I think that the lightning cantrip is underrated, yes it's melee range, but remember that the damage can be enhanced with water, AND it prevents enemies from using reactions, which is fairly useful for some fights and to deal damage instead of just using disengage in case someone gets too close.
You can always use it and move away with the "free disengage", which I feel like is very valuable AND it has advantage against armored opponents which can be very good AND you can use destructive wrath with it. I agree, would put it right next to firebolt, if not higher.
Yeah I like it too. You cant always outposition mobile melees (they have misty step, 2km jump range at higher lvls) so the ability to damage them (with advantage if they have armor) and then walk away without triggering opportunity attacks is pretty good. Not to mention lightning dmg benefits from a lot of items and status combos (reverberation items) so it can be part of a decent build.
The second one is supposed to be Darkvision! The person who made the tiermaker just put in the wrong image. You can see me run into that in the level 2 tierlist
Being a duergar bard with minor illusion, unlimited invisibility and bow, makes the honor mode accessible. Practically with my character I defeated the entire goblin camp without being seen. Minor illusion carries me on his back in this mode.
Duergar in general can trivialise the game most people overlook the bonuses because there not super exciting or clearly dps increasing but infinite invisibility, being able to avoid insta deaths via pushing attacks and paralysis resistance are genuinely amazing for the entirety of the game
Love the line at 29:17 that "the enemy of optimization if randomness." Now i really want you to make a Wild Mage sorc class and optimize the hell out of it! Great content. Love everything you have done the last few months!
These guides are super helpful. I'm way more of a roleplayer and much less of a character planner. I love making characters, but a lot of the time I have trouble making them be... good mechanically, and these help a lot. There are some things I won't do like taking a single level in a new class unless I can think of a story reason to do so, but knowing that the option could improve my character and is there makes me more inclined to try to think of good RP reasons. Your guides are super helpful without being overwhelming, and I just wanted to thank you for that. Keep up the great work!
Luckily on the balanced difficulty I feel like I haven’t had much trouble despite not optimizing my characters. This is my first DnD experience and I have basically no idea what I’m doing and these types of videos help me a lot as well. But from my previous RPG experiences, I’ve learned to be thorough with talking to NPCs and doing quests and whatnot, and through doing just that, I’ve gotten good items and remained properly or even over leveled, making combat encounters not too difficult despite my lack of build optimization. After hitting level 4 and getting past the Spider Matriarch, I basically havent died yet, and I just got to Act 3.
Something that was pointed out in the cantrips video which is worth bringing up again is that if you have the Awakened buff from the Githyanki Thingy in act 1 which lets you use Illithid Powers as bonus actions, you can use one of the Concentration cantrips like True Strike as your action and then spend it to use Concentrated Blast as a bonus action, which is a *lot* of damage (3d6) for no investment other than it being your action and bonus action, especially as it's part of Act 1. This doesn't make them good in a vacuum but it makes them much better in context than many other cantrips.
Lightning grasp should be in a tier at least. In honor mode there are so many bosses which have debilitating reactions which they can cast infinitely. The fact that you can just disable that with a cantrip is insane. It also does pretty good damage and is easy to hit for a cantrip
People keep spreading false information about Friends - even on Honour mode, you can use 100% safely, every time, even against friendly NPCs. All you need to do is not be within their detection range when you break concentration (and stay away for 2 turns while they investigate the crime). You can spam this on every dialogue in the entire game that isn't against companions (companions will always lose 10 reputation). I use Friends on Honour Mode for literally every dialogue check where it's available instead of wasting Enhance Ability. It is straight up S-Tier as it gives you free Advantage for every Charisma-based dialogue check, with absolutely no downside if you know how to use it properly.
That's a bug, not intended. Honour mode was supposed to fix those (like extra attack shenanigans) but clearly they missed one, so he doesn't suggest it.
@@chad522 It's been like that since EA. Just because it's not RAW doesn't mean it's not intended. They could have fixed it in any of the hundreds of patches since EA until now. And nothing about youtube videos pertaining to BG3 tactics do anything but gloss over things that might be bugs or oversights. They cover what is reality. And what is reality is that Friends is S-Tier.
Disguise self should be higher only because of Shapeshifter's Boon Ring. Extra points to all ability check, makes charisma tests, stealing, cheating, etc. easier. Fantastic for a main character
I completely ignored minor illusion in my first playthrough. In my honor run, I was playing around with it to see what all the fuss is about. My first aha moment was in wither's tomb, where I used it to group the bandits around the explosive barrel - one firebolt later all but one of them were dead. From then on I've been using it whenever I can, a lot of times combining it with invisibility to get into the right position to cast minor illusion, completely destroying any positional advantage enemies might otherwise have. It honestly trivialises most fights in the game.
Lmao exact same story here. Now that I play shadow monk in my honor run, minor illusion is the GOAT. There’s way too many things you can do by taking away attention.
One of the things I think BG3 did incredibly well is translate the illusions and enchantments from tabletop to a video game. That's incredibly hard to do, and they made disguise self and minor illusion feel extremely impactful in a way I don't think any other D&D adaptation has managed.
My cheesy strategy involved my Deugar Bard (race Invisibility Cantrip is so broken), Minor Illusion, followed by Glyph of Warding:Sleep. Then I’d let Asterion and Lae’Zel unleash their anger issues on the sleepies.
All your videos are amazingly useful. I would love you to do a deep dive on concentration spells explaining strengths and weaknesses, breaking them down by the user's class, tactics in battle, when and when not to use them, and what else you can do in combat while doing them. Thanks! I've always been a bit afraid to use them fearing that I won't be able to maintain concentration or that I won't be able to focus on anything else in combat. Thanks!
Have a wizard cast haste on your best martial attacker that already has 2 attacks and you lose this fear very quickly and start casting it round 1 every fight 👍
Overall comment: This entire series of Tier list videos has been AMAZING, and has given me so many ideas for builds and party compositions. Also, it feels like I'll probably send the link to all my friends who I've slowly started turning into fellow optimizers. Fun Counterspell Fact: Pretty sure Counterspell is the only reason the Act 2 final Boss fight's Special Attack was turned from a Cantrip to a 7th level spell in Patch 6. Because no roll to Counterspell Finger of Death is... most likely not what the devs intended. Elemental Summon Party: I LOVE having party members summon the different levels of Conjure Elemental (or Minor Elementals), because they work pretty well off of each other. So I usually end up with one party member with 2 Ice Mephits, one with a Water Elemental and one with a Water Myrmidon. Build idea based on Shillelagh and Ensnaring Strike: I'm really wondering if a Spores Druid/Gloomstalker or Hunter Ranger could be a good melee combo, if you consider how having Shillelagh means you can focus on increasing your Wisdom instead of Dex or Strength, and with Bounty Hunter, that could make Ensnaring Strike even more reliable. Also, some quarterstaves have some pretty interesting bonuses, like Cacophony dealing an extra 1d4 Thunder on hit, and giving access to Short Rest Thunderous Smite. Or the Gold Wyrmling Staff that's a +1, deals an extra 1d4 fire damage on hit, AND gives access to Fire Bolt.... Same-ish but cold damage with Mourning Frost... Gloomstalker's bonus 10ft move speed in the 1st round of combat would make getting into melee with enemies much faster. And if you REALLY felt like it, wielding a staff in 2 hands would let you make use of Great Weapon Master....
For that Spore Druid / Gloomstalker combo Get Winter's Clutches + Mourning frost, (Winter's Clutches = Whenever you do cold damage, you do Encrusted with Frost x2,) and your Mourning frost is a 1d8+1d4, with hasted, you'll do a total of 4 attacks + 1 on turn one, that could and then maybe proc the frozen condition, and thus making them vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.
@@TheRedAzukiWell, I've been mainly playing Honor Mode, so the Haste thing will only mean one more attack, instead of an entire new Action. But I'm LOVING the idea. Especially if I use the Drakethroat Glaive buff to add Thunder Damage to the Mourning Frost 😯
Seeing True Strike so low always reminds me that it's only good because of the mod that makes it last 1 turn as a bonus action. True Strike is in such a weird spot where it's god awful but if you mod it even a little bit it becomes awfully broken.
I used True-Strike on an Arcane Trickster/Paladin, that used Two-Weapon Fighting, as their racial Cantrip and let me tell you, True-Strike was busted then. Being able to just decide “hey I want advantage on my offhand attack to trigger sneak attack/have a higher crit-chance” was buuuuuuuusted…
Enhance Ability is especially good for getting Advantage on Charisma rolls, as then it's almost never a single-use spell, rather a spell that makes several rolls in a row a lot easier, because there's no turn limit. And there's a lot of scenarios where you'll be making a lot of dialogue checks in a row. The added bonus of the average 20% increase on a very important roll is why the spell should always be prepared by at least one character. And mid-late game 2nd level spell slots are not that important, so using just one to gain advantage on several checks is worth it. I don't understand why it's in B, rather than A.
Shillelagh can be taken as nature cleric and allow you to build a melee focused caster that uses wisdom for both melee attacks and spells like command. Shillelagh is especially brutal when you get access to Arcane Synergy - doubling your wisdom scaling for damage. My current character is thematic nature cleric of Mielikki / beastmaster ranger built around using shillelagh. I will get 5 levels of ranger minumum for second attacks, rest will go into cleric probably for more spell slots.
@@GRIFFIN1238 People claim that playing an instrument in combat will give you Performing condition and give Arcane Synergy. Going close to the enemy will inflict Threated condition and also give Arcane Synergy. Cant verify if its still work (comments about it were somewhat old), i did not reached monastery yet to grab the hat myself. If it does not work - probably with Hunters Mark, yes.
@@Karina-winsmore bg3.wiki notes that they've patched the self buffs out of triggering Arcane Synergy. I'm theorycrafting how to keep it active on a Bardadin, so I'm exploring all options. Unfortunately the gloves of dexterity bar me from the radiating orb gloves. The threatened condition does seem like the easiest option. I'll have to playtest.
I’m surprised to see hellish rebuke so low. Yes it’s just damage, but it has decent scaling and gives characters a way to utilize their reaction that they might not otherwise have.
I want you to know: if I see you uploaded a Baldurs gate 3 video, it IS the next thing I’m watching on UA-cam. I’m on UA-cam a lot thanks to my job, and your content is prime time UA-cam for me. I always learn so much, you have a great way of educating and helping me understand the mechanics of the individual parts of this very deep and complex game, and break it down well for a scrub like me. I’m trying tactician now, and I believe that a lot of my confidence in my Sword Bard build comes from the knowledge that I now possess, and a lot of the knowledge is what you taught me. Also you have a fun personality and are humble enough to change your mind if one of us normies comes at you with a good point. Anyways, thanks, and subscribe to this guy, he deserves it!
I did want to shoot an opinion at you. I feel like Shocking grasp is a really good cantrip. It and Ray of Frost are my sorcerers go to’s. You can double the damage with wet condition, tempest clerics can also maximize the damage it does, but best of all, it’s a spell that is melee ranged/focused, almost no other spell is that, and it’s free…. It also (whenever it hits) make it to where the enemy that is probably melee, and can probably hurt you/kill you since you’re probably squishy, they now cannot opportunity attack you…. Allowing you to then run away and not trigger an opportunity attack……. For free, PLUS it has advantage on characters in armor. It being melee range, unlike almost every other spell in the game, does not immediately get the disadvantage dice whenever some enemy is standing near you. Its design in my opinion is to be the sorc and wizards “get off me” action… especially before you have misty step/invisibility, which each cost a spell slot, whenever it does not. I use this spell a lot, it’s one of the greatest spells at what it does, which is get your squishy character out of a bad situation for free. Unlike disengage at least shocking grasp did damage, and debuffed the enemy to be unable to tack any reactions until their turn, quicken spell this cantrip if your in melee range, hit, then run away and cast something else since your now not in the dreaded disadvantage range with your spells. I know it’s long, but I had to defend the cantrip that has been so useful on my sorc.
Good tier list, thanks for all the effort. One thing I don’t think gets stressed enough is that in combat, most spells and available options are competing for that coveted “Action” in a turn which I think drops a lot of spells down. Add in specific conditions (enemy type, required concentration, low chance % to hit, spell slot rarity, etc) and they fall further in usefulness. Rarely would I use Hold Person or Monster and often opted for a spell like Glyph of Warding: Sleep. Found myself not using many spells because of concentration and the low success %. Wish there were fewer spells requiring concentration, or could be upcast to not require concentration. All the time I found myself saying, ‘Why cast that, instead of Haste?’ Found Tasha’s Hideous Laughter to get better in later levels and think it should rank higher. Level 1 spell to completely remove an enemy and make them prone. Laughing maniacally as your team takes turns wailing on them…so satisfyingly disrespectful. High save DC at later levels offsets the multiple save opportunities. Oh, many of the animals have over 5 Int and the spell deserves to go up a tier just to see laughing animals. =) For a Bard, I’d say this spell is better than their level 6 spell options: Eyebite and Otto’s Dance. Save the level 6 for a Counter Spell. Only other spell I think I’d change is Glyph of Warding. My personal favorite spell in the game and think it deserves an S rank. It’s a devastating control spell that does not require concentration, sleep is probably the best debuff in the game, and it works on many bosses. My Deugar Bard would turn invis (with their OP race Cantrip) cast minor illusion to group as many together, and GoW:Sleep. My go to cheesy strategy. Being able to select a damage type instead of crowd control is just icing on the cake.
Glyph of Warding also works great with elf or half elf spellcasters (such as our very own Shadowheart) since they're immune to magical sleep. if they're ever in a bind they can just slap a sleep glyph down on top of themselves with no worries at all, and enemies have to waste an action to shove/help their ally to wake them up
Thorn whip is my favorite spell in the whole game. Any time I get to pick it, I do. Enemy manipulation, to me, is priceless. Knocking archers off their post, pulling things off of cliffs, or even just pulling them towards your DPS. Too fun
I feel like I'm the only person who understands that healing is super viable in bg3. Let me lay it out for you. Life Cleric uses beacon of hope on party and bonus action casts sanctuary on themself. On the following turn they can cast spiritual weapon. They now can run around with total immunity healing with all remaining slots with max heal on EVERY SPELL. Enemy cannot attack the cleric to remove concentration. And with icing on the cake, the cleric can attack every turn with the spiritual weapon without removing sanctuary. Tell me now that healing and cure wounds are weak. Throw in a raging barbarian who doubles healing effectiveness already, and you're unstoppable.
I'd say it's a good strategy for your first runs, when you don't really know what to expect and how to manage combat efficiently. But as you get better you will need less healing, and it becomes more beneficial to switch to an offensive strategy. What's dead cannot hurt you.
Setting up the Susan twist (lmao) was genius by Sutekh. The TARDIS groaning is the indicator of Sutekh being attached to the TARDIS. That groaning started in Wild Blue Yonder after the TARDIS crashed on the ship that had the No-Things. Sutekh probably watched them prey on the Doctor's tumultuous mental state, his connection to found family in Donna. Plant the Harbinger around where the Doctor goes, name her Susan, leave hints like the anagram. Play on the Doctor's familial connections and get him to bend to your will. Genius move really.
Undead dragon was charging up a massive electival blast. I realized that shadowheart had a globe of invulnerability on her, she through that spell down master chief stile and we survived the discharge. Epic moment.
Sleep in act one is the most satisfying spell in the game. 1-3 enemies lose 2 turns and get auto-melee-crits while sleeping, and they have reduced movement from needing to stand up, all with no save or concentration.
I think Grease has some more utility due to it being flammable. In many scenarios, using Fire Bolt to set the Greased AoE on fire can do a fair amount of damage, particularly at the lower levels, that can have significant utility even outside of it just being a better version of Ice Knife.
some comment/thoughts: Cantrip Shocking Grasp is a reaction cast with War Caster Feat which I basically always take on casters. Level 3 Bestow Curse is an amazing, if not 100% reliable boss killer. Making bosses just skip turns is hilariously helpful. Level 3 Sleet Storm is one of the most OP spells in the game, its singlehandedly shuts down entire encounters SO often, it's insane. It's easily equal to Spirit Guardians for 'best spell in game' Level 5 Flame Strike, on its own isn't amazing, but doesn't deserve to be so low. It's the only AoE Radiant damage spell that doesn't use concentration, and Radiant orb builds are AMAZING. Level 5 Cone of Cold, should also be higher if only for Cold damage and wet. Level 6 Otiluks Sphere is cold so at least +1 tier, but also can be given to an ally like a grenade without concentration, which can be useful if you are setting up a burst damage turn.
I have never played an eldritch knight in bg3 and after hearing about the warcaster feature 13:04 where you cast a cantrip and then make an attack... my first thought went straight to true strike cantrip... I need to keep watching your vids, they have great value information...
Worth noting for Glyph of Warding too, if you plan on starting combat with people that aren’t yet hostile, you can cast it on a group, start combat with a damage spell, and it will trigger the glyph as soon as they’re hostile, essentially getting an extra, free AoE attack
This list definitely makes me feel a lot less afraid to multi-class spellcasters - losing out on 4th or 5th spells doesn't sting quite so bad as long as you're still getting 4th/5th lvl spell slots. I wonder if this was an intentional design decision to encourage multi-classing, or if it was just a happy byproduct of a rule meant to limit bookkeeping.
Guiding Bolt in B-tier is a surprising opinion. Not only is it solid damage on it's own, but enabling sneak attacks from your rogues or turning potential misses into hits as a bonus is really underrated IME, Healing Word tends to underperform as for the overwhelming majority of the game you average being able to cast only about 15 spells before you need to take a long rest and the small amount of healing typically doesn't mean much in the long run. Essentially, it incurs a very poor spell slot economy.
One of the other things that people seem to overlook with spiritual weapon is that it gives adjacent enemies the threatened condition, meaning you and your companions have advantage against them. It’s just such great utility for a bonus action
@@jsmjsmjsm00 correct, I wrote this four months ago and was mixing things up! I was thinking of rogues, who can make sneak attacks against an enemy adjacent to it (it counts as an ally for that purpose)
There is almost no risk to friends, even in honor mode. The effect lasts 10 turns and enemies only turn hostile after it ends, so usually there is more then enough time to get away from them, which also prevents them from calling you out.
Additionally, a lot of charisma checks cause a potential enemy to leave, meaning you don't need to deal with the potential fallout from Friends anyway, since they can't turn hostile after they disappear. If you're doing an honor mode run, you should always take Friends if you can fit it, and use it whenever you can get away with it. I go so far as picking High (half) Elf purely for Friends, and it pays off about as much as a different racial trait.
Do they remember you used it on them if you come back later? Like, say, a shopkeeper? That's been the one thing that's kept me from taking it in character creation yet.
i just want to note that people should get Shart to take Produce Flame cantrip to stop her from using her dex save so she actually hits her cantrips. you're welcome!
One other hilarious thing with moonbeam is... Remember your comment about how friendship was good enough just because you could use it to win the persuasion checks on the Act 2 bosses? Moonbeam is also custom made to melt those bosses to bonemeal, which is a major part of why I always want a druid in my party.
Acid Splash is carrying me in act III with the necklace that gives you spellcasting ability bonus to cantrip damage, since it's aoe and doesn't brake my concentration :).
How is a 3d6 + mod damage in a tiny AoE, with a highly resisted damage type that is *completely* negated by a save, carrying you in Act 3?!? With a +5 mod that’s an average of 15.5 damage at level 10+ lol I’m glad you’re having fun with it - which is the main thing - but it’s an objectively bad spell
@@ProbeAway tell me, are those highly acid resistant enemies in the room with us? If I hit 2 people with it, I'm dealing 26 extra damage a round without spending a slot on top of my spirit guardians...
@@nCedric1 lol no, they’re just scattered throughout BG3. 26 damage is mediocre, and that’s assuming they don’t make a DEX save (which many enemies will) and negate the damage completely. If you have spell slots, casting command, guiding bolt or inflict wounds is a much better option, and if you don’t have any spell slots at all then… rest. Or cast produce flame, which does more single target damage on average, can also be boosted by that necklace, is more likely to hit, and can crit. And you’re a cleric? The only way to get it as a cleric is the magic adept feat, high elf racial cantrip or to multiclass as a wizard or a sorc. In which case it operates off INT or CHA. You’d be way better off taking the spell sniper feat and getting eldritch blast to cast using your WIS. Again, great if you’re having fun, but you’ll struggle to convince anyone that this is actually a good spell. There’s a reason it sits near the bottom of these tier lists
If I may suggest an idea for a video, I would like to see a video on putting together a spell list for a build. It's not really practical to just pick S-tier spells since many of them use concentration (not to mention they won't all be available to the build). Not enough guide makers talk about how spells work together, how lower tier spells can compliment higher tier spells, spreading out the saves you can target, etc.
In my experience, Command, Fear and Hypnotic Pattern are the best CC spells in the game. They completely neutralize enemies and are either AoE or multi-target when up casted. Hold Person, Dominate and Hold Monster are only single target. Also Fear and Hypnotic pattern can target undead where most CC spells cannot.
Would have been really cool to have these spells in action spliced in (particularly for the S and A tier ones). I’m new to bg3, I’ve played 5e but seeing in action would really help give context. One thing I struggled starting out is not really knowing how a spell plays out in action. Plus visuals are always nice. Great video though
I really love your videos. Thanks for teaching me so much about this game. I do have to say though, I scarcely can ever get spiritual weapon to play in my favor. Usually what ends up happening is that enemies ignore it, run away, its got no attack of opportunity so they can safely just book it. It's got no movement speed so it can rarely catch up. As a result it usually ends up getting one or two hits in, if im lucky, those hits will actually land, and i usually end up just wasting the spell slot. I feel like there's just considerably less high variance spells i can throw out. Id rather put down a moonbeam any day of the week for example. Or for a non concentration spell, a just casting scorching ray or an upcast ice knife or something. I don't know maybe i just need to cast it in better locations or something.
@ayylmao752 I agree completely, Spiritual Weapon (to me) has similar problems to Cloud of Daggers. That said, if you have access to Sleet Storm in your party and manage to funnel the enemies into Sleet Storm through a choke point that's when Spiritual Weapon has performed really well for me at least since it can't slip on the ice and proned enemies can't take reactions so you can just run the weapon in and out of range repeatedly.
Try using it in chokepoints! The goal with the spell isn't to do damage, it's to distract enemies and block their movement - look for doorways and other obstructions you can use to force them to interact with it.
May I please suggest a tier list of all the different Tadpole/Illithid powers? Some of them are incredibly OP (Luck of the Far Realms) while others seem to not be worth the time required to read the tooltip (Displacer Beast Shape). I would love to hear your opinion on this topic. You could perhaps group them by how many other powers you need to unlock them.
My last playthrough was paladin, fighter, bard and cleric so I used both the arcane battery staves to apply heroes feast at the beginning of the day and summon a deva. I could also just restore a lvl 6 spell slot with the pendant if I wanted to keep an arcane battery charge for later or throw a high lvl aid on the team. There's a lot of nifty things you can do in this game. Limitation is your imagination.
I'd put Sun Beam higher. The fact that you can cast it up to 10x without spending additional spell slots as long as you can keep the concentration up is actually pretty good.
Shatter is massively underrated here. It is niche but great for mid level Tempest Clerics as the best thunder/lightning AOE damage spell to utilize your channel divinity
Lightfoot Halfling. Halfling luck, reroll 1's on any activity. Naturally stealthy, advantage on stealth checks. Portent dice, and spell save dc stacking. Sharpened Snare Cuirass, add full dexterity to armour class, no stealth penalty, and enemies have disadvantage on resisting your attacks and spells that inflict restrained. Including flesh to stone/gold as long as the enemy lacks immutable form.
I played a Circle of Spores Druid and though I wasn't casting tooooo much because, well lets just say everyone I've shown my character has mistaken them for a paladin. but Moonbeam was always a constant for most fights and it was always upcast. The amount of damage it can drop on someone is beyond comical.
Isn’t disguise self S tier , in act 1 you can easily get shapeshifter boon ring that give you a bonus to all you checks for the whole game , if you rate guidance so high for a free spell why rank so low a free no cost spell that can give a stacking buff which only takes a ring slot which isn’t highly contested early if at all considering the buff it gives
I'd guess that because if you bought the deluxe edition, you get that spell free with a shapeshifter helment waiting for you in your camp chest. I use it all the time, but if I didn't have it, I'd call disguise an A tier.
@@kursedgunner2657 i just mean it's an enchanted item, so you can use it whenever you want, and it doesn't take up a slot in your memory, you use it once, put on your regular headgear, and can recast it all day at no cost.
The rationale was that Disguise Self requires a lot of meta game knowledge to know where and how to best use it. I love the spell, and I use it whenever possible alongside Shapeshifter's Boon, but I get the reasoning for a video that's probably aimed at players who might not get the ring or know specific racial options for encounters.
A good list, I agree with most. I’d definitely put Shocking Grasp higher, probably A tier with Ray of Frost. Shocking Grasp’s effect is nothing short of a life saver in so many situations, and I always take it if I can. With level 1 - I’d move up Guiding Bolt to A tier, as it is on par with Ice Knife and Chromatic Orb in my opinion. Sleep has been incredibly useful in my runs. The low HP is a problem but the fact that it works without saving throws is a big bonus. B tier for me. I’d also put Flaming Hands B tier, and Shocking Wave A tier. Melee range spells are super important in my experience. I was very surprised to see Crown of Madness on D tier. In my opinion it is superior to Hold Person in most cases. Same saving throw, both only target humanoids, but very few spells win combats better than a successful Crown of Madness on the strongest enemy in a given encounter. At least in my experience. Glyph of Warding is easy S tier for me. I would put it on a godly tier of its own if it wasn’t for its limited range. But the fact that you can use it both as a trap and as an attack, as well as the variety of damage types and not needing to actually shoot it (so you ignore certain objects that could interrupt) - make this spell the best AOE in the game, in my opinion. Good work!
Thought I’d add a comment to say you’ve earned a subscriber and new follower from this series. In a couple of videos you comment on what draws in new blood - for me it’s high quality content (there’s a LOT of BG3 stuff out there, it’s annoying when people post videos and clearly don’t know the game as well as the average audience member), a series of longer average content (I’m used to Dav & OG BG, but I also listen on the drive to work so 17 min videos do nothing for me) and also your view/approach is great (great content, but funny too). I’m a rare commenter but had to shout up!
I've gotten some pretty good mileage out of Mage Armor by casting it on my summons. Few (if any) wear armor, and it's just a nice little buff to let them tank more hits and such
I almost always give my full casters Shocking Grasp to my full casters if they can take it. It's decent damage, it's a relevant damage type, it's almost always better than a regular melee attack, and it's great for when their fighter gets in your wizard's face and you need to get out of there.
Consider making a video for a full 4 members party build with as many of top notch spells as possible and no overlapping concentrations. Curious which party would that actually make.
There are items that give blessing and weapon DMG resist for 2 turns after healing. So you can heal entire party and summons while giving them OP buffs.
Lightning grasp I think is a bit better if you get it triggering for opportunity attacks. Thaumatergy and make friends are FANTASTIC on a cha character. You win so many rolls with those in your kit. But this is coming from someone who has not tried warlock and the eldritch spell that is S tier. Lol. Gonna have to try it next game. (Best warlock solo build anyone?)
Bardlock is a really good build I think because at level 2 or 3 you get Song of Rest which functions as a third Short Rest and thus a third refresh of your warlock spell slots.
Per Definition, Telekinesis should be B-Tier, bc in some encounters where there is a chasm (but the enemy is far away from it) it has a high chance of just removing 1 annoying non-boss enemy every turn. It's kinda useless in the most difficult fights of Act III, but makes some encounters a bit easier. *SPOILER*: For example, I used it with a potion of speed buffed Orpheus in the Elder-Brain fight to remove 1 dream guardians/illithids per turn, so my party could focus on holding the dragon and getting to the brain quickly. I think in the fight vs Cazador it could remove some of those annoying mummies too, while you have a party member concentrating on Hadar or Cazador paralyzed/holden.
Hellish Rebuke being bottom tier is just straight unbelievable to me, it's like the only other thing I'd even use my spell slot for as a warlock outside of hexing people. Also Call Lightning being so high when it takes your concentration slot is another thing, it's competing against Haste and I'm hasting 99% of the time
Misty Step is better than Hellish Rebuke in every single circumstance… why deal damage as a reaction to being hit, when you can move and avoid taking damage in the first place?
@EnsoTB One is a reaction the other is bonus action, one is for movement the other is for damage. They're not competing with each other outside of spell slots, even then they're different level spells. And let's be honest, you're gonna get hit no matter what
It should be F tier because it costs a spell slot when you don't want to cheese the game, it prevents enemies from triggering their surrender dialog like the Hag's and the existance of the sussur bark weapons make this spell pointless.
I thought conjure woodland being was insane when I thought it and the wood woad’s spells (not the resummoning of wood woad since the interface hinted that enough) were one use only. I’m pretty sure I’m using the spell incredibly inefficiently and yet they get so much done (why does the dryad’s bonk ALSO ensnare 😂) The fact that I chose Druid for my first run and there are two additional Druid companions leads to leading entire armies throughout the day and I love it
Scorching ray also let you stack acuity pretty easily in combat, with the fire acuity hat, especially on a sorc with quickened and hold monster in act 3 it’s S tier imo in that situation XD
Witch's Bolt amazingly serves as an early game nuke when upcasted, especially with 2 levels in tempest cleric. Utilizing Luck of the far realm you can force a 96 damage crit, which is frankly absurd at lvl 3-4.
It’s so weird to me that people long rest after every fight. I will hang on to my bliss spores absolutely as long as I can. And elixir effects and such.
i think Hold monster should be A tier, same as Hold person. With some spell save DC itens and some arcane acuity scources, on act III you can easily achieve 25+ DC on your spells with a Bard or Wizard (without even using Hat of Fire Acuity or Helmet of Arcane Acuity, just use elixir of battlemage power), this is enough to guarantee a hold monster even against the strongest enemies in the game. I don't even know the moveset of some bosses, because i just exausted their legendary resistance and continously cast enchantment spells and mind blast, so they can't even fight back. Also Tasha's Hideous Laughter seens to be a very underated spell, should be A tier too, because it can be as good as Otto's Irresistible Dance if you have high DC and the enemy doen's have legendary resistance anymore, also it's only a level 1 spell slot.
That spell is paramount, no, dare I say, critical... No, more like essential, no, dare I say, (looks at thesaurus)... "Gale! You're just saying the same thing!"
im surprised shield of faith is so low. sure its not great on most spellcasters, who actually want to use their concentration spells, but on stuff like paladins, its a great way to gain an almost permanent 2AC buff, while saving most of my spell slots for smites
Which bolt is tooooooo underrated. First it benefits 1d12 from up casting, which keeps it up with most other high level spells. Second, it deals lightning damage, which takes advantage from wet and Tempest ability. Third, it could even trigger luck of far realm or kill’s sweetheart, dealing double damage on top of already doubled damage by wet. It could one or two shot kill almost all bosses from act1 to act3.
You really have to build around it to get the broken value out of it - for most parties it will average a couple extra attacks before combat, which is still excellent, but won't just win the entire game by itself. Of course if you build around it (and can stand the extreme tedium of that playstyle) it's incredibly broken, but most players won't have done that
Short comment on the introduction. I believe it is wrong to take into account those who take a long rest after each match, since this is basically a resource-wasting way of playing. There are only two evaluations as I see it, and it's shock value in combat ... i.e. max damage output in a few rounds, and then how to be able to gain efficiency over time if you go without resting.
Is it controversial for me to say that ray of frost is better than eldritch blast? Eldritch blast might have 3 rays but ray of frost can be twin spelled and have damaged doubled from chilled or wet conditions while also leaving enemies prone with ice surfaces due to snowburst (potentially skipping their turns too). There are also far more damage modifiers for cold damage cantrips than force damage too, like Kereska's favor, necklace of elemental augmentation and draconic ancestry. With all of these in mind and lets say you have 24 charisma, you'll deal 360 - 612 damage per turn with bloodlust and haste against wet/chilled enemies while creating ice surfaces underneath them, only costing 6 sorcery points (something that is easy to get if you are mostly using cantrips anyway). If you also don't want to bother making enemies wet, then you still have a chance to inflict chilled with Mourning Frost on enemies you are targeting, potentially passively getting the vulnerability bonus anyway. Ray of frost just has way more potential and consistent damage than eldritch blast from what I see. Like you might say that this is like specific sorcerer build, but the reason eldtritch blast gets so much credit is because of how its damage is easily stack-able in specific warlock builds, and as I demonstrated in this build, ray of frost has super easily stack-able damage too and potential for extreme damage.
I think that's a very reasonable take! Part of why they're rated like this here is the question I'm really asking is "should you take this spell?" A sorcerer without ray of frost will be weaker than one with it of course, but won't be crippled - a warlock without eldritch blast is just an embarrassment to their friends and family.
@@Cephalopocalypse I feel like that's more of a fault of the class and not the spell. I mean, would circle of death be ranked higher if it was the only good damage spell of some specific class? I don't think so. The class is just garbage with and without it and will never be considered better than any other class with any other level 6 spells, just like Warlock with Eldritch blast will always be worse than sorcerer and ray of frost (arguably). That's just what I think though.
@@johanedfors3899 He's basically ranking in terms of opportunity cost. So not taking Eldritch Blast as a warlock is bad because your entire build is based around EB, whereas with something like Ray of Frost it's good on a frost build, but there are other equally viable builds such as radiant damage. Basically the difference between "amazing keystone cantrip vs absolute bullshit" (warlock) versus "multiple elemental playstyles that all have their own individual benefits
Mad disrespect for Warden of Vitality for level 3. Non concentration (IS concentration in 5e), and is a free bonus action 2d6 healing for 10 turns. Paired as a Life Cleric, and you get an additional 5. It’s literally a healers wet dream of a spell. I normally do Spirit Guardians on turn 1, then Warden turn 2. Can’t. Die. Ever. Goated
@@Cephalopocalypse I like it! Currently running a Lore bard with 1 level in Life Cleric (only at level 8). Having an absolute blast with it, healing like crazy, giving Bless and Blade Ward with every one. But, I’m definitely gonna make Shadowheart that build on an Honor mode run so I have a healer!
Okay though, black tenticals are underated though, they do not burn up and if your wizard has medium amour profiecnacy theres an amore from Moonglow in Act 2 that gives disavantage for restraint spells. So with wall of fire any dot.
Great videos. Have you thought about doing spells from the 5e mod? How about a video about quirks and spell/ability behaviors? I know tool tips aren't always right like produce flame or you mentioned certain spells trigger at the beginning of a turn vs others that trigger at the end for example. A Cephalopocalypse deep dive into these inconsistencies would be amazing.
Paladin is a martial class which proficient in all weapon including ranged weapon. This fact indicates that Paladin is not exclusive for melee attack build. Out of its various smites, Branding Smite is the only smite that is able to cast to ranged weapon. And I believe versatility adds huge amount of value to spells. And it uses bonus action. Unlike other ability, having high dexterity (attack roll for ranged attack) is never wrong for any build. Because its functionality is very much all around. Initiative, armor class, 2 very important skills (Sleight of Hand, Stealth). And as far as I know, Paladin in any games is not known for its great melee attack but its toughness and increasing armor class also increases toughness. So, as long as Paladin you are building is tough, there is no oddity (lore wise) even though its main damage source is ranged attack.
Sure! In fact, I posted a dexterity-based paladin build right here on the channel ("the safest character in bg3") - they can be very strong! Branding Smite I still wouldn't *usually* recommend though simply because it's a pretty inefficient use of the slot - if you really *need* the extra ranged damage it can be useful, but I think that circumstance will come up fairly rarely and you'll mostly be better served by other spells
@@Cephalopocalypse yeah. What came in my mind while typing that comment was "it's the only smite that's versatile enough for either melee and ranged focused build". And of course it's just additional damage source for ranged focused Paladin. The thing is, it's level 2 spell. Too priceful for that kind of spell for being level 2 spell. It deserves at least at A if it's level 1 spell. Btw, 2 things that I like the most about Paladin are: 1)being proficient in all armour type and all weapon. 2)its level 6 passive (Aura of Protection).
Making a ranged paladin is like making a great weapon rogue. Of course it's technically possible, but you are entirely ignoring the strengths of the class in favor of bad decision making
you can go one step further and use hunger of hadar, then when everything is struggling to get through that drop your ice storm on top of it, now they have reduced movement and are gonna slip
For the second level spells: It should be noted that Enhance ability is quite useful if you don't mind spending a second level spell slot if you are in an area with a lot of lockpicking that needs to be done and you don't have a party rogue/bard or are low on lockpicks. If nothing else it's a huge time saver and on honor mode where you cannot reload after a failed lockpick it can be useful. Also I disagree that prayer of healing is so low a ranked spell. Yes, you can *technically* long rest between every fight, but keep in mind there are a lot of scripted events throughout the game where if you long rest certain characters or events might happen that are "suboptimal" from a roleplaying standpoint for certain characters. I.e. some characters will literally die due to you being "too slow" to save them due to long resting too often. If you're playing a character with such thoughts in mind (or if you simply don't like long resting so often), Pray of Healing is quite useful between fights to help heal up simply due to it FAR outclassing every other healing spell in terms of HP restored per slot level used to do so, especially early game if you don't yet have access to a lot of gold to use to buy extra healing potions. And that is before you factor in any sort of character builds or magic items that proc effects off of restoring hit points like Life Cleric or the items that grant temp hp on a heal. I'd probably label it more C or even possibly B rank myself.
Prayer of healing is a pretty useful spell in tabletop for out of combat healing, but this game gives you healing potions out the ears so in practice you just never need to heal out of combat with spells even if you literally never long rest
Shocking grasp was very useful against the exploding robots especially when combined with wet condition I killed all of them I could do I appreciated it
If your aim is to “beat honor mode with mere superpower, 0 chance of failing, enemies won’t have their own turn”, then 90% of the spells won’t be used in your entire playthrough even once. Just imagine if you have a lightning sorcerer/cleric/wizard. Once he/she hit lvl 5 in act 1 or lvl 11 in Act 3, most spells in the game are simply eliminated. Like why are you even playing with them if triple chain lightning has wiped out everyone, while the boss is being one-shot by your paladin/bard. This is boring though. And I really appreciate your video for giving a rationale on the positions of all spells 😂
I think that the lightning cantrip is underrated, yes it's melee range, but remember that the damage can be enhanced with water, AND it prevents enemies from using reactions, which is fairly useful for some fights and to deal damage instead of just using disengage in case someone gets too close.
You can also give it 9m of range with a Sorcerer's Distant Spell
You can always use it and move away with the "free disengage", which I feel like is very valuable AND it has advantage against armored opponents which can be very good AND you can use destructive wrath with it. I agree, would put it right next to firebolt, if not higher.
Yeah I like it too. You cant always outposition mobile melees (they have misty step, 2km jump range at higher lvls) so the ability to damage them (with advantage if they have armor) and then walk away without triggering opportunity attacks is pretty good. Not to mention lightning dmg benefits from a lot of items and status combos (reverberation items) so it can be part of a decent build.
fr ive used it so many times for gale
It's my default disengage on casters
Shrodinger's Darkness is a superposition of S rank and D rank until it is discussed.
The second one is supposed to be Darkvision! The person who made the tiermaker just put in the wrong image. You can see me run into that in the level 2 tierlist
The outcome changes depending on who is witnessing it
@@GitGoodGaming nobody is witnessing it because they're all blinded
I find it ironic that the friends cantrip makes you enemies with the guards more often than not.
@@bilboteabaggins8645except if they have Darkvision. Which means the outcome is always S tier, as no one is there to witness it and argue otherwise
Being a duergar bard with minor illusion, unlimited invisibility and bow, makes the honor mode accessible.
Practically with my character I defeated the entire goblin camp without being seen.
Minor illusion carries me on his back in this mode.
Duergar in general can trivialise the game most people overlook the bonuses because there not super exciting or clearly dps increasing but infinite invisibility, being able to avoid insta deaths via pushing attacks and paralysis resistance are genuinely amazing for the entirety of the game
how infinite invisible work?
@@socjocinusLike the 2nd level spell but you can use it an unlimited amount of times out of battle, but only once in battle.
Love the line at 29:17 that "the enemy of optimization if randomness." Now i really want you to make a Wild Mage sorc class and optimize the hell out of it! Great content. Love everything you have done the last few months!
These guides are super helpful. I'm way more of a roleplayer and much less of a character planner. I love making characters, but a lot of the time I have trouble making them be... good mechanically, and these help a lot. There are some things I won't do like taking a single level in a new class unless I can think of a story reason to do so, but knowing that the option could improve my character and is there makes me more inclined to try to think of good RP reasons. Your guides are super helpful without being overwhelming, and I just wanted to thank you for that.
Keep up the great work!
Luckily on the balanced difficulty I feel like I haven’t had much trouble despite not optimizing my characters. This is my first DnD experience and I have basically no idea what I’m doing and these types of videos help me a lot as well. But from my previous RPG experiences, I’ve learned to be thorough with talking to NPCs and doing quests and whatnot, and through doing just that, I’ve gotten good items and remained properly or even over leveled, making combat encounters not too difficult despite my lack of build optimization. After hitting level 4 and getting past the Spider Matriarch, I basically havent died yet, and I just got to Act 3.
Something that was pointed out in the cantrips video which is worth bringing up again is that if you have the Awakened buff from the Githyanki Thingy in act 1 which lets you use Illithid Powers as bonus actions, you can use one of the Concentration cantrips like True Strike as your action and then spend it to use Concentrated Blast as a bonus action, which is a *lot* of damage (3d6) for no investment other than it being your action and bonus action, especially as it's part of Act 1.
This doesn't make them good in a vacuum but it makes them much better in context than many other cantrips.
Lightning grasp should be in a tier at least. In honor mode there are so many bosses which have debilitating reactions which they can cast infinitely. The fact that you can just disable that with a cantrip is insane. It also does pretty good damage and is easy to hit for a cantrip
For normal dnd player, Fire ball as a B rank is criminal
People keep spreading false information about Friends - even on Honour mode, you can use 100% safely, every time, even against friendly NPCs. All you need to do is not be within their detection range when you break concentration (and stay away for 2 turns while they investigate the crime). You can spam this on every dialogue in the entire game that isn't against companions (companions will always lose 10 reputation). I use Friends on Honour Mode for literally every dialogue check where it's available instead of wasting Enhance Ability. It is straight up S-Tier as it gives you free Advantage for every Charisma-based dialogue check, with absolutely no downside if you know how to use it properly.
Was gonna say this, best cantrip to pick as Astarion/shafowhearth
That's a bug, not intended. Honour mode was supposed to fix those (like extra attack shenanigans) but clearly they missed one, so he doesn't suggest it.
@@chad522 It's been like that since EA. Just because it's not RAW doesn't mean it's not intended. They could have fixed it in any of the hundreds of patches since EA until now. And nothing about youtube videos pertaining to BG3 tactics do anything but gloss over things that might be bugs or oversights. They cover what is reality. And what is reality is that Friends is S-Tier.
I just beat honour mode today. Thanks for helping me with your videos
Nice, congrats!
Disguise self should be higher only because of Shapeshifter's Boon Ring. Extra points to all ability check, makes charisma tests, stealing, cheating, etc. easier. Fantastic for a main character
The ring is a godsend for Wild Shape users, much better for them in my opinion
I completely ignored minor illusion in my first playthrough. In my honor run, I was playing around with it to see what all the fuss is about. My first aha moment was in wither's tomb, where I used it to group the bandits around the explosive barrel - one firebolt later all but one of them were dead. From then on I've been using it whenever I can, a lot of times combining it with invisibility to get into the right position to cast minor illusion, completely destroying any positional advantage enemies might otherwise have. It honestly trivialises most fights in the game.
Lmao exact same story here. Now that I play shadow monk in my honor run, minor illusion is the GOAT. There’s way too many things you can do by taking away attention.
One of the things I think BG3 did incredibly well is translate the illusions and enchantments from tabletop to a video game. That's incredibly hard to do, and they made disguise self and minor illusion feel extremely impactful in a way I don't think any other D&D adaptation has managed.
My cheesy strategy involved my Deugar Bard (race Invisibility Cantrip is so broken), Minor Illusion, followed by Glyph of Warding:Sleep. Then I’d let Asterion and Lae’Zel unleash their anger issues on the sleepies.
Minor illusion? More like major illusion.
The real best spells were the friends we made along the way.
Planar allies
YEssss, owly was rather a good boy. Can't say the same for the rest of the slaves.
The oomfies
All your videos are amazingly useful. I would love you to do a deep dive on concentration spells explaining strengths and weaknesses, breaking them down by the user's class, tactics in battle, when and when not to use them, and what else you can do in combat while doing them. Thanks! I've always been a bit afraid to use them fearing that I won't be able to maintain concentration or that I won't be able to focus on anything else in combat. Thanks!
Have a wizard cast haste on your best martial attacker that already has 2 attacks and you lose this fear very quickly and start casting it round 1 every fight 👍
Overall comment: This entire series of Tier list videos has been AMAZING, and has given me so many ideas for builds and party compositions. Also, it feels like I'll probably send the link to all my friends who I've slowly started turning into fellow optimizers.
Fun Counterspell Fact:
Pretty sure Counterspell is the only reason the Act 2 final Boss fight's Special Attack was turned from a Cantrip to a 7th level spell in Patch 6. Because no roll to Counterspell Finger of Death is... most likely not what the devs intended.
Elemental Summon Party:
I LOVE having party members summon the different levels of Conjure Elemental (or Minor Elementals), because they work pretty well off of each other. So I usually end up with one party member with 2 Ice Mephits, one with a Water Elemental and one with a Water Myrmidon.
Build idea based on Shillelagh and Ensnaring Strike:
I'm really wondering if a Spores Druid/Gloomstalker or Hunter Ranger could be a good melee combo, if you consider how having Shillelagh means you can focus on increasing your Wisdom instead of Dex or Strength, and with Bounty Hunter, that could make Ensnaring Strike even more reliable.
Also, some quarterstaves have some pretty interesting bonuses, like Cacophony dealing an extra 1d4 Thunder on hit, and giving access to Short Rest Thunderous Smite. Or the Gold Wyrmling Staff that's a +1, deals an extra 1d4 fire damage on hit, AND gives access to Fire Bolt.... Same-ish but cold damage with Mourning Frost...
Gloomstalker's bonus 10ft move speed in the 1st round of combat would make getting into melee with enemies much faster.
And if you REALLY felt like it, wielding a staff in 2 hands would let you make use of Great Weapon Master....
For that Spore Druid / Gloomstalker combo
Get Winter's Clutches + Mourning frost, (Winter's Clutches = Whenever you do cold damage, you do Encrusted with Frost x2,) and your Mourning frost is a 1d8+1d4, with hasted, you'll do a total of 4 attacks + 1 on turn one, that could and then maybe proc the frozen condition, and thus making them vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.
@@TheRedAzukiWell, I've been mainly playing Honor Mode, so the Haste thing will only mean one more attack, instead of an entire new Action. But I'm LOVING the idea. Especially if I use the Drakethroat Glaive buff to add Thunder Damage to the Mourning Frost 😯
Seeing True Strike so low always reminds me that it's only good because of the mod that makes it last 1 turn as a bonus action. True Strike is in such a weird spot where it's god awful but if you mod it even a little bit it becomes awfully broken.
I used True-Strike on an Arcane Trickster/Paladin, that used Two-Weapon Fighting, as their racial Cantrip and let me tell you, True-Strike was busted then. Being able to just decide “hey I want advantage on my offhand attack to trigger sneak attack/have a higher crit-chance” was buuuuuuuusted…
True strike got changed in one dnd to be a green flame sword type cantrip. Its OP now.
Changing an action into a bonus action makes pretty much every action with any use case instantly broken
Enhance Ability is especially good for getting Advantage on Charisma rolls, as then it's almost never a single-use spell, rather a spell that makes several rolls in a row a lot easier, because there's no turn limit. And there's a lot of scenarios where you'll be making a lot of dialogue checks in a row. The added bonus of the average 20% increase on a very important roll is why the spell should always be prepared by at least one character. And mid-late game 2nd level spell slots are not that important, so using just one to gain advantage on several checks is worth it. I don't understand why it's in B, rather than A.
Shillelagh can be taken as nature cleric and allow you to build a melee focused caster that uses wisdom for both melee attacks and spells like command. Shillelagh is especially brutal when you get access to Arcane Synergy - doubling your wisdom scaling for damage. My current character is thematic nature cleric of Mielikki / beastmaster ranger built around using shillelagh. I will get 5 levels of ranger minumum for second attacks, rest will go into cleric probably for more spell slots.
What do you prefer to trigger the Diadem of Arcane Synergy with? Hunter's Mark comes to mind, radiating orbs too.
@@GRIFFIN1238 People claim that playing an instrument in combat will give you Performing condition and give Arcane Synergy. Going close to the enemy will inflict Threated condition and also give Arcane Synergy. Cant verify if its still work (comments about it were somewhat old), i did not reached monastery yet to grab the hat myself. If it does not work - probably with Hunters Mark, yes.
@@Karina-winsmore bg3.wiki notes that they've patched the self buffs out of triggering Arcane Synergy.
I'm theorycrafting how to keep it active on a Bardadin, so I'm exploring all options. Unfortunately the gloves of dexterity bar me from the radiating orb gloves.
The threatened condition does seem like the easiest option. I'll have to playtest.
Was inevitable, been going back and forth from each part of each level, good call
I’m surprised to see hellish rebuke so low. Yes it’s just damage, but it has decent scaling and gives characters a way to utilize their reaction that they might not otherwise have.
I was thinking the same thing, it’s almost like having an extra attack action if your character has no other good reactions to use
I want you to know: if I see you uploaded a Baldurs gate 3 video, it IS the next thing I’m watching on UA-cam. I’m on UA-cam a lot thanks to my job, and your content is prime time UA-cam for me. I always learn so much, you have a great way of educating and helping me understand the mechanics of the individual parts of this very deep and complex game, and break it down well for a scrub like me.
I’m trying tactician now, and I believe that a lot of my confidence in my Sword Bard build comes from the knowledge that I now possess, and a lot of the knowledge is what you taught me.
Also you have a fun personality and are humble enough to change your mind if one of us normies comes at you with a good point. Anyways, thanks, and subscribe to this guy, he deserves it!
I did want to shoot an opinion at you. I feel like Shocking grasp is a really good cantrip. It and Ray of Frost are my sorcerers go to’s. You can double the damage with wet condition, tempest clerics can also maximize the damage it does, but best of all, it’s a spell that is melee ranged/focused, almost no other spell is that, and it’s free…. It also (whenever it hits) make it to where the enemy that is probably melee, and can probably hurt you/kill you since you’re probably squishy, they now cannot opportunity attack you…. Allowing you to then run away and not trigger an opportunity attack……. For free, PLUS it has advantage on characters in armor.
It being melee range, unlike almost every other spell in the game, does not immediately get the disadvantage dice whenever some enemy is standing near you. Its design in my opinion is to be the sorc and wizards “get off me” action… especially before you have misty step/invisibility, which each cost a spell slot, whenever it does not.
I use this spell a lot, it’s one of the greatest spells at what it does, which is get your squishy character out of a bad situation for free. Unlike disengage at least shocking grasp did damage, and debuffed the enemy to be unable to tack any reactions until their turn, quicken spell this cantrip if your in melee range, hit, then run away and cast something else since your now not in the dreaded disadvantage range with your spells.
I know it’s long, but I had to defend the cantrip that has been so useful on my sorc.
Good tier list, thanks for all the effort. One thing I don’t think gets stressed enough is that in combat, most spells and available options are competing for that coveted “Action” in a turn which I think drops a lot of spells down. Add in specific conditions (enemy type, required concentration, low chance % to hit, spell slot rarity, etc) and they fall further in usefulness.
Rarely would I use Hold Person or Monster and often opted for a spell like Glyph of Warding: Sleep. Found myself not using many spells because of concentration and the low success %.
Wish there were fewer spells requiring concentration, or could be upcast to not require concentration. All the time I found myself saying, ‘Why cast that, instead of Haste?’
Found Tasha’s Hideous Laughter to get better in later levels and think it should rank higher. Level 1 spell to completely remove an enemy and make them prone. Laughing maniacally as your team takes turns wailing on them…so satisfyingly disrespectful. High save DC at later levels offsets the multiple save opportunities. Oh, many of the animals have over 5 Int and the spell deserves to go up a tier just to see laughing animals. =) For a Bard, I’d say this spell is better than their level 6 spell options: Eyebite and Otto’s Dance. Save the level 6 for a Counter Spell.
Only other spell I think I’d change is Glyph of Warding. My personal favorite spell in the game and think it deserves an S rank. It’s a devastating control spell that does not require concentration, sleep is probably the best debuff in the game, and it works on many bosses. My Deugar Bard would turn invis (with their OP race Cantrip) cast minor illusion to group as many together, and GoW:Sleep. My go to cheesy strategy. Being able to select a damage type instead of crowd control is just icing on the cake.
Glyph of Warding also works great with elf or half elf spellcasters (such as our very own Shadowheart) since they're immune to magical sleep. if they're ever in a bind they can just slap a sleep glyph down on top of themselves with no worries at all, and enemies have to waste an action to shove/help their ally to wake them up
Thorn whip is my favorite spell in the whole game. Any time I get to pick it, I do. Enemy manipulation, to me, is priceless. Knocking archers off their post, pulling things off of cliffs, or even just pulling them towards your DPS. Too fun
The absolute Legend, never missed
Thanks very much!
I feel like I'm the only person who understands that healing is super viable in bg3. Let me lay it out for you. Life Cleric uses beacon of hope on party and bonus action casts sanctuary on themself. On the following turn they can cast spiritual weapon. They now can run around with total immunity healing with all remaining slots with max heal on EVERY SPELL. Enemy cannot attack the cleric to remove concentration. And with icing on the cake, the cleric can attack every turn with the spiritual weapon without removing sanctuary. Tell me now that healing and cure wounds are weak. Throw in a raging barbarian who doubles healing effectiveness already, and you're unstoppable.
I'd say it's a good strategy for your first runs, when you don't really know what to expect and how to manage combat efficiently. But as you get better you will need less healing, and it becomes more beneficial to switch to an offensive strategy. What's dead cannot hurt you.
I do this exact same thing. I find it to be really effective primarily in acts 1 and 2
I love Viscious Monkey. Just wish they'd bothered to model the monkey
Setting up the Susan twist (lmao) was genius by Sutekh.
The TARDIS groaning is the indicator of Sutekh being attached to the TARDIS. That groaning started in Wild Blue Yonder after the TARDIS crashed on the ship that had the No-Things.
Sutekh probably watched them prey on the Doctor's tumultuous mental state, his connection to found family in Donna. Plant the Harbinger around where the Doctor goes, name her Susan, leave hints like the anagram. Play on the Doctor's familial connections and get him to bend to your will. Genius move really.
Best BG3 tier lists on the Internet. Period.
Love the BG3 vids. You are one of my favorite BG3 creators
Undead dragon was charging up a massive electival blast. I realized that shadowheart had a globe of invulnerability on her, she through that spell down master chief stile and we survived the discharge. Epic moment.
Sleep in act one is the most satisfying spell in the game. 1-3 enemies lose 2 turns and get auto-melee-crits while sleeping, and they have reduced movement from needing to stand up, all with no save or concentration.
I think Grease has some more utility due to it being flammable. In many scenarios, using Fire Bolt to set the Greased AoE on fire can do a fair amount of damage, particularly at the lower levels, that can have significant utility even outside of it just being a better version of Ice Knife.
The fact that the final hit to end it all in my countless hours and attempts at honor mode was a measly pathetic acid splash is just hilarious
Globe of invulnerability saves my honour mode in at least 3 separate occasion
some comment/thoughts:
Cantrip Shocking Grasp is a reaction cast with War Caster Feat which I basically always take on casters.
Level 3 Bestow Curse is an amazing, if not 100% reliable boss killer. Making bosses just skip turns is hilariously helpful.
Level 3 Sleet Storm is one of the most OP spells in the game, its singlehandedly shuts down entire encounters SO often, it's insane. It's easily equal to Spirit Guardians for 'best spell in game'
Level 5 Flame Strike, on its own isn't amazing, but doesn't deserve to be so low. It's the only AoE Radiant damage spell that doesn't use concentration, and Radiant orb builds are AMAZING.
Level 5 Cone of Cold, should also be higher if only for Cold damage and wet.
Level 6 Otiluks Sphere is cold so at least +1 tier, but also can be given to an ally like a grenade without concentration, which can be useful if you are setting up a burst damage turn.
I have never played an eldritch knight in bg3 and after hearing about the warcaster feature 13:04 where you cast a cantrip and then make an attack... my first thought went straight to true strike cantrip... I need to keep watching your vids, they have great value information...
Worth noting for Glyph of Warding too, if you plan on starting combat with people that aren’t yet hostile, you can cast it on a group, start combat with a damage spell, and it will trigger the glyph as soon as they’re hostile, essentially getting an extra, free AoE attack
This list definitely makes me feel a lot less afraid to multi-class spellcasters - losing out on 4th or 5th spells doesn't sting quite so bad as long as you're still getting 4th/5th lvl spell slots. I wonder if this was an intentional design decision to encourage multi-classing, or if it was just a happy byproduct of a rule meant to limit bookkeeping.
If you haven't already please consider trying Lore Bard with 2 levels of Warlock. It's so freaking good!
@@niedomyty00The one I heard about is lore bard with 3 levels of sorcerer to twin cast haste. Yeah that seems interesting.
Guiding Bolt in B-tier is a surprising opinion. Not only is it solid damage on it's own, but enabling sneak attacks from your rogues or turning potential misses into hits as a bonus is really underrated
IME, Healing Word tends to underperform as for the overwhelming majority of the game you average being able to cast only about 15 spells before you need to take a long rest and the small amount of healing typically doesn't mean much in the long run. Essentially, it incurs a very poor spell slot economy.
One of the other things that people seem to overlook with spiritual weapon is that it gives adjacent enemies the threatened condition, meaning you and your companions have advantage against them. It’s just such great utility for a bonus action
You do not get advantage from an enemy having the threatened condition. It only gives them disadvantage on ranged attacks.
@@jsmjsmjsm00 correct, I wrote this four months ago and was mixing things up! I was thinking of rogues, who can make sneak attacks against an enemy adjacent to it (it counts as an ally for that purpose)
There is almost no risk to friends, even in honor mode. The effect lasts 10 turns and enemies only turn hostile after it ends, so usually there is more then enough time to get away from them, which also prevents them from calling you out.
@@christopherbohan145110 rapport? Christ that's steep.
Additionally, a lot of charisma checks cause a potential enemy to leave, meaning you don't need to deal with the potential fallout from Friends anyway, since they can't turn hostile after they disappear.
If you're doing an honor mode run, you should always take Friends if you can fit it, and use it whenever you can get away with it. I go so far as picking High (half) Elf purely for Friends, and it pays off about as much as a different racial trait.
Do they remember you used it on them if you come back later? Like, say, a shopkeeper? That's been the one thing that's kept me from taking it in character creation yet.
@@EuphoriaDeep Never happened to me. Same as if you get enemies temporarily hostile, but then flee the combat - they will not remember.
@@markuskonrad6049 Thanks, good to know! I've got a few builds I want to try without having to bump up charisma. Two rolls are better than one!
I like that you have the tier list posted and that you explain the list entirely
Thank you, kind sir. I have loved this whole series.
Thanks very much!
i just want to note that people should get Shart to take Produce Flame cantrip to stop her from using her dex save so she actually hits her cantrips. you're welcome!
One other hilarious thing with moonbeam is... Remember your comment about how friendship was good enough just because you could use it to win the persuasion checks on the Act 2 bosses?
Moonbeam is also custom made to melt those bosses to bonemeal, which is a major part of why I always want a druid in my party.
Acid Splash is carrying me in act III with the necklace that gives you spellcasting ability bonus to cantrip damage, since it's aoe and doesn't brake my concentration :).
How is a 3d6 + mod damage in a tiny AoE, with a highly resisted damage type that is *completely* negated by a save, carrying you in Act 3?!? With a +5 mod that’s an average of 15.5 damage at level 10+ lol
I’m glad you’re having fun with it - which is the main thing - but it’s an objectively bad spell
@@ProbeAway tell me, are those highly acid resistant enemies in the room with us?
If I hit 2 people with it, I'm dealing 26 extra damage a round without spending a slot on top of my spirit guardians...
@@nCedric1 lol no, they’re just scattered throughout BG3.
26 damage is mediocre, and that’s assuming they don’t make a DEX save (which many enemies will) and negate the damage completely. If you have spell slots, casting command, guiding bolt or inflict wounds is a much better option, and if you don’t have any spell slots at all then… rest. Or cast produce flame, which does more single target damage on average, can also be boosted by that necklace, is more likely to hit, and can crit.
And you’re a cleric? The only way to get it as a cleric is the magic adept feat, high elf racial cantrip or to multiclass as a wizard or a sorc. In which case it operates off INT or CHA. You’d be way better off taking the spell sniper feat and getting eldritch blast to cast using your WIS.
Again, great if you’re having fun, but you’ll struggle to convince anyone that this is actually a good spell. There’s a reason it sits near the bottom of these tier lists
@@ProbeAwaylet the man enjoy his acid splash
I refuse to play without acid splash. It breaks open boxes in aoe infinite times
If I may suggest an idea for a video, I would like to see a video on putting together a spell list for a build. It's not really practical to just pick S-tier spells since many of them use concentration (not to mention they won't all be available to the build). Not enough guide makers talk about how spells work together, how lower tier spells can compliment higher tier spells, spreading out the saves you can target, etc.
I've done dozens of these - you can find spell lists for specific builds in any of my build guides :D
You spent all that time typing a long ass paragraph when you literally could’ve just visited his page. UA-cam IQ
In my experience, Command, Fear and Hypnotic Pattern are the best CC spells in the game. They completely neutralize enemies and are either AoE or multi-target when up casted. Hold Person, Dominate and Hold Monster are only single target. Also Fear and Hypnotic pattern can target undead where most CC spells cannot.
Hold person is also multi target when upcasted (though one less target per spell slot than command)
Would have been really cool to have these spells in action spliced in (particularly for the S and A tier ones). I’m new to bg3, I’ve played 5e but seeing in action would really help give context. One thing I struggled starting out is not really knowing how a spell plays out in action. Plus visuals are always nice. Great video though
I really love your videos. Thanks for teaching me so much about this game.
I do have to say though, I scarcely can ever get spiritual weapon to play in my favor. Usually what ends up happening is that enemies ignore it, run away, its got no attack of opportunity so they can safely just book it. It's got no movement speed so it can rarely catch up. As a result it usually ends up getting one or two hits in, if im lucky, those hits will actually land, and i usually end up just wasting the spell slot. I feel like there's just considerably less high variance spells i can throw out. Id rather put down a moonbeam any day of the week for example. Or for a non concentration spell, a just casting scorching ray or an upcast ice knife or something.
I don't know maybe i just need to cast it in better locations or something.
Keep up the great videos
@ayylmao752 I agree completely, Spiritual Weapon (to me) has similar problems to Cloud of Daggers. That said, if you have access to Sleet Storm in your party and manage to funnel the enemies into Sleet Storm through a choke point that's when Spiritual Weapon has performed really well for me at least since it can't slip on the ice and proned enemies can't take reactions so you can just run the weapon in and out of range repeatedly.
Try using it in chokepoints! The goal with the spell isn't to do damage, it's to distract enemies and block their movement - look for doorways and other obstructions you can use to force them to interact with it.
@@Cephalopocalypse Thanks. I'll try that out.
Finished my honor run with your help. Thanks so much.
May I please suggest a tier list of all the different Tadpole/Illithid powers? Some of them are incredibly OP (Luck of the Far Realms) while others seem to not be worth the time required to read the tooltip (Displacer Beast Shape). I would love to hear your opinion on this topic. You could perhaps group them by how many other powers you need to unlock them.
I know im months late but displacer beast shape is incredibly OP
My last playthrough was paladin, fighter, bard and cleric so I used both the arcane battery staves to apply heroes feast at the beginning of the day and summon a deva. I could also just restore a lvl 6 spell slot with the pendant if I wanted to keep an arcane battery charge for later or throw a high lvl aid on the team. There's a lot of nifty things you can do in this game. Limitation is your imagination.
I'd put Sun Beam higher. The fact that you can cast it up to 10x without spending additional spell slots as long as you can keep the concentration up is actually pretty good.
Shatter is massively underrated here. It is niche but great for mid level Tempest Clerics as the best thunder/lightning AOE damage spell to utilize your channel divinity
Shocking grasp being below sacred flame is insane
Lightfoot Halfling.
Halfling luck, reroll 1's on any activity.
Naturally stealthy, advantage on stealth checks.
Portent dice, and spell save dc stacking.
Sharpened Snare Cuirass, add full dexterity to armour class, no stealth penalty, and enemies have disadvantage on resisting your attacks and spells that inflict restrained. Including flesh to stone/gold as long as the enemy lacks immutable form.
I played a Circle of Spores Druid and though I wasn't casting tooooo much because, well lets just say everyone I've shown my character has mistaken them for a paladin. but Moonbeam was always a constant for most fights and it was always upcast. The amount of damage it can drop on someone is beyond comical.
Shocking Grasp with the Lumious Cleric build is so good.
I will never forget taking on a certain powerful devil and turning him into a big nothing because of Hunger of Hadar. He basically didn’t take a turn…
Isn’t disguise self S tier , in act 1 you can easily get shapeshifter boon ring that give you a bonus to all you checks for the whole game , if you rate guidance so high for a free spell why rank so low a free no cost spell that can give a stacking buff which only takes a ring slot which isn’t highly contested early if at all considering the buff it gives
That ring is helping me a lot in the first act in honor mode.
It makes most of the checks accessible
I'd guess that because if you bought the deluxe edition, you get that spell free with a shapeshifter helment waiting for you in your camp chest. I use it all the time, but if I didn't have it, I'd call disguise an A tier.
@@EuphoriaDeep free spell meaning it’s a ritual spell and it does not cost a spell slot to use
@@kursedgunner2657 i just mean it's an enchanted item, so you can use it whenever you want, and it doesn't take up a slot in your memory, you use it once, put on your regular headgear, and can recast it all day at no cost.
The rationale was that Disguise Self requires a lot of meta game knowledge to know where and how to best use it. I love the spell, and I use it whenever possible alongside Shapeshifter's Boon, but I get the reasoning for a video that's probably aimed at players who might not get the ring or know specific racial options for encounters.
Ended the brain last night with dethrone and it felt so, so appropriate. That’s usually the only time I use it but I ended her with it. Was delicious.
"usually you get one 6th level spell per day"
meanwhile my sorcerer casting 6 chain lighting per long rest
1st level spells: "The name of the game here is control"
Meanwhile command being the only pure control spell in S-Tier
A good list, I agree with most.
I’d definitely put Shocking Grasp higher, probably A tier with Ray of Frost. Shocking Grasp’s effect is nothing short of a life saver in so many situations, and I always take it if I can.
With level 1 - I’d move up Guiding Bolt to A tier, as it is on par with Ice Knife and Chromatic Orb in my opinion.
Sleep has been incredibly useful in my runs. The low HP is a problem but the fact that it works without saving throws is a big bonus. B tier for me.
I’d also put Flaming Hands B tier, and Shocking Wave A tier. Melee range spells are super important in my experience.
I was very surprised to see Crown of Madness on D tier. In my opinion it is superior to Hold Person in most cases. Same saving throw, both only target humanoids, but very few spells win combats better than a successful Crown of Madness on the strongest enemy in a given encounter. At least in my experience.
Glyph of Warding is easy S tier for me. I would put it on a godly tier of its own if it wasn’t for its limited range. But the fact that you can use it both as a trap and as an attack, as well as the variety of damage types and not needing to actually shoot it (so you ignore certain objects that could interrupt) - make this spell the best AOE in the game, in my opinion.
Good work!
Thought I’d add a comment to say you’ve earned a subscriber and new follower from this series. In a couple of videos you comment on what draws in new blood - for me it’s high quality content (there’s a LOT of BG3 stuff out there, it’s annoying when people post videos and clearly don’t know the game as well as the average audience member), a series of longer average content (I’m used to Dav & OG BG, but I also listen on the drive to work so 17 min videos do nothing for me) and also your view/approach is great (great content, but funny too). I’m a rare commenter but had to shout up!
I've gotten some pretty good mileage out of Mage Armor by casting it on my summons. Few (if any) wear armor, and it's just a nice little buff to let them tank more hits and such
Globe of invulnerability is just ridiculous in the act 3 boss fights, funny to see Orin for example just flail around and do no damage.
I almost always give my full casters Shocking Grasp to my full casters if they can take it. It's decent damage, it's a relevant damage type, it's almost always better than a regular melee attack, and it's great for when their fighter gets in your wizard's face and you need to get out of there.
Consider making a video for a full 4 members party build with as many of top notch spells as possible and no overlapping concentrations. Curious which party would that actually make.
There are items that give blessing and weapon DMG resist for 2 turns after healing. So you can heal entire party and summons while giving them OP buffs.
Lightning grasp I think is a bit better if you get it triggering for opportunity attacks. Thaumatergy and make friends are FANTASTIC on a cha character. You win so many rolls with those in your kit. But this is coming from someone who has not tried warlock and the eldritch spell that is S tier. Lol. Gonna have to try it next game. (Best warlock solo build anyone?)
Bardlock is a really good build I think because at level 2 or 3 you get Song of Rest which functions as a third Short Rest and thus a third refresh of your warlock spell slots.
Per Definition, Telekinesis should be B-Tier, bc in some encounters where there is a chasm (but the enemy is far away from it) it has a high chance of just removing 1 annoying non-boss enemy every turn. It's kinda useless in the most difficult fights of Act III, but makes some encounters a bit easier.
*SPOILER*: For example, I used it with a potion of speed buffed Orpheus in the Elder-Brain fight to remove 1 dream guardians/illithids per turn, so my party could focus on holding the dragon and getting to the brain quickly. I think in the fight vs Cazador it could remove some of those annoying mummies too, while you have a party member concentrating on Hadar or Cazador paralyzed/holden.
Hellish Rebuke being bottom tier is just straight unbelievable to me, it's like the only other thing I'd even use my spell slot for as a warlock outside of hexing people. Also Call Lightning being so high when it takes your concentration slot is another thing, it's competing against Haste and I'm hasting 99% of the time
Misty Step is better than Hellish Rebuke in every single circumstance… why deal damage as a reaction to being hit, when you can move and avoid taking damage in the first place?
@EnsoTB One is a reaction the other is bonus action, one is for movement the other is for damage. They're not competing with each other outside of spell slots, even then they're different level spells. And let's be honest, you're gonna get hit no matter what
Silence should be in S teir because it’s a ritual spell and guarantees enemies are unable to call in reinforcements. The range is also really great.
It should be F tier because it costs a spell slot when you don't want to cheese the game, it prevents enemies from triggering their surrender dialog like the Hag's and the existance of the sussur bark weapons make this spell pointless.
the lightning cantrip is one of my favourites
I thought conjure woodland being was insane when I thought it and the wood woad’s spells (not the resummoning of wood woad since the interface hinted that enough) were one use only. I’m pretty sure I’m using the spell incredibly inefficiently and yet they get so much done (why does the dryad’s bonk ALSO ensnare 😂)
The fact that I chose Druid for my first run and there are two additional Druid companions leads to leading entire armies throughout the day and I love it
I've played this game for 100s of hours and I still keep discovering new abilities that spell has - it's like 20 spells in one! It's ridiculous
Scorching ray also let you stack acuity pretty easily in combat, with the fire acuity hat, especially on a sorc with quickened and hold monster in act 3 it’s S tier imo in that situation XD
Witch's Bolt amazingly serves as an early game nuke when upcasted, especially with 2 levels in tempest cleric. Utilizing Luck of the far realm you can force a 96 damage crit, which is frankly absurd at lvl 3-4.
I would argue Shatter is C tier. Reason is early game on either tactician or honour mode, good luck destroying the scrying eyes without shatter
Cone of cold is very good, you can double it against wet targets!
Worth noting that warding bond gives resistance to all damage type on target also, so its 50% less dmg on target.
It’s so weird to me that people long rest after every fight. I will hang on to my bliss spores absolutely as long as I can. And elixir effects and such.
Its also roleplay friendly, like my guy you sleep for 8 hours after killing 4 goblins
i think Hold monster should be A tier, same as Hold person. With some spell save DC itens and some arcane acuity scources, on act III you can easily achieve 25+ DC on your spells with a Bard or Wizard (without even using Hat of Fire Acuity or Helmet of Arcane Acuity, just use elixir of battlemage power), this is enough to guarantee a hold monster even against the strongest enemies in the game. I don't even know the moveset of some bosses, because i just exausted their legendary resistance and continously cast enchantment spells and mind blast, so they can't even fight back. Also Tasha's Hideous Laughter seens to be a very underated spell, should be A tier too, because it can be as good as Otto's Irresistible Dance if you have high DC and the enemy doen's have legendary resistance anymore, also it's only a level 1 spell slot.
That spell is paramount, no, dare I say, critical...
No, more like essential, no, dare I say, (looks at thesaurus)...
"Gale! You're just saying the same thing!"
im surprised shield of faith is so low.
sure its not great on most spellcasters, who actually want to use their concentration spells, but on stuff like paladins, its a great way to gain an almost permanent 2AC buff, while saving most of my spell slots for smites
Which bolt is tooooooo underrated. First it benefits 1d12 from up casting, which keeps it up with most other high level spells. Second, it deals lightning damage, which takes advantage from wet and Tempest ability. Third, it could even trigger luck of far realm or kill’s sweetheart, dealing double damage on top of already doubled damage by wet.
It could one or two shot kill almost all bosses from act1 to act3.
Im a little shocked that greater invisiblity isnt S tier. It can be straight up busted with a high enough stealth score
You really have to build around it to get the broken value out of it - for most parties it will average a couple extra attacks before combat, which is still excellent, but won't just win the entire game by itself. Of course if you build around it (and can stand the extreme tedium of that playstyle) it's incredibly broken, but most players won't have done that
Short comment on the introduction. I believe it is wrong to take into account those who take a long rest after each match, since this is basically a resource-wasting way of playing. There are only two evaluations as I see it, and it's shock value in combat ... i.e. max damage output in a few rounds, and then how to be able to gain efficiency over time if you go without resting.
Is it controversial for me to say that ray of frost is better than eldritch blast? Eldritch blast might have 3 rays but ray of frost can be twin spelled and have damaged doubled from chilled or wet conditions while also leaving enemies prone with ice surfaces due to snowburst (potentially skipping their turns too). There are also far more damage modifiers for cold damage cantrips than force damage too, like Kereska's favor, necklace of elemental augmentation and draconic ancestry. With all of these in mind and lets say you have 24 charisma, you'll deal 360 - 612 damage per turn with bloodlust and haste against wet/chilled enemies while creating ice surfaces underneath them, only costing 6 sorcery points (something that is easy to get if you are mostly using cantrips anyway). If you also don't want to bother making enemies wet, then you still have a chance to inflict chilled with Mourning Frost on enemies you are targeting, potentially passively getting the vulnerability bonus anyway. Ray of frost just has way more potential and consistent damage than eldritch blast from what I see. Like you might say that this is like specific sorcerer build, but the reason eldtritch blast gets so much credit is because of how its damage is easily stack-able in specific warlock builds, and as I demonstrated in this build, ray of frost has super easily stack-able damage too and potential for extreme damage.
I think that's a very reasonable take! Part of why they're rated like this here is the question I'm really asking is "should you take this spell?" A sorcerer without ray of frost will be weaker than one with it of course, but won't be crippled - a warlock without eldritch blast is just an embarrassment to their friends and family.
@@Cephalopocalypse I feel like that's more of a fault of the class and not the spell. I mean, would circle of death be ranked higher if it was the only good damage spell of some specific class? I don't think so. The class is just garbage with and without it and will never be considered better than any other class with any other level 6 spells, just like Warlock with Eldritch blast will always be worse than sorcerer and ray of frost (arguably). That's just what I think though.
@@johanedfors3899 He's basically ranking in terms of opportunity cost. So not taking Eldritch Blast as a warlock is bad because your entire build is based around EB, whereas with something like Ray of Frost it's good on a frost build, but there are other equally viable builds such as radiant damage. Basically the difference between "amazing keystone cantrip vs absolute bullshit" (warlock) versus "multiple elemental playstyles that all have their own individual benefits
I don't like create water after the nerf tbh, i'd rather use a mage hand to throw water bottles at people
it'd be nice if magehand had an inventory, lol...i hate micromanaging by placing bottles in the world for it to throw.
Mad disrespect for Warden of Vitality for level 3. Non concentration (IS concentration in 5e), and is a free bonus action 2d6 healing for 10 turns. Paired as a Life Cleric, and you get an additional 5. It’s literally a healers wet dream of a spell. I normally do Spirit Guardians on turn 1, then Warden turn 2. Can’t. Die. Ever. Goated
Check my build "the best healer in bg3" :D
@@Cephalopocalypse I like it! Currently running a Lore bard with 1 level in Life Cleric (only at level 8). Having an absolute blast with it, healing like crazy, giving Bless and Blade Ward with every one. But, I’m definitely gonna make Shadowheart that build on an Honor mode run so I have a healer!
Okay though, black tenticals are underated though, they do not burn up and if your wizard has medium amour profiecnacy theres an amore from Moonglow in Act 2 that gives disavantage for restraint spells. So with wall of fire any dot.
Great videos. Have you thought about doing spells from the 5e mod? How about a video about quirks and spell/ability behaviors? I know tool tips aren't always right like produce flame or you mentioned certain spells trigger at the beginning of a turn vs others that trigger at the end for example.
A Cephalopocalypse deep dive into these inconsistencies would be amazing.
Firebolt being in b tier underneath ray of frost is wild.
Agreed should be a tier. But ray of frost is better
Paladin is a martial class which proficient in all weapon including ranged weapon. This fact indicates that Paladin is not exclusive for melee attack build. Out of its various smites, Branding Smite is the only smite that is able to cast to ranged weapon. And I believe versatility adds huge amount of value to spells. And it uses bonus action. Unlike other ability, having high dexterity (attack roll for ranged attack) is never wrong for any build. Because its functionality is very much all around. Initiative, armor class, 2 very important skills (Sleight of Hand, Stealth). And as far as I know, Paladin in any games is not known for its great melee attack but its toughness and increasing armor class also increases toughness. So, as long as Paladin you are building is tough, there is no oddity (lore wise) even though its main damage source is ranged attack.
Sure! In fact, I posted a dexterity-based paladin build right here on the channel ("the safest character in bg3") - they can be very strong! Branding Smite I still wouldn't *usually* recommend though simply because it's a pretty inefficient use of the slot - if you really *need* the extra ranged damage it can be useful, but I think that circumstance will come up fairly rarely and you'll mostly be better served by other spells
@@Cephalopocalypse yeah. What came in my mind while typing that comment was "it's the only smite that's versatile enough for either melee and ranged focused build". And of course it's just additional damage source for ranged focused Paladin. The thing is, it's level 2 spell. Too priceful for that kind of spell for being level 2 spell. It deserves at least at A if it's level 1 spell. Btw, 2 things that I like the most about Paladin are: 1)being proficient in all armour type and all weapon. 2)its level 6 passive (Aura of Protection).
Making a ranged paladin is like making a great weapon rogue. Of course it's technically possible, but you are entirely ignoring the strengths of the class in favor of bad decision making
my go to for spells is always ice storm with any area damaging spells like insect swarm or cloudkill on a choke point and just wait as they die
you can go one step further and use hunger of hadar, then when everything is struggling to get through that drop your ice storm on top of it, now they have reduced movement and are gonna slip
For the second level spells: It should be noted that Enhance ability is quite useful if you don't mind spending a second level spell slot if you are in an area with a lot of lockpicking that needs to be done and you don't have a party rogue/bard or are low on lockpicks. If nothing else it's a huge time saver and on honor mode where you cannot reload after a failed lockpick it can be useful.
Also I disagree that prayer of healing is so low a ranked spell. Yes, you can *technically* long rest between every fight, but keep in mind there are a lot of scripted events throughout the game where if you long rest certain characters or events might happen that are "suboptimal" from a roleplaying standpoint for certain characters. I.e. some characters will literally die due to you being "too slow" to save them due to long resting too often. If you're playing a character with such thoughts in mind (or if you simply don't like long resting so often), Pray of Healing is quite useful between fights to help heal up simply due to it FAR outclassing every other healing spell in terms of HP restored per slot level used to do so, especially early game if you don't yet have access to a lot of gold to use to buy extra healing potions. And that is before you factor in any sort of character builds or magic items that proc effects off of restoring hit points like Life Cleric or the items that grant temp hp on a heal. I'd probably label it more C or even possibly B rank myself.
Prayer of healing is a pretty useful spell in tabletop for out of combat healing, but this game gives you healing potions out the ears so in practice you just never need to heal out of combat with spells even if you literally never long rest
Shocking grasp was very useful against the exploding robots especially when combined with wet condition
I killed all of them I could do I appreciated it
If your aim is to “beat honor mode with mere superpower, 0 chance of failing, enemies won’t have their own turn”, then 90% of the spells won’t be used in your entire playthrough even once. Just imagine if you have a lightning sorcerer/cleric/wizard. Once he/she hit lvl 5 in act 1 or lvl 11 in Act 3, most spells in the game are simply eliminated. Like why are you even playing with them if triple chain lightning has wiped out everyone, while the boss is being one-shot by your paladin/bard.
This is boring though. And I really appreciate your video for giving a rationale on the positions of all spells 😂