I always figured that initiative was d20 like tabletop, so I never bothered with Alert. Crazy that it's actually d4. Thanks for letting me know about this!
I had no idea initiative was rolled with a d4 in BG3, so at first I was like "I mean Alert is pretty good but it's not S+, that's a bit much-" Now I've realized how absurdly strong that is
Personally, because of how easy it is to get high initiative and how easy it is to get around enemies trying to surprise round you, I think it’s pretty crap in BG3, but I think it’s A tier in D&D.
@@MayHuggerits got an inverse where its more effective the less you minmax. For a first playthrough where you dont know the enemy locations and maybe have a weaker build, it absolutely becomes S tier. The only time it loses value is when you already are good enough to not need it
I gotta say somewhere who has never played DnD or baldurs gate (until BG3 I just started this week) you’re a lifesaver. I have no idea what I’m going and getting explanations is incredibly nice
I would put Dual Wielder in A at least for its ability to give casters two staves to wield. Some staves especially in the latter acts are quite powerful, and being able to use two at the same time can unlock something nasty. It's not a great upgrade for a caster that can use shields through race since some shields are decent enough to make you choose a different feat instead, however if you made someone like Astarion a caster, it's a rather large upgrade.
Definitely. The morning frost plus ice markoheshkir or whatever is insanely good. Add the elemental amulet and slap it on a white dragon ancestor sorcerer and you'll freeze everything in your way
I’d go as far as saying that you’re gimping at least one pure spellcaster in your party by *not* taking it. For example, Gale (as a full wizard) should be taking this with his second or third feat. He’s only losing 1AC by forgoing a shield, and with the shield spell and decent DEX he shouldn’t be getting hit with attacks much anyway. The staves he could be wielding instead are just much better options
Yeah it's usually more powerful than staff and shield, but staff and shield can take a different feat which is probably pretty close in terms of power.@@HuyNguyen-ck7hl
Alert is not needed for Barbarians who have reached level 7 because of Feral Instinct: "You have honed your instincts to the utmost degree. You gain a +3 to initiative and can't be Surprised."
Your fine just a mim maxer acting like its the only way to play the game when in reality its a minority of players that are terrified too prioritize fun over optimization in a pve rpg@justindishaw3219
The best aspect of Alert is the shared initiative system. If two allies are next to each other in the initiative order, they can swap their position in that order freely. Some spells are only good if they happen in a certain order. For example, if you can paralyze an enemy (hold person/ surgeons subjugation), it is infinitely better if you can do that with the first character, rather than the last, so that all attacks deal the bonus damage
Oh my god I could never figure out why I could jump order sometimes and I feel like a dummy for not realizing that this was what it was. 🤦♂️ Thank you, I’m not that bright.
It's also very important in situations where you want to do something dangerous and then avoid the consequences with sanctuary. For example: spells that are geometry dependent like lightning bolt might hit 7+ targets if you're able to jump your wizard into the right spot, but that might also leave the wizard in a suicidally bad position. Having everyone in the party go at the same time allows the wizard to deliver their big hit and then take sanctuary from an ally.
I feel like the easiest example of how strong early initiative can be is a life domain cleric. Pretty much from the word go, you can get your hands on the hellrider's pride by pickpocketing it off of unconscious Zevlor after the first grove goblin fight, then you can immediately buy the whispering promise off of volo before he gets captured by goblins. The spell bless is already so good that it's typically worth your action and concentration slot in the early game, and it continues to make an argument for itself as at a good option for a cleric to cast all game long. I would even argue that it's worth making a bless-focused cleric with the staff of arcane blessing for a spellcaster team, since +2d4 to spell attack rolls (the tooltip on the staff is misleading) is just crazy. With early initiative and just those two pieces of gear (both available within the first 30 minutes of play), your cleric can apply bless and blade ward to the entire party with a life domain channel divinity *without* sacrificing their concentration for either. So if that cleric gets to go first, your whole team has 2 turns of basically double HP and an average of +2.5 to attack and saving throws. And at level 5, this happens on a bonus action with mass healing word.
Agreed and this is also true without Alert, but they are more likely to be in front this way. Shared initiative doesn't work if one rolls a four and the other a three, but they are both first in line due to Alert to the point where I thought it was bugged when I couldn't move both when they were next to each other.
Good roundup! I would like to add that situationally Sharpshooter can feel like S+ tier. I am currently on a Drow Sword Bard playthrough and Sharpshooter with dual Hand Crossbows feels very strong. It is nearly Fighter/Barbarian grade of damage output(at least before they get their third attack) without having to close the distance.
I’d agree. Dual wielding 2 hand xbows on a swords bard is so good. Your Dex is high so you’ll most likely go first/early in most cases. It scales incredibly well as a ranged martial with other melee martials.
Rogue 3 + thief with 2x hand crossbows gets you 3 attacks/turn, one of which is usually sneak attack, at level 3 for no other investment. It's one of the earliest truly online builds in the game. Level 4 for sharpshooter, then multi into either fighter or ranger. Both two-weapon fighting and archery are good, since 2-weapon fighting applies dex damage on the offhand - or use gloves of the balanced hands to get the same effect and just take archery anyway. 4 attacks/turn at level 8 or 6 attacks with elixir of bloodlust. Ranger gives you hunter + colossus slayer and hunter's mark for extra damage on big targets (usually better than the extra offhand attack), while fighter gives you action surge. Level 5 ranger gives you access to some very good spells, too - spike growth is amazing and pass without trace + greater invisibility from a support is a broken cheese combo that lets the rogue just walk in and get like 6 free rounds of attacks consistently before anyone else has to join the fight. Then at level 11, you just repsec into pure hunter ranger and switch to the deadshot. Deadshot, knife of the undermountain king, shadeslayer's cloak, and covert cowl gives crits on 16-20 when obscured right at the start of act 3, with risky ring giving advantage on every attack. Totals to 43% chance of crit per attack, and you can easily group at least 3-5 enemies with something like an upcasted command: approach or illithid black hole to effectively get 15+ attacks/turn using volley, almost half of which are going to be crits.
Great list! I've been relying on ASI a lot since it seems much stronger in low magic campaigns in table top 5e that I'm used to but, in BG3 where there are so many ways to get weapons and oils that boost your accuracy of strikes and other things, I think I really need to diversify a lot haha.
Yeah, I would actually probably say that this is the best way to use this feat, take it on a spellcaster with decent dex at level 4 and get some great benefits, though waiting for 8 and getting in Act 2 ain’t too bad either.
Absolutely. For a caster, it is probably the second strongest feat in the game behind alert. Hurt a little seeing it ranked lower then an ASI, when, for a caster at least, it is almost strictly better then an ASI as soon as you have 2 arcane enchantment staves is silly. You get all the bonus to spell attacks and DC, plus the other effects of your second best staff.
Elemental adept is definitely A tier because of the scorching ray shenanigans. Upcast scorching ray with spell might gloves, helm of fire acuity, reverberation necklace, radiant orb and light rings, spell sparkler. Last thing you want is enemy to have fire resist.
I wasn't sure about alert in S+, then I remembered the number of fights where 1 party member dies before taking a turn and how essentially 90% of fights I've lost stems from those. Or the times I know an ambush is ahead, but have to walk into it.
I don't get the issue with ambushes. If you know an ambush is ahead, why not trigger it with a mage hand or something? I don't remember any fights that surprise you which you couldn't trigger with a summon
If you know an ambush is coming and your plan is to just let it happen...that's on you. You can 1) craft elixir of vigilance 2) have summons walk ahead 3) have summons turn invisible to surprise 4) sneak ambush with a rogue 5) illuminate an object then throw it then cast metamagic Distant spell from a distance 6) cast an aoe spell and f alla that 7) take class features that cancel surprises like feral instincts. There are just so many ways to combat being ambushed than simply giving up
@@exantiuse497for me before the hag fight my character was like "looks like an ambush" but the fight wouldn't trigger until I walked into the cutscene lmao. And the invisibility I attempted to cast just disappeared after the cutscene
@mrwaffleman8732 Which hag fight? The one in the teahouse, the one in the hag lair in act 1 or the one in act 3? I don't recall any of those making your character surprised
I didn't take Alert because I thought initiative was rolled off a D20. But a +5 on a D4 is nuts!! I will definitely be taking it on my next playthrough.
Sharpshooter can be used with handcrossbows to get bonus action attacks and you can take the Archery Fighting Style to get an extra +2 to attack rolls with ranged weapons to help mitigate the -5 to attack rolls while using Sharpshooter's All In
Unlike the tabletop you don't need crossbow expert for the bonus action attack. If you have 2 hand crossbows equipped you can make a bonus action attack with your offhand hand crossbow just like its a melee weapon.
@@noahlamb2839I think he mean offhand crossbow attack also enjoys +10 dmg bonus. Imagine if you are a thief that can use 2 offhand bonus attack, that is 20 more damage per turn from offhand.
Don't forget to grab the hunters bow in act one for advantage on all attacks against monsterous enemies and a free casting of hunters mark. Since most enemies are monsterous this completely nullifies the all in penalty.
@nathanfivecoate5848 goblinoids are sufficiently monsterous for the bow, as are the shadows in act 2. It definitely drops off after that, but by then, you have plenty of other options.
as someone who loves both roleplay and min max character this was just an hour of bliss for me, great video. Entertaining and great commentary with some good arguments, not to mention very educational. Had a lot of fun watching.
I have a playthrough where I'm doing that as a Githyanki monk so I get the triple jump action. I can just leap across the screen multiple times. I dunno how good it will be ultimately, but it's certainly hilarious.
go with a fighter1, rogue3, monk8 build (gith for jumpy or astarion for ascension insane dmg), chugg that STR pot and solo the game, you can jump to the next act
@@CowPimpMonk is in the running for strongest class in the game, make sure you go Way of the Open Hand subclass and you'll annihilate everything. At level 7 my bonus action punches were doing 36-56 damage and that's just playing a raw monk, no min-maxing or cheesing.
Great video! I always send like 20 mins trying to decide what feat to take on each character, and this really helps out alot with the feats i haven't experimented with.
Ooooh excited to hear your opinions on these! It's quite unfortunate that when looking at feats some of them feels just so useless compared to others, like you mentioned at the start.
Alert would go crazy on an offensive Cleric, +5 initiative into run up Spirit Guardians sounds like a wild way to set up your Barabrian to Frenzy->Reckless Attack->2nd Attack
TJ from The Homebrew says the same thing about Alert in tabletop. Every character he makes, he takes alert as his first feat and says it's the best feat in the game and is the "crit initiative isn't a wasted crit" kind of guy. His characters always perform well so when I hear that Alert is good in BG3, I'm not surprised
With Alert + elixirs of bloodlust I was clearing acts 2 and 3 with just 1-2 long rests apiece, just because I could often end whole encounters before most of the enemies even got to act and thus I wasn't expending HP or resources. In one run Karlach broke up with me just because I never got around to long-resting and so she thought I was blowing her off. (This was all before Honour Mode, though, so this may not be as powerful anymore.)
@@olivercarle You can get the supplies for making >20 bloodlusts in act 1. It's just worg fangs - get a halfling wizard hireling to use as an alchemist for 2x potions and you only need 3 worg fangs/2 elixirs. You can get a whole game's supply in the first 2 hours or so of play if you want, and there are vendors stocking more worg fangs in every act, basically for free.
@@olivercarlethat's where alchemist comes to save you. For example I do always use potions of giants streght (clouds/hills), and I can tell you, you can get as much as you want (and have the patience to) from lvl 6 in ACT I. No joking, you can have characters with 27 str from lvl 6 already thx to alchemist (considering you can't actually buy elixirs of cloud giants until lvl 9-10, in ACT III practically.
Tavern brawler S++ tier, but usually go +1 Constitution because almost always going 8 strength and then abusing hill giant and cloud giant pots. Maybe use the strength gauntlets late game if you want a different elixir (bloodlust for example). Totally broken getting to redistribute 12 extra points of stats or feats into your character - just a casual 6 ASIs accessed at level 4, which can go into Dex, Con, and Wis. My half wood elf, open palm monk just zooms around stunning and toppling enemies with ~20m movement and top initiative. I even accidentally killed Auntie Ethel in Act 1 before she escaped to her lair, in honor mode. Chatted with all her victims on the way down to Mayrina afterwards … most of the masked people were still lunatics, but one was grateful haha. Cannot overstate how strong this feat is.
Probably the only one I disagree with is Dual Wielder since there are a lot of builds that can really abuse weapon synergy between two weapons that normally can't be dual wielded. There are lots of powerful combinations that make this a very powerful feat and it probably deserves to be up a tier. There are also certain caster builds that can make a lot of use of this feat as it gives them +1 AC and allows them to use 2 powerful caster weapons. It's a really underrated feat that is a lot more useful and more valuable than people give it credit for.
If you're already proficient in CON saves, Resilient is still great for WIS. I always take Resilient WIS on a Fighter. Shaking off the nastiest CC effects in the game a lot more easily is a big deal.
The niche case for Tough is for a Wildheart Barbarian (Bearheart, Aspect X). It essentially adds up to 48 extra hp on a character which actually draws proper aggro due to reckless attack. It's essentially a form of guaranteed cc/action soak in every encounter. Def not RP. I'd honestly give it a B for that purpose (same as how sharpshooter or spell sniper are class niche specific).
But why would go Tough if you can instead get +2 to con, get the same amount of hp (if I remember correctly) and boost your con saves at the same time... Only way I can see what you're mentioning being useful is if you are using Amulet of Health, but at that point the extra HP from Tough is such an overkill
You can get Performance for free from Alfira in the Grove, so the Performer feat only gives you +1 Cha, there really is no reason to take it even for roleplay reasons. Just get ASI or Actor instead.
Yep, and if you really want the ability to use musical instruments on everyone, a level 1 dip in bard is better anyway, then you can get some spells and whatnot with it.
Wow there’s so much to learn about this game. I’ve already decided I want to play lore bard/sorcerer, but as a new player looking at everything melts my brain. I don’t even know where to begin 😂
If I recall, on the tabletop the real strength of Elemental Adept is that all of the most damaging spells are fire spells _and_ fire is the most common resistance/immunity. Elemental Adept would let you focus on one damage type and bypass the need for a diverse damage spell list giving you more room for utility and cc. I don't know if that's relevant to BG3 but you'd have to look at the resistances of every creature in the game to be sure.
@@olivercarle No ASI will ever hit the damage benefit of a full extra turn per encounter and no defensive or healing options will ever beat out the value of eliminating or CCing for a full extra turn. The only feats which offer similar offensive value are tavern brawler, sharpshooter, and GWM, and nothing offers similar offensive and defensive value at the same time.
@@missing_links it's not a full extra turn, it's the first turn. If you need it that badly just don't dump DEX or use elixirs. +1 to damage, and more especially +1 to hit, is way more important in Honor Mode. Easier difficulties don't really matter how you build.
@@olivercarle Yes, it is a full extra turn for every party member who wins initiative relative to every enemy that they displace. Displacing an enemy in the initiative is always a 1-turn advantage in the action economy. If you move first in the initiative, you have +1 action and bonus action in the economy over every enemy that has yet to act. That's exactly what getting an extra turn is. It's exactly the same advantage you gain when you steal a turn from an enemy with sleep, stun, or other CC. One more movement, one more action, and one more bonus action compared to an enemy is what it means to have had one more turn than the enemy. Dex doesn't have to be a dump stat for it to still be insufficient, since +2 or +3 will not reliably win you your early/starting initiative spot. You could use an elixir of vigilance to get the effects of alert - and it's arguably the best elixir for a support caster - but for anyone else you're losing out on more powerful elixirs like bloodlust to further improve your economy or giant strength to free up so much more than 1 ASI's worth of stats. Moreover, the whole party having early initiative lets you use initiative sharing to usefully order your turns - which is almost as big of an advantage as stealing a turn for any true support class. A flat +1 to damage and hit is what's not that big of deal. That isn't a fight-deciding difference. Position control, CC, securing advantage, and applying buffs are much more significant benefits. An early initiative cleric or paladin can simply bless the party for a bigger attack roll benefit than ASI, including by way of a bonus action with healing word at level 1 for a single party member or for the whole party at level 5+ through mass healing word when used with whispering promise for the concentration-free bless and hellrider's pride for free bladeturn - the gear for which can be acquired in the first 30 or so minutes of play after the nautiloid, meaning it's most impactful in the hardest part of the game. +1/+1, even to two stats, is simply not enough benefit to outweigh such a hard action economy win.
Hello I enjoy your tier lists but I have some constructive criticism. Some of us are just listening rather than watching the video so when you stay stuff like "I would put them in this order" or "I would put this here" I don't know what you're talking about. When I'm listening while rocking my baby to sleep or showering I can't rewind the video and see what you meant.
I am really surprised you didn't mention dual wielding with staffs for casters to get bonus spell save DC, which is definitely more valuable than a little bonus damage. This feat feels oddly like it's more for caster than martials lol
I indirectly mentioned it when I said "there is the added bonus of being to dual-wield weapons that you otherwise wouldn't be able to." Dual-wielding staves is a well known strategy.
@@Aestus_RPG Oh I totally get that. "It slipped my mind at the time" is very valid. But the comment I was responding to seemed to imply that the indirect mention of it was not an oversight.
Just started a new playthrough and its the first time im trying to make my own builds and switching character classes, etc. and your Spell Tier lists have been so informative for a noobier player like me Literally last night, talking 12 hours ago, we hit level 4 and I was trying to find your feat tierlist. Guess I willed it into existence 😂
The tier lists are solid, but he has some strong opinions that to my eyes are just wrong. For example, he likes attacj spells over saving throw spells because they can crit (ignoring that they can also miss), and he dislikes AoE damage which is really strong.
Your channel is a new sub for me. Thanks for your to-the-point and insightful videos, Aestus! I'm prioritizing the Alert feat on your recommendation and noticing the difference. Much obliged!
savage attacker is also great for builds where you stack a bunch of extra damage dice that aren’t necessarily attacked to class- like dark justiciar gloves, weapons that give an extra damage die, rings that give an extra damage die, hex/hunter’s mark, or ascended astarion
As someone coming from the tabletop world I got really surprised as to why you put Tavern Brawler so high up. But then I heard you're explanation to how it worked in BG3 and my eyes widened, like holy shit! Who gave Tavern Brawler the steroids!?
There is a niche for Dual Wielder you didn't mention that I think is one of the best uses for it: wielding two staffs on casters, who can also use the bonus AC.
Crossbow expert is really good if you combine it with the bhaalist armor. It effectively doubles your damage. If you use it on a sword bard with flourish etc you can get one of the highest (if not the highest) damage outputs in the game. Absolutley shreds everything. Its only for act 3 though
Tavern Brawler, imho, is the reason Berserker is an S+ tier subclass in BG3. Without that feat, it's C-tier subclass, imho, but with it, it's just absurdly powerful.
I agree, with the amount of instances it applies to, the double dipping it takes advantage of (especially from gear) and effects both in and out of combat, it pretty much is the main way to make your build better and more reliable at achieving its goal.
tbh it’s mostly good because there is literally only one good half-feat that increases a mental stat and that’s actor. if there were more half-feats that improved mental stats, they’d probably outdo ASI
A few notes from me: -crossbow expert is probably rp tier imo. You won't pick it before sharpshooter, and you probably won't pick it up before making your dex 20. So realistically you probably get it at lvl 8 fighter or lvl 12 any other class. And by that point you don't really miss even with disadvantage. -the best thing about dual wielder is wielding two staffs on spellcasters. -athlete,+jump+ cloud giant elixir+featherfall is quite hilarious. You can literally jump over plotpoints
I trust Aestus so much and completely ignored Savage Attacker (from full launch review where he believes it only re-rolls one dice per turn rather than all dice), then was astounded by how great it is later on. On math it is always more rewarding that GWF. Then GWF and SA can work together and has an expected benefit of: 1d4 damage dice: baseline: 2.5 GWF: 3 SA: 3.125 both: 3.531 1d6: Baseline: 3.5 GWF: 4.167 SA: 4.472 Both: 4.96 1d8: Baseline: 4.5 GWF: 5.25 SA: 5.812 Both: 6.34 1d10: Baseline: 5.5 GWF: 6.3 SA: 7.15 Both: 7.702 1d12: Baseline: 6.5 GWF: 7.333 SA: 8.486 Both: 9.055
The one scenario where mobile is very strong is the tigerheart barbarian with wolverine aspect. You bleed and root every enemy in a cleave before running away from all of them and doing it again to another group while not taking opportunity attacks from potentially 3 enemies. Unrelated to the feat, you can combine this with someone with knockdown like open hand monk or battlemaster and then enemies are just stunned for 2 turns as they cannot use any movement to get up
Or just have a caster put fog/darkness/stinking cloud/hunger of hadar on them, and they will be stuck in place with nothing to use actions on, and if you have boaals boon, all your characters have advantage on them, absolutely nuts
I only recently started playing, so I don't know how much has changed regarding the Charger feat, but it's absolutely S tier in terms of fun for me. - The feel is "meaty", quite enjoy that - The shove charge can push targets that would normally be too heavy, like with repelling blast. Especially appreciated early game against the owlbear mate. - As you do not have to target a creature directly and can "drive-by" them, you do not have to stay in melee range AND can damage targets under the Sanctuary effect! - This drive-by also opens up an easy way into the enemy backline, while simultaneously finishing off a target on the way. - Having dash, disengage + Shove/+5dmg in one package is quite versatile
Great. I used it on Lazel in my first game. My idea was, "It's like another move from the Battle Master repertoire, but you don't need spent dice for it. Plus, I multiclassed her with toughs (I don't have room for Astarion in my full female party). Forget stealth and invest Expertise points in Athletics." This boosts your strikes a lot plus it's a lot of fun plus you have two bonus actions. Lazel's stronger build but not so fun was 7lvl of battle master and 5lvl of War Cleric. Guided strike completely negates the penalty from Grat Weapon master, Spiritual Weapon, Sanctuaries and finally at lvl 5 spirit guardians ) The only negative is that you lose one feat and only have three left and at higher levels D8 dice instead of D10 for maneuvers.
Kinda wondered why characters got to move at the same time, assumed bg3 sorts initiative into brackets. As it turns out, they roll d4 instead d20 😲 And yeah, still getting +5 Initiative for Alert is batsh*t insane then! 🤯 Thanks for that info - will abuse 😜
I’m gonna send this to my group of friends for our play through, we don’t always think outside the box to try new feats or even know what’s good, really good stuff
It's practically a different game when you get Alert on everyone in the team. Downside is I haven't seen some bosses' legendary actions because they are killed in one turn lol.
Ritual caster is a great feat to give to someone you leave at camp. I usually turn vampire boy into a wizard and give him the roll of buffing everyone at the start of the day, and leave him behind where he belongs. I started doing this for honor mode. However it's more for convenience, so I don't have to move around prepared spells of my dedicated spell caster as much.
mobile is surprisingly good on an open hand monk because they can safely run around the battle field and setup resonating ki on a bunch of foes without worrying about getting hit was a staple of my honour mode run
I don't know if this presenter plays DnD but I'm playing an open hand monk on table top and have been for about a year and a half, mobile is essential!
One thing you didn't mention explicitly about War Caster: your character doesn't need to actually know Shocking Grasp to use the reaction. While the character doesn't learn the cantrip for general use, it will be available for reaction regardless of class. It also uses the character's main spellcasting ability, and I believe it is also boosted if the character has Potent Spellcasting as a Light or Knowledge Cleric (meaning it may work with the Potent Robe as well). In my playthrough, I had the feat on Shadowheart, who was respecced into Knowledge Cleric. She would run into melee with Spirit Guardians up, and would punch the first enemy that tried to run away for around 20 lightning damage. And her accuracy was always the same as Produce Flame, so she was obviously using her +5 Wis modifier rather than her 0 Int modifier. Of course, that was all several patches ago so I don't know if anything was changed since then. EDIT: I should also say that I played on the default difficulty setting, so I don't know how that would change when the game is harder.
Just wanted to point out another situation you don’t want Alert is if you have a character with at least seven levels in Barbarian, which gives Feral Instinct (+3 Initiative and can’t be surprised).
@@valthorix7347No, because it means it’s, say for a d6, d5+1 vs if 1 becomes a 2, which means it’s a normal d6, but with a +1 1/6 of the time 2 3 4 5 6 You get a 2 20% of the time, 6 20% of the time vs 2 2 3 4 5 6 You get a 2 33% of the time, 6 16.7% of the time Basically, it means that the die *is* rerolled for all intents and purposes
I was expecting to learn a lot about stuff I was doing that was stupid... turns out we align pretty much on how we'd rank those your ranking videos have been a blast to binge through, thanks for making these
Sharpshooter on a Gloomstalker is S+, bec of the bonus hide. You can nearly always get an advantage shot by moving out of sight cones, so it negates the -5. There are a few exceptions, but BG3 maps are so open that kiting + hide + shoot works %90. Not that its very fun. ;)
Dual Wielder unlocks some really cool Strength weapon Combinations. Im playing a melee based Heavy Armor Beastmaster Ranger with it and I love off handing the Orphic hammer for the adv on saving throws
I wish there were more classes that offered extra feats at certain levels. Like what fighter level 6 is. Even if cut a lot of the feats out like the ones with ability improvement so people don’t have stupidly high stats. 3 feats feels really lacklustre (if you can even get that with your multi class set up)
FYI just tested savage attacker with sneak attack, the sneak attack dices does not get rerolled, only the weapon dice. Went from a very good feat to kinda useless in my opinion, a least on rogues.
I actually took Dual Wielder on my wizard build. I have a couple quarterstaffs that add a +1 to my spell attack roll/spell save DC, but they're not light weapons. In this case, I'm getting a larger boost than if I were to take an ASI in Intelligence, and I'm also getting a +1 to my AC. Just my opinion though.
Tough has been extremely helpful in Honour Mode at least, with enemies doing a ton of extra damage and having much better action economy than you, that extra 24 HP has been the difference between wiping and not wiping a number of times
Im on my first playthrough and i do not regret taking dungeon delver because i am SO SICK of walking into an area and watching everyone fail a perception check. What was here? A trap? A chest? A cool interractuon? No idea! I cant reroll so ill never know!
if you really have to know, swap out to another character back at camp. also, bring scratch with you always, he'll be able to find things using his scratch sniff passive. much better than using an entire feat slot.
Haven't yet seen the video but I can already tell that tavern brawler is bonkers. It even put monk at the summit of classes, this is how broken this feat is.
Heavy Armour Master also works on magical damage, the tooltip is wrong :) And it is applied after resistances. So if you wear a heavy armor with 3 damage reduction, and use warding bond, then you effectively have 12 damage reduction. And even beyond that, damage types are calculated individually. So if an enemy deals 15 slashing and 15 piercing in an attack, for 30 total, that is reduced to 6 (15-12 + 15-12), not 18 (30-12) Especially in the early game, where the game is the hardest, this is extremely useful.
I have a slight disagreement about Alert. I agree that it's amazing, but I don't think it's as omnipotent for a few reasons. The first and biggest is that the Elixir of Vigilance gives the same effect and the opportunity cost of an elixir compared to a feat is often better. The other reason is the amount of other affects that boost initiative that make Alert serious overkill. You mentioned Dex builds, but there's also many items that give +2 or +3 that are some of the best in slot (Sentinel Shield and the two Very Rare Studded Leather sets in particular) as well as class features like Gloom Stalker and Barbarian getting a free +3. For those reasons, I would argue Alert is still S or S+, but not the best feat or necessary in all builds.
For Heavily Armored Master, it applies to everything that isnt a direct spell. A spell cretes a fire? The burning damage is reduced by 3. Special arrows are reduced by 3. Magical item effects are reduced by 3.
Tavern Brawler on Frenzy Barbarian is absolutely hilarious. I've never seen the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" so literally executed as Karlach hurls every single object that isn't nailed down for bonkers levels of damage twice per turn.
An alternative to Alert is to start the encounter with Shovel/Basket/Fork or a very stealthy character, with the rest of the team hidden away (that makes no sense in a RP sense but works for this game and both D:OS) The stealth/invisible attack will proc surprise and every NPC will roll initiative and freeze time. Then you can enter your characters and pets one at a time, each with a devastating stealth first attack and focus on the NPC with a high initiative. In the end, you have your 2 "free" rounds to decimate the opposition. Plus there are items that negates surprise or buff initiative (a bow and a shield if memory serves) for the low AGI chars As said by other, dual wielding is insane for casters, since staves (and Wyll's Infernal Rapier) are far more useful than shield (a +2 spell attack or 2 arcane batteries) Another build for which I used dual wielding is a throwing barbarian with Nyrulna and the Blood of Lathander (I had no other character that had room for the Blood) The blood is there to debuf undead and devils. Without dual wielding, each time Nyrulna comes back, it would remove the mace and its light. Performer is useful if you need money : playing music is a major help for stealing stuff (but you can either have a bard or learn music in act 1)
Playing with some friends and I'm the Open Hand Tavern Brawler Monk, and I can confirm, it's absolutely broken, and so much fun. The amount of damage you can deal in a single round is crazy, and with all that movement you get from the monk, no enemy is out of reach.
Before alert, I had several fights that I struggled to win...until I got it, and it became a cakewalk (like beating Marcus without Isobel dying). Being able to move first in a fight, being able to set up spells/etc. can easily be the difference between winning and dying. If you can kill an enemy (or several) before they even get to do anything just because you got to go first, you save yourself so much trouble.
I think dual wielder is situationally much better than asi because of the ability to dual wield magic items you might not have been able to before. Theres a lot of people on reddit talking about dual wielding powerful staffs on casters to get the bonuses, and stat stick effects.
Went to the comments to type exactly that lol. It's more of a late game feat you would take when respeccing your wizard i.e which aestus prob doesnt do with his ruleset, so that maybe explains why he doesnt value it that much.
@waltersoueu Ketheric's shield gives you +1 DC and nothing else. Dual wielder has a large amount of combinations besides extra DC: it allows you to dual wield two staves with an arcane battery, or the staff of necromancy with an arcane battery staff, or any other combination of effects
Рік тому+1
I built a tiger/wolverine barb with sentinel, polearm master and GWM and it was glorious. I intended to multiclass but the build was so fun... If you stack effects like reverberation and reeling you just stun the battlefield even when it's not your turn.
I find mobile really good on thief in particular. i use a lot of spells that create difficult terrain and being able to have my thief make a hit then use one bonus action to dash through some terrain and not get Opportunity attacked, and potentially hit a second target with the other bonus action
I get you're trying to be controversial but in what world is resilient better than ASI? How many characters take ASI? How many take resilient, the 10% of casters who don't want to multi into sorc or fighter? I think ALL the half-feats are overrated, TB aside. I honestly struggle to see how any of the feats below A tier get taken at even 1% of the frequency of ASI. Alert is great and all but I wouldn't put it on the same tier as TB. Initiative is important but significantly less important when factoring in hiding or good combat initiation. Use fast characters to initiate while slow characters hide/invis or stay far from the fight. The enemies will waste their first turn simply trying to approach you, which completely negates initiative disadvantage in 90% of encounters. This means you only need to take alert on a single character, the first mover, who hastes the party and baits the enemies into position so the rest of your party can finish them off.
My tier list isnt about frequency of pick, but how impactful it is and how are you likely to prioritize it on builds where it is relevant. Savage Attacker is seldom picked, because its so niche, but on the builds where it is relevant its extremely good, thus the S-tier.
@@Aestus_RPG I think you are confused about your own standard in that case, because dual wielding if you are going by best case utility rather than average case. Dual wielder is build defining and there's literally no other way in the game to replicate its effects, by your definition it must be S tier. Tbh dual wielder should not be in B tier anyways because rhap offhand is BIS for casters
@@Aestus_RPG In the meta, yes, but rhapsody existing means it gives you +3 to rolls and DC (and 1 AC) with marko which is far better than any shield and beats out every other feat by a mile. It also enables offhand TB builds that want to wield a stat stick, bloodthirst main with shar's spear off hand is also BIS. Not to mention that it's S+ tier for any actual melee dual wield build, not that those are very good. The 1 AC alone is great value, it's like the 1 STR you get from TB.
@scar656 I think you are overvaluing it. The question isn't "are dual-wielder offhands better than shields?" It's "are dual-wirlder offhandd better than shields + feat opportunity cost." What you are describing sounds like a slight improvement at the very end of the game, which means it's mid impact and low priority.
funy thing with dual wielder is that it can be actually S tier. but it's gear dependant. If you manage to get two deva mace then a dual wielder strength build will likely out damage most melee build in the game just by virtue of deva mace being broken. or for spellcaster being able to dual wield arcane battery staff giving two extra tier 6 spell which is infinitely better than an ASI especially when the staff themselves give better bonus than an ASI.
Remember, that sharp shooter works with off-hand hand crossbows? Absoluteley devastating on Rouges (Thief) for bonus attacks. Edit: Especially with Rouge (Thief or maybe Assassin)/ Ranger (Gloomstalker) Multiclass
Dual Wielder should be in A for caster.Why you may ask... YOU CAN DUAL WIELD QUARTERSTAFF. Of course your uncle Gale will not use it to punch Goblins, but yes your uncle Gale will use BOTH of the staff effects. Lightning Build Sorcerer with Maho + Spellsparker means that you can ABUSE the Bolts of Doom PLUS extra 2 lightning charge from Spellsparker. If you have a 100% Lightning Charge build, which you can start with 2 LC from standing in water (Watersparker), you are GUARANTEED to have 5 Lightning Charge PER ROUND which give you 1d8 Lightning Damage. It. Just. Broken.
We may have a very different playstyle, but for me Alert is definitely overvalued. Don't get me wrong though! I pick the feat as well and I would probably put it in S tier as well. Its just that I value dexterity extremely highly (for the same reason you value Alert) and I value CON very low. That plus an abundance of good initiative items and passive gives me a good initiative roll on most fights. As you mentioned, initiative is the same effect as surprised. Smart targeting can compensate for initiative as well. With my playstyle I usually have 1 or 2 characters that have very high initiative (or the alert feat) and they just CC or kill the targets that would go before my slightly slower characters, resulting in the same effect and freeing up a feat slot. Medium Armor is also something I want to touch on. Medium Armour Master doesnt seem that bad to me while Moderately Armoured is... well, there just is very few medium armors that actually grant any specific caster benefits, they tend to grant generic benefits and AC rather, while there is a lot of clothing (and at least for druids also light armor) that gives very strong caster benefits. Mobile is also something I value higher. Not A tier or more, but somewhere in B. Polearm Master I love, using polearms is also just great. Sentinel meanwhile I don't find nearly as great, so I would swap those two. I also think Sharpshooter is almost more broken than Great Weapon Master. GWM relies on kills or crits for the bonus action attack, but Sharpshooter you can just abuse hand crossbows and have it every turn. Not having to jump as much (because ranged) also means more BAs for attacking. Its so dominant I regularly avoid using hand crossbows because I feel like nothing can compete. Spell Sniper is a good call. I dont actually find Eldritch Blast that great on a Cleric or Druid. On a Sorcerer though... Tavern Brawler - as "the" druid guy in BG3 and Patch 5 adding the damage bonus to wild shapes... yeah, couldnt agree more. S+++ By the way, since im a modder - Tavern Brawler does NOT work for Slayer Form as that isn't a status belonging to "SG_Polymorph_BeastShape" its just "SG_Polymorph". Similarly, Tavern Brawler in Honour Mode does not give damage for Wild Shape either, just bonus to attack rolls. I mostly comment so you get the algorithm boost. These are just my opinions for my playstyle. I can't say I disagree with your reasoning.
I always figured that initiative was d20 like tabletop, so I never bothered with Alert. Crazy that it's actually d4. Thanks for letting me know about this!
if you play on PC, there is a mod that makes Initiative true to tabletop
Changing it to a d20 roll is actually a popular mod on pc
You know, I was wondering why I was never seeing any initiative rolls higher than three.
@@comandantegorrion7271
Unlucky dice
Alert should've been 2 bonus at max.
I had no idea initiative was rolled with a d4 in BG3, so at first I was like "I mean Alert is pretty good but it's not S+, that's a bit much-"
Now I've realized how absurdly strong that is
Personally, because of how easy it is to get high initiative and how easy it is to get around enemies trying to surprise round you, I think it’s pretty crap in BG3, but I think it’s A tier in D&D.
@@MayHuggerits got an inverse where its more effective the less you minmax. For a first playthrough where you dont know the enemy locations and maybe have a weaker build, it absolutely becomes S tier. The only time it loses value is when you already are good enough to not need it
I gotta say somewhere who has never played DnD or baldurs gate (until BG3 I just started this week) you’re a lifesaver. I have no idea what I’m going and getting explanations is incredibly nice
I would put Dual Wielder in A at least for its ability to give casters two staves to wield. Some staves especially in the latter acts are quite powerful, and being able to use two at the same time can unlock something nasty. It's not a great upgrade for a caster that can use shields through race since some shields are decent enough to make you choose a different feat instead, however if you made someone like Astarion a caster, it's a rather large upgrade.
Definitely. The morning frost plus ice markoheshkir or whatever is insanely good. Add the elemental amulet and slap it on a white dragon ancestor sorcerer and you'll freeze everything in your way
@@roxannebednar9163 oooooh. I gotta try this
I’d go as far as saying that you’re gimping at least one pure spellcaster in your party by *not* taking it. For example, Gale (as a full wizard) should be taking this with his second or third feat. He’s only losing 1AC by forgoing a shield, and with the shield spell and decent DEX he shouldn’t be getting hit with attacks much anyway. The staves he could be wielding instead are just much better options
I think dual wield staff > staff + shield if you get the right staffs. To be able to cast 5th/6th level spells for free 2x is pretty powerful IMO.
Yeah it's usually more powerful than staff and shield, but staff and shield can take a different feat which is probably pretty close in terms of power.@@HuyNguyen-ck7hl
Alert is not needed for Barbarians who have reached level 7 because of Feral Instinct:
"You have honed your instincts to the utmost degree. You gain a +3 to initiative and can't be Surprised."
Yes, that is correct.
That's if you even make it to 7th level barbarian though, which I don't imagine many builds will. Still, doesn't change that Alert is insanely strong.
barbarian is pointless after lvl 6, I started to multi with fighter for the extra goodies. @@Mojo1800
Wait, you're telling me I shouldn't dump all my levels in barbarian? @Mojo1800
Your fine just a mim maxer acting like its the only way to play the game when in reality its a minority of players that are terrified too prioritize fun over optimization in a pve rpg@justindishaw3219
I love that the longstrider gang has become a recurring antagonist to the channel.
I love it too! They drive me to work harder.
@Aestus_RPG they add +3m movement speed to work ethic
I would say Shadowheart is in S tier.
🤨📸🚨🚔
S+
@@largebig79A person of culture I see 🤔
:(
I used to hate her cuz she always missed her attacks 😂 IGNISS 🔥
The best aspect of Alert is the shared initiative system.
If two allies are next to each other in the initiative order, they can swap their position in that order freely.
Some spells are only good if they happen in a certain order. For example, if you can paralyze an enemy (hold person/ surgeons subjugation), it is infinitely better if you can do that with the first character, rather than the last, so that all attacks deal the bonus damage
Very good point!
Oh my god I could never figure out why I could jump order sometimes and I feel like a dummy for not realizing that this was what it was. 🤦♂️ Thank you, I’m not that bright.
It's also very important in situations where you want to do something dangerous and then avoid the consequences with sanctuary. For example: spells that are geometry dependent like lightning bolt might hit 7+ targets if you're able to jump your wizard into the right spot, but that might also leave the wizard in a suicidally bad position. Having everyone in the party go at the same time allows the wizard to deliver their big hit and then take sanctuary from an ally.
I feel like the easiest example of how strong early initiative can be is a life domain cleric. Pretty much from the word go, you can get your hands on the hellrider's pride by pickpocketing it off of unconscious Zevlor after the first grove goblin fight, then you can immediately buy the whispering promise off of volo before he gets captured by goblins.
The spell bless is already so good that it's typically worth your action and concentration slot in the early game, and it continues to make an argument for itself as at a good option for a cleric to cast all game long. I would even argue that it's worth making a bless-focused cleric with the staff of arcane blessing for a spellcaster team, since +2d4 to spell attack rolls (the tooltip on the staff is misleading) is just crazy.
With early initiative and just those two pieces of gear (both available within the first 30 minutes of play), your cleric can apply bless and blade ward to the entire party with a life domain channel divinity *without* sacrificing their concentration for either. So if that cleric gets to go first, your whole team has 2 turns of basically double HP and an average of +2.5 to attack and saving throws. And at level 5, this happens on a bonus action with mass healing word.
Agreed and this is also true without Alert, but they are more likely to be in front this way. Shared initiative doesn't work if one rolls a four and the other a three, but they are both first in line due to Alert to the point where I thought it was bugged when I couldn't move both when they were next to each other.
Good roundup!
I would like to add that situationally Sharpshooter can feel like S+ tier. I am currently on a Drow Sword Bard playthrough and Sharpshooter with dual Hand Crossbows feels very strong. It is nearly Fighter/Barbarian grade of damage output(at least before they get their third attack) without having to close the distance.
I’d agree. Dual wielding 2 hand xbows on a swords bard is so good. Your Dex is high so you’ll most likely go first/early in most cases. It scales incredibly well as a ranged martial with other melee martials.
I saw someone else mention dual hand crossbows on a bard and I loved that idea so I feel even better reading this!
Rogue 3 + thief with 2x hand crossbows gets you 3 attacks/turn, one of which is usually sneak attack, at level 3 for no other investment. It's one of the earliest truly online builds in the game. Level 4 for sharpshooter, then multi into either fighter or ranger. Both two-weapon fighting and archery are good, since 2-weapon fighting applies dex damage on the offhand - or use gloves of the balanced hands to get the same effect and just take archery anyway. 4 attacks/turn at level 8 or 6 attacks with elixir of bloodlust.
Ranger gives you hunter + colossus slayer and hunter's mark for extra damage on big targets (usually better than the extra offhand attack), while fighter gives you action surge. Level 5 ranger gives you access to some very good spells, too - spike growth is amazing and pass without trace + greater invisibility from a support is a broken cheese combo that lets the rogue just walk in and get like 6 free rounds of attacks consistently before anyone else has to join the fight.
Then at level 11, you just repsec into pure hunter ranger and switch to the deadshot. Deadshot, knife of the undermountain king, shadeslayer's cloak, and covert cowl gives crits on 16-20 when obscured right at the start of act 3, with risky ring giving advantage on every attack. Totals to 43% chance of crit per attack, and you can easily group at least 3-5 enemies with something like an upcasted command: approach or illithid black hole to effectively get 15+ attacks/turn using volley, almost half of which are going to be crits.
It’s not that sharpshooter isn’t OP, it’s just not AS op as tavern brawler or alert, which is why those are in a category of their own.
I use sharpshooter on my thieves and omg the damage output with sneak attack is wild
Great list! I've been relying on ASI a lot since it seems much stronger in low magic campaigns in table top 5e that I'm used to but, in BG3 where there are so many ways to get weapons and oils that boost your accuracy of strikes and other things, I think I really need to diversify a lot haha.
I would like to point that Dual Wielder can make some caster builds very broken with two quarterstaves
Put that ice staff in your main hand and that sparky staff in your off hand and you become Mister Freeze
Yeah, I would actually probably say that this is the best way to use this feat, take it on a spellcaster with decent dex at level 4 and get some great benefits, though waiting for 8 and getting in Act 2 ain’t too bad either.
@@Fighterpilot555cool party
@@ShermTank7272 Everyone! Chill!
(Metamagic twinned spell)
*CHILL!*
(casts Chromatic Orb: Ice)
Absolutely. For a caster, it is probably the second strongest feat in the game behind alert.
Hurt a little seeing it ranked lower then an ASI, when, for a caster at least, it is almost strictly better then an ASI as soon as you have 2 arcane enchantment staves is silly. You get all the bonus to spell attacks and DC, plus the other effects of your second best staff.
I could read these comments all day. Just getting back into this game after a year and y’all have tons of awesome ideas. 🙏
Elemental adept is definitely A tier because of the scorching ray shenanigans. Upcast scorching ray with spell might gloves, helm of fire acuity, reverberation necklace, radiant orb and light rings, spell sparkler.
Last thing you want is enemy to have fire resist.
the biggest downside to this is not being able to interrogate the charred bodies.
@@jessemaleh8145 how did you feel there at the end?
I wasn't sure about alert in S+, then I remembered the number of fights where 1 party member dies before taking a turn and how essentially 90% of fights I've lost stems from those.
Or the times I know an ambush is ahead, but have to walk into it.
I don't get the issue with ambushes. If you know an ambush is ahead, why not trigger it with a mage hand or something? I don't remember any fights that surprise you which you couldn't trigger with a summon
If you know an ambush is coming and your plan is to just let it happen...that's on you. You can 1) craft elixir of vigilance 2) have summons walk ahead 3) have summons turn invisible to surprise 4) sneak ambush with a rogue 5) illuminate an object then throw it then cast metamagic Distant spell from a distance 6) cast an aoe spell and f alla that 7) take class features that cancel surprises like feral instincts. There are just so many ways to combat being ambushed than simply giving up
@RtsFps1 If my characters don't know an ambush is coming, I don't want to prepare for it. But I value RP so lmao
@@exantiuse497for me before the hag fight my character was like "looks like an ambush" but the fight wouldn't trigger until I walked into the cutscene lmao. And the invisibility I attempted to cast just disappeared after the cutscene
@mrwaffleman8732 Which hag fight? The one in the teahouse, the one in the hag lair in act 1 or the one in act 3? I don't recall any of those making your character surprised
I didn't take Alert because I thought initiative was rolled off a D20. But a +5 on a D4 is nuts!! I will definitely be taking it on my next playthrough.
This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for, and I trust your judgement much more than the channels that rushed these videos out a week after launch
Sharpshooter can be used with handcrossbows to get bonus action attacks and you can take the Archery Fighting Style to get an extra +2 to attack rolls with ranged weapons to help mitigate the -5 to attack rolls while using Sharpshooter's All In
Unlike the tabletop you don't need crossbow expert for the bonus action attack. If you have 2 hand crossbows equipped you can make a bonus action attack with your offhand hand crossbow just like its a melee weapon.
@@noahlamb2839I think he mean offhand crossbow attack also enjoys +10 dmg bonus. Imagine if you are a thief that can use 2 offhand bonus attack, that is 20 more damage per turn from offhand.
Don't forget to grab the hunters bow in act one for advantage on all attacks against monsterous enemies and a free casting of hunters mark. Since most enemies are monsterous this completely nullifies the all in penalty.
@@TheScottishKayaker Most enemies are humanoid or undead
@nathanfivecoate5848 goblinoids are sufficiently monsterous for the bow, as are the shadows in act 2. It definitely drops off after that, but by then, you have plenty of other options.
as someone who loves both roleplay and min max character this was just an hour of bliss for me, great video. Entertaining and great commentary with some good arguments, not to mention very educational. Had a lot of fun watching.
I used "Athlete" on my DEX Monk and it was incredibly funny jumping across the whole room. My movement was super long too.
I have a playthrough where I'm doing that as a Githyanki monk so I get the triple jump action. I can just leap across the screen multiple times. I dunno how good it will be ultimately, but it's certainly hilarious.
go with a fighter1, rogue3, monk8 build (gith for jumpy or astarion for ascension insane dmg), chugg that STR pot and solo the game, you can jump to the next act
@@CowPimpMonk is in the running for strongest class in the game, make sure you go Way of the Open Hand subclass and you'll annihilate everything. At level 7 my bonus action punches were doing 36-56 damage and that's just playing a raw monk, no min-maxing or cheesing.
@@otb_javedemine do 56-88 but I did min max but no cheesing
Great video! I always send like 20 mins trying to decide what feat to take on each character, and this really helps out alot with the feats i haven't experimented with.
Ooooh excited to hear your opinions on these! It's quite unfortunate that when looking at feats some of them feels just so useless compared to others, like you mentioned at the start.
The feat rebalance and essential feats mods on nexus are godsends for overall feat balance and diversity.
Alert would go crazy on an offensive Cleric, +5 initiative into run up Spirit Guardians sounds like a wild way to set up your Barabrian to Frenzy->Reckless Attack->2nd Attack
Alert to hold person 5 enemies before they get to act at all is insane.
@@Ragatokk I never chose Alert before, now my neurons are firing on wavelengths I've never experienced before
TJ from The Homebrew says the same thing about Alert in tabletop. Every character he makes, he takes alert as his first feat and says it's the best feat in the game and is the "crit initiative isn't a wasted crit" kind of guy. His characters always perform well so when I hear that Alert is good in BG3, I'm not surprised
With Alert + elixirs of bloodlust I was clearing acts 2 and 3 with just 1-2 long rests apiece, just because I could often end whole encounters before most of the enemies even got to act and thus I wasn't expending HP or resources. In one run Karlach broke up with me just because I never got around to long-resting and so she thought I was blowing her off. (This was all before Honour Mode, though, so this may not be as powerful anymore.)
I mean outside of Honor Mode the game is trivially easy. Elixirs of Bloodlust are much harder to come by in Honor Mode and Alert is a wasted feat.
@@olivercarle You can get the supplies for making >20 bloodlusts in act 1. It's just worg fangs - get a halfling wizard hireling to use as an alchemist for 2x potions and you only need 3 worg fangs/2 elixirs. You can get a whole game's supply in the first 2 hours or so of play if you want, and there are vendors stocking more worg fangs in every act, basically for free.
@@olivercarlethat's where alchemist comes to save you. For example I do always use potions of giants streght (clouds/hills), and I can tell you, you can get as much as you want (and have the patience to) from lvl 6 in ACT I. No joking, you can have characters with 27 str from lvl 6 already thx to alchemist (considering you can't actually buy elixirs of cloud giants until lvl 9-10, in ACT III practically.
side note on dual wield - casters can use the dual wielder feat to dual wield staves, so double possible casting bonuses.
Yeah that's honestly the one I disagree with the most from his list. There are so many builds where Dual Wielder feat is amazing.
Tavern brawler S++ tier, but usually go +1 Constitution because almost always going 8 strength and then abusing hill giant and cloud giant pots. Maybe use the strength gauntlets late game if you want a different elixir (bloodlust for example). Totally broken getting to redistribute 12 extra points of stats or feats into your character - just a casual 6 ASIs accessed at level 4, which can go into Dex, Con, and Wis. My half wood elf, open palm monk just zooms around stunning and toppling enemies with ~20m movement and top initiative. I even accidentally killed Auntie Ethel in Act 1 before she escaped to her lair, in honor mode. Chatted with all her victims on the way down to Mayrina afterwards … most of the masked people were still lunatics, but one was grateful haha. Cannot overstate how strong this feat is.
Probably the only one I disagree with is Dual Wielder since there are a lot of builds that can really abuse weapon synergy between two weapons that normally can't be dual wielded. There are lots of powerful combinations that make this a very powerful feat and it probably deserves to be up a tier. There are also certain caster builds that can make a lot of use of this feat as it gives them +1 AC and allows them to use 2 powerful caster weapons. It's a really underrated feat that is a lot more useful and more valuable than people give it credit for.
If you're already proficient in CON saves, Resilient is still great for WIS. I always take Resilient WIS on a Fighter. Shaking off the nastiest CC effects in the game a lot more easily is a big deal.
The niche case for Tough is for a Wildheart Barbarian (Bearheart, Aspect X). It essentially adds up to 48 extra hp on a character which actually draws proper aggro due to reckless attack. It's essentially a form of guaranteed cc/action soak in every encounter. Def not RP. I'd honestly give it a B for that purpose (same as how sharpshooter or spell sniper are class niche specific).
But why would go Tough if you can instead get +2 to con, get the same amount of hp (if I remember correctly) and boost your con saves at the same time... Only way I can see what you're mentioning being useful is if you are using Amulet of Health, but at that point the extra HP from Tough is such an overkill
@@JAKrol94 the reason is because tough gives double the hp +2 CON does.
You can get Performance for free from Alfira in the Grove, so the Performer feat only gives you +1 Cha, there really is no reason to take it even for roleplay reasons. Just get ASI or Actor instead.
Yep, and if you really want the ability to use musical instruments on everyone, a level 1 dip in bard is better anyway, then you can get some spells and whatnot with it.
Unless you accidentally miss her in the grove and are dark urge... 😢
I don’t think you understand what role play means
Wow there’s so much to learn about this game. I’ve already decided I want to play lore bard/sorcerer, but as a new player looking at everything melts my brain. I don’t even know where to begin 😂
If I recall, on the tabletop the real strength of Elemental Adept is that all of the most damaging spells are fire spells _and_ fire is the most common resistance/immunity. Elemental Adept would let you focus on one damage type and bypass the need for a diverse damage spell list giving you more room for utility and cc. I don't know if that's relevant to BG3 but you'd have to look at the resistances of every creature in the game to be sure.
ATTENTION: Barbarians get alert for free at level seven. It is renamed feral instincts, but remains the same.
Barbarians get +3 to initiative, so a bit worse than the actual feat
@@Anton-me7lk yeah but having feral instincts and alert feels like an overkill, so i would choose another feats, barbarians needs those anyways
Tbh +3 is still huge when you consider that in this game initiative is a d4 dice throw.
Game using a d4, even if Alert was +3 like feral instinct it would be really good@Anton-me7lk
Thank you for putting alert in S+. All these build videos never use alert but it’s absolutely necessary imo
It's a bad feat, you will never need it, not even in Honor Mode. Spend your feats on ASI and damage buffs.
@@olivercarle No ASI will ever hit the damage benefit of a full extra turn per encounter and no defensive or healing options will ever beat out the value of eliminating or CCing for a full extra turn. The only feats which offer similar offensive value are tavern brawler, sharpshooter, and GWM, and nothing offers similar offensive and defensive value at the same time.
@@missing_links it's not a full extra turn, it's the first turn. If you need it that badly just don't dump DEX or use elixirs. +1 to damage, and more especially +1 to hit, is way more important in Honor Mode. Easier difficulties don't really matter how you build.
@@olivercarle Yes, it is a full extra turn for every party member who wins initiative relative to every enemy that they displace. Displacing an enemy in the initiative is always a 1-turn advantage in the action economy. If you move first in the initiative, you have +1 action and bonus action in the economy over every enemy that has yet to act. That's exactly what getting an extra turn is. It's exactly the same advantage you gain when you steal a turn from an enemy with sleep, stun, or other CC. One more movement, one more action, and one more bonus action compared to an enemy is what it means to have had one more turn than the enemy.
Dex doesn't have to be a dump stat for it to still be insufficient, since +2 or +3 will not reliably win you your early/starting initiative spot. You could use an elixir of vigilance to get the effects of alert - and it's arguably the best elixir for a support caster - but for anyone else you're losing out on more powerful elixirs like bloodlust to further improve your economy or giant strength to free up so much more than 1 ASI's worth of stats. Moreover, the whole party having early initiative lets you use initiative sharing to usefully order your turns - which is almost as big of an advantage as stealing a turn for any true support class.
A flat +1 to damage and hit is what's not that big of deal. That isn't a fight-deciding difference. Position control, CC, securing advantage, and applying buffs are much more significant benefits. An early initiative cleric or paladin can simply bless the party for a bigger attack roll benefit than ASI, including by way of a bonus action with healing word at level 1 for a single party member or for the whole party at level 5+ through mass healing word when used with whispering promise for the concentration-free bless and hellrider's pride for free bladeturn - the gear for which can be acquired in the first 30 or so minutes of play after the nautiloid, meaning it's most impactful in the hardest part of the game.
+1/+1, even to two stats, is simply not enough benefit to outweigh such a hard action economy win.
@@olivercarleYour mom is a bad feat.
Hello I enjoy your tier lists but I have some constructive criticism. Some of us are just listening rather than watching the video so when you stay stuff like "I would put them in this order" or "I would put this here" I don't know what you're talking about. When I'm listening while rocking my baby to sleep or showering I can't rewind the video and see what you meant.
I am really surprised you didn't mention dual wielding with staffs for casters to get bonus spell save DC, which is definitely more valuable than a little bonus damage. This feat feels oddly like it's more for caster than martials lol
I indirectly mentioned it when I said "there is the added bonus of being to dual-wield weapons that you otherwise wouldn't be able to." Dual-wielding staves is a well known strategy.
@@Aestus_RPG It seems a little silly to only indirectly mention The Strongest Use of the feat, when talking about the strength of the feat lmao.
@LAaronB10 It's very normal for small details to slip ones mind in an hour long recording.
@@Aestus_RPG Oh I totally get that. "It slipped my mind at the time" is very valid. But the comment I was responding to seemed to imply that the indirect mention of it was not an oversight.
Just started a new playthrough and its the first time im trying to make my own builds and switching character classes, etc. and your Spell Tier lists have been so informative for a noobier player like me Literally last night, talking 12 hours ago, we hit level 4 and I was trying to find your feat tierlist. Guess I willed it into existence 😂
The tier lists are solid, but he has some strong opinions that to my eyes are just wrong. For example, he likes attacj spells over saving throw spells because they can crit (ignoring that they can also miss), and he dislikes AoE damage which is really strong.
Your channel is a new sub for me. Thanks for your to-the-point and insightful videos, Aestus!
I'm prioritizing the Alert feat on your recommendation and noticing the difference. Much obliged!
Hi, couple corrections: Actor affects Performance, not Intimidation; Savage Attacker specifically does not reroll Sneak dice (for some reason)
savage attacker is also great for builds where you stack a bunch of extra damage dice that aren’t necessarily attacked to class- like dark justiciar gloves, weapons that give an extra damage die, rings that give an extra damage die, hex/hunter’s mark, or ascended astarion
As someone coming from the tabletop world I got really surprised as to why you put Tavern Brawler so high up. But then I heard you're explanation to how it worked in BG3 and my eyes widened, like holy shit! Who gave Tavern Brawler the steroids!?
Larian loves Monks and Barbarians...
I mean lord knows tavern brawler needed it. 1d4 unarmed attack and proficiency with improvised weapons? Might as well just dip 1 level in monk
There is a niche for Dual Wielder you didn't mention that I think is one of the best uses for it: wielding two staffs on casters, who can also use the bonus AC.
Crossbow expert is really good if you combine it with the bhaalist armor. It effectively doubles your damage. If you use it on a sword bard with flourish etc you can get one of the highest (if not the highest) damage outputs in the game. Absolutley shreds everything. Its only for act 3 though
Is it shredding them in two turns or four turn?
Tavern Brawler, imho, is the reason Berserker is an S+ tier subclass in BG3. Without that feat, it's C-tier subclass, imho, but with it, it's just absurdly powerful.
I am surprised AS Is that low, I expected it to be at least S, majority of the builds if not most always use ASI once at least
I agree, with the amount of instances it applies to, the double dipping it takes advantage of (especially from gear) and effects both in and out of combat, it pretty much is the main way to make your build better and more reliable at achieving its goal.
I think Aestus_RPG does that just to generate comments. Just like putting Fireball as a B tier spell
@@testchannelnamechange Fireball is shit because it burns corpses and you can't talk to them anymore for the story bits.
tbh it’s mostly good because there is literally only one good half-feat that increases a mental stat and that’s actor. if there were more half-feats that improved mental stats, they’d probably outdo ASI
Agreed. Do t see how it should be considered that low.
A few notes from me:
-crossbow expert is probably rp tier imo. You won't pick it before sharpshooter, and you probably won't pick it up before making your dex 20. So realistically you probably get it at lvl 8 fighter or lvl 12 any other class. And by that point you don't really miss even with disadvantage.
-the best thing about dual wielder is wielding two staffs on spellcasters.
-athlete,+jump+ cloud giant elixir+featherfall is quite hilarious. You can literally jump over plotpoints
I trust Aestus so much and completely ignored Savage Attacker (from full launch review where he believes it only re-rolls one dice per turn rather than all dice), then was astounded by how great it is later on.
On math it is always more rewarding that GWF. Then GWF and SA can work together and has an expected benefit of:
1d4 damage dice:
baseline: 2.5
GWF: 3
SA: 3.125
both: 3.531
1d6:
Baseline: 3.5
GWF: 4.167
SA: 4.472
Both: 4.96
1d8:
Baseline: 4.5
GWF: 5.25
SA: 5.812
Both: 6.34
1d10:
Baseline: 5.5
GWF: 6.3
SA: 7.15
Both: 7.702
1d12:
Baseline: 6.5
GWF: 7.333
SA: 8.486
Both: 9.055
A feat and fighting style for +2.5 damage in the best case is laughable
@@opo33333the number listed are for 1 damage dice.
@@opo33333Remember it does that for each damage die
Sanctuary is a run saver in honor mode and Guidance is solid to get too, Magic Initiate Cleric is underrated
It's a blast to pick up Barb/Monk and literally moonjump across the map... Especially with Wizards for that Leap+Stride combo
haha i took athlete on laezel and used the 3x jump spell on her. Let's just say I chuckled a bit when she just hopped across the entire camp.
@@Rain1Yo Gith monks are like "Laws of physics? Tch'ck, more like suggestions of physics..."
Now make a BG3 Feet tier list
🤨📷
The one scenario where mobile is very strong is the tigerheart barbarian with wolverine aspect. You bleed and root every enemy in a cleave before running away from all of them and doing it again to another group while not taking opportunity attacks from potentially 3 enemies.
Unrelated to the feat, you can combine this with someone with knockdown like open hand monk or battlemaster and then enemies are just stunned for 2 turns as they cannot use any movement to get up
Or just have a caster put fog/darkness/stinking cloud/hunger of hadar on them, and they will be stuck in place with nothing to use actions on, and if you have boaals boon, all your characters have advantage on them, absolutely nuts
Been waiting for this one, thank you so much!! Merry Christmas!!
Merry Christmas! I'll have a gift for you all dropping soon!
I specifically have grabbed dual wielder 2 runs in a row just to put phalar aluve in the offhand for shriek.
Real
I only recently started playing, so I don't know how much has changed regarding the Charger feat, but it's absolutely S tier in terms of fun for me.
- The feel is "meaty", quite enjoy that
- The shove charge can push targets that would normally be too heavy, like with repelling blast. Especially appreciated early game against the owlbear mate.
- As you do not have to target a creature directly and can "drive-by" them, you do not have to stay in melee range AND can damage targets under the Sanctuary effect!
- This drive-by also opens up an easy way into the enemy backline, while simultaneously finishing off a target on the way.
- Having dash, disengage + Shove/+5dmg in one package is quite versatile
Great. I used it on Lazel in my first game. My idea was, "It's like another move from the Battle Master repertoire, but you don't need spent dice for it. Plus, I multiclassed her with toughs (I don't have room for Astarion in my full female party). Forget stealth and invest Expertise points in Athletics." This boosts your strikes a lot plus it's a lot of fun plus you have two bonus actions. Lazel's stronger build but not so fun was 7lvl of battle master and 5lvl of War Cleric. Guided strike completely negates the penalty from Grat Weapon master, Spiritual Weapon, Sanctuaries and finally at lvl 5 spirit guardians ) The only negative is that you lose one feat and only have three left and at higher levels D8 dice instead of D10 for maneuvers.
Kinda wondered why characters got to move at the same time, assumed bg3 sorts initiative into brackets. As it turns out, they roll d4 instead d20 😲
And yeah, still getting +5 Initiative for Alert is batsh*t insane then! 🤯
Thanks for that info - will abuse 😜
I’m gonna send this to my group of friends for our play through, we don’t always think outside the box to try new feats or even know what’s good, really good stuff
It's practically a different game when you get Alert on everyone in the team. Downside is I haven't seen some bosses' legendary actions because they are killed in one turn lol.
i have literally no clue what raphael’s fight is supposed to look like bc he always goes down within a turn i stg
Ritual caster is a great feat to give to someone you leave at camp. I usually turn vampire boy into a wizard and give him the roll of buffing everyone at the start of the day, and leave him behind where he belongs.
I started doing this for honor mode.
However it's more for convenience, so I don't have to move around prepared spells of my dedicated spell caster as much.
mobile is surprisingly good on an open hand monk because they can safely run around the battle field and setup resonating ki on a bunch of foes without worrying about getting hit was a staple of my honour mode run
Same for melee rogues.
I don't know if this presenter plays DnD but I'm playing an open hand monk on table top and have been for about a year and a half, mobile is essential!
One thing you didn't mention explicitly about War Caster: your character doesn't need to actually know Shocking Grasp to use the reaction. While the character doesn't learn the cantrip for general use, it will be available for reaction regardless of class. It also uses the character's main spellcasting ability, and I believe it is also boosted if the character has Potent Spellcasting as a Light or Knowledge Cleric (meaning it may work with the Potent Robe as well).
In my playthrough, I had the feat on Shadowheart, who was respecced into Knowledge Cleric. She would run into melee with Spirit Guardians up, and would punch the first enemy that tried to run away for around 20 lightning damage. And her accuracy was always the same as Produce Flame, so she was obviously using her +5 Wis modifier rather than her 0 Int modifier.
Of course, that was all several patches ago so I don't know if anything was changed since then.
EDIT: I should also say that I played on the default difficulty setting, so I don't know how that would change when the game is harder.
Just wanted to point out another situation you don’t want Alert is if you have a character with at least seven levels in Barbarian, which gives Feral Instinct (+3 Initiative and can’t be surprised).
Tavern Brawler is probably a higher priority anyways.
I been watching your videos a lot lately and I spat my water out when you put TB in rp tier for a second lmao
Elemental Adept: Just to be clear. "You cannot roll 1" means that you won't reroll your damage dice. You will roll 2 instead of 1.
No, it means that the roll is randomized from 2-20 instead of 1-20
@@EpicHashTimeliterally exactly what he said
@@valthorix7347No, because it means it’s, say for a d6, d5+1 vs if 1 becomes a 2, which means it’s a normal d6, but with a +1 1/6 of the time
2 3 4 5 6
You get a 2 20% of the time, 6 20% of the time
vs
2 2 3 4 5 6
You get a 2 33% of the time, 6 16.7% of the time
Basically, it means that the die *is* rerolled for all intents and purposes
I was expecting to learn a lot about stuff I was doing that was stupid... turns out we align pretty much on how we'd rank those
your ranking videos have been a blast to binge through, thanks for making these
Sharpshooter on a Gloomstalker is S+, bec of the bonus hide. You can nearly always get an advantage shot by moving out of sight cones, so it negates the -5. There are a few exceptions, but BG3 maps are so open that kiting + hide + shoot works %90. Not that its very fun. ;)
Dual Wielder unlocks some really cool Strength weapon Combinations. Im playing a melee based Heavy Armor Beastmaster Ranger with it and I love off handing the Orphic hammer for the adv on saving throws
I wish there were more classes that offered extra feats at certain levels. Like what fighter level 6 is. Even if cut a lot of the feats out like the ones with ability improvement so people don’t have stupidly high stats. 3 feats feels really lacklustre (if you can even get that with your multi class set up)
FYI just tested savage attacker with sneak attack, the sneak attack dices does not get rerolled, only the weapon dice. Went from a very good feat to kinda useless in my opinion, a least on rogues.
Would have liked a bit of a discussion about what feat order you pick beyond Alert first, or when you pick ASI, but the list is cool :)
I actually took Dual Wielder on my wizard build. I have a couple quarterstaffs that add a +1 to my spell attack roll/spell save DC, but they're not light weapons. In this case, I'm getting a larger boost than if I were to take an ASI in Intelligence, and I'm also getting a +1 to my AC. Just my opinion though.
Tough has been extremely helpful in Honour Mode at least, with enemies doing a ton of extra damage and having much better action economy than you, that extra 24 HP has been the difference between wiping and not wiping a number of times
Awesome, that's what I was waiting for, thank you!
I see so many builds with no Alert, in Tactician Alert is my first feat i take on most of my characters
Thank you for this excellent guide.
Im on my first playthrough and i do not regret taking dungeon delver because i am SO SICK of walking into an area and watching everyone fail a perception check. What was here? A trap? A chest? A cool interractuon? No idea! I cant reroll so ill never know!
if you really have to know, swap out to another character back at camp. also, bring scratch with you always, he'll be able to find things using his scratch sniff passive. much better than using an entire feat slot.
Ability Improvement for all three choices? Got it! =D
Haven't yet seen the video but I can already tell that tavern brawler is bonkers. It even put monk at the summit of classes, this is how broken this feat is.
Throwers are superior to TB monk, but yeah Monks are amazing with TB.
Heavy Armour Master also works on magical damage, the tooltip is wrong :)
And it is applied after resistances. So if you wear a heavy armor with 3 damage reduction, and use warding bond, then you effectively have 12 damage reduction.
And even beyond that, damage types are calculated individually. So if an enemy deals 15 slashing and 15 piercing in an attack, for 30 total, that is reduced to 6 (15-12 + 15-12), not 18 (30-12)
Especially in the early game, where the game is the hardest, this is extremely useful.
what makes performer extra useless is the fact you can learn how to use instruments by talking to Alfira in act 1
Dual wielder is kinda cool as it allows for dual staves, giving you an extra cool effect on your caster.
I have a slight disagreement about Alert. I agree that it's amazing, but I don't think it's as omnipotent for a few reasons.
The first and biggest is that the Elixir of Vigilance gives the same effect and the opportunity cost of an elixir compared to a feat is often better.
The other reason is the amount of other affects that boost initiative that make Alert serious overkill. You mentioned Dex builds, but there's also many items that give +2 or +3 that are some of the best in slot (Sentinel Shield and the two Very Rare Studded Leather sets in particular) as well as class features like Gloom Stalker and Barbarian getting a free +3.
For those reasons, I would argue Alert is still S or S+, but not the best feat or necessary in all builds.
For Heavily Armored Master, it applies to everything that isnt a direct spell.
A spell cretes a fire? The burning damage is reduced by 3.
Special arrows are reduced by 3.
Magical item effects are reduced by 3.
Tavern Brawler on Frenzy Barbarian is absolutely hilarious. I've never seen the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" so literally executed as Karlach hurls every single object that isn't nailed down for bonkers levels of damage twice per turn.
Great video, you have clearly used lot of time to make this!
An alternative to Alert is to start the encounter with Shovel/Basket/Fork or a very stealthy character, with the rest of the team hidden away (that makes no sense in a RP sense but works for this game and both D:OS)
The stealth/invisible attack will proc surprise and every NPC will roll initiative and freeze time.
Then you can enter your characters and pets one at a time, each with a devastating stealth first attack and focus on the NPC with a high initiative. In the end, you have your 2 "free" rounds to decimate the opposition. Plus there are items that negates surprise or buff initiative (a bow and a shield if memory serves) for the low AGI chars
As said by other, dual wielding is insane for casters, since staves (and Wyll's Infernal Rapier) are far more useful than shield (a +2 spell attack or 2 arcane batteries)
Another build for which I used dual wielding is a throwing barbarian with Nyrulna and the Blood of Lathander (I had no other character that had room for the Blood)
The blood is there to debuf undead and devils. Without dual wielding, each time Nyrulna comes back, it would remove the mace and its light.
Performer is useful if you need money : playing music is a major help for stealing stuff (but you can either have a bard or learn music in act 1)
Playing with some friends and I'm the Open Hand Tavern Brawler Monk, and I can confirm, it's absolutely broken, and so much fun. The amount of damage you can deal in a single round is crazy, and with all that movement you get from the monk, no enemy is out of reach.
Before alert, I had several fights that I struggled to win...until I got it, and it became a cakewalk (like beating Marcus without Isobel dying). Being able to move first in a fight, being able to set up spells/etc. can easily be the difference between winning and dying.
If you can kill an enemy (or several) before they even get to do anything just because you got to go first, you save yourself so much trouble.
As a relative bg3 noob, I did not know you still get the xp if you avoid a fight using dialogue. Thanks for all the other good info too!
I think dual wielder is situationally much better than asi because of the ability to dual wield magic items you might not have been able to before.
Theres a lot of people on reddit talking about dual wielding powerful staffs on casters to get the bonuses, and stat stick effects.
Went to the comments to type exactly that lol. It's more of a late game feat you would take when respeccing your wizard i.e which aestus prob doesnt do with his ruleset, so that maybe explains why he doesnt value it that much.
Picking a half-elf and using Ketheric's shield can have a similar effect without the need for a feat
@waltersoueu Ketheric's shield gives you +1 DC and nothing else. Dual wielder has a large amount of combinations besides extra DC: it allows you to dual wield two staves with an arcane battery, or the staff of necromancy with an arcane battery staff, or any other combination of effects
I built a tiger/wolverine barb with sentinel, polearm master and GWM and it was glorious. I intended to multiclass but the build was so fun... If you stack effects like reverberation and reeling you just stun the battlefield even when it's not your turn.
The other thing you can do with Dual Wielder is equip two non-Light weapons (e.g. staves) that boost your spellcasting.
I find mobile really good on thief in particular. i use a lot of spells that create difficult terrain and being able to have my thief make a hit then use one bonus action to dash through some terrain and not get Opportunity attacked, and potentially hit a second target with the other bonus action
I get you're trying to be controversial but in what world is resilient better than ASI? How many characters take ASI? How many take resilient, the 10% of casters who don't want to multi into sorc or fighter? I think ALL the half-feats are overrated, TB aside. I honestly struggle to see how any of the feats below A tier get taken at even 1% of the frequency of ASI.
Alert is great and all but I wouldn't put it on the same tier as TB. Initiative is important but significantly less important when factoring in hiding or good combat initiation. Use fast characters to initiate while slow characters hide/invis or stay far from the fight. The enemies will waste their first turn simply trying to approach you, which completely negates initiative disadvantage in 90% of encounters. This means you only need to take alert on a single character, the first mover, who hastes the party and baits the enemies into position so the rest of your party can finish them off.
My tier list isnt about frequency of pick, but how impactful it is and how are you likely to prioritize it on builds where it is relevant. Savage Attacker is seldom picked, because its so niche, but on the builds where it is relevant its extremely good, thus the S-tier.
@@Aestus_RPG I think you are confused about your own standard in that case, because dual wielding if you are going by best case utility rather than average case. Dual wielder is build defining and there's literally no other way in the game to replicate its effects, by your definition it must be S tier. Tbh dual wielder should not be in B tier anyways because rhap offhand is BIS for casters
@@scar656 Isnt dual-wielder is a low priority late game feat used to get an extra spell casting item slot on characters not proficient in shields?
@@Aestus_RPG In the meta, yes, but rhapsody existing means it gives you +3 to rolls and DC (and 1 AC) with marko which is far better than any shield and beats out every other feat by a mile. It also enables offhand TB builds that want to wield a stat stick, bloodthirst main with shar's spear off hand is also BIS. Not to mention that it's S+ tier for any actual melee dual wield build, not that those are very good. The 1 AC alone is great value, it's like the 1 STR you get from TB.
@scar656 I think you are overvaluing it. The question isn't "are dual-wielder offhands better than shields?" It's "are dual-wirlder offhandd better than shields + feat opportunity cost." What you are describing sounds like a slight improvement at the very end of the game, which means it's mid impact and low priority.
funy thing with dual wielder is that it can be actually S tier. but it's gear dependant.
If you manage to get two deva mace then a dual wielder strength build will likely out damage most melee build in the game just by virtue of deva mace being broken.
or for spellcaster being able to dual wield arcane battery staff giving two extra tier 6 spell which is infinitely better than an ASI especially when the staff themselves give better bonus than an ASI.
Remember, that sharp shooter works with off-hand hand crossbows? Absoluteley devastating on Rouges (Thief) for bonus attacks.
Edit: Especially with Rouge (Thief or maybe Assassin)/ Ranger (Gloomstalker) Multiclass
Alert is so amazing im glad you called it correctly.
I was going to make fun of you for calling tavern brawler a spell, but I couldn't. It's just that magical
Dual Wielder should be in A for caster.Why you may ask... YOU CAN DUAL WIELD QUARTERSTAFF.
Of course your uncle Gale will not use it to punch Goblins, but yes your uncle Gale will use BOTH of the staff effects.
Lightning Build Sorcerer with Maho + Spellsparker means that you can ABUSE the Bolts of Doom PLUS extra 2 lightning charge from Spellsparker.
If you have a 100% Lightning Charge build, which you can start with 2 LC from standing in water (Watersparker), you are GUARANTEED to have 5 Lightning Charge PER ROUND which give you 1d8 Lightning Damage.
It. Just. Broken.
It's a common strategy. I don't think it's broken, but it's good! I stand by my B-tier.
We may have a very different playstyle, but for me Alert is definitely overvalued. Don't get me wrong though! I pick the feat as well and I would probably put it in S tier as well. Its just that I value dexterity extremely highly (for the same reason you value Alert) and I value CON very low. That plus an abundance of good initiative items and passive gives me a good initiative roll on most fights.
As you mentioned, initiative is the same effect as surprised. Smart targeting can compensate for initiative as well. With my playstyle I usually have 1 or 2 characters that have very high initiative (or the alert feat) and they just CC or kill the targets that would go before my slightly slower characters, resulting in the same effect and freeing up a feat slot.
Medium Armor is also something I want to touch on. Medium Armour Master doesnt seem that bad to me while Moderately Armoured is... well, there just is very few medium armors that actually grant any specific caster benefits, they tend to grant generic benefits and AC rather, while there is a lot of clothing (and at least for druids also light armor) that gives very strong caster benefits.
Mobile is also something I value higher. Not A tier or more, but somewhere in B. Polearm Master I love, using polearms is also just great. Sentinel meanwhile I don't find nearly as great, so I would swap those two. I also think Sharpshooter is almost more broken than Great Weapon Master. GWM relies on kills or crits for the bonus action attack, but Sharpshooter you can just abuse hand crossbows and have it every turn. Not having to jump as much (because ranged) also means more BAs for attacking. Its so dominant I regularly avoid using hand crossbows because I feel like nothing can compete.
Spell Sniper is a good call. I dont actually find Eldritch Blast that great on a Cleric or Druid. On a Sorcerer though...
Tavern Brawler - as "the" druid guy in BG3 and Patch 5 adding the damage bonus to wild shapes... yeah, couldnt agree more. S+++
By the way, since im a modder - Tavern Brawler does NOT work for Slayer Form as that isn't a status belonging to "SG_Polymorph_BeastShape" its just "SG_Polymorph". Similarly, Tavern Brawler in Honour Mode does not give damage for Wild Shape either, just bonus to attack rolls.
I mostly comment so you get the algorithm boost. These are just my opinions for my playstyle. I can't say I disagree with your reasoning.
As long as you are moving first, it doesn't matter how you get there.
The medium armor I was talking about is Yuan-ti Scale Mail
For once, this is a tier list I completely agree with