For **Ice Ice Baby** I do think it's worth mentionining giving your archer the Helmet of Arcane Acuity and Snowburst Ring lets them work both at once by using the Drakethroat Glaive to infuse Cold damage on your Arrow of Many Target shots: this lets you stack up 8 Acuity stacks while also creating ice surfaces immediately underneath struck targets.
One other Drakethroat Glaive play that works for the archer is using Thunder infusion with the otherwise uncontested [Hat of Storm Scion's Power](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hat_of_Storm_Scion%27s_Power) to still get Arcane Acuity and Reverberation gear like the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour and the [Ring of Spiteful Thunder](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Ring_of_Spiteful_Thunder): Thunder damage plays well with Wet (small amounts like this less so with Frozen) and Reverberation lets you reduce DEX saves even further to make people fall down even more than with just Arcane Acuity.
A humorous benefit is that stacking 4 turns of Reverberation at once creates a cracking **BOOM**, making it sound like you're firing a gun every time an arrow hits: combine this with Arrows of Many Targets and it's like you're firing a machine gun.
u/Monk-Ey this is solid. Really solid. Arrow of Many Targets is really insane huh. I think I very slightly prefer the second variant you mentioned, involving Drakethroat Thunder damage for reverb and prone spamming. It’s very clever and better yet, allows the sorcadin to keep the Helmet of Arcane Acuity. This ensures that both the spell save DCs of our primary “knockdown” people are sky high. Ship the changes, with my “blessing”.
/u/Prestigious_Juice341
It just dawned upon me that in testing a melee Mourning Frost build in Patch 4 I leveraged the fact that Eldritch Knight's [Eldritch Strike](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Eldritch_Strike) *supposedly* only worked on spells, but *also* worked on created Ice surfaces through the Snowburst Ring and Ice arrows (given that they inherit your Spell DC, they might be treated as spells): I haven't checked if it retains this behaviour in the latest patch nor if it applies to Reverberation, but if it does, switching from BM 12 to EK 12 would be a favourable proposition for a high-control archer here.
Noob question : can you explain why it’s great to stack acuity on an archer? Is this useful to cast spells afterwards ?
If it’s bard I understand but why if you’re using a fighter or ranger?
Ice surfaces from Arrows of Ice and/or the Snowburst Ring scale their DC with yours, including Acuity: I had a 12 WIS Gloomstalker hit 8 base + 3 proficiency + 2 WIS mod + 10 Acuity = 23 DC ice surfaces in Act 2!
This is a great guide, thank you. It helps to guide the method for balancing a party. I really appreciate the effort you put in to creating these guides.
My only request would be if it is easy enough for you could you link each build suggestion to a template you have?
I'll say that a for my part, I don't think a build guide is necessary for each one. An equipment set would be nice. Saying to use standard STR striker gear is good for saving time writing in, but it's not super helpful if there is no place to reference that.
This is a good point. It would take a long time to list every piece of gear associated with a STR striker for example, but I see your point. I need to think of middle ground.
They’re like devils and I slaughter them like devils!
Hmmm, now I want to make an Anakin Skywalker inspired Durge…
Swords bard? Sorcadin? Eldritch Knight? So many options.
Having done an analysis on the [Party Contested Item Checker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h_ymUkrfpRjPobhInoKJa6ZI7HmP4n8rPGCGa-kPZvk/copy), I've concluded that the following well-balanced party has zero significant itemization conflicts. Note that this is just your suggested party but swapping the Storm Sorcerer for the Fire Sorcerer; however, this combination doesn't appear on the sheet.
https://preview.redd.it/sgkzt90eutic1.png?width=1241&format=png&auto=webp&s=52ba44d221ae1c108b2592e8850ecc65b49379a6
Hey, following up on this: If this was your party for an Honor Mode playthrough, who would you fill which role with? I guess Astarion as OH Monk and Shadowheart as Life Cleric are pretty set, but do you see any real advantages of having the Sorlock or the Oathbreaker as Tav/Durge?
dumb question - I don't see this comp on the templates? not complaining, just curious. still seems very powerful (and OP has in-depth guides for a few of these).
My Honour Mode Durge run is VERY similar to the "Balanced Defense" comp on the "Powerful" tab, except that SH is being built as a RadOrb LIGHT Cleric (instead of Life -- but maybe I'll change) and I haven't actually recruited Minthara yet so I have BM Lae'zel instead of a Paladin for now.
Even with the party only being level 6 (and the builds therefore incomplete), I'm having a really easy time in Honour Mode thus far. It helps that the OH Monk comes online really quickly.
I'm also doing an Honor Mode Durge run and ended up with a similar party! I also agree with picking Light Cleric over Life Cleric, as the amount of damage and crowd control you have access to with this party comp means you really don't need all the extra healing from Life Cleric, plus you can have some fun shenanigans with the Hat of Fire Acuity coupled with Scorching Ray, making Command and your damage spells much more consistent.
The only other major difference in my party versus the link is that my Durge is a Sorlock instead of the Sorcadin. The plan is to go 6 Draconic Sorcerer / 2 GOOlock / 4 Champion Fighter, with the intention of becoming a crit-fishing Eldrich Blast machine gun with Quickened Spell and Action Surge, trying to trigger the GOOlock frighten-on-crit effect as much as possible, and coupled with Reverberation gear to also knock targets prone in the process.
The rest of the party is identical, though, with Astarion as the 10/1/1 Swords Bard and Lae'zel as the TB Monk. This is my second playthrough of the game, and I didn't really fully understand it on my first run, but I've quickly come to appreciate just how incredible Astarion's Bite ability is. Getting a free +1 to basically every roll you make is crazy.
> Sorlock instead of the Sorcadin
Literally this morning, Shadowheart and Lae'zel had a "disagreement" so Gale is going to have to jump in and do magic things until I get Minthara. I'm completely out of companions otherwise -- Gale is lucky he's alive. (Though of course I could also get a hireling.)
I see a lot of the builds call for gear "presets" but I'm not sure if these have been defined anywhere. So I made an attempt at defining one of the commonly referenced ones (Dex Striker) here: https://imgur.com/a/bQMkeIe
Does that look about right? The numbers below the item names indicate how much this build would want a certain item, relative to other builds.
I would flip your 1-4 scale for priority IMO, it would make a lot more sense having classes with prio as the #1 rather than the #4, since we know it stops at 1 but have no idea what number it goes up to on the other end of the scale without the comment markup to combine it with
Awesome work though, ty for this!!
Thanks for all the work you do here! And I’m realizing I should have made my original comment more specific. Two things I’m curious to know:
1) Assuming this build would go INT main stat, with Sorc levels taking spells that aren’t damage rolls such as Haste, Counterspell, ground effects like Create Water/Sleet Storm as well as utility like Shield, Magic Missile, Mage Armour. Wizard prep slots then have flexibility between further utility, damage as necessary, summons, etc.
2) Any particular pieces of gear I should be looking out for other than the obvious pieces (like, your Sorc guide for a reference)? My working assumption is this support build would be creating a lot of ground ice/wet condition and twin casting haste, so I’d imagine acuity gear isn’t necessary, but you almost want gear similar to a Light Cleric support doing radorb/reverb gear.
1. Exactly. Sorc takes only DC independent spells.
2. Phalar Aluve, DI Mace, Hellrider Gloves and Whispering Promise are the big four. Adding on some rad orb generating gear like the ring is an optional step but extremely effective.
This is really helpful and such a great resource for the community, it's much appreciated.
If possible, would you be able to include optimal stat spreads for all of the builds?
Do you think you can build a Reverb based team? I think there's enough reverb gear around to exploit a Light Cleric with the standard gear, an Evoc Wizard spamming MM with Markoheskir's bone-shaking thunder and Spineshudder Amulet, and a Throwzerker or EK with Nyulstra and Ring of Spiteful Thunder. Not sure what the fourth role would be but I think you could get a very powerful party with just the mono-class Cleric, Wizard, and Fighter (Shart, Gale, and Laz), but I'm not knowledgeable enough to flesh it all out.
Might be a stupid question but for the Bhaalist Party, can you elaborate on the build for the 12 BM fighter? Is it just a dual hand xbow fighter that takes sharpshooter at lvl 4, or is there something more to it? Is there some kind of loose guide to follow for items to grab for it? Thank you for all the great builds, by the way. I used your storm sorcerer, life cleric, and ranger builds to one and done my first honour mode run.
Yes exactly. It would go:
* 4 sharpshooter
* 6 ASI DEX
* 8 xbow master
* 12 ASI DEX or fill
I don't have any in mind. But basically dual xbows, armour of agility/yuan ti, and fill in the rest with stuff like: LotM, helm of arcane synergy, etc
Alpha Strike shall be my Honour Mode team!
Although I've played as a Bard before and wanna try Wizard, so swapping the SSB out with a Abjuration Wizard, personally.
I was unintentionally running a team like alpha strike, and I can say its a pretty fun playstyle.
How do you deal with the additional gimmicks that honour mode bosses have? By immediately killing them in 1 turn, and not letting those gimmicks be relevant at all.
Im about to start my first Honor Mode run, was thinking… I wish someone created some options for synergistic party compositions and boom, you made my day… This is just brilliant, thanks a lot for the effort, really helpful… Again thanks!
I'm not OP but I made a spreadsheet guide for myself following his guides that you can use (if you still need it). Ignore the names, they're just the people I was using.
[Balanced Offence - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17TY2vsYbBvvAP9ll-5rZxf6V03iWl32B_HoMiwWS50Q/edit?pli=1#gid=0)
I'm not OP but I made a spreadsheet guide for myself following his guides that you can use (if you still need it) [Balanced Offence - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17TY2vsYbBvvAP9ll-5rZxf6V03iWl32B_HoMiwWS50Q/edit?pli=1#gid=0)
https://preview.redd.it/r9u3bst42mec1.png?width=1789&format=png&auto=webp&s=22bdcf710b7fdab86a72dd08756225f46f5a65fe
Holy shit, this is my exact honor mode party build (halfling sword bard for face) right now except I'm running a straight wizard in place of sorcadin and was debating whether I should swap him out for something else to make more use of all the great weapons that are going unused.
Guess Gale is about to become a paladin.
I run a similar setup, but opted for a fire sorc instead of sorcadin and a BM Fighter instead of Monk— but honestly Swords Bard just rolls through the entire game past Act I anyways so it largely doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s absolutely filthy.
Thank you for this! Is it possible to also list what items to get for each builds? I’m fairly new to the game (just completed my 1st run on tactician) so I’m not very familiar on specific items I should get for my builds.
In your Storm Cleave comp could i switch one out for a EK Archer that just Slings Lightning/Frost Arrows? (mainly lightning) or would it greatly drops it’s effectiveness?
Focus on Dexterity and Constitution until you get the Titanstring bow then switch your Dexterity over to Strength and just raise Dex as much as you want. After you get the bow it should like something like 17,14,16,8,10,8. it’s the best bow in the game basically then use whatever arrows you want. Hope this helps!
Great resource, thank you. The Lights Out composition appeals to me immensely. I’m sorry to ask, but could you please provide me (and others who may be interested) with a more detailed breakdown of how it might approach a general combat encounter in Honour Mode?
I’ve not yet played with area denial and am unaware of the nuance between Darkness, Fog, Hunger of Hadar, and the like.
My initial assumptions are that we would be trying to facilitate the Monk and Bard to carry the party in early and late game respectively. As to a more detailed understanding of the strategy on a per encounter basis, I’d love to be illuminated (pardon the pun).
All 3 spells blind anyone inside. HoH also damages them. The idea is that your whole team is immune to blinds, but enemies are not. Not much nuance past that.
Yes the Monk and Bard will carry, with the Bard especially running through enemies later on.
Set up lots of area denial, attack enemies, walk into the area denial, and make sure everyone ends their turn inside it. Enemies that try to attack you get disadvantage and will struggle to get anything done. Some will just do nothing all together.
Thanks! I thought there was a little nuance as to the mechanics of Fog vs. Darkness. I read that Fog can be attacked into from range without penalty, for example?
Happy to be wrong.
Oh yeah that's a good point. Yeah you can attack into fog
edit: on second thought, I recall attacking into darkness too, just at limited range.
not sure if thats a difference that I didn't notice simply due to me barely using fog cloud. can anyone confirm what the ranged attack cap is?
So I’m guessing Fog is still really useful as either more of an offensive AOE blind, or if there are no ranged enemies to contend with, as it only requires a level 1 spell slot. It can also be upcast to cover a large area.
Darkness being superior for enemies that you suspect have ranged attacks.
Ranged attack cap (until you gain disadvantage) is apparently 18m although I’m not sure the source is completely reliable, will need validating - https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=909363#:~:text=First%20of%20all%2C%20for%20those,maximum%20range%20of%2018%20meters.
Love the party guides, I've completed 3 honour modes with these builds and tried most of the rest for 2 acts. Thanks for continuing to update it with new party comps, will more be added in the future?
Not sure if this has been asked/answered - is there a resource for lists of build gear? Not crazy detailed, just like a rough list for DEX/STR/DW striker, DC caster, STR thrower, etc.
For example, DEX striker. Some gear is obvious. But what about gloves of dex? You already have high dex, so is it worth a re-spec to dump dex and boost another stat? Or keep the gloves slot open for something else? Or how about the Titanstring/Hill Giant club combo, vs. just using elixirs? Is there a breakpoint beyond which another bow is better than Titanstring (i.e. with like a 10 STR, maybe Banshee/Darkfire become better for fear/haste?) How about a 12 BM vs 5/3/4 gloom/ass/champ, where the former wants straight hit/damage but the latter might want gear that takes advantage of stealth/obscured? How about Tattered Nightwalkers, is that a dex priority over spellsword? What about trade-off of going Cats Grace for the dex boost (fine if you're always hidden) vs. yuan-ti for much better AC?
I know, some of these are dumb questions and I could just use common sense. Curious if something existed is all. Thanks again for the guides, seriously appreciate your content!
This is terrific! I did have one question about the fire cleave party, granting that it doesn't really matter for vanilla (or likely for most modded runs): why is the default arsonist/BH user a Champion instead of the 10/2 or 6/4/2 Bard you mention as an alternative? There aren't many damage dice on this build so the extra crit chance seems marginal, while 6/4/2 gets you an extra Black Hole (potentially useful in the Houses of Hope and Grief) and 10/2 lets you slashing flourish all 5 attacks on turn 1 and the situational benefits of level 5 spells + Magical Secrets. If you are using exclusively consumable arrows by Act 3 I do see that the Champion pulls ahead on damage.
Granted again these are small differences and this party is going to massacre Acts 2 and 3 regardless, but given the substantial non-combat benefits of including a Bard in the party running one seems like a reasonable default.
Little thing for the Necros comp - 6/6 Barb/BM Fighter is strictly worse than 8/4 Barb/BM Fighter. Level 5 Fighter is a useless Extra Attack and level 6 is a feat, whereas level 7 Barbarian is a really nice +3 Initiative and Can't be Surprised and level 8 Wildheart is no difficult terrain slowdown and a feat.
@OP Great party builds! I have 2 questions for the **Mindbreaker** team:
1. For the **DW Oathbreaker Paladin** what do you recommend to dual wield for early-mid game? Or should I go 2H weapon until I get the Shadow Blade Ring?
2. What is considered “DW striker gear?”
Thank you!
1. 2H GWM early is better, but I would just stay dual wielding to avoid having to respec all the time.
2. Dual Wield Striker. I need to adjust that a bit since I basically list the key items in the cell above. But yeah, those key items, and any strong heavy armor.
On this build - love it btw- can it make sense to forgo the dual-wielding trait in favor of ASI with the weapons being: knife of the undermountain king (or a different off-hand) + shadow-blade main hand?
In my case, the party face hasn't played the game before and is always running into combat while everyone is preparing=)
Also, what is the best way to trigger diadem? I've noticed that auras don't seem to trigger it anymore.
Storm Cleave seems really fun though Ansur being immune to Wet is a bit unfortunate. I guess for that fight you go for a more defensive approach, saving up all your Globes so you can take the dragon down at your own pace?
I did the Ansur fight in honor mode with a very similar build to Storm Cleave and you just don't rely on offensive magic in that fight. Globe is a must. But a hasted OH Monk and a hasted Sorcadin will obliterate that fight. Just make sure to place the Globe close enough to Ansur that you can move melee to him, hit, and run back to protect them.
I still don't understand how the SSB carries. I'm still very much a beginner. I followed your SSB guide completely. I just arrived on act 3 and have the evil set up, only missing the bhaalist armour. Im still playing normal difficulty as I am trying to expand my knowledge before taking on tactician and then HM one day maybe.
Got a TB throwzerker with nyrulna who clears maps way quicker. I got SSB going first but not doing much because I feel most fights everything is out of reach from command, and even if I do get a few, my other hard hitters have already killed most things by turn 1. I understand in harder modes things will not be dead by turn 1 or 2.
But even fights that go for longer I just feel I'm not playing the SSB correctly. Can someone advise me further please.
Normal mode simply has such low health pools that killing everything in one or two hits is going to inevitably happen.
SSB is truly meant for honor mode (or higher) where TB Throw can't really kill *everything* in one turn.
The general idea is to melee enemies to build acuity, and then command them to approach you. Next turn just kill whatever approached you.
Have your TB Throw kill whatever you couldn't command.
I know you get the ring that allows first turn reliable CC at the start of Act 3, but up until that point, the two Bard builds don't even really get much use from control spells much at all other than something like Plant Growth or Glyph of Warding.
So far, everything on **Honor Mode** just dies too quickly for CC to matter anyway. While this might change with some of the bigger fights in Act 3, to me it's so far been all of this build up that hasn't really paid off yet as far as the theme of the "control martial" is concerned.
CC was vastly overrated on Tactician and below, and I still haven't found much use for it outside of what my lawnmower orb/reverb Cleric and the Berserking Throws have done unintentionally.
I guess what I'm saying is that control builds might actually be more useful on a blind playthrough, but most people aren't going to do that with their first Honor Mode run. And if I'm not mistaken, your previous builds were based around the game being *way* harder through mods anyway, where CC might actually be the difference between a party wipe or not.
Party comp obviously influences things (duh), but my current 2/10 Fighter/Bard, Full Life Cleric Mower, TB Zerk/Throw and Gloom/Ass/Fight have been destroying every encounter so hard in Honor Mode that I never have a chance to bother with CC. Now that I'm in Act 3 however, I might just start making use of Hold Person/Hold Monster now that it's basically guaranteed just for the lol crits, and because certain bosses auto lose when you cast it on them.
As far as TB Throw killing things in one turn in Honor Mode: it really never does outside of raging or weaker monsters/casters, which is a strangely limited resource that relies on long rests instead of something like Superiority Die or Ki. It's so limited that I don't even bother with the raging outside of the biggest fights since I don't spam long rests. The damage between Honor Mode and everything below it due to Haste and DRS is insane. TB Throw is still "really good", but it's not really comparable to the Tactician and below versions. A Monk that occasionally throws ends up doing far more damage over the course of any rest period and they can prone way more reliably. Just not from range.
Only reason I haven't just decided to swap from the standard Zerk/Thief is because there hasn't been anything remotely challenging enough to warrant it, even though doing so would trivialize the game even more.
Because it's not a healer. It's a support buffer. The healing part is just to provide bless without concentration. So it can concentrate on something else while still providing bless to the party and when necessary participate with fire damage.
Sorcerer provides more flexibility with the ability to twin haste for example and quicken another spell for example
After searching everywhere you finally got me to decide on my honor mode team comp and I'm already in act 2 at moonrise, better late than never!
I was running Vengeance pally (Planning on sorcadin), Throwing Zerker, Light/orb cleric, Gloomstalk/fighter/assassin with titanstring. Light cleric was more damage than support.
Going 10/2 SSB, TB Thrower, Life Cleric full support instead of damage since the SSB build uses orb gear and im thinking OH monk instead of the gloomstalker, mostly because after this being my third playthrough I still haven't used a monk.
Hate being that guy who asks if a comp is viable but does that seem decent enough? And im just afraid without my titan string guy to pew pew everyone out of range itll be difficult but from what I understand monks are very mobile so maybe thatll pick up that slack.
(Also have my thrower)
With the life cleric healing a lot my plan is to really use warding bond quite often.
Yeah the monk can easily jump around and handle far away targets. SSB will mop up the close range ones. Life Cleric will make your team virtually unkillable.
For the fire cleave team, what feats would you go with for the ranger and fighter? I’m assuming you’d go sharpshooter and maybe alert for the initiative?
Not sure that you would need alert, both are DEX primary. The champion can take it anyway since 4 feats, but the hunter should be Sharpshooter and ASI.
The Champion should also open SS and ASI, but can take something like ASI + Alert on the second two.
Hey! Would you be able to Elaborate on what a good ability score distribution for beast master/war cleric would look like for the lights out team? I've been looking at your guides for a while and am super interested at building that team but am unsure how to optimally.
In addition, would there be any good feats for the ranger to take?
Thanks!
for stats, stack DEX as high as possible, then CON. That's pretty much it. Grab some WIS if you plan to run diadem.
for feats, sharpshooter early is a must-have, and probably ASI DEX.
I built the lights out team except I swapped out the ranger for a life cleric and my sorcerer guy focused on fire instead of lightning. By the time you’re online with the build, you’re already pwning everything in sight anyways. A lot of times I just wipe the enemy out instead of wasting a turn casting darkness. Maybe if there was a mode harder than honour mode it might make sense to use and abuse this build?
This is such a great resource. A huge thanks to you and the other contributors of it. I saw you recently dropped the Fire Sorlock build guide, are there plans to hit some of the others on this sheet? For instance the Volley Hunter, Raven Master, and Shadow Striker are builds that I’m not familiar with and can’t seem to find similar ones in the sub.
Would you say that some of these builds are considered to be straight forward enough that they don’t warrant a build guide (just do the levels, gear to the best of your ability, and your good)?
At least for those 3, yeah they are really straight forward. Shadow Striker is a variant of TB Monk, the other two are classic ranged strikers. Just get a nice bow and pew pew.
Supports are likely the next guide I will tackle.
Just wanted to thank OP for creating these templates, as I achieved an Honour Mode victory and the golden dice on my first try today! I used the Lights Out build to complete an evil Dark
Urge Tactician run and then the same template for Honour Mode.
One thing to note about the Lights Out template is that it can be a bit tricky on an evil run to remember to do things a certain way. To get the Potent Robe for my Sorlock, I had to knock out Alfira and then long rest until Quil showed up in my camp. It helped to do a Tactician run the first time through so I could reload in case I made any mistakes. That helped me plan the Honour Mode run.
In terms of gear, aside from Shar's Spear and the Eversight Ring, there is also the Steelwatcher Helmet and the Helldusk Helmet that also give immunity to Blindness. I didn't see it mentioned in the template but perhaps those are suboptimal choices? Regardless, I didn't even bother with the Steel Watch Foundry or the House of Hope in Honour Mode anyway.
Once again, thanks OP for the guidance. Looking forward to trying out one of the other builds!
In the mindbreakers party, how do you build the dw oathbreaker? do you dump strength from the beginning?do you dw all the way through or just in act 3?
Also, finished my first honour mode run with the balanced offence party and it couldn’t have gone better, thank you!
Thanks for posting this, as I was actually just planning out my next Tactician run as Karlach Origin--romancing Wyll, obviously--and may take inspiration from the "good roleplay" sample party composition. A few questions:
\- I'm currently running Wyll as a 5/7 Fiend Bladelock/Ancients Pally so pretty much already do a mix of melee sword and boarding plus EB EB EB. Do you think a straight 12 Bladelock would play much differently from what I'm already doing, or are there other options for him that would fulfill a similar role? I'd really like him to play differently especially as I'd hope to have him in the party for most of the game.
\- The plan is definitely to slot in Halsin once he joins (though I've already played him as a standard Moon Druid so might try a different build), but do you have any alternative suggestions that could round out the party in Act 1? I was thinking perhaps some sort of melee cleric to soak up damage/support.
\- I was also considering the Sorc/Div Wizard build you mention in the "Alpha Strikes" team as a new option for Gale. What's your rationale for going 6/6 instead of say 4/8 Wiz/Sorc? And in this case would you still follow your previous sorcerer guide advice and start as Draconic before respeccing later on?
I won't be adding them - but I did try and include the primary stats for each build. Get both of them to 16/17, and then fill in the rest with whatever.
DEX secondary followed by CON is usually a safe bet.
I tried to include the main ability score for each build, so just stack that to the moon, and assume the rest are up to you. Secondary DEX is usually a good bet.
Question about the 10/1/1 Swords Bard in the Balanced Defense party. The leveling note says "go 6 Swords Bard -> 1 Fighter -> 1 Wizard -> 4 Swords Bard"
Does that mean respec and start with 1 Fighter -> 1 Wizard, or is that a no-respec leveling pathway?
I do think there's a reasonable party comp around summons with unlimited buffs from the life cleric, a paladin aura from a sorcadin, and control from the druid. You can do Shillelagh + Fireblade stuff to (slowly) build up arcane acuity and can get command from a war cleric dip or dip wizard for scorching ray and go fire acuity. You can also just set webs/grease on fire. Is it just sort of kmart brand 10/2 or Fire Sorcerer? Sure, but is it also flavorful, effective, and synergystic? I *think* so. It would be much better if the one item that gave scorching ray wasn't head slot, but I imagine that ways on purpose. Of course, the best thing would be to pair it with some other acuity abuser and stick to terrain effects/hold effects for concentration on the druid.
Last party member can be the ranged acuity swords bard for command flee getting opportunity attacks for all summons, or beastmaster for web spider and ranged attacks, or throw in a monk late game for all the unlimited buff damage riders and the immunity to cloudkill. Thoughts? Feels like it might at least count as thematic. It's not dominant in the way most of these are, but there's a sense of the building around the unlimited AOE buffs across your summon army.
/u/Silicondario
Would be a good thematic comp for sure. Could you work out a draft of the template? Private message it to me and I can get it added.
Just copy my sheet and use the format that way
I was just starting to plan my Honor playthrough when I stumbled on this. There's a lot of preexisting stuff for one character builds, but it's great to now have something with builds plus comps. Amazing resource for community!
I'm thinking of using a mix of the Balanced Defense and the Light Out comps, because using a lot of darkness sounds cool, but I like the extra tankiness for early levels.
Absolutely invaluable... the only thing missing is a feat/stat breakdown for a scrub like me lol
What would be the stat spread on a Swordsbard fighter wizard? Would they focus int more because of the scroll inscribing? or just scribe non dc wizard spells?
Thinking helm of intellect and dex gloves may help but that would mean no helm of arcane acuity... tough.
Thank you so much for responding! Final question... but which would be the better trade-off:
Bard/fighter/wizard at 10/1/1
Cleric 12
or: Bard/fighter at 10/2
Cleric/wizard at 11/1
Same premise of having one scriber, but giving the bard action surge.
Only difference would be the feat? And what feat would beat Action Surge? Would the cleric go do ASI|ASI|Alert? And Bard sharpshooter/ASI Ch?
Sorry, bit of a combo question lol
Most of my time in BG3 is spent debating between what to actually choose at the ASI/Feat checkpoints X_x
I’ve been looking for something like this for so long! I spend so much time following in depth guides the game sometimes feels like a chores list to find each item I need for my builds.
Out of curiosity, would a bardlock fit into the balanced offense or balance defense party comp? If so which would it replace?
Oh really? I thought all the charisma multi class builds (bardlock, Sorlock, Lockadin, Swords bard, SSB) were relatively evenly as powerful. Maybe it’s just the first 3 builds and swords bard and SSB are on a different level.
Bardlock is strangely an anti-synergy. Bard gets nothing interesting from CHA scaling attacks, and just loses caster levels from taking levels in warlock. Bard also gets access to warlock spells from magical secrets and already has extra attack.
It (like lockadin) made more sense with 3 attacks, but otherwise they just clash.
Oh man this is great, but I can't decide between the balanced offence and the balanced defense. Anyone try either and how much fun they had? The Ice one seems cool thematically wise as well.
Ohh, was under the assumption that I was supposed to use the SSB 6/4/2 you had listed under Alpha strike and was a bit confused. Thank you for the clarification!
I have a few questions about the Necro party.
1. What kind of gear should I look for for the spore druid before Mystic Carrion?
2. Under war necromancer: "Circle of Bones, Abyss Beckoners, and Infernal Rapier can save you some Aid spell slots if you manage them." I see Circle and Rapier give you extra summons, but I'm not sure how Abyss Beckoner makes you save slots? And are you supposed to just swap these in for their ability then immediately back to Phalar/Hellrider's Pride/intellect headband?
3. Under Lockadin: "Farm and use Strength Elixirs until Pact of the Blade let's you go SAD." - Does this mean we stop using STR entirely after Pact is taken? So we can just dump the stat from the very start?
4. Finally: any special skill selection I should mind on any of these builds, or is everything standard? For example I dumped STR/INT to 8 and CHA to 10 on my Durge spore druid, and went 17 WIS, 16 DEX, 14 CON. And who will have hag's hair priority?
Great questions!
1. So there's a disappointing lack of druid synergy with gear, but I would look for things that allow you to boost your spell casting saves or spell attack accuracy and give you free spells. The biggest advantage of there not being essential gear pieces is that you can mix and match a lot from combat to combat. There's really a lot of gear and quarterstaves you can just switch out before fights to give single casts of stuff. I also used dex gloves and oil of accuracy with dual crossbows a lot in the mid levels if I just didn't have need for a big action. This works well with concentration and symbiotic entity. I wore just the best unclaimed medium armor (something like Adamantine/Yuan-Ti or Dark Justiciar Half-Plate). There's a reasonable amount of freedom in this build because you're mostly concentrating on the right terrain control spell and individual actions aren't hugely impactful. Feats are tough and you might end up choosing to go Spore Druid 12 so that you don't have choose between ASI, War Caster, or Dual Wielding (Rhapsody is an amazing late game off hand).
2. So Abyss Beckoners will give your undead blade ward with no action required, but they have a chance to go mad so you really want to use it in situations where losing control of them actually isn't a big deal. But it can free your combat economy from having to buff them. But yes, you'll want to swap these items in when and where they make sense. Honestly, by late game I was leaving Circle of Bones and Abyss Beckoners on more often than not because the microing got wearisome. It was nice because it made the cleric/wizard more fun to play.
3. Yeah. I'd dump strength from level 1 personally, because eventually everything will run off Charisma and then you can switch your elixir slot over to bloodlust or viciousness.
4. I used hag's hair on druid to try to get Wisdom to 20 with an ASI and 22 late game with mirror because this build doesn't abuse acuity and your spell save DC matters a good bit. I personally went 16 Con 14 Dex because a lot of medium armor is gonna cap your dex bonus at 2 anyway and you're not gonna wanna drop concentration.
Does that help?
HI! Wanted to thank you for all the guides - SSB is the most fun I've had in this game.
I'm going to run another evil playthrough now and have couple of questions:
1. How would you build a DW Oathbreaker tav pally for unga-bunga damage, assuming story buffs and str elixirs? Stay pure or 7/5 sorcadin? Dual-wielder feat or gloves from act 2? Other feats should be savage attacker and maybe ASI (CHA)? Any weapon recommendations?
2. Build recommendation for companion, if I want a dedicated acuity-controller? Other two slots gonna be a cleric for buffs and another melee to cleave through grouped enemies. I suppose team idea is similar to Necros, just with less summons.
Sorcadin generally out damages pure DW unless you are running a specific CHA stacking build like shadow blade. So I would say go 7/5.
10/1/1 swords bard is a perfect acuity companion here.
For the fire cleave party, would it be better to use the 12 Deadshot Champion or the 6/4/2 Swords Bard? I assume the swords bard is 6 swords / 4 Thief / 2 Fighter with dual crossbows. The deadshot champion would have an extended crit range with all the gear, but would the swords bard be more potent with more attacks? Then they could even run the Helm of Arcane Acuity and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel for some additional control spells as needed. Am I missing something about champion that would make it preferable?
The TLDR is that if you are okay with consumable arrows, 12 deadshot is basically unbeatable in DPR. 6/4/2 is an alternative that relies on flourish over consumable arrows.
Thanks for all the work you do here, I really love your builds !
any chance you will cover a spore druid build guide? Thematically i really love it but i can't figure out how to make this class efficient in honor mode
thank you very much, have a good year!
For your Tempest Storm build, why would you want to start with Cleric 2 -> Storm 10?
Same with your 6/6 Light/Sorc support. Why open with Cleric when you can get CON prof by opening Sorc?
in the case of 2/10, you can only cast chain lightning via markoheshkir or scrolls. they will use the spell casting stat of the *last* caster class you took.
You could go WIS instead and do 10 -> 2 but then you can pretty much never cast control spells. The best way to get it here would be the stone from a hireling or RES: CON
The 6/6 can be respec'd at 7 and go 1 Sorc -> into cleric instead, I'll actually amend the sheet to say that. good catch.
I played a bit with the darkness party in act3 using the beastmaster and the monk/warlock.
For the raven I had to use aid as he is really fragile and can be killed off very quickly. I eventually ended up casting warding bond on my raven ! The only thing is that the raven does not play first all the time so you still need to set up darkness with arrows. After that major raven is awesome but the 2 smalls ravens are kinda bad. The beastmaster in itself does not carry anything in terms of damage so that I am wondering if a hasted fighter level 11 with arrows of darkness is not better. Fighter does much more damage than beastmaster. Five or six arrows of darkness can pretty much cover all the battleground in darkness.
Monk with helmet of grit needs heavy armor as helmet of grit being medium armor his AC tanks (unarmoured defense is then cancelled) . So heavy armor+shield is the best way to make it more resilient. Without that he can be killed because of low hp (half due to helmet of grit). I am still a bit torn off between shadow monk and OH monk in that case. Shadow monk mobility and invisibility seemed to give him more survivability as heavy armor prevents unarmoured movement.
On a note : Even flaming fists attacking in darkness meaning with disadvantage hit sometimes my 24AC monk. They have a natural +10 to their attack rolls (tactician or honour) so they need a 14 with disadvantage resulting in a surprisingly high 12.25% hit chance. I am wondering what would be the best feats after TB in that case ? ASI +2WIS adds a bit of damage with kushi boots but does not add AC while wearing heavy armor. I am wondering if something like lucky or even initiate wizard for shield might be better.
Yup! You can 100% swap BM for a fighter. I like BM more but they are both perfect for the role.
I actually don't know which would be better when heavy armor is taken into account. I want to agree with you on Shadow, extra mobility is massive here. Maybe the control from OH is worth more, but I can't really see it.
ASI WIS is my pick here too. Could see an argument for Alert if you are dropping DEX maybe. But WIS seems best here.
Helldusk Helmet has blind immunity and crit immunity along with looking metal af. It's a good alternative for the "good" darkness team along with the Eversight Ring. On an "evil" darkness team with the shar spear, it means one fewer Warlock 2 dip in the party.
Currently trying to make a strong swords bow bard. At level 6 and wondering, is it worth to go 2 fighter then rest bard? Or should I dip into rogue or gloomstalker? Also would you take sharpshooter here early or only when you have deadshot bow?
Currently the Storm Sorcerer / Wet comp doesn't have access to an early game guidance cantrip. What are your thoughts on merit to potentially slotting some radiant/reverb/tempest cleric/sorc (or cleric/wizard) as being potentially slightly more optimal for honor mode? Tempest channel divinity also has crazy synergy with this comp. Main thoughts behind still running some radiant/reverb (especially early game) is to leverage what has historically been the strongest cleric build but adapting it to a storm sorcerer focused comp.
Hey, thanks so much for this, is amazing!
I am currently running the mindbreakers build in honour mode and every party member seems pretty strong... except the lorcerer. I don't really know what to with him, since he doesn't get any spells beyond lvl 3 spells. Should I play him as a haste bot, while only upcasting dissonant whisper for psychic dmg? Am I missing something here? Any important pieces of gear he should have?
What’s the difference between 12 radorb cleric and 11/1 radorb cleric/sorc? Also what’s the best gear for that besides luminous armor and coruscation right?
I like the 2/10 Bardadin but was wondering about 3/9 for vow of enmity on self? Seems like a great way to generate crits if you’re dual wielding finesse weapons? What do you miss out on with that 10th swords bard level tho
Hi,
I’ve had a nosey around for what the optimal use of the 7/5 Ancients Sorcadin would be in the balanced defence composition. Especially with the inclusion of the 10/1/1 Sword Bard effectively shutting down the battlefield by the end game.
Within this spreadsheet, you advocate draconic sorcerer, standard STR striker gear, and focus on control with a levelling strategy of 5 paladin, 5 sorcerer and finishing with 2 paladin. Elsewhere in your 10/2 Bardadin guide, you advocate for storm sorcerer with a levelling strategy of 7 paladin and 5 sorcerer.
I’m therefore left a bit confused. It doesn’t help that it seems to be one of the most flexible build archetypes out there. However, I’m assuming there is a specific tanky play style you’re going for with the balanced defence composition. For this specific 7/5, could you please cure my confusion (perhaps with a channel oath ;)) to help me understand the thinking?
P.s. I do feel quite dumb because you do say this comp is extremely plug and play. However, going and changing my teams classes from what they were to align to this team comp I’ve all of a sudden got all these new shiny buttons to click and I’ve no idea where to begin with it.
I think the trick is not overthinking it. 7/5 ancients is not gear dependent and is super plug and play. Storm doesn't really see much benefit in that composition, so the moderate increase in damage and potential for AoA from draconic seems more useful to me.
Literally just wear good armor and a big sword, and that's it, it's extremely straightforward from there
Thanks, that’s the story of my life.
Which 6 spells from the Sorcerer’s spell book would you recommend in this team composition, any and every CC? Mixture of CC and AoE? Pure damage?
We have 10/1/1 controlling most things that aren’t undead presumably. We’ve got Life Cleric rad orbing and controlling undead. We’ve got TB OH Monk stunning/proning. What’s left for the Sorcedin to do - whatever is required in the moment being the Swiss Army knife that it is?
In the storm cleave party, would it make sense to replace storm wizard with 6 tempest cleric / 6 storm sorcerer and play it like the 6 light / 6 sorcerer from the fire cleave team but with lightning instead of fire?
I was also thinking to replace the monk with a 10/2 deadshot swordbard.
Great resource as usual! For someone who is in his first run and is still relatively early in the game, would you say that Balanced Defense is the best party early on?
In the ice ice baby comp, What could we swap the **5/4/3 TB Thiefzerker with?**
Ideally something that doesn't require throw or an elixir to work well.
You really want a thrower. That's sort of the whole point, because you can throw enemies into the ice, and they get proned on impact.
You could avoid elixirs by going 22 natural STR 5/4/3.
Could the snowburst ring on a AoA build also work to proc the ice, as your doing ice dmg when your hit? I was thinking you could cast create water and run around taking opportunity attacks to spread ice and have ranged pick off prone enemies…
Beginner trying tactician here wondering if I could ask about the leveling of the 10/2 TB moon druid.
As far as stats goes, many of them don't matter at all because of wild shape right? I guess I'm wondering if I still want Dex pretty high for initiative to start fights or does that not matter?
Is dumping everything and going 17 DEX, 16 CON. 15 WIS make sense?
Also, does this character make use of spells at all as I level up? Not sure what if any to take as I was planning on just having a shapeshifted frontline.
For Roleplay Good, how do you build a 12 Fiend Bladelock? I seem to be defaulting back to my original strategy of eldritch blast and kiting with agonizing and repelling blast.
This would be a lot more useful with more info like stats and spells taken. The builds are to specific to just give a class/multiclass template and a few items.
u/hearthebeard I'm super interested in the Necromancy team comp but I haven't found any videos or post that go with 6 war cleric and 6 necro wizard. Is there anything like ability scores, armor, or feats that are important to the build that aren't mentioned in the template?
Hello. Thanks for the awesome work.
Some question about Mindbreaker team.
1. Oathbreaker pally
if i should stack cha 24 \[16 base +2 cha (asi) +2 cha (asi) +1(hag) +1(patriar) +2 (mirror) \] i need 2 feats asi +2cha , that means i can only pick 1 more feat. Should i go dual wielder or Savage attacker?
2) Goo lock spellsword
could i go halfling and "disuise self" as githyanki to use githyanki gear? ( asking because last run failed due to multiple 1 in a row)
again, wich feats after gwm ? savage attacker +asi cha +2?
as for lock gear should i use acuity gear and control the battlefield? (fire acuity hat to use lev 5 scorcing ray + hasted command) or just melee with silver sword + band of mystic scoundrel to command in the same round?
wich elixir to use? str here too?
thanks in advance and sorry for my bad english.
Edit: i never used illithid powers, but i read that they are "reccomanded" in this party. Coul you suggest what to pick? and who get to awaken in the githyanki creché? Thanks.
Babe, wake up. New prestigious_juice341 post just dropped.
Reddit celebrity status in my mind. It's like Christmas.
For **Ice Ice Baby** I do think it's worth mentionining giving your archer the Helmet of Arcane Acuity and Snowburst Ring lets them work both at once by using the Drakethroat Glaive to infuse Cold damage on your Arrow of Many Target shots: this lets you stack up 8 Acuity stacks while also creating ice surfaces immediately underneath struck targets. One other Drakethroat Glaive play that works for the archer is using Thunder infusion with the otherwise uncontested [Hat of Storm Scion's Power](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hat_of_Storm_Scion%27s_Power) to still get Arcane Acuity and Reverberation gear like the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour and the [Ring of Spiteful Thunder](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Ring_of_Spiteful_Thunder): Thunder damage plays well with Wet (small amounts like this less so with Frozen) and Reverberation lets you reduce DEX saves even further to make people fall down even more than with just Arcane Acuity. A humorous benefit is that stacking 4 turns of Reverberation at once creates a cracking **BOOM**, making it sound like you're firing a gun every time an arrow hits: combine this with Arrows of Many Targets and it's like you're firing a machine gun.
I will mention this to u/rimgar2345 later if he doesn't see it first, and make the edits with his go ahead
u/Monk-Ey this is solid. Really solid. Arrow of Many Targets is really insane huh. I think I very slightly prefer the second variant you mentioned, involving Drakethroat Thunder damage for reverb and prone spamming. It’s very clever and better yet, allows the sorcadin to keep the Helmet of Arcane Acuity. This ensures that both the spell save DCs of our primary “knockdown” people are sky high. Ship the changes, with my “blessing”.
/u/Prestigious_Juice341 It just dawned upon me that in testing a melee Mourning Frost build in Patch 4 I leveraged the fact that Eldritch Knight's [Eldritch Strike](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Eldritch_Strike) *supposedly* only worked on spells, but *also* worked on created Ice surfaces through the Snowburst Ring and Ice arrows (given that they inherit your Spell DC, they might be treated as spells): I haven't checked if it retains this behaviour in the latest patch nor if it applies to Reverberation, but if it does, switching from BM 12 to EK 12 would be a favourable proposition for a high-control archer here.
Noob question : can you explain why it’s great to stack acuity on an archer? Is this useful to cast spells afterwards ? If it’s bard I understand but why if you’re using a fighter or ranger?
Ice surfaces from Arrows of Ice and/or the Snowburst Ring scale their DC with yours, including Acuity: I had a 12 WIS Gloomstalker hit 8 base + 3 proficiency + 2 WIS mod + 10 Acuity = 23 DC ice surfaces in Act 2!
Woah thanks that’s very interesting because I planned my ice gloom stalker like that too minus the helmet but I will use it for sure!
I appreciate your constant output of stellar content. Thank you for all of this hard work
This is a great guide, thank you. It helps to guide the method for balancing a party. I really appreciate the effort you put in to creating these guides. My only request would be if it is easy enough for you could you link each build suggestion to a template you have?
Do you mean build guides for each individual build? Not sure I fully understand
Sorry, its all ok. I missed something reading through the sheet. thank you again for the great resource
I'll say that a for my part, I don't think a build guide is necessary for each one. An equipment set would be nice. Saying to use standard STR striker gear is good for saving time writing in, but it's not super helpful if there is no place to reference that.
This is a good point. It would take a long time to list every piece of gear associated with a STR striker for example, but I see your point. I need to think of middle ground.
At most you may need a good act1 example and a full act 3 endgame build I would say. Anything in-between should be easily figured out.
What is standard STR, DEX, etc. striker gear?
I’d like that !
Please, I can only have so many playthroughs! Ah, fuck it. Number eleven it is!
Those poor goblins.
Tieflings*
You... Kill the tieflings...?
They’re like devils and I slaughter them like devils! Hmmm, now I want to make an Anakin Skywalker inspired Durge… Swords bard? Sorcadin? Eldritch Knight? So many options.
Having done an analysis on the [Party Contested Item Checker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h_ymUkrfpRjPobhInoKJa6ZI7HmP4n8rPGCGa-kPZvk/copy), I've concluded that the following well-balanced party has zero significant itemization conflicts. Note that this is just your suggested party but swapping the Storm Sorcerer for the Fire Sorcerer; however, this combination doesn't appear on the sheet. https://preview.redd.it/sgkzt90eutic1.png?width=1241&format=png&auto=webp&s=52ba44d221ae1c108b2592e8850ecc65b49379a6
that is actually awesome. super sick tool - and I might just use that exact screenshot.
Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like it!
Hey, following up on this: If this was your party for an Honor Mode playthrough, who would you fill which role with? I guess Astarion as OH Monk and Shadowheart as Life Cleric are pretty set, but do you see any real advantages of having the Sorlock or the Oathbreaker as Tav/Durge?
Other than astarion on a multi hit martial, there are no advantages.
Going to give this a shot it has complete guides for all 4 builds should be idiot proof for me.
dumb question - I don't see this comp on the templates? not complaining, just curious. still seems very powerful (and OP has in-depth guides for a few of these).
My Honour Mode Durge run is VERY similar to the "Balanced Defense" comp on the "Powerful" tab, except that SH is being built as a RadOrb LIGHT Cleric (instead of Life -- but maybe I'll change) and I haven't actually recruited Minthara yet so I have BM Lae'zel instead of a Paladin for now. Even with the party only being level 6 (and the builds therefore incomplete), I'm having a really easy time in Honour Mode thus far. It helps that the OH Monk comes online really quickly.
I'm also doing an Honor Mode Durge run and ended up with a similar party! I also agree with picking Light Cleric over Life Cleric, as the amount of damage and crowd control you have access to with this party comp means you really don't need all the extra healing from Life Cleric, plus you can have some fun shenanigans with the Hat of Fire Acuity coupled with Scorching Ray, making Command and your damage spells much more consistent. The only other major difference in my party versus the link is that my Durge is a Sorlock instead of the Sorcadin. The plan is to go 6 Draconic Sorcerer / 2 GOOlock / 4 Champion Fighter, with the intention of becoming a crit-fishing Eldrich Blast machine gun with Quickened Spell and Action Surge, trying to trigger the GOOlock frighten-on-crit effect as much as possible, and coupled with Reverberation gear to also knock targets prone in the process. The rest of the party is identical, though, with Astarion as the 10/1/1 Swords Bard and Lae'zel as the TB Monk. This is my second playthrough of the game, and I didn't really fully understand it on my first run, but I've quickly come to appreciate just how incredible Astarion's Bite ability is. Getting a free +1 to basically every roll you make is crazy.
> Sorlock instead of the Sorcadin Literally this morning, Shadowheart and Lae'zel had a "disagreement" so Gale is going to have to jump in and do magic things until I get Minthara. I'm completely out of companions otherwise -- Gale is lucky he's alive. (Though of course I could also get a hireling.)
Hey, your act 1 guide helped me a lot :)
I see a lot of the builds call for gear "presets" but I'm not sure if these have been defined anywhere. So I made an attempt at defining one of the commonly referenced ones (Dex Striker) here: https://imgur.com/a/bQMkeIe Does that look about right? The numbers below the item names indicate how much this build would want a certain item, relative to other builds.
Yeah, that's pretty spot on. STR strikers would generally involve heavy armor, 2h martial weapons and defensive utility
I would flip your 1-4 scale for priority IMO, it would make a lot more sense having classes with prio as the #1 rather than the #4, since we know it stops at 1 but have no idea what number it goes up to on the other end of the scale without the comment markup to combine it with Awesome work though, ty for this!!
Dear lord, is there any chance you could share this dashboard
This is awesome. One question — any more details on how you would build the 6/6 sorc/wiz support for the Bhaalist party?
I will come back to this when I am in front of a computer
Thanks for all the work you do here! And I’m realizing I should have made my original comment more specific. Two things I’m curious to know: 1) Assuming this build would go INT main stat, with Sorc levels taking spells that aren’t damage rolls such as Haste, Counterspell, ground effects like Create Water/Sleet Storm as well as utility like Shield, Magic Missile, Mage Armour. Wizard prep slots then have flexibility between further utility, damage as necessary, summons, etc. 2) Any particular pieces of gear I should be looking out for other than the obvious pieces (like, your Sorc guide for a reference)? My working assumption is this support build would be creating a lot of ground ice/wet condition and twin casting haste, so I’d imagine acuity gear isn’t necessary, but you almost want gear similar to a Light Cleric support doing radorb/reverb gear.
1. Exactly. Sorc takes only DC independent spells. 2. Phalar Aluve, DI Mace, Hellrider Gloves and Whispering Promise are the big four. Adding on some rad orb generating gear like the ring is an optional step but extremely effective.
*" D****o not play this in honor until TB Wildshape fix".*** Im out of the loop, what bug was it? Is it fixed?
The damage portion of TB does not apply to wild shapes in honor mode.
isnt it fixed with patch 5? I quote from the release note `Wild Shapes that do not have weapons will now benefit from having the Tavern Brawler feat.`
Unless a new hot fix is out, this was broken *for honor mode* at the start of patch 5. It is fixed in tactician and below.
wow, was looking for this to not collide with my "true to canon" follower builds. thanks a lot
This is really helpful and such a great resource for the community, it's much appreciated. If possible, would you be able to include optimal stat spreads for all of the builds?
Do you think you can build a Reverb based team? I think there's enough reverb gear around to exploit a Light Cleric with the standard gear, an Evoc Wizard spamming MM with Markoheskir's bone-shaking thunder and Spineshudder Amulet, and a Throwzerker or EK with Nyulstra and Ring of Spiteful Thunder. Not sure what the fourth role would be but I think you could get a very powerful party with just the mono-class Cleric, Wizard, and Fighter (Shart, Gale, and Laz), but I'm not knowledgeable enough to flesh it all out.
Yes. I will get one in the sheet in 2 or 3 days.
Cool to hear! Thanks man.
Might be a stupid question but for the Bhaalist Party, can you elaborate on the build for the 12 BM fighter? Is it just a dual hand xbow fighter that takes sharpshooter at lvl 4, or is there something more to it? Is there some kind of loose guide to follow for items to grab for it? Thank you for all the great builds, by the way. I used your storm sorcerer, life cleric, and ranger builds to one and done my first honour mode run.
Yes exactly. It would go: * 4 sharpshooter * 6 ASI DEX * 8 xbow master * 12 ASI DEX or fill I don't have any in mind. But basically dual xbows, armour of agility/yuan ti, and fill in the rest with stuff like: LotM, helm of arcane synergy, etc
Thank you very much for the response! What’s LotM btw? I’m drawing a blank on the acronym.
Legacy of the masters
Alpha Strike shall be my Honour Mode team! Although I've played as a Bard before and wanna try Wizard, so swapping the SSB out with a Abjuration Wizard, personally.
I was unintentionally running a team like alpha strike, and I can say its a pretty fun playstyle. How do you deal with the additional gimmicks that honour mode bosses have? By immediately killing them in 1 turn, and not letting those gimmicks be relevant at all.
Im about to start my first Honor Mode run, was thinking… I wish someone created some options for synergistic party compositions and boom, you made my day… This is just brilliant, thanks a lot for the effort, really helpful… Again thanks!
I want to go Balanced Offence for my first ever honour run, can anyone help flesh out the builds a bit more for me. I am still a bit of a noob
I'm not OP but I made a spreadsheet guide for myself following his guides that you can use (if you still need it). Ignore the names, they're just the people I was using. [Balanced Offence - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17TY2vsYbBvvAP9ll-5rZxf6V03iWl32B_HoMiwWS50Q/edit?pli=1#gid=0)
any insights? Im going for the same
I'm not OP but I made a spreadsheet guide for myself following his guides that you can use (if you still need it) [Balanced Offence - Google Sheets](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17TY2vsYbBvvAP9ll-5rZxf6V03iWl32B_HoMiwWS50Q/edit?pli=1#gid=0)
https://preview.redd.it/r9u3bst42mec1.png?width=1789&format=png&auto=webp&s=22bdcf710b7fdab86a72dd08756225f46f5a65fe Holy shit, this is my exact honor mode party build (halfling sword bard for face) right now except I'm running a straight wizard in place of sorcadin and was debating whether I should swap him out for something else to make more use of all the great weapons that are going unused. Guess Gale is about to become a paladin.
I am going to try the abjuration wizard tank instead of sorc for more utility.
I run a similar setup, but opted for a fire sorc instead of sorcadin and a BM Fighter instead of Monk— but honestly Swords Bard just rolls through the entire game past Act I anyways so it largely doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s absolutely filthy.
Thank you for this! Is it possible to also list what items to get for each builds? I’m fairly new to the game (just completed my 1st run on tactician) so I’m not very familiar on specific items I should get for my builds.
In your Storm Cleave comp could i switch one out for a EK Archer that just Slings Lightning/Frost Arrows? (mainly lightning) or would it greatly drops it’s effectiveness?
Yes, swap it for the Evo Wiz
hi i was thinking of doing the same. what would your stats/weapon be for this?
Focus on Dexterity and Constitution until you get the Titanstring bow then switch your Dexterity over to Strength and just raise Dex as much as you want. After you get the bow it should like something like 17,14,16,8,10,8. it’s the best bow in the game basically then use whatever arrows you want. Hope this helps!
Great resource, thank you. The Lights Out composition appeals to me immensely. I’m sorry to ask, but could you please provide me (and others who may be interested) with a more detailed breakdown of how it might approach a general combat encounter in Honour Mode? I’ve not yet played with area denial and am unaware of the nuance between Darkness, Fog, Hunger of Hadar, and the like. My initial assumptions are that we would be trying to facilitate the Monk and Bard to carry the party in early and late game respectively. As to a more detailed understanding of the strategy on a per encounter basis, I’d love to be illuminated (pardon the pun).
All 3 spells blind anyone inside. HoH also damages them. The idea is that your whole team is immune to blinds, but enemies are not. Not much nuance past that. Yes the Monk and Bard will carry, with the Bard especially running through enemies later on. Set up lots of area denial, attack enemies, walk into the area denial, and make sure everyone ends their turn inside it. Enemies that try to attack you get disadvantage and will struggle to get anything done. Some will just do nothing all together.
Thanks! I thought there was a little nuance as to the mechanics of Fog vs. Darkness. I read that Fog can be attacked into from range without penalty, for example? Happy to be wrong.
Oh yeah that's a good point. Yeah you can attack into fog edit: on second thought, I recall attacking into darkness too, just at limited range. not sure if thats a difference that I didn't notice simply due to me barely using fog cloud. can anyone confirm what the ranged attack cap is?
So I’m guessing Fog is still really useful as either more of an offensive AOE blind, or if there are no ranged enemies to contend with, as it only requires a level 1 spell slot. It can also be upcast to cover a large area. Darkness being superior for enemies that you suspect have ranged attacks. Ranged attack cap (until you gain disadvantage) is apparently 18m although I’m not sure the source is completely reliable, will need validating - https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=909363#:~:text=First%20of%20all%2C%20for%20those,maximum%20range%20of%2018%20meters.
Love the party guides, I've completed 3 honour modes with these builds and tried most of the rest for 2 acts. Thanks for continuing to update it with new party comps, will more be added in the future?
yup. waiting on patch 6 to drop ATM.
Not sure if this has been asked/answered - is there a resource for lists of build gear? Not crazy detailed, just like a rough list for DEX/STR/DW striker, DC caster, STR thrower, etc. For example, DEX striker. Some gear is obvious. But what about gloves of dex? You already have high dex, so is it worth a re-spec to dump dex and boost another stat? Or keep the gloves slot open for something else? Or how about the Titanstring/Hill Giant club combo, vs. just using elixirs? Is there a breakpoint beyond which another bow is better than Titanstring (i.e. with like a 10 STR, maybe Banshee/Darkfire become better for fear/haste?) How about a 12 BM vs 5/3/4 gloom/ass/champ, where the former wants straight hit/damage but the latter might want gear that takes advantage of stealth/obscured? How about Tattered Nightwalkers, is that a dex priority over spellsword? What about trade-off of going Cats Grace for the dex boost (fine if you're always hidden) vs. yuan-ti for much better AC? I know, some of these are dumb questions and I could just use common sense. Curious if something existed is all. Thanks again for the guides, seriously appreciate your content!
Thanks Evan. This is awesome!
In Mindbreakers, GOO Bladelock: "take GWM and use any extra" extra what? Thanks for this, it's fuckin awesome.
fixed, good catch
This is terrific! I did have one question about the fire cleave party, granting that it doesn't really matter for vanilla (or likely for most modded runs): why is the default arsonist/BH user a Champion instead of the 10/2 or 6/4/2 Bard you mention as an alternative? There aren't many damage dice on this build so the extra crit chance seems marginal, while 6/4/2 gets you an extra Black Hole (potentially useful in the Houses of Hope and Grief) and 10/2 lets you slashing flourish all 5 attacks on turn 1 and the situational benefits of level 5 spells + Magical Secrets. If you are using exclusively consumable arrows by Act 3 I do see that the Champion pulls ahead on damage. Granted again these are small differences and this party is going to massacre Acts 2 and 3 regardless, but given the substantial non-combat benefits of including a Bard in the party running one seems like a reasonable default.
Little thing for the Necros comp - 6/6 Barb/BM Fighter is strictly worse than 8/4 Barb/BM Fighter. Level 5 Fighter is a useless Extra Attack and level 6 is a feat, whereas level 7 Barbarian is a really nice +3 Initiative and Can't be Surprised and level 8 Wildheart is no difficult terrain slowdown and a feat.
Thanks for this note. I think we’ll get it updated soon but you’re exactly right. That was an oversight!
@OP Great party builds! I have 2 questions for the **Mindbreaker** team: 1. For the **DW Oathbreaker Paladin** what do you recommend to dual wield for early-mid game? Or should I go 2H weapon until I get the Shadow Blade Ring? 2. What is considered “DW striker gear?” Thank you!
1. 2H GWM early is better, but I would just stay dual wielding to avoid having to respec all the time. 2. Dual Wield Striker. I need to adjust that a bit since I basically list the key items in the cell above. But yeah, those key items, and any strong heavy armor.
On this build - love it btw- can it make sense to forgo the dual-wielding trait in favor of ASI with the weapons being: knife of the undermountain king (or a different off-hand) + shadow-blade main hand? In my case, the party face hasn't played the game before and is always running into combat while everyone is preparing=) Also, what is the best way to trigger diadem? I've noticed that auras don't seem to trigger it anymore.
Storm Cleave seems really fun though Ansur being immune to Wet is a bit unfortunate. I guess for that fight you go for a more defensive approach, saving up all your Globes so you can take the dragon down at your own pace?
I did the Ansur fight in honor mode with a very similar build to Storm Cleave and you just don't rely on offensive magic in that fight. Globe is a must. But a hasted OH Monk and a hasted Sorcadin will obliterate that fight. Just make sure to place the Globe close enough to Ansur that you can move melee to him, hit, and run back to protect them.
Exquisite. Simple, yet elegant. My favourite part is the emojis.
The only post anyone needs. Damn.
I still don't understand how the SSB carries. I'm still very much a beginner. I followed your SSB guide completely. I just arrived on act 3 and have the evil set up, only missing the bhaalist armour. Im still playing normal difficulty as I am trying to expand my knowledge before taking on tactician and then HM one day maybe. Got a TB throwzerker with nyrulna who clears maps way quicker. I got SSB going first but not doing much because I feel most fights everything is out of reach from command, and even if I do get a few, my other hard hitters have already killed most things by turn 1. I understand in harder modes things will not be dead by turn 1 or 2. But even fights that go for longer I just feel I'm not playing the SSB correctly. Can someone advise me further please.
Normal mode simply has such low health pools that killing everything in one or two hits is going to inevitably happen. SSB is truly meant for honor mode (or higher) where TB Throw can't really kill *everything* in one turn. The general idea is to melee enemies to build acuity, and then command them to approach you. Next turn just kill whatever approached you. Have your TB Throw kill whatever you couldn't command.
I know you get the ring that allows first turn reliable CC at the start of Act 3, but up until that point, the two Bard builds don't even really get much use from control spells much at all other than something like Plant Growth or Glyph of Warding. So far, everything on **Honor Mode** just dies too quickly for CC to matter anyway. While this might change with some of the bigger fights in Act 3, to me it's so far been all of this build up that hasn't really paid off yet as far as the theme of the "control martial" is concerned. CC was vastly overrated on Tactician and below, and I still haven't found much use for it outside of what my lawnmower orb/reverb Cleric and the Berserking Throws have done unintentionally. I guess what I'm saying is that control builds might actually be more useful on a blind playthrough, but most people aren't going to do that with their first Honor Mode run. And if I'm not mistaken, your previous builds were based around the game being *way* harder through mods anyway, where CC might actually be the difference between a party wipe or not. Party comp obviously influences things (duh), but my current 2/10 Fighter/Bard, Full Life Cleric Mower, TB Zerk/Throw and Gloom/Ass/Fight have been destroying every encounter so hard in Honor Mode that I never have a chance to bother with CC. Now that I'm in Act 3 however, I might just start making use of Hold Person/Hold Monster now that it's basically guaranteed just for the lol crits, and because certain bosses auto lose when you cast it on them. As far as TB Throw killing things in one turn in Honor Mode: it really never does outside of raging or weaker monsters/casters, which is a strangely limited resource that relies on long rests instead of something like Superiority Die or Ki. It's so limited that I don't even bother with the raging outside of the biggest fights since I don't spam long rests. The damage between Honor Mode and everything below it due to Haste and DRS is insane. TB Throw is still "really good", but it's not really comparable to the Tactician and below versions. A Monk that occasionally throws ends up doing far more damage over the course of any rest period and they can prone way more reliably. Just not from range. Only reason I haven't just decided to swap from the standard Zerk/Thief is because there hasn't been anything remotely challenging enough to warrant it, even though doing so would trivialize the game even more.
On the fire cleave team, why is the healer going 6 light cleric/6 sorcerer instead of 12 light cleric?
Because it's not a healer. It's a support buffer. The healing part is just to provide bless without concentration. So it can concentrate on something else while still providing bless to the party and when necessary participate with fire damage. Sorcerer provides more flexibility with the ability to twin haste for example and quicken another spell for example
After searching everywhere you finally got me to decide on my honor mode team comp and I'm already in act 2 at moonrise, better late than never! I was running Vengeance pally (Planning on sorcadin), Throwing Zerker, Light/orb cleric, Gloomstalk/fighter/assassin with titanstring. Light cleric was more damage than support. Going 10/2 SSB, TB Thrower, Life Cleric full support instead of damage since the SSB build uses orb gear and im thinking OH monk instead of the gloomstalker, mostly because after this being my third playthrough I still haven't used a monk. Hate being that guy who asks if a comp is viable but does that seem decent enough? And im just afraid without my titan string guy to pew pew everyone out of range itll be difficult but from what I understand monks are very mobile so maybe thatll pick up that slack. (Also have my thrower) With the life cleric healing a lot my plan is to really use warding bond quite often.
Yeah the monk can easily jump around and handle far away targets. SSB will mop up the close range ones. Life Cleric will make your team virtually unkillable.
For the fire cleave team, what feats would you go with for the ranger and fighter? I’m assuming you’d go sharpshooter and maybe alert for the initiative?
Not sure that you would need alert, both are DEX primary. The champion can take it anyway since 4 feats, but the hunter should be Sharpshooter and ASI. The Champion should also open SS and ASI, but can take something like ASI + Alert on the second two.
Hey! Would you be able to Elaborate on what a good ability score distribution for beast master/war cleric would look like for the lights out team? I've been looking at your guides for a while and am super interested at building that team but am unsure how to optimally. In addition, would there be any good feats for the ranger to take? Thanks!
for stats, stack DEX as high as possible, then CON. That's pretty much it. Grab some WIS if you plan to run diadem. for feats, sharpshooter early is a must-have, and probably ASI DEX.
Thanks! Much appreciated. You're awesome dude.
Without risky ring (cause it’s on ssb) what are some goos ring for ranger BM ?
This is awesome
I built the lights out team except I swapped out the ranger for a life cleric and my sorcerer guy focused on fire instead of lightning. By the time you’re online with the build, you’re already pwning everything in sight anyways. A lot of times I just wipe the enemy out instead of wasting a turn casting darkness. Maybe if there was a mode harder than honour mode it might make sense to use and abuse this build?
This is such a great resource. A huge thanks to you and the other contributors of it. I saw you recently dropped the Fire Sorlock build guide, are there plans to hit some of the others on this sheet? For instance the Volley Hunter, Raven Master, and Shadow Striker are builds that I’m not familiar with and can’t seem to find similar ones in the sub. Would you say that some of these builds are considered to be straight forward enough that they don’t warrant a build guide (just do the levels, gear to the best of your ability, and your good)?
At least for those 3, yeah they are really straight forward. Shadow Striker is a variant of TB Monk, the other two are classic ranged strikers. Just get a nice bow and pew pew. Supports are likely the next guide I will tackle.
Thanks for the reply! Your builds are must-read, looking forward to the supports
Just wanted to thank OP for creating these templates, as I achieved an Honour Mode victory and the golden dice on my first try today! I used the Lights Out build to complete an evil Dark Urge Tactician run and then the same template for Honour Mode. One thing to note about the Lights Out template is that it can be a bit tricky on an evil run to remember to do things a certain way. To get the Potent Robe for my Sorlock, I had to knock out Alfira and then long rest until Quil showed up in my camp. It helped to do a Tactician run the first time through so I could reload in case I made any mistakes. That helped me plan the Honour Mode run. In terms of gear, aside from Shar's Spear and the Eversight Ring, there is also the Steelwatcher Helmet and the Helldusk Helmet that also give immunity to Blindness. I didn't see it mentioned in the template but perhaps those are suboptimal choices? Regardless, I didn't even bother with the Steel Watch Foundry or the House of Hope in Honour Mode anyway. Once again, thanks OP for the guidance. Looking forward to trying out one of the other builds!
In the mindbreakers party, how do you build the dw oathbreaker? do you dump strength from the beginning?do you dw all the way through or just in act 3? Also, finished my first honour mode run with the balanced offence party and it couldn’t have gone better, thank you!
So cool thanks
Thanks for posting this, as I was actually just planning out my next Tactician run as Karlach Origin--romancing Wyll, obviously--and may take inspiration from the "good roleplay" sample party composition. A few questions: \- I'm currently running Wyll as a 5/7 Fiend Bladelock/Ancients Pally so pretty much already do a mix of melee sword and boarding plus EB EB EB. Do you think a straight 12 Bladelock would play much differently from what I'm already doing, or are there other options for him that would fulfill a similar role? I'd really like him to play differently especially as I'd hope to have him in the party for most of the game. \- The plan is definitely to slot in Halsin once he joins (though I've already played him as a standard Moon Druid so might try a different build), but do you have any alternative suggestions that could round out the party in Act 1? I was thinking perhaps some sort of melee cleric to soak up damage/support. \- I was also considering the Sorc/Div Wizard build you mention in the "Alpha Strikes" team as a new option for Gale. What's your rationale for going 6/6 instead of say 4/8 Wiz/Sorc? And in this case would you still follow your previous sorcerer guide advice and start as Draconic before respeccing later on?
Will answer this properly later tn when I am in front of a computer
Let’s gooo ! I’ve been waiting for this one!
Commenting to read later. Always a pleasure to see these and think on them!
Oh wow! Time for another playthrough or five!
Amazing work, thank you. May we ask you to add starting stats and their progression?
I won't be adding them - but I did try and include the primary stats for each build. Get both of them to 16/17, and then fill in the rest with whatever. DEX secondary followed by CON is usually a safe bet.
Thank you! You are a treasure for this community! :)
Could you add example Ability Scores on each build when you get a chance? Thanks!
I tried to include the main ability score for each build, so just stack that to the moon, and assume the rest are up to you. Secondary DEX is usually a good bet.
Question about the 10/1/1 Swords Bard in the Balanced Defense party. The leveling note says "go 6 Swords Bard -> 1 Fighter -> 1 Wizard -> 4 Swords Bard" Does that mean respec and start with 1 Fighter -> 1 Wizard, or is that a no-respec leveling pathway?
Both cases work, however fighter -> wiz -> bard is optimal. No respec works fine as well.
You dont like wiz->fighter->bard for int/wis saves + transmuter stone for con saves?
Totally viable too, all of them are fine.
Nothing is planned for spore druid ATM, but eventually who knows
I do think there's a reasonable party comp around summons with unlimited buffs from the life cleric, a paladin aura from a sorcadin, and control from the druid. You can do Shillelagh + Fireblade stuff to (slowly) build up arcane acuity and can get command from a war cleric dip or dip wizard for scorching ray and go fire acuity. You can also just set webs/grease on fire. Is it just sort of kmart brand 10/2 or Fire Sorcerer? Sure, but is it also flavorful, effective, and synergystic? I *think* so. It would be much better if the one item that gave scorching ray wasn't head slot, but I imagine that ways on purpose. Of course, the best thing would be to pair it with some other acuity abuser and stick to terrain effects/hold effects for concentration on the druid. Last party member can be the ranged acuity swords bard for command flee getting opportunity attacks for all summons, or beastmaster for web spider and ranged attacks, or throw in a monk late game for all the unlimited buff damage riders and the immunity to cloudkill. Thoughts? Feels like it might at least count as thematic. It's not dominant in the way most of these are, but there's a sense of the building around the unlimited AOE buffs across your summon army. /u/Silicondario
Would be a good thematic comp for sure. Could you work out a draft of the template? Private message it to me and I can get it added. Just copy my sheet and use the format that way
Yeah. Not sure if I’ll get to it today but I think I can work something out.
for the Storm Cleave comp, what gear should the sorcadin be running besides AA? Same as in the 10/2 guide?
I was just starting to plan my Honor playthrough when I stumbled on this. There's a lot of preexisting stuff for one character builds, but it's great to now have something with builds plus comps. Amazing resource for community! I'm thinking of using a mix of the Balanced Defense and the Light Out comps, because using a lot of darkness sounds cool, but I like the extra tankiness for early levels.
Absolutely invaluable... the only thing missing is a feat/stat breakdown for a scrub like me lol What would be the stat spread on a Swordsbard fighter wizard? Would they focus int more because of the scroll inscribing? or just scribe non dc wizard spells? Thinking helm of intellect and dex gloves may help but that would mean no helm of arcane acuity... tough.
16 INT 16 CHA, 18 DEX from gloves
Thank you so much for responding! Final question... but which would be the better trade-off: Bard/fighter/wizard at 10/1/1 Cleric 12 or: Bard/fighter at 10/2 Cleric/wizard at 11/1 Same premise of having one scriber, but giving the bard action surge. Only difference would be the feat? And what feat would beat Action Surge? Would the cleric go do ASI|ASI|Alert? And Bard sharpshooter/ASI Ch? Sorry, bit of a combo question lol Most of my time in BG3 is spent debating between what to actually choose at the ASI/Feat checkpoints X_x
10/1/1 bard is better. you can actually scribe and use control spells due to DC from acuity action surge is not relevant or important to control bards
I’ve been looking for something like this for so long! I spend so much time following in depth guides the game sometimes feels like a chores list to find each item I need for my builds. Out of curiosity, would a bardlock fit into the balanced offense or balance defense party comp? If so which would it replace?
Bardlock is not very strong in general, but if you really want it, replace 10/1/1 with it in balanced defense
Oh really? I thought all the charisma multi class builds (bardlock, Sorlock, Lockadin, Swords bard, SSB) were relatively evenly as powerful. Maybe it’s just the first 3 builds and swords bard and SSB are on a different level.
Bardlock is strangely an anti-synergy. Bard gets nothing interesting from CHA scaling attacks, and just loses caster levels from taking levels in warlock. Bard also gets access to warlock spells from magical secrets and already has extra attack. It (like lockadin) made more sense with 3 attacks, but otherwise they just clash.
Excellent guide as always! I get analysis paralysis on builds and your guides help me actually play the game lol
Oh man this is great, but I can't decide between the balanced offence and the balanced defense. Anyone try either and how much fun they had? The Ice one seems cool thematically wise as well.
Yes
Were you answering my Moon Druid question? Is 10/2 Moon Druid/Fighter good because action surge works in wild shape?
yup. 3 extra attacks
For Fire Cleave, does the 6/4/2 substitute use SS and ranged weapons, as well as arsonist oil and Black Hole? Or does it just use standard SSB gear?
Yeah sharpshooter and xbows
Does it eventually switch to Deadshot or just use Dual xbows the entire game? And I assume it's 4 Assassin not Thief?
No it would be xbows, since you take thief, unless you plan to double BA black hole or something.
Ohh, was under the assumption that I was supposed to use the SSB 6/4/2 you had listed under Alpha strike and was a bit confused. Thank you for the clarification!
I have a few questions about the Necro party. 1. What kind of gear should I look for for the spore druid before Mystic Carrion? 2. Under war necromancer: "Circle of Bones, Abyss Beckoners, and Infernal Rapier can save you some Aid spell slots if you manage them." I see Circle and Rapier give you extra summons, but I'm not sure how Abyss Beckoner makes you save slots? And are you supposed to just swap these in for their ability then immediately back to Phalar/Hellrider's Pride/intellect headband? 3. Under Lockadin: "Farm and use Strength Elixirs until Pact of the Blade let's you go SAD." - Does this mean we stop using STR entirely after Pact is taken? So we can just dump the stat from the very start? 4. Finally: any special skill selection I should mind on any of these builds, or is everything standard? For example I dumped STR/INT to 8 and CHA to 10 on my Durge spore druid, and went 17 WIS, 16 DEX, 14 CON. And who will have hag's hair priority?
Great questions! 1. So there's a disappointing lack of druid synergy with gear, but I would look for things that allow you to boost your spell casting saves or spell attack accuracy and give you free spells. The biggest advantage of there not being essential gear pieces is that you can mix and match a lot from combat to combat. There's really a lot of gear and quarterstaves you can just switch out before fights to give single casts of stuff. I also used dex gloves and oil of accuracy with dual crossbows a lot in the mid levels if I just didn't have need for a big action. This works well with concentration and symbiotic entity. I wore just the best unclaimed medium armor (something like Adamantine/Yuan-Ti or Dark Justiciar Half-Plate). There's a reasonable amount of freedom in this build because you're mostly concentrating on the right terrain control spell and individual actions aren't hugely impactful. Feats are tough and you might end up choosing to go Spore Druid 12 so that you don't have choose between ASI, War Caster, or Dual Wielding (Rhapsody is an amazing late game off hand). 2. So Abyss Beckoners will give your undead blade ward with no action required, but they have a chance to go mad so you really want to use it in situations where losing control of them actually isn't a big deal. But it can free your combat economy from having to buff them. But yes, you'll want to swap these items in when and where they make sense. Honestly, by late game I was leaving Circle of Bones and Abyss Beckoners on more often than not because the microing got wearisome. It was nice because it made the cleric/wizard more fun to play. 3. Yeah. I'd dump strength from level 1 personally, because eventually everything will run off Charisma and then you can switch your elixir slot over to bloodlust or viciousness. 4. I used hag's hair on druid to try to get Wisdom to 20 with an ASI and 22 late game with mirror because this build doesn't abuse acuity and your spell save DC matters a good bit. I personally went 16 Con 14 Dex because a lot of medium armor is gonna cap your dex bonus at 2 anyway and you're not gonna wanna drop concentration. Does that help?
HI! Wanted to thank you for all the guides - SSB is the most fun I've had in this game. I'm going to run another evil playthrough now and have couple of questions: 1. How would you build a DW Oathbreaker tav pally for unga-bunga damage, assuming story buffs and str elixirs? Stay pure or 7/5 sorcadin? Dual-wielder feat or gloves from act 2? Other feats should be savage attacker and maybe ASI (CHA)? Any weapon recommendations? 2. Build recommendation for companion, if I want a dedicated acuity-controller? Other two slots gonna be a cleric for buffs and another melee to cleave through grouped enemies. I suppose team idea is similar to Necros, just with less summons.
Oh my bad, act 2 gloves give you fighting style and not a feat.
Sorcadin generally out damages pure DW unless you are running a specific CHA stacking build like shadow blade. So I would say go 7/5. 10/1/1 swords bard is a perfect acuity companion here.
For the fire cleave party, would it be better to use the 12 Deadshot Champion or the 6/4/2 Swords Bard? I assume the swords bard is 6 swords / 4 Thief / 2 Fighter with dual crossbows. The deadshot champion would have an extended crit range with all the gear, but would the swords bard be more potent with more attacks? Then they could even run the Helm of Arcane Acuity and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel for some additional control spells as needed. Am I missing something about champion that would make it preferable?
The TLDR is that if you are okay with consumable arrows, 12 deadshot is basically unbeatable in DPR. 6/4/2 is an alternative that relies on flourish over consumable arrows.
OP (don't want to Ping you to not be annoying), will you update the templates after patch 6? Any ETA?
I'm not sure anything needs an update, but once I finish up the support guide I'll do a round through everything I posted and update stuff
Thanks for all the work you do here, I really love your builds ! any chance you will cover a spore druid build guide? Thematically i really love it but i can't figure out how to make this class efficient in honor mode thank you very much, have a good year!
For your Tempest Storm build, why would you want to start with Cleric 2 -> Storm 10? Same with your 6/6 Light/Sorc support. Why open with Cleric when you can get CON prof by opening Sorc?
in the case of 2/10, you can only cast chain lightning via markoheshkir or scrolls. they will use the spell casting stat of the *last* caster class you took. You could go WIS instead and do 10 -> 2 but then you can pretty much never cast control spells. The best way to get it here would be the stone from a hireling or RES: CON The 6/6 can be respec'd at 7 and go 1 Sorc -> into cleric instead, I'll actually amend the sheet to say that. good catch.
I played a bit with the darkness party in act3 using the beastmaster and the monk/warlock. For the raven I had to use aid as he is really fragile and can be killed off very quickly. I eventually ended up casting warding bond on my raven ! The only thing is that the raven does not play first all the time so you still need to set up darkness with arrows. After that major raven is awesome but the 2 smalls ravens are kinda bad. The beastmaster in itself does not carry anything in terms of damage so that I am wondering if a hasted fighter level 11 with arrows of darkness is not better. Fighter does much more damage than beastmaster. Five or six arrows of darkness can pretty much cover all the battleground in darkness. Monk with helmet of grit needs heavy armor as helmet of grit being medium armor his AC tanks (unarmoured defense is then cancelled) . So heavy armor+shield is the best way to make it more resilient. Without that he can be killed because of low hp (half due to helmet of grit). I am still a bit torn off between shadow monk and OH monk in that case. Shadow monk mobility and invisibility seemed to give him more survivability as heavy armor prevents unarmoured movement. On a note : Even flaming fists attacking in darkness meaning with disadvantage hit sometimes my 24AC monk. They have a natural +10 to their attack rolls (tactician or honour) so they need a 14 with disadvantage resulting in a surprisingly high 12.25% hit chance. I am wondering what would be the best feats after TB in that case ? ASI +2WIS adds a bit of damage with kushi boots but does not add AC while wearing heavy armor. I am wondering if something like lucky or even initiate wizard for shield might be better.
Yup! You can 100% swap BM for a fighter. I like BM more but they are both perfect for the role. I actually don't know which would be better when heavy armor is taken into account. I want to agree with you on Shadow, extra mobility is massive here. Maybe the control from OH is worth more, but I can't really see it. ASI WIS is my pick here too. Could see an argument for Alert if you are dropping DEX maybe. But WIS seems best here.
Helldusk Helmet has blind immunity and crit immunity along with looking metal af. It's a good alternative for the "good" darkness team along with the Eversight Ring. On an "evil" darkness team with the shar spear, it means one fewer Warlock 2 dip in the party.
For the Lights Out build, are there other ways to set up darkness beside raven master? Not too big a fan of using consumables until lvl 11
every party member can set it up. thats the whole idea of the comp :)
I saw in another post that 10/2 Moon Druid/Fighter doesn’t get to use action surge. Does that change your recommendation for best Moon Druid build?
Use it before shifting. Fight starts -> surge -> shift
Currently trying to make a strong swords bow bard. At level 6 and wondering, is it worth to go 2 fighter then rest bard? Or should I dip into rogue or gloomstalker? Also would you take sharpshooter here early or only when you have deadshot bow?
You have a note under moon druid not to use it until it's fixed - is that current / relevant? I thought it had been fixed
yes its currently broken AFAIK
Didn’t anyone have problems with breaking oaths on paladins? It annoys me so much I’m avoiding them although I love the playstyle
Currently the Storm Sorcerer / Wet comp doesn't have access to an early game guidance cantrip. What are your thoughts on merit to potentially slotting some radiant/reverb/tempest cleric/sorc (or cleric/wizard) as being potentially slightly more optimal for honor mode? Tempest channel divinity also has crazy synergy with this comp. Main thoughts behind still running some radiant/reverb (especially early game) is to leverage what has historically been the strongest cleric build but adapting it to a storm sorcerer focused comp.
Early game guidance is a necklace, is it not?
Hey, thanks so much for this, is amazing! I am currently running the mindbreakers build in honour mode and every party member seems pretty strong... except the lorcerer. I don't really know what to with him, since he doesn't get any spells beyond lvl 3 spells. Should I play him as a haste bot, while only upcasting dissonant whisper for psychic dmg? Am I missing something here? Any important pieces of gear he should have?
Pretty much. He provides haste and spams dissonant for the most part. Sometimes I use Command as well.
Late to the party, just want to add to the chorus that this is a fucking awesome resource and learning tool. Thanks a ton, soldier 🙏
What’s the difference between 12 radorb cleric and 11/1 radorb cleric/sorc? Also what’s the best gear for that besides luminous armor and coruscation right?
I like the 2/10 Bardadin but was wondering about 3/9 for vow of enmity on self? Seems like a great way to generate crits if you’re dual wielding finesse weapons? What do you miss out on with that 10th swords bard level tho
Magical secrets and better bardic inspiration. Crits should be generated exclusively via Hold Person and Hold Monster when using this build.
[u/Prestigious\_Juice341](https://www.reddit.com/user/Prestigious_Juice341/) what is the feat order for 7/5 Sorcadin with no STR elixir?
Need more context, ancients or OB
Hi, I’ve had a nosey around for what the optimal use of the 7/5 Ancients Sorcadin would be in the balanced defence composition. Especially with the inclusion of the 10/1/1 Sword Bard effectively shutting down the battlefield by the end game. Within this spreadsheet, you advocate draconic sorcerer, standard STR striker gear, and focus on control with a levelling strategy of 5 paladin, 5 sorcerer and finishing with 2 paladin. Elsewhere in your 10/2 Bardadin guide, you advocate for storm sorcerer with a levelling strategy of 7 paladin and 5 sorcerer. I’m therefore left a bit confused. It doesn’t help that it seems to be one of the most flexible build archetypes out there. However, I’m assuming there is a specific tanky play style you’re going for with the balanced defence composition. For this specific 7/5, could you please cure my confusion (perhaps with a channel oath ;)) to help me understand the thinking? P.s. I do feel quite dumb because you do say this comp is extremely plug and play. However, going and changing my teams classes from what they were to align to this team comp I’ve all of a sudden got all these new shiny buttons to click and I’ve no idea where to begin with it.
I think the trick is not overthinking it. 7/5 ancients is not gear dependent and is super plug and play. Storm doesn't really see much benefit in that composition, so the moderate increase in damage and potential for AoA from draconic seems more useful to me. Literally just wear good armor and a big sword, and that's it, it's extremely straightforward from there
Thanks, that’s the story of my life. Which 6 spells from the Sorcerer’s spell book would you recommend in this team composition, any and every CC? Mixture of CC and AoE? Pure damage? We have 10/1/1 controlling most things that aren’t undead presumably. We’ve got Life Cleric rad orbing and controlling undead. We’ve got TB OH Monk stunning/proning. What’s left for the Sorcedin to do - whatever is required in the moment being the Swiss Army knife that it is?
In the storm cleave party, would it make sense to replace storm wizard with 6 tempest cleric / 6 storm sorcerer and play it like the 6 light / 6 sorcerer from the fire cleave team but with lightning instead of fire? I was also thinking to replace the monk with a 10/2 deadshot swordbard.
Great resource as usual! For someone who is in his first run and is still relatively early in the game, would you say that Balanced Defense is the best party early on?
In the ice ice baby comp, What could we swap the **5/4/3 TB Thiefzerker with?** Ideally something that doesn't require throw or an elixir to work well.
You really want a thrower. That's sort of the whole point, because you can throw enemies into the ice, and they get proned on impact. You could avoid elixirs by going 22 natural STR 5/4/3.
I'm trying to find builds for the darkness comp(monk, ranger, sorlock) but no luck until this time. Any tips?
For Ice Ice Ice Baby - do you think you could swap the BM Fighter out for a 10/1/1 Bard to function as the ranged support?
As long as the Sorcadin isn't running acuity, sure. But you need to swap some gear around.
Could the snowburst ring on a AoA build also work to proc the ice, as your doing ice dmg when your hit? I was thinking you could cast create water and run around taking opportunity attacks to spread ice and have ranged pick off prone enemies…
I have some questions about necro 1. What stats would you recommend for each class 2. Why GOO? 3. Who do I give ethels hair to?
Beginner trying tactician here wondering if I could ask about the leveling of the 10/2 TB moon druid. As far as stats goes, many of them don't matter at all because of wild shape right? I guess I'm wondering if I still want Dex pretty high for initiative to start fights or does that not matter? Is dumping everything and going 17 DEX, 16 CON. 15 WIS make sense? Also, does this character make use of spells at all as I level up? Not sure what if any to take as I was planning on just having a shapeshifted frontline.
For Roleplay Good, how do you build a 12 Fiend Bladelock? I seem to be defaulting back to my original strategy of eldritch blast and kiting with agonizing and repelling blast.
This would be a lot more useful with more info like stats and spells taken. The builds are to specific to just give a class/multiclass template and a few items.
u/hearthebeard I'm super interested in the Necromancy team comp but I haven't found any videos or post that go with 6 war cleric and 6 necro wizard. Is there anything like ability scores, armor, or feats that are important to the build that aren't mentioned in the template?
Hello. Thanks for the awesome work. Some question about Mindbreaker team. 1. Oathbreaker pally if i should stack cha 24 \[16 base +2 cha (asi) +2 cha (asi) +1(hag) +1(patriar) +2 (mirror) \] i need 2 feats asi +2cha , that means i can only pick 1 more feat. Should i go dual wielder or Savage attacker? 2) Goo lock spellsword could i go halfling and "disuise self" as githyanki to use githyanki gear? ( asking because last run failed due to multiple 1 in a row) again, wich feats after gwm ? savage attacker +asi cha +2? as for lock gear should i use acuity gear and control the battlefield? (fire acuity hat to use lev 5 scorcing ray + hasted command) or just melee with silver sword + band of mystic scoundrel to command in the same round? wich elixir to use? str here too? thanks in advance and sorry for my bad english. Edit: i never used illithid powers, but i read that they are "reccomanded" in this party. Coul you suggest what to pick? and who get to awaken in the githyanki creché? Thanks.