@@Vyndyka his pillars take double force damage. Disintegrate 1 hit kills them. Though tbh a sorlock can do it with eldritch blast even better. But hey if you got spare scrolls of disintegrate which are pretty easy to find in ramazith's tower then anyone in your party can 1 hit kill a soul tower.
Chain Lightning can also be twinned with sorcerers. And if you use freecast to cast a spell, you can also use metamagic for free. So Markoheshkir + Tempest 2 + Wet + Twinned = Win
I did Tempest 2/Evocation Wizard 10 so I could learn 6th level spells, use Summons, and have Tempest Channel Divinity to maximize the 3 free Chain Lightning spells per day with Markoheshkir
For the Deva you can wear the Abyss beckoners and it gains Resistance to every type of dmg, making it into a good tank as well as decent damage. It can't fail the saving throw for madness with 20 wisdom and proficiency and whatever it has. Best summon ally strat imo.
This is super niche, but I did find a use for Disintegrate late game. There's a staff you can get in Act 3 which lets you cast any spell without expending a slot. There's also an Ilithid power which does the same. On a sorcerer with twinned spell and quickened spell, and/or with haste/bloodlust elixirs you can potentially fire 6 of these off in a single turn. Thats enough to shred through some bosses with high HP or, in some fights with several powerful casters with low HP that are spread around the arena so you can't just AoE burst them with ice storm or whatnot, this can be a great way of just nuking out a massive chunk of the encounter's enemy HP pool. That being said, I totally agree with your assessment overall, you have to work pretty dang hard to get good mileage out of it. And MISSING a shot and being out a 6th level slot that just did sweet FA for you is incredibly disappointing. Great video, anyway! Looking forward to the honor mode content
I like to use desintegrate as a scroll to destroy some things in act 3, like the locked doors in the iron throne, because my high dex characters where ocupied with other stuff in the area.
There are actually 2 staffs, one from the Tower and one from the House. Also - yes, using haste, freecast and quickened spell I managed to simply MELT some of the final bosses' faces off in a single turn. Turns out giant brains have really low dex save, who would have thought.
Breaking boss encounters with Otto's irresistible dance is so much fun. In my tactician run I just had raphael dance himself to death and it completely broke the encounter.
Had Otto's Irresistable Dance on a scroll and it saved my fight against Saverok, lol. It was also hilarious watching this very serious edgelord, full of malice and evil, dancing. But stopping him from doing anything for a turn was just enough time for my Karlach to recover from lethargy due to her speed poiton ending, and then ending the fight on her next turn. Great series! Enjoyed hearing your reasoning behind each spell.
fun fact each bolt of chain ligthning wil only hit one enemy if the enemies are to far awey from each other so it can do a ton of dmg to a single enemy instead of spreading the dmg across enemies
If a target is large enough enemies don't even need to be far away. I've had it do 300-500 damage on single targets in one blast despite being near their allies.
another good turn based series to checkout is dragon age! not as in depth as bg3 but its a great one with a fun story and some cool characters and to boot those games a dirt cheap now
Just wanted to let you know your analysis has been very useful! Finally beat the game. Did it more or less blind on honor mode. Absorbed a few tips like using globe of invulnerability from watching your videos, but more important than anything like what rank a spell is, it's your in depth commentary on what makes a spell useful. Watched them all, and it really changed the way I analyzed situations in game. Looking forward to more!
Eyebite panicked is actually GOATED for builds with ice terrain or death clouds like mosquito swarm or wall of ice because enemies will run straight into your traps which if you have the staff of cherished necromancy means you can make people run to their deaths over and over and over
Also ive had fun casting freezing spheres with scrolls waiting 9 turns, casting mage hand and create water and letting mage hand throw the spheres at enemies dealing huge damage while not wasting any of my teams actions
Sunbeam is one of the best scrolls in the game. Two levels in evocation wizard and you can just blind most of act 3 which is already crazy strong, and then you can stack radiating orb if you want. Throw this on a 10 eldritch knight, 2 evocation wizard and you should be able to sunbeam and attack in one turn with free constitution saving throw proficiency. Its fantastic as a scroll, much less so as a 6th level spell slot
I think you're undervaluing Chain Lightning a bit personally, lightning is easily the easiest damage type to build around; only Ansur is a problem with it. You can buy a massive supply of chain lightning scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries and absolutely go off. I kind of build around it in my most recent playthrough. Pure sorcerer, blue dragon ancestry draconic bloodline, Elemental adept lightning, and Markoheshikir, then just maxed out on equipment and buffs that let me deal the most. Drinking a speed potion and then firing off two twinned Chain Lightnings to start a combat was INSANE. In the final battle I melted all of the guardians off the map on my first turn and had dealt 130ish damage to the Dragon before any of my allies had even moved. It feels so good
The same way you suggested that people go in-game and cast "Haste" to see how good it is, I urge you to give "Sweetplum Gales" from the Djinni a go. The "Restricted" condition being 1 turn on a 15 CONS save, means that creatures caught inside the radius of the spell must do the CONS save or remain inside the area, which will then force them to do another CONS save the next turn. The reason why it is 1 turn of "Restricted" is so that the system will not impose a 10 Turn (or Concentration break) on a creature that is "shoved out" of the area by Thunderwave or the likes. I've cast this on Mindflayers, Spectators and most Humanoids and I've never seen them do the Constitution Save after being caugh inside the Gale (not sure if this is intended). The best part is that you can have 2 or more areas of Gales (again, not sure if this is intended or a bug), which I believe makes this spell consistently good, and sometimes amazingly life saving. Works great with "Call Lightning".
Hope you had a good trip. I hope that future patches and maybe an expansion will give us more content including spells. Patch 5 seems to have given a new party and other content. As far as the spells, yeah the Chain Lightning is crazy. It's possible to have Create Water, then Twin Chain Lightning and maybe with Haste (and a Staff that allows the user to not use a Spell Slot), Twin another Chain Lightning for a Total of 4 Chain Lightnings.
These are great man. Dont worry about views, they will come in time with more popularity of BG3 + DLCs. I think a guide for basics in BG3 like what is AC, how do you get extra actions and how do you move attacks into bonus actions. How does stealth work in BG3? What to craft? Best items that are very simple to get stuff like that. I dont know AC does or i dont really know how the damage on spells/attacks its calculated except the modifier from str +3 for example is added to the weapon but maybe there is more, like a combo of attacks or things like this. Basic stuff people love and trust me 99% of BG3 players are clueless.
Hey thanks so much for this series! As someone who has never played tabletop OR anything in the bg series, it has been very helpful. Even though we get descriptions, the examples of how it actually works in-game really brought me up to speed. E.g., I’m in act 3 of my first playthrough and just leaning what arcane acuity is for lol I’ll definitely be watching more of your content!
Seriously good content. Found ur channel weeks ago on my first playthrough with no idea what was happening. You break it all down better than everyone else and have got me keen for my first try on tactician soon
I appreciate your videos and how they are largely spoiler free information. I notice how you purposely leave out details for certain things regarding the story and game breaking cheese methods. I played about 30 hours of early early access and only just now replaying the game with the latest honor mode patch. I've lost many playthroughs already but, your guides have been crucial, and I get better every run. I find it quite fun!
I do want to say thank you so much for these videos, I’m sure I’ve spent way to long watching all of these but my first play through of bg3 was so scuffed that I want to do it again. I made it to act 3 at level 7, missed a ton of content, and just got stuck, too weak for most encounters and chose horrible spells to waste my slots on. Now armed with new knowledge and how the game actually functions I’m looking forward to doing a second full play through and these guides have helped me figure out how I want to go about that.
Thank you very much so for your videos! I just finished my second playthrough and I was waiting for your spell tier list videos all the time as I was playing. Your videos were very helpful and some of the spells I might have missed if not for them. Fear was something I picked up from your earlier video and I ended up winning many battles because of it. 6th level spell wise I think globe of invulnerability is op, maybe even makes the fights too boring. Keep up the good work! I like your perceptive, insightful and well argumented views. PS. I think longstrider is an s tier spell. My half illithid flying open hand monk destroyed enemies with its amazing movement range. Very often I needed the extra yards from longstrider.
I’ve literally already watched two other 6th-level spell tier lists, but as soon as I saw your upload, I rushed over. I watched those other ones just to wait for yours XD
I used a globe of invulnerability scroll on the portal when Halsin went into the Shadowfell and it was one of the best gameplay moments of Act 2. Saved me such a headache since the majority of the shadows and other mobs target the portal.
AMA question: Are you planning to diversify what you call your "dry educational material"? Maybe something along the lines of "The first things I do in each act" or "The toughest parts of the game and what I do to prepare"? Love the tier lists and best item content though, looking forward to the best items in act 3 video!
Great video. One contrary thought: Disintegrate has a use case against the Netherbrain. The NB had 10 Dex and this is a Dex save. On Honor mode you have to cycle through different types of damage. Curr of Strat may be better for most enemies for Force damage but there are no scrolls for that and you can only cast it once per short rest. If you have scrolls for a lot of 6th level spells like Globe of inv or Disintegrate then I think this would be a good option for the NB.
Chain Lightning should be the highest DPS output in spell My build is: Dragon Sorc Lightning (extra lightning damage at level 6), Elemental adept lightning (ignore resistance), Lightning Charges, Marko with Kereska Favour to boost it up, Wet enemy, Twinned Spell Metamagic. So that is full blast high DPS 8 (YES EIGHT) target lightning spell. So in one LONG REST, you will have 2 Chain Lightning from metamagic, 4 from Marko (1 Arcane battery, 3 from short rest). So that is total of 24 High dps target spell. There is a reason why this spell is unavailable in Warlock
For wall of ice, you don't need to waste anything to trigger the second damage instance. You can just click the little button that you're concentrating on it to stop concentrating. You can do this even outside your turn. And I believe but not am not certain that even after broken the cloud breaks vision, like fog cloud. Alternatively, I think if you cast a fire spell, it creates water that gets targets wet again. And then a lightning spell to electrify the water.
I really need to play through honor mode so I can truly appreciate these later spells. Playing tactician and not using any specific rules, I'm so stacked with scrolls by the end I can basically cast almost anything with any caster whenever, and I actually refrain myself from casting globe of invulnerability so I can at least experience end game bosses instead of just slaughtering them
Has anyone ever thought of creating a group full of necromancers? -Wizard 12 (School of Necromancy) -Druid 12 (Circle of Spores) -Cleric 12 (Trickery? For advantage) -Paladin 8/Warlock 4 (Oath of the Ancients? Summons will take zero/half damage from the spells and they will receive +6/+7 for each save
Disintegrate is my favorite spell because it just makes you feel like a god of magic, pointing at someone and saying "your subscription to life has expired"
Heyyyyy folks! I enjoyed every single video that you posted on BG3 man. Thanks for the info and...GUIDANCE...on the spells/classes. The most experience I have with these sorts of RPG systems is the KOTOR games. My ABSOLUTE favorites.
i have found that at lvl 11 you can cast 3 6th level spells per long rest 1 from your spell slot 1 from the Staff of Spellpower or Markoheshkir (arcane Battery) and 1 from the Spellcrux Amulet which allows you to restore 1 spellslot regardless of level. This is why i like Desintegrate dealing around 75 damage with it can really help if you have to focus an enemy down basically half living them from the start of combat opens up a lot of options.
difference with blade barrier and wall of fire is that it actually works like wall where it blocks all LoS projectiles/casts for enemies behind it and it's invulnerable unlike stone wall
Planar ally is god tier. That spell single handed ou got me through the game. You can double cast it and have two 100+hp minions ready to go before the fight even begins. It’s crazy the value.
In my multiplayer playthrough my bard picks mostly spells that are in character so for my first Lv6 spell it HAD to be Otto's irresistable dance and it's hilarious fun. The rest of her arsenal tends to be psychological/crowd control spells, There's lots of fun to be had from just playing the game straight and not worrying about optimising 'builds' for maximum win efficiency.
Between the ilithid powers, free casts from staffs, free spell slot from the warden neclace you should be getting 3-4 casts of 6th level spells per rest unless you dont use them for some reason. Thats assuming you dont abuse the mechanics like the necro staff.
Yeah, thats why they stopped at level 12. Its difficult enough to consider and implement all the effects and interactions of the existing spells, the difficulty increases exponentially for each level afterwards.
we'll seed what dlc they have on offer if any. If you notice, the game does keep track of character xp after 12lvl even if the bar doesn't show. Seems like a future proof mechanic in the event they give us higher levels to play through.
I had a funny fight in the house of grief where I made a chokepoint on the stairs you come down to the hall where I cast blade barrier with shadowheart and wall of fire with gale. A lot of sharrans walked into a crispy death that day.
AMA question: Who was your favorite character to play as at a table, to have been played at your table, and to have written? And what made each of them so interesting?
AMA Question: What do you think about items/gear (magical or non-magical) for players, for BG3, but also for tabletop? I also DM and always wonder how to balance items/gear. Also, specifically for BG3, if you do *not* take any magical gear in BG3, what party build would you go for? Thanks for all the cool content!
I mean, Disintegrate on scrolls isn't really what you're measuring for your tier list but it was the keystone of my Honor Mode strategy to beat the final boss, which A) does not drop loot, B) rewards limiting your damage type in a turn, and C) has a bad Dex save. So there is at least that use case for it.
Yeah! Sorcerer is one of my favorite classes and still one of the best classes in the game. In my current Honour Mode run I playing a Wizard with a Sorcerer dip and (assuming I complete the run) I plan on posting the whole thing to this channel. Its pretty easy to cheat Honour Mode, so I wanted a full, unedited run as proof that I did it without cheating.
AMA Question: Favorite movie/tv show scene? Love your content btw and appreciate it a lot that you're fostering a space for discussions and theory crafting. Keep up the good work and take care!
Interesting you would put chain lighting in s tier. Get the staff from sorcerer sundries and give it your tempest cleric. Using bolts of doom can cast chain lightning and thunderbolt once a short rest. Combine with the wet condition and and destructive wrath and you will do 160 damage (half on save) to 5 targets. Ive used this to completely nuke cazador before, ending his fight in1 turn.
@@Aestus_RPG Of course! It's nice hearing you explain with good detail the strengths of these things with experience to back it up! Excited to see future videos :]
Man i cant wait til i know the game well enough to do the hardcore rules. Im still in act 1 but ive taken probably 19 long rests and ive been playing for about 45 hours
Important mention about planar ally: (idk if you can still pull it off in current version of the game) Deva's mace is 1d6 bludgeoning + 4d8 radiant dmg. The trick is to somehow loot it from the summon for yourself. It does not have +3 to attack rolls which makes it a bit inaccurate (tho humble paralysed status abusers do not care about attack rolls). So, if it's still possible, this spell should be moved to S. And globe should be moved to "legally banned" tier. Because there is no way any spell in the game can be in the same tier as globe. There are globe scrolls everywhere in act 3 and this spell insta-wins any fight
Sorry to hear you aren’t doing any more Tactician videos! I was hoping you’d throw us noobs a bone and talk about techniques: spell selection, positioning, how to raise to-hit chance, etc. Dare I hope you’ll do something similar for Honour?
Honestly, I think you'll find switching over to honor won't change my videos that much. I already assumed no-reload, which is half of what makes honour difficult. The other big changes have to do with specific mechanics: Haste nerfed, Elixir of Bloodlust nerfed, Warlock multiclass nerfed, etc. But it should be easy to see filters those things out if you play Tactician.
@@Aestus_RPG You seem to presume I know what I’m doing in Tactician!😂 I’m just flailing through my first Tactician playthrough now. I was just hoping for tips on how to play better, rather than just relying on luck. Your tier videos have helped in terms of which spells I go for, though, so thanks for that!
@@JosieJOKlet me boldly speak on Aestus behalf and say the answer is implicitly in these videos, that is your choice should optimally utilize your resources (action, concentration slot, spell slots/maneuvers/sorceror points/other refreshing resources, bonus action, movement speed, reaction, in descending order of value), towards cancelling enemy turns, by which you successfully complete a fight. To elaborate, in each fight you should find the most (cancelled-enemy-turn-value ➗ your effort) efficient paths. Before fight, you should choose firstly the fight deciding spells such as hold person/haste/fear, because once hit, the enemy already has less actions, and you can quickly cancel more by trivial attacks. Once these "build defining" spells are chosen, you then choose spells/maneuvers/etc that utilizes the rest of the resources (counterspell/reposte for reaction, spiritual weapon for bonus action, chromatic orb/lightning bolt for action but no concentration, etc) not competing with your primary spells. Also before fight, organize your feats and equipments. For tactician mode you need feats and equipments to align, e.g. the glove that grants attack advantage and savage attack feat for melee attackers, the clothe that grants constitution saving throw for your concentration spell casters, etc (also should be aware how melee/range/spell hit-rate is calculated). Your hit chance comes fundamentally from this. Once you have the above ready, in-fight decisions are kind of natural. In general, do those things you build around, say battle masters and paladins should stay close to prioritized targets and make as many focused attacks as possible. Supports/controls with low AC should stay and spread on high ground to avoid attacks, because the best way to maintain concentration is to not get hit. Also utilize obstacles so that you can utilize your movement (to come out and shoot, then go back behind wall to waste enemy turns on running towards you). Surely you have the general sense of these if you can pass a normal run, just push for a bit more extreme in tactician. Wooh, your question actually allows me to write these down for future reference if someone asks. Feel free to ask for more specifics.
Circle of death is the very definition of a roleplay spell and it doesn’t deserve anything higher than that. Its purpose in tabletop is that it’s basically the death star, just a really easy way for a villain to flex their power with some green lasers. It isn’t meant to be used against players, only weak NPCs. Even with the staff, the radius isn’t enough to justify the horrible damage for a sixth level spell-plus it targets con for the save, which most enemies will have a lot of, so you can’t expect it to hit for the full 8d6 half the time.
5 Months later, I check in, just to say that you are vastly underestimating Blade Barrier. It does a bit of everything that other Wall Spells do, like it adds Difficult Terrain like Wall of Thorns, it deals consistent damage like Fire Wall, but what is often overlooked is that it counts as a physical obstacle, but an indestructible one, so it can block ANY kind of projectile, it breaks Line of Sight, breaks AoE damage, prevent jumping effects like Arrow of Many Targets or Chain Lightning. Position it right in front of Viconia and she won't be able to cast Wayward Heart until she goes through it. Put it right in front of the Dominated Red Dragon and he won't be able to use Draconic Wrath on ground level targets because the Blades will block it off. If you can Maim a target inside the Barrier, it will keep taking massive damage every turn while being able to only target one side of the fight, so you can do stuff like isolating Raphael from the rest of the fight, and he won't even be able to retaliate. And since it's a Cleric Spell, it's only competing with Planar Ally, Harm, Heal, Create Undead and Heroes' Feast, the only real competing one being Feast, but it is also a Druid Spell, and Druids won't be casting much in Wild Shape, so Feast is their job anyways.
Well, you can block Raphael with any wall if you evacuate the room, and its quite cheaper :D All the demons will fly to carnage but he cannot get thru it and is too stupid to break it. Yet i didnt play high difficulty, maybe he can fly there?
I gotta jump right in and say Create Undead deserves B tier. Action economy always benefits greatly from an additional source of damage to mop-up weakened foes. More importantly though, that mummy has a ton of health, esp. with Aid, and will waste a number of enemy turns before dying.
Chain lighting is SS+ tier. No contest. Unlike the rest, you can get a lot of chain lighting scrolls per attempt from looting the vender from the tower in act 3.
AMA Question colon and then put down your question: How would you evaluate BG3 as a sequel? Is it a worthy successor to BG1 and 2, both in terms of mechanics but, especially in terms of narrative? What would you have wanted to have been done differently as a sequel?
I 100% believe you did wall of thorns dirty, it only deals very slightly less damage than blade barrier but JUST LIKE blade barrier (and unlike you stated in the video) they take damage from wall of throns every turn and generally speaking (magical) piercing damage is slightly less resisted than slashing, but more importantly is the massive width of 4m, the entangling AND the quartered movemenet speed making it the best AoE Terrain spell in the game , casting this b4 shapeshifting into a myrmidon or owlbear is definetly very efficient as a strategy
I didn't ever use wall of blades but then I locked Gortash into a corner while blind, burning, and bleeding with a wall of blades just shredding him 😂 it was very satisfying
I feel like your undervaluing summons, espc. W/arcane battery that you can pass around. I was running around with 16 summons 1 greater elemental, 1 minor elemental, and an undead on each party member plus the dance macbe, plus a deva. With aid or hero’s feast that’s like 1000 extra hp, even if they only avg 10 dmg a round (usually more) that’s 1600 dmg a round to dish out before your party. Last battle was cake.
I don't think I am. In the scenario you described, you had a lot of summons. How much heavy lifting is one of those summons doing? That is what I have to answer for the spell tier list, and its difficult to answer. Spamming summons is indeed a good strategy.
the problem with some spells si that theyre meant for table top where arcane gate can make your dm cry cause u just skipped the puzzle they spent weeks making
I like planar ally Djinni for a dragon fight. Since he is invulnerable to lighting damage, you can hit the dragon to provoke his backlash on a target that can't get damaged by the breath. So if your party have enough damage, you can easily kill dragon in 1 turn without a scratch.
Another reason to hate on create undead, in my experience you cant even use the multiattack on frightened enemies unless they were frightened by the mummy’s dreadful glare ability. I tried using it on my goolock and it was worthless
agreed, I was kinda annoyed by it was well. I didn't use it very long, but I had some Warlocksin my party (or more like, everyone else was a Warlock) and a Necromancer specc. One of my Locks got a crit and frightened an enemy, and I was like 'nice, finally the mummy can deal its obscene damage!' .... except no. Mummies are so underwhelming :(
I used disintegrate to kill the netherbrain lmao. It was casting the remove platform spell that would have killed 3 of my party members and I doubt I would have been able to finish the fight in the remaining turns if I failed
ok...but have you considered that Disintegrate is just really cool?
I disintegrated Larroakan into a pile dust
Its REALLY GOOD for raphael.
@@pokemonmusiclover5why
@@Vyndyka his pillars take double force damage. Disintegrate 1 hit kills them. Though tbh a sorlock can do it with eldritch blast even better. But hey if you got spare scrolls of disintegrate which are pretty easy to find in ramazith's tower then anyone in your party can 1 hit kill a soul tower.
I assumed you don’t get the loot?
Chain Lightning can also be twinned with sorcerers.
And if you use freecast to cast a spell, you can also use metamagic for free.
So Markoheshkir + Tempest 2 + Wet + Twinned = Win
Good point!
I did Tempest 2/Evocation Wizard 10 so I could learn 6th level spells, use Summons, and have Tempest Channel Divinity to maximize the 3 free Chain Lightning spells per day with Markoheshkir
@@nathanfivecoate5848 I did Tempest 2/ Evocation 2/ Storm 8 for the same reason :)
That’s insane. In DnD you cannot twin it, so I would have never tried!
Thanks for the tip.
It's my favorite sorcerer spell!
Heal can also briefly fix Durge's brain and trigger a childhood memory
Really! Cool! I didn't know that actually.
@@Aestus_RPG There are even two different memories based on whether you have defeated Orin or not.
Heal triggers a scene as well as the noblestalk in act 1.
Is it too late to try if you’ve defeated her. I want to go back to a save and see
For the Deva you can wear the Abyss beckoners and it gains Resistance to every type of dmg, making it into a good tank as well as decent damage. It can't fail the saving throw for madness with 20 wisdom and proficiency and whatever it has. Best summon ally strat imo.
This is super niche, but I did find a use for Disintegrate late game. There's a staff you can get in Act 3 which lets you cast any spell without expending a slot. There's also an Ilithid power which does the same. On a sorcerer with twinned spell and quickened spell, and/or with haste/bloodlust elixirs you can potentially fire 6 of these off in a single turn. Thats enough to shred through some bosses with high HP or, in some fights with several powerful casters with low HP that are spread around the arena so you can't just AoE burst them with ice storm or whatnot, this can be a great way of just nuking out a massive chunk of the encounter's enemy HP pool.
That being said, I totally agree with your assessment overall, you have to work pretty dang hard to get good mileage out of it. And MISSING a shot and being out a 6th level slot that just did sweet FA for you is incredibly disappointing.
Great video, anyway! Looking forward to the honor mode content
Killed several bosses doing this + the illithid power that gives double damage, found it super powerful personally
I like to use desintegrate as a scroll to destroy some things in act 3, like the locked doors in the iron throne, because my high dex characters where ocupied with other stuff in the area.
There are actually 2 staffs, one from the Tower and one from the House.
Also - yes, using haste, freecast and quickened spell I managed to simply MELT some of the final bosses' faces off in a single turn. Turns out giant brains have really low dex save, who would have thought.
Super useful in the raphael fight to one shot the pillars as well
League player catching strays 💀💀
Heroes' Feast trivialized my fight against Mystic Carrion. It makes you immune against all status effects in that fight.
Breaking boss encounters with Otto's irresistible dance is so much fun. In my tactician run I just had raphael dance himself to death and it completely broke the encounter.
Hey I did this too! Add in his singing duet with Hope and we've got a regular old Musical alla Infernale.
Had Otto's Irresistable Dance on a scroll and it saved my fight against Saverok, lol. It was also hilarious watching this very serious edgelord, full of malice and evil, dancing. But stopping him from doing anything for a turn was just enough time for my Karlach to recover from lethargy due to her speed poiton ending, and then ending the fight on her next turn.
Great series! Enjoyed hearing your reasoning behind each spell.
Confusion did the same thing for me! He skipped one turn and then attacked an ally on another
@@ProbeAway Nicer. At the time I didn't know OID was a guarenteed stick for the first round so it was really a hail mary for me, lol.
@@WestOfEarthIt ain't called "Irresistable" for nothing
fun fact each bolt of chain ligthning wil only hit one enemy if the enemies are to far awey from each other so it can do a ton of dmg to a single enemy instead of spreading the dmg across enemies
If a target is large enough enemies don't even need to be far away. I've had it do 300-500 damage on single targets in one blast despite being near their allies.
Great videos.. I went from never playing these type of turn-based games, to now playing BG3 on Tactician lol thanks for the content.
Thanks! That genuinely means a lot to me!
another good turn based series to checkout is dragon age! not as in depth as bg3 but its a great one with a fun story and some cool characters and to boot those games a dirt cheap now
Just wanted to let you know your analysis has been very useful! Finally beat the game. Did it more or less blind on honor mode. Absorbed a few tips like using globe of invulnerability from watching your videos, but more important than anything like what rank a spell is, it's your in depth commentary on what makes a spell useful. Watched them all, and it really changed the way I analyzed situations in game. Looking forward to more!
Eyebite panicked is actually GOATED for builds with ice terrain or death clouds like mosquito swarm or wall of ice because enemies will run straight into your traps which if you have the staff of cherished necromancy means you can make people run to their deaths over and over and over
Also ive had fun casting freezing spheres with scrolls waiting 9 turns, casting mage hand and create water and letting mage hand throw the spheres at enemies dealing huge damage while not wasting any of my teams actions
Sunbeam is one of the best scrolls in the game. Two levels in evocation wizard and you can just blind most of act 3 which is already crazy strong, and then you can stack radiating orb if you want. Throw this on a 10 eldritch knight, 2 evocation wizard and you should be able to sunbeam and attack in one turn with free constitution saving throw proficiency. Its fantastic as a scroll, much less so as a 6th level spell slot
I think you're undervaluing Chain Lightning a bit personally, lightning is easily the easiest damage type to build around; only Ansur is a problem with it. You can buy a massive supply of chain lightning scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries and absolutely go off. I kind of build around it in my most recent playthrough. Pure sorcerer, blue dragon ancestry draconic bloodline, Elemental adept lightning, and Markoheshikir, then just maxed out on equipment and buffs that let me deal the most. Drinking a speed potion and then firing off two twinned Chain Lightnings to start a combat was INSANE. In the final battle I melted all of the guardians off the map on my first turn and had dealt 130ish damage to the Dragon before any of my allies had even moved. It feels so good
The same way you suggested that people go in-game and cast "Haste" to see how good it is, I urge you to give "Sweetplum Gales" from the Djinni a go.
The "Restricted" condition being 1 turn on a 15 CONS save, means that creatures caught inside the radius of the spell must do the CONS save or remain inside the area, which will then force them to do another CONS save the next turn. The reason why it is 1 turn of "Restricted" is so that the system will not impose a 10 Turn (or Concentration break) on a creature that is "shoved out" of the area by Thunderwave or the likes.
I've cast this on Mindflayers, Spectators and most Humanoids and I've never seen them do the Constitution Save after being caugh inside the Gale (not sure if this is intended).
The best part is that you can have 2 or more areas of Gales (again, not sure if this is intended or a bug), which I believe makes this spell consistently good, and sometimes amazingly life saving.
Works great with "Call Lightning".
Hope you had a good trip. I hope that future patches and maybe an expansion will give us more content including spells. Patch 5 seems to have given a new party and other content.
As far as the spells, yeah the Chain Lightning is crazy. It's possible to have Create Water, then Twin Chain Lightning and maybe with Haste (and a Staff that allows the user to not use a Spell Slot), Twin another Chain Lightning for a Total of 4 Chain Lightnings.
Sunbeam + mind sanctuary + haste allows you to cast 3 beams per turn without expending any spell slots.
I do this with upcasted call lightning on my tempest cleric. 6d10 plus vulnerable from wet is nasty.
These are great man. Dont worry about views, they will come in time with more popularity of BG3 + DLCs. I think a guide for basics in BG3 like what is AC, how do you get extra actions and how do you move attacks into bonus actions. How does stealth work in BG3? What to craft? Best items that are very simple to get stuff like that. I dont know AC does or i dont really know how the damage on spells/attacks its calculated except the modifier from str +3 for example is added to the weapon but maybe there is more, like a combo of attacks or things like this. Basic stuff people love and trust me 99% of BG3 players are clueless.
Hey thanks so much for this series! As someone who has never played tabletop OR anything in the bg series, it has been very helpful. Even though we get descriptions, the examples of how it actually works in-game really brought me up to speed. E.g., I’m in act 3 of my first playthrough and just leaning what arcane acuity is for lol
I’ll definitely be watching more of your content!
Seriously good content. Found ur channel weeks ago on my first playthrough with no idea what was happening. You break it all down better than everyone else and have got me keen for my first try on tactician soon
When this video popped up in my feed, I made a barely human man-pig sound, somewhere between a grunt and a squeal. So happy.
I appreciate your videos and how they are largely spoiler free information. I notice how you purposely leave out details for certain things regarding the story and game breaking cheese methods. I played about 30 hours of early early access and only just now replaying the game with the latest honor mode patch. I've lost many playthroughs already but, your guides have been crucial, and I get better every run. I find it quite fun!
I've been waiting patiently for this. I love your videos and I appreciate what you do sir!
Sorry it took so long!
@@Aestus_RPGLife happens man. I think we're all just grateful you put these videos out at all. Thanks again!
I do want to say thank you so much for these videos, I’m sure I’ve spent way to long watching all of these but my first play through of bg3 was so scuffed that I want to do it again.
I made it to act 3 at level 7, missed a ton of content, and just got stuck, too weak for most encounters and chose horrible spells to waste my slots on.
Now armed with new knowledge and how the game actually functions I’m looking forward to doing a second full play through and these guides have helped me figure out how I want to go about that.
Thank you very much so for your videos! I just finished my second playthrough and I was waiting for your spell tier list videos all the time as I was playing. Your videos were very helpful and some of the spells I might have missed if not for them.
Fear was something I picked up from your earlier video and I ended up winning many battles because of it.
6th level spell wise I think globe of invulnerability is op, maybe even makes the fights too boring.
Keep up the good work! I like your perceptive, insightful and well argumented views.
PS. I think longstrider is an s tier spell. My half illithid flying open hand monk destroyed enemies with its amazing movement range. Very often I needed the extra yards from longstrider.
I’ve literally already watched two other 6th-level spell tier lists, but as soon as I saw your upload, I rushed over. I watched those other ones just to wait for yours XD
I used a globe of invulnerability scroll on the portal when Halsin went into the Shadowfell and it was one of the best gameplay moments of Act 2. Saved me such a headache since the majority of the shadows and other mobs target the portal.
I just used darkness. They can't hit what they can't see!
AMA question: Are you planning to diversify what you call your "dry educational material"? Maybe something along the lines of "The first things I do in each act" or "The toughest parts of the game and what I do to prepare"? Love the tier lists and best item content though, looking forward to the best items in act 3 video!
25:45 As someone struggling with the league of legends debuff thank you for representing our blight with tact
Great video. One contrary thought: Disintegrate has a use case against the Netherbrain. The NB had 10 Dex and this is a Dex save. On Honor mode you have to cycle through different types of damage. Curr of Strat may be better for most enemies for Force damage but there are no scrolls for that and you can only cast it once per short rest. If you have scrolls for a lot of 6th level spells like Globe of inv or Disintegrate then I think this would be a good option for the NB.
"Man, if only I had more castings": The 14 unused spell scrolls in his inventory 👁👃👁
I ban scrolls in my runs.
@Aestus_RPG ahh gotcha. Also wow that is some wild response time. Kudos
Chain Lightning should be the highest DPS output in spell
My build is: Dragon Sorc Lightning (extra lightning damage at level 6), Elemental adept lightning (ignore resistance), Lightning Charges, Marko with Kereska Favour to boost it up, Wet enemy, Twinned Spell Metamagic. So that is full blast high DPS 8 (YES EIGHT) target lightning spell.
So in one LONG REST, you will have 2 Chain Lightning from metamagic, 4 from Marko (1 Arcane battery, 3 from short rest). So that is total of 24 High dps target spell.
There is a reason why this spell is unavailable in Warlock
For wall of ice, you don't need to waste anything to trigger the second damage instance. You can just click the little button that you're concentrating on it to stop concentrating. You can do this even outside your turn. And I believe but not am not certain that even after broken the cloud breaks vision, like fog cloud.
Alternatively, I think if you cast a fire spell, it creates water that gets targets wet again. And then a lightning spell to electrify the water.
I really need to play through honor mode so I can truly appreciate these later spells. Playing tactician and not using any specific rules, I'm so stacked with scrolls by the end I can basically cast almost anything with any caster whenever, and I actually refrain myself from casting globe of invulnerability so I can at least experience end game bosses instead of just slaughtering them
Has anyone ever thought of creating a group full of necromancers?
-Wizard 12 (School of Necromancy)
-Druid 12 (Circle of Spores)
-Cleric 12 (Trickery? For advantage)
-Paladin 8/Warlock 4 (Oath of the Ancients? Summons will take zero/half damage from the spells and they will receive +6/+7 for each save
Oathbreaker
Disintegrate is my favorite spell because it just makes you feel like a god of magic, pointing at someone and saying "your subscription to life has expired"
Can confirm, used 2 globes of invulnerability in the last fight. Once for the channeling and once after that to avoid the backlash damage.
Heyyyyy folks!
I enjoyed every single video that you posted on BG3 man. Thanks for the info and...GUIDANCE...on the spells/classes. The most experience I have with these sorts of RPG systems is the KOTOR games. My ABSOLUTE favorites.
i have found that at lvl 11 you can cast 3 6th level spells per long rest 1 from your spell slot 1 from the Staff of Spellpower or Markoheshkir (arcane Battery) and 1 from the Spellcrux Amulet which allows you to restore 1 spellslot regardless of level. This is why i like Desintegrate dealing around 75 damage with it can really help if you have to focus an enemy down basically half living them from the start of combat opens up a lot of options.
A scroll of disintegrate was how I killed the final boss in my first playthrough, so seeing it ranked so low is very amusing to me.
The Wind-walker S tier bait was gold
difference with blade barrier and wall of fire is that it actually works like wall where it blocks all LoS projectiles/casts for enemies behind it and it's invulnerable unlike stone wall
Planar ally is god tier. That spell single handed ou got me through the game. You can double cast it and have two 100+hp minions ready to go before the fight even begins. It’s crazy the value.
In my multiplayer playthrough my bard picks mostly spells that are in character so for my first Lv6 spell it HAD to be Otto's irresistable dance and it's hilarious fun. The rest of her arsenal tends to be psychological/crowd control spells, There's lots of fun to be had from just playing the game straight and not worrying about optimising 'builds' for maximum win efficiency.
Piercing damage on wall of thorns could be very relevant. Bhaalist armor is kind of super strong.
Between the ilithid powers, free casts from staffs, free spell slot from the warden neclace you should be getting 3-4 casts of 6th level spells per rest unless you dont use them for some reason. Thats assuming you dont abuse the mechanics like the necro staff.
Some of these spells are nice to have on scrolls, Helps when you're running low on spells or if you weren't expecting a difficult combat.
This guy has so strong PnP Game Master vibes who doesn't let his players argue with him
Arcane Gate can make your life so much easier in the Iron Throne level.
I wish Larian gave us more spell levels, 9th is when things get crazy.
Yeah, thats why they stopped at level 12. Its difficult enough to consider and implement all the effects and interactions of the existing spells, the difficulty increases exponentially for each level afterwards.
Naw, level 7 is when spells get crazy!
we'll seed what dlc they have on offer if any. If you notice, the game does keep track of character xp after 12lvl even if the bar doesn't show. Seems like a future proof mechanic in the event they give us higher levels to play through.
I had a funny fight in the house of grief where I made a chokepoint on the stairs you come down to the hall where I cast blade barrier with shadowheart and wall of fire with gale.
A lot of sharrans walked into a crispy death that day.
AMA question: Who was your favorite character to play as at a table, to have been played at your table, and to have written? And what made each of them so interesting?
AMA Question: Would you ever consider doing a BG3 letsplay or explained run?
Genie says "ohhh yeaahh" every time he teleports or takes action. That alone enough to put it in s+
AMA Question: What do you think about items/gear (magical or non-magical) for players, for BG3, but also for tabletop? I also DM and always wonder how to balance items/gear. Also, specifically for BG3, if you do *not* take any magical gear in BG3, what party build would you go for? Thanks for all the cool content!
Im going to need the real tier list my guy.
The genitals tier list.
The League of Legends comment made me actually laugh out loud. Cheers mate
this has been a really good series! thanks
I mean, Disintegrate on scrolls isn't really what you're measuring for your tier list but it was the keystone of my Honor Mode strategy to beat the final boss, which A) does not drop loot, B) rewards limiting your damage type in a turn, and C) has a bad Dex save.
So there is at least that use case for it.
Can you make a Sorcerer build from start to finish for Honour Mode by chance? Can't wait for the honour mode content!
Yeah! Sorcerer is one of my favorite classes and still one of the best classes in the game. In my current Honour Mode run I playing a Wizard with a Sorcerer dip and (assuming I complete the run) I plan on posting the whole thing to this channel. Its pretty easy to cheat Honour Mode, so I wanted a full, unedited run as proof that I did it without cheating.
The ice sphere is definitely funny just to pick pocket it on someone then leave the room 😂
AMA Question: Favorite movie/tv show scene?
Love your content btw and appreciate it a lot that you're fostering a space for discussions and theory crafting. Keep up the good work and take care!
The additional benefit of sunbeam is that you can cast it for free once from Blood of Lathander
Interesting you would put chain lighting in s tier. Get the staff from sorcerer sundries and give it your tempest cleric. Using bolts of doom can cast chain lightning and thunderbolt once a short rest. Combine with the wet condition and and destructive wrath and you will do 160 damage (half on save) to 5 targets. Ive used this to completely nuke cazador before, ending his fight in1 turn.
I put it A-tier, which is pretty good.
Druids get so much of the best stuff in the game; I'm amazed people are still sleeping on that class.
The master strikes again!
Heroes feast is my favorite 6th level. It’s AMAZING with summons especially for the final fight.
Great videos! Would love to see Feats video, not sure what to pick there :)
Was eagerly awaiting this upload! Really love the vids, very well articulated
Thanks! You used "eagerly" instead of "really" so to me your opinion on being articulate carries a lot of weight!
@@Aestus_RPG Of course! It's nice hearing you explain with good detail the strengths of these things with experience to back it up! Excited to see future videos :]
Man i cant wait til i know the game well enough to do the hardcore rules. Im still in act 1 but ive taken probably 19 long rests and ive been playing for about 45 hours
"I don't want to spoil anything but..."
*proceeds to spoil everything*
25:48 I'm hurt 🥺 Great videos, very entertaining.
Important mention about planar ally: (idk if you can still pull it off in current version of the game) Deva's mace is 1d6 bludgeoning + 4d8 radiant dmg. The trick is to somehow loot it from the summon for yourself. It does not have +3 to attack rolls which makes it a bit inaccurate (tho humble paralysed status abusers do not care about attack rolls). So, if it's still possible, this spell should be moved to S. And globe should be moved to "legally banned" tier. Because there is no way any spell in the game can be in the same tier as globe. There are globe scrolls everywhere in act 3 and this spell insta-wins any fight
Sorry to hear you aren’t doing any more Tactician videos! I was hoping you’d throw us noobs a bone and talk about techniques: spell selection, positioning, how to raise to-hit chance, etc. Dare I hope you’ll do something similar for Honour?
Honestly, I think you'll find switching over to honor won't change my videos that much. I already assumed no-reload, which is half of what makes honour difficult. The other big changes have to do with specific mechanics: Haste nerfed, Elixir of Bloodlust nerfed, Warlock multiclass nerfed, etc. But it should be easy to see filters those things out if you play Tactician.
@@Aestus_RPG You seem to presume I know what I’m doing in Tactician!😂 I’m just flailing through my first Tactician playthrough now. I was just hoping for tips on how to play better, rather than just relying on luck. Your tier videos have helped in terms of which spells I go for, though, so thanks for that!
@@JosieJOKlet me boldly speak on Aestus behalf and say the answer is implicitly in these videos, that is your choice should optimally utilize your resources (action, concentration slot, spell slots/maneuvers/sorceror points/other refreshing resources, bonus action, movement speed, reaction, in descending order of value), towards cancelling enemy turns, by which you successfully complete a fight.
To elaborate, in each fight you should find the most (cancelled-enemy-turn-value ➗ your effort) efficient paths.
Before fight, you should choose firstly the fight deciding spells such as hold person/haste/fear, because once hit, the enemy already has less actions, and you can quickly cancel more by trivial attacks. Once these "build defining" spells are chosen, you then choose spells/maneuvers/etc that utilizes the rest of the resources (counterspell/reposte for reaction, spiritual weapon for bonus action, chromatic orb/lightning bolt for action but no concentration, etc) not competing with your primary spells.
Also before fight, organize your feats and equipments. For tactician mode you need feats and equipments to align, e.g. the glove that grants attack advantage and savage attack feat for melee attackers, the clothe that grants constitution saving throw for your concentration spell casters, etc (also should be aware how melee/range/spell hit-rate is calculated). Your hit chance comes fundamentally from this.
Once you have the above ready, in-fight decisions are kind of natural. In general, do those things you build around, say battle masters and paladins should stay close to prioritized targets and make as many focused attacks as possible. Supports/controls with low AC should stay and spread on high ground to avoid attacks, because the best way to maintain concentration is to not get hit. Also utilize obstacles so that you can utilize your movement (to come out and shoot, then go back behind wall to waste enemy turns on running towards you). Surely you have the general sense of these if you can pass a normal run, just push for a bit more extreme in tactician.
Wooh, your question actually allows me to write these down for future reference if someone asks. Feel free to ask for more specifics.
Circle of death is the very definition of a roleplay spell and it doesn’t deserve anything higher than that. Its purpose in tabletop is that it’s basically the death star, just a really easy way for a villain to flex their power with some green lasers. It isn’t meant to be used against players, only weak NPCs. Even with the staff, the radius isn’t enough to justify the horrible damage for a sixth level spell-plus it targets con for the save, which most enemies will have a lot of, so you can’t expect it to hit for the full 8d6 half the time.
watching these vids is what i was born for fr. Also hope u enjoyed ur travels :)
Glad you like them!
5 Months later, I check in, just to say that you are vastly underestimating Blade Barrier. It does a bit of everything that other Wall Spells do, like it adds Difficult Terrain like Wall of Thorns, it deals consistent damage like Fire Wall, but what is often overlooked is that it counts as a physical obstacle, but an indestructible one, so it can block ANY kind of projectile, it breaks Line of Sight, breaks AoE damage, prevent jumping effects like Arrow of Many Targets or Chain Lightning. Position it right in front of Viconia and she won't be able to cast Wayward Heart until she goes through it. Put it right in front of the Dominated Red Dragon and he won't be able to use Draconic Wrath on ground level targets because the Blades will block it off. If you can Maim a target inside the Barrier, it will keep taking massive damage every turn while being able to only target one side of the fight, so you can do stuff like isolating Raphael from the rest of the fight, and he won't even be able to retaliate. And since it's a Cleric Spell, it's only competing with Planar Ally, Harm, Heal, Create Undead and Heroes' Feast, the only real competing one being Feast, but it is also a Druid Spell, and Druids won't be casting much in Wild Shape, so Feast is their job anyways.
Well, you can block Raphael with any wall if you evacuate the room, and its quite cheaper :D All the demons will fly to carnage but he cannot get thru it and is too stupid to break it. Yet i didnt play high difficulty, maybe he can fly there?
The spellcrux amulet you pull of Zrell can give you one extra level 6 spell slot per long rest
I gotta jump right in and say Create Undead deserves B tier. Action economy always benefits greatly from an additional source of damage to mop-up weakened foes. More importantly though, that mummy has a ton of health, esp. with Aid, and will waste a number of enemy turns before dying.
19:38 I'm glad someone agrees with me on Heros Feast and Desintegrate
Chain lighting is SS+ tier. No contest. Unlike the rest, you can get a lot of chain lighting scrolls per attempt from looting the vender from the tower in act 3.
AMA question: As a DM, how much freedom do you allow for the spell 'Wish' or does it depend on the wish of the player before you make a judgement?
AMA Question colon and then put down your question:
How would you evaluate BG3 as a sequel? Is it a worthy successor to BG1 and 2, both in terms of mechanics but, especially in terms of narrative? What would you have wanted to have been done differently as a sequel?
another week of watching you rank the only spells I use in B/C/RP 🙏
I'm pretty sure disintegrate doesnt destroy the loot though
Awh come on we've all wanted to make Gortash dance for us with Otto's dance 🤭
I 100% believe you did wall of thorns dirty, it only deals very slightly less damage than blade barrier but JUST LIKE blade barrier (and unlike you stated in the video) they take damage from wall of throns every turn and generally speaking (magical) piercing damage is slightly less resisted than slashing, but more importantly is the massive width of 4m, the entangling AND the quartered movemenet speed making it the best AoE Terrain spell in the game , casting this b4 shapeshifting into a myrmidon or owlbear is definetly very efficient as a strategy
I didn't ever use wall of blades but then I locked Gortash into a corner while blind, burning, and bleeding with a wall of blades just shredding him 😂 it was very satisfying
I feel like your undervaluing summons, espc. W/arcane battery that you can pass around. I was running around with 16 summons 1 greater elemental, 1 minor elemental, and an undead on each party member plus the dance macbe, plus a deva. With aid or hero’s feast that’s like 1000 extra hp, even if they only avg 10 dmg a round (usually more) that’s 1600 dmg a round to dish out before your party. Last battle was cake.
I don't think I am. In the scenario you described, you had a lot of summons. How much heavy lifting is one of those summons doing? That is what I have to answer for the spell tier list, and its difficult to answer. Spamming summons is indeed a good strategy.
the problem with some spells si that theyre meant for table top where arcane gate can make your dm cry cause u just skipped the puzzle they spent weeks making
I like planar ally Djinni for a dragon fight. Since he is invulnerable to lighting damage, you can hit the dragon to provoke his backlash on a target that can't get damaged by the breath. So if your party have enough damage, you can easily kill dragon in 1 turn without a scratch.
Good thinking!
Globe of Invulnerabilty was what helped me keep THE FUCKING GONDIANS alive
Until patch 4 I believe flesh to stone did not proc aggro if cast outside combat. It was a fun spell then
AMA question: what’s your opinion on the ship of Theseus?
Great work on the 10k subs mate well deserved❤
Another reason to hate on create undead, in my experience you cant even use the multiattack on frightened enemies unless they were frightened by the mummy’s dreadful glare ability. I tried using it on my goolock and it was worthless
agreed, I was kinda annoyed by it was well. I didn't use it very long, but I had some Warlocksin my party (or more like, everyone else was a Warlock) and a Necromancer specc. One of my Locks got a crit and frightened an enemy, and I was like 'nice, finally the mummy can deal its obscene damage!' .... except no.
Mummies are so underwhelming :(
I used disintegrate to kill the netherbrain lmao. It was casting the remove platform spell that would have killed 3 of my party members and I doubt I would have been able to finish the fight in the remaining turns if I failed
You can cast Chain-lighting 3 times per long rest with Markoheshkir
Blood of Lanthander has sunbeam on the weapon and you get that in act 1 (1.5 whatever). So thats pretty cool
League of Legends joke made me laugh out loud. Thank you for teaching people about this game!