just a little friendly suggestion. I think Banishment is absolutely always worth it solely because it targets the Charisma saving throw of enemies. and a lot of enemies even in act 3 have really bad Charisma saving throws. thats not bad on a build with a 16 WIS stat
so far the best party for the lore friendly Shadowheart was Arcane Trickster Astarion + Warlock Durge. The big surprise assasination team. Between Hunger of Hadar, Fear and Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush, it's real fun to just never let anyone take a meaningful turn. Some kind of Eldritch Night La'ezel also cool for the nice 'evil party' vibe and consistent damage.
Yeah very nice! My honour mode team was similar. I did a crit fishing GOO Warlock build on Durge, this build on shadowheart (although for the end game I wanted 6th level spells so swapped her to 11 cleric/1wizard), beastmaster ranger for astarion because of the darkness from the raven companion, then a tigerheart barbarian lae'zel to lock down enemies with main
I want to do this evil party Durge play through but wouldnt an assassin type build Durge make more sense? Genuinely asking as I dont know much about Durge lore other than Bhaalspawn
@@daddydevito4405 my warlock durge was assassin 4/great old one warlock 8 They synergize well. Truth is, apart from arcane trickster, rogue levels give you almost nothing past level 3-4.
Love your stealth related videos! Def gonna make a stealth party run soon. Advanatages and bonuses to stealth are great for when you are caught in the sight cone. You have to roll a 15dc check to be seen. So if this is a support for a stealth party. Being seen and passing stealth can assist them in remaining hidden to reposition. The dc becomes higher each time you're spotted. So more stealth is pretty neat!
Glad these videos exist!!!! It’s so annoying that one of the main companions class isn’t the best. I have trouble playing shadowheart as another type of cleric because she’s just not that. The only one that kinda makes sense is tempest, the storms of the shadow fell. A lore friendly build I beat honour mode with was 1 war cleric, 7 shadow monk, 4 fighter. You get the feat polearm master for the spear and it feels pretty good. You fight like how the dark justiciars do in act 3. Just another lore friendly idea.
I've been running a similar 9/3 build. My idea was hitting Thief 3 at level 5, emulating an Extra Attack, using either Guiding Bolt or Duplicity to trigger her own sneak attacks, and then scaling casting up from there. Spirit Guardians at 8 isnt that terrible.
Thanks for doing this. So many new players get advised to respec Shadowheart into Light. This is so bad for a firat playthrough when you want the story as light is anathema to Shar worshippers. I always recommend to people if they are not super happy with her Trickery Domain, not to reapec out of it, but rather to multiclass her to take better advantage of it. One thing I am playing around with is Cleric 5 (Trickery)/Rogue 2/Ranger 5 (Gloom Stalker) or alternatively Paladin 5
@@mithikz7608more spells for Shadow because she has Cleric spells which are OP. I’d probably mix her with something spellcasty. I know rogue fits the theme better, Trickery/Spore Druid for example but that’s more “Death Domain”. I guess a nice trickery cleric multiclass, imma mix Wizard Illusion probably. You can prepare spells ooc plus you only need 2 levels so you can do 10 in Trickery and make use of level 9 domain spells so it’s the closest lore wise I would think. You get a bonus action illusion which I think would please Shar. 😅 You don’t need to worry about INT because you’ll only get 3 spells. Pick Ritual spells and BAM balanced. WIS/DEX/CON are still the main stats. And you don’t have to waste WIS on Ritual Spells since the 3 are the main ones (longstrider/enhanceleap/featherfall) You could get shield, but she doesn’t need it. I’d just get those 3 ritual spells since I’d dump INT to 8 even though that’s the Spellcasting Modifier for Wizard spells. If it’s just ritual spells, you’re good. Now you can enjoy those 9 levels of Trickery Domain spells.
you know, i feel like for people that are into "lore friendly" builds. i think its fair to respec shadowheart into another type of cleric or even other classes if you decide to have her be a traitor instead of a dark justiciar(which i feel doesnt really offer enough to make it worth the amount of stuff you lose for her to become a DJ).
Are you referring to my other video or just in general? haha, the builds are certainly doing different things and if you just want damage monk is better for sure!
I like this! I respecced my Shadowheart into Paladin/Light Cleric like almost everyone else after becoming a Selunite, but it is difficult to justify a complete change up in her skillset with a deity shift. This combination of using trickery features like fear and light-aspected debuffs with radiating orb feels like a mix that could work for both of her paths, with the DJ gear heavily weighing her toward darkness and obscured tactics, but doesn't make the light abilities useless, especially since she can fight at range too. Will seriously consider this build for my next run!
It's a lil' funny everyone always makes her a Light cleric, given that's not a domain of Selune *or* Shar. I always make her a knowledge cleric and use her channel divinity for dexterity proficiencies. It's a domain of Selune (and Shar, if you believe in the heresy) and feels a bit thematically appropriate that Selune is looking out for one of her daughters by giving her the skills she needs to survive what Viconia's using her for.
@@paragonvice1128that does sound really thematic! I wound up making her a Tempest in the early to mid game, both to play around with the wet mechanic (which absolutely trivialized the final boss of act 2) but also cause I just like how the description of Tempest cleric implies it's an expression of the personality of the cleric, rather than having to be a specific part of the god's portfolio. She definitely downgraded in damage after respeccing to paly/light, but she's been my tankiest character by far so that's made up for it
@@paragonvice1128arguably the most lore accurate for Shart would be life domain since according to documents in the Sharran HQ, she was trained and sent on the astral prism mission as a medic. Besides, she never formally starts worshipping Selune and even remarks on the capriciousness of gods in the same vein as Minthara or Ketheric so I don’t think having her build go all in on Selune is entirely accurate.
@@Vasilefs_Terranorum Life would work, I won't argue that. I forgot it said medic -- I mostly remember her mentioning her time doing thievery and sneaking, so I figured a domain that'd make her actually capable of that at all would be good. At the end of Shar's trials, when she spares the Nightsong, the game *heavily* implies that it's been Selune granting her cleric powers all along, not Shar -- and that that revelation may break her, or something to those effects. So that's why I lean toward Selune's domains and roleplay rather than Shar.
I find multi-classing with 5 lvls of ranger/gloomstalker works better, especially if you want a two weapon up close build. Nice build all the same though.
Yeah that's definitely a solid build and probably better for specifically making attacks and using spirit guardians, but this one is more about casting a variety of spells while still getting a couple attacks in
fairly sure the intent with this build is to almost never use shadowheart's main hand melee attack, opting instead to use the two bonus actions from the thief subclass to make off-hand, ranged hand crossbow attacks (which do scale with dex) and using her action to cast spells that deal radiant damage. the spear is just there for the bonuses it applies
Kinda weird you went with RADIANT damage and RADIANT orb with Trickery Domain. I was hoping for something more in line with Shar, since this would be a Lore acc. Shadowheart build. This strategy, equipment and playstyle suits more the Selunite Shadowheart, IMHO.
Yeah this build was designed for both versions rather than pure justiciar. Even Viconia has radiant retort and a radiant divine intervention. But if you wanted to drop the radiant stuff you can swap the radiating orb equipment for something like braindrain gloves and strange conduit ring for mental fatigue, then use the dark justiciar armour
I mean, cleric is cleric. A cleric is always useful to have and has quite a few very strong abilites either for support or for damage no matter the domain. Last time for the endgame (My third run in honour) I reclassed Shadowheart to an ice sorcerer and went to the endgame without a full cleric though... I had an Ice Sorcerer (With an encrusted with frost build), the classical Sorlock (with a reverberation build), a Gloom+SwBard+Fighter (And 1 level of rogue. Critical hit build for both archery and dual blades) and a Paladin+War Cleric+Fighter.
Huh, im a huge fan of offhand spellblades, and have wanted to figure out a good way to mix rogue in with trickery cleric, yet never thought of this. Good build!
Great take on trickery cleric one suggestion I have is if you go the gloomstalker route boots of speed will be great I'm doing a playthrough right now with shart as a pure life cleric and boots of speed surprised me with just how useful they are with spiritguardians You could also start storm sorc then follow the build giving you flight after every spell this is useful in combat for repositioning or out of combat by using the helm of many faces as disguise self triggers storm flight that would also give resiliant con but may limit your weapon options
For sure any character that has spirit guardians and no bonus action movement can make great use of the boots of speed! The Storm Sorc level is a great suggestion
@@UltravioletArts I think sorc is a good dip on any Caster like going 1 white drag sorc 1 war cleric 10 moon druid which leads to a super powered druid capable of casting shield and armor of agathys along with proficiency on cons
Invoke Duplicity is too weak for an entire action to be used on it, when you can just use that action to do more damage or even throw poisons and bombs on stuff, which is why people hate on it so much. Most of the time the game AI attacks your invoked double first and takes it out instantly.
2 questions What about the Holy Lance Helm? These lore builds are good but I heard you can actually accidentally cut content by respecting away from initial class, or subclass if chosen at lvl 1. So wouldn't starting Rouge he bad for story? (Edit) forgot one, what about the gloves of archery? Or Ganndrels Aspiration
Holy lance helm could be fine before the stronger late game helms, but we are mostly looking to avoid getting hit too much. There are a ton of great items for archers so you can really pick whatever suits you!
![[Act 3] Solo Warlock - Disrespecting Raphael - Honour Mode](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Gdsv8ghVX18/mqdefault.jpg)
just a little friendly suggestion. I think Banishment is absolutely always worth it solely because it targets the Charisma saving throw of enemies. and a lot of enemies even in act 3 have really bad Charisma saving throws. thats not bad on a build with a 16 WIS stat
This. Practically walked through the Sarevok fight with Banishment since his CHA save is crap.
Yeah definitely a solid point, especially before getting a bunch of the late game +save dc gear
and the poison damage divine strike!? this is a perfect shadowheart lore build
We love a niche but thematic ability
so far the best party for the lore friendly Shadowheart was Arcane Trickster Astarion + Warlock Durge. The big surprise assasination team. Between Hunger of Hadar, Fear and Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush, it's real fun to just never let anyone take a meaningful turn. Some kind of Eldritch Night La'ezel also cool for the nice 'evil party' vibe and consistent damage.
Yeah very nice! My honour mode team was similar. I did a crit fishing GOO Warlock build on Durge, this build on shadowheart (although for the end game I wanted 6th level spells so swapped her to 11 cleric/1wizard), beastmaster ranger for astarion because of the darkness from the raven companion, then a tigerheart barbarian lae'zel to lock down enemies with main
I want to do this evil party Durge play through but wouldnt an assassin type build Durge make more sense? Genuinely asking as I dont know much about Durge lore other than Bhaalspawn
@@daddydevito4405 my warlock durge was assassin 4/great old one warlock 8
They synergize well. Truth is, apart from arcane trickster, rogue levels give you almost nothing past level 3-4.
Love your stealth related videos! Def gonna make a stealth party run soon.
Advanatages and bonuses to stealth are great for when you are caught in the sight cone. You have to roll a 15dc check to be seen. So if this is a support for a stealth party. Being seen and passing stealth can assist them in remaining hidden to reposition.
The dc becomes higher each time you're spotted. So more stealth is pretty neat!
Glad these videos exist!!!! It’s so annoying that one of the main companions class isn’t the best. I have trouble playing shadowheart as another type of cleric because she’s just not that. The only one that kinda makes sense is tempest, the storms of the shadow fell. A lore friendly build I beat honour mode with was 1 war cleric, 7 shadow monk, 4 fighter. You get the feat polearm master for the spear and it feels pretty good. You fight like how the dark justiciars do in act 3. Just another lore friendly idea.
Yeah very nice! I'm probably going to try another purely dark justiciar build at some point
in my recent playthrough Shadowheart's Sacred Flame is absolutely tearing it up going bonkers blasting everyone early on
I've been running a similar 9/3 build. My idea was hitting Thief 3 at level 5, emulating an Extra Attack, using either Guiding Bolt or Duplicity to trigger her own sneak attacks, and then scaling casting up from there. Spirit Guardians at 8 isnt that terrible.
I've seen a lot of lore builds for Shadowheart, but I think this is my favorite one so far. Thanks!
Thanks that means a lot!
Thanks for doing this. So many new players get advised to respec Shadowheart into Light. This is so bad for a firat playthrough when you want the story as light is anathema to Shar worshippers. I always recommend to people if they are not super happy with her Trickery Domain, not to reapec out of it, but rather to multiclass her to take better advantage of it. One thing I am playing around with is Cleric 5 (Trickery)/Rogue 2/Ranger 5 (Gloom Stalker) or alternatively Paladin 5
Can you please do lore friendly builds for all the characters?
I'd take Trickery 8/Rogue Thief 3/Fighter 1 for two-weapon fighting style, good sinergy with second bonus action.
Definitely could work, really depends on if you want more spells vs more off hand damage
@@mithikz7608more spells for Shadow because she has Cleric spells which are OP. I’d probably mix her with something spellcasty. I know rogue fits the theme better, Trickery/Spore Druid for example but that’s more “Death Domain”. I guess a nice trickery cleric multiclass, imma mix Wizard Illusion probably. You can prepare spells ooc plus you only need 2 levels so you can do 10 in Trickery and make use of level 9 domain spells so it’s the closest lore wise I would think. You get a bonus action illusion which I think would please Shar. 😅 You don’t need to worry about INT because you’ll only get 3 spells. Pick Ritual spells and BAM balanced. WIS/DEX/CON are still the main stats. And you don’t have to waste WIS on Ritual Spells since the 3 are the main ones (longstrider/enhanceleap/featherfall)
You could get shield, but she doesn’t need it. I’d just get those 3 ritual spells since I’d dump INT to 8 even though that’s the Spellcasting Modifier for Wizard spells. If it’s just ritual spells, you’re good. Now you can enjoy those 9 levels of Trickery Domain spells.
you know, i feel like for people that are into "lore friendly" builds. i think its fair to respec shadowheart into another type of cleric or even other classes if you decide to have her be a traitor instead of a dark justiciar(which i feel doesnt really offer enough to make it worth the amount of stuff you lose for her to become a DJ).
Personally prefer the shadow monk combo
Are you referring to my other video or just in general? haha, the builds are certainly doing different things and if you just want damage monk is better for sure!
@@UltravioletArts sorry for the late response. I jusr feel like shadow monk merge better with trickster cleric
I'd do Fighter 1/Thief 3/Trickery 8. You'll get two feats, everything you want out of trickery, and two-weapon fighting style for dual-wielding.
Interesting build, looking forward to more!
I like this! I respecced my Shadowheart into Paladin/Light Cleric like almost everyone else after becoming a Selunite, but it is difficult to justify a complete change up in her skillset with a deity shift. This combination of using trickery features like fear and light-aspected debuffs with radiating orb feels like a mix that could work for both of her paths, with the DJ gear heavily weighing her toward darkness and obscured tactics, but doesn't make the light abilities useless, especially since she can fight at range too. Will seriously consider this build for my next run!
It's a lil' funny everyone always makes her a Light cleric, given that's not a domain of Selune *or* Shar. I always make her a knowledge cleric and use her channel divinity for dexterity proficiencies. It's a domain of Selune (and Shar, if you believe in the heresy) and feels a bit thematically appropriate that Selune is looking out for one of her daughters by giving her the skills she needs to survive what Viconia's using her for.
@@paragonvice1128that does sound really thematic! I wound up making her a Tempest in the early to mid game, both to play around with the wet mechanic (which absolutely trivialized the final boss of act 2) but also cause I just like how the description of Tempest cleric implies it's an expression of the personality of the cleric, rather than having to be a specific part of the god's portfolio. She definitely downgraded in damage after respeccing to paly/light, but she's been my tankiest character by far so that's made up for it
@@paragonvice1128arguably the most lore accurate for Shart would be life domain since according to documents in the Sharran HQ, she was trained and sent on the astral prism mission as a medic.
Besides, she never formally starts worshipping Selune and even remarks on the capriciousness of gods in the same vein as Minthara or Ketheric so I don’t think having her build go all in on Selune is entirely accurate.
@@Vasilefs_Terranorum Life would work, I won't argue that. I forgot it said medic -- I mostly remember her mentioning her time doing thievery and sneaking, so I figured a domain that'd make her actually capable of that at all would be good.
At the end of Shar's trials, when she spares the Nightsong, the game *heavily* implies that it's been Selune granting her cleric powers all along, not Shar -- and that that revelation may break her, or something to those effects. So that's why I lean toward Selune's domains and roleplay rather than Shar.
These videos are inspirational. All new videos are welcome! Thank you
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words!
Shadowheart works good enough when doing this build, ice played some playthroughs with it
I find multi-classing with 5 lvls of ranger/gloomstalker works better, especially if you want a two weapon up close build. Nice build all the same though.
Yeah that's definitely a solid build and probably better for specifically making attacks and using spirit guardians, but this one is more about casting a variety of spells while still getting a couple attacks in
@@UltravioletArts Yeah I was playing this build and I see what you mean. It is very adaptable in many situations, that's for sure.
Pacificly!? 😂 nice build man, thanks.
What i didnt understand is. How to get out the most damage with the 18 Dex, when the Spear is Strenghtbased
fairly sure the intent with this build is to almost never use shadowheart's main hand melee attack, opting instead to use the two bonus actions from the thief subclass to make off-hand, ranged hand crossbow attacks (which do scale with dex) and using her action to cast spells that deal radiant damage. the spear is just there for the bonuses it applies
Trickery has been my favorite cleric domain since 3.0 edition. Glad to see it appreciated.
I like using blessing of the trickster for my rogue
Kinda weird you went with RADIANT damage and RADIANT orb with Trickery Domain.
I was hoping for something more in line with Shar, since this would be a Lore acc. Shadowheart build.
This strategy, equipment and playstyle suits more the Selunite Shadowheart, IMHO.
Yeah this build was designed for both versions rather than pure justiciar. Even Viconia has radiant retort and a radiant divine intervention. But if you wanted to drop the radiant stuff you can swap the radiating orb equipment for something like braindrain gloves and strange conduit ring for mental fatigue, then use the dark justiciar armour
I mean, cleric is cleric. A cleric is always useful to have and has quite a few very strong abilites either for support or for damage no matter the domain.
Last time for the endgame (My third run in honour) I reclassed Shadowheart to an ice sorcerer and went to the endgame without a full cleric though... I had an Ice Sorcerer (With an encrusted with frost build), the classical Sorlock (with a reverberation build), a Gloom+SwBard+Fighter (And 1 level of rogue. Critical hit build for both archery and dual blades) and a Paladin+War Cleric+Fighter.
Huh, im a huge fan of offhand spellblades, and have wanted to figure out a good way to mix rogue in with trickery cleric, yet never thought of this. Good build!
Thanks! Yeah this could work just as well dual wielding melee weapons as well
For the algy
Great take on trickery cleric one suggestion I have is if you go the gloomstalker route boots of speed will be great I'm doing a playthrough right now with shart as a pure life cleric and boots of speed surprised me with just how useful they are with spiritguardians
You could also start storm sorc then follow the build giving you flight after every spell this is useful in combat for repositioning or out of combat by using the helm of many faces as disguise self triggers storm flight that would also give resiliant con but may limit your weapon options
For sure any character that has spirit guardians and no bonus action movement can make great use of the boots of speed! The Storm Sorc level is a great suggestion
@@UltravioletArts I think sorc is a good dip on any Caster like going 1 white drag sorc 1 war cleric 10 moon druid which leads to a super powered druid capable of casting shield and armor of agathys along with proficiency on cons
If you change her class right at the start, how is this lore friendly?
I've enver played DnD/BG3, I generally have no clue what I'm doing.
the anti meta gawd
If there is one thing I love it is completely ignoring metas and doing weird stuff instead 😂
Invoke Duplicity is too weak for an entire action to be used on it, when you can just use that action to do more damage or even throw poisons and bombs on stuff, which is why people hate on it so much. Most of the time the game AI attacks your invoked double first and takes it out instantly.
2 questions
What about the Holy Lance Helm?
These lore builds are good but I heard you can actually accidentally cut content by respecting away from initial class, or subclass if chosen at lvl 1. So wouldn't starting Rouge he bad for story?
(Edit) forgot one, what about the gloves of archery? Or Ganndrels Aspiration
Holy lance helm could be fine before the stronger late game helms, but we are mostly looking to avoid getting hit too much. There are a ton of great items for archers so you can really pick whatever suits you!
"Lore-friendly"
"Thief-Rogue Multiclass"
"Dual-wield hand crossbows"
lol
lmao
Stopped watching there