HOW TO BUILD GOOD CHARACTERS: Feats Tierlist - Baldur's Gate 3 Build Guide
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Let's talk about the general principles you can use to build strong characters. Want to never need a build guide again? This is the video for you!
Hang on. I may not have thought this plan through.
Today we're talking about feat selection: Which are good? Which are bad? Which are completely useless? Let's find out! - Ігри
I will always have a soft spot for "Sentinel," as (despite it being only somewhat effective throughout most of the game), on my first play-through, i had Karlack, Lae'zel, and my Paladin surrounding Orin. Orin made a move for Shadowheart, and despite having about 2/3 of her health, EVERYONE critted, and Orin was killed instantly. A hilarious ending to a fight!
Lol I like the dynamic of having Shadowheart, Karlach, Lae’zel and a male Tav. It’s like a harem isekai. Wish one was a spell caster like a Sorcerer/Wizard/Warlock but your Tav could be. Just kinda hard if he’s the person who initiates combat being in face-to-face range like that.
Any feat that gives you greater control over the action economy, such as sentinek giving you more trigger for reaction attacks, are huge. Additionally controling enemy mobility can be a complete battle changer.
FYI, feats with "+1 Strength" text such as Heavily Armored and Heavy Armour Master, increase your ability score while in shapeshift form. so If you're thinking about doing a full-on shapeshift build, those 2 feats are not a bad condidate (obviously, tavern brawler is a must so they could be your 2nd and 3rd.)
That’s pretty cool I didn’t know that
It's not feat related, but one of the very few things that work in wild shape is potion you get in Moonrise Towers if Astarion drinks blood from weird drow woman (permanent Strength +2)
Would tavern brawler unarmed part work too?
@@quasarsword7479 It does
Dual wielder is actually S tier.
It's the only way to RP Gandalf.
True! Very important
Not only that, but to dual wield MARKOHESHKIR and MOURNING FROST for Ice builds. Niche, but powerful.
Dual Wielder is actually A tier on, ironically, mage type characters. Dual wielding powerful staffs gives you some pretty insane benefits. It's a must pick on my sorcerer. Think of it like this. Would you rather have an ASI on your charisma/intelligence or the ability to hold a staff that gives you +1 to spell and attack roll DC plus whatever other benefits come with it? Sure, you lose one spell slot by taking dual wield over the ASI in that situation on a wizard, but on a sorcerer it's actually worse than dual wield. Now if you choose a race that can hold a shield you could use ketheric's shield but that's another matter entirely. The point is, on sorcerers it's probably always better to go with dual wield over ASI given you can pick up a staff that gives you all the rational benefits of an ASI + more.
This, except s because it's better than asi on those builds that want it. Also "those" also includes at least ranged sword bards. And also staves that give you +1 are already available in act 1. Eventually you're comparing shields, even ketheric's shield, with stuff like markoheshkir or rhapsody.
Even if we pretend you can still take asi, which most builds can't, and can use shield, which most races can't, the tradeoff is basically 1ac for 1dc+1attack. I'd wager most go for the 1 attack, otherwise you wouldn't be considering ketheric's shield over say viconia's fortress (or shield+1, or hope's shield, although 2 ac is probably better in that case) in the first place.
Ngl, all of this is great but sometimes you just like to attack with your offhand when there’s nothing else you need to do with your bonus action. At minimum I believe dual wielder B tier.
I think you mean prepared spell not spell slot
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but taking war caster on say a cleric that wants to run in with spirit guardians for example and then actually using the shocking grasp reaction on enemies that are trying to run past into your backline can be quite useful as shocking grasp disables reactions. Especially in honor mode where some enemies actually get kind of annoying reaction abilities.
War Caster in general is great for even the Constitution Saving Throw bonus. But in the situation you pointed out, I couldn't agree more that its so useful. The Con Save helps to not drop your Spirit Guardians and being able to cast as a reaction to fleeing enemies is great.
why dont you just cast sanctyary after spirit guardians, then you dont need constitution cos immortal...;)
I think war caster is pretty good, better than using sanctuary more often than not because it seems like they've made sanctuary more strict and easier to break. I'd rather have a general all around defense to concentration than to keep using spell slots on sanctuary, and also you can keep casting other non-concentration spells rather than wasting your turns trying not to break sanctuary. Besides, you can still use sanctuary to protect important concentration spells but it's just not something you need to do that often. Also, I found shocking grasp as a cantrip to be quite useful with spellcasters when it comes to getting away from melee attackers. That is if you don't want to spend higher level spells, you can do some damage and also get some distance. If you have gear that enhances electrical damage, the effect can be pretty decent.
Finding Alert to be as advertised for Honor Mode. Gave all characters it at level 4. The advantage of going first almost every single time with nova builds effectively ends fights before the 2nd turn. And this is before you try for surprise attacks
for real, combining it with a surprise atack and you have basically 2 free turns before the enemy can do anything
Something interesting about Magic Initiate is that for some reason when you take Shillelagh with it the cantrip will scale off of the class that was leveled to take the feat. This makes it optimal for Bound Salami Warlock, the most important build in the game since it gives them more charisma scaling on their salami. If you use it with the endgame necrotic torch it's like, almost a build that does something.
You're right, S tier instantly.
That's actually kind of cool though! I wonder if there's a real build in there somewhere - triple cha to a club from shillelagh, pact weapon, oathbreaker is a lot of damage!
@@Cephalopocalypse You can mess around with infernal torch. It's technically a little stronger damage wise than Infernal Rapier without shillelagh, but it's not a big difference (3d4+1 vs 1d8+2) and you're taking a pretty horrendous trait to do it.
The cool thing is that it comes online at lv 5 to almost max power, since a torch is a completely valid weapon that somehow beats out even late game quarterstaffs in terms of damage without dipping them in fire.
Shillelagh and Blade Pact wouldn't stack I think since both replace the original calculation. I think this feat is better suited for builds not wanting the warlock levels, like Paladin 2 + Sword Bard X. Problem is Hill Giant Potions are better anyway.
Wow, knowing this has made me realize that bound salami warlock is one of the builds of all time!
Spell Sniper actually affects all spells that have attack roll though, it's not limited to just cantrips.
If you want to have crits try spells that force them.
Sleep, hold, etc. These are generally better, so an asi ability score improvement is more helpful than spell sniper.
Which is sad but oh well
@@JessicaMorganitrue but eventually ASI's stop being a choice and depending on your build adding crit to say a sorcerers duel cast disintegrates is god tier
Spell sniper with spells that hit multiple times like scorching ray or magic missile greatly increases your chances to crit and can also be stacked with subclass features and items that lower the dice roll needed to crit. Combined with rider effects that proc per hit you can delete enemies pretty consistently with warlock and sorcerers
@@jake_legyou don't roll for magic missile so it will never crit.
War Caster on a tempest cleric is actually a niche case where id says its an S+ tier broken ability and could be worth considering its place going up as a result, because thats a great subclass.
Reasons are that;
A) The obvious fact you can deal more of your relevant damage type more frequently, but more importantly,
B) You get to knock back enemies that are trying to get past you, messing up their movement for their turn significantly, and that is REALLY impactful. Then to a lesser extent there is:
C) You can use your cleric charges to maximise this damage, which late in the game means you can really easily finish off low enemies with only a reaction and no spell slot if youre playing a melee oriented character
31:15 The point of Martial Adept, is to take it on Battle master Fighter.
You wouldn't follow this "either, or" line of thinking about a Throwing weapons build, would you? You wouldn't say "Instead of taking Tavern Brawler, just go Berserker Barbarian/Eldritch Knight Fighter", would you? No, of course you wouldn't. Everyone understands that when you're making a throwing weapons build you do BOTH- you pick Berserker Barbarian at lvl 3 AND take tavern brawler at lvl 4.
It works the same way here- if you want to make a "Battlefield controlling martial" you go Battle Master Fighter, AND take Martial Adept.
The superiority die you get from feat is the same as the one from sub-class, meaning that if you take it you just have 5/6 superiority dies instead of 4/5, it also gets upgraded to a d10 when you reach lvl 10, and you get to choose another 2 manoeuvrers, for a total of 7 instead of 5.
And when you count that many people will automatically take Precision shot, and Riposte on their battle master, because of just how strong those 2 are, it realistically means you only get to 'choose' 1 battlefield-control move. When you take this feat you actually get to choose 3 cool moves- you can take trip, frightening, and pushing attacks for an almost unparalleled, among martials, battlefield control (open hand monk is still better because stunning strike, flurry of blows, and having more ki points than the battle master has superiority dies, but Battle master is a very close second) and still retain the DPR-increasing utility provided by precision strike and riposte.
TL:Dr, it makes Battle master even better, even more versatile than it already is- you get to make 25-20% more special moves per short rest, and you have 40-300% (depending on how we count them) more manoeuvrers to choose from.
Yeah - it's a reasonable 3rd or 4th feat for battle master if you're staying mono classed! Should probably be in C tier for that use case.
I actually won 100% agree with your list. To add some flavor tavern brawler should be S++++ tier. For Monks, throwing build barbarians and circle of the moon Druids it is a must have feat. Also amazing that you actually listen to your community and are flexible and open minded. Most other content creators would not do that. Bravo!
Something that is a bit unfortunate about defensive traits, gear, consumables etc in BG3 is that a lot of the time taking them can actually cause you to take more damage in the long run. There's not really anything, even on honor mode, that can survive too long if you just go full offense. Thus going for more aggressive choices will actually be the defensive option as well.
That's just generally true about D&D
And most turn based RPGs, I always say "the best CC is death" :D
it’s pretty much always a given that killing something quickly as possible is the best way to avoid dying yourself lol
Animal handling got done so dirty as a skill. It's STRICTLY useful if you're NOT using animal speaking potions as those checks tend to get replaced with persuasion and other speaking abilities.
Performer is indeed very bad, since musical instrument proficiency you can get from just helping Alfira and pass 1 or 2 easy skill checks playing her lute. Instrument proficiency is great on its own as a way to gather NPCs to steal stuff or set up the nice fight opener (with or without explosives cheese).
Heavy Armor Master, I feel like could go higher, just because odd 17 stat on character creation exists - having flat damage reduction early + full strength bonus is pretty good. Also nieche use of it as a way to negate damage from jumping off high places in combat and while exploring is nice too. But then Tavern Brawler exists...
Another great video. can't wait to hear your insights on this :)
Thanks very much!
Thank you for the video. Looking forward to your attribute system one
I feel like Polarm master is actually better than you give it credit for. The reaction attack comes up quite often, I feel like enemies will walk into range a lot more often than out of range. They don't seem programmed to take Polearm master opportunity attack into account. When combined with a certain Halberd that gives advantage on opportunity attacks, it all comes together quite nicely.
Gave it to Gale on my first run and that was almost useless since he had such a low chance of hitting and even if he did it would do like 2dmg. 😅
Still, i completed the game mostly without looking at guides so im happy enough. Now on my second playthrough im hoping to optimise my characters a little bit more without stressing myself out about it heh
@@leolion3323use it on a Paladin like Minthara, with other attack or damage bonus equipment. I promise, it makes most encounters much easier.
I'd argue Sentinel raises Polearm Master up a tier or two because of how it grants you advantage on opportunity attacks and how absolutely oppressive it allows you to be in locking down large chunks of the battlefied. In theory the extra reach from a polearm should make any approaching melee enemy with 5ft attack range be forced to end their turn without attacking because their movement becomes 0 while you're just out of range, which makes Sentinel even more appealing on a tank character because you are essentially able to tank one extra melee enemy per turn. Unfortunately like the video says the game fudges movement a bit and their movement will only be reduced to 0 AFTER they finish moving within 5ft of you anyways.
I wonder if it combined with sentinel. Enemies take the opportunity attack coming into range of the polearm, and can't come close enough to hit you when being stopped by sentinel
also pairs extremely well with sentinel feat because most polearms have 10ft reach, so your reaction stops them getting into their melee range and they basically lose their turn
I think this is a good tier list in general, but I think it’s worth noting that some of the feats that would be overshadowed by a single level in another class are not completely useless.
Sure, if you just hit level 12 and are choosing to take a feat vs. a single-level multiclass dip, they are just worse. But sometimes you are doing a multiclass split that doesn’t allow that choice. Maybe you want Moderately Armored (Dex) on your Warlock 2/Sorcerer 10, for instance. You don’t want to give up Agonizing Blast by not taking Warlock 2, but you also want that extra 5th level spell slot from Sorcerer 10. This gets you a point of Dex and some useful proficiencies. Probably not optimal, but also not useless. Note: A level in Cleric in this example would get the proficiencies in armor, but you would miss the last sorcery point and the point in Dex, so still not strictly worse.
Maybe that bumps it up to “Weak” tier, or maybe it stays in F-tier, but with the caveat that it can be useful in some specific builds that are level-limited, and can’t afford to take a level in some other class.
I do appreciate that you framed it this way though; it made me think about feats in a way that I hadn’t before.
You could play a Shield Dwarf or Githyanki.
IMO Dual Wielder is pretty niche, but a must-take on some of the strongest builds in the game. For example, a scorlock that wants to maximize chance to crit on their eldritch blasts can start making use of Dual Wielder as early as act 1 when they get the Undermountain King's Knife - a shortsword, so you need the DW feat to run it and a staff at the same time. Better to take as 2nd feat instead tbh, it's still far from S Tier, but definitely much more viable than fkin Crossbow Expert or Moderately Armored lmao
Although it’s a bit niche, I think the synergy of PAM with Sentinel is a really good way to negate enemy melee fighter’s turns.
Idt it's that niche, I hear this combo a lot. I haven't used it yet because even tho I'm 200 hours into the game, I'm only level 7 lol. So my fighter took gwm first. (Laezel, using sword of the astral plane)
But if I find a pole arm I want to use instead or on another character I'm going to take this combo
The last time I tried it (which was a while ago) it had the same issues with buggy movement as sentinel generally - enemies would often just enter melee range regardless of the sentinel attack. Not all the time, but enough to be really annoying.
In tabletop obviously that's a sick combo because it actually works, and if BG3 has fixed some of the glitchy movement in recent patches it's worth investigating again.
Here is to hoping that the next video is an illithid power tier list. I'd like to hear your thoughts on them!
Quick note on Great Weapon Master's bonus attack... it's better than you think. The "if there is any enemy in range" part is mostly negated since you can move, attack and continue moving. You don't have to activate the bonus attack immediately upon getting a critical hit or killing blow. You can move up to another enemy (assuming you have movement left) THEN activate GWM bonus attack.
I'm currently playing through the game solo as a fighter, used the athlete feat to bump the str up to 18. It's an incredible mobility boost, it often lets me jump right to safety somewhere that would have the enemies dash to reach me. And martial adept is great for battlemaster, which mine is, so I can have more manoeuvres earlier.
Bro your videos are invaluable!! You've helped me conquer this game!! Thank you!!! 💪💪💪💯
I’ve gotten decent use from Weapon Master specifically with characters that needed Finesse weapons but couldn’t use all of them or that wanted one of the two Finesse long swords in the game.
Keep ‘em coming!
Re: Elemental Adept; something else is that even if you can't prepare your spells and such out of combat, it's completely trivial to just respec a character.
One thing that makes me like Magic Initiate: it gives my wizard, Gale, access to the warlock spells, "Armour of Agathys" & "Eldritch Blast" while still keeping him monoclassed, for weirdos like me who prefer that, over multiclassing (e.g. for the Abjuration Wizard Tank build). ^.^
Update: Unfortunately, one quicksaved respec on Gale later, and while you *can* get those spells that way, you also aren't able to actually upcast Armour of Agathys; you only get the level 1 version of it from that feat. D:
I'd normally be against multiclassing into my playthroughs, but I'd likely make an(other) exception here, if only because one of my biggest concerns with Multiclassing is the loss of feats...but this one confirmed, in fact, to be a net loss, even with that in mind. >.
Finally, weapon master has 1 use: a dex based weapon monk that wants the +3 weapons in the game and can benefit from a half feat. There are probably a few others that can use this too, but a weapon monk is the best use case.
Good catch! I forget about weapon monks because tavern brawler is so ruinous to game balance, but that is a reasonable use case if you're in that position.
@@Cephalopocalypse Orphic hammer monk chads are great 😂 its great RP if youre a gith, and its such a good monk weapon
Thanks for the fun tier list! Polearms and great weapons are not the same thing so I don't think it's a bug that Great Weapon Master doesn't effect polearms.
On paper, Charger looks alright for the Fighter because they don't use bonus actions for much other than Second Wind or chugging a potion, but you can just jump really far with high strength, and the movement benefit is negated just like that.
I'm allergic to math so I don't know how the numbers work out but I find dual wielders with additional damage effect items to be quite good since it applies damage to both attacks. Is it really not at all competitive with a sword and board or a 2 handed weapon?
So dual wielding weapons is VERY competitive, and a very strong option given the right build. The dual wielding feat is pretty weak, and you don't need it to use two weapons :D
Is it really fair to say "don't take this feat, just take a level of a class that gives you the same ability and more!" ? You do miss out on your primary class's progression, after all! Even just delaying access to higher level spells or an extra attack is not trivial, imho.
Dual wielding was very fun for my robe caster full bard.
Would you recommend that all party members have alert, or just your main character that is often the first one to walk into a combat situation?
better have it on all of them.
If your whole party plays before the enemy, the enemy strength will be greatly reduced by the time they play, and you can make sure everyone gets to a safer position, so many enemies don't have an easy target.
I thought Tavern Brawler didn’t currently add twice the STR modifier to the damage in Honour mode (but still does at lower difficulties). Has that been fixed now?
It's bugged on honour mode specifically for druid wildshape forms - for monks and throwers it still works.
Great stuff.
Can you please do a sorc/wiz build for shadow heart starting with cleric? (maybe the lightning build if possible, but not using gloves of dex, cuz I can only give that to 1 char) Thanks
From my play the list seems pretty solid, especially the reasoning with some and obviously bugged out ones need a fix.
I love dual wielder helps get my Rouge to a 25 ac and get the abilities of the weapons 2 of them so it helps for that in my opinion .
Great video. What tool do you use for screen capture?
Thanks! I use OBS studio - it's free and open-source
Does Savage Attacker work on thrown weapons?
Does anyone know if extra reach from a polearm applies to sentinel reaction attacks?
It does! That's good and bad though - the enemy has to leave your threatened area to provoke, so with a polearm they get further to move before being stopped in place by sentinel. Makes it easier to protect allies though
You can nit-pick about exactly how you might personally rank the feats given your playstyles and strategies, but I won't. I will say your rankings, generally speaking, seem pretty solid. After four full playthroughs (two on tactician, one on honor mode) I've only used a feat you've ranked at B-tier or below once, and it was Lucky on my first playthrough on a rogue. After which I just found it sufficiently unimpactful that I never took it again :).
A bear heart barb could benefit from heavy armour without losing its bonuses, also elemental adept is really only for draconic sorcerers that can’t inflict the wet condition
Thought on dungeon delver. Let's say your party is a darkness group. You blackhole and bring all enemies inside the circle. You then drop runes on the ground that explode. The tool tip says trap. Curious if this works to negate friendly fire.
Could you explain stealth combat mechanics, when I try stealth after combat starts all my companions are by me but will not engage in combat and I end up 1 v 4. Don’t get why they just stand there
When that happens, you need to switch control to those characters - have them make an attack, and they'll enter the combat and be rolled into initiative. Unless they're an assassin rogue, that *will* use their attack for the round, so make sure you take the turn you'd want them to actually take! That way your whole party can attack from stealth.
Adding an asterisk about specific scenarios for dual wielder sure sounds like your describing the narrow category
The reason I didn't put it there is just that if you meet all the conditions it's still a bad feat :P
@@Cephalopocalypseim going to be honest, using two staffs like charished necro and rhe legendary one as well as givibg you plus one ac is incredibly good for a caster
You gonna do more honor mode fights?
I think you’ve hugely undersold dual wielder here. It’s not just about +1 AC and dual wielding staves - which can make for a strong caster build - but there are some other great weapons you can hold in your off hand.
Rhapsody, for example, is arguably the best thing that most ranged damage/control casters can be holding in their off hand. Having +3 to attack rolls, spell DC and damage for most of the day is huge. This is especially true of a build focused on eldritch blast or scorching ray.
There are some other interesting options too, like the infernal rapier, knife of the undermountain king or duke ravengard’s longsword (for a CHA caster). And on any caster build without shield proficiency, it’s almost negligent NOT to take dual wielder.
Then there are just the options it opens up for 2 weapon melee characters, like phalar aluve or the charge-bound warhammer. This is absolutely an A-tier feat.
Dual wielding with Quick Hands and an Extra Attack is better than Paladin smites. +1d 1-4, on gear like gyth boots and justicar gauntlets becomes crazy.
+4d 1-4 becomes 16-64 extra damage a turn, plus your weapon damage 4x and your modifiers.
Alert is the feat I find myself pretty much always dropping from builds. ASI to get primary stat up to max, and sharpshooter/GWM are infinitely more valuable to me.
Elemental adept is really strong for the fire sorcerer build unless you're going all in with the Arsonist Oil archer spam. Since you're pretty locked into your spells other than maybe having Chain Lightning/Lightning bolt, being less useless at a few places in Act 3 is nice.
Also scorching ray and fireball spam means rolling quite a few d6s so rerolling 1s is nice.
Me on my way to definitely not mix sentinel with polearm master (I am mixing sentinel and polearm master, just try and stop me you can't reach me)
An incredible combo in tabletop, though BG3's somewhat buggy movement makes it not work as well as it should in this game :(
Is it really always better to take level 1 Cleric/Warlock for their proficiencies/spells rather than take a feat? Even if you don’t take the feat, most classes have a pretty weak level 4 upgrade, and if you plan to go back to your main class, you’re going to have to take that weak level up anyway. Might as well take the feat?
Yeah, because you get far more out of choosing the class because you'd get both spells AND proficiencies from it. Taking the odd level means you lose out on a feat, but you've essentially gotten both an Armour feat and Magic Initiate for the price of one as well as the versatility/options you've given you're character.
For reference, Magic Initiate:Warlock would give you 2 cantrips and a 1st level spell that can be cast once per long rest. However, 1 level in Warlock would get you those same 2 cantrips, TWO 1st level spells, 2 Warlock spell slots; which recharge on SHORT rests AND a Warlock subclass that either frightens enemies, charms enemies or gives you temp health after each kill.
Also, he mostly mentioned adding a level in a class for proficiencies/abilities, but there's an alternative solution. Just be a race that has what you want. If you want a Shield, be a human/half-elf; medium armor, be a gith or dwarf; bows, be an elf; etc. If you're class already gives you all the proficencies you want then maybe something that gives an uncommon/complimentary ability. A Human Fighter is inefficient because of overlapping proficiencies as compared to an Orc or even Tiefling Fighter that give Relentless Endurance/Savage Critical and Fire Resistance respectively.
Just currious, I was planning to go with Sentinal and polearm master on my playthrough master on my playthough. They synergies well in normal DnD, do they still stop enemies out side of most melee range in BG3? 😅
It does! But the same caveats about buggy movement in bg3 apply. I ended up speccing out of that setup in my first playthrough because enemies kept getting into melee even after being hit - not incredibly frequently, but enough that it was annoying me.
They *have* done a lot of optimization work since I last tried it though, so it may function better now. Worth a try anyways!
@Cephalopocalypse good to know I may check it out, though it does seem like the pole arms are not as great as some of the other weapons I've seen so I may change my mind eventually to.
unfortunately, the synergy is broken in bg3. I did a build like that and 90% of the time they would close the distance anyway. I hope Larian fixes this.
Logically Alert is OP but since many high level opponents have the equivalent its not as absurd as it seems at first when you get to Act 3. I have not always had initiative even when taking Alert.
That's true - and ironically makes it even more important! If the enemies are abusing a broken mechanic to always win initiative, we are even more priced into doing the same just to keep up
That hasn't really been my experience. I just finished a Tactician run and my characters with +7 or +8 Initiative would go first virtually every combat.
And there is a ton of gear that buffs initiative. Barbarians and Gloomstalkers get +3. Dex characters are getting up to +5. I had Gale running with +8 from a 14 dex, sentinel shield, and hellrider longbow. He always went first.
+6 Initiative characters would start to miss going first a noticeable amount of the time.
I think as long as you get your entire team +7 with or without Alert you are golden.
With a full team of characters with alert and at least decent dex, all your characters will go first in roughly 95% of the fights, and in the remaining 5% there's one boss enemy that might go before some of your characters but even then you get to go before allthe adds which makes the fight easier
Should I favor 2x ASI over 1x asi max and a feat? With only 2 (multi classing), 3 (standard) or 4 (like full fighter) feats to choose from, it s really difficult to know.
It's an unsatisfying answer, but... it depends! Generally, you can never go wrong just maxing your stats. The other feats in S tier are pretty much always worth taking over an ASI if they're something your character can use, and the ones in A tier will be better than an ASI for some builds. With only 2 feats, unless you're getting stats from something else (gloves of dex, strength elixirs, ethyl) I'd usually default to just hitting 20 with 2 ASIs
@@Cephalopocalypse yeah it’s what I thought. ASI is not very sexy but you benefit from it all the time. But Alert looks very tempting!
I had to take Dual Wielder on Minthara so she could wield both the special Drow longswords at once.
She's still a Paladin but I also had her take 1 level of Rogue so she can sneak attack with Phalar Aluve, then she has Kar'niss' longsword in her off-hand.
Dual wielding while wearing the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, the Shriek buff, and smiting means she can stack Reverberation super fast while doing very high slashing + thunder + psychic + radiant damage. Restrained targets also get poisoned by her off hand attacks.
She is also using the Helm of Arcane Acuity and in Act 3 I plan to give her the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and go Thief Rogue so she can use Soul Branding, off-hand attacks, and/or Command as bonus actions every turn.
Paladins are so strong but i always expend most of their resources in a single fight and end up having to leave them behind for the rest of the day. This time I'm having her drink Hill Giant Strength Elixirs every day so she can go to 18 Charisma but that's a waste of elixirs for only one fight a day. So now im dedicating all my Hill Giant elixirs and Potions of Angelic Reprieve to Minthara alone. Spoiling this girl.
Defensive duelist is one of those feats which you so wish was better, because it's really cool thematically for a melee finesse duelist RP but sucks so much in practice. This is because 1) It only works against melee attacks (should remain the case as it pertains to the class fantasy of a duelist fighting in melee), 2) costs a reaction, 3) only works for one attack. Of these, 3) Is the biggest reason this feat sucks. Part of this is because enemies as they level up in this game and in dnd tend to get more and more attacks in a single action, rather than super high damage single attacks, so it doesn't help your survivability that much (as opposed to things like heavy armor master). Additionally, it doesn't do anything to mitigate critical hits, the rare really high damage hits which you would want to mitigate with a defensive oriented feat.
Here's how I would homebrew the feat if I had a chance to bring it up to power with other much better feats (learning to mod atm, so stay tuned maybe).
1) This feat doesn't cost a reaction to use. Instead the feat should give you "duelist charges" = (your proficiency bonus -1) that you can use whenever applicable to make an attack miss. The duelist charges replenish every round.
2) Whenever you cause an attack to miss using a duelist charge, you can spend a reaction to make a quick swipe opportunity attack at the enemy which deals half weapon damage and can cause the enemy to become off balanced.
3) The feat reduces the attack roll not just by your proficiency bonus but rather your proficiency bonus + 1 + dex mod/2. This should give it a range of 5-8 extra "AC", depending on your dexterity at the end of the game, which should come up fairly more often than the narrow band of 4 "AC" it provides.
Dual wielder is my favorite. Use club of hill giant strength in off hand. Or use phallar aluve for its shriek. Staff of bless is useful for support characters as well.
I keep wanting to make Shart a tank with armor/defense oriented feats but i just can't convince myself that they're worth taking
After taking Dual Wielder I was surprised how few good non-light one handed weapons there are.
That's why you do 2 staff because there are only a few bad staves
Bit late to the party, but you still need dual wielder to hold ANY weapon (even a light weapon) in your off hand if your main hand weapon is a staff.
A great example of why this feat is powerful is the Rhapsody dagger. Once you’ve killed 3 enemies (by any means) it gives you +3 to attack rolls, spell DC and damage, which is a massive boost from your off hand slot
I think dual wielder is better than you think. Keeping Astarion with dual shortswords is FINE of course, but with dual wielder you can equip two scimitars, higher damage output. Not sure this changes its tier, but it definitely has more utility than what you bring up in the video.
I thought Astarion's limitation with scimitars was martial weapon proficiency. They are already light weapons AFAIK.
@@andrewlau6466 Scimitars are in fact light, hence why Jaheira can dual wield them
The real reason for dual wielder is wielding 2 magic staffs on a wizard or sorcerer :)
i dont realy agree that you can always just take a level in another class. multiclassing isnt free, it costs you a level in your current class. Regardless, great content as always
Not in every case but level 12 is a feat so if you pick a multi class instead of a feat once then you don't lose anything from the other class
@@maugdw Level 6 spells for alot of the caster classes tbh. And some classes like druids -really- want those level 6 spellslots.
@@1ordTakeoyou get the 6th level spells at level 11 though so the 12th level feat is still a free multiclass level if needed
Yeah taking a 1lvl dip at lvl 4 delays xtra attack and other later game class features so definitely not as simple as strictly comparing a feat to a 1 lvl dip
@@padricburke8858 but getting level 5 then multi classing is what you would do in that case
Defensive duellist is better than you think, disadvantage is only worth a 3.5 swing either way on a d20 roll so at level 10 the feat is more powerful, there’s also a number of ways to impose disadvantage on attackers which won’t stack with warding flare
Durable feat combo nice with song of rest, your barbarian gets healed to full by your bardlock while refreshing your warlock slots
Not saying it S teir but i consider it at least narrow
I disagree with Polearm master. Put this on a barbarian with reckless attack and They become the target of the ai due to their disadvantage. I also really like taking this with battle manoeuvres under weapon master in a multi class with barbarian as you can attack people on the way in way out and jump to your heart's content across the battlefield. Add in skin burster and you can stack up Is damage resistance.
I would probably argue about position of few feats on a list or at least give them a huge asterisk.
Savage Attacker is on the verge of S+ for Paladin by the end of the game. Sure early game GWM is better by buy the very end of the game Savage Attacker is Significantly Better than GWM (also can be used together with it for best results). I would pick it over Alert in almost every build. (Similar thing for rouge/gloom stalker builds - however they are likely to use Knife of the Undermoutain Kind which gives them part of the effect).
Dual Wielder for caster classes like Mage Warlock Druid is also on the verge of S+ tier by the end of the game. By Sacrificing one ASI we can equip second staff which completely nullifies Spell Attack Roll / Spell Save DC (ok we lose one on ability checks) but gain powerful effects granted by the endgame staffs. This is worth more than any feat listed (with exception of War Caster for Concentrating Characters).
Dual Wiels is atleast A if not S Tier it allows so many op Builds. Spell Sniper should be higher too. High crit build are insane
I think Dual Wielder is at least a B tier feat. It depends on the build that you’re making. I find it works best on mages; either for dual wielding staves or on a cleric gish build. I wouldn’t say it’s weak. I’d say its uses are narrow and build dependent.
Martial adept is not F for battle Master fighters. It gives them another superior die that scales with their finger level and more maneuvers. A for battle Master fighers, F for everyone else
I am not really following that ASI is so high. Adding one to attack is good but what is that a 5 percent higher chance of hitting or casting a spell... i guess that addes up but my far less edjucated intuition is i would take some in a tier over it. Defintily dont adjust vased on that but that is what it seems like
I'm still mildly irritated with the changes they made limiting Crossbow Expert and War Caster. I have a tabletop warlock that I play like John Wick: up close and personal with a gun, I mean Eldritch Blast
sentinel plus that 1 rapier that give you two reactions to me, is broken on the awesomesauce rubric
Great Weapon Master can work really well if you have a certain AoE weapon if playing an Oath of Ancients. Can't remember the handle of the guy who shared that oddly specific build for honor mode, but damn. X3
A paladin with heavy armor and a shield has AC around 20-24 endgame with no other buffs considered. If you use them to cast bless then war caster would be an instance where you would rather have that over sanctuary
You aren’t really casting bless in late game and most paladins are gonna be using a 2 hander with savage attacker and or great weapon master. War caster is too high on this list, you can get advantage on con saving throws through items easily
@@pirate135246why wouldn’t you be concentrating on bless if making use of great weapon master? Paladin concentrating on something else?
Crossbow expert is notable for synergy with bhaalist armor
Polearm master: IF enemy enters your area you reaction strike them and then push them out from your area again, does that work? That in itself would be at least useful.
If they walk back in again, you'd get another reaction attack, yes! The usual combo is with Sentinel - you hit them at the 10ft range of your polearm, which stops them in place thanks to sentinel, so they then can't reach melee range - then you back up and do it again next turn. Unfortunately in BG3 movement distance is so buggy that enemies will often just end up in melee range anyways, so it's not reliable in the video game even though it's a gold standard build in tabletop.
I think polearm master should be narrow. I've had some mild success with an eldritch knight with polearm master and sentinel with the ability to cast compelled dual. Even if they don't for some reason attack you, they will at least get disadvantage on another ally. Splash in 3 levels of thief for sneak attack and an extra bonus action, it can be pretty spicy. It also needs to be said that this combo does very well in solo runs though ill admit lockadin darkness shinnanigans are better lol.
Enjoyed the video, but I'm not sure why you say advantage is worth 4.5 to a roll on a d20. It's worth about 3.3 on a d20 roll. Is there something I'm missing math wise related to the fact that rolling a 1 or 20 is a guaranteed fail or success respectively?
Not exactly! What you're missing is that the distribution of DCs is nonrandom. Almost every check you'll make in D&D will need a minimum d20 result somewhere between 6 and 14, where the expected gain ranges from 3.75 to 5. It's true that advantage is worth less at the edges of the curve, but you can pretty safely ignore those because the game is designed so that you don't hit on 5s and don't miss on 15s normally.
That makes sense. I will say in the case of resilient con that it is more like a 4.5 bonus too though, because if you plan to take that you would do it when you're at an odd con value so it gets you the rest of that way to another +1 on those rolls. It seems like kind of a wash once you factor in the other con boost you will have naturally, possibly stacking with other flat bonuses on gear.
Thank you
You’re the king of hot takes aren’t you. Selling elemental adept so short.
Consistent damage and ignoring resistance let’s you specialize heavily.
REALLY good for sorcerer and warlock, where your spell lists are locked, and your subclass is focused.
It also removes the biggest downside of fire damage allowing you to take advantage of the larger number dice innate to the class.
If you have a minor criticism to make, why are you making it so rudely? Seems counterproductive if you want to engage in a real discussion
Skilled works really well for a utility Rogue build because of their level 7 ability. It's worth keeping in mind for all you skill monkeys out there.
If you get two deva maces, dual wielder becomes an S+ feat, especially a dual wielding paladin/bard class. 😁😁😁
what are the reasons that disadvantage on stealth doesn't matter?
Stealth as implemented in the game is mostly about cones of vision and the amount of light around you. So it's fairly easy to stealth around outside of combat to setup ambushes, since you only ever make a stealth check if you enter the cone of vision of an enemy and they don't have enough dark vision to where they can immediately spot you. And all of this is mitigated with a simple potion of invisibility, which are fairly common in the game or being a duergar, since if you're invisible, you won't make a stealth check.
Disadvantage on stealth checks can matter if you're running a character that exploits greater invisibility, since that spell requires you to make an ever increasing stealth check to remain invisible, but 1) the best medium armors in the game already don't give disadvantage on stealth checks, 2) characters like this are usually in robes/light armor anyway.
Heavy armour is way more useful than you stated.
Light cleric does not want to multi-class and losing caster levels as a cleric for weapon stuff isn't always desired. Also are you forgetting the typical 17 at creation? There's usually an odd stat.
Should have been placed at B, for Narrow use.
Medium armor is better than heavy armor early on straight up and with the exotic armors it maintains its lead by being able to add your entire dex modifier to your ac
@@pirate135246are you adding dex to clerics though? I usually prioritize wisdom and constitution
@@DmoneyS44 16 dex, 15 con, 16 wis. Take resilient con as one of your feats. Dex is ac and initiative, its the best stat
@@pirate135246 I usually take alert for the initiative, and take heavy armor for the AC. Maybe I am underrating Dex though, Ill have to try it out on a build and see how it turns out
Could you please consider making a subclass tier list?
So ASI = 20% increase in Ability? +2 is 20% of +10, so if the max is +5, 20% of +5 is +1, but ASI is +2? How is it 20%?
I can’t math right now. Did anything I say make sense?
To explain this a bit better: Your bonus to hit something is determined by your stats, your proficiency bonus (which grows with character level) and the enchantment of your weapon.
At the start of the game at level 1, say you have 16 str and a non-enchanted greatsword. Your total attack bonus is +5 (3 from your 16 in strength since 10 is base, and bonuses increase every 2 ability points, and +2 from your proficiency bonus).
At the end of the game, say you took 2 ASI feats to get to 20 str, and no have a +2 greatsword. Your total attack bonus is +11 (5 from your strength modifier, 4 from your proficiency bonus and 2 from your greatsword's enchantment).
So in terms of power level, you went from having a +5 to hit to a +11 to hit, an increase of +6. An ASI is equivalent to +1 to hit, and so is roughly 15-20% of your ability to hit things in this example.
I’m going to disagree with mage slayer’s ranking. The play with it is having your fighter or barbarian immediately jump into the back line and stand next to the enemy caster. Because the game has enemy caster cast in melee range, it procs at least once per fight against casters. At high levels, those enemy spells are often save or suck for you (confusion, fear, or hypnotic pattern). Because the enemy is forced to immediately make a CON save, the given spell usually won’t take effect, even if your party failed the saves. It’s basically a more reliable counterspell that only costs a reaction that you wanted to use to attack anyway.
What casters? This game barely has any. Not worth a feat.
I'll advocate for Dual Wielder. I dont necessarilly like it over ASI for a melee character, -but- using it to let Gale wield two staves, sych as melfs and spellsparker, has a huge damage potential increase, and the extra ac on a squishy never hurts. It's belongs in B.
As for Alert, i would drop it simply because elixir of vigilance does the same thing. B or C tier.
Athlete i out in trash tier, because the jump spell is free. Take an ASI or mobile and cast or drink jump. Id put it in C, its not terrible, but there are better options for the same benefit.
Resilient should almost be split into multiple places on the tier list because Resilient Constitution is S tier or at least near S tier, Resilient Wisdom is maybe B tier and the rest is probably C tier.
You could argue Ritual Caster should be C tier, because it is useful to have if you don't have a character that knows Longstrider.
Magic Initiate: Druid is the best one because you only want the spell Goodberry and nothing else about the class. Pairs best with a life cleric as the healing bonus triggers when you eat a goodberry. Maybe just that one could be bumped up just one tier as potions are still prevalent enough to make this combo unnecessary.
Nice video. Btw, you forgot the chapter mark for Spell Sniper at 49:22
Oh, no timestamps on such a great video.
hmm, i honestly never use stealth and i still find honour mode to be too easy, it's only my second playthru with my first on explore mode lol
I cannot agree with you on Alert, yes it is a very very good feat but the problem is no one takes that. I saw a bunch of build videos and guess what, no build uses it and it's not needed for honour's mode. A good feat but wasted due to the lack of use
The best feet are Shadowheart’s feet 😊
While it still is pretty bad, one thing about martial adept is that if you take it as a battle master you can still benefit from an extra die
I'd say that most of the ones in the F tier could also be used for rp'ing.
So..."Useless/Strict Loss/RP"
For sure - I don't always say this explicitly but the assumption here is always that we're only talking about mechanical power - "because I want to" is always the most important reason to take an ability!
I’m gonna be here as an advocate for Mobile to be raised at least to upper B tier, bc I think in the case that you do get mobile, it’s very strong for what it does. The ability to hit someone and then run away is obviously a rogue and/or monk-focused thing, and as someone who spent like a solid 200 hrs playing rogue, it’s always either the first or second feat I get bc it’s just too damn useful. I think the main complaint is that it’s too much like shocking grasp, as you essentially need to rely on a hit chance in order to get your disengage, but on rogues especially, you’re going to be using sneak attack more often than not, which usually have a higher chance to hit anyway. That said, even if your main hand doesn’t hit, off hand attacks also count, so you have multiple opportunities to get a disengage. I also find it useful for the absentminded among us bc sometimes we just forget about opportunity attacks sooooo it’s useful for that too.
I’ve never had a lucky roll actually help XD prefer just having like a divination wizard or wild magic sorc
I’d say drop ASI to A tier. It’s strong but not S tier strong. There are MANY items in the game that mess with your stats, like why waste a feat slot getting ASI for strength when I can just pop an elixir? There’s also a circlet in act 1 for intelligence, a pair of gloves for dex, etc. you can replicate ASI with items, so I say it should be A, not S