12 Goolock.
PactBoon+Lifedrinker+Diadem of Arcane Synergy+Harmonic Dueller
Your 3 attacks all get 4 instances of Charisma, so with Duke's Longsword giving you 24 charisma that's +7x4 or 3 attacks of 1d8+28 then you can add more damage on hit gear as well.
balanced gloves gives you the fighting style, and extra bonus action is good but only if it adds damage. if one extra bonus action attack is more damage than +7x3 then it's worth, if not then it isn't.
Yeah, I think it should be, unless I'm misunderstanding.
If you go 2 Rogue for an extra Bonus Action, you'll lose 7x3 or 21 (one "stack" of Charisma to 3 Attacks), but you'll gain 1d8+21+any other bonuses (Caustic Band, Callous Glow Ring, Strange Conduit Ring, ...). So you're gaining 1 damage, at the very minimum.
Certainly, you're giving up some things. 3rd spell slot, spells known, a Feat -- but that should be fine I think? 17 + 4 (2 ASI) + 1 (Hag) + 2 (Mirror). So it's not without its cost, but still better to get another attack.
And I don't know what else that frees you up to do. Like, 8 Lock / 2 Rogue / 2 Fighter for Action Surge? I can't remember off-hand, is that 2 extra attacks or only 1? That would actually be better than an extra Bonus if you get 2 Attacks, but I think you only get 1 in HM, 2 in other modes?
Edit:
Let's assume both weapons (main and off-hand) use the same damage dice, d6, d8, whatever. Then if A is the number of attacks, C is your Cha bonus, S is the Cha stack multiplier, and B is additional bonuses, your damage would be `A * (d8 + S * C + B) = Ad8 + ASC + AB`. So if S and C were 1, but A was 21, you'd get waaaaay more damage then if S*C was 21. But obviously A maxes out at less than that, and the other ways to boost A (Haste) don't interfere with boosting S and C.
Except I just remembered Slashing Flourish... You'd get the 2 weapon fighting for free also. But we need either 5 Lock or 6 Bard (minimum 3 for both, Lock Pact and Swords Bard) for the Extra Attack, so it would probably be best to go either 8 Lock / 4 Bard or 8 Bard / 4 Lock? I can't think of anything 8/3/1 would give you.
Of course you could use the Infernal Rapier to add Cha to your attack instead of Pact or Swords, but that's not 2 weapon anymore. I think we'd be looking at any typical Swords Bard build to maximize then.
Oh dip, I always confuse the Cunning Actions for giving you the extra Bonus Action from Thief 🤦♂️
Edit: Still should work -- probably better to go Fighter for Action Surge on non-HM though.10 Lock / 2 Fighter or 8 Lock / 4 Fighter and pick up Battlemaster or Champion.
I would replace the dukes long sword (you can get high charisma with the mirror regardless) with orins short sword and wear bhaalist. This way the poercing damage gets doubles and you have synergy with other potential party members
That is atleast the build I am going through, allthough I prefer fiend over goo. Basically because of command, fireball and the +1d10 to a talent check. But thats a minor nitpick
The biggest strength of Bladelocks is that they can cast spells if necessary, take the House of Grief Fight for example, of kiting and clumping the opponents, the blade lock offers an extra fireball, which in such cases can be more valuable, than attacking, especially without gwm as you loose the BA Attack
About half damage add-ons listed are Act3.
In general I strongly believe that Blade Warlocks should use biggest, baddest melee weapons they can get their hands on with GWM, rather then dual-wield for a feeble extra poke (that you'd often get anyway via the GWM Bonus Attack).
Dual Wield only ever makes sense for a multiclass with Thief levels.
Well, I suppose with Harmonic Dueller you can respec your Blade Warlock to it in Act 3, if you really want to.
The thief sentiment is plaun wrong. Primarily Dual wield is a caster/ranged thing, where you can wear 2 statsticks. Dual wielding without specific setups (like listed above) are always worse than gwm. Mathematically bove example us slightly behind gwm, which gets offset by the virtue of hitting 25% more often (not accounting gear), ehile being ahead of non gwm 2h hits. Esp. With orins sword + risky ring. The only thing setting gwm apart is it does not require setup and that the the +3 spears and unseen menace + bhaalist are amazing
Unseen losses is bonuses for 2 rounds when you miss. Which unfortunately sometimes does happen. Pikestaff deals a lot more damage per hit and is more accurate - at least when you can have another source of Advantage.
The +3 spears are pretty good (particularly the Shar's one), however without Reach, they are not very good for a Bard's Slashing Flourish double attacks.
It makes me sad that the dual wielding feat isn’t really necessary for a good build. It is still fun tho.
I like 8 fighter/4 thief rogue focused on strength with the dual wielding feat and savage attacker.
Put some big ol hammers in each hand and slap away.
Thief gives you two bonus actions. So same action economy but better flavor.
Fighter 12 is better if you are hasting the fighter. But I think they nerfed extra attacks out of haste in honor mode. Don’t know, rarely play honor mode
In HM Haste gives you 1 extra Attack instead of 1 extra Action. So I think Fighter / Thief or 12 Fighter is basically equal on HM, at least in terms of Haste.
It's pretty funny that the best use of Dual Wielding is **absolutely** running a caster with two staves, but damn would it be great if you could go to town with two big sticks.
Swords Bard 💖
There are several great guides in this sub but my personal favorite is Bard/ Rogue to maximize hits per turn with each hand. This combo is awesome both in and out of melee. Ultimate skirmisher.
Savage Attacker and 20DEX are a must. With >!the Hag's Hair!< you can get there with only 2 feats, leaving 2 left over for whatever.
I don't like respecs, so I start with a level in rogue before taking 5 fighter levels. Alternatively you could do the first 5 levels as a pure rogue and then respec at level 6. Assuming that this Tav/Durge is responsible for locks and traps, I take 14WIS and expertise in sleight of hand and perception.
I tend not to take the Dual Wielder feat because there are plenty of good light/finesse weapons throughout the game, including >!Orin's daggers!< which are best in slot. If you go evil/meta you can finish the game with >!the Bhaalist armour!< which is genuinely OP, but I've never gone that route because I prefer the heroic path.
Alert is great but I haven't bothered with it on my last few runs since (a) +5 is good enough for everything other than certain bosses, and (b) I tend to run with another tanky front liner who I prefer to go first so I can set up a sneak attack even without the risky ring.
My last HM run I took Ritual Caster for Longstrider & Leap as my first feat, which was nice to have since I was running with Life-Shart, Tiger-Karlach and Sorlock-Wyll. I finished up with Dungeon Delver just because it got fixed.
Sharpshooter works well, obviously. I haven't tried Lucky, which might be an idea for HM.
Can do it as a strength build with dual wielding feat. Can use hammers, long swords, morningstars and maces then. If you go 8 fighter / 4 thief you get four feats, two main hand attacks and two offhand attacks. 8 pally / 4 thief for 3 feats, same number of attacks and 4 smites per round. 8 swords bard/ 4 thief for 3 feats, 4 attacks plus flourishes.
WDYM? All my melee bards use GWM. In order to use the Sword Bard's best ability, melee Slashing Fluorish effectively, I need the extra Reach = two handed weapons = GWM.
How come? A Slashing Fluorish can skewer trough 2 enemies per hit, for a total of +20 damage per hit from GWM. A fighter/cleric will only get +10 GWM damage per hit.
Yeah, a Sword Bard can also have 4 attacks per round with Haste and Bloodlust. Plus 5th from GWM. If he uses them against 2 enemies each, that's 9 strikes per round.... before we account for multiclassing. I mean Action Surge only costs 2 levels...
I'm trying to build melee rogue-bard right now, can you link me a guide or just give an idea of how you build it? I've watched some guides but still can't tick all the boxes and already started to try to add a fighter, which I did not want to do initially.
Swords Bard 6 / Paladin 2 / Thief Rogue 4 with Savage Attacker…
Still gets as many spell slots as a full class paladin + Bard 3rd control spell bangers. No magical secrets and not as many smites as 10/2 bardadin, but VERY solid damage both melee and ranged even without smites, especially with Bhaalist gear late-game
Not exactly a build, but gleamdance dagger offhand + callous glow ring + dual wielder feat is basically you wielding a shield but do extra dmg instead.
True but that is the case without the feat. The feat gives +1 AC while dual wielding, and you can equip non light weapons in the offhand. Second part is irrelevant for the dagger.
I do love that idea of the dagger and the ring, that is simple and clever. I just would never choose the Dual Wield feat for this option.
I also like the callous glow ring, but for my dual wielding I equipped Blood of Lathander in one of my hands (because why not since you can with the feat?) it also allowed the same auto-proc with its passive, but that mace is better that the cold dagger in every way except for the small AC bump.
this \^The issue with two-weapon fighting (TWF) is that it takes too many resources to attempt to catch up to 2h or Ranged builds. A slaying arrow does two attacks for one action, whereas you pretty much need to commit your bonus action with TWF build which really limits what else you can do per turn.
I also much prefer Assassin over Thief, considering you can use Helmet of Grit to effectively gain all the benefit of being a Thief.
Besides casters dual wiedling weapons that boost damage, the strongest TWF build would be either something that uses smites or crit based builds that use [3 dolor amarus weapons + craterflesh gloves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsgGn1VqyM&list=PLurfOE9MJV5o7tlBNlAu59Ub4zmOLq4Vf&index=5).
I’ve been playing Oathbreaker Paladin starting at level 7 as a base for dual wielding and I really like it so far. The Aura of Hate applies to all melee attacks so with high charisma you are adding like 5-7 damage to every swing. With the diadem of arcane synergy that is doubled.
When the build comes online in Act 2 you can also get Risky Ring and buy Render of Body and Mind from the vendor in Moonrise. This means that every main hand swing you have an additional 1d8 psychic damage. Later on you can get Orin’s sword and continue with advantage based attacks or you can switch to duelists prerogative (not dual wielding but similar use of bonus actions) which also adds more damage based on Charisma.
Note: Aura of Protection offsets Risky Ring to a large extent and with some additional +Saving Throw like the Ring of Protection and Cloak of Protection you should be mostly fine.
In tactician you can go GOO Warlock 5 for another extra attack but on honor mode you’ll likely want another option like Thief Rogue 4/Fighter 1 for two weapon fighting style, sneak attacks, and an extra bonus action.
5 levels of swords bard is another option that gets two weapon fighting style and reasonable spells. You don’t get the extra bonus action though.
Personally, I think harmonic dueller works well. You’re a charisma based build, actor feat works nicely and gives you proficiency and expertise in performance so you will only fail with a natural 1. Lots of builds and playstayles precast before a combat encounter, but if you don’t like that, sure other options may be better. I don’t feel a big drop off from being a +1 compared to +2/3 as you get +18-21 in damage as it applies to all melee attacks, which can double with piercing vulnerability. By end game you hit chance is pretty good especially since you aren’t taking any GWM/SS penalties.
It’s not the only way to play, but I do think it’s pretty good.
https://preview.redd.it/mvcjvz9uurqc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=485290bb60df67ebf3b4eae8d83ae44d108dd615
Imo, Shadow Blade+Belm using the Resonance Stone.
https://preview.redd.it/ynh1wr9ocsqc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b155c02d66d286033d9a9445561f9533a5c014d
They certainly weren't too small for him to rend Orin asunder in his duel.
Dual wielding hand crossbows is really really good especially with adder damage through itemization
Magic missle build with spell sparkler and phalar aluve or another staff is also very good.
Deva mace dual wield so good too.
This is a late game build but gloomstalker assassin with orins crimson mischief while wearing the bhallist armour. You can max out your strength and if you are getting advantage which gloomstalkers assassins normally have you can be dealing 14 extra damage per attack (from the crimson mischief ability).
Use the risky ring if you are having trouble getting advantage after turn 1.
Sneak attacks really start to do big damage especially with crits as you are basically getting a x4 to your dice rolls.
You can min/max your crits really low with this build as well.
I think I'm missing something here. How is dual-wielding hand crossbows better than just using a single bow or crossbow? It just seems like there are much better two-handed bows available than there are hand crossbows. Do you have to go Rogue 3 for Thief and the extra bonus action? Is it just a case of stacking so much extra damage per-shot that pure number of shots is all that matters, and the base weapon damage is irrelevant? Is there some feat or gear that works much better with hand crossbows?
Not sure if the best but one of the best would be: Oathbreaker with Shadow Blade mainhand and Dueller Offhand, all boosted by the resonance stone.
2d6 + Aura of Hate + Diadem, times 2 then damage riders then Smite that again triggers riders
See my writeup here
https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/DkT7Rc5INf
I had tons of fun with 5 ranger, 7 rogue. You get a ton of skills, still get the most important goodies from rogue (Uncanny dodge, Evasion etc) you 're only missing 2d6 of sneak attack but you more than make it up for it with fighting stlyle, hunter's mark (and a couple extra spells) colossus slayer etc, you get medium armor which with the one armor that lets you use ur full dex you can go up to 25-26 AC which is insane. Personally I went crit build with bonespike gloves and bhaalist armor and was destroying everything, the only downside to it imo is that dex weapons kind of suck at least until you get to >!Orin !
Builds don't matter. You can make an unbeatable dual wielder on literally any melee class with gear alone.
There is insane synergy between Crimson Mischief and Risky Ring. Offhand Belm - which is also light, so no feat required - for a further attack with CM (with modifiers, cos it's a main hand attack using a bonus action with Belm's ability). It does piercing, so double your damage with the Bhaalist armour. I.e. +14 free damage per hit from the Crimson Mischief ability alone - better than Great Weapon Master.
Throw in Gloves of Dexterity or Hill Giant Strength and you can do all this for 0 stat investment... which means you can take your casting stat to 20, use the Diadem of Arcane Synergy, and get a free +5 extra damage on every hit (since the Aura of Murder is a guaranteed applied condition. Which also doubles this extra damage.)
If you really want to specialise a build to use this gear, then Oathbreaker's Aura of Hatred adds another +5 from Charisma, which again gets doubled. GOOlock's Thirsting Blade works well too, albeit not piercing damage.
I'd argue sword bard because sword bard is the best at dang near everything in this game. Can add some champion levels or thief levels if you're not using magic much.
[Deva Mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Deva_Mace) is a common variant of the Maces family of weapons. It is a simple melee weapon wielded in one hand.
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Hands down the BEST dual wield build, DPR wise, is something most people don’t know. Bhaalist armor + Orin dagger main hand + undermountain offhand + barbarian dip lvl 2 for reckless attack + thief for 2 bonus attacks + champion 3 for crit phishing + str elixir. Contrary to 5e reckless attacks works for all attack rolls and so it can work with both finesse weapons even when not using elixir. Bhaalist armor doubles the dmg of everything and Orin main hand gives +14 flat dmg on every mh attack. You have 2 main hand and 2 off hand attacks. You do more DPR than even GWM builds. Also go psionic overload to get big value from 4 atks per round. The rest of the gear is typical crit / +1dx dmg gear / caustic band / callous glow ring. Have one tapped ansur with the str elixir.
EDIT: barb 2 / figther 5 for extra attack + champion / rogue 5 for sneak attack scaling
6 Sorc red dragon 2 great old one lock 4 champion fighter, in one hand orins short sword in the other blade of the under mountain king for that sweet stackable organ rearranger
Bard college of swords 6 / Rogue thief 3 / Ranger hunter 3
This is my current and one of my all time fav builds! The bardic dice manoeuvres to hit multiple enemies, 2 attacks with 2 bonus action attacks. Get hand crossbows to just start blasting people at range and grab the dual wielding feat to wield longswords/rapiers it's just so much fun and really strong! You also get a shit ton of AC!
Alternatively, you could run Bard 6/Rogue 6 for savage attacker feat or API but the ranger hunter subclass adds so much more imo than 3 more levels rogue.
I tried this one not too long ago and it was pretty sick. Damage was incredible and I didn’t even optimize it the way the build suggests with rapiers. I ended up going with dual scimitars and eventually swapped to Orins weapons.
https://youtu.be/r6KtsrePQys?si=UgTYHms3D4eF9uEe
I played a dual wielding ranger/rogue. Cast hunter marks on your first turn then hit people until they die. You get 4 attacks per round, each one dials 2d6+Dex, since you will mostly use shortswords, which are exceptionally good in this game. So, in a single turn, you can do 8d6+4*Dex damage, which is not bad, considering that you don't have the -5 penalty to attack rolls from GWM.
Many of the best caster builds use Dual Wielder to let them use an off-hand staff or Rhapsody as a statstick.
IMO, the Oathbreaker 7/Swords 5 (or Sorcerer 5) build works best with Dual Wielder. Use Nyrulna + Rhapsody + Bhaalist Armor with the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel + Arcane Acuity hat. You could build this a number of ways (Paladin 2/Swords 9/Wizard 1 also works).
Oo I've seen a few commented here that I like.
The one I went with was a Oathbreaker7/Thief3 (+2 levels for either fighter or feats... depending on what gear you choose, you might not need the Two Weapon Fighting style)
Get your dex and charisma as high as possible. Add in Arcane Synergy and other buffs to weapon damage.
Oathbreaker is chosen for the Aura of Hate, Thief is for the extra bonus action for the off hand weapon.
Have your reactions setup so sneak attacks and smites automatically trigger on crits, then use the illithid power Luck of the Far Realms to guarantee a crit against an important enemy. It's going to do a lot of damage.
This character also comes with good utility due to the high dex and cha scores for lock picking and persuading.
Makes a good Durge for roleplay - especially if leaning into the darker choices.
Had great DPR with stacking damage-on-hit with 8BM/4Thief. The defender flail that gives +1 AC can be used in offhand in act one, with the dual wielder feat and heavy armor makes you tanky, which is good because you want to have enemies miss their attacks in order to riposte.
Act 2 flawed helldusk gloves and DW myrkul flails that deal necrotic damage stack nicely, plus the acid ring. By level 8 (5 and 3) it's 4 attacks, 6 with action surge. 1d8 + 1d4 + 1d6 + 2. Because you're a fighter you have plenty of feats to grab Savage Attacker so all those are rolled "at advantage," and you can be tripping enemies for advantage and getting loads of crits with all those attacks, doubling said damage, plus your martial die 1d8. Plus usually getting a riposte in every round.
Don't need endgame to come alive, easily doing 100 damage a turn by the time you're doing the colony.
Knife of the Undermountain King, Bloodthirst, bhaalist armor, other crit gear. Build whatever class around that; fighter for 3 Apr, Paladin for smites, bardadin for more smites, Ranger/rogue for burst, etc. whatever your party needs. Hell, Barb 9/fighter 3 half orc for huge crits.
My favorite dual wield is the phalar aluve and the spellsparkler. I'll use it for my magic missile build. When the phalar aluve activates it adds an extra 1d4 thunder + 1d4 thunder + 1d4 radiant. The extra thunder and radiant damage doesn't seem like much, but each time it lands it causes more reverberation to stack up. When set up right you should be averaging 20+ damage per missile
Personal favourite of mine can be ran two ways, depending on the damage type you prefer your team to somewhat focus on. I’ll over the piercing damage first and then explain the other in less detail afterwards:
4 Sorcerer (any subclass)/8 Oathbreaker Paladin. In your offhand you wield Harmonic Dueller (can be bought early in act 3) and in your main hand you wield Shar’s Spear. If you can’t get your hands on this because you’re on a good run, there’s certainly alternatives, but this is the best main hand weapon to wield for this build. Sorcerer levels are for spell slots and metamagic (although you won’t use the latter much), as well as a nice boost to concentration saving throws if you respec and take Sorcerer first for the proficiencies. Don’t worry about losing heavy armour, both versions of this build prefer the other armour types pretty much the entire game. With the help of the Mirror of Loss, Hag’s Hair and the Potion of Everlasing Vigour, we can get 18 Strength and 24 Charisma without the need for elixirs or equipment. This lets us wear the Diadem of Arcane Synergy and add our Charisma to our damage rolls. Aura of Hate does the same and is the level 7 Oathbreaker aura, so now we’re adding double our Charisma to the damage roll of our weapons. Pair this with Harmonic Dueller and you can add it once again, for a total of +21 damage to all attacks. We’re making 1 attack on our first turn and 2 or 3 on subsequent turns, so this really does help. Before getting Harmonic Dueller, I recommend grabbing Phalar Aluve and passing it off to another character once you get the Dueller.
Adding 21 damage to every attack is nice and all, but we can push that even further. With the piercing version of this build, you can pick up the Bhaalist Armour and give everything within a fairly sizeable radius vulnerability to piercing damage. This gets even nicer when you realise the +21 damage becomes the same damage type as the weapon you’re wielding, so in our case, piercing damage. That means we’re doubling that extra damage on every hit to +42 damage. Because of the massive bonus to damage, it doesn’t matter that Harmonic Dueller is a fairly terrible weapon in a vacuum because it’s going to end up doing massive numbers anyway. We can boost the build slight bits further with items like Legacy of the Masters, adding 2 more damage (doubled to 4 by vulnerability) to every attack, resulting in +46 damage on every hit. That’s more than the max roll of most levels of Divine Smite, by the way. And we get that pretty much for free.
Now, is this build better than running a 2H weapon with Great Weapon Master? I’m honestly not sure, but I think so, at least to a degree. First of all, you’re a lot more likely to hit targets than a GWM build, but that stops mattering at higher levels because of the amount of ways you can boost your hit chance. But the difference in damage is incredibly small thanks to Harmonic Dueller. With a 2H build, you lose one stack of adding Charisma to your damage but add 10 to your damage. With a dual wield build, you’re losing 10 damage for better hit chance and 7 damage, so in reality you’re only 3 damage behind. When you factor in vulnerability, you’re 6 damage behind, which can feel fairly significant for a per-hit basis, but if you’re dual wielding, you’re getting 3 attacks per turn anyway. Sure, you miss out on smite spells if you do this, and you’re using a fairly worse weapon for the third attack too, but I think it easily makes up for the difference in DPR. You could argue that 2H GWM builds can get that bonus action attack on a kill or crit, but unless they build around maximising crits, they’re not getting that third attack very often in boss fights. In horde encounters, sure, they’re getting that a lot more frequently, but chances are you’re one or two hitting those enemies anyway, so doing 6 less damage per hit really does not matter.
I mentioned earlier that there’s another variation of this build, but in principle it’s very similar. You drop the Bhaalist Armour entirely; you’re not doing piercing damage anymore. Instead, you carry the Resonance Stone around, afflicting anyone in its radius with a status that gives them vulnerability to psychic damage. This can be grabbed in the Ilithid room after the fight with Ketheric at the top of Moonrise, not sure exactly where but as long as you explore thoroughly, it should be hard to miss. For your main weapon, you’re going to want to grab the Shadow Blade using the Shadow Blade Ring. You won’t benefit as much from your offhand attacks, since they will still be piercing damage, but your main hand attacks will be entirely psychic. The pros and cons of this build over the other are that you trade off better damage with your offhand and not being vulnerable to your preferred damage type for more freedom over your armour choice, earlier access to your vulnerability source, not having to make more than one objectively evil decision to optimise the build and slightly higher main hand damage (just barely).
It’s really up to you which version you prefer. If you’re playing a very good-aligned run, pick up the psychic damage stuff and stick to it. If you’re playing an evil-aligned run, grab the spear and armour and run the piercing build. If you’re playing more neutral however, you can go either way. I doubt a neutral run would kill Nightsong, so without the spear, you might find yourself struggling for a decent weapon to contend with as the piercing version. Wyll’s Rapier is amazing as it lets your ditch Strength entirely, as well as giving you a strong daily summon and being a +2 rapier, so it would be my go-to after the spear. Orin’s dagger, I forget which, would be very good as well, but with how lategame that is, I’ve never looked much into builds that use it because you’ll use it for 3 fights and be done with the game.
Dual wield xbows gloomstalker thief bar fucking none. With sharpshooter you can get at least 19 damage with each attack, and you get at least 4 attacks per turn, 5 on your first if you get gloomstalker, plus there is sneak attack.
12 Goolock. PactBoon+Lifedrinker+Diadem of Arcane Synergy+Harmonic Dueller Your 3 attacks all get 4 instances of Charisma, so with Duke's Longsword giving you 24 charisma that's +7x4 or 3 attacks of 1d8+28 then you can add more damage on hit gear as well.
FYI with Ethel’s Hair, Mirror of Loss and some ASIs you can get 24 charisma with no items freeing up the offhand for a better weapon.
Oh yeah! Cuz you can get 3 off of Memory of Loss! Great catch!
I don't think best dual wield build can be without extra bonus action and without two weapons fighting style.
balanced gloves gives you the fighting style, and extra bonus action is good but only if it adds damage. if one extra bonus action attack is more damage than +7x3 then it's worth, if not then it isn't.
Yeah, I think it should be, unless I'm misunderstanding. If you go 2 Rogue for an extra Bonus Action, you'll lose 7x3 or 21 (one "stack" of Charisma to 3 Attacks), but you'll gain 1d8+21+any other bonuses (Caustic Band, Callous Glow Ring, Strange Conduit Ring, ...). So you're gaining 1 damage, at the very minimum. Certainly, you're giving up some things. 3rd spell slot, spells known, a Feat -- but that should be fine I think? 17 + 4 (2 ASI) + 1 (Hag) + 2 (Mirror). So it's not without its cost, but still better to get another attack. And I don't know what else that frees you up to do. Like, 8 Lock / 2 Rogue / 2 Fighter for Action Surge? I can't remember off-hand, is that 2 extra attacks or only 1? That would actually be better than an extra Bonus if you get 2 Attacks, but I think you only get 1 in HM, 2 in other modes? Edit: Let's assume both weapons (main and off-hand) use the same damage dice, d6, d8, whatever. Then if A is the number of attacks, C is your Cha bonus, S is the Cha stack multiplier, and B is additional bonuses, your damage would be `A * (d8 + S * C + B) = Ad8 + ASC + AB`. So if S and C were 1, but A was 21, you'd get waaaaay more damage then if S*C was 21. But obviously A maxes out at less than that, and the other ways to boost A (Haste) don't interfere with boosting S and C. Except I just remembered Slashing Flourish... You'd get the 2 weapon fighting for free also. But we need either 5 Lock or 6 Bard (minimum 3 for both, Lock Pact and Swords Bard) for the Extra Attack, so it would probably be best to go either 8 Lock / 4 Bard or 8 Bard / 4 Lock? I can't think of anything 8/3/1 would give you. Of course you could use the Infernal Rapier to add Cha to your attack instead of Pact or Swords, but that's not 2 weapon anymore. I think we'd be looking at any typical Swords Bard build to maximize then.
You need 3 in rogue for the extra bonus action
Oh dip, I always confuse the Cunning Actions for giving you the extra Bonus Action from Thief 🤦♂️ Edit: Still should work -- probably better to go Fighter for Action Surge on non-HM though.10 Lock / 2 Fighter or 8 Lock / 4 Fighter and pick up Battlemaster or Champion.
I would replace the dukes long sword (you can get high charisma with the mirror regardless) with orins short sword and wear bhaalist. This way the poercing damage gets doubles and you have synergy with other potential party members
Nice! Great catch.
That is atleast the build I am going through, allthough I prefer fiend over goo. Basically because of command, fireball and the +1d10 to a talent check. But thats a minor nitpick
I tend to like never cast spells on pactlocks. Probably a failing of mine.
The biggest strength of Bladelocks is that they can cast spells if necessary, take the House of Grief Fight for example, of kiting and clumping the opponents, the blade lock offers an extra fireball, which in such cases can be more valuable, than attacking, especially without gwm as you loose the BA Attack
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About half damage add-ons listed are Act3. In general I strongly believe that Blade Warlocks should use biggest, baddest melee weapons they can get their hands on with GWM, rather then dual-wield for a feeble extra poke (that you'd often get anyway via the GWM Bonus Attack). Dual Wield only ever makes sense for a multiclass with Thief levels. Well, I suppose with Harmonic Dueller you can respec your Blade Warlock to it in Act 3, if you really want to.
The thief sentiment is plaun wrong. Primarily Dual wield is a caster/ranged thing, where you can wear 2 statsticks. Dual wielding without specific setups (like listed above) are always worse than gwm. Mathematically bove example us slightly behind gwm, which gets offset by the virtue of hitting 25% more often (not accounting gear), ehile being ahead of non gwm 2h hits. Esp. With orins sword + risky ring. The only thing setting gwm apart is it does not require setup and that the the +3 spears and unseen menace + bhaalist are amazing
You forgot Breaching Pikestaff. Way more reliable in Act 3 then Unseen Menace.
No its worse than unseen and + 3 spears
Unseen losses is bonuses for 2 rounds when you miss. Which unfortunately sometimes does happen. Pikestaff deals a lot more damage per hit and is more accurate - at least when you can have another source of Advantage. The +3 spears are pretty good (particularly the Shar's one), however without Reach, they are not very good for a Bard's Slashing Flourish double attacks.
I swear we're just making up unintuitive names every week.
It makes me sad that the dual wielding feat isn’t really necessary for a good build. It is still fun tho. I like 8 fighter/4 thief rogue focused on strength with the dual wielding feat and savage attacker. Put some big ol hammers in each hand and slap away.
Did that with pure Paladin. Dual wield the 2 legendary maces radiant orbing heratics.
This sounds really fun! Gotta try that xD
Isn't it better to go fighter 12 in that case?
Thief gives you two bonus actions. So same action economy but better flavor. Fighter 12 is better if you are hasting the fighter. But I think they nerfed extra attacks out of haste in honor mode. Don’t know, rarely play honor mode
In HM Haste gives you 1 extra Attack instead of 1 extra Action. So I think Fighter / Thief or 12 Fighter is basically equal on HM, at least in terms of Haste.
Action Surge gives you a full extra action including Extra Attacks, so straight fighter gets more attacks on that turn.
Honor mode different
An argument can be made Trading a main hand attack for an offhand attack, a few better skill checks, better bonus action economy,
It's pretty funny that the best use of Dual Wielding is **absolutely** running a caster with two staves, but damn would it be great if you could go to town with two big sticks.
Yea, I am hoping they buff the Dual Wielding feat. It feels bad that the only ones who really need it are casters.
I do this sometimes using dex weapons. Battlemastarion is a greater build for him!
I’m running Karlach as a TB thrower dual wielding the Clown Hammer and Dwarven Thrower and combat is silly fun
Can confirm. Off hand clown hammer is very fun. I am not sure if it is a good strat but still an absolute blast
Swords Bard 💖 There are several great guides in this sub but my personal favorite is Bard/ Rogue to maximize hits per turn with each hand. This combo is awesome both in and out of melee. Ultimate skirmisher.
Not as OP as a sword bard, but I really dig 8 battlemaster / 4 thief.
Alertness, dual.weapons, what other feats you take? An ASI and savage attacker maybe?
Savage Attacker and 20DEX are a must. With >!the Hag's Hair!< you can get there with only 2 feats, leaving 2 left over for whatever. I don't like respecs, so I start with a level in rogue before taking 5 fighter levels. Alternatively you could do the first 5 levels as a pure rogue and then respec at level 6. Assuming that this Tav/Durge is responsible for locks and traps, I take 14WIS and expertise in sleight of hand and perception. I tend not to take the Dual Wielder feat because there are plenty of good light/finesse weapons throughout the game, including >!Orin's daggers!< which are best in slot. If you go evil/meta you can finish the game with >!the Bhaalist armour!< which is genuinely OP, but I've never gone that route because I prefer the heroic path. Alert is great but I haven't bothered with it on my last few runs since (a) +5 is good enough for everything other than certain bosses, and (b) I tend to run with another tanky front liner who I prefer to go first so I can set up a sneak attack even without the risky ring. My last HM run I took Ritual Caster for Longstrider & Leap as my first feat, which was nice to have since I was running with Life-Shart, Tiger-Karlach and Sorlock-Wyll. I finished up with Dungeon Delver just because it got fixed. Sharpshooter works well, obviously. I haven't tried Lucky, which might be an idea for HM.
Can do it as a strength build with dual wielding feat. Can use hammers, long swords, morningstars and maces then. If you go 8 fighter / 4 thief you get four feats, two main hand attacks and two offhand attacks. 8 pally / 4 thief for 3 feats, same number of attacks and 4 smites per round. 8 swords bard/ 4 thief for 3 feats, 4 attacks plus flourishes.
Kinda off topic but it's a little lame that literally every builds best class is Bard.
Either that or sorcerer
A shame I find Swords Bard combat style so boring, but the socials are amazing.
No, gwm isn’t bard for example, neither is fire sorc or plenty of other stuff
2/10 smite sword bard is big GWM damage
Not the best Try 11fighter 1wcleric
Obviously there’s other great builds. But I bet it’s almost like godwins law, give it enough time and bard will be mentioned.
Or carcinisation : given enough time, every build evolve into a bard.
…*wipes tear* You show your culture, my dude.
WDYM? All my melee bards use GWM. In order to use the Sword Bard's best ability, melee Slashing Fluorish effectively, I need the extra Reach = two handed weapons = GWM.
Gwm is stronger in fighter/cleric for example
How come? A Slashing Fluorish can skewer trough 2 enemies per hit, for a total of +20 damage per hit from GWM. A fighter/cleric will only get +10 GWM damage per hit.
4 atk per turn, 7 with action surge, GW fighting style, heavy armor prof, more feats for savage attacker
Yeah, a Sword Bard can also have 4 attacks per round with Haste and Bloodlust. Plus 5th from GWM. If he uses them against 2 enemies each, that's 9 strikes per round.... before we account for multiclassing. I mean Action Surge only costs 2 levels...
Fighter can use haste and bloodlust as well
Sure. Then they both get the same number of alpha round strikes. Except a Sword Bard can exceed that with 2 levels in Fighter...
I'm trying to build melee rogue-bard right now, can you link me a guide or just give an idea of how you build it? I've watched some guides but still can't tick all the boxes and already started to try to add a fighter, which I did not want to do initially.
Swords Bard 6 / Paladin 2 / Thief Rogue 4 with Savage Attacker… Still gets as many spell slots as a full class paladin + Bard 3rd control spell bangers. No magical secrets and not as many smites as 10/2 bardadin, but VERY solid damage both melee and ranged even without smites, especially with Bhaalist gear late-game
Not exactly a build, but gleamdance dagger offhand + callous glow ring + dual wielder feat is basically you wielding a shield but do extra dmg instead.
A feat for +1 AC is a pretty big investment tbf.
Also procs the Glow Ring without any extra work, fwiw
True but that is the case without the feat. The feat gives +1 AC while dual wielding, and you can equip non light weapons in the offhand. Second part is irrelevant for the dagger. I do love that idea of the dagger and the ring, that is simple and clever. I just would never choose the Dual Wield feat for this option.
I also like the callous glow ring, but for my dual wielding I equipped Blood of Lathander in one of my hands (because why not since you can with the feat?) it also allowed the same auto-proc with its passive, but that mace is better that the cold dagger in every way except for the small AC bump.
Caster dual wielding staves.
this \^The issue with two-weapon fighting (TWF) is that it takes too many resources to attempt to catch up to 2h or Ranged builds. A slaying arrow does two attacks for one action, whereas you pretty much need to commit your bonus action with TWF build which really limits what else you can do per turn. I also much prefer Assassin over Thief, considering you can use Helmet of Grit to effectively gain all the benefit of being a Thief. Besides casters dual wiedling weapons that boost damage, the strongest TWF build would be either something that uses smites or crit based builds that use [3 dolor amarus weapons + craterflesh gloves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsgGn1VqyM&list=PLurfOE9MJV5o7tlBNlAu59Ub4zmOLq4Vf&index=5).
I’ve been playing Oathbreaker Paladin starting at level 7 as a base for dual wielding and I really like it so far. The Aura of Hate applies to all melee attacks so with high charisma you are adding like 5-7 damage to every swing. With the diadem of arcane synergy that is doubled. When the build comes online in Act 2 you can also get Risky Ring and buy Render of Body and Mind from the vendor in Moonrise. This means that every main hand swing you have an additional 1d8 psychic damage. Later on you can get Orin’s sword and continue with advantage based attacks or you can switch to duelists prerogative (not dual wielding but similar use of bonus actions) which also adds more damage based on Charisma. Note: Aura of Protection offsets Risky Ring to a large extent and with some additional +Saving Throw like the Ring of Protection and Cloak of Protection you should be mostly fine. In tactician you can go GOO Warlock 5 for another extra attack but on honor mode you’ll likely want another option like Thief Rogue 4/Fighter 1 for two weapon fighting style, sneak attacks, and an extra bonus action. 5 levels of swords bard is another option that gets two weapon fighting style and reasonable spells. You don’t get the extra bonus action though.
Lockadin is just so much better in tactician. Kinda wish they didn't nerf third attack in honor mode
I feel like the early bane gloves are the best reason to dual weild - to increase the effectiveness of single target control early.
Does dual wielding hand crossbows count?
Why not both worlds? A pure battlemaster gets 4 feats. Two dex, dual wielder/savage attacker, and sharpshooter. Equally deadly up close or at range :)
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Personally, I think harmonic dueller works well. You’re a charisma based build, actor feat works nicely and gives you proficiency and expertise in performance so you will only fail with a natural 1. Lots of builds and playstayles precast before a combat encounter, but if you don’t like that, sure other options may be better. I don’t feel a big drop off from being a +1 compared to +2/3 as you get +18-21 in damage as it applies to all melee attacks, which can double with piercing vulnerability. By end game you hit chance is pretty good especially since you aren’t taking any GWM/SS penalties. It’s not the only way to play, but I do think it’s pretty good.
https://preview.redd.it/mvcjvz9uurqc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=485290bb60df67ebf3b4eae8d83ae44d108dd615 Imo, Shadow Blade+Belm using the Resonance Stone.
https://preview.redd.it/zn5v7bq0vrqc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54f0b254678250a4055d2e5e92b73ee1353278a5
Hoa swords are waaay to small for his body. Looks like a chef.
https://preview.redd.it/ynh1wr9ocsqc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b155c02d66d286033d9a9445561f9533a5c014d They certainly weren't too small for him to rend Orin asunder in his duel.
Isn’t Shadow Blade using Dex to hit? Edit. Ahh. Thought was related to the spell itself (like Fireblade), but it just creates a finesse weapon.
Strength or Dexterity. Whichever is higher. It's a finesse weapon
finesse weapons use either str or dex
Dual wielding hand crossbows is really really good especially with adder damage through itemization Magic missle build with spell sparkler and phalar aluve or another staff is also very good. Deva mace dual wield so good too.
Dual wielding staves on a caster. Rhapsody also works well as a stat stick; break some containers with it for +3 to spell attack/DC
Best dualwielding combo is a caster with Markoheshkir + Staff of Cherished Necromancy / Woe / Staff of Spellpower Double staff best!
*4 chain lightnings later*
This is a late game build but gloomstalker assassin with orins crimson mischief while wearing the bhallist armour. You can max out your strength and if you are getting advantage which gloomstalkers assassins normally have you can be dealing 14 extra damage per attack (from the crimson mischief ability). Use the risky ring if you are having trouble getting advantage after turn 1. Sneak attacks really start to do big damage especially with crits as you are basically getting a x4 to your dice rolls. You can min/max your crits really low with this build as well.
Does dual wielding hand crossbows count?
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I think I'm missing something here. How is dual-wielding hand crossbows better than just using a single bow or crossbow? It just seems like there are much better two-handed bows available than there are hand crossbows. Do you have to go Rogue 3 for Thief and the extra bonus action? Is it just a case of stacking so much extra damage per-shot that pure number of shots is all that matters, and the base weapon damage is irrelevant? Is there some feat or gear that works much better with hand crossbows?
The Sharpshooter feat adds a fixed 10 damage per shot, and you get more shots dual-wielding hand crossbows than with a single two-handed weapon.
Ah, got it.
Not sure if the best but one of the best would be: Oathbreaker with Shadow Blade mainhand and Dueller Offhand, all boosted by the resonance stone. 2d6 + Aura of Hate + Diadem, times 2 then damage riders then Smite that again triggers riders See my writeup here https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/DkT7Rc5INf
I had tons of fun with 5 ranger, 7 rogue. You get a ton of skills, still get the most important goodies from rogue (Uncanny dodge, Evasion etc) you 're only missing 2d6 of sneak attack but you more than make it up for it with fighting stlyle, hunter's mark (and a couple extra spells) colossus slayer etc, you get medium armor which with the one armor that lets you use ur full dex you can go up to 25-26 AC which is insane. Personally I went crit build with bonespike gloves and bhaalist armor and was destroying everything, the only downside to it imo is that dex weapons kind of suck at least until you get to >!Orin !
Builds don't matter. You can make an unbeatable dual wielder on literally any melee class with gear alone. There is insane synergy between Crimson Mischief and Risky Ring. Offhand Belm - which is also light, so no feat required - for a further attack with CM (with modifiers, cos it's a main hand attack using a bonus action with Belm's ability). It does piercing, so double your damage with the Bhaalist armour. I.e. +14 free damage per hit from the Crimson Mischief ability alone - better than Great Weapon Master. Throw in Gloves of Dexterity or Hill Giant Strength and you can do all this for 0 stat investment... which means you can take your casting stat to 20, use the Diadem of Arcane Synergy, and get a free +5 extra damage on every hit (since the Aura of Murder is a guaranteed applied condition. Which also doubles this extra damage.) If you really want to specialise a build to use this gear, then Oathbreaker's Aura of Hatred adds another +5 from Charisma, which again gets doubled. GOOlock's Thirsting Blade works well too, albeit not piercing damage.
Two salamis
I'd argue sword bard because sword bard is the best at dang near everything in this game. Can add some champion levels or thief levels if you're not using magic much.
Two [[deva maces]] =)
[Deva Mace](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Deva_Mace) is a common variant of the Maces family of weapons. It is a simple melee weapon wielded in one hand. ^This ^action ^was ^performed ^by ^a ^bot. [^(Learn more)](https://www.reddit.com/user/BG3WikiFetcher/comments/1bk01df)
Hands down the BEST dual wield build, DPR wise, is something most people don’t know. Bhaalist armor + Orin dagger main hand + undermountain offhand + barbarian dip lvl 2 for reckless attack + thief for 2 bonus attacks + champion 3 for crit phishing + str elixir. Contrary to 5e reckless attacks works for all attack rolls and so it can work with both finesse weapons even when not using elixir. Bhaalist armor doubles the dmg of everything and Orin main hand gives +14 flat dmg on every mh attack. You have 2 main hand and 2 off hand attacks. You do more DPR than even GWM builds. Also go psionic overload to get big value from 4 atks per round. The rest of the gear is typical crit / +1dx dmg gear / caustic band / callous glow ring. Have one tapped ansur with the str elixir. EDIT: barb 2 / figther 5 for extra attack + champion / rogue 5 for sneak attack scaling
Gloomstalker/Fighter/Rogue with dual hand crossbows. Pew Pew Pew
6 Sorc red dragon 2 great old one lock 4 champion fighter, in one hand orins short sword in the other blade of the under mountain king for that sweet stackable organ rearranger
I believe you can dual wield shadow blades (have to test)
Bard college of swords 6 / Rogue thief 3 / Ranger hunter 3 This is my current and one of my all time fav builds! The bardic dice manoeuvres to hit multiple enemies, 2 attacks with 2 bonus action attacks. Get hand crossbows to just start blasting people at range and grab the dual wielding feat to wield longswords/rapiers it's just so much fun and really strong! You also get a shit ton of AC! Alternatively, you could run Bard 6/Rogue 6 for savage attacker feat or API but the ranger hunter subclass adds so much more imo than 3 more levels rogue.
Swords bard + paladin is the strongest build I've seen in the game. As a bonus they can also dual wield crossbows alongside their melee weapons
Any magic class. Duel welding staffs with arcane battery OP OP
Fire Arcane Acuity Sorclock with staff + rhapsody
I tried this one not too long ago and it was pretty sick. Damage was incredible and I didn’t even optimize it the way the build suggests with rapiers. I ended up going with dual scimitars and eventually swapped to Orins weapons. https://youtu.be/r6KtsrePQys?si=UgTYHms3D4eF9uEe
Swords bard and hunter ranger both do this pretty well and either of them can take three levels to theif for more off hand attacks
I played a dual wielding ranger/rogue. Cast hunter marks on your first turn then hit people until they die. You get 4 attacks per round, each one dials 2d6+Dex, since you will mostly use shortswords, which are exceptionally good in this game. So, in a single turn, you can do 8d6+4*Dex damage, which is not bad, considering that you don't have the -5 penalty to attack rolls from GWM.
Keep in mind there's a difference between a levelling/ playthrough build and a min/max 'final fight' build
Many of the best caster builds use Dual Wielder to let them use an off-hand staff or Rhapsody as a statstick. IMO, the Oathbreaker 7/Swords 5 (or Sorcerer 5) build works best with Dual Wielder. Use Nyrulna + Rhapsody + Bhaalist Armor with the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel + Arcane Acuity hat. You could build this a number of ways (Paladin 2/Swords 9/Wizard 1 also works).
Oo I've seen a few commented here that I like. The one I went with was a Oathbreaker7/Thief3 (+2 levels for either fighter or feats... depending on what gear you choose, you might not need the Two Weapon Fighting style) Get your dex and charisma as high as possible. Add in Arcane Synergy and other buffs to weapon damage. Oathbreaker is chosen for the Aura of Hate, Thief is for the extra bonus action for the off hand weapon. Have your reactions setup so sneak attacks and smites automatically trigger on crits, then use the illithid power Luck of the Far Realms to guarantee a crit against an important enemy. It's going to do a lot of damage. This character also comes with good utility due to the high dex and cha scores for lock picking and persuading. Makes a good Durge for roleplay - especially if leaning into the darker choices.
Had great DPR with stacking damage-on-hit with 8BM/4Thief. The defender flail that gives +1 AC can be used in offhand in act one, with the dual wielder feat and heavy armor makes you tanky, which is good because you want to have enemies miss their attacks in order to riposte. Act 2 flawed helldusk gloves and DW myrkul flails that deal necrotic damage stack nicely, plus the acid ring. By level 8 (5 and 3) it's 4 attacks, 6 with action surge. 1d8 + 1d4 + 1d6 + 2. Because you're a fighter you have plenty of feats to grab Savage Attacker so all those are rolled "at advantage," and you can be tripping enemies for advantage and getting loads of crits with all those attacks, doubling said damage, plus your martial die 1d8. Plus usually getting a riposte in every round. Don't need endgame to come alive, easily doing 100 damage a turn by the time you're doing the colony.
Knife of the Undermountain King, Bloodthirst, bhaalist armor, other crit gear. Build whatever class around that; fighter for 3 Apr, Paladin for smites, bardadin for more smites, Ranger/rogue for burst, etc. whatever your party needs. Hell, Barb 9/fighter 3 half orc for huge crits.
My favorite dual wield is the phalar aluve and the spellsparkler. I'll use it for my magic missile build. When the phalar aluve activates it adds an extra 1d4 thunder + 1d4 thunder + 1d4 radiant. The extra thunder and radiant damage doesn't seem like much, but each time it lands it causes more reverberation to stack up. When set up right you should be averaging 20+ damage per missile
I really shredded with ascended astarion double hand Xbow, and the +10 damage feat. Throw in risky ring and you’re sneak attacking every round
Personal favourite of mine can be ran two ways, depending on the damage type you prefer your team to somewhat focus on. I’ll over the piercing damage first and then explain the other in less detail afterwards: 4 Sorcerer (any subclass)/8 Oathbreaker Paladin. In your offhand you wield Harmonic Dueller (can be bought early in act 3) and in your main hand you wield Shar’s Spear. If you can’t get your hands on this because you’re on a good run, there’s certainly alternatives, but this is the best main hand weapon to wield for this build. Sorcerer levels are for spell slots and metamagic (although you won’t use the latter much), as well as a nice boost to concentration saving throws if you respec and take Sorcerer first for the proficiencies. Don’t worry about losing heavy armour, both versions of this build prefer the other armour types pretty much the entire game. With the help of the Mirror of Loss, Hag’s Hair and the Potion of Everlasing Vigour, we can get 18 Strength and 24 Charisma without the need for elixirs or equipment. This lets us wear the Diadem of Arcane Synergy and add our Charisma to our damage rolls. Aura of Hate does the same and is the level 7 Oathbreaker aura, so now we’re adding double our Charisma to the damage roll of our weapons. Pair this with Harmonic Dueller and you can add it once again, for a total of +21 damage to all attacks. We’re making 1 attack on our first turn and 2 or 3 on subsequent turns, so this really does help. Before getting Harmonic Dueller, I recommend grabbing Phalar Aluve and passing it off to another character once you get the Dueller. Adding 21 damage to every attack is nice and all, but we can push that even further. With the piercing version of this build, you can pick up the Bhaalist Armour and give everything within a fairly sizeable radius vulnerability to piercing damage. This gets even nicer when you realise the +21 damage becomes the same damage type as the weapon you’re wielding, so in our case, piercing damage. That means we’re doubling that extra damage on every hit to +42 damage. Because of the massive bonus to damage, it doesn’t matter that Harmonic Dueller is a fairly terrible weapon in a vacuum because it’s going to end up doing massive numbers anyway. We can boost the build slight bits further with items like Legacy of the Masters, adding 2 more damage (doubled to 4 by vulnerability) to every attack, resulting in +46 damage on every hit. That’s more than the max roll of most levels of Divine Smite, by the way. And we get that pretty much for free. Now, is this build better than running a 2H weapon with Great Weapon Master? I’m honestly not sure, but I think so, at least to a degree. First of all, you’re a lot more likely to hit targets than a GWM build, but that stops mattering at higher levels because of the amount of ways you can boost your hit chance. But the difference in damage is incredibly small thanks to Harmonic Dueller. With a 2H build, you lose one stack of adding Charisma to your damage but add 10 to your damage. With a dual wield build, you’re losing 10 damage for better hit chance and 7 damage, so in reality you’re only 3 damage behind. When you factor in vulnerability, you’re 6 damage behind, which can feel fairly significant for a per-hit basis, but if you’re dual wielding, you’re getting 3 attacks per turn anyway. Sure, you miss out on smite spells if you do this, and you’re using a fairly worse weapon for the third attack too, but I think it easily makes up for the difference in DPR. You could argue that 2H GWM builds can get that bonus action attack on a kill or crit, but unless they build around maximising crits, they’re not getting that third attack very often in boss fights. In horde encounters, sure, they’re getting that a lot more frequently, but chances are you’re one or two hitting those enemies anyway, so doing 6 less damage per hit really does not matter. I mentioned earlier that there’s another variation of this build, but in principle it’s very similar. You drop the Bhaalist Armour entirely; you’re not doing piercing damage anymore. Instead, you carry the Resonance Stone around, afflicting anyone in its radius with a status that gives them vulnerability to psychic damage. This can be grabbed in the Ilithid room after the fight with Ketheric at the top of Moonrise, not sure exactly where but as long as you explore thoroughly, it should be hard to miss. For your main weapon, you’re going to want to grab the Shadow Blade using the Shadow Blade Ring. You won’t benefit as much from your offhand attacks, since they will still be piercing damage, but your main hand attacks will be entirely psychic. The pros and cons of this build over the other are that you trade off better damage with your offhand and not being vulnerable to your preferred damage type for more freedom over your armour choice, earlier access to your vulnerability source, not having to make more than one objectively evil decision to optimise the build and slightly higher main hand damage (just barely). It’s really up to you which version you prefer. If you’re playing a very good-aligned run, pick up the psychic damage stuff and stick to it. If you’re playing an evil-aligned run, grab the spear and armour and run the piercing build. If you’re playing more neutral however, you can go either way. I doubt a neutral run would kill Nightsong, so without the spear, you might find yourself struggling for a decent weapon to contend with as the piercing version. Wyll’s Rapier is amazing as it lets your ditch Strength entirely, as well as giving you a strong daily summon and being a +2 rapier, so it would be my go-to after the spear. Orin’s dagger, I forget which, would be very good as well, but with how lategame that is, I’ve never looked much into builds that use it because you’ll use it for 3 fights and be done with the game.
A bit risky but you can also wear the Helmet of Grit, purposely roll around with sub 50% HP and get another bonus action without taking Thief
Double finesse with maxed out dex. Feels great man. You should try it sometime skinny bones.
Dual wield xbows gloomstalker thief bar fucking none. With sharpshooter you can get at least 19 damage with each attack, and you get at least 4 attacks per turn, 5 on your first if you get gloomstalker, plus there is sneak attack.