I've come back here after just beating Honour Mode with this exact build today! It was my 3rd playthrough and 1st attempt at Honour and took a total of 190 hours. I took on all the bosses and quests I could. I had 2 near total party kills early on before level 5 with the Gnoll fight and the Harpies but after that it wasn't even close with one exception. I took Orin out before she could take an action. Gortash and Ketheric didn't quite go to plan but still nothing I couldn't handle. Ansur? There is a reason he is called the Honour Mode killer and he almost wiped us. We had the battle completely under control and ready with a Globe for his Lightning Nova attack. What I didn't realize is Ansur can Nova on another turn with no notice. Gale's concentration had broken and the globe was down for one turn. We brought his health to zero thinking it was over but his Legendary Action brought him back and he immediately flew up and did a Nova. My Bard and Shadowheart went down. Gale's ward saved him and he was able to project to Lae'zel but they both lost 90% of their health. I saw my life flash before my eyes! After that it was a breeze. I obsessed about the final fight and came up with plan that the A-Team would have been proud of. We wiped everyone atop the brain without a single ally summon then wiped the Netherbrain in one turn. It was glorious! Thoughts about the party: - Be careful about your Eldritch Knight throwing their weapon to enter combat. Early on they attack from stealth to enter combat but I believe because their initiative was average their actual turn wouldn't trigger and the weapon return action would not occur so the weapon would sit on the ground where it landed. It didn't matter if it was magically returning or bound. Just have them become visible to enter combat and if their initiative roll is good enough to give a turn immediately then you throw. Also as someone also said here DO NOT use throwing weapons against the Netherbrain. I read this warning in advance and just had them jump right next to the brain with featherfall and start bashing with melee. - Nothing to be said about the Bard. Just the most insanely overpowered build. Hold Person and Hold Monster at 100% on a Legendary boss for a bonus action? What? - Gale was the MVP early on but in the last Act of the game his ward was rarely used. Enemies WILL NOT attack him either. It didn't matter that is AC was 18 vs everyone else 23-25. They would always go for Shadowheart even if he was closest. I never used the Fire/Ice shield Opportunity Attack. Just didn't feel necessary. It almost makes me think he could get a respec in Act 3 maybe. But his spell attack was still +19 so he really could bring the pain with the AOE spell attacks and stack Radiant Orbs importantly. - The Cleric was the weakest link for me. Maybe I'm still bad at playing them. She did have some clutch moments with Spirit Guardians but almost never needed her as a healer. If there was a way to keep her control aspects but make her a much better at offense that might be nice. Things I learned the hard way: - DON'T use spells to add bonuses to rolls when negotiating with the Hag after fighting with her. I lost out on Ethyl's hair this way when combat restarted. :( - Be careful with Ansur. - Don't try to be cute with the Moonrise Tower fight and try to enter from the back of the Tower quietly killing enemies along the way. Someone downstairs heard me which triggered the ENTIRE battle. It took me 4 turns to get to the front door where I watched Jaheira die. Kudos to you, @Cephalopacalypse for a great build and helping me take down my first HM on the first try. Cheers!
Just beat Honour Mode (and the game itself, lol!), both for the very first time! While I didn't end up running this party comp to completion, I ran it as my party comp for my first HM attempt, where I got all the way to Avatar of Myrkul before I decided to procrastinate doing that fight by rerolling a new campaign (which is the one that I actually used to beat HM.) What I appreciated about this team, though, was that it was a very safe way to learn HM and to develop my own confidence in my ability to do it. I highly endorse it as a team for people who want to learn the mode! And also, just a big thanks to you, ceph. Not just for this team, but because I've learned so much about team building from you. I didn't use any of your builds to actually beat HM, but I used everything I've learned from watching your build guides to build out an effective team of my own. Now, on to a replay where I intentionally power down my team!
Hey thanks so much for the support! I really appreciate it and I'm really glad you liked the comp! That's exactly what I'd hope for - always want people to use these as a jumping off point to make what you find most fun. Congrats on the win! I did just want to check with you though - on my end it looks like this comment double posted. I don't know if that means the donation accidentally went twice as well, but if so please email me and I'll do my best to get the extra back to you!
@@Cephalopocalypse thanks so much for asking me to check on it. Checked with my bank and the donation only went through once- no idea why the comment posted twice! I appreciate the heads up, though!
I had plans to start my first ever honour mode run days before this video got released. What a beautiful gift I have just completed it with an immense amount of success. This is the safest and most powerful set up i have ever used. Thank you for sharing your amazing talent and ideas with us. I owe my golden dice in part to you my friend
[Below are my notes and tips from having played this party all the way through the game] Original comment: No shot that you uploaded this right as I was researching to put together an optimal honour mode party! Thank you very much for your videos, I've come to trust you as my best source for Baldur's Gate 3 guides because you don't cut corners and are transparent about all the asterisks that come with applying these interwoven mechanics. Edit 1: About 30 hours deep into honour mode with this party, I have some notes that might help people in the future: - For Tav, I played a human and realised this build doesn't inherently get longbow proficiency until level 7, but this can be mitigated with the gloves of archery until you upgrade to gloves of dexterity. - The party is really strong, I ended the hag in one turn at lvl 6 as well as the Matriarch at lvl 5. It does feel like Tav and Lae'zel are doing most of the heavy lifting in the early game. - Do NOT pick up the The Sparky Points lightning trident, it does not generate lightning charges when thrown. The Spellsparkler is probably the best choice, especially as Gale felt a bit weak in the damage department in the early game. - The Luminous Armour is another great source of Radiant Orb accessible pretty early - When respeccing Tav after obtaining the Gloves of Dexterity, you can comfortably raise Charisma to 17 and eventually bump that to 18 with the hag's hair - Wood Woad Shield and Nature's Snare synergise extremely well with our frontline Gale early on, dishing out lots of Ensnared. - Returning Pike is probably one of the better weapons to use with Lae'zel in the early game due to its higher damage, despite its redundancy with bound weapon. - And this last one I just have to get off my chest as well, do NOT cast guidance or any other spell in the post-fight dialogue with the hag, it will trigger her LA and resume the fight. Generally, knowing how to do a hard emergency reset is a good idea. I've already almost lost the run at level two because that one assassin bug bear at the grove was freely moving while I was in combat with it and in turn-based mode like nobody's business. Edit 2: Done with Act 2 now, the party has served me pretty well. Overall I have to really credit these builds with the fact that I don't even remember the last time one of my characters dropped below 50% of their health. However, it feels a bit lacking in the offensive department at times. If I were to start my honour run with what I know now, I would make one change to remedy that: I'd respec Gale into a fire sorcerer (see cepha's build) in conjunction with the Hat of Fire Acuity, as Arcane Acuity + Control spells pretty much already provides such reliable control that it compensates for the lack of tanking. Other than that, here are a few tricks I picked up: - The Flawed Helldusk Gloves on my eldritch thrower have an unexpected synergy with BOOOAL's Benediction. They frequently cause Bleeding which then gives my entire party advantage on the target. This is likely a bug, as the gloves' tooltip states that the bleeding effect applies to unarmed attacks, but the damage bonus you get from the gloves on throws is actually fire damage, which corresponds to weapon damage in the tooltip. Additionally, Nyrulna also makes positioning really challenging because the AOE thunder damage affects friendlies. That's an alternative worth considering. Side Note: You can get BOOOAL's favour without sacrificing anyone by first pickpocketing the sickle he usually gives you, vids for it are on youtube. - At the Sword Bard's level 12, I would pick up Command instead of Hunger of Hadar. Command can also be bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel, and it has a few key advantages over the other control spells: It can be upcast and it can target selectively, meaning within the first turn you can usually already shut down ANY and ALL threatening enemies for the rest of the battle, lest they have legendary resistance of course. - For our Light Cleric, instead of gaining the Devotee's Mace, I would stick with Phalar Aluve. This is because Phalar's effects are incredible, and also because the lack of proficiency on Shadowheart with this build is irrelevant (since we don't make melee attacks). Additionally, it synergises nicely with her spells, all the AOE of course and scorching ray in particular. But most of all, since we will want to equip items that apply radiant orb like the luminous gloves, coruscation ring and callous glow ring, there's no room left for the items that make healing viable. - Having only piercing damage for weapon damage can be a big drawback, particularly in the Shadow Cursed Shambling Mound fight (It has piercing immunity). - Warding Bond is an INCREDIBLE spell to cast on our Abjuration Tank Gale, giving him resistance to all damage and thus reducing the damage he actually takes to pretty much 0, which then also ends up not hurting the one to cast Warding Bond whatsoever. Recall that you can get Warding bond for free with the two rings at the House of Healing (True Love's Caress, True Love's Embrace). - Summons do a lot of work in wiping out adds like the Necromites in the Apostle of Myrkul fight, somewhat making up for the lack of offence. - I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in the video, but the abjuration tank wizard Gale deals a lot more damage when applying Chilled with the Mourning Frost first or giving enemies the Wet condition, so it makes sense to commit to cold damage and go for summons like ice mephits, water elemental, etc. I hope everyone's runs are going as well as mine is right now. Cheers. Final Edit to this comment (and definitely the MOST IMPORTANT one): I have beaten honor mode, hooray! I have had two close calls towards the end of the game: - The Wyrm below Wyrm's Rock nearly wiped me, but this was mostly due to my own bad play, as I didn't realise I was wet for most of the fight. Also, Warding Bond in this particular fight is a detriment. - The Will of the Netherbrain: Once inside the Netherbrain's psyche, I had to make a shocking discovery. THROWING WEAPONS DO NOT WORK ON THE WILL OF THE NETHERBRAIN. In fact, not only can throwing weapons not make contact with the Netherbrain, but they even fall all the way into the void. This immediately deleted Nyrulna from the fight and disarmed Lae'zel - a disaster in honor mode where every final turn counts. Secondly, The party's dependency on piercing damage came back to bite me once again, due to the Aegis of the Absolute, basically only allowing me to make meaningful attacks every other turn.This also applies to the light cleric somewhat, who pretty much only has mass light and fire damage, both of which are usually dealt together. I'd actually recommend to respec the eldritch knight thrower into a pure damage melee character just for the final fight, a paladin perhaps for the versatile burst damage from smites. I'd also advise to bring scrolls of high damage dealing spells in order to get around the Aegis of the Absolute. Overall, the party carried itself really well through most of the game, though once you start unlocking Globe of Invulnerability the defensive aspects of the builds feels pretty redundant, as Globe becomes the de facto meta approach to defence in every difficult fight.. I would have much rather had more offence and mass damage towards the end of the game, so I stick by my earlier recommendation to respec the Abjuration Tank into a sorcerer. In total I beat every Legendary Action boss (except for Mastic Carrion) in my playthrough and did most core quests as well - Total playtime around 85 hours. Golden dice acquired! Thanks Cepha. With that, I wish everyone good luck.
SAME! I just finished Tactician and am ready to try Honour mode.. and this is such perfect timing my gosh!!! Thank you @cephalopocalypse ! EDIT: Got my golden dice :D
I love the idea of Laezel just being like, “Fine, I’ll do *everything* and carry the rest of you through this whole misadventure.” Totally seems in line with her character.
I found your videos a number of days ago. I enjoy your content and analysis on making the game fun, and not boring, with "I will help you make the game trivial" content. Keep it up, and always have fun with your videos.
Thanks! Yeah, I personally find the builds that remove all the gameplay pretty boring, so I prefer not to cover them - this game is large enough that the devs can't possibly cover every corner case, so we as players need to meet them partway to have fun with the game
I got my honor mode dice today and I feel like I owe a big part of it to you. I actually didn’t use any of your builds even though they are super great, but your videos inspired me, and gave me the knowledge, to create my own builds that lead me to beating it.
I ran a gloom assasin, throw barb thief fighter, light cleric and wizard in honor mode. It's really about being as strong as possible at all levels as well as only using ranged characters and using summons to be your front line punching bags. Shovel early on is great, conjure minor elemental ice mephits, then onto conjure elementals, myrmidons and devas. Always put your expendable summons up front and attack from the rear and you'll survive honor mode a lot easier. I had a camp eldritch fighter to bind the thrown weapons and used strength elixirs on both the ranger with titan bow and the throw barb at all times. Scrolls are great when you run out of spell slots to avoid long resting. With careful planning you should absolutely get the awakened illithid power that lets you use black hole as a bonus option. Changes the late game significantly.
I know I’m way late on this but, this party is so cracked. I had zero problems with any fight, even the one fight (merkel) that was a BIT challenging still went incredibly well. Pretty insane synergy. Thanks for the golden dice chief
I truly have been waiting for this video for a while now. All of your builds are wonderful, and I apprecaite all the work you put into it! Keep doing what you love, please.
Thank you for the video! I am one of those who want the challange in honour mode but still play the game "the normal way". So thank you for helping me out with some very nice looking builts :D
your videos are the first ive ever felt like giving a like, high quality and always handy to come back to, your voice is reassuring and your channel is amazing!
This is awesome. I see lots of character builds and there are conflicting equipment where everyone wants the same thing! We need more full party builds where people have their own items
I destroyed Honor mode on my first attempt. It was actually quit easy to do. My main party was Sorcadin, Bardadin, Light Cleric and Evocation Wizard. In reserve for particular fights, I had an Eldritch Machine Gun Warlock, a TB OH Monk, and a pure flex Rogue/Thief Duergar. Now here's a little something that's going to make all your playthroughs INCLUDING Honor mode a breeze, if your Tav isn't a Duergar let me introduce you to Kree, the best goddamn hiriling from Withers... At level 5 Kree comes online. Her racial ability to go invisible all Duergar get at level 5. It's once per BATTLE, not long or short rest. And it's infinite once activated until broken. Spec Kree into a Rogue with the Thief subclass. Give her as much Dex as possible with the rest in Strength and Con. Now if she's level 5, the fun can begin. Equip items like the gloves of thieving, graceful cloth, smugglers ring, shapeshifters boon ring, shapeshifters helmet, cloak of cunning brume, etc. Not everything listed here is required, just optimal stuff. Honestly the only thing really needed is the gloves of thieving for advantage of Sleight of Hand checks. Now go to any vendor or anyone you want to steal from, go invisible with the Duergar racial ability. Sneak, and pickpocket anything you want/can. Now here's what's so amazing about this build... Even on honor mode if you get caught and combat starts you're perfectly safe. Especially if you have the Alert feat too. Just go invisible and use cunning action Dash to run away from the spot you went invisible at. You can even dash twice if you need to. The enemies will go to the spot you went invisible, look around and use Detect Presence. They can't find you and combat will end immediately. Rinse and Repeat until you get everything you want. You can do this with partial rests to reset vendors. Want infinite Gold, potions, items, camp supplies etc? This is how you do it. Hands down the BEST thief in the game. This ISN'T a glitch, not an exploit or anything of the sort. This is 100% proper gamer play mechanics and item utilization to create the perfect thief. I cannot explain how unbelievably powerful this build is to use on an Honor mode playthrough when everything costs a fortune and item like potions, elixirs and scrolls are unbelievably powerful in their own rights. FURTHERMORE! Kree can be multiclassed into Bard/Wizard to learn the Shatter spell. This makes her a Scrying Eye Assassin. You can literally waltz around Moonrise shattering all the eyes in less than 10 minutes and never get caught. Just food for thought if you're struggling with that. So in closing strong main party synergy is excellent. And Honor mode isn't anywhere near as difficult as people make it out to be. But I highly recommend you go say hello to Kree at Withers and she will become a irreplaceable member of your camp/party for all foreseeable playthroughs.
@@kittydaddy2023 I wouldn't call it making it too easy, as much as making quality of life easier on you. Sure you can go buy whatever you want and impose as many self challenges as needed, but honestly that's personal preference. From a gameplay perspective, I found it to be incredibly easy. Even post patch 6 Myrkul was a breeze. House of Hope? Not even remotely difficult. With proper positioning and game mechanics understanding, Honor mode was significantly easier than I anticipated. If I'm being completely honest, I was actually rather disappointed with how easy it was, especially after all the hype of people losing multiple runs. Even without stealing everything, just normal playthrough, honor mode is rather easy. The power of just the Bardadin alone is unreal. Combined with multiple meta builds, it's a walk in the park.
@@d.b.hemlock Any optimized party will crush Honor Mode pretty easily. Considering people can solo it with various builds, it's an obvious conclusion that if you put 4 of those together the game won't be very hard. My honor mode was 4 bards, and anyone else that I swapped for quest reason I made bard also. Had a bardadin, a range swords bard, and 2 pure lore bards. It wasn't challenging in the least, Myrkul or any Act 3 fight was a breeze (closest was Cazador cause I brought Astarion and walked in his aura by mistake on T1 so I started the fight with only 2 party members up. Was still easy after 2 turns). Once you understand the game mechanics well and learn how ridiculously good some spells are in some situation (like Globe of Invulnerability vs Ansur) it's an easy game because all the fights are predetermined, there's very little randomness. But that's what's also good about it, it's NOT easy on a first run when you don't understand it well and don't know what to expect, and if you want it harder you can always do self-imposed challenges.
@@d.b.hemlock I've seen a lot of runs end by getting pushed into a pit. I lost on the elder brain when a platform disappeared. I would not fault someone for pulling out all the stops on a later attempt because that's what I'm doing. I self-impose "helping traders pack" when i know I'm killing them. That's usually enough to get enough money without looting every single stupid crate and body.
Use of respecs and hirelings is ENORMOUSLY underestimated and under utilized. Stop worrying about having buff spells on party members. Have 2 clerics and s bard hireling speccex to keep you buffed with inspiration for important rolls, longstrider, death Ward eard, prot from poison, freedom of movement, etc
Fun quirk i figured out with Guardian of Faith, if you put Survival Instinct on it, the Illithid Power you get from Omeluum, it sticks around at 0 Hp for the duration of the power.
Currently using this build on Tactician, to test it out and I'm definitely liking it so far! After finishing tactician, I'll start the Honor Mode with these
I love your videos! I’m new to turn-based RPG games & never played DnD before playing BG3 so I walked into the game clueless as to what to expect. Now I’m on my second run in balanced mode, finding the game a bit easier and looking for a challenge, so I’m thinking of jumping straight to honor mode after this and following your party guide. I love how well you explain everything, it’s easy to understand, and how there’s not many “required items” for this party - one thing I HATE is trying to follow build guides and keep track of every single item I absolutely must have in order to complete the build. Thanks again for the work you put in to make guides like this!
As I’m approaching the end of my first run I’ve been working on planning an Honour Mode run to get my golden dice. Love all your build videos, and I’ve just been thinking of how much I’d like to see a full party comp from you. I’d love to see a full party comp centered around the Wet condition (what I was thinking of using to abuse that busted Wizard build). I’d also LOVE to see you do a build for the Jack-of-all-Trades trophy (multiclass into every class without ever respecing). I bet you could come up with something fun for that.
Great content as ever! I'd love to see your take on an honour mode party that doesn't abuse broken game mechanics/classes (wet, TB, Swords bard, abj wiz etc.)
Such a cool and affective build. This is exactly the info we all need. I might finally have the confidence for Honour with this. You're the man, thanks.
Fantastic guide! I was so hype years ago for beta, loved BGII/Icewind Dale and DoSII was one of the best games I ever played. Needless to say was so hype for this release, probably the most excited I have ever been about a video game since FF7. Enjoyed the heck out of BG3. Did the usual thing where I roll a toon play to lvl3-4 and restart lol. Finally settled on a bow bard, made it to lvl 7/8 and restarted on tactician with a bardlock. Made it to baldur's gate and lost interest :/ It's my own fault for having such an OP party and face rolling everything from lvl 4 on. I figured I'd check back in a year see if they add an ironman mode. My calendar alerted me last week to move BG3 from storage to SSD and see what's up. They did it!!! Ironman! So thanks for the awesome guide, I'm following everything but gonna half wood elf for Tav as I don't like Githyanki and they're OP. That way when I beat it on honourmode, my character won't look fing stupid instead she will be super sexy, and I will simultaneously be a better person than all the chuds that rolled gItHyAnKi more like githNOTHANKy
Wow I'm surprised there are no rogues in this. Your "the best archer" power build is completely insane but i suppose a sword bard can do anything from lockpicking to burst damage. Also absolutely love the team building guides. Any of your builds work well together anyway, but sometimes people wonder about itemization or shared spells.
This was absolutely gorgeous. It's not difficult for a new player to build parties based on all your previous quality content and other creators, but to free out all the item combination is so amazing. The only thing that might be even slightly annoying is lack of immunity to slip surfaces such as ice since this build seems like it would love to have everything frozen.
i stumbled across your Ranger build and i had a BLAST playing it, so much i gave up on my run and restarted. Subbed. these builds are so well put together thank you for sharing!
Dude... Battles that I struggled with in Tactician now go easy and fun in Honour Mode with your build. Had to tweak it a bit since I was already a bit into act 1 when I saw your video and using Karlach as my main character (Turned her into the Bard), but it's working beautifully. Thanks for the hard work and excelent content mate!
I got absolutely blindsided by a wipe a couple days ago (fight started with a normal ass wolf one-shotting my throwzerker MC in the creche and the leader finishing him off with no death saving throws...) so this is a nice video to encourage me to try again haha... Although I don't necessarily need the builds, it's good to be reminded of all of the ways to mitigate what happened to me, which you highlight thoroughly!
TBH that fight was the closest i got to wiping. The leader feared my life cleric and my sorcerer, and my rogue died to a tickle (i replaced him with a moon druid asap after i realized how useless he was). Karlach bear totemed her way through the fight, rezzing the life cleric and my sorcerer with two thrown potions, giving the cleric time to mass healing word to full heal herself.
I just beat honor mode for the first time with this exact build! I’ve got to say it was really masterfully crafted. At no point did I really feel like I was falling behind or underprepared for any of the major fights and having an invincible wizard DEFINITELY took like 90% of the pressure off in most combats. I had never played a bard in any of my other playthroughs and WOW I might have a bard in every party going forward (maybe this specific one honestly). My bard, Ayla, was able to easily pass all dialogue checks AND dominate the battlefield with all the flourishing attacks + free illusion spells at the end of the game. Laezel was going IN with the guaranteed damage from start to finish and made most encounters a breeze. The only “weak” point of the build might be the shadow heart, although as mentioned in your video she’s really meant as a catch all for ALL of the useful utility and healing and she accomplished that role in spades. The only combats that were close calls were: -shambling mound, piercing damage immunity was scary but also I could work around it with gale - myrkul: I just played this fight kind of dumb and almost lost the play through due to it. - steel watcher foundry: even though I had hero’s feast everyone but shadow heart got dominated during the fight at one point which was scary as hell, but I was able to push through thankfully Overall S-tier build, and I’m so glad I’ve got my golden dice now :) Thanks for the awesome videos man!
Thanks for the party build video. I just restarted my Honor Mode run because I used Charm Scroll in a dialog advantage. And Kagha didnt like that and she decided to wipe the other group off the face of the earth and now everyone thinks I did it... was a little too scuffed. Always looking for builds. I am maining a Drow Bard and everyone hates me but then i win them over with a tune. Loving Swords Bard so far.
Thank you so much for putting this together. It is very much appreciated. I expect this will get a good number of views for the channel. Suggest more complimentary builds coming together though it might be tricky beating this group for fun.
I just beat honor mode using this team! I don't have the most in-depth knowledge of games mechanics but this team carried me through! My #1 tip... keep one party member at camp. I think the only time you have to have your full party is for the final boss of act 2 and ofc the very end of the game. But my strategy was to take 3 members into a fight and if we all died I just resurrected them with withers (you can pickpocket withers to get your money back... he never gets mad). I most likely would not have been able to do this run had I kept all 4 members of my party on me at all times. Thanks so much for this awesome guide!
I respecced to this party starting the third act because I was just so nervous about having no defense capability with the party and holy smokes. I was so nervous going into the House of Grief fight and I think Laezel took 2 damage and Shadowheart took 40 damage. That's it. With proper planning and this party combined, I already know I'm about to beat this mode that frightened me for so long. Insane builds friend!
I'm loving the concepts in this build. I'm not very good at theorycrafting on my own these days but I very much enjoy taking a well-designed character and figuring out how they work, learning from that and then tweaking it to my own taste. Your videos have proven to be fantastic for that, and doing a whole party this way is doubleplusgood. Or maybe that's quadrupleplusgood? And here's my vote for a playthrough with this party (each of your parties actually) that maybe skips all the dialog and quest stuff (that's not specific to these builds) in favor of more detail of how they play in combat with when and why to use all the cool toys these characters get. Maybe just a sample battle or two from each Act? Nobody I've found seems to do that for their builds. Lots of builds, a few such as you describe why to pick this or that, but nobody shows them in action, at least not without also wading through every single dialog and inventory management and shopping spree.
I really enjoy playing this party. (Almost , stat split different because not playing in HM) . You don’t abuse of multiclassing and I like it. Each character have its fighting style identity and the whole cover each ability and skill. Eventually it works very well.
Interesting point of order: if you enjoy playing with Minthara in your squad, her soul branding ability actually synergizes beautifully with this Laezel throw build. For whatever reason the damage bonus doesn’t expire on a thrown attack so you basically get free extra fire damage for three turns with no spell slots spent. Plus a good use of a bonus action if needed. Anyway, thanks for this team! I’m running it right now and have made it safely through Act 1 of my first Honour Mode run with barely any close calls (only one, which was my own fault for attempting to cheese the grymforge fight. Let’s just say Druid hirelings were harmed in the making of THAT particular production and leave it at that 😅).
Thanks for making a guide that treats the game as a four party squad game and not a solo game! Your comp looks like my first playthrough but with Karlach instead of Lae'zel.
Great video, super informative. Still in the middle of Act 1 on my first playthrough, but I'm doing it in Honour Mode (albeit with saves turned on--all other difficulty settings are highest). Definitely a LOT more playtime in Act 1 than I was expecting, but it's because I like to explore every nook and cranny on my first time through. I happened to have rolled up a Swords Bard anyways, so didn't need many modifications to my group comp to even it up with this. Biggest Feedback: The only real feedback I have on this party build is the lack of discussion around proficiencies. Mostly not an issue if people are using the followers you've selected here, but as I'm playing a Drow (am doing a mostly blind playthrough , so I feel a bit lucky that it seems like Drow kinda makes large parts of Act 1 ez mode?) I don't actually have longbow or shield proficiencies, making Fighter much more necessary. I think on my next big respec when I pick up Fighter I will actually take duelist bard and archery style with fighter, in case I need to switch to sword/shield for some reason). More Content: If you'd like more content to include in future videos (not that I feel you need it, but I could see value in it for a player in my position) doing some kind of snapshot of what the party might look like at the end of each Act, rather than just at level 12. Also from the few build videos I've watched, I'm surprised at the overwhelming lack of actual gameplay that's included in them. Would love to see some quick-cut video of the build / group / whatever during its full glory. Maybe there's a limitation there as it really seems no one is doing that, but it's just a thought. Thanks again, really appreciate your time!
I can not overstate how good this party is. On honour mode, I had one character take damage in the fight with Orin and the Bhaalists thanks to projected ward and warding flare. A combo of Otto's Irresistible Dance and Arrows of Roaring Thunder to yeet people off the edges. This party is so good.
A warning for Throwing builds. I don't think he mentioned it here, but keeping it as spoiler free as possible the very last fight in the game is bugged. Throwing weapons do not work on it, and they do not get returned to you. Even if they are supposed to, if you throw them they are gone for good. Keep that in mind especially for an Honor mode playthrough it could SERIOUSLY mess with your run.
I kind of loved when that happened to my friend in a multiplayer playthrough. Felt like Avatar the last Airbender when sokka throws his boomerang for the last time
Fantastic video! Just wanted to share for the bard build, that 10 Swords bard/1 fighter/1 wizard lets you focus more on control and reach level 6 spells without sacrificing too much martial damage. Its a great option for those that really want those high level spells.
My main honour party is Gloomstalker Assassin with 3 wizards, one wizard has a level in knowledge cleric. One of the wizards is a Necromancer, so lots of summons. Very solid party, more so than I initially would have thought. Great, informative vid, thx for sharing! Cheers ! !
I always romance ascended astarion as durge in honour mode. If you rush cazador in act 3, then have Astarion turn you into a vampire spawn, your durge can get +1 to all attack rolls from the bite ability. For the bard, I like running 2/10 paladin/bard with natural 22 str with the araj potion since it offers counterspell and a ton of lv4+ smites. One build i've been experimenting with recently is the 2/4/6 warlock/champion/sorc eldritch blast build on a halfling. You can hide in greater invisibility and spam eldritch blast outside of combat. Each volley does 200+ damage with risky ring, and it makes everything ridiculous easy.
Great content! running a similar party but evil, thematic, not rest reliant, enjoying darkness & piercing vulnerability: Gale as Tav, Warlock 2 / Abjuration with Bhaalist armor; Laezel throwing EK with spear of evening; Minthara Pal 2 / Sword bard for control & nova; Shadowheart Gloomstalker 5 / Trickery cleric with archery. Piercing darkness party.
For the abjuration wizzard mage armour might be worth mentioning. Cast it on your summons (mephit/elemental) to beef them up and gain arcane ward charges aswell.
Here's the trick to honor mode... Globe of invulnerability . Stick and move. Always keep one companion at s range they can dive in and engage OR duck out to camp if needed UNTIL you get access to globe of invulnerability scrolls. Then, play however you want. Love tap things to death, doesn't matter. You can't die, be silenced, debuffed etc. Any enemies that enter the globe, pick up and throw out. Need more scrolls? Long rest or level s hireling a single level and every vendor is refreshed. If you're dying to bosses like Grym, it's your own fault. You never need to even ve standing on the firge platform area during the flight. Just bomb him from above on the staircase, etc. It's less about special "builds" imo and more about understanding the methods of guaranteed survival to defeat honor mode.
It just depends on if one is okay with cheesing the game, or if they prefer to overcome the challenge as it was intended. I don't feel like I actually accomplished anything if I cheese a tough fight, personally.
Great video! Copied all builds but decided to switch Gale with Wyll for a sorlock build since i found that they would avoid Gale like the plague. Triple eldritch blast added in you just do so much damage that most threats are shut down in 1 or 2 turns anyway.
Dude, I would kill for a commentary Tactician Or Honour play thru by you playing this. I think it could teach hardcore gamers, like myself who has beat DOS2 on honour mode, the basics (which for 5e feels insane) and give us the knowledge we need to have fun.
Can confirm this team does make honour mode very easy! Only a few fights in the game were actually at all worrying and of those fights, only two of them were mandatory. One suggestion for the eldritch knight is that Disguise Self is a pretty useful spell to have given one of the weapons you have guaranteed access to in act 3 is the Dwarven Thrower so you can get the bonus from that weapon regadless of the character's actual race. Nyrulna is great but if you don't want to do AoE damage for whatever reasons (your characters are nearby, friendly NPCs are nearby, etc), having both lets you have the second best-in-slot option. It also gives you bludgeoning damage if piercing isn't what you want at the time.
This guide works really well. I just want to add that you really need to prep for the Apostle of Myrkul fight. I had basically no problems with anything until that fight. Was unable to beat him because of some dumb choices and do a reset.
All four of the builds are really good thematicaly, especially Lae'zel's. They are all really lore friendly. La'zel as an eldtritch knight leans into the githyanki being psionic warriors. She's the fighter but with more access to all the mobility spells her race gives her; misty stepping, leaping, and featherfalling the party when needed, while giving longstrider lessons to the group. She has mystical defense with the shield spell, and magic missile for that bit of gith magical superiority. Gale as an abjuration wizard feels like he "manipulates the weave" to create barriers. Which is perfect for his obsession to Mystra. It would make sense he's a "defensive" wizard trying to deal with the bomb implanted in him; trying any barrier magic to nullify it so he doesn't explode and hurt anyone. Shadowheart as a light cleric makes complete sense for her storyline later on. If you follow pulling her out of Shar manipulation for her "good ending" she turns to Selune, the lady of the moon/light, rejecting Shar. The fourth build being a Tav seems on point as well. Tav being a charisma based class is perfect mechanically and themeatically for a main characer. There is no bard companion (R.I.P. Alfira) and it's the only full class that has no companion repesentation, so it makes sense Tav would/could fill that role in the cannon characters. Being a quirky yet inspirational leader of the group with all the possible decisions make throughout the adventure.
Just did my first run where I actually went out of my way to use elixirs, what a broken mess it was! Because I never used the elixir strategy so I didn't know how many hill giants I needed to stockpile. I ran to Aunty Ethel at level 2, got her happiness bar whatever it's called up to 100, and purchased 3 potions every time I leveled up or rested. As soon as I got the titan bow that scales off strength, I figured "well I got over 10 HG elixirs, surely I can spare some on this for a while." Fast forward to the end of act 2, I drank strength elixirs on the eldritch knight and bard every day, I'm walking thru the entrance to Baldur's Gate with over 20 Hill Giants potions and a couple Cloud Giants that I hadn't touched yet. I think I even drank a couple on Gale at one point just to carry more crap, probably in the creche and while clearing out Moonrise. I also made Karlach into a transmutation wizard, pushed her wisdom up to 20, multiclassed 1 level into rogue to grab another point of medicine proficiency, and every time I noticed my alchemy bag getting a little heavy, I'd long rest and have her double craft healing potions / potions of speed / bloodlust potions / hill giant's potions. I've never felt this strong in a playthru, and while a lot of it is attributed to how strong these builds are, camp casters and camp crafters break the game even further. I think I had around 200 healing potions on Shadowheart at the end of act 2, and over half of them were greater / superior / supreme. Another funny thing that happened when finishing act 1. Typically, if you use warding bond on a camp cleric, you end up needing to resurrect them at the end of the day before you rest. If they're dead and you go to sleep, not only are they still dead but their spell slots will still be gone if you rez them later. My party was so strong on the final day, camp cleric Asterion actually stayed alive when I went to clear out all of the Githyanki creche, meaning from the time I left Waukeens rest up until killing everything I bumped into for the next 2 hours, my party did not take enough damage to kill him when he had casted warding bond on my entire group. Alert is actually way more broken than he makes it sound. I know Ceph soapboxes about alert on other videos, but one thing that takes it to another level is the fact that "if your entire 4 man squad wins initiative over all enemies, you can FREELY swap between them and move / swap again move / swap back do an action / swap to another do a bonus action" THIS MEANS if you enter into a rough looking encounter, you can 100% of the time run all 4 of your party into a perfect square, then throw a potion of speed in middle, hasting all 4, then with Shart's second action throw a baby healing potion to give bless and bladeward to the entire party. This makes your party able to bring any enemy in act 1 down on the first round of combat. Also, Gale being this tanky brings back a DoS2 strategy where you just initiate a fight with your tankiest unit and run it around a corner, forcing all enemies to bunch up and give chase, while you wait in stealth on your other 3 party members on the opposite side of the room. It's not as overpowered and broken as it was in DoS2, but there are still plenty of times this strategy is hilarious to use. Most notably both of the undead encounters that have the jerks the spam resurrect the others. Just have Gale pop his head up, dash and bonus action dash with the clicky speed boots, run down the long hallways both of these encounters are conveniently placed by, and have fun as they pile on top of each other, just begging to be blasted by Shadowheart and Gale.
I see a lot of build videos online recommending the Alert feat. It's good for people that don't know the mechanics or that haven't played the game much. As a more experienced player I find that it doesn't really come up that often. For the most part, unless you are suprised or it is a set encounter, you can nearly always go first anyways. Even for the other fights, with a decent dex score, you aren't likely to lose initiative all that often anyways. There's also potions for the same effect if you really want it.
From having watched several of your videos where you build clerics, I'm always fairly puzzled at the descriptions of what gear to use. Both the "buff on heal" and Radiating Orb options are discussed, as well as several times you recommend the Dwarven Splint Armor, but there's a LOT of conflict between these gear pieces. To even use Radiating Orb as a mechanic you need either the Luminous Armor or Gloves, the Coruscation Ring, or either of the two weapons that inflict it. Eliminating the weapons from the mix because these builds don't make weapon attacks much if at all, and you're left with the other 3. The Luminous Gloves conflict with either of the 2 gloves that give Blade Ward on heal, and the Luminous Armor conflicts with the Dwarven Splint. You could wear the Coruscation Ring with the Whispering Promise simultaneously, but then you'd lose out on the Callous Glow Ring and it adding more Radiating Orb. Is the intention that you can switch between them depending on the situation, or is there a preferred configuration where you take advantage of both to a lesser degree?
One set of build guides id love to see is party face guides for origin characters that aren’t Wyll or Astarion - I.e, characters that don’t easily slot into a charisma class. Currently I’m doing an Origin Lae’zel run as a draconic sorcerer which takes…quite a few liberties with her base lore to compensate. One of the main reasons to do an origin run imo is to see the unique dialogue options and interactions so you want them to be the party face as much as possible (at least that’s how I see it), and I think it’d be cool to try and find appropriate fits for Shadowheart origin and Gale origin (of course they do have their advantages being able to use wisdom and intelligence for other checks, id be interested to see some alternative options)
Honestly, you can use any of my charisma class builds for those characters. You can use any build for any character, so if you want a singing and dancing bard shadowheart there's nothing stopping you!
I wish I could actually see you battle with these builds. Explanations are dope and the vids are great but as a visual learner being able to see the synergies would be dope
The reason I don't usually do this is twofold: first, it's a ton of extra work, and second, people don't watch it. When I've included gameplay sections, viewership for those sections has dropped dramatically - which makes sense when you think about it! By including gameplay, I'm suddenly competing with professionally-edited Let's Plays from studios with entire teams behind their scripting, editing, and mixing - and production lead times of weeks rather than daily videos like I do. On the other hand, when it comes to builds I have world-class knowledge so that's something people can't easily get elsewhere.
What’a a good feat over ASI if doing elixir build? Edit: Duel wield. You have the option to use stat boosting weapons in off hand. Allows for more options in any given situation. 10/10 guide. Love the lack of fighting for equipment. Don’t believe the comments saying this doesn’t work. It’s 4 OP builds combined. SSB alone can solo the game. The game doesn’t play itself, you still need to read enemy stats, plan your approach, etc. You can use summons to group people up and AOE destroy them. You can throw people off the map one by one before a fight. I don’t think a boss was able to make an attack against my party prior to act 3. You’ll see guides that require specific things, like fire hat of acuity. Hair, mirror boosts. Or tedious steps like avoid EK and just use a hireling to bind a weapon. What if player doesn’t want to acquire the hat, or best end of act 2 spear? This guide is very open ended, I did it as a durge gith. Asterion as my wizard (who can’t use shields) and approved of Durge, since gale was MIA. First time playing durge and second playthrough overall, so there were alot of nice curveballs in there as I went in blind story change wise. EK using heavy armor and not needing to rage is a big boon. Shadowheart can beyblade or support and damage. Many options, all simple. Nice man. Edit 2: EX, I kept reading how an end of Act 1 Boss was a run ender for many. He literally slipped on grease, and got killed in one turn by my EK after we came out of the thing. You’ll see so many people recommending to tediously barrel mancy and sneak and not engage with story to kill things. If anything the game was too easy. I can see why people who make these builds use the difficulty mods.
I'm currently playing this party in my very first Tatician Difficulty playthrough and am currently in the middle of Act 3. The party is so strong that combat feels even easier than in my first playthrough on Balanced Difficulty. I can basically kill every relevant boss with the 10 Eldritch Knight Attacks on the first turn. And it's incredibly fun to run through the opponents with the Abjuration Wizard and pray that the opponents don't miss their attacks so that they kill themselves :D Thank you for that great experience! - And wtf? This shit is completely overpowered! :'D
Thank you for your awesome videos, especially this one! I just finished HM with this party! Was my second try. First one ended on the Tolcollector because i forgot to send my gold to camp and i had a lot😂. Next run is gonna be based on your latest party video
I would really like a video detailing how to put together your own balance parties, kind of like the one video you made with the level break points for individual characters. My friends and I are going to do an honor run, but I don’t wanna constrain anybody to a specific build.
Combination is so safe even IGN journalist can manage to finish balanced mode with it.
Mmmhm (they will add this combo is racist)
7.8/10, too many ice surfaces
😂😂
@@dimitrisdimitriadis4913 no such thing, lol
Not to mention that dreaded BLOATED 3rd act
I've come back here after just beating Honour Mode with this exact build today! It was my 3rd playthrough and 1st attempt at Honour and took a total of 190 hours.
I took on all the bosses and quests I could. I had 2 near total party kills early on before level 5 with the Gnoll fight and the Harpies but after that it wasn't even close with one exception. I took Orin out before she could take an action. Gortash and Ketheric didn't quite go to plan but still nothing I couldn't handle. Ansur? There is a reason he is called the Honour Mode killer and he almost wiped us. We had the battle completely under control and ready with a Globe for his Lightning Nova attack. What I didn't realize is Ansur can Nova on another turn with no notice. Gale's concentration had broken and the globe was down for one turn. We brought his health to zero thinking it was over but his Legendary Action brought him back and he immediately flew up and did a Nova. My Bard and Shadowheart went down. Gale's ward saved him and he was able to project to Lae'zel but they both lost 90% of their health. I saw my life flash before my eyes! After that it was a breeze. I obsessed about the final fight and came up with plan that the A-Team would have been proud of. We wiped everyone atop the brain without a single ally summon then wiped the Netherbrain in one turn. It was glorious!
Thoughts about the party:
- Be careful about your Eldritch Knight throwing their weapon to enter combat. Early on they attack from stealth to enter combat but I believe because their initiative was average their actual turn wouldn't trigger and the weapon return action would not occur so the weapon would sit on the ground where it landed. It didn't matter if it was magically returning or bound. Just have them become visible to enter combat and if their initiative roll is good enough to give a turn immediately then you throw. Also as someone also said here DO NOT use throwing weapons against the Netherbrain. I read this warning in advance and just had them jump right next to the brain with featherfall and start bashing with melee.
- Nothing to be said about the Bard. Just the most insanely overpowered build. Hold Person and Hold Monster at 100% on a Legendary boss for a bonus action? What?
- Gale was the MVP early on but in the last Act of the game his ward was rarely used. Enemies WILL NOT attack him either. It didn't matter that is AC was 18 vs everyone else 23-25. They would always go for Shadowheart even if he was closest. I never used the Fire/Ice shield Opportunity Attack. Just didn't feel necessary. It almost makes me think he could get a respec in Act 3 maybe. But his spell attack was still +19 so he really could bring the pain with the AOE spell attacks and stack Radiant Orbs importantly.
- The Cleric was the weakest link for me. Maybe I'm still bad at playing them. She did have some clutch moments with Spirit Guardians but almost never needed her as a healer. If there was a way to keep her control aspects but make her a much better at offense that might be nice.
Things I learned the hard way:
- DON'T use spells to add bonuses to rolls when negotiating with the Hag after fighting with her. I lost out on Ethyl's hair this way when combat restarted. :(
- Be careful with Ansur.
- Don't try to be cute with the Moonrise Tower fight and try to enter from the back of the Tower quietly killing enemies along the way. Someone downstairs heard me which triggered the ENTIRE battle. It took me 4 turns to get to the front door where I watched Jaheira die.
Kudos to you, @Cephalopacalypse for a great build and helping me take down my first HM on the first try. Cheers!
Congratulations, and thanks so much for the support! Great job on the win, and definitely useful tips for anyone else using the comp!
Thanks for this man!
Thank you for the great content!
Your BG3 Build videos are the best of all I have seen so far and an inspiration for many more playthroughs
Thanks very much for the support! Glad you're enjoying the videos - I figure if people are inspired by the builds then something is going right! :D
Just beat Honour Mode (and the game itself, lol!), both for the very first time! While I didn't end up running this party comp to completion, I ran it as my party comp for my first HM attempt, where I got all the way to Avatar of Myrkul before I decided to procrastinate doing that fight by rerolling a new campaign (which is the one that I actually used to beat HM.)
What I appreciated about this team, though, was that it was a very safe way to learn HM and to develop my own confidence in my ability to do it. I highly endorse it as a team for people who want to learn the mode!
And also, just a big thanks to you, ceph. Not just for this team, but because I've learned so much about team building from you. I didn't use any of your builds to actually beat HM, but I used everything I've learned from watching your build guides to build out an effective team of my own.
Now, on to a replay where I intentionally power down my team!
Hey thanks so much for the support! I really appreciate it and I'm really glad you liked the comp! That's exactly what I'd hope for - always want people to use these as a jumping off point to make what you find most fun. Congrats on the win!
I did just want to check with you though - on my end it looks like this comment double posted. I don't know if that means the donation accidentally went twice as well, but if so please email me and I'll do my best to get the extra back to you!
@@Cephalopocalypse thanks so much for asking me to check on it. Checked with my bank and the donation only went through once- no idea why the comment posted twice! I appreciate the heads up, though!
I had plans to start my first ever honour mode run days before this video got released. What a beautiful gift
I have just completed it with an immense amount of success. This is the safest and most powerful set up i have ever used.
Thank you for sharing your amazing talent and ideas with us. I owe my golden dice in part to you my friend
[Below are my notes and tips from having played this party all the way through the game]
Original comment:
No shot that you uploaded this right as I was researching to put together an optimal honour mode party!
Thank you very much for your videos, I've come to trust you as my best source for Baldur's Gate 3 guides because you don't cut corners and are transparent about all the asterisks that come with applying these interwoven mechanics.
Edit 1: About 30 hours deep into honour mode with this party, I have some notes that might help people in the future:
- For Tav, I played a human and realised this build doesn't inherently get longbow proficiency until level 7, but this can be mitigated with the gloves of archery until you upgrade to gloves of dexterity.
- The party is really strong, I ended the hag in one turn at lvl 6 as well as the Matriarch at lvl 5. It does feel like Tav and Lae'zel are doing most of the heavy lifting in the early game.
- Do NOT pick up the The Sparky Points lightning trident, it does not generate lightning charges when thrown. The Spellsparkler is probably the best choice, especially as Gale felt a bit weak in the damage department in the early game.
- The Luminous Armour is another great source of Radiant Orb accessible pretty early
- When respeccing Tav after obtaining the Gloves of Dexterity, you can comfortably raise Charisma to 17 and eventually bump that to 18 with the hag's hair
- Wood Woad Shield and Nature's Snare synergise extremely well with our frontline Gale early on, dishing out lots of Ensnared.
- Returning Pike is probably one of the better weapons to use with Lae'zel in the early game due to its higher damage, despite its redundancy with bound weapon.
- And this last one I just have to get off my chest as well, do NOT cast guidance or any other spell in the post-fight dialogue with the hag, it will trigger her LA and resume the fight. Generally, knowing how to do a hard emergency reset is a good idea. I've already almost lost the run at level two because that one assassin bug bear at the grove was freely moving while I was in combat with it and in turn-based mode like nobody's business.
Edit 2: Done with Act 2 now, the party has served me pretty well. Overall I have to really credit these builds with the fact that I don't even remember the last time one of my characters dropped below 50% of their health. However, it feels a bit lacking in the offensive department at times. If I were to start my honour run with what I know now, I would make one change to remedy that:
I'd respec Gale into a fire sorcerer (see cepha's build) in conjunction with the Hat of Fire Acuity, as Arcane Acuity + Control spells pretty much already provides such reliable control that it compensates for the lack of tanking. Other than that, here are a few tricks I picked up:
- The Flawed Helldusk Gloves on my eldritch thrower have an unexpected synergy with BOOOAL's Benediction. They frequently cause Bleeding which then gives my entire party advantage on the target. This is likely a bug, as the gloves' tooltip states that the bleeding effect applies to unarmed attacks, but the damage bonus you get from the gloves on throws is actually fire damage, which corresponds to weapon damage in the tooltip. Additionally, Nyrulna also makes positioning really challenging because the AOE thunder damage affects friendlies. That's an alternative worth considering. Side Note: You can get BOOOAL's favour without sacrificing anyone by first pickpocketing the sickle he usually gives you, vids for it are on youtube.
- At the Sword Bard's level 12, I would pick up Command instead of Hunger of Hadar. Command can also be bonus action cast with band of the mystic scoundrel, and it has a few key advantages over the other control spells: It can be upcast and it can target selectively, meaning within the first turn you can usually already shut down ANY and ALL threatening enemies for the rest of the battle, lest they have legendary resistance of course.
- For our Light Cleric, instead of gaining the Devotee's Mace, I would stick with Phalar Aluve. This is because Phalar's effects are incredible, and also because the lack of proficiency on Shadowheart with this build is irrelevant (since we don't make melee attacks). Additionally, it synergises nicely with her spells, all the AOE of course and scorching ray in particular. But most of all, since we will want to equip items that apply radiant orb like the luminous gloves, coruscation ring and callous glow ring, there's no room left for the items that make healing viable.
- Having only piercing damage for weapon damage can be a big drawback, particularly in the Shadow Cursed Shambling Mound fight (It has piercing immunity).
- Warding Bond is an INCREDIBLE spell to cast on our Abjuration Tank Gale, giving him resistance to all damage and thus reducing the damage he actually takes to pretty much 0, which then also ends up not hurting the one to cast Warding Bond whatsoever. Recall that you can get Warding bond for free with the two rings at the House of Healing (True Love's Caress, True Love's Embrace).
- Summons do a lot of work in wiping out adds like the Necromites in the Apostle of Myrkul fight, somewhat making up for the lack of offence.
- I don't think it was explicitly mentioned in the video, but the abjuration tank wizard Gale deals a lot more damage when applying Chilled with the Mourning Frost first or giving enemies the Wet condition, so it makes sense to commit to cold damage and go for summons like ice mephits, water elemental, etc.
I hope everyone's runs are going as well as mine is right now. Cheers.
Final Edit to this comment (and definitely the MOST IMPORTANT one): I have beaten honor mode, hooray!
I have had two close calls towards the end of the game:
- The Wyrm below Wyrm's Rock nearly wiped me, but this was mostly due to my own bad play, as I didn't realise I was wet for most of the fight. Also, Warding Bond in this particular fight is a detriment.
- The Will of the Netherbrain: Once inside the Netherbrain's psyche, I had to make a shocking discovery. THROWING WEAPONS DO NOT WORK ON THE WILL OF THE NETHERBRAIN. In fact, not only can throwing weapons not make contact with the Netherbrain, but they even fall all the way into the void. This immediately deleted Nyrulna from the fight and disarmed Lae'zel - a disaster in honor mode where every final turn counts. Secondly, The party's dependency on piercing damage came back to bite me once again, due to the Aegis of the Absolute, basically only allowing me to make meaningful attacks every other turn.This also applies to the light cleric somewhat, who pretty much only has mass light and fire damage, both of which are usually dealt together. I'd actually recommend to respec the eldritch knight thrower into a pure damage melee character just for the final fight, a paladin perhaps for the versatile burst damage from smites. I'd also advise to bring scrolls of high damage dealing spells in order to get around the Aegis of the Absolute.
Overall, the party carried itself really well through most of the game, though once you start unlocking Globe of Invulnerability the defensive aspects of the builds feels pretty redundant, as Globe becomes the de facto meta approach to defence in every difficult fight.. I would have much rather had more offence and mass damage towards the end of the game, so I stick by my earlier recommendation to respec the Abjuration Tank into a sorcerer.
In total I beat every Legendary Action boss (except for Mastic Carrion) in my playthrough and did most core quests as well - Total playtime around 85 hours. Golden dice acquired! Thanks Cepha.
With that, I wish everyone good luck.
SAME! I just finished Tactician and am ready to try Honour mode.. and this is such perfect timing my gosh!!! Thank you @cephalopocalypse !
EDIT: Got my golden dice :D
@@athyteeGood luck buddy!
@@cyberceel thank you! I hope yours goes well, too! let's get that gold die!
I'm here because I fell into a darkness/tavern brawler built party and it's too easy LOL
Thanks very much - good luck with the run!
Glad to hear that you plan on continuing with Baldur's Gate 3 videos, even though there are newer games out there.
New games have came out since bg3? Those poor games
I love the idea of Laezel just being like, “Fine, I’ll do *everything* and carry the rest of you through this whole misadventure.” Totally seems in line with her character.
Can't get tired of listening to your builds/guides as podcasts lol keep em coming
Thanks very much! I really appreciate the kind words - more every day!
Yah so you don't waste valuable gaming time, it's better to learn this stuff on the way to or coming home from work 😂
I throw them on when I clean my house :D
I found your videos a number of days ago. I enjoy your content and analysis on making the game fun, and not boring, with "I will help you make the game trivial" content. Keep it up, and always have fun with your videos.
Thanks! Yeah, I personally find the builds that remove all the gameplay pretty boring, so I prefer not to cover them - this game is large enough that the devs can't possibly cover every corner case, so we as players need to meet them partway to have fun with the game
I got my honor mode dice today and I feel like I owe a big part of it to you. I actually didn’t use any of your builds even though they are super great, but your videos inspired me, and gave me the knowledge, to create my own builds that lead me to beating it.
Absolutely love this video, and would love themed party builds!
I ran a gloom assasin, throw barb thief fighter, light cleric and wizard in honor mode. It's really about being as strong as possible at all levels as well as only using ranged characters and using summons to be your front line punching bags. Shovel early on is great, conjure minor elemental ice mephits, then onto conjure elementals, myrmidons and devas. Always put your expendable summons up front and attack from the rear and you'll survive honor mode a lot easier. I had a camp eldritch fighter to bind the thrown weapons and used strength elixirs on both the ranger with titan bow and the throw barb at all times. Scrolls are great when you run out of spell slots to avoid long resting. With careful planning you should absolutely get the awakened illithid power that lets you use black hole as a bonus option. Changes the late game significantly.
Don't you kind of need your light cleric within melee range to stack those radiating orbs though?
@@AxeTheSingaporean Luminous armor and other gear stacks orb from fireball or guiding bolt.
I know I’m way late on this but, this party is so cracked. I had zero problems with any fight, even the one fight (merkel) that was a BIT challenging still went incredibly well. Pretty insane synergy. Thanks for the golden dice chief
I truly have been waiting for this video for a while now. All of your builds are wonderful, and I apprecaite all the work you put into it! Keep doing what you love, please.
The only channel you need for bg3 builds.! Great content friend.
Thanks so much!
Just finished Honour Mode with this build, and like you said it was a fun way to play! Great balance between defense & offense. Thank you very much!
Thank you for the video! I am one of those who want the challange in honour mode but still play the game "the normal way". So thank you for helping me out with some very nice looking builts :D
your videos are the first ive ever felt like giving a like, high quality and always handy to come back to, your voice is reassuring and your channel is amazing!
This is awesome. I see lots of character builds and there are conflicting equipment where everyone wants the same thing!
We need more full party builds where people have their own items
I destroyed Honor mode on my first attempt. It was actually quit easy to do.
My main party was Sorcadin, Bardadin, Light Cleric and Evocation Wizard.
In reserve for particular fights, I had an Eldritch Machine Gun Warlock, a TB OH Monk, and a pure flex Rogue/Thief Duergar.
Now here's a little something that's going to make all your playthroughs INCLUDING Honor mode a breeze, if your Tav isn't a Duergar let me introduce you to Kree, the best goddamn hiriling from Withers...
At level 5 Kree comes online. Her racial ability to go invisible all Duergar get at level 5. It's once per BATTLE, not long or short rest. And it's infinite once activated until broken.
Spec Kree into a Rogue with the Thief subclass. Give her as much Dex as possible with the rest in Strength and Con.
Now if she's level 5, the fun can begin. Equip items like the gloves of thieving, graceful cloth, smugglers ring, shapeshifters boon ring, shapeshifters helmet, cloak of cunning brume, etc. Not everything listed here is required, just optimal stuff. Honestly the only thing really needed is the gloves of thieving for advantage of Sleight of Hand checks.
Now go to any vendor or anyone you want to steal from, go invisible with the Duergar racial ability. Sneak, and pickpocket anything you want/can.
Now here's what's so amazing about this build... Even on honor mode if you get caught and combat starts you're perfectly safe. Especially if you have the Alert feat too. Just go invisible and use cunning action Dash to run away from the spot you went invisible at. You can even dash twice if you need to. The enemies will go to the spot you went invisible, look around and use Detect Presence. They can't find you and combat will end immediately.
Rinse and Repeat until you get everything you want. You can do this with partial rests to reset vendors. Want infinite Gold, potions, items, camp supplies etc? This is how you do it. Hands down the BEST thief in the game.
This ISN'T a glitch, not an exploit or anything of the sort. This is 100% proper gamer play mechanics and item utilization to create the perfect thief. I cannot explain how unbelievably powerful this build is to use on an Honor mode playthrough when everything costs a fortune and item like potions, elixirs and scrolls are unbelievably powerful in their own rights.
FURTHERMORE! Kree can be multiclassed into Bard/Wizard to learn the Shatter spell. This makes her a Scrying Eye Assassin. You can literally waltz around Moonrise shattering all the eyes in less than 10 minutes and never get caught. Just food for thought if you're struggling with that.
So in closing strong main party synergy is excellent. And Honor mode isn't anywhere near as difficult as people make it out to be. But I highly recommend you go say hello to Kree at Withers and she will become a irreplaceable member of your camp/party for all foreseeable playthroughs.
I know, but making the game too easy is the opposite of what honour mode is trying to achieve LOL
@@kittydaddy2023 I wouldn't call it making it too easy, as much as making quality of life easier on you. Sure you can go buy whatever you want and impose as many self challenges as needed, but honestly that's personal preference.
From a gameplay perspective, I found it to be incredibly easy. Even post patch 6 Myrkul was a breeze. House of Hope? Not even remotely difficult. With proper positioning and game mechanics understanding, Honor mode was significantly easier than I anticipated. If I'm being completely honest, I was actually rather disappointed with how easy it was, especially after all the hype of people losing multiple runs.
Even without stealing everything, just normal playthrough, honor mode is rather easy. The power of just the Bardadin alone is unreal. Combined with multiple meta builds, it's a walk in the park.
@@d.b.hemlock Any optimized party will crush Honor Mode pretty easily. Considering people can solo it with various builds, it's an obvious conclusion that if you put 4 of those together the game won't be very hard. My honor mode was 4 bards, and anyone else that I swapped for quest reason I made bard also. Had a bardadin, a range swords bard, and 2 pure lore bards. It wasn't challenging in the least, Myrkul or any Act 3 fight was a breeze (closest was Cazador cause I brought Astarion and walked in his aura by mistake on T1 so I started the fight with only 2 party members up. Was still easy after 2 turns). Once you understand the game mechanics well and learn how ridiculously good some spells are in some situation (like Globe of Invulnerability vs Ansur) it's an easy game because all the fights are predetermined, there's very little randomness. But that's what's also good about it, it's NOT easy on a first run when you don't understand it well and don't know what to expect, and if you want it harder you can always do self-imposed challenges.
@@d.b.hemlock I've seen a lot of runs end by getting pushed into a pit. I lost on the elder brain when a platform disappeared. I would not fault someone for pulling out all the stops on a later attempt because that's what I'm doing. I self-impose "helping traders pack" when i know I'm killing them. That's usually enough to get enough money without looting every single stupid crate and body.
Use of respecs and hirelings is ENORMOUSLY underestimated and under utilized.
Stop worrying about having buff spells on party members. Have 2 clerics and s bard hireling speccex to keep you buffed with inspiration for important rolls, longstrider, death Ward eard, prot from poison, freedom of movement, etc
Amazing builds, finally completed my first Honour Mode run with this. Thanks again !
Nice, congrats on the win!
Fun quirk i figured out with Guardian of Faith, if you put Survival Instinct on it, the Illithid Power you get from Omeluum, it sticks around at 0 Hp for the duration of the power.
Currently using this build on Tactician, to test it out and I'm definitely liking it so far! After finishing tactician, I'll start the Honor Mode with these
I love your videos! I’m new to turn-based RPG games & never played DnD before playing BG3 so I walked into the game clueless as to what to expect. Now I’m on my second run in balanced mode, finding the game a bit easier and looking for a challenge, so I’m thinking of jumping straight to honor mode after this and following your party guide. I love how well you explain everything, it’s easy to understand, and how there’s not many “required items” for this party - one thing I HATE is trying to follow build guides and keep track of every single item I absolutely must have in order to complete the build. Thanks again for the work you put in to make guides like this!
My number one takeaway: it seems like True Strike is a must-have on every character that can run it.
Exactly!
As I’m approaching the end of my first run I’ve been working on planning an Honour Mode run to get my golden dice. Love all your build videos, and I’ve just been thinking of how much I’d like to see a full party comp from you.
I’d love to see a full party comp centered around the Wet condition (what I was thinking of using to abuse that busted Wizard build). I’d also LOVE to see you do a build for the Jack-of-all-Trades trophy (multiclass into every class without ever respecing). I bet you could come up with something fun for that.
Great content as ever!
I'd love to see your take on an honour mode party that doesn't abuse broken game mechanics/classes (wet, TB, Swords bard, abj wiz etc.)
Such a cool and affective build. This is exactly the info we all need. I might finally have the confidence for Honour with this. You're the man, thanks.
Thanks for all your baldur's gate videos, these videos make my gameplay much smoother than my first.
Awesome, thanks!
Fantastic guide! I was so hype years ago for beta, loved BGII/Icewind Dale and DoSII was one of the best games I ever played. Needless to say was so hype for this release, probably the most excited I have ever been about a video game since FF7. Enjoyed the heck out of BG3. Did the usual thing where I roll a toon play to lvl3-4 and restart lol. Finally settled on a bow bard, made it to lvl 7/8 and restarted on tactician with a bardlock. Made it to baldur's gate and lost interest :/ It's my own fault for having such an OP party and face rolling everything from lvl 4 on. I figured I'd check back in a year see if they add an ironman mode. My calendar alerted me last week to move BG3 from storage to SSD and see what's up. They did it!!! Ironman! So thanks for the awesome guide, I'm following everything but gonna half wood elf for Tav as I don't like Githyanki and they're OP. That way when I beat it on honourmode, my character won't look fing stupid instead she will be super sexy, and I will simultaneously be a better person than all the chuds that rolled gItHyAnKi more like githNOTHANKy
Wow I'm surprised there are no rogues in this. Your "the best archer" power build is completely insane but i suppose a sword bard can do anything from lockpicking to burst damage.
Also absolutely love the team building guides. Any of your builds work well together anyway, but sometimes people wonder about itemization or shared spells.
This was absolutely gorgeous. It's not difficult for a new player to build parties based on all your previous quality content and other creators, but to free out all the item combination is so amazing. The only thing that might be even slightly annoying is lack of immunity to slip surfaces such as ice since this build seems like it would love to have everything frozen.
i stumbled across your Ranger build and i had a BLAST playing it, so much i gave up on my run and restarted. Subbed. these builds are so well put together thank you for sharing!
Dude... Battles that I struggled with in Tactician now go easy and fun in Honour Mode with your build. Had to tweak it a bit since I was already a bit into act 1 when I saw your video and using Karlach as my main character (Turned her into the Bard), but it's working beautifully. Thanks for the hard work and excelent content mate!
I got absolutely blindsided by a wipe a couple days ago (fight started with a normal ass wolf one-shotting my throwzerker MC in the creche and the leader finishing him off with no death saving throws...) so this is a nice video to encourage me to try again haha...
Although I don't necessarily need the builds, it's good to be reminded of all of the ways to mitigate what happened to me, which you highlight thoroughly!
TBH that fight was the closest i got to wiping. The leader feared my life cleric and my sorcerer, and my rogue died to a tickle (i replaced him with a moon druid asap after i realized how useless he was). Karlach bear totemed her way through the fight, rezzing the life cleric and my sorcerer with two thrown potions, giving the cleric time to mass healing word to full heal herself.
I just beat honor mode for the first time with this exact build! I’ve got to say it was really masterfully crafted. At no point did I really feel like I was falling behind or underprepared for any of the major fights and having an invincible wizard DEFINITELY took like 90% of the pressure off in most combats.
I had never played a bard in any of my other playthroughs and WOW I might have a bard in every party going forward (maybe this specific one honestly). My bard, Ayla, was able to easily pass all dialogue checks AND dominate the battlefield with all the flourishing attacks + free illusion spells at the end of the game.
Laezel was going IN with the guaranteed damage from start to finish and made most encounters a breeze.
The only “weak” point of the build might be the shadow heart, although as mentioned in your video she’s really meant as a catch all for ALL of the useful utility and healing and she accomplished that role in spades.
The only combats that were close calls were:
-shambling mound, piercing damage immunity was scary but also I could work around it with gale
- myrkul: I just played this fight kind of dumb and almost lost the play through due to it.
- steel watcher foundry: even though I had hero’s feast everyone but shadow heart got dominated during the fight at one point which was scary as hell, but I was able to push through thankfully
Overall S-tier build, and I’m so glad I’ve got my golden dice now :)
Thanks for the awesome videos man!
Thanks for the party build video. I just restarted my Honor Mode run because I used Charm Scroll in a dialog advantage. And Kagha didnt like that and she decided to wipe the other group off the face of the earth and now everyone thinks I did it... was a little too scuffed.
Always looking for builds. I am maining a Drow Bard and everyone hates me but then i win them over with a tune. Loving Swords Bard so far.
Man i love your content and been waiting for a title like this to drop for quite a time
big thanks
Thanks very much!
been looking everywhere for a Team Comp guide and yours exceeded expectations!
Thank you so much for putting this together. It is very much appreciated. I expect this will get a good number of views for the channel. Suggest more complimentary builds coming together though it might be tricky beating this group for fun.
I just beat honor mode using this team! I don't have the most in-depth knowledge of games mechanics but this team carried me through! My #1 tip... keep one party member at camp. I think the only time you have to have your full party is for the final boss of act 2 and ofc the very end of the game. But my strategy was to take 3 members into a fight and if we all died I just resurrected them with withers (you can pickpocket withers to get your money back... he never gets mad). I most likely would not have been able to do this run had I kept all 4 members of my party on me at all times.
Thanks so much for this awesome guide!
Absolutely insane that I just started an honor run and was thinking what to do, thanks for the recommendation!
Best of luck my friend !
I like how we all came to the conclusion that its fighter/bard/cleric/wizard separate. Nice stealth archer.
I respecced to this party starting the third act because I was just so nervous about having no defense capability with the party and holy smokes. I was so nervous going into the House of Grief fight and I think Laezel took 2 damage and Shadowheart took 40 damage. That's it. With proper planning and this party combined, I already know I'm about to beat this mode that frightened me for so long. Insane builds friend!
This is the build that did it for me! Perfect.
I'm chomping through honor mode with this party. Just breezed my way through act 2.
Just beat my first honor mode run with this party almost felt too strong! Thanks so much for the great videos.
I'm loving the concepts in this build. I'm not very good at theorycrafting on my own these days but I very much enjoy taking a well-designed character and figuring out how they work, learning from that and then tweaking it to my own taste. Your videos have proven to be fantastic for that, and doing a whole party this way is doubleplusgood. Or maybe that's quadrupleplusgood?
And here's my vote for a playthrough with this party (each of your parties actually) that maybe skips all the dialog and quest stuff (that's not specific to these builds) in favor of more detail of how they play in combat with when and why to use all the cool toys these characters get. Maybe just a sample battle or two from each Act? Nobody I've found seems to do that for their builds. Lots of builds, a few such as you describe why to pick this or that, but nobody shows them in action, at least not without also wading through every single dialog and inventory management and shopping spree.
Thanks!
Thanks so much for the support! I really appreciate it :D
I really enjoy playing this party. (Almost , stat split different because not playing in HM) . You don’t abuse of multiclassing and I like it. Each character have its fighting style identity and the whole cover each ability and skill. Eventually it works very well.
Interesting point of order: if you enjoy playing with Minthara in your squad, her soul branding ability actually synergizes beautifully with this Laezel throw build. For whatever reason the damage bonus doesn’t expire on a thrown attack so you basically get free extra fire damage for three turns with no spell slots spent. Plus a good use of a bonus action if needed.
Anyway, thanks for this team! I’m running it right now and have made it safely through Act 1 of my first Honour Mode run with barely any close calls (only one, which was my own fault for attempting to cheese the grymforge fight. Let’s just say Druid hirelings were harmed in the making of THAT particular production and leave it at that 😅).
Thanks for making a guide that treats the game as a four party squad game and not a solo game!
Your comp looks like my first playthrough but with Karlach instead of Lae'zel.
For Tav, it is worth mentioning that unless you selected a full elf that the first fighter level is needed to get longbow proficiency.
Great video, super informative. Still in the middle of Act 1 on my first playthrough, but I'm doing it in Honour Mode (albeit with saves turned on--all other difficulty settings are highest). Definitely a LOT more playtime in Act 1 than I was expecting, but it's because I like to explore every nook and cranny on my first time through. I happened to have rolled up a Swords Bard anyways, so didn't need many modifications to my group comp to even it up with this.
Biggest Feedback: The only real feedback I have on this party build is the lack of discussion around proficiencies. Mostly not an issue if people are using the followers you've selected here, but as I'm playing a Drow (am doing a mostly blind playthrough , so I feel a bit lucky that it seems like Drow kinda makes large parts of Act 1 ez mode?) I don't actually have longbow or shield proficiencies, making Fighter much more necessary. I think on my next big respec when I pick up Fighter I will actually take duelist bard and archery style with fighter, in case I need to switch to sword/shield for some reason).
More Content: If you'd like more content to include in future videos (not that I feel you need it, but I could see value in it for a player in my position) doing some kind of snapshot of what the party might look like at the end of each Act, rather than just at level 12. Also from the few build videos I've watched, I'm surprised at the overwhelming lack of actual gameplay that's included in them. Would love to see some quick-cut video of the build / group / whatever during its full glory. Maybe there's a limitation there as it really seems no one is doing that, but it's just a thought.
Thanks again, really appreciate your time!
When I try honor mode, this is what I will try. Again, the content continues to be top notch!
Yes! Finally! Party Build Guides! 💪🙌🤜🤛
I can not overstate how good this party is. On honour mode, I had one character take damage in the fight with Orin and the Bhaalists thanks to projected ward and warding flare. A combo of Otto's Irresistible Dance and Arrows of Roaring Thunder to yeet people off the edges. This party is so good.
Awesome, glad it helped - good luck with the rest of the run!
@@Cephalopocalypse Just beat it today! Thanks so much man. It was never in doubt with this party. (I still was shaking regardless LOL)
Very nice build video as always. Thanks for all the effort. Your catalog of builds has been a great resource.
A warning for Throwing builds. I don't think he mentioned it here, but keeping it as spoiler free as possible the very last fight in the game is bugged. Throwing weapons do not work on it, and they do not get returned to you. Even if they are supposed to, if you throw them they are gone for good. Keep that in mind especially for an Honor mode playthrough it could SERIOUSLY mess with your run.
I kind of loved when that happened to my friend in a multiplayer playthrough. Felt like Avatar the last Airbender when sokka throws his boomerang for the last time
I always spam smokepowder bombs against the brain anyhow lol
Is that a recent throwing bug or has that always been the case?
@@testchannelnamechange or when he loses his Space Sword! 😭😭😭
@@roxasreturns2183 been this way for MONTHS now. I've seen complaints about it as far back as 8 months ago.
Holly... this is insane, Ive never seen anyone understand what us op and what is not so well. I commend you
Fantastic video! Just wanted to share for the bard build, that 10 Swords bard/1 fighter/1 wizard lets you focus more on control and reach level 6 spells without sacrificing too much martial damage. Its a great option for those that really want those high level spells.
My main honour party is Gloomstalker Assassin with 3 wizards, one wizard has a level in knowledge cleric. One of the wizards is a Necromancer, so lots of summons. Very solid party, more so than I initially would have thought. Great, informative vid, thx for sharing! Cheers ! !
Great guide! I enjoy all your content. Thanks for all you do.
I always romance ascended astarion as durge in honour mode. If you rush cazador in act 3, then have Astarion turn you into a vampire spawn, your durge can get +1 to all attack rolls from the bite ability.
For the bard, I like running 2/10 paladin/bard with natural 22 str with the araj potion since it offers counterspell and a ton of lv4+ smites.
One build i've been experimenting with recently is the 2/4/6 warlock/champion/sorc eldritch blast build on a halfling. You can hide in greater invisibility and spam eldritch blast outside of combat. Each volley does 200+ damage with risky ring, and it makes everything ridiculous easy.
Great video. Really helped connect the dots on your other build videos into how to build a full party comp for me. Thanks! Please do more of these.
One of the best video's on this game! So much extra information, thanks!
Great content! running a similar party but evil, thematic, not rest reliant, enjoying darkness & piercing vulnerability: Gale as Tav, Warlock 2 / Abjuration with Bhaalist armor; Laezel throwing EK with spear of evening; Minthara Pal 2 / Sword bard for control & nova; Shadowheart Gloomstalker 5 / Trickery cleric with archery. Piercing darkness party.
More party comp videos please! Already got me thinking of new runs
For the abjuration wizzard mage armour might be worth mentioning.
Cast it on your summons (mephit/elemental) to beef them up and gain arcane ward charges aswell.
Here's the trick to honor mode... Globe of invulnerability . Stick and move. Always keep one companion at s range they can dive in and engage OR duck out to camp if needed UNTIL you get access to globe of invulnerability scrolls. Then, play however you want. Love tap things to death, doesn't matter. You can't die, be silenced, debuffed etc. Any enemies that enter the globe, pick up and throw out. Need more scrolls? Long rest or level s hireling a single level and every vendor is refreshed.
If you're dying to bosses like Grym, it's your own fault. You never need to even ve standing on the firge platform area during the flight. Just bomb him from above on the staircase, etc.
It's less about special "builds" imo and more about understanding the methods of guaranteed survival to defeat honor mode.
It just depends on if one is okay with cheesing the game, or if they prefer to overcome the challenge as it was intended. I don't feel like I actually accomplished anything if I cheese a tough fight, personally.
Great video as usual! Very excited to see more of your full party recommendations
YES! I’ve been so excited for the Ceph party vids
Love the videos but please please please put the item list somewhere because I don’t know half of what your are wearing
Great video! Copied all builds but decided to switch Gale with Wyll for a sorlock build since i found that they would avoid Gale like the plague. Triple eldritch blast added in you just do so much damage that most threats are shut down in 1 or 2 turns anyway.
Dude, I would kill for a commentary Tactician Or Honour play thru by you playing this. I think it could teach hardcore gamers, like myself who has beat DOS2 on honour mode, the basics (which for 5e feels insane) and give us the knowledge we need to have fun.
Can confirm this team does make honour mode very easy! Only a few fights in the game were actually at all worrying and of those fights, only two of them were mandatory.
One suggestion for the eldritch knight is that Disguise Self is a pretty useful spell to have given one of the weapons you have guaranteed access to in act 3 is the Dwarven Thrower so you can get the bonus from that weapon regadless of the character's actual race. Nyrulna is great but if you don't want to do AoE damage for whatever reasons (your characters are nearby, friendly NPCs are nearby, etc), having both lets you have the second best-in-slot option. It also gives you bludgeoning damage if piercing isn't what you want at the time.
was waiting for this thank you! Will definitely use this when I finish my tactician playthrough
omg I just started Honor mode and was looking into the party compositions to get! IMPECABLE TIMING
imagine my suprise when your bard build is EXACTLY the one I was making for myself lol good to know it's going to be worth it
This guide works really well. I just want to add that you really need to prep for the Apostle of Myrkul fight. I had basically no problems with anything until that fight. Was unable to beat him because of some dumb choices and do a reset.
All four of the builds are really good thematicaly, especially Lae'zel's. They are all really lore friendly.
La'zel as an eldtritch knight leans into the githyanki being psionic warriors. She's the fighter but with more access to all the mobility spells her race gives her; misty stepping, leaping, and featherfalling the party when needed, while giving longstrider lessons to the group. She has mystical defense with the shield spell, and magic missile for that bit of gith magical superiority.
Gale as an abjuration wizard feels like he "manipulates the weave" to create barriers. Which is perfect for his obsession to Mystra. It would make sense he's a "defensive" wizard trying to deal with the bomb implanted in him; trying any barrier magic to nullify it so he doesn't explode and hurt anyone.
Shadowheart as a light cleric makes complete sense for her storyline later on. If you follow pulling her out of Shar manipulation for her "good ending" she turns to Selune, the lady of the moon/light, rejecting Shar.
The fourth build being a Tav seems on point as well. Tav being a charisma based class is perfect mechanically and themeatically for a main characer. There is no bard companion (R.I.P. Alfira) and it's the only full class that has no companion repesentation, so it makes sense Tav would/could fill that role in the cannon characters. Being a quirky yet inspirational leader of the group with all the possible decisions make throughout the adventure.
Just did my first run where I actually went out of my way to use elixirs, what a broken mess it was! Because I never used the elixir strategy so I didn't know how many hill giants I needed to stockpile. I ran to Aunty Ethel at level 2, got her happiness bar whatever it's called up to 100, and purchased 3 potions every time I leveled up or rested. As soon as I got the titan bow that scales off strength, I figured "well I got over 10 HG elixirs, surely I can spare some on this for a while." Fast forward to the end of act 2, I drank strength elixirs on the eldritch knight and bard every day, I'm walking thru the entrance to Baldur's Gate with over 20 Hill Giants potions and a couple Cloud Giants that I hadn't touched yet. I think I even drank a couple on Gale at one point just to carry more crap, probably in the creche and while clearing out Moonrise.
I also made Karlach into a transmutation wizard, pushed her wisdom up to 20, multiclassed 1 level into rogue to grab another point of medicine proficiency, and every time I noticed my alchemy bag getting a little heavy, I'd long rest and have her double craft healing potions / potions of speed / bloodlust potions / hill giant's potions. I've never felt this strong in a playthru, and while a lot of it is attributed to how strong these builds are, camp casters and camp crafters break the game even further. I think I had around 200 healing potions on Shadowheart at the end of act 2, and over half of them were greater / superior / supreme.
Another funny thing that happened when finishing act 1. Typically, if you use warding bond on a camp cleric, you end up needing to resurrect them at the end of the day before you rest. If they're dead and you go to sleep, not only are they still dead but their spell slots will still be gone if you rez them later. My party was so strong on the final day, camp cleric Asterion actually stayed alive when I went to clear out all of the Githyanki creche, meaning from the time I left Waukeens rest up until killing everything I bumped into for the next 2 hours, my party did not take enough damage to kill him when he had casted warding bond on my entire group.
Alert is actually way more broken than he makes it sound. I know Ceph soapboxes about alert on other videos, but one thing that takes it to another level is the fact that "if your entire 4 man squad wins initiative over all enemies, you can FREELY swap between them and move / swap again move / swap back do an action / swap to another do a bonus action" THIS MEANS if you enter into a rough looking encounter, you can 100% of the time run all 4 of your party into a perfect square, then throw a potion of speed in middle, hasting all 4, then with Shart's second action throw a baby healing potion to give bless and bladeward to the entire party. This makes your party able to bring any enemy in act 1 down on the first round of combat. Also, Gale being this tanky brings back a DoS2 strategy where you just initiate a fight with your tankiest unit and run it around a corner, forcing all enemies to bunch up and give chase, while you wait in stealth on your other 3 party members on the opposite side of the room. It's not as overpowered and broken as it was in DoS2, but there are still plenty of times this strategy is hilarious to use. Most notably both of the undead encounters that have the jerks the spam resurrect the others. Just have Gale pop his head up, dash and bonus action dash with the clicky speed boots, run down the long hallways both of these encounters are conveniently placed by, and have fun as they pile on top of each other, just begging to be blasted by Shadowheart and Gale.
Full party builds are great!
I’d love to see your take on a party of Darkness abusers.
I see a lot of build videos online recommending the Alert feat. It's good for people that don't know the mechanics or that haven't played the game much. As a more experienced player I find that it doesn't really come up that often.
For the most part, unless you are suprised or it is a set encounter, you can nearly always go first anyways. Even for the other fights, with a decent dex score, you aren't likely to lose initiative all that often anyways. There's also potions for the same effect if you really want it.
I missed what 3rd feat you'd pick for the EK thrower, when using str elixir.
I like that this is a baseline to play the game and not just speed run the achievement
From having watched several of your videos where you build clerics, I'm always fairly puzzled at the descriptions of what gear to use. Both the "buff on heal" and Radiating Orb options are discussed, as well as several times you recommend the Dwarven Splint Armor, but there's a LOT of conflict between these gear pieces. To even use Radiating Orb as a mechanic you need either the Luminous Armor or Gloves, the Coruscation Ring, or either of the two weapons that inflict it.
Eliminating the weapons from the mix because these builds don't make weapon attacks much if at all, and you're left with the other 3. The Luminous Gloves conflict with either of the 2 gloves that give Blade Ward on heal, and the Luminous Armor conflicts with the Dwarven Splint. You could wear the Coruscation Ring with the Whispering Promise simultaneously, but then you'd lose out on the Callous Glow Ring and it adding more Radiating Orb.
Is the intention that you can switch between them depending on the situation, or is there a preferred configuration where you take advantage of both to a lesser degree?
One set of build guides id love to see is party face guides for origin characters that aren’t Wyll or Astarion - I.e, characters that don’t easily slot into a charisma class. Currently I’m doing an Origin Lae’zel run as a draconic sorcerer which takes…quite a few liberties with her base lore to compensate. One of the main reasons to do an origin run imo is to see the unique dialogue options and interactions so you want them to be the party face as much as possible (at least that’s how I see it), and I think it’d be cool to try and find appropriate fits for Shadowheart origin and Gale origin (of course they do have their advantages being able to use wisdom and intelligence for other checks, id be interested to see some alternative options)
Honestly, you can use any of my charisma class builds for those characters. You can use any build for any character, so if you want a singing and dancing bard shadowheart there's nothing stopping you!
@@Cephalopocalypse oh sure, but if there's a secret clever way of doing something that fits more in line with them, then I'd love to see it haha
Kinda surprised the TB open hand monk isn't this. But definitely trying all these builds out for my 1st Honour run
Great video. Thanks. Already has me thinking about other combinations. Would love to see more of these videos 👍
I wish I could actually see you battle with these builds. Explanations are dope and the vids are great but as a visual learner being able to see the synergies would be dope
The reason I don't usually do this is twofold: first, it's a ton of extra work, and second, people don't watch it. When I've included gameplay sections, viewership for those sections has dropped dramatically - which makes sense when you think about it! By including gameplay, I'm suddenly competing with professionally-edited Let's Plays from studios with entire teams behind their scripting, editing, and mixing - and production lead times of weeks rather than daily videos like I do.
On the other hand, when it comes to builds I have world-class knowledge so that's something people can't easily get elsewhere.
@@Cephalopocalypse makes sense sir I appreciate the explanation!
What’a a good feat over ASI if doing elixir build?
Edit: Duel wield. You have the option to use stat boosting weapons in off hand. Allows for more options in any given situation.
10/10 guide. Love the lack of fighting for equipment. Don’t believe the comments saying this doesn’t work. It’s 4 OP builds combined. SSB alone can solo the game. The game doesn’t play itself, you still need to read enemy stats, plan your approach, etc. You can use summons to group people up and AOE destroy them. You can throw people off the map one by one before a fight. I don’t think a boss was able to make an attack against my party prior to act 3.
You’ll see guides that require specific things, like fire hat of acuity. Hair, mirror boosts. Or tedious steps like avoid EK and just use a hireling to bind a weapon. What if player doesn’t want to acquire the hat, or best end of act 2 spear? This guide is very open ended, I did it as a durge gith. Asterion as my wizard (who can’t use shields) and approved of Durge, since gale was MIA.
First time playing durge and second playthrough overall, so there were alot of nice curveballs in there as I went in blind story change wise.
EK using heavy armor and not needing to rage is a big boon.
Shadowheart can beyblade or support and damage. Many options, all simple.
Nice man.
Edit 2: EX, I kept reading how an end of Act 1 Boss was a run ender for many. He literally slipped on grease, and got killed in one turn by my EK after we came out of the thing. You’ll see so many people recommending to tediously barrel mancy and sneak and not engage with story to kill things.
If anything the game was too easy. I can see why people who make these builds use the difficulty mods.
Like the new format for party builds !
The optimal Party. One of my fav topics in all party based games. 10/10 ty!
Very informative, I will use this for my honor mode run.
This was great, some more party build guides atound themes would be awesome like summoner party, wet, piercing etc
I'm currently playing this party in my very first Tatician Difficulty playthrough and am currently in the middle of Act 3.
The party is so strong that combat feels even easier than in my first playthrough on Balanced Difficulty.
I can basically kill every relevant boss with the 10 Eldritch Knight Attacks on the first turn.
And it's incredibly fun to run through the opponents with the Abjuration Wizard and pray that the opponents don't miss their attacks so that they kill themselves :D
Thank you for that great experience! - And wtf? This shit is completely overpowered! :'D
Thank you for your awesome videos, especially this one! I just finished HM with this party! Was my second try. First one ended on the Tolcollector because i forgot to send my gold to camp and i had a lot😂. Next run is gonna be based on your latest party video
I know these videos are already pretty long, but adding little clips of combat with each character would be much appreciated
I would really like a video detailing how to put together your own balance parties, kind of like the one video you made with the level break points for individual characters. My friends and I are going to do an honor run, but I don’t wanna constrain anybody to a specific build.