Every time you release a new item series, my understanding of BG3 and DnD grow exponentially. Your thoroughness is so helpful in such a complex system, thank you.
@@Cephalopocalypse I tried playing DND 2 years ago with friends, and I really just did not get it. Your explanations have been so incredibly helpful, I now feel I can pull my weight playing with my partner. Always been an FPS kinda guy. Thank you very much!
I learned after two playthroughs that you can hide your helmet during cutscenes or all the time, without hiding your other armor. The button is above the helmet box. It solves the ugly helmet problem and lets you see more of the amazing face animation.
Once Patch 7 goes live (should be sometime next month) you should consider doing a let's-play using one of your party builds. A video of a half-hour to 40 minute a day, two or three times a week, would fit well into your rotation and I think would get a lot of interest.
Thanks! Ceph you have the best BG3 guides and true devotion to the greatest computer game in two generations. No matter how much I play BG3, I still learn things from your content. Your hard work and love for the subject is obvious and much appreciated. Best wishes!
I think the warped band of intellect is S-tier, simply because of how many ability checks it can help with in an adventuring day. As long as you swap it out before a fight.
My main use of the Warped Headband of Intellect is to hold onto it so you can pass it around to help with certain Intelligence checks in the House of Grief in Act 3. I always make sure to pick it up just for that.
The same for me. The check is DC 25 in Religion so if you are not prepared for this, a few characters are able to pass it without nat20. Headband is a tremendous bonus, since most builds dump INT
The DJ joke is my current favourite running joke on youtube, and it's not close. I would love to see you as an experimental trance k-pop collective, Ceph
I’m pretty sure that last time I tried it, the heal from Cap of Curing did NOT trigger the on-heal items since the cap says “when you inspire, they regain 1d6”, rather than “you heal them 1d6”. I’ll have to double check when I get a chance this afternoon. Edit: Yes, I can confirm that the healing from Cap of Curing doesn't count as "healing" for the Whispering Promise/Hellrider's Pride items unfortunately. Both entries are identical in the Combat Log (X healed Y for Z Hit Points), but the Bardic Inspiration heal doesn't add the Bless or Blade Ward conditions like Healing Word.
Yeah, Cap of Curing is basically useless. Since every bard is already going to have Healing Word available. Only usable by bards, most bards have better things to do with bardic inspiration, and it doesn't trigger the healing riders . . . its Gale food!
@@Cephalopocalypse the most annoying part is that throwing a potion at someone's feet counts as healing them for "on heal effects" but not healing with this hat.
Also working: Soul branding Light of lathender Or on tactician and below: threatened Just playing your instrument in the middle of a fight (which does not use an action) triggered it and still does sometimes (seems a bit buggy)
I'm just so glad that they didn't run with attunement in bg3. Attunement is a mechanic in tabletop that some magic items require and for those that don't know, most characters in DND 5e are limited to 3 attuned items. I'm also glad they did away with class restricted items
Yeah I agree - I always felt attunement was an unfun bandaid for a problem that didn't really need to exist in the first place. If your DM doesn't want you to have a lot of magic items, they can just... not give them to you.
@Cephalopocalypse yea, I'm playing an armorer artificer in one of my current games we've been playing about 4 years. We just hit level 13, and are planning on playing to level 20. Six items attuned, here I come!
Love the tier lists. Eventually we’ll have one for every pebble in the game and then our lives will be complete. Another thing I thought could be a fun video is “The best builds to SOLO Honour Mode”. Even with some overlap with the overall strongest builds, I think there would be a significant number of considerations that are more important when you don’t have teammates to bail you out. E.g., some things I noticed when soloing with an Eldritch thrower - a strength build with Enhanced Leap at level 3 is busted because you can kite enemies to Narnia - I dropped War Cleric for Light Cleric because I used my bonus actions for jump anyway and wanted a defensive reaction that didn’t cost a spell slot - I dropped Alert for Resilience: Wisdom because initiative gets worse the longer the fight goes and Hold Person is a run ender when alone Another funny idea would be to number the classes from 1-12, roll 2d12 a couple of times, and turn the whackiest combo into a multi class build.
Medicine is used when brewing potions for level 2 transmutation wizards, which gives you a chance of brewing a bonus potion. So nature might actually be the least used.
helmet definitely has the most pieces that get banned on my runs lol Even bard starts to feel like a class with actual weaknesses when you ban the right things
The Helmet of Arcane Bullshittery. Turns all your nastiest "save or suck" spells into "guaranteed suck" for all enemies. It feels genuinely wrong to land a first turn 100% hold spell on a boss and whatever fearsome mythical demi-god they were in the cutscene doesn't matter. They immediately turn into a crit pinata.
While the arcane acuity items are absolutely busted you can probably get the same level of potency by just stacking save dc items. I wish they enabled like an attunement system for honor mode and nerfed the acuity items.
I love that you mentioned the first hat and that it's a sign for how well the run will go, because I play the exact same game. When I check that container, I'm always hoping for a brimmed hat for Gale. Does it matter? Not even a little bit.
Warped Headband of Intellect is S-Tier for 2 reasons. First, at the very beginning of the game, you can acquire it. It's a guaranteed +3 for your intelligence bonus. For the most part, your face of the party character is likely to have a good Charisma, Dex/Str, and Constitution. So, Intelligence is a dump stat. There are many useful Intelligence checks to make life easy in Act I. So, it's always nice to have access to it when it's needed. The second reason: By the end of Act I, you'll likely have not immediate use for the WHoI, but you shouldn't sell it. Later on, in Act III, there is the Mirror of Loss, which can give a Permanent +2 to any given attribute. Because most characters are going to have an 8 or a 10 in intelligence, and aren't likely to have proficiency in Religion, making the DC25 Religion check is nearly impossible without save scumming or respec-ing. Having the WHoI, the Mage's Friend (a ring that gives +1 to religion), the Shifter's Boon (a ring that gives +1d4 to skill checks while disguised self is active), having an ally give you a Bardic Inspiration die during the dialog with the mirror, another concentrating on Enhanced Ability (for Intelligence Checks), and a Third one for Guidance, basically makes getting the Mirror of Loss an easy mode thing for everyone in your party. It essentially gives you a base +4 to the check, plus an additional 2d4 & 1d8 (or 1d10 if the Bard is lvl 10), and you'll roll with advantage. So, it makes your average bonus a 14 towards a DC 25 check. So, an 11 is roughly needed on average to make the check, which is a 50/50 shot. With Advantage, it's even easier. So, for Honor Mode, this was my exact strategy, and I only need to blow 1 Inspiration Die to make it work for all four the characters on my team. For my Honor Mode run, I did have a Hireling (Brianna Brightsong - Halfling) 2 Levels Transmutation Wizard, 10 Levels Lore Bard. Her purpose was to handle all of my crafting. I let her out of the camp for the Mirror of Loss only. She made it an easy mode task. So... I feel like the Warped Headband of Intellect is indispensable for a smooth Honor Mode Run. It is an item that is not worth turning into vendor trash until after the Mirror of Loss. This is S-Tier because it helps make your run for the Mirror of Loss a piece of cake for a check that you might not make otherwise. Do the math without it, and you'll realize that you'll need to do the respec otherwise. Having to do 2 respecs (the first for doing the mirror, and the second for putting your character back the way you wanted) is hardly worth the time. The money is nothing at this stage of the game, but 8 repecs to make the Mirror of Loss viable is not worth it in my opinion. Plus, you'll still want to give all the buffs to the check anyway. At best, your repsec will give you a +5 Intelligence Bonus, and then having Proficiency and Expertise in Religion makes your base check a 13 for religion. So, on its face it's still not better than a 50/50 without all those other bonuses I mentioned above. The respec is hardly worth the effort when you can just swap out the head piece, and the two rings, for each individual's attempt. I'm sorry for the long comment, and I hope I made my point. The WHoI is worth a permanent +2 to an attribute for EVERY character in your party.
I gotta say, I disagree with your placement of the warped headband of intellect. On any tav during an honor mode playthrough, it’s easily an S+ item. Any stat dump item is incredibly strong and hyper operationalizing your main character for dialog and saving throws is something I’m wearing the entire game the second I get it.
@@corporeal5980if youre wearing this through the whole game then you clearly dont know wtf you're doing lol, its like you're not even wearing a helmet 95% of the time
46:50 truth be told, I have played only two times, and both I was a warrior, and I wore this circlet 95% of the game, putting stronger helmets only when fight was tough. my first playtrough on normal, and second on tactician (I am a Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 veteran). I loved having +3 added to many INT skillchecks, and also my warrior girl looked really nice in it :)
Menzoberranzan is the capital city of the Drow. The Circlet of Psionic Revenge could be very good on a Gnome caster, specially if you are going solo. :)
Quick heads up about the Whispering Mask. If you used Protection from Evil and Good to use this item, MAKE SURE to remove it just before the fight. In the actual fight itself against the hag it gives you no benefits, and protection spell may last the whole day, but it is a concentration spell. If Ethel hits you, which in that fight she very likely will, you might lose concentration and that's going to be devastating and almost guarantee you lose that encounter.
Thanks so much for the support! Really glad you enjoyed it :D Yeah I realized partly through this series that the summary by act was a useful thing to do - if I was redoing the earlier videos I'd make that part longer (though keep an eye out for tomorrow's video!)
Oh, the whispering mask. My very favourite way to end a run when still learning the game. Maybe second to kissing the wounded mindflayer. Hard to decide, I enjoyed both
You don't have to be a game pro to safely assume that wooden eerie looking mask inside evil cave with skulls and cursed items that belongs to an evil Hag is bad news:) It's not a rocket science
@Vasiliy9hells It's the same curiosity that allows you to meet Gale, even when narrator tells you it seems to be dangerous. I'm a simple gamer - if something can be done, it must be tried.
Thanks! Your infinite BG3 wisdom is amazing. My Dark Urge Honour run is trapped in the ACT 2 prison break. no one has a thunder spell, and those Scrying Eyes are bugged and i cant kill them. constantly calling in reinforcements. I really want the Potent Robe, so i dont want to run away thru the tower. maybe if i get one person to the boat it will trigger the escape scene. anyway, we appreciate your videos.
Thanks very much for the support! I really appreciate it. I haven't run into that issue, but maybe you can solve it with explosives? I think there's some smokepowder barrels in the dungeon iirc, which should do force damage and kill the orbs reasonably well
Love the vids. Just wanted to correct one little thing on the Cap of Curing. From the Wiki: When a character is healed by Bardic Inspiration, the game does not equate this with the wearer of this hat directly healing the creature. As such, it will not trigger equipment like The Whispering Promise.
This is such a great channel! Your videos have definitely upped my game. I'm actually hoping for a difficulty increase in Patch 7, 'cause I'm on the tail end of my third run through, (first time on Honor Mode), and it's not even a challenge. It's rare that a fight goes more than two rounds, three at the most. Fools are gettin' SMOKED son!!! ;)
Pretty sure the Lifebringer actually was healing my existing temporary HP pool, same as the way the Vital Conduit Boots can. Might make it more useful with some builds.
I don’t know if others would think this is helpful, but I’d love if a *very* general note could be made for where non-story-event items are within the act (ex: “in the creche” or “Wyrm’s Crossing”, that kind of thing). However, if that’s too spoliery, nevermind! :) Really appreciate all these lists; they’re so helpful!
In BG1 the most common non magical helmets had crit immunity as a passive buff and therefore was much less valuable to have and fire resistance could be easily mitigated by a common druid/cleric resist fire/cold spell. When i first found grimskull helm i immediately thought it was over hyped by people always praising it particularly on yutube. It was a very common effect and stashed it away in my camp, i didn't even bother equipping it on any companions.
You used to ask about your microphone for a bit while you were getting the settings set up, but I wasnt watching much during that time. Now though, I think you could turn your noise reduction effect down a bit. Its adding a little bit of what Id call digital nasalyness that isnt present on those earlier videos with your new microphone.
I know it can be annoying to not have a tooltip, but I think it’s so cool that the devilfoil masks secretly do something if multiple characters are wearing them. Just means those who are really into rp-ing with them get a cool little bonus (even if it is +1 to the stat you can already get the most bonuses for)
Holy Lance helm on a radiant orb / reverberation stacking cleric build is just ridiculous. Run into a group of enemies with spirit shield, deal a bunch of damage, apply stacks of radiant orb + reverb, then deliberately run away and watch as all the enemy's attacks of opportunity miss, trigger more radiant orb + reverberation, and knocks everyone prone. So fun.
"The Mask of the Shapeshifter gives you Disguise Self at will, which is pretty powerful" Powerful is an extremely strong word for an ability that you can do an entire campaign without noticing lol
Wapira's Crown becomes S tier, or even beyond, with one item from an equipment mod. The mod is called Ancient Weaponry and is on Nexus Mods. The item is called: Flail of the Coastal Tides 1d8+7 damage Healing of the Depths: When you deal damage to a foe with this weapon, you heal your allies for 1d8+2 hit points. Weapon enchantment +3 Tenacity: When you miss an attack, you deal 4 bludgeoning damage anyway. With that weapon paired with, The Whispering Promise, the Helldusk gloves and Wapira's Crown you will be healing, blessing and blade warding your party every turn. And then add on the Periapt of Wound Closure to max out the heals.
I'd like these vids a lot better if you overlaid the Tooltip for the item on the screen so we could read it while you talk about it. Your work on these is appreciated.
Diadem of Arcane Synergy - If you get close to an enemy they get the "threatened" condition. You don't even need to attack them. Just stand near them and you get the benefit from it. It may be possible to not get this effect with some of the pole arms. But, you pretty much ALWAYS have this as a melee attacker. It's ALSO fairly easy to give a condition as a ranged attacker. But, for virtually any melee attacker in the game who has a reasonable spell casting modifier ... this is phenomenal. Obviously, this is outstanding for pact of blade warlocks. This is also great for melee focused bards (it's all weapon attacks so it even works for dual wielding bards), and it's reasonable for paladins, rangers, and even monks, eldritch knights, and some clerics. It's a bit weaker on ranged characters than melee ones just because you do actually need to inflict a condition of some kind (not hard to do, but you need something). Don't overlook this on something like a cleric after level 8. All melee focused clerics (life, nature, tempest, war ... and kinda trickery) get an extra 1D8 damage at level 8. This is kinda supposed to help them in melee combat like getting extra attack at level 5 does for martial classes. This means that someone like a nature cleric at level 8 can do 2D8+10 damage on a melee attack. And, compared to a 2D8 cantrip that can start to be appealing (mathematically that's about the same as a 4D8 attack as your general melee attack each turn ... coming from a cleric without a magic weapon).
@@Cephalopocalypse Will take another look. I'm playing on mac. There's a chance the mac patches run behind. I'm on a newer playthrough and am in the creche. Should have this shortly. 👍
@@Cephalopocalypse Threatened is a condition. It's listed under condition. It's a condition giving by the wearer of the diadem. It doesn't count. I think the bug is that the tooltip is unclear. Going to try the Idol of Silvanus (from the druid grove) next. That "inflicts" a condition on anyone who gets within a given radius (Silvanus' Blessing). Edit - Applying the condition "Silvanus' Blessing" also doesn't trigger the ability. Going to try a few other things. I feel like text that says "applying a condition after a successful attack roll or failed saving throw" or something like that should do it. Does it work if I put ice on the ground and they fall? That would mean the prone condition and the difficult terrain condition were applied by me. That's two conditions. I'm curious about what auras exist in the game. The text does specifically say "inflict" a condition. That feels nebulous but accounts for why applying conditions to allies doesn't trigger the effect. I wonder how they programmed this. If they had to include a boolean for each individual condition to denote which ones work for the two items in the game that have this ability.
I give conditions as a beast master ranger all the time and don’t even know why or how it happened. All the sudden they have reverberation on them and I’d imagine this triggers too. Only +3 damage as their wisdom isn’t very high, but I can’t wear armor or mage armor doesn’t work. So, I have this diadem for now. +3 on 3 attacks a round add up.
Best way to use Cap of Wrath: Every time a melee characters goes down in combat, short rest with them, and give them the cap, and go right on to the next fight with the rest of the party full health, and that one stacking wrath to the roof
The easiest way to trigger the arcane synergy that I have seen is hunters mark. I wore it on a ranger build because there wasn't a good helm i found for him by that point and gave me a plus 2 with my wisdom at 14
The cap of Curing is a great hat, but better than that is when it becomes irrelevant I use it as a transmog item cuz it just looks so cool, there are some head pcs that look cool already like the Diadem of arcane synergy, or the shadespell circlet, but most of the head pcs just cover your head and instead of hiding it I would chose to use the cap or the diadem using my transmog item, I highly recommend trying it out.👍😁
>talking about mask of shapeshifter >never mentioning a ring of shapeshifter >free separate permanent guidance buff, stacks with guidance giving 2d4 >and you can cast this one on everyone by just passing mask and ring to every party member It's pay to win tier.
A lot of unnecessary micromanagement just for an extra 1d4 to checks. Even honor mode do not require that much effort. I personally only used the Disguise+Ring occasionally only on my Rogue for pick-pocketing a bunch of items from shops in a row. But do do it every rest on every character? nah
Please consider adding a graphic showing the item and it's effects. It's make your videos far more effective learning tools, and it'd add some visual interest to a pretty basic chart being shown for 30 minutes. Of course, I wish you'd eliminate the completely useless items, too. You do good work, and this is just a way to step things up... thanks for the consideration.
I think it's super weird that I watched a full hour of someone breaking down act 1 head gear for bg3. I beat honour mode fair and square a while back, what am I looking for? why did I watch this? What has become of me? I'm scared
One thing I find interesting/sucky about the items that require half HP is that it also counts temporary HP as part of the equation. So the characters HP + Temp HP need to be 50% or below the character's base HP for those to work.
on the diadem: it's basically bis for damage on normal paladins as well obvs this would imply that you go str elixirs or dex weapons to make proper use of it cos paladins are MAD but i wanted to point out that it's not only bladelocks or lockadins you could *probably* make it work on an eldritch knight, too
@cephelopacolopse it would be cool to see a video on multi-multi-(multi?)class builds. Builds with one or two quick dips into different classes can be pretty good, but it's hard to come up with the right synergies and break-points. Obviously, you can't do _every_ combination if you're combining more than 2 classes, but I bet you could find some interesting ones. For example, would a gloomstalker/assassin/shadow monk work? How about a wizard/fighter/sword bard/Blade Warlock?
I don't get why anyone worries about the traps in auntie Ethel. The clouds that need 30 can be blocked by throwing a heavy stone (you get 2 off one of the mask guys) and the other traps only need 10 sleight of hand to disarm. No need to featherfall.
Helmet of Smiting - I don't think this is a very strong item. Just wanted to throw out there ... all Zariel Tieflings get two smites. This includes Karlach. So, you've (almost) always got at least one party member who can use it at least twice per day. I think smite spells are pretty weak in general, and pretty much every group will have the temp hit point boots.
One note. Menzoberranzan was coined by TSR, original publisher of DnD. WoTC cannot be blamed or credited with the name. It's the capital of the Drow, IIRC.
Yeah - and asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar was from a tabletop game one of the designers ran, so actually neither of the things I blamed on wizards are original to them
Maybe I am just bad at the game, but I like the lifebringer + spellsparkler combo for early game spellcasting characters. Not that it is a fantastic effect, but for act 1 these characters dont get many impactful options for headwear and 3 hp every turn at that point in the game adds up.
I've played many bards, they typically have better stuff to do than healing. Bardic inspiration is better used for special attacks. Never saw the point of the cap of curing and still don't. Gale food, C-tier at most.
Fun fact, the strength elixirs do not actually replace your base strength in all respects. Strength checks (not saving throws) still include your base strength modifier. How do I know this? I had Karlach built with 8 strength, but 21 from the elixir. I used her to turn the wheel for the cable car by the monastery and the check listed both -1 from strength and +6 from the elixir. I know this isn't the elixir video, but I thought of this while you were talking about the Devilfoil Mask and how it loses relevance because of elixirs existing.
Diadem of Arcane Synergy Isn’t 26 Cha unattainable while wearing this? You can still get 24, with 20 base + Mirror + Archduke’s Sword, but I can’t see how to get to 26 without Birthright Edit: And I cannot recall it being possibly to achiev 28 Cha in any way
What helmet/headband is best for a monk? My monk has been wearing the Warped Headband of Intellect and I respeced because of its bonus. Now I’m in act 3 and am wondering what would be better?
Every time you release a new item series, my understanding of BG3 and DnD grow exponentially. Your thoroughness is so helpful in such a complex system, thank you.
Thanks very much! Glad it's helping :D
@@Cephalopocalypse I tried playing DND 2 years ago with friends, and I really just did not get it.
Your explanations have been so incredibly helpful, I now feel I can pull my weight playing with my partner. Always been an FPS kinda guy. Thank you very much!
You’ve missed an opportunity friend. The bottom tier should be called “sale or gale” 😅
I learned after two playthroughs that you can hide your helmet during cutscenes or all the time, without hiding your other armor. The button is above the helmet box. It solves the ugly helmet problem and lets you see more of the amazing face animation.
Once Patch 7 goes live (should be sometime next month) you should consider doing a let's-play using one of your party builds. A video of a half-hour to 40 minute a day, two or three times a week, would fit well into your rotation and I think would get a lot of interest.
I second this!
Thanks! Ceph you have the best BG3 guides and true devotion to the greatest computer game in two generations. No matter how much I play BG3, I still learn things from your content. Your hard work and love for the subject is obvious and much appreciated. Best wishes!
Thanks so much for all your support and great comments! I really appreciate it - glad you're still enjoying the videos!
I was literally searching like 5 mins ago to see if you did a Helmet tier list yet lmao
Me too :')
average Cephalopocalypse W🔥
I think the warped band of intellect is S-tier, simply because of how many ability checks it can help with in an adventuring day. As long as you swap it out before a fight.
Yup it's also amazing to throw on before starting dialogue, for those random history/arcana/etc checks that come up
I’m so bad about forgetting to switch items around even when I know encounters are coming up.
My main use of the Warped Headband of Intellect is to hold onto it so you can pass it around to help with certain Intelligence checks in the House of Grief in Act 3. I always make sure to pick it up just for that.
The same for me. The check is DC 25 in Religion so if you are not prepared for this, a few characters are able to pass it without nat20. Headband is a tremendous bonus, since most builds dump INT
True!
The DJ joke is my current favourite running joke on youtube, and it's not close. I would love to see you as an experimental trance k-pop collective, Ceph
At this point i'm more addicted to your tier list content than to bg3 itself
"Intimidation is the least used of the three Charisma skills" 😞 The 4th skill Performance would like to have a word! 🤣
I am sure he didn't even counted Performance and meant Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation in a big 3. Very good for a bard though
I’m pretty sure that last time I tried it, the heal from Cap of Curing did NOT trigger the on-heal items since the cap says “when you inspire, they regain 1d6”, rather than “you heal them 1d6”.
I’ll have to double check when I get a chance this afternoon.
Edit: Yes, I can confirm that the healing from Cap of Curing doesn't count as "healing" for the Whispering Promise/Hellrider's Pride items unfortunately. Both entries are identical in the Combat Log (X healed Y for Z Hit Points), but the Bardic Inspiration heal doesn't add the Bless or Blade Ward conditions like Healing Word.
Yeah, Cap of Curing is basically useless. Since every bard is already going to have Healing Word available.
Only usable by bards, most bards have better things to do with bardic inspiration, and it doesn't trigger the healing riders . . . its Gale food!
Woops that's right of course!
@@Cephalopocalypse the most annoying part is that throwing a potion at someone's feet counts as healing them for "on heal effects" but not healing with this hat.
just had my dreams go up in smoke finding this out the hard way
One of the best conditions for Diadem of AS - idol of Sylvanus. It's aura works everytime on anyone and counts as a condition for DoAS
wait that's so silly holy shit
absolute gold. im guessing boots of stormy clamour works with idol too?
@@lendial yes
Very true!
Also working:
Soul branding
Light of lathender
Or on tactician and below: threatened
Just playing your instrument in the middle of a fight (which does not use an action) triggered it and still does sometimes (seems a bit buggy)
I'm just so glad that they didn't run with attunement in bg3. Attunement is a mechanic in tabletop that some magic items require and for those that don't know, most characters in DND 5e are limited to 3 attuned items. I'm also glad they did away with class restricted items
Yeah I agree - I always felt attunement was an unfun bandaid for a problem that didn't really need to exist in the first place. If your DM doesn't want you to have a lot of magic items, they can just... not give them to you.
@Cephalopocalypse yea, I'm playing an armorer artificer in one of my current games we've been playing about 4 years. We just hit level 13, and are planning on playing to level 20. Six items attuned, here I come!
Love the tier lists. Eventually we’ll have one for every pebble in the game and then our lives will be complete.
Another thing I thought could be a fun video is “The best builds to SOLO Honour Mode”. Even with some overlap with the overall strongest builds, I think there would be a significant number of considerations that are more important when you don’t have teammates to bail you out. E.g., some things I noticed when soloing with an Eldritch thrower
- a strength build with Enhanced Leap at level 3 is busted because you can kite enemies to Narnia
- I dropped War Cleric for Light Cleric because I used my bonus actions for jump anyway and wanted a defensive reaction that didn’t cost a spell slot
- I dropped Alert for Resilience: Wisdom because initiative gets worse the longer the fight goes and Hold Person is a run ender when alone
Another funny idea would be to number the classes from 1-12, roll 2d12 a couple of times, and turn the whackiest combo into a multi class build.
The only bad class combo is wizard/monk as it was shown by multiclassing tier list, all others can be made to work
Dropping alert for resilience wisdom is a wild one that’s for sure.
It's very impressive that each of these gear guides start with a truthful justification as to how/why the item slot is relevant/interesting. 10/10 👍
your commitment to the DJ bit will never not be funny
people were so upset when I didn't do one for the DJ Boots
These videos are incredibly awesome to listen to while i’m working. Thank you for all the effort you put in, it doesn’t go unnoticed :)
The DJ bit never fails to make me laugh lol
Medicine is used when brewing potions for level 2 transmutation wizards, which gives you a chance of brewing a bonus potion. So nature might actually be the least used.
Next video - best underwear for Lae'zel tier list
babe wake up ceph posted a new video
You can go back to bed, the tired comments are here.
i love coming home from school and seeing that one of my current favorite youtubers put out yet another video of my current hyperfixation🔥🔥🔥
helmet definitely has the most pieces that get banned on my runs lol
Even bard starts to feel like a class with actual weaknesses when you ban the right things
The Helmet of Arcane Bullshittery.
Turns all your nastiest "save or suck" spells into "guaranteed suck" for all enemies. It feels genuinely wrong to land a first turn 100% hold spell on a boss and whatever fearsome mythical demi-god they were in the cutscene doesn't matter. They immediately turn into a crit pinata.
While the arcane acuity items are absolutely busted you can probably get the same level of potency by just stacking save dc items. I wish they enabled like an attunement system for honor mode and nerfed the acuity items.
This series is amazing man, thank you truly
Thanks!
I love that you mentioned the first hat and that it's a sign for how well the run will go, because I play the exact same game. When I check that container, I'm always hoping for a brimmed hat for Gale. Does it matter? Not even a little bit.
Warped Headband of Intellect is S-Tier for 2 reasons. First, at the very beginning of the game, you can acquire it. It's a guaranteed +3 for your intelligence bonus. For the most part, your face of the party character is likely to have a good Charisma, Dex/Str, and Constitution. So, Intelligence is a dump stat. There are many useful Intelligence checks to make life easy in Act I. So, it's always nice to have access to it when it's needed.
The second reason:
By the end of Act I, you'll likely have not immediate use for the WHoI, but you shouldn't sell it. Later on, in Act III, there is the Mirror of Loss, which can give a Permanent +2 to any given attribute.
Because most characters are going to have an 8 or a 10 in intelligence, and aren't likely to have proficiency in Religion, making the DC25 Religion check is nearly impossible without save scumming or respec-ing.
Having the WHoI, the Mage's Friend (a ring that gives +1 to religion), the Shifter's Boon (a ring that gives +1d4 to skill checks while disguised self is active), having an ally give you a Bardic Inspiration die during the dialog with the mirror, another concentrating on Enhanced Ability (for Intelligence Checks), and a Third one for Guidance, basically makes getting the Mirror of Loss an easy mode thing for everyone in your party.
It essentially gives you a base +4 to the check, plus an additional 2d4 & 1d8 (or 1d10 if the Bard is lvl 10), and you'll roll with advantage. So, it makes your average bonus a 14 towards a DC 25 check. So, an 11 is roughly needed on average to make the check, which is a 50/50 shot. With Advantage, it's even easier. So, for Honor Mode, this was my exact strategy, and I only need to blow 1 Inspiration Die to make it work for all four the characters on my team.
For my Honor Mode run, I did have a Hireling (Brianna Brightsong - Halfling) 2 Levels Transmutation Wizard, 10 Levels Lore Bard. Her purpose was to handle all of my crafting. I let her out of the camp for the Mirror of Loss only. She made it an easy mode task.
So... I feel like the Warped Headband of Intellect is indispensable for a smooth Honor Mode Run. It is an item that is not worth turning into vendor trash until after the Mirror of Loss. This is S-Tier because it helps make your run for the Mirror of Loss a piece of cake for a check that you might not make otherwise. Do the math without it, and you'll realize that you'll need to do the respec otherwise. Having to do 2 respecs (the first for doing the mirror, and the second for putting your character back the way you wanted) is hardly worth the time. The money is nothing at this stage of the game, but 8 repecs to make the Mirror of Loss viable is not worth it in my opinion.
Plus, you'll still want to give all the buffs to the check anyway. At best, your repsec will give you a +5 Intelligence Bonus, and then having Proficiency and Expertise in Religion makes your base check a 13 for religion. So, on its face it's still not better than a 50/50 without all those other bonuses I mentioned above. The respec is hardly worth the effort when you can just swap out the head piece, and the two rings, for each individual's attempt.
I'm sorry for the long comment, and I hope I made my point. The WHoI is worth a permanent +2 to an attribute for EVERY character in your party.
Ah I see, a man of culture. I too am into the experimental trance k-pop scene
I actually did skip auntie ethel's thralls in a run once. It actually made her fight harder cause she summons them during her real fight.
I adore your tier lists! Especially since you order the items in the order of when you will see them in-game.
Thanks very much!
These tier lists are my new addiction for a bit now
I gotta say, I disagree with your placement of the warped headband of intellect. On any tav during an honor mode playthrough, it’s easily an S+ item. Any stat dump item is incredibly strong and hyper operationalizing your main character for dialog and saving throws is something I’m wearing the entire game the second I get it.
Agreed. That headband made my honor mode run go much smoother with no INT character in my group.
@@corporeal5980if youre wearing this through the whole game then you clearly dont know wtf you're doing lol, its like you're not even wearing a helmet 95% of the time
46:50 truth be told, I have played only two times, and both I was a warrior, and I wore this circlet 95% of the game, putting stronger helmets only when fight was tough. my first playtrough on normal, and second on tactician (I am a Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 veteran). I loved having +3 added to many INT skillchecks, and also my warrior girl looked really nice in it :)
Menzoberranzan is the capital city of the Drow.
The Circlet of Psionic Revenge could be very good on a Gnome caster, specially if you are going solo. :)
Quick heads up about the Whispering Mask. If you used Protection from Evil and Good to use this item, MAKE SURE to remove it just before the fight. In the actual fight itself against the hag it gives you no benefits, and protection spell may last the whole day, but it is a concentration spell. If Ethel hits you, which in that fight she very likely will, you might lose concentration and that's going to be devastating and almost guarantee you lose that encounter.
250+ hours in this game and this list is still full of items I've never even seen or heard of.
There's a lot of dang items!
49:00 what better loot, if you wear Whispering mask? is there a list? Any strong items worthy of mentioning?
Amazing, love all of it but especially the summary at the end 👌🏼
Thanks so much for the support! Really glad you enjoyed it :D
Yeah I realized partly through this series that the summary by act was a useful thing to do - if I was redoing the earlier videos I'd make that part longer (though keep an eye out for tomorrow's video!)
Oh, the whispering mask. My very favourite way to end a run when still learning the game. Maybe second to kissing the wounded mindflayer. Hard to decide, I enjoyed both
You don't have to be a game pro to safely assume that wooden eerie looking mask inside evil cave with skulls and cursed items that belongs to an evil Hag is bad news:) It's not a rocket science
@Vasiliy9hells It's the same curiosity that allows you to meet Gale, even when narrator tells you it seems to be dangerous. I'm a simple gamer - if something can be done, it must be tried.
Thanks! Your infinite BG3 wisdom is amazing. My Dark Urge Honour run is trapped in the ACT 2 prison break. no one has a thunder spell, and those Scrying Eyes are bugged and i cant kill them. constantly calling in reinforcements. I really want the Potent Robe, so i dont want to run away thru the tower. maybe if i get one person to the boat it will trigger the escape scene. anyway, we appreciate your videos.
Thanks very much for the support! I really appreciate it. I haven't run into that issue, but maybe you can solve it with explosives? I think there's some smokepowder barrels in the dungeon iirc, which should do force damage and kill the orbs reasonably well
Love the vids. Just wanted to correct one little thing on the Cap of Curing. From the Wiki: When a character is healed by Bardic Inspiration, the game does not equate this with the wearer of this hat directly healing the creature. As such, it will not trigger equipment like The Whispering Promise.
This is such a great channel! Your videos have definitely upped my game. I'm actually hoping for a difficulty increase in Patch 7, 'cause I'm on the tail end of my third run through, (first time on Honor Mode), and it's not even a challenge. It's rare that a fight goes more than two rounds, three at the most. Fools are gettin' SMOKED son!!! ;)
Pretty sure the Lifebringer actually was healing my existing temporary HP pool, same as the way the Vital Conduit Boots can. Might make it more useful with some builds.
Great video bro
I don’t know if others would think this is helpful, but I’d love if a *very* general note could be made for where non-story-event items are within the act (ex: “in the creche” or “Wyrm’s Crossing”, that kind of thing). However, if that’s too spoliery, nevermind! :) Really appreciate all these lists; they’re so helpful!
There is a wiki tbf
Oh yeah, use it all the time
Second this, just a general hint would help not say; miss the gloves of dex by making the creche hostile
@@zegreatpumpkinani9161You can still get them, they are a drop from the merchant if you kill them.
@@MayHugger its random if they drop, I got unlucky my most recent playthrough
The joke about the Top Hats was right there
In BG1 the most common non magical helmets had crit immunity as a passive buff and therefore was much less valuable to have and fire resistance could be easily mitigated by a common druid/cleric resist fire/cold spell. When i first found grimskull helm i immediately thought it was over hyped by people always praising it particularly on yutube. It was a very common effect and stashed it away in my camp, i didn't even bother equipping it on any companions.
You used to ask about your microphone for a bit while you were getting the settings set up, but I wasnt watching much during that time. Now though, I think you could turn your noise reduction effect down a bit. Its adding a little bit of what Id call digital nasalyness that isnt present on those earlier videos with your new microphone.
Thanks for letting me know!
I know it can be annoying to not have a tooltip, but I think it’s so cool that the devilfoil masks secretly do something if multiple characters are wearing them.
Just means those who are really into rp-ing with them get a cool little bonus (even if it is +1 to the stat you can already get the most bonuses for)
Holy Lance helm on a radiant orb / reverberation stacking cleric build is just ridiculous.
Run into a group of enemies with spirit shield, deal a bunch of damage, apply stacks of radiant orb + reverb, then deliberately run away and watch as all the enemy's attacks of opportunity miss, trigger more radiant orb + reverberation, and knocks everyone prone. So fun.
"The Mask of the Shapeshifter gives you Disguise Self at will, which is pretty powerful"
Powerful is an extremely strong word for an ability that you can do an entire campaign without noticing lol
Sure, you can, but Disguise self makes the early game a LOT smoother, and it lets you take advantage of the shapeshifter's boon ring.
Wapira's Crown becomes S tier, or even beyond, with one item from an equipment mod. The mod is called Ancient Weaponry and is on Nexus Mods. The item is called:
Flail of the Coastal Tides
1d8+7 damage
Healing of the Depths:
When you deal damage to a foe with this weapon, you heal your allies for 1d8+2 hit points.
Weapon enchantment +3
Tenacity:
When you miss an attack, you deal 4 bludgeoning damage anyway.
With that weapon paired with, The Whispering Promise, the Helldusk gloves and Wapira's Crown you will be healing, blessing and blade warding your party every turn. And then add on the Periapt of Wound Closure to max out the heals.
I'd like these vids a lot better if you overlaid the Tooltip for the item on the screen so we could read it while you talk about it.
Your work on these is appreciated.
Diadem of Arcane Synergy -
If you get close to an enemy they get the "threatened" condition. You don't even need to attack them. Just stand near them and you get the benefit from it. It may be possible to not get this effect with some of the pole arms. But, you pretty much ALWAYS have this as a melee attacker.
It's ALSO fairly easy to give a condition as a ranged attacker. But, for virtually any melee attacker in the game who has a reasonable spell casting modifier ... this is phenomenal.
Obviously, this is outstanding for pact of blade warlocks. This is also great for melee focused bards (it's all weapon attacks so it even works for dual wielding bards), and it's reasonable for paladins, rangers, and even monks, eldritch knights, and some clerics.
It's a bit weaker on ranged characters than melee ones just because you do actually need to inflict a condition of some kind (not hard to do, but you need something).
Don't overlook this on something like a cleric after level 8. All melee focused clerics (life, nature, tempest, war ... and kinda trickery) get an extra 1D8 damage at level 8. This is kinda supposed to help them in melee combat like getting extra attack at level 5 does for martial classes. This means that someone like a nature cleric at level 8 can do 2D8+10 damage on a melee attack. And, compared to a 2D8 cantrip that can start to be appealing (mathematically that's about the same as a 4D8 attack as your general melee attack each turn ... coming from a cleric without a magic weapon).
Threatened counting as a condition for the diadem was patched out! Are you still seeing that happening? If so it's a bug
@@Cephalopocalypse Will take another look. I'm playing on mac. There's a chance the mac patches run behind. I'm on a newer playthrough and am in the creche. Should have this shortly. 👍
@@Cephalopocalypse Threatened is a condition. It's listed under condition. It's a condition giving by the wearer of the diadem. It doesn't count. I think the bug is that the tooltip is unclear.
Going to try the Idol of Silvanus (from the druid grove) next. That "inflicts" a condition on anyone who gets within a given radius (Silvanus' Blessing).
Edit -
Applying the condition "Silvanus' Blessing" also doesn't trigger the ability. Going to try a few other things.
I feel like text that says "applying a condition after a successful attack roll or failed saving throw" or something like that should do it.
Does it work if I put ice on the ground and they fall? That would mean the prone condition and the difficult terrain condition were applied by me. That's two conditions. I'm curious about what auras exist in the game.
The text does specifically say "inflict" a condition. That feels nebulous but accounts for why applying conditions to allies doesn't trigger the effect. I wonder how they programmed this. If they had to include a boolean for each individual condition to denote which ones work for the two items in the game that have this ability.
I give conditions as a beast master ranger all the time and don’t even know why or how it happened. All the sudden they have reverberation on them and I’d imagine this triggers too. Only +3 damage as their wisdom isn’t very high, but I can’t wear armor or mage armor doesn’t work. So, I have this diadem for now. +3 on 3 attacks a round add up.
Best way to use Cap of Wrath: Every time a melee characters goes down in combat, short rest with them, and give them the cap, and go right on to the next fight with the rest of the party full health, and that one stacking wrath to the roof
It seems like every playthrough someone in our party wants to rush to the village and get the haste helm and the bracers of defense.
I HATE items setting stats to odd numbers. I don’t understand the point, haha
The easiest way to trigger the arcane synergy that I have seen is hunters mark. I wore it on a ranger build because there wasn't a good helm i found for him by that point and gave me a plus 2 with my wisdom at 14
Thanks!
Thank you so much for the extremely generous support! I really appreciate it - it really means a lot :D
The cap of Curing is a great hat, but better than that is when it becomes irrelevant I use it as a transmog item cuz it just looks so cool, there are some head pcs that look cool already like the Diadem of arcane synergy, or the shadespell circlet, but most of the head pcs just cover your head and instead of hiding it I would chose to use the cap or the diadem using my transmog item, I highly recommend trying it out.👍😁
3k away, also when the new brotato item tier list?
I would love to see one! But he probably won't do it until it's out of beta since stats are likely to change
Fun fact: you can bring all the devilfoil masks you're not wearing to Dammon.
>talking about mask of shapeshifter
>never mentioning a ring of shapeshifter
>free separate permanent guidance buff, stacks with guidance giving 2d4
>and you can cast this one on everyone by just passing mask and ring to every party member
It's pay to win tier.
A lot of unnecessary micromanagement just for an extra 1d4 to checks. Even honor mode do not require that much effort. I personally only used the Disguise+Ring occasionally only on my Rogue for pick-pocketing a bunch of items from shops in a row. But do do it every rest on every character? nah
Devil masks can also be converted to bombs by Damon
I think that in these tierlists there could be a "fashion" tier, basically for items you wear only for their looks... like generic hats
Great video. Thanks for sharing
Please consider adding a graphic showing the item and it's effects. It's make your videos far more effective learning tools, and it'd add some visual interest to a pretty basic chart being shown for 30 minutes. Of course, I wish you'd eliminate the completely useless items, too. You do good work, and this is just a way to step things up... thanks for the consideration.
I think it's super weird that I watched a full hour of someone breaking down act 1 head gear for bg3. I beat honour mode fair and square a while back, what am I looking for? why did I watch this? What has become of me? I'm scared
Try being the guy who makes them
One thing I find interesting/sucky about the items that require half HP is that it also counts temporary HP as part of the equation. So the characters HP + Temp HP need to be 50% or below the character's base HP for those to work.
on the diadem: it's basically bis for damage on normal paladins as well
obvs this would imply that you go str elixirs or dex weapons to make proper use of it cos paladins are MAD
but i wanted to point out that it's not only bladelocks or lockadins
you could *probably* make it work on an eldritch knight, too
@cephelopacolopse it would be cool to see a video on multi-multi-(multi?)class builds. Builds with one or two quick dips into different classes can be pretty good, but it's hard to come up with the right synergies and break-points. Obviously, you can't do _every_ combination if you're combining more than 2 classes, but I bet you could find some interesting ones.
For example, would a gloomstalker/assassin/shadow monk work? How about a wizard/fighter/sword bard/Blade Warlock?
Hello, for your tier videos which i love can you please put a photo of the item and it’s text in-game while you talk about it ? I love visual aids!
I was like "damn this is a pretty short vid for all those helms" before realizing this is just act one lol
I don't get why anyone worries about the traps in auntie Ethel. The clouds that need 30 can be blocked by throwing a heavy stone (you get 2 off one of the mask guys) and the other traps only need 10 sleight of hand to disarm. No need to featherfall.
Helmet of Smiting can be used by tieflings who get smites from their race.
Good morning, sir! Do you have a guide for Blade Dancer build?
Helmet of Smiting -
I don't think this is a very strong item. Just wanted to throw out there ... all Zariel Tieflings get two smites. This includes Karlach. So, you've (almost) always got at least one party member who can use it at least twice per day.
I think smite spells are pretty weak in general, and pretty much every group will have the temp hit point boots.
More great and useful info!!
Thanks!
One note. Menzoberranzan was coined by TSR, original publisher of DnD. WoTC cannot be blamed or credited with the name. It's the capital of the Drow, IIRC.
Yeah - and asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar was from a tabletop game one of the designers ran, so actually neither of the things I blamed on wizards are original to them
Maybe I am just bad at the game, but I like the lifebringer + spellsparkler combo for early game spellcasting characters. Not that it is a fantastic effect, but for act 1 these characters dont get many impactful options for headwear and 3 hp every turn at that point in the game adds up.
I've played many bards, they typically have better stuff to do than healing. Bardic inspiration is better used for special attacks. Never saw the point of the cap of curing and still don't. Gale food, C-tier at most.
Fun fact, the strength elixirs do not actually replace your base strength in all respects. Strength checks (not saving throws) still include your base strength modifier. How do I know this? I had Karlach built with 8 strength, but 21 from the elixir. I used her to turn the wheel for the cable car by the monastery and the check listed both -1 from strength and +6 from the elixir.
I know this isn't the elixir video, but I thought of this while you were talking about the Devilfoil Mask and how it loses relevance because of elixirs existing.
It's a tooltip error! 21 strength should give you a +5 bonus. For some reason the game displays it as -1 +6, but it's still giving the right value.
The helmet for +1 constitution saves is probably great if you don’t get a chance to respec shadowheart lol
Just to note it's +1 to con saves, not +1 to con, I might have been confusing there
@@Cephalopocalypse no sorry I knew that was just talking about concentration
How do you reach 26 Charisma for the Diadem of Arcane Synergy? I always thought it was 24...
You probably need a S+ tier, considering that you will probably end up with cap of curing in the same tier as that arcane synergy helmet. Haha
So good ty
DJ Tier list next
A question about the diadem of arcane synergy: do I need the two weapon fighting stile in order to receive the arcane synergy for off-hand attacks?
Missing the Frayed Drow Hood! But let's face it, that's just a Gale snack if you can make it that far without feeding him 3 other things.
Man…I never found like half of these
So the cap of wrath passive doesn't kick in if you get reduced to 50 hp in combat?
Can someone explain the bug with the shapeshifter helm? Would love to use it honestly
Well now I have to call into work…
You forgot the Reinforced Helmet. Act 1 near the hag's lair. Plus 1 to constitution savings throw. Non magical C tier I would say.
all the identical nonmagical helmets are under "helmet"
I have played through this game like 10 times now. How am I still missing some of these items?
Diadem of Arcane Synergy
Isn’t 26 Cha unattainable while wearing this? You can still get 24, with 20 base + Mirror + Archduke’s Sword, but I can’t see how to get to 26 without Birthright
Edit: And I cannot recall it being possibly to achiev 28 Cha in any way
It’s hat time, y’all!
What helmet/headband is best for a monk? My monk has been wearing the Warped Headband of Intellect and I respeced because of its bonus. Now I’m in act 3 and am wondering what would be better?
Haste helm
Why there is no item description displayed during explanation?
I think you can probably figure out why
How do you get to 26 Charisma?!
Is it with Patriar's Memory (+1) and Ethel's Hair (+1)?
Anything else shouldn't be able to get you above 24.