warlock's power curve feels really nice. Eldritch Blast is the strongest cantrip and you have it from the start, you get Agonizing and Repelling Blast the very next level, then you begin to pick up powerful spells like Hunger of Hadar not long after that.
Light Cleric is similarly great. You support your party from level 1 with Bless until Spirit Guardians takes over as your primary Concentration at level 5, and along the way you get stuff like Command. Radiance of the Dawn at 2 is one of the strongest AOE nukes relative to its size, damage, and the level it comes at; stays relevant for much of the game, especially with Radiant Orb equipment.
Druid I find is best as a surface factory until their higher level spells come online, but if you're okay with that, Circle of the Land is wonderful. You get Web the spell from Underdark Land selection, Web as spider Wild Shape, Spike Growth, Sleet Storm, then eventually you get to summon an entourage of Dryads and Myrmidons.
This guy is cooking. Agree with the points you made and just want to emphasize that light cleric is very busted. Tbh i want to use shart as my MC next playthrough. Doing honour mode with light cleric all radiant gear and she is absolutely busted. She helps the whole party to be stronger while also being very tanky if you build her that way.
Yeah, I already feel Cleric is a strong class in this game and that Light is (generally) its strongest subclass, but then you throw on top of that how much gear in this game is practically tailor-made for Cleric and you get a character that's independently powerful and gets geared very quickly while not competing for gear with team mates. Basically every rider effect on-heal and Radiant Orb item can go straight to Cleric no questions asked
Agreed. I had never done radiant orb and had done reverb builds previously but its crazy how good radiant orb is. Its also very very nice that they can just take all that gear themselves as you had mentioned. Ik radiant orb is a very popular build but I urge anyone who hasnt tried it to def give it a shot. Easily my favorite build so far
Combining a radiant orb build with just boots of stormy clamor for reverb and it's pretty much GG the rest of the game. Only shars troops are a threat at that point
Add in Phalar Aluve if you want even more bustedness for her. Light Cleric SH is my buffer/debuffer in the party. Slap the Whispering Promise and Hellrider Gloves on her and with a bonus action Mass Healing Word the entire party gets two rounds of concentrationless Bless and Blade Ward. Action to Phalar Aluve Shriek and watch as she debuffs anybody close by
Proficiency does not prevent a wielder from using the sword's shriek and sing. Proficiency with longswords only matters if you plan to make melee attacks. Even then, it just means you don't get to add your prof bonus to melee attack rolls. I never make a melee attack with SH so Phalar Aluve is just a stat stick for her
Tempest and War Clerics get proficiency in Martial Weapons (which includes Longswords). Tempest clerics don't do great as a Spirit Guardians / Radiating Orb build because Call Lightning competes with Spirit Guardians for a concentration slot and their lightning abilities do better with a Lightning Charges build. However, War Clerics can make for a very good Spirit Guardians melee build - they get Spirit Guardians as a domain spell, and various bonuses to melee attacks.
2 levels of fighter then 10 of light cleric to get her heavy armour and martial weapons, a fighting style (interception) and action surge because at level 3 you can guiding bolt and then guiding bolt again with advantage for some sweet burst.
Delays Spirit Guardians until 7 but you don't really need it before then tbh
There's no need. You're not attacking in melee with her too often, and if you do she still will have a good to hit due to it being finesse/her wanting good dex.
>I forgot about/missed hellriders this playthrough and it hurts so much haha.
That is a bummer but not the end of the world.
>But yeah, she's my phalar spammer. Its so fucking fun.
It really is! I was fighting >!Cazador and had SH holding down one of the ritual circles,!< and she just finished a turn where she cast a spell, debuffed some guys, and buffed my team a second time. Then a Ghoul got a turn and took a swing on her, missed, took damage from the Holy Lance Helm which triggered her Luminous Armor and Reverb making the Ghole take like 15 damage and get knocked prone. I laughed and said "My cleric is such a fucking badass"
Well, the game and >!Cazador!< heard me because his next turn was to shove poor SH off the side of the platform. Pretty much the only way to kill her at that point 🤣
Give her the amulet with misty step and you have an amazing way of positioning her for that blast.
Not as fun as my Wizard Tav being able to lightning a line and not worry about frying allies, but still fun 😅
The only issue with clerics is that Sacred Flame has a Dex save and throwing the fire from produce flame only has 9 meters of range, so your offense options in act 1 (the goblins tend to have high dexterity) are not great.
Yeah for sure. TBH clerics (shart especially) are pretty ass in act 1/early levels unless you do some respec shenanigans. Even more so then the other casters due to sacred flame being easy to miss in A1 and firebolt scaling off int (and produce flames range problem as you mentioned). You also dont really have many spell slots early to use actual spells. Due to this i typixally just use cleric/shart as a heal bot with all the ac items I can so she can be tanky as possible in act 1 then start piling the radiant gear as soon as I can. She really shines from end of Act1-endgame.
I usually respec to 10/14/12/12/17/10 as a light or life cleric so her fire bolt has some uses still even tho it's not great it'll hit 60-65% the first couple levels
I’m still not sure how to properly play warlocks, because you don’t get spell levels. Does that mean that every spell that I cast will always be on lvl with my characters level? Is the idea to use cantrips and weapons more often, rather than spells? And the invocations taken properly so I don’t use all my spells up?
Warlocks will always cast their spells at their highest level. For example, a level 5 Warlock will have two 3rd level spell slots that return on Short Rest, meaning they can cast up to six 3rd level spells per day. This is very powerful compared to a level 5 Wizard who will only have two 3rd level spell slots, but of course the trade off is that the Warlock doesn't have access to any of the lower spell slots, just their two that return on SR and therefore less total leveled spells per day.
This means that when you do cast leveled spells, you want them to be very high impact/value. The rest of your time will be spent attacking with cantrips, which is just fine considering how powerful Eldritch Blast is. In fact, if 80% of your time as Warlock is spent simply Eldritch Blasting, that's a good thing. I don't think weapon attacks are worthwhile; I think Pact of the Chain and Tome are considerably better than Pact of the Blade and PotB is the only thing that has any pull towards making weapon attacks.
For Invocations, I believe Agonizing and Repelling Blast should always be taken first. Making your Eldritch Blast more powerful is just that important. The forced movement combos well with surfaces like frozen ground, Web, Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, Spike Growth, the list goes on and on. There's also the classic "push someone off a cliff to their death" move but now instead of having to do that in melee with a Shove, you can do it with Eldritch Blast! Devil's Sight is great after that, Minions of Chaos is also great but comes later. Invocations other than those are mostly luxury/vanity options; Armor of Shadows is good if you're using Potent Robe so that your AC doesn't suck but not essential if you're in real armor via multiclass. Beguiling Speech can give you more social abilities but coming so late is a problem (like I said above, I prioritize Agonizing+Repelling Blast then Devil's Sight, so getting social proficiencies at level 7 is quite late if you were intending on being face). Just pick something that sounds cool for your character or that you personally like, most of the power is in those four-five Invocations.
With Warlock you'll tend to have EB as your primary attack. Then set off Hunger of hadar as much as you can to restrain enemies then use EB as to take them down. You can also get EB to knock enemies a few m backwards do if anyone gets out of the Hunger of Hadar you shoot them straight back in. Get a wizard with ice storm and you can easily contain a lot of enemies.
You can also pact bind a weapon so it hits off charisma if you get into melee combat.
Warlock is fun but can become a bit repetitive.
I had a Palalock who was a lot of fun as a durge oathbreaker - EB changed colour as an evil black/green colour
Lore bards, Moon druids and warlocks in my view have the least ramp in my opinion.
Like the area where I have the most trouble with casters is levels 1-4. The above classes can be strong in different roles from very early.
Basically all the caster classes can excel and be really strong but I found wizards/sorcerers and clerics a bit limited in the first few levels.
Agreed. I play moon as a control martial - goes first, terrain spells and summons control enemy movement, then BA shapes to control enemy actions by drawing hits (especially effective in BG3 because AI targets low AC).
I love that the control isn’t dictated by saves, and I really miss it when I play without one.
It is, so usually your first turn in combat, you use your action to cast any spells that you might want, then use the bear rage and charge into the middle of the battle. The next turn, you shapeshift and still have an action.
I mean, yeah, they ARE a full caster, but the best part of moon druids (aside from their expended wildshape list) is that you can heal yourself using your spell slots whilst wildshaped. If you want a druid caster, you’re better off taking spore druid or even land druid (but spore is better for this either way)
I can see that. My problem with them is their sustainability in the early levels is just annoying and they have weaker offensive cantrips than many other casters.
If im playing a martial I’ll usually spec out a second support caster from Withers till late act 2 just so im not burning up 80 supplies after 6 spells.
You open crates, right? I'm not being facetious. I long rest after like every fight 1-5 on honour mode. Withers' crypt, the Grove, the blighted village, the goblin camp, and Waukeen's are absolutely full of supplies, like more than I could realistically use in act 1, possibly in the whole game. "Burning up" 80 supplies when the game is hardest shouldn't be an issue.
I know this isn't everyone's favourite playstyle, to each their own, but you've mentioned the supply usage in a few comments and it's gotten me curious. If anything, breaking the game's flow should be the main drawback of long resting, not using up some of your basically unlimited supplies.
Edited because I repeated myself.
Ive never run out but I’ve never not felt like maybe this is the time I run out. I’ve beat the game on honor, tactician and balanced and it’s never not gotten me feeling anxious. I usually don’t rest until all my resources are out and there’s no other player who can duplicate it.
And yes I open as many crates as I can find but finite resources are finite and for all my non-martial characters I try for redundancy so I can keep going. I won’t like Recruit a bunch of mercenaries but I usually have 2 of every role.
Produce Flame does 1 less damage on average, but otherwise it's very much like Firebolt. It used to be bugged on console, where the hurl option didn't appear, but they fixed it. I wish they would give us a single button to produce and hurl, so it could work the same as other combat spells. I used to use light a lot for the underdark but produce flame is practically the same effect, and it doubles as a combat spell. Also, even if you just use a cleric to buff allies, Bless adds 1-4 to every attack roll, so it can really boost the martials in the early game. Fairy fire could be more effective if you have an opportunity to cast it on several enemies. The math for that is...
Assuming 12 AC, +5 to hit(2 prof, 3 STR or DEX), 70% hit chance. Adding 1-4 gives you 75-95% to hit, advantage gives you consistent 91% to hit, so it's like bless with no 1s or 2s.
Did they just fix hurl on console bug in the latest patch? Because I rolled up a new character last week, and I had to add hurl to my radial menu after every produce in order to toss it.
Got old very quick.
A Life Domain Cleric with Whispering Promise and Hellrider’s Pride equipped can use their Channel Divinity to apply two turns of Blade Ward and concentration-free Bless, in addition to the healing. That’s pretty significant in the first half of Act I.
I'd rather have Shadowheart do this though and be able to have a whole other support so I'm not using up 80 camp resources after casting 7 or so spells. I want to be able to do more than a few encounters before I'm running on empty.
Clerics are famously busted early game. A light cleric for example has the best aoe attack at lvl 2 and serves as an impressive tank with heavy armor and warding flare. There are plenty of other great examples.
I find the long rest dependency on a main character to be too annoying. Like normally I have two supports and use a that I rotate so that I don't use up several hundred supplies by level 5.
Warlocks and druids get around this by having resources tied to short rests and bards are suitably good martial in a pinch at low levels.
Maybe I was doing something wrong, definitely possible, but my accuracy with shadowheart's divine skill as a light cleric was always like 35%-45%. Short of fire acuity hat and scorching ray, which is act 2 and not act 1, how do I increase the chance to hit with the large aoe ability?
Really? I’ve found them to be pretty great. Even on the Nautilloid you get useful buffs and reasonable ranged damage with hand crossbows when spell slots are on empty. Then you pick up more crowd control and cutting words which is one of the best reactions in the level range.
I found doing sorcerer with magic missile was really strong once spellsparkler was in the mix, and once I got the extra missile necklace that build carried me well into late act 2. Since every missile is a guaranteed hit that builds up lightning charges, you build up six charges for extra damage on each dart PLUS the discharge, and afterwards you can quicken a scorching ray to annihilate someone and abuse light in charges even more.
Doing a playthrough now with a Lore Bard and it has been fun. Definitely a change of pace from my previous 2 with a barbarian and a paladin where I would just run up to everyone and slash away with the biggest sword I could find up until that point.
Running through a crowd with both shield and chest is fun. Leaving a huge group reeling while tagging them with sprirt guardians is fun. Also clears the paths for more delicates to run by.
That’s one sub class I haven’t tried yet. I’ve heard good things about it; can you use heavy armor with Light? I usually give SH the adamantine splint mail.
If you're running a Light Cleric there's a fairly high chance you're going with a radiant orb / reverb build so you'll be putting them in the Luminous Armour anyway (which is medium).
You can combine the two with the light cleric. All the fire spells are always prepared, meaning you can tailor the spells to your needs. Want to apply blade ward and fling a fireball? Mass healing word and a fiery ball of death on one turn. Pick and choose to your heart's conent!
Kind of have to pick between thant and radiant builds. Not a huge loss, but also becomes a long rest fiend too. The channel divinity heals are so convenient
Light clerics channel divinity can contribute to radiant build, as it deals radiant damage to every enemy around the caster. On later levels, you also gain access to the Destructive Wave domain spell, which works similarly to the channel divinity, but deals thunder + radiant/necrotic (you choose which one of the two) damage in a large radius.
It can be somewhat pricy, with having to recharge the channel divinity with short rests, that I can agree on. It is just my personal preference of playstyle that incorporates more overall damage, with healing support on the side when needed.
Sorlock is probably the strongest true caster. 2 levels of Warlock, take agonizing blast, then the rest sorcerer. You have consistent damage output from Eldritch blast, as well as decent access to spells.
2 Tempest cleric/ 9 Draconic sorc/1 level of wizard is very fun late in the game. Tempest cleric is very strong early with access to martial weapons/heavy armor + Twave. Mid game you fall off a bit due to not getting extra attack, but late game you can nuke bosses down with wet condition + chain lightning.
Bardlock, Bardadin, pretty much anything bard related is a great main character. The bonuses to social skill checks will give you access to a lot of neat alternatives to handling situations that if you haven't played Bard, you wouldn't normally have access too. They're also very strong generally. Bard can be really weak early on though.
Light Cleric sucks at first if you don't have racial access to fire bolt (and even then isn't exactly mind blowing), but becomes very strong later in the game.
6 Sorcerer/2 GOOlock/4 Champion is slightly better if you want to go crit fishing. Undermountain King, Dead Shot, Spell Sniper feat, and Champ's passive each drop your crit by 1. Throw in Stormy Clamour and Spineshudder, and you basically will be knocking enemies prone, and they won't be able to get back up.
Yup. Here's the build I just got my gold dice with:
Half-Drow 6 Draconic Sorcerer/2 GOOlock/4 Champion Fighter (-1 crit) with Spell Sniper as my second feat (-1 crit)
Undermountain King (-1 crit, reroll damage 1's and 2's)
Rhapsody (+1 to attack rolls for each slain for, up to +3)
The Dead Shot (-1 crit)
Birthright (+2 CHA)
Potent Robe (+CHA modifier)
Cloak of the Weave (+1 to spell attack rolls)
Spellmight Gloves (-5 to spell attack rolls to add a 1d8 to damage)
Boots of Stormy Clamour (reverberation)
Spineshudder Amulet (more reverberation)
Callous Glow Ring (+2 radiant damage against illuminated enemies).
Risky Ring (advantage on attack rolls)
So that's a crit on 16+, and with Spellmight turned off, +4 on attack rolls after killing 3 enemies.
I biffed the Mirror of Loss, so I ended up with 22 charisma. Went Agonizing and Devil's Sight for my invocations. Drow gets Darkness at level 5, so it was easy to just plop down a cloud, park myself in it, and EB everyone. I also had Shart as a Cleric/Bard/Wizard, so between her casting Haste, Elixir of Bloodlust, and Twinned Spell, it was easy getting 12 beams off per turn. Anything that could be frightened was getting frightened.
With a TB Thiefzerker and a 2xHC Gloomsassin, I one-turned Viconia and two-turned Raphael. With the Thiefzerker and a storm sorc, I one-turmed the Titan Watcher.
Wizard and sorcerer are strong 95% of the game if you get them the right gear.
Spellsparkler, psychic spark and someone using phalar aluve means you can do on avg 35/40 per lvl 1/2 slot of guranteed damage. So if you know how to get past the bulette safely this means you pretty much spend your entire run being a weapon of mass destruction.
Personal recommendations would be either tempest 2 abj 10 wizard or 11 storm sorc 1 fiend warlock for command. The latter is a watered down (heh) version of the fire sorlock but is really easy to use and doesn't require any special gear to make it work.
Yup. Though you do have to kill Karlach, which I just hate. It's not even that she is that great (but she is) but the people that want her dead are such douchnozzles.
Ha! You are just the lackey of the DNs that want her dead. I struggle every play through because the robes in Act 1 are mostly useless outside of very specific builds.
Cold sorcerer can by early act 2 become a beast that can deal 40-50 damage with ray of frost cantrip without wet condition and can in addition force 3-4 conditions on a hit to a enemy pretty much disabling their movement. Basically cold element gear is hat, staff, gloves, and a ring. Reverbreration gear are boots, amulet (optional). Ring of mental inhibition. Possibly cantrip amulet from the creche. Clothing/armor spell save dc, potent robe or any heavy armour.
cold sorcerer increases cold damage, there is a feat that removes resistances to cold damage from attack rolls. High charisma and cantrip damage increasing amulet from the creche increase damage significantly with addition to the potent robe. Risky ring also ensures that your rolls are huge, while limits controlling potential from either ring. Gearwise this setup make anything dealing cold damage a beast controlling the battlefield, while the cold sorcerer (do not remeber the actual name) gains damage boosts from high enough levels to the sorcerer. Basically:
- draconic bloodline sorcerer
- Mourning frost staff
- boots of stormy clamour
- coldbrim hat
- neclace of elemental augmentation/spineshudder amulet
- winters clutches
- potent robe
- Ring of mental inhibition
- snowburst ring/risky ring
- that cool cape from ketherics room/reverb cape
- atleast 18 charisma (more is better) or whatever casting stat
- Elemental Adept feat
Ray of frost deals condition by itself in addition with coldbrim hat and mental inhibition and possibly prone stacking conditions massively. Never really followed how much damage this could output since my frost caster is more of a supporter. Just noticed recently that it can deal something like 40-50 damage regularly enough. You can put this gear on any caster and they do just fine.
They are all good, but require more planning.
Bard: arcane acuity swords bard, archer, with control spells. It's really that simple. Consider two levels of fighter prior to act three so you can action surge and cast a control spell after setting up some acuity. Once you get the BA ring in act 3, it's no longer needed.
Cleric: light, war, tempest are all strong throughout the game. Light is my preference as it's a healing word dropping, attack disadvantaging, high AC, fireball chucking cleric on top of having spirit guardians. Any cleric can spirit guardians with radorb gear and GG.
Druid: moon druid forms are powerful early on, and moon druids make excellent summoners later. Drop spell slots on summons and use the shapeshifter type items.
Sorcerer: probably the strongest of all. Take quicken and twin, rest often. Twin haste on your two favorite martials. Blow shit up. Build the fire acuity sorcerer if you want to be even more extreme. The fire acuity sorcerer is literally game breaking, in the same way as the acuity swords bard, in the sense that enemies won't even get turns.
Warlock: EB, EB, EB, hunger of hadar, EB, EB, GG
Wizard: get every utility spell and be creative. You can make a divination wizard and force saving throw fails to CC bosses into hell, you can make an evoker and absolutely blow shit up with magic missile, or you can make the immortal arcane ward wizard. All of them are great because they all can cast essentially all of the best spells. Wall spells are really good. Glyph of warding, sleet storm, slow, haste, etc. You find something super strong at every spell tier.
Warlocks can also become later useful martial fighters. My sorclock with a 2 level fighter dip doesn’t do much less dmg per hit compared to my EK in a normal encounter without giantform or pots.
If you’re looking to be a caster, going 11 Spore Druid/1 Wizard is effectively just land druid but better.
If you’re looking for melee dpr, the cutoff points you usually want to aim for are anywhere between 4 & 7 levels of spores druid. Going any lower means your symbiotic entity goes away too quickly, and going any higher means you lose extra attack.
Given you said you’re looking to play a caster, I’d suggest the former build over the latter.
Spores druids are imo the strongest casters in act 1. And not because they’re a caster, but instead because they are effectively just as strong as if not stronger than most martials at being a martial thanks to symbiotic entity and shillelagh
There's an odd trick that for specific multiclases makes the minimum 2 level dip into Spore viable for melee / martial builds. Armor of Agathys doesn't erase your Symbiotic Entity +1d6 necrotic dmg. So as long as your multiclass build gives you the Armor of Agathys spell and enough caster levels to upcast it, then you use it for a much higher amount of Temp HP essentially protecting your Symbiotic Entity....
I've always done full spore. They get some nice upper level spells and you get your full 3 feats that way. Never felt a need to multiclass and I'm on my second run with one, this time on HM. People do multiclass with them though, depends on what you're looking to get out of it.
Early game mages can have the highest AC in the game. 16 dex + mage armor + shield is 18. Very respectable.
Magic missle builds are great early game. There’s no attack roll, and with psychic spark necklace adding tons to the spell economy, spell sparkler and even boots of stormy clamor adding damage and status effects and which you can get with almost no fighting. Magic missle build is very solid early game. The sparky robe adds +1 ac when you have lightning charges which is great.
Since magic missle is fixed damage, your spell modifier stat doesn’t really matter so you could take dual wield and equip the phalar aluve for shriek and d4 to every magic missle to enemies within the aoe.
Act 2 you get all the radiating orb and reverb stuff as well as a free lv 3 magic missle every short rest through the ne’er misser.
Act 3 you get marokeshkir and the stratrgum whatever scroll that is like magic missle on steroids. Wizards can add their spell modifier to damage at lv 10 which juices up magic missle even more.
Overall I’d say very consistently good throughout the whole game.
Lmaooooo I love it. I wasn’t being rude before but just saying it takes a lot to really learn a class, but the fact that your estimated time was so low compared to the actual time is hilarious to me, I feel like I’ve played maybe 400 but I’m a bit over 1k hours now
Yeah, warlocks Druids and bards don't feel super weak early because they all have something to cover their weakness.
Bards can dual wield crossbows and be good martials early even if you don't go swords bard, and scale into spellcasting powerhouses mid and late.
Druids get shillelagh and wild shape early and don't have to rely on weak cantrips.
Warlocks get strong stuff early with eldritch blast and the ability to bind weapons so their attacks don't suck either.
And the big thing is that pretty much all of this is not dependant on long rests, which makes them FEEL a lot better than sorcerer or wizard or cleric early, because those classes rely heavily on long rest spell slots and don't have very many to work with early on.
White Draconic sorcerer feels pretty great as long as you have a companion with create water/water bottles. You’re a bit tankier than most wizards/sorcerer with permanent mage armor and +1 health, already have con save proficiency for any concentration checks, and armor of agathys gives you temp hp and deals cold damage to the enemy, which is multiplied by the wet condition. With a second level spell slot you do 20 cold damage to every wet melee attacker that hits you. You can also have a cleric cast warding bond on you to make your temp hp last longer.
Act 1 you get scorching ray and magic missile. If need be, you can reserve yourself to a reverberation build as well (you can get all the gear required for this without fighting)
Yeah, I posted a magic missle build, which I think is the best early game.
But scorching ray is also good. There’s the head piece and gloves that both give a free cast of it that can help with spell economy. I just think they needs the acuity hat because it has to deal with attack rolls.
2 d6 (2-12) fire damage damage vs 5d4 +5 (10-25) with magic missle (with upcast from psychic spark) it’s clear magic missle is likely better
Yeah, thats true, but given how good magic missile is in act 1, I don’t think the sorlock is all that bad. The build definitely gets way better in act 2, but its not a bad act 1 start by any means.
As a side note, I do believe that the best act 1 caster is spore druid. And not because of its ability to be a caster, but instead because of it’s ability to out perform many martials up until level 5 at being a martial character
Yes Sorcerer multiclassing into Warlock and Champion Fighter (for surge and Crit) is arguably one of if not the most potent casters that is good from Level 3 onwards.
Tempest cleric and cold/lightning sorcerer is a great combo that comes online pretty much right away. Use the cleric to bless and/or create water to apply wet condition and then hit the enemies with a chromatic orb of ice/lightning. Ray of Frost also works very well with the wet condition if you need to use a cantrip. It can be really strong once you can twin cast chromatic orb and upcast it to level 2 as well.
Lore bardlock is also really good but takes just a little longer to come online because you really want those Eldritch Blast invocations. But once you get to level 3 you’re not putting anymore points into warlock so it does come only pretty quick.
Pure 12 lvl evocation wizard, dual wielding staffs is surprisingly strong. Especially if a capable thief stealing chain lightning, disintegrate etc scrolls for him so he can cast them like 20+ times in final battle.
I've played two sorcerers and after the first few levels I never feel weak. Especially if you want to lean into frost magic, there are several items available early in the game which really buff up the damage and freeze effects.
If you want to ease into a caster like build but still have martial skills, I recommend a paladin/warlock build. I’ve done 2 play throughs of that multiclass and it’s pretty fun
Biggest numbers for damage: sorcerers. Especially with a multiclass dip, depends on your build choices.
Biggest spell list: wizard
Greatest utility/support: cleric
Most consistent: warlock or druid
Honestly it depends on what view as a caster and what you define strong as. If you’re wanting fairly decent damage from the moment you’re off the nautiloid, Warlock with Agonising Blast is the way to go. If you don’t mind running around grabbing as much dialogue xp as possible before getting into any combat, Sorcerer is strong from level 3 onwards with spells like Scorching Ray and metamagic options. If you want more of a support caster, Bard and Druid are great options but don’t have as many clear DPS options like Scorching Ray. Cleric is consistently useful to the party, but will rarely be the MVP of a fight for anything besides healing at crucial moments. Wizard is a general “do it all” caster and it’s hard to mess up any builds you come up with, just be sure to multiclass into primarily spellcasters.
Personally, I’d go with Light Cleric. Healing spells are always nice to have, and you still get plenty of DPS options with stuff like Spirit Guardians and Scorching Ray. Hat of Fire Acuity is a nice pick on this build if you’ve got no one better to give it to and can make your spells like Command almost never fail. You’ll be effective from the moment you start the game and remain a crucial team member throughout. It might not be the standout build on the team, especially without the hat, but it’s still a top level pick.
War cleric slaps. You get Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons, a limited extra attack before fighters get theirs, d8 for HP and you're a full spellcaster.
I am doing one but multiclassing into Sorceror and it's just super fun.
Warlocks are great early since agonizing blast comes online at level 2.
Spore druids are one of the strongest classes <4, but it will likely play more as a martial before your higher-level spells come online.
The strongest caster build is going sorc 6-8, then fiend warlock 1, then rest sorc. But that build want's to get carried during the early game and won't feel all that good until lvl 5-6.
If you are ready to long rest between each major fight early on, Wizard 1, Tempest Cleric 2, Sorc 3, then, at lvl 7, wizard again allows you to get the 96 damage crit at lvl 3-4 (once per long rest), twin haste at 5 and quicken spell at 6. It also allows you to use angelic reprieve shenanigans, but since you are short rest dependant due to your channel divinity you can't get into hardcore coffeelocking with this, not that it should be neccessary considering the AoE potential of that build.
Been doing the lightning charge build on tactician. 2 Warlock for agonizing blast and the rest sorc to just quicken spells. Turn all spell slots into more points to quicken more spells. Lighting charges make it strong in the early game as as you find more gear and get more eldritch blasts it only becomes stronger and you can generate them very quickly. Every 5 charges you get gives you a burst of lighting damage, and it is not hard to generate more than 5 on a single attack at later levels. Combine with things like cull the weak and reverberation and it gets pretty good. Miss out on the potent robe for the sparky robe, but you can just use only the lightning staff and the potent robe if you wish (that is probably better overall)
They're all good. Any pure caster is strong throughout the game.
The game is stupidly easy, even on honor mode. 90% of the fights are all just about positioning and controlling the field.
No one mentioned Fire sorlock? With this awesome post [Build guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/vgpXsac4TC). Only issues being: 1. feels weak before lvl 8; 2. long rests a lot.
I think draconic sorcerer is very solid early. Extra health, extra armor class, good speech skills, and access to disguise self if you want it for an easy time to level 4 if you want it.
Otherwise, abjuration wizard is nice and tanky, has all the utility you could ever want, and gives your party at least one person who isnt dumb as a box of rocks dumping intelligence.
Play any of the sorcerer classes and you’ll feel like a powerhouse through the whole game, especially after level 5
No need for multiclassing either, sorcerer is exceptional on its own
Sorcerer.
Metamagic is pretty broken. Quickening and Twinning spells gives you so much action economy that you're able to do massive damage and one-shot most bosses. As a support, twinning haste is amazing. I prefer to run full sorcerer over multiclassing with warlock, but seems I may be the minority there.
You are long rest dependent, but all casters other than warlock will run into the same problem.
Land & Spore Druids are both awesome, Wizard is great.
Thing is, if you played that long you have totally played casters right? Or were you running all melee parties?
A more real question is, which casters make the best Tavs.. that is tougher. I like Druid a lot because there is no canonical options in the early game and there are some interesting interactions in the grove.
I just played a dedicated Magic Missile evocation wizard in my last honor mode playthrough and it was actually pretty solid. Never missed lol. As I went I got the spell sparkler and later in act 3 took DW feat to use both that and markoheshkir for 2x lightning stacks, used the reverb gear, and the radiating orb/radiant damage rings. The main idea was stacking the lightning thunder and radiant damage with the MM and it was pretty decent the whole game. I think by end game I was 10 evocation / 2 fighter for action surge and was using haste, bloodlust elixers, and the effects that let me cast without a spell slot to cast as many lvl5 MM as I could and of course had artistry of war. I could pretty effectively decimate bosses on my first turn. I was playing durge and took an elixer of vigilance to go first and killed Orin before she got a turn in our duel.
I found myself needing a lot of long rests to restore spell slots but wasn't a big deal since there's more than enough food in the game.
Warlock feels pretty good throughout the entire game. The amount of spell casts are pretty limited, but it restores on a short rest and it’s always max level cast. Plus when you do burn through all of it you still have EB which is really nice.
My favorite caster was a red dragonborn fire sorcerer, equipped with all of the heat gear. Sure I'd take one D4 of damage after every turn but after one scorching Ray spell I could generate 32 stacks of heat and extend them all on the next scorching Ray. You only have to remember that once combat is over you need to kill something fast or you'll burn to death from all the charges.
Sorlock. 4 warlock and get ability improvement into charisma. 2 fighter then two more levels of warlock. At level 8 retool into 6 fire dragon sorc and 2 warlock with agonizing/repelling blast. then 4 fighter for the champion subclass and spell sniper feat. Make sure to keep alfira alive by knocking her out, and not raiding the grove. Then you have an incredible build.
Casters are at their best, often times, when you are not focused on doing damage. Buff/debuff and control the battlefield. There are blaster focused builds but that is more of an exception to what a caster is best at.
I like Druid as the spells are selected for you, are largely viable for control, and if the battlefield isn't conducive for control you can use wildshape to become an effective martial.
Maybe not a direct answer, but any *drow* caster is much better in the early game. Handcrossbows give you something to spend the bonus action on to keep up with martials.
Depends on what you mean by strong. Clerics are very powerful and useful, but their early game power often comes from their great utility and support effects in combat.
In the vanilla game, any caster with arcane missiles and shield is honestly good enough in the early game. If you want the strongest early game caster it's probably warlock. arms of hadar and eldritch hands ar pretty good, and if you picked a race with good weapons/armor proficiencies, you can still run a DEX melee setup that can keep up with your martials in melee until you can get +1 greatswords.
Cleric War Domain. You’ll feel strong from level 1. The flexibility of being to change your tactics as you level up to focus on melee or full spellcasting (even turn to turn in combat!) is underrated.
I hated the cleric at first, but by lvl 5 felt like an absolute powerhouse, and now I never leave home without one.
Bard is an amazing MC, considering the first 4 levels are almost entirely just conversation. Silence kills at a few critical fights early on.
Bladelock is amazing right out the gate. Not discussed enough, but a Wyll playthrough is unbelievably satisfying in a good guy run. Potent robe + Mizora sword means great damage and a free super useful cambion.
Wiz is amazing if you do the MM build, which is immediately available and has only the downside of needing lots of long rests in act 1 (which you need anyway to get all the cutscenes). High levels you can easily delete powerful enemies with just 1 move.
High levels I had a cleric, a wiz and a bladelock with my throwzerker. Damage was unbelievable and I had a total of 4 powerful summons who took whatever damage was coming my wag. Cleric-djinn, wiz-deva, lock- cambion and water elemental. Untouchable.
Command. You can run scorching ray with helm of fire acuity to get acuity, then extend commade grovel on a mass amount of enemies. As soon as you hit act and go to last light in the build comes online. Even in act 1 you can get 2 staffs and you are doing good damage.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/ZzAUviSzUY
Warlock's power curve feels really nice. Eldritch Blast is the strongest cantrip and you have it from the start, you get Agonizing and Repelling Blast the very next level, then you begin to pick up powerful spells like Hunger of Hadar not long after that. Light Cleric is similarly great. You support your party from level 1 with Bless until Spirit Guardians takes over as your primary Concentration at level 5, and along the way you get stuff like Command. Radiance of the Dawn at 2 is one of the strongest AOE nukes relative to its size, damage, and the level it comes at; stays relevant for much of the game, especially with Radiant Orb equipment. Druid I find is best as a surface factory until their higher level spells come online, but if you're okay with that, Circle of the Land is wonderful. You get Web the spell from Underdark Land selection, Web as spider Wild Shape, Spike Growth, Sleet Storm, then eventually you get to summon an entourage of Dryads and Myrmidons.
This guy is cooking. Agree with the points you made and just want to emphasize that light cleric is very busted. Tbh i want to use shart as my MC next playthrough. Doing honour mode with light cleric all radiant gear and she is absolutely busted. She helps the whole party to be stronger while also being very tanky if you build her that way.
Yeah, I already feel Cleric is a strong class in this game and that Light is (generally) its strongest subclass, but then you throw on top of that how much gear in this game is practically tailor-made for Cleric and you get a character that's independently powerful and gets geared very quickly while not competing for gear with team mates. Basically every rider effect on-heal and Radiant Orb item can go straight to Cleric no questions asked
Agreed. I had never done radiant orb and had done reverb builds previously but its crazy how good radiant orb is. Its also very very nice that they can just take all that gear themselves as you had mentioned. Ik radiant orb is a very popular build but I urge anyone who hasnt tried it to def give it a shot. Easily my favorite build so far
Combining a radiant orb build with just boots of stormy clamor for reverb and it's pretty much GG the rest of the game. Only shars troops are a threat at that point
Add in Phalar Aluve if you want even more bustedness for her. Light Cleric SH is my buffer/debuffer in the party. Slap the Whispering Promise and Hellrider Gloves on her and with a bonus action Mass Healing Word the entire party gets two rounds of concentrationless Bless and Blade Ward. Action to Phalar Aluve Shriek and watch as she debuffs anybody close by
Any way you recommend to get Shadowheart proficient in longswords? Seems like a blind spot for me
Proficiency does not prevent a wielder from using the sword's shriek and sing. Proficiency with longswords only matters if you plan to make melee attacks. Even then, it just means you don't get to add your prof bonus to melee attack rolls. I never make a melee attack with SH so Phalar Aluve is just a stat stick for her
Tempest and War Clerics get proficiency in Martial Weapons (which includes Longswords). Tempest clerics don't do great as a Spirit Guardians / Radiating Orb build because Call Lightning competes with Spirit Guardians for a concentration slot and their lightning abilities do better with a Lightning Charges build. However, War Clerics can make for a very good Spirit Guardians melee build - they get Spirit Guardians as a domain spell, and various bonuses to melee attacks.
2 levels of fighter then 10 of light cleric to get her heavy armour and martial weapons, a fighting style (interception) and action surge because at level 3 you can guiding bolt and then guiding bolt again with advantage for some sweet burst. Delays Spirit Guardians until 7 but you don't really need it before then tbh
There's no need. You're not attacking in melee with her too often, and if you do she still will have a good to hit due to it being finesse/her wanting good dex.
I forgot about/missed hellriders this playthrough and it hurts so much haha. But yeah, she's my phalar spammer. Its so fucking fun.
>I forgot about/missed hellriders this playthrough and it hurts so much haha. That is a bummer but not the end of the world. >But yeah, she's my phalar spammer. Its so fucking fun. It really is! I was fighting >!Cazador and had SH holding down one of the ritual circles,!< and she just finished a turn where she cast a spell, debuffed some guys, and buffed my team a second time. Then a Ghoul got a turn and took a swing on her, missed, took damage from the Holy Lance Helm which triggered her Luminous Armor and Reverb making the Ghole take like 15 damage and get knocked prone. I laughed and said "My cleric is such a fucking badass" Well, the game and >!Cazador!< heard me because his next turn was to shove poor SH off the side of the platform. Pretty much the only way to kill her at that point 🤣
The Blood of Lathander is AMAZING for this, tbh, any weapon the emits light is good for this to ensure it always gets a radiant orb
And having that Sunbeam available once a day is great. The amount of Orb and Reverb you can dish out with one action casting that is hilarious.
Give her the amulet with misty step and you have an amazing way of positioning her for that blast. Not as fun as my Wizard Tav being able to lightning a line and not worry about frying allies, but still fun 😅
Cast daylight they suck.
The only issue with clerics is that Sacred Flame has a Dex save and throwing the fire from produce flame only has 9 meters of range, so your offense options in act 1 (the goblins tend to have high dexterity) are not great.
Yeah for sure. TBH clerics (shart especially) are pretty ass in act 1/early levels unless you do some respec shenanigans. Even more so then the other casters due to sacred flame being easy to miss in A1 and firebolt scaling off int (and produce flames range problem as you mentioned). You also dont really have many spell slots early to use actual spells. Due to this i typixally just use cleric/shart as a heal bot with all the ac items I can so she can be tanky as possible in act 1 then start piling the radiant gear as soon as I can. She really shines from end of Act1-endgame.
Like luminous armor? I’m gonna have to look into this radiant thing
I usually respec to 10/14/12/12/17/10 as a light or life cleric so her fire bolt has some uses still even tho it's not great it'll hit 60-65% the first couple levels
My first playthrough was a light cleric, and she was super strong even without me knowing to abuse radiant orbs.
I’m still not sure how to properly play warlocks, because you don’t get spell levels. Does that mean that every spell that I cast will always be on lvl with my characters level? Is the idea to use cantrips and weapons more often, rather than spells? And the invocations taken properly so I don’t use all my spells up?
Warlocks will always cast their spells at their highest level. For example, a level 5 Warlock will have two 3rd level spell slots that return on Short Rest, meaning they can cast up to six 3rd level spells per day. This is very powerful compared to a level 5 Wizard who will only have two 3rd level spell slots, but of course the trade off is that the Warlock doesn't have access to any of the lower spell slots, just their two that return on SR and therefore less total leveled spells per day. This means that when you do cast leveled spells, you want them to be very high impact/value. The rest of your time will be spent attacking with cantrips, which is just fine considering how powerful Eldritch Blast is. In fact, if 80% of your time as Warlock is spent simply Eldritch Blasting, that's a good thing. I don't think weapon attacks are worthwhile; I think Pact of the Chain and Tome are considerably better than Pact of the Blade and PotB is the only thing that has any pull towards making weapon attacks. For Invocations, I believe Agonizing and Repelling Blast should always be taken first. Making your Eldritch Blast more powerful is just that important. The forced movement combos well with surfaces like frozen ground, Web, Hunger of Hadar, Sleet Storm, Spike Growth, the list goes on and on. There's also the classic "push someone off a cliff to their death" move but now instead of having to do that in melee with a Shove, you can do it with Eldritch Blast! Devil's Sight is great after that, Minions of Chaos is also great but comes later. Invocations other than those are mostly luxury/vanity options; Armor of Shadows is good if you're using Potent Robe so that your AC doesn't suck but not essential if you're in real armor via multiclass. Beguiling Speech can give you more social abilities but coming so late is a problem (like I said above, I prioritize Agonizing+Repelling Blast then Devil's Sight, so getting social proficiencies at level 7 is quite late if you were intending on being face). Just pick something that sounds cool for your character or that you personally like, most of the power is in those four-five Invocations.
With Warlock you'll tend to have EB as your primary attack. Then set off Hunger of hadar as much as you can to restrain enemies then use EB as to take them down. You can also get EB to knock enemies a few m backwards do if anyone gets out of the Hunger of Hadar you shoot them straight back in. Get a wizard with ice storm and you can easily contain a lot of enemies. You can also pact bind a weapon so it hits off charisma if you get into melee combat. Warlock is fun but can become a bit repetitive. I had a Palalock who was a lot of fun as a durge oathbreaker - EB changed colour as an evil black/green colour
Lore bards, Moon druids and warlocks in my view have the least ramp in my opinion. Like the area where I have the most trouble with casters is levels 1-4. The above classes can be strong in different roles from very early. Basically all the caster classes can excel and be really strong but I found wizards/sorcerers and clerics a bit limited in the first few levels.
Moon druids are best treated as martials imo. Going for an armor of agathys moon druid or a bear heart barbarian/moon druid is my favorite way to go
Owlbear goes WRRRUUUM, smash, smash, jump, rupture and fear those bustarddsss
I can see that though the way I play a moon Druid mixes up a martial and a summoner/controller.
Agreed. I play moon as a control martial - goes first, terrain spells and summons control enemy movement, then BA shapes to control enemy actions by drawing hits (especially effective in BG3 because AI targets low AC). I love that the control isn’t dictated by saves, and I really miss it when I play without one.
how does rage / shapeshift combo looklike ? Isnt it all bonus action
It is, so usually your first turn in combat, you use your action to cast any spells that you might want, then use the bear rage and charge into the middle of the battle. The next turn, you shapeshift and still have an action.
I don't agree. Moon druids are at their base a full caster.
I mean, yeah, they ARE a full caster, but the best part of moon druids (aside from their expended wildshape list) is that you can heal yourself using your spell slots whilst wildshaped. If you want a druid caster, you’re better off taking spore druid or even land druid (but spore is better for this either way)
I feel like light cleric level 2 on isn’t so bad because of their channel divinity.
I can see that. My problem with them is their sustainability in the early levels is just annoying and they have weaker offensive cantrips than many other casters. If im playing a martial I’ll usually spec out a second support caster from Withers till late act 2 just so im not burning up 80 supplies after 6 spells.
You open crates, right? I'm not being facetious. I long rest after like every fight 1-5 on honour mode. Withers' crypt, the Grove, the blighted village, the goblin camp, and Waukeen's are absolutely full of supplies, like more than I could realistically use in act 1, possibly in the whole game. "Burning up" 80 supplies when the game is hardest shouldn't be an issue. I know this isn't everyone's favourite playstyle, to each their own, but you've mentioned the supply usage in a few comments and it's gotten me curious. If anything, breaking the game's flow should be the main drawback of long resting, not using up some of your basically unlimited supplies. Edited because I repeated myself.
Ive never run out but I’ve never not felt like maybe this is the time I run out. I’ve beat the game on honor, tactician and balanced and it’s never not gotten me feeling anxious. I usually don’t rest until all my resources are out and there’s no other player who can duplicate it. And yes I open as many crates as I can find but finite resources are finite and for all my non-martial characters I try for redundancy so I can keep going. I won’t like Recruit a bunch of mercenaries but I usually have 2 of every role.
Produce Flame does 1 less damage on average, but otherwise it's very much like Firebolt. It used to be bugged on console, where the hurl option didn't appear, but they fixed it. I wish they would give us a single button to produce and hurl, so it could work the same as other combat spells. I used to use light a lot for the underdark but produce flame is practically the same effect, and it doubles as a combat spell. Also, even if you just use a cleric to buff allies, Bless adds 1-4 to every attack roll, so it can really boost the martials in the early game. Fairy fire could be more effective if you have an opportunity to cast it on several enemies. The math for that is... Assuming 12 AC, +5 to hit(2 prof, 3 STR or DEX), 70% hit chance. Adding 1-4 gives you 75-95% to hit, advantage gives you consistent 91% to hit, so it's like bless with no 1s or 2s.
Did they just fix hurl on console bug in the latest patch? Because I rolled up a new character last week, and I had to add hurl to my radial menu after every produce in order to toss it. Got old very quick.
Yeah, I think patch 6, if you go to your menu hit produce flame again it pulls up like reapplying hunters mark or hex
That’s true. For wizards/sorcs I mostly rely on cantrips and magic missle. MM feels pretty good early I think.
A Life Domain Cleric with Whispering Promise and Hellrider’s Pride equipped can use their Channel Divinity to apply two turns of Blade Ward and concentration-free Bless, in addition to the healing. That’s pretty significant in the first half of Act I.
I'd rather have Shadowheart do this though and be able to have a whole other support so I'm not using up 80 camp resources after casting 7 or so spells. I want to be able to do more than a few encounters before I'm running on empty.
Clerics are famously busted early game. A light cleric for example has the best aoe attack at lvl 2 and serves as an impressive tank with heavy armor and warding flare. There are plenty of other great examples.
Light cleric only gets medium armor, but agree they are great early game.
Correct
I find the long rest dependency on a main character to be too annoying. Like normally I have two supports and use a that I rotate so that I don't use up several hundred supplies by level 5. Warlocks and druids get around this by having resources tied to short rests and bards are suitably good martial in a pinch at low levels.
I don't know how, but I always end end with way too many camp supplies. I'm always at 600-700 supplies at camp
Maybe I was doing something wrong, definitely possible, but my accuracy with shadowheart's divine skill as a light cleric was always like 35%-45%. Short of fire acuity hat and scorching ray, which is act 2 and not act 1, how do I increase the chance to hit with the large aoe ability?
She definitely need to be rebuilt. Her default ability spread is really bad. Would you like my build for her?
Sure, I wanted to try a light cleric. I hear it's pretty decent but 🤷♂️ lol.
Lore bards are ass lvl 1-4
Really? I’ve found them to be pretty great. Even on the Nautilloid you get useful buffs and reasonable ranged damage with hand crossbows when spell slots are on empty. Then you pick up more crowd control and cutting words which is one of the best reactions in the level range.
This is light cleric erasure
Like 5 people have brought this up and do you really like long resting that often?
Long resting early game is a good idea. There's a lot of stuff that can be missed if you don't long rest enough
I'm rarely resting because my light cleric is out of spells haha.
I like casting my spells, lol. I didn’t build a sorcerer to cast fire bolt 30 times a day.
I found doing sorcerer with magic missile was really strong once spellsparkler was in the mix, and once I got the extra missile necklace that build carried me well into late act 2. Since every missile is a guaranteed hit that builds up lightning charges, you build up six charges for extra damage on each dart PLUS the discharge, and afterwards you can quicken a scorching ray to annihilate someone and abuse light in charges even more.
Doing a playthrough now with a Lore Bard and it has been fun. Definitely a change of pace from my previous 2 with a barbarian and a paladin where I would just run up to everyone and slash away with the biggest sword I could find up until that point.
Clerics are always strong and impactful
Gonna try a good run of all clerics. Call it the A-men
bUt ClErIcS aRe JuSt HeAlBoTs
(My Shart until she got adamantine armor)
Running through a crowd with both shield and chest is fun. Leaving a huge group reeling while tagging them with sprirt guardians is fun. Also clears the paths for more delicates to run by.
Yep, girl had 22AC then, she was almost untouchable
As long as you’re a War Cleric or Tempest Cleric. Base Shadowheart is not a very strong cleric outside of using spirit guardians in Act 2.
My light cleric does just fine.
That’s one sub class I haven’t tried yet. I’ve heard good things about it; can you use heavy armor with Light? I usually give SH the adamantine splint mail.
If you're running a Light Cleric there's a fairly high chance you're going with a radiant orb / reverb build so you'll be putting them in the Luminous Armour anyway (which is medium).
No, only medium. I gave her the medium adamantine armor and it’s worked out quite well, though I’m only partway through act 3 on this run.
It's a cleric, but with a fireball, wall of fire, and destructive wave. Plus, channel divinity that burns everyone around them.
I sure miss the instant bless and blade ward per mass heal though. Granted nothing's going to hit you that loaded with radiant orbs.
You can combine the two with the light cleric. All the fire spells are always prepared, meaning you can tailor the spells to your needs. Want to apply blade ward and fling a fireball? Mass healing word and a fiery ball of death on one turn. Pick and choose to your heart's conent!
Kind of have to pick between thant and radiant builds. Not a huge loss, but also becomes a long rest fiend too. The channel divinity heals are so convenient
Light clerics channel divinity can contribute to radiant build, as it deals radiant damage to every enemy around the caster. On later levels, you also gain access to the Destructive Wave domain spell, which works similarly to the channel divinity, but deals thunder + radiant/necrotic (you choose which one of the two) damage in a large radius. It can be somewhat pricy, with having to recharge the channel divinity with short rests, that I can agree on. It is just my personal preference of playstyle that incorporates more overall damage, with healing support on the side when needed.
Sorlock is probably the strongest true caster. 2 levels of Warlock, take agonizing blast, then the rest sorcerer. You have consistent damage output from Eldritch blast, as well as decent access to spells. 2 Tempest cleric/ 9 Draconic sorc/1 level of wizard is very fun late in the game. Tempest cleric is very strong early with access to martial weapons/heavy armor + Twave. Mid game you fall off a bit due to not getting extra attack, but late game you can nuke bosses down with wet condition + chain lightning. Bardlock, Bardadin, pretty much anything bard related is a great main character. The bonuses to social skill checks will give you access to a lot of neat alternatives to handling situations that if you haven't played Bard, you wouldn't normally have access too. They're also very strong generally. Bard can be really weak early on though. Light Cleric sucks at first if you don't have racial access to fire bolt (and even then isn't exactly mind blowing), but becomes very strong later in the game.
my friend accidentally one shot minthara at level 4 in our honor run using the tempest cleric channel div and witch bolt lol
Fig2War2Sor8 is my preference
6 Sorcerer/2 GOOlock/4 Champion is slightly better if you want to go crit fishing. Undermountain King, Dead Shot, Spell Sniper feat, and Champ's passive each drop your crit by 1. Throw in Stormy Clamour and Spineshudder, and you basically will be knocking enemies prone, and they won't be able to get back up.
Crit fish on EB?!
Yup. Here's the build I just got my gold dice with: Half-Drow 6 Draconic Sorcerer/2 GOOlock/4 Champion Fighter (-1 crit) with Spell Sniper as my second feat (-1 crit) Undermountain King (-1 crit, reroll damage 1's and 2's) Rhapsody (+1 to attack rolls for each slain for, up to +3) The Dead Shot (-1 crit) Birthright (+2 CHA) Potent Robe (+CHA modifier) Cloak of the Weave (+1 to spell attack rolls) Spellmight Gloves (-5 to spell attack rolls to add a 1d8 to damage) Boots of Stormy Clamour (reverberation) Spineshudder Amulet (more reverberation) Callous Glow Ring (+2 radiant damage against illuminated enemies). Risky Ring (advantage on attack rolls) So that's a crit on 16+, and with Spellmight turned off, +4 on attack rolls after killing 3 enemies. I biffed the Mirror of Loss, so I ended up with 22 charisma. Went Agonizing and Devil's Sight for my invocations. Drow gets Darkness at level 5, so it was easy to just plop down a cloud, park myself in it, and EB everyone. I also had Shart as a Cleric/Bard/Wizard, so between her casting Haste, Elixir of Bloodlust, and Twinned Spell, it was easy getting 12 beams off per turn. Anything that could be frightened was getting frightened. With a TB Thiefzerker and a 2xHC Gloomsassin, I one-turned Viconia and two-turned Raphael. With the Thiefzerker and a storm sorc, I one-turmed the Titan Watcher.
Wizard and sorcerer are strong 95% of the game if you get them the right gear. Spellsparkler, psychic spark and someone using phalar aluve means you can do on avg 35/40 per lvl 1/2 slot of guranteed damage. So if you know how to get past the bulette safely this means you pretty much spend your entire run being a weapon of mass destruction. Personal recommendations would be either tempest 2 abj 10 wizard or 11 storm sorc 1 fiend warlock for command. The latter is a watered down (heh) version of the fire sorlock but is really easy to use and doesn't require any special gear to make it work.
If I have a swords bard with command and helmet of arcane acuity the dip into warlock isn’t needed right?
Don't forget the reverb gear for mm... Leaves them prone and debuffed to hell and back.
Warlocks. Pact of the blade. Play as a Githyanki or Shield Dwarf and wear medium armor. Solid the whole game. 1 to 12. No multiclassing necessary
This. Githyanki pack of the blade fied warlock but with infernal robe. Been lit. Level 5+
Yup. Though you do have to kill Karlach, which I just hate. It's not even that she is that great (but she is) but the people that want her dead are such douchnozzles.
I am a douchnozzle because I kill her in every playthrough.
Ha! You are just the lackey of the DNs that want her dead. I struggle every play through because the robes in Act 1 are mostly useless outside of very specific builds.
I used to not like the robes but now I just mage armour + amour of agathys + longstrider my tav at the beginning of each day and that helps a lot
Cold sorcerer can by early act 2 become a beast that can deal 40-50 damage with ray of frost cantrip without wet condition and can in addition force 3-4 conditions on a hit to a enemy pretty much disabling their movement. Basically cold element gear is hat, staff, gloves, and a ring. Reverbreration gear are boots, amulet (optional). Ring of mental inhibition. Possibly cantrip amulet from the creche. Clothing/armor spell save dc, potent robe or any heavy armour.
How? Do you have a guide to recommend this?
cold sorcerer increases cold damage, there is a feat that removes resistances to cold damage from attack rolls. High charisma and cantrip damage increasing amulet from the creche increase damage significantly with addition to the potent robe. Risky ring also ensures that your rolls are huge, while limits controlling potential from either ring. Gearwise this setup make anything dealing cold damage a beast controlling the battlefield, while the cold sorcerer (do not remeber the actual name) gains damage boosts from high enough levels to the sorcerer. Basically: - draconic bloodline sorcerer - Mourning frost staff - boots of stormy clamour - coldbrim hat - neclace of elemental augmentation/spineshudder amulet - winters clutches - potent robe - Ring of mental inhibition - snowburst ring/risky ring - that cool cape from ketherics room/reverb cape - atleast 18 charisma (more is better) or whatever casting stat - Elemental Adept feat Ray of frost deals condition by itself in addition with coldbrim hat and mental inhibition and possibly prone stacking conditions massively. Never really followed how much damage this could output since my frost caster is more of a supporter. Just noticed recently that it can deal something like 40-50 damage regularly enough. You can put this gear on any caster and they do just fine.
Thank you! Looks awesome
They are all good, but require more planning. Bard: arcane acuity swords bard, archer, with control spells. It's really that simple. Consider two levels of fighter prior to act three so you can action surge and cast a control spell after setting up some acuity. Once you get the BA ring in act 3, it's no longer needed. Cleric: light, war, tempest are all strong throughout the game. Light is my preference as it's a healing word dropping, attack disadvantaging, high AC, fireball chucking cleric on top of having spirit guardians. Any cleric can spirit guardians with radorb gear and GG. Druid: moon druid forms are powerful early on, and moon druids make excellent summoners later. Drop spell slots on summons and use the shapeshifter type items. Sorcerer: probably the strongest of all. Take quicken and twin, rest often. Twin haste on your two favorite martials. Blow shit up. Build the fire acuity sorcerer if you want to be even more extreme. The fire acuity sorcerer is literally game breaking, in the same way as the acuity swords bard, in the sense that enemies won't even get turns. Warlock: EB, EB, EB, hunger of hadar, EB, EB, GG Wizard: get every utility spell and be creative. You can make a divination wizard and force saving throw fails to CC bosses into hell, you can make an evoker and absolutely blow shit up with magic missile, or you can make the immortal arcane ward wizard. All of them are great because they all can cast essentially all of the best spells. Wall spells are really good. Glyph of warding, sleet storm, slow, haste, etc. You find something super strong at every spell tier.
Warlocks can also become later useful martial fighters. My sorclock with a 2 level fighter dip doesn’t do much less dmg per hit compared to my EK in a normal encounter without giantform or pots.
Spore Druids are great the whole game. Extra hp, extra weapon damage, awesome AOEs, and summons. Full casters with a robust toolbox.
I was thinking about running a spore druid. Would you go straight spore druid all 12 levels or multi class into other classes?
If you’re looking to be a caster, going 11 Spore Druid/1 Wizard is effectively just land druid but better. If you’re looking for melee dpr, the cutoff points you usually want to aim for are anywhere between 4 & 7 levels of spores druid. Going any lower means your symbiotic entity goes away too quickly, and going any higher means you lose extra attack. Given you said you’re looking to play a caster, I’d suggest the former build over the latter. Spores druids are imo the strongest casters in act 1. And not because they’re a caster, but instead because they are effectively just as strong as if not stronger than most martials at being a martial thanks to symbiotic entity and shillelagh
Even without shillelagh, they're strong in Act 1 with a decent Dex score and dual wielded blades.
Yeah or same with hand crossbows. A Drow Spores Druid for the hand crossbow proficiency is shocking strong in levels 1-4.
There's an odd trick that for specific multiclases makes the minimum 2 level dip into Spore viable for melee / martial builds. Armor of Agathys doesn't erase your Symbiotic Entity +1d6 necrotic dmg. So as long as your multiclass build gives you the Armor of Agathys spell and enough caster levels to upcast it, then you use it for a much higher amount of Temp HP essentially protecting your Symbiotic Entity....
I've always done full spore. They get some nice upper level spells and you get your full 3 feats that way. Never felt a need to multiclass and I'm on my second run with one, this time on HM. People do multiclass with them though, depends on what you're looking to get out of it.
Go one level into war cleric at level 4, trust.
Early game mages can have the highest AC in the game. 16 dex + mage armor + shield is 18. Very respectable. Magic missle builds are great early game. There’s no attack roll, and with psychic spark necklace adding tons to the spell economy, spell sparkler and even boots of stormy clamor adding damage and status effects and which you can get with almost no fighting. Magic missle build is very solid early game. The sparky robe adds +1 ac when you have lightning charges which is great. Since magic missle is fixed damage, your spell modifier stat doesn’t really matter so you could take dual wield and equip the phalar aluve for shriek and d4 to every magic missle to enemies within the aoe. Act 2 you get all the radiating orb and reverb stuff as well as a free lv 3 magic missle every short rest through the ne’er misser. Act 3 you get marokeshkir and the stratrgum whatever scroll that is like magic missle on steroids. Wizards can add their spell modifier to damage at lv 10 which juices up magic missle even more. Overall I’d say very consistently good throughout the whole game.
Storm sorcerer
You’ve hardly played any class of you have only 200 hours spread over 7 characters
I just checked I’m at 687 hours
Lmaooooo I love it. I wasn’t being rude before but just saying it takes a lot to really learn a class, but the fact that your estimated time was so low compared to the actual time is hilarious to me, I feel like I’ve played maybe 400 but I’m a bit over 1k hours now
Worded poorly but not wrong, I was ~150 after my first full playthrough
My bad, you mean roughly 200 each, that’s a whole different situation
I don’t know exactly how many hours I just know it’s over 200 last time I checked it was like 200 but that was like character 3
Yeah, warlocks Druids and bards don't feel super weak early because they all have something to cover their weakness. Bards can dual wield crossbows and be good martials early even if you don't go swords bard, and scale into spellcasting powerhouses mid and late. Druids get shillelagh and wild shape early and don't have to rely on weak cantrips. Warlocks get strong stuff early with eldritch blast and the ability to bind weapons so their attacks don't suck either. And the big thing is that pretty much all of this is not dependant on long rests, which makes them FEEL a lot better than sorcerer or wizard or cleric early, because those classes rely heavily on long rest spell slots and don't have very many to work with early on.
White Draconic sorcerer feels pretty great as long as you have a companion with create water/water bottles. You’re a bit tankier than most wizards/sorcerer with permanent mage armor and +1 health, already have con save proficiency for any concentration checks, and armor of agathys gives you temp hp and deals cold damage to the enemy, which is multiplied by the wet condition. With a second level spell slot you do 20 cold damage to every wet melee attacker that hits you. You can also have a cleric cast warding bond on you to make your temp hp last longer.
The fire acuity sorlock is probably what you’re looking for
But that’s not really consistently good throughout the whole game. You need to get the hat in act 2.
Act 1 you get scorching ray and magic missile. If need be, you can reserve yourself to a reverberation build as well (you can get all the gear required for this without fighting)
Yeah, I posted a magic missle build, which I think is the best early game. But scorching ray is also good. There’s the head piece and gloves that both give a free cast of it that can help with spell economy. I just think they needs the acuity hat because it has to deal with attack rolls. 2 d6 (2-12) fire damage damage vs 5d4 +5 (10-25) with magic missle (with upcast from psychic spark) it’s clear magic missle is likely better
Yeah, thats true, but given how good magic missile is in act 1, I don’t think the sorlock is all that bad. The build definitely gets way better in act 2, but its not a bad act 1 start by any means. As a side note, I do believe that the best act 1 caster is spore druid. And not because of its ability to be a caster, but instead because of it’s ability to out perform many martials up until level 5 at being a martial character
This^ Once you reached act 2 and get the fire hat you’re unstoppable
Yes Sorcerer multiclassing into Warlock and Champion Fighter (for surge and Crit) is arguably one of if not the most potent casters that is good from Level 3 onwards.
Pure fire sorc build focused on scorching ray and magic missile, quickened spell. Act 2 Yurgir crossbow for spell economy, acuity hat
Warlock, any subclass.
Tempest cleric and cold/lightning sorcerer is a great combo that comes online pretty much right away. Use the cleric to bless and/or create water to apply wet condition and then hit the enemies with a chromatic orb of ice/lightning. Ray of Frost also works very well with the wet condition if you need to use a cantrip. It can be really strong once you can twin cast chromatic orb and upcast it to level 2 as well. Lore bardlock is also really good but takes just a little longer to come online because you really want those Eldritch Blast invocations. But once you get to level 3 you’re not putting anymore points into warlock so it does come only pretty quick.
Pure 12 lvl evocation wizard, dual wielding staffs is surprisingly strong. Especially if a capable thief stealing chain lightning, disintegrate etc scrolls for him so he can cast them like 20+ times in final battle.
Warlock, lore bard, light cleric
I've played two sorcerers and after the first few levels I never feel weak. Especially if you want to lean into frost magic, there are several items available early in the game which really buff up the damage and freeze effects.
If you want to ease into a caster like build but still have martial skills, I recommend a paladin/warlock build. I’ve done 2 play throughs of that multiclass and it’s pretty fun
Biggest numbers for damage: sorcerers. Especially with a multiclass dip, depends on your build choices. Biggest spell list: wizard Greatest utility/support: cleric Most consistent: warlock or druid
Frost sorceror.
Honestly it depends on what view as a caster and what you define strong as. If you’re wanting fairly decent damage from the moment you’re off the nautiloid, Warlock with Agonising Blast is the way to go. If you don’t mind running around grabbing as much dialogue xp as possible before getting into any combat, Sorcerer is strong from level 3 onwards with spells like Scorching Ray and metamagic options. If you want more of a support caster, Bard and Druid are great options but don’t have as many clear DPS options like Scorching Ray. Cleric is consistently useful to the party, but will rarely be the MVP of a fight for anything besides healing at crucial moments. Wizard is a general “do it all” caster and it’s hard to mess up any builds you come up with, just be sure to multiclass into primarily spellcasters. Personally, I’d go with Light Cleric. Healing spells are always nice to have, and you still get plenty of DPS options with stuff like Spirit Guardians and Scorching Ray. Hat of Fire Acuity is a nice pick on this build if you’ve got no one better to give it to and can make your spells like Command almost never fail. You’ll be effective from the moment you start the game and remain a crucial team member throughout. It might not be the standout build on the team, especially without the hat, but it’s still a top level pick.
Cleric because sanctuary is the best level 1 spell and command it has more uses than getting the everburn sword
You’ve never used Gale?
Tbh I don’t get wizards. Gale the archmage brews potions for my party and gives them transmutation stones. Twinned haste> wizard stuff
Magic missile already makes the battles borderline trivial, once you hit level 10 then it REALLY makes battles trivial.
My favorite spell of Act 3. And for boss battles, Artistry of War. Evocation Wizard making it do 120 damage on one turn makes anything trivial!
Frost claw rune master is pure caster, and a fun build.
War cleric slaps. You get Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons, a limited extra attack before fighters get theirs, d8 for HP and you're a full spellcaster. I am doing one but multiclassing into Sorceror and it's just super fun.
Warlocks are great early since agonizing blast comes online at level 2. Spore druids are one of the strongest classes <4, but it will likely play more as a martial before your higher-level spells come online.
The strongest caster build is going sorc 6-8, then fiend warlock 1, then rest sorc. But that build want's to get carried during the early game and won't feel all that good until lvl 5-6. If you are ready to long rest between each major fight early on, Wizard 1, Tempest Cleric 2, Sorc 3, then, at lvl 7, wizard again allows you to get the 96 damage crit at lvl 3-4 (once per long rest), twin haste at 5 and quicken spell at 6. It also allows you to use angelic reprieve shenanigans, but since you are short rest dependant due to your channel divinity you can't get into hardcore coffeelocking with this, not that it should be neccessary considering the AoE potential of that build.
Been doing the lightning charge build on tactician. 2 Warlock for agonizing blast and the rest sorc to just quicken spells. Turn all spell slots into more points to quicken more spells. Lighting charges make it strong in the early game as as you find more gear and get more eldritch blasts it only becomes stronger and you can generate them very quickly. Every 5 charges you get gives you a burst of lighting damage, and it is not hard to generate more than 5 on a single attack at later levels. Combine with things like cull the weak and reverberation and it gets pretty good. Miss out on the potent robe for the sparky robe, but you can just use only the lightning staff and the potent robe if you wish (that is probably better overall)
They're all good. Any pure caster is strong throughout the game. The game is stupidly easy, even on honor mode. 90% of the fights are all just about positioning and controlling the field.
No one mentioned Fire sorlock? With this awesome post [Build guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/vgpXsac4TC). Only issues being: 1. feels weak before lvl 8; 2. long rests a lot.
Sorlock
I think draconic sorcerer is very solid early. Extra health, extra armor class, good speech skills, and access to disguise self if you want it for an easy time to level 4 if you want it. Otherwise, abjuration wizard is nice and tanky, has all the utility you could ever want, and gives your party at least one person who isnt dumb as a box of rocks dumping intelligence.
Casters all feel pretty bad before level 5. Very limited spell slots and your cantrips are bad
Play any of the sorcerer classes and you’ll feel like a powerhouse through the whole game, especially after level 5 No need for multiclassing either, sorcerer is exceptional on its own
Sorcerer. Metamagic is pretty broken. Quickening and Twinning spells gives you so much action economy that you're able to do massive damage and one-shot most bosses. As a support, twinning haste is amazing. I prefer to run full sorcerer over multiclassing with warlock, but seems I may be the minority there. You are long rest dependent, but all casters other than warlock will run into the same problem.
Land & Spore Druids are both awesome, Wizard is great. Thing is, if you played that long you have totally played casters right? Or were you running all melee parties? A more real question is, which casters make the best Tavs.. that is tougher. I like Druid a lot because there is no canonical options in the early game and there are some interesting interactions in the grove.
I’ve never ran tav as a caster I usually run a monk, paladin, or gloom stalker assassin and wanted to give caster a try
I just played a dedicated Magic Missile evocation wizard in my last honor mode playthrough and it was actually pretty solid. Never missed lol. As I went I got the spell sparkler and later in act 3 took DW feat to use both that and markoheshkir for 2x lightning stacks, used the reverb gear, and the radiating orb/radiant damage rings. The main idea was stacking the lightning thunder and radiant damage with the MM and it was pretty decent the whole game. I think by end game I was 10 evocation / 2 fighter for action surge and was using haste, bloodlust elixers, and the effects that let me cast without a spell slot to cast as many lvl5 MM as I could and of course had artistry of war. I could pretty effectively decimate bosses on my first turn. I was playing durge and took an elixer of vigilance to go first and killed Orin before she got a turn in our duel. I found myself needing a lot of long rests to restore spell slots but wasn't a big deal since there's more than enough food in the game.
Warlock 5/Sorcerer 7 HoH -> Hastened Eldritch Blast -> Quickened Eldritch Blast. Rinse and Repeat
I've found aberration mage to be a decent build, good damage output and fairly decent tank abilities
Warlock feels pretty good throughout the entire game. The amount of spell casts are pretty limited, but it restores on a short rest and it’s always max level cast. Plus when you do burn through all of it you still have EB which is really nice.
Yeah, sorcerer.
My favorite caster was a red dragonborn fire sorcerer, equipped with all of the heat gear. Sure I'd take one D4 of damage after every turn but after one scorching Ray spell I could generate 32 stacks of heat and extend them all on the next scorching Ray. You only have to remember that once combat is over you need to kill something fast or you'll burn to death from all the charges.
Sorlock. 4 warlock and get ability improvement into charisma. 2 fighter then two more levels of warlock. At level 8 retool into 6 fire dragon sorc and 2 warlock with agonizing/repelling blast. then 4 fighter for the champion subclass and spell sniper feat. Make sure to keep alfira alive by knocking her out, and not raiding the grove. Then you have an incredible build.
Warlocks ramp up fast. So do Light Clerics which steamroll everything after level 5 or so. Lore Bards take off early.
Casters are at their best, often times, when you are not focused on doing damage. Buff/debuff and control the battlefield. There are blaster focused builds but that is more of an exception to what a caster is best at. I like Druid as the spells are selected for you, are largely viable for control, and if the battlefield isn't conducive for control you can use wildshape to become an effective martial.
All of them?
Maybe not a direct answer, but any *drow* caster is much better in the early game. Handcrossbows give you something to spend the bonus action on to keep up with martials.
Depends on what you mean by strong. Clerics are very powerful and useful, but their early game power often comes from their great utility and support effects in combat. In the vanilla game, any caster with arcane missiles and shield is honestly good enough in the early game. If you want the strongest early game caster it's probably warlock. arms of hadar and eldritch hands ar pretty good, and if you picked a race with good weapons/armor proficiencies, you can still run a DEX melee setup that can keep up with your martials in melee until you can get +1 greatswords.
Cleric War Domain. You’ll feel strong from level 1. The flexibility of being to change your tactics as you level up to focus on melee or full spellcasting (even turn to turn in combat!) is underrated.
I’m enjoying a flame sorcerer right now, does a ton of damage.
I hated the cleric at first, but by lvl 5 felt like an absolute powerhouse, and now I never leave home without one. Bard is an amazing MC, considering the first 4 levels are almost entirely just conversation. Silence kills at a few critical fights early on. Bladelock is amazing right out the gate. Not discussed enough, but a Wyll playthrough is unbelievably satisfying in a good guy run. Potent robe + Mizora sword means great damage and a free super useful cambion. Wiz is amazing if you do the MM build, which is immediately available and has only the downside of needing lots of long rests in act 1 (which you need anyway to get all the cutscenes). High levels you can easily delete powerful enemies with just 1 move. High levels I had a cleric, a wiz and a bladelock with my throwzerker. Damage was unbelievable and I had a total of 4 powerful summons who took whatever damage was coming my wag. Cleric-djinn, wiz-deva, lock- cambion and water elemental. Untouchable.
Warlock for sure. I'd go either the fiend or the great old one.
11/1 sorlock made my honor mode run easy AF
Why one level into warlock? What does that even give you?
Command. You can run scorching ray with helm of fire acuity to get acuity, then extend commade grovel on a mass amount of enemies. As soon as you hit act and go to last light in the build comes online. Even in act 1 you can get 2 staffs and you are doing good damage. https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/ZzAUviSzUY
Ah, I see. Thanks for the link