The BEST ELDRITCH KNIGHT in Baldur's Gate 3 - Fighter / Lae'zel Build Guide
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- My most requested build guide so far, the Eldritch Knight gets all the power of a fighter and all the versatility of a wizard, emerging as one of the tankiest and highest damage characters in the game! Perfect for Lae'zel or a main character as a party member or to solo tactician due to its near-invulnerability in the late game!
This character uses Eldritch Knight Fighter and Abjuration Wizard to get powerful spells, brutal attacks, unrivaled defenses, and overwhelming versatility and optionality.
After so many obvious True Strike jokes in your videos, I thought people would not fall for your true strike references. I guess there are way too many people who just don't get it. Keep the joke! 😂😂😂 Your videos are fantastic!
true strike is utter garbage
You only cast it before combat starts :)
Comments are really triggered over True Strike, geez.😂
The hate boner that people have for true strike is crazy, comment below yours said that just recommending true strike "invalidates the whole build"💀💀. Like don't get me wrong true strike is absolutely the single worst thing in bg3 and dnd as a whole but this build is literally NEVER using cantrips, it's barely using spells for that matter as spells are mostly used for buffing in this build. Like true strike is nonexistent in this build but people have the weirdest obsession with hating it that they immediately see red the moment it gets mentioned😂
Ignore the true strike comments.
It's a great build, these early cantrips are of little consequence. And as he's said multiple times, he casts it before combat starts.
The beauty of this video is showing the wizard importance.
If you're going with a low intelligence, it is better to take spells that have a saving throw compared to spells that have an attack roll. Buffs and defense are still better, but for damage spells you're better off with saving throw spells because they usually still do half damage even on a fail.
That's true! Though since the damage spell will usually be less damage than just attacking, I think for this build it's better to just skip both kinds of offensive spells and focus on buffs and defenses, as you say
Is it viable to use with Heavy Armor Master & Adamantine armor? Or is the damage reduction not practical enough 🤔?
Actually it's pretty great since any resistance happens first. A 40 damage hit will first get halved to 20. The max ward from this build would then drop it by 12 to 8, followed lastly by adamantine armor dropping it by 2 to 6, and 3 further prevented by Heavy Armor Master to a final result of 3.
A 40 damage hit...down to 3 damage.
I was just looking for a Laezel build on your channel just today lol
Awesome, great timing! :D
True strike isn’t nice to use, it’s better to just have fire bolt or chill touch
You only cast it before combat starts :)
Sure, use it for only *one* attack, meanwhile hiding does the exact same thing and it frees up a cantrip slot for something more useful
I'm playing my own version of an eldritch knight, which is 6 vengeance paladin/6 abjuration wizard :P You get even tankier than this build, and still dish out a lot of damage with smites :P
While this is definitely a powerful build, it uses basically nothing that makes Eldritch Knights special in any way. Spellcasting isn't all that special and could also be done with a Champion Wizard combo, losing only 2 effective spellcaster levels. Level 4 spells are not that impactful to "waste" a subclass on.
Eldritch Knights stand out for being able to cantrip + attack in the same round at lvl 7. They stand out for applying disadvantage on spell saves at lvl 10. Why not make use of these still awesome features? You can easily make INT the main stat while chugging hill giant elixirs. You can pick up Eldritch Blast as a feat and wear the potent robe. You can buff weapon and elemental cantrip damage in tandem with gear found largely in Act 1. You can make use of the Ring allowing you to cast illusion/enchantment spells (scrolls) as bonus action after attacking thrice...
There are so many applications of the true powers of the Eldritch Knight. It's sad to see it reduced to picking up Shield at lvl 3.
You don't need to put too many points into Int since you can get a pretty OP item that increases Int to 17 no matter if you put it at 8 or 14 a pack of Ogres in act 1
Maybe str elixir, get 12 wis and 16 dex. Then put asi in con
I'd voice it could be worth dropping 1 level for a dip into Sorcerer so you can get Armour of Agathys from the Draconic Sorcerer line. Using as a lvl4 upcast will get you 20 temp hitpoints and cause that same amount of damage back to the enemy when hit. It also stacks with fire shield
yeah, that could definitely be worth it, especially if you use Ethyl's hair to skip the need for an extra feat - fighter 5 / sorc 1 / wiz 6 would be my pick in that case!
Also the temp hit points from Armor of Ag don’t get reduced until the ward is reduced. So you can just leap into melee fights with that.
@@knightghaleon I'd actually voice going 5 fighter/5 wizard/2 warlock. Warlock with Armour of Shadows means you can just remove and add armour to then cast mage armour to build up arcane ward out of combat without using spellslots and get 2 spellslots from warlock which replenish on short rest. You only really gain another 3rd level spell slot and projected ward from 6 levels wizard and so you benefit more from warlock levels, You get the feat from 5 levels wizard and so still get extra attack from fighter and 2 feats from fighter and wizard. You do lose out on fire shield as no lvl 4 spell slot. You could forego all of that and put more levels into what you want and simply cast blur to essentially make yourself unhittable with high AC and blur. This would be in place of haste but is the safer option as haste will get you killed in melee if you do get hit and break concentration. Potion of speed is probably the better choice for melee characters in that case anyhow
Imo EK isn't very appealing if you can't make use of lvl7 feature.
Warlock 5 EK 7 is probably the best version and even then battle master is probably stronger.
I like nature cleric 5 EK 7 for some spike growth thorn whip synergy (if you don't mind respeccing all the time it's very fun to lvl)
The clear pros of your build are basically haste and fire shield vs battle master. Haste is earliest at lvl9 and fire shield lvl11 which id say is late is u solo?
So tricky to make it on par with other classes 😢
Yeah - that's the real struggle with this character, is just that EK is overall the weakest fighter subclass. This build gets to use the casting levels, which is the thing that makes it unique, so I think it fits a great niche when trying to optimize eldritch knight. I don't believe this is the best *fighter* build out there though - as you say, that's definitely a battle master - check out my Minsc or Karlach builds using that!
Githyanki have a built in invisible Mage hand spell.
Best Eldritch Knight for me is Duergar Dwarf because he can use Dwarven Thrower effectively and best spells are not damage spells - the whole idea of the class does not work really well.
Light, Blade Ward, Protection from Evil and Good, Shield, Magic Weapon, Blur, Mirror Image are probably the most important spells here.
If you go with a shield this build can have crazy AC with Mirror Image and cast shield as reaction to get +5 AC when needed.
Still the entire class is weak because War Magic and Eldritch Strike is weak - it is better to attack enemies with weapon as many times as you can than to cast a cantrip and attack once.
When you think about Eldritch Knight you think about a guy that will be able to cast a spell and hit with his weapon on top of that as many times as he would normaly like Magus in Pasthfinder but in D&D 5 it is not the case. In the end casting a spell or cantrip in combat makes Eldritch Knight weaker not stronger.
It would be fun to be able to cast Shocking Grasp on an enemy and then hit him 3 times with a weapon instead of being able to only hit once with a weapon.
Battle Master with Riposte and other maneuvers will be far superior to Eldritch Knight.
Even Champion getting more critical hits and longer jump and bonus to Initiative from Remarkable Athlete: Proficiency and extra fighting style making him great for Archery+Defence or Great Weapon Fighting+Defence.
Sadly D&D 5 dropped the ball when creating Eldritch Knight.
War Magic and Eldritch Strike seems like you would want to cast spells in the middle of the combat but you really don't want to do that. And since you can't keep a concentration on more than 1 buff this class is the weakest fighter in BG3.
Yeah, as you say the issue with this subclass is that the unique abilities just aren't that strong - but it does get access to a couple caster levels as a fighter, which is why I chose to focus this build around that. Getting to boost your wizard casting even a small amount while getting access to a fighter's extra attacks and feat progression is super powerful, and the abjuration wizard adds some nice tanking.
I like this build! I think the 6 levels in Abjuration wizard offer a significant amount of power, enough to compensate for the loss of Extra Extra attack. I think I would change a few things to make it better. First off, start with 17 Strenght and bump it at lvl 4 with Heavy armour master. It comes up often enough, and with the better heavy armours and the arcane ward, you're barely taking damage ever.
The other thing I'd change would be the Wizard 4 feat. With Shield and Counterspell, I think this build's reaction is way too valuable to take Sentinel. I'd take either GWM for big damage, war caster to never lose concentration on haste, or Alert because it's probably the best feat in the game. You already mentioned two of those feats as alternatives, but I really feel that sentinel is a wasted feat on this build because, even if you don't end up casting a reaction spell, you usually want to not do Opportunity attacks just in case
For a solo character I would agree but for a “tank” with a squishy party or back line there is likely no better feat than sentinel. Especially with a single target. A boss would essentially be locked into a brawl with a high ac warded melee specialist. With other party member means the enemy could be debuffed or the tank buffed with haste and shield of faith (+4 ac) with little or no way to break concentration from further casters unless taking a disadvantaged ranged hit. And with 2-3 other party member means plenty of access to counterspells.
So in a solo environment i agree but in terms of filling a tanking role sentinel is king
yeah i think my tav is going to follow this build. with laezel as battlemaster all the way and shadowheart as full light/tempest/war. unsure. then multi astarion into bard after getting thief, get karlach some monk to augment her barb. give wyll some paladin. cheesemonkey my gale. owlbearbarian my halsin. full druid my jaheira and check out that minsc build.
Jaheira needs at least 2 levels of Fighter to get 2-Weapon Fighting and Action Surge. Her scimitar with a 20 Wis is no joke.
Awesome, glad to hear it! That sounds like an excellent party comp :D
@@jameshill2450 Funny you should mention that, I have a lore-friendly Jaheira build focusing on that aspect of her character coming up soon!
amazing build, and totally not gear dependant
Thanks so much! Yeah, I try to keep these builds as gear-agnostic as possible, since it's so easy to miss specific magic items
@@Cephalopocalypse Its so good ceph. Running it as a pure antimagic knight with shield and counterspell. Polearm mastery, sentinel, greatweapon mastery. Then later in the game i use stats gear (giant gloves, constitution amulet...), and it gets insanely broken
Thank you for the guide! I really wanted to make Laezel into an eldritch knight but kept struggling on spell selection. Does mage armour stack with heavy armour or is there no point taking it?
Glad you enjoyed it! :D Mage armor won't work with any worn armor (only things marked as "clothes" will work) and that includes any boots helmets and gloves that are marked as medium or heavy armor. So yeah, for this build there's mostly no point taking it
Hey love your guides, Im running gloomstalker as my main, and have Wyll, Shadowheart and Karlach in my party all using your recommended builds, do you think this Laezel build would fit my party comp better than having Karlach?
Awesome, that makes me really happy to hear! I think either would be totally fine. That party has tons of damage output already, so I think I would *very slightly* lean towards the Karlach build for tanking, but both would fit in great! Also of course depends on which character you enjoy having around more :D
I am wondering if instead of multi with Wizard, a multi with Warlock (Great old one) would also be viable? The fear on crit, Hex spell, eldritch blast for ranged damage when needed.... sure Warlock scales with Charisma, but it'd stay a melee striker, so Charisma would be less important, no?
Any one have an idea for a build that revolves around " Voss's Silver Sword" this is the one hander. I'm really struggling with making EK work and I wanted to do a theme Psychic abilities.
I did the same on my laezel playthrough. Though I went 6 EK 6 Necro I sacrificed my third attack for 3 skellys. I bought like 60 hill giant potions and and pumped my Con and wis up. I wear the int helm for spell throws when I use them my stats look like 21 Str, 14 dex, 18 con, 17 int, 16 Wis, 12charm. You could go aberration and have more defence, but I find the extra dps from skelly and healing from vampiric touch is more helpful. She’s basically a one man army by level 6. And with ancestral knowledge she great at skill checks. Githyaki is by far my favorite race.
Super interesting! I wouldn't normally mix wizard and fighter like that except for abjuration, but the skeleton army is a fun idea and does add to your damage!
Just go full eldritch knight sorry it's better your just making a wizard that can fight and you might as well not even use the eldritch knight subclass you are losing one of the best reasons for using a fighter that extra feat
I can't find much guides on a full EK build along with gear recommendations
If you're going for spells that don't require saves why would you go for 14 int?
Int affects how many wizard spells you can have prepared, so it's nice for this build for quality of life, but not really very important - you can definitely go dex 14 wis 12 instead!
What gloves do you have on her???
I was super disappointed with bound weapon (and EK in general) when hucking everburning blade was doing useless dmg.
I think this is at least a nice direction for an EK. But u amwant to have my cake and eat it too lol. So im gonna try to use these obscure enchants to make a magical knight. Adding in heat, arcane synergy, and the one with casting while threatened to make some nasty explosions
Yeah, it's tough to use the EK's unique abilities because they come late in the build and just aren't that powerful. Something I did forget to mention for this character though is that throwing with the bound weapon makes you a very viable ranged attacker as well!
cover the gear ffs
why no tavern brawler or did i miss it?
Check my EK throwing build posted a couple days ago!
What about 8 Fighter, 4 Wizard to gain another feat?
That could also work! Any fighter with Haste is really good, though you'll lose access to level 4 spells and only get 8 damage resistance from Arcane Ward - overall I think those are more valuable than the extra feat. You do get War Magic though, which can let you do interesting things like cast Blade Ward for damage resistance and then attack in the same turn
@@Cephalopocalypse But that attack isn't a main action attack, meaning you'll only get to swing once, no?
@@Axterix13 It's true! That's why I think War Magic isn't that strong of a feature, and would recommend stopping at 6 like in the video. Just offering some alternatives since the commenter above asked!
Recently got the 5E spells mod so now actually have booming blade/GFB like i use in TT, now im more inclined to go 7 EK just to do the spell, BA attack combo
You should be getting fighter to lvl7 as a knight it gives you war caster passive where you can cast a cantrip with your action and attack with bonus action.
Good idea! I should definitely have mentioned this in the video, but the reason we don't do that is that a cantrip as an action plus a bonus action attack is almost always worse for this build than just making two attacks as an action (even without taking the war cleric bonus attack into account). Your cantrips will be very bad thanks to low int and your attacks are extremely good, so you prefer to just make more attacks
You could use the 17 int circlet to use more offensive spells like shocking grasp which is super useful for saving injured party members
For the early game, binding your weapon and using it as a thrown weapon is a very nice tool for Eldritch Knight. You get a lot of use out of poison and other dips that way, because your "ranged" weapon is also a melee weapon. With Tavern Brawler, your throw hits pretty hard. I like the Jump spell cast out of combat to get in position without using up resources. I like shoot and scoot tactics where I hit the enemy and duck behind a wall or darkness. Coupled with another caster with Longstrider, I am generally only exposed to a little ranged damage as I cut the enemy down.
With the 17 int hat, Int is a safe dump stat, but early on you are generally just picking utility spells. If I don't have any other Int skill character in the party, it really helps if the Gith ability boosts Int skills. +6 + guidance gives at least one reliable roll in the party.
Yeah, the thrown weapon does a lot of work, especially in the early game - as you say, getting a melee attack at range is huge, significantly more damage than other ranged weapons even before tavern brawler.
I ended up going way of open hand monk 9 and battlemaster 3 with her, kinda fits with her whole level of combat discipline. And you can use your skills to dish out tons of statuses on enemies with maneuvers during actions and open hand’s flurry of blows during bonus actions. You could drop 3 levels of monk for thief rogue for more bonus actions (literally 6 attacks for using your bonus actions) but it’s not as in character for her.
Also an excellent choice! I have a slightly different take on a monk build coming up soon as well, so keep an eye out :)
Did you say, upcast shield?!
For views I guess...
I'm sorry but recommending use of True Strike, the biggest Noob Trap in 5e kinda nearly invalidates the whole build...
oh well.
lmfao
Yikes...You are recommending True strike? It is the absolute worst cantrip in all of D&D. It uses an entire action to let you have advantage on another attack, so you give up rolling 2 attacks, so that you can roll one extra die on the third attack if you hold concentration? No, don't ever do this.
You only cast it before combat starts :)
@@Cephalopocalypse Then why not just Hide?
@@jameshill2450 hiding is much better
True strike is better for eldritch knights they can cast cantrips as a bonus action. So it's free advantage on your first attack.
@@sethroark1122 you cast true strike as your action, and you use your bonus action to make *ONE* attack instead of three at level 11