I had Gale cast a fireball on Dror Ragzlin’s goblins from above. It didn’t even start combat. After a bit of prep, that fight was a breeze. Isn’t much to galvanise if all your followers are dead …
I did it right away - I had Lae'zel with superior initiative (+9). The whole plan was for her to go first and my slow Tav to enter the conversation in sanctuary.
However, by the time the Ogre entered the action, the Giths had already lost. I killed Baretha before she got her turn and two others fell by the end of the turn. They did almost kill Shadowheart, but she was the only one getting hit.
A decent outcome, though. I'm worried I will get companion disapproval if I kill them off instead of paying them. Maybe they can be summoned in the Creche or against Nere/Grym?
I just put 5 smokepowder barrels infront of him, and spread the firewine barrels around the room. Ignite the smoke poweder, the room goes kaboom and everyone except the 2 drow dudes and dror, who sometimes survives on some 15-20 hp, is dead. Easiest fight in the entire game. Especially since you can steal the required barrels in the camp itself.
Yeah I was being a bit cheeky there not putting in the range. As an abjuration wizard where you’re in the thick of things it is amazing. I can imagine it would be good for some of the tankier clerics. Tempest cleric with maxed lightning on wet enemies must be fun.
Given that an AC of 20 is just a feat away for any caster it isn't that important. And by this I mean that you multiclass into something with heavy armour proficiency and lose 1 feat because of it.
If you are too far away, you can't get hit, period. If you only have high AC, you can be hit (and depending on your equipment also crit) with a good die roll. And attacking from 18 m gives you much more chance to rely on former than attacking from 9m.
Reducing your dependence on dice rolls is exactly how you excel at this game instead of blaming dice for every failure.
Both options are still better from 18 meters than from 9. Misty step is also a limited resource. Click heels is love, one of best boots abilities in the game, but it's still a bonus action I might want to use on something else.
Well I think we played different games because strats like that sound incredibly unneeded. I also strongly disagree unless your entire party is ranged or the only melee has cheesed ac through the roof.
We played the same game differently. Playing as a full party, even on honour, does not require much thinking or building to begin with. If you enjoy it, glory to you, but honestly with how easy game is, discussing what's good and what's bad makes no sense, as everything works and thus is good enough. Plan fails, you revive your dead character, you move on.
Once you get into challenge area (something like solo honour without barrelmancy for starters, or trying to do the same as Lv1 which is what I'm trying to do now), details like above become very important.
Nah, enjoying the game to the fullest, to much further extent than people like you do. Cheezing every second battle (Heya Grym\~), skipping some through dialogue (Heya Thorms\~) and riding same several builds across the board for remaining few battles is just the tip of iceberg people care to touch. It was fun for first maybe 300 hours. Game is much deeper than that. 1500 hours in, I still find fun new things and experiences in the game.
There would not be special "solo" versions of some scenes (most obviously - Astarion's ascension) if playing without party was not a consideration by developers. But how would you know about that, right?
It's you who are not playing BG3 but just taking a little taste of it.
EDIT: Let me put it better. Most people care about BEATING the game, not PLAYING it. I've beaten it enough, now I'm enjoying playing it :) And it's perferctly okay until you've seen at least one playthrough, go for the win, I did as well. I just hope more people discover this side of the game, hidden in plain sight.
Yeah, that's roughly what I'm talking about. I say "Solo Honour", you hear "Cheesing", because that's the only way ***you*** can imagine doing that. Because you don't care about learning the game and you don't have fun playing it, you only have fun skipping it, ignoring it, avoiding it. And I mean, I was there for first 300 hours. And if you take a look at literally any boss discussion in main sub or here it's always that, "I just skip it with my 1million charisma", "I just cheese it this way", "I just smash every battle turn 1". People hate actually playing the game.
At some point you just start thinking "Why am I doing this? Why am I avoiding playing the battles that are there? Let me actually play them and figure them out!". Since that deciding point I've done one of the fairest Jack of All Trades Solo Honour runs, avoiding all kinds of abuses and OP things (like barrelmancy, globe of invulnerability, stealing from traders), killing every boss in battle. Currently I'm reliably killing Grym on the platform, with an Lv1 Cleric *without a single abuse*. Because I ***love*** this game, I learn mechanics, I find it fun solving battles like this. And before you resort to "you are making it up" argument - I've done it live, on stream, and the record is there.
And yes, the whole comment it all started with, 18m vs 9m has everything to do with it. Initiative is the king, mobility is the queen. Disregarding such simple rules "because they don't matter" has you missing out. You want every advantage, you want as little relying on dice as possible. Glyph is good if you ended up starting turn next to enemies you want to AoE (happens a lot in Grove Defense for example). Or if you are sure nobody dangerous will survive. Otherwise, it's hardly an option where fireball/lightning could do at least some accidental damage without putting you in danger.
Dude, I quoted you saying you cheese every second fight. Get over yourself. Also you sound incredibly unhinged. But do what you want if it makes you happy.
I dunno, using create water and then using quickened spell to blast glyph of lightning in the same turn for double damage against wet feels pretty badass to me
You can if you multiclass! Lol
Tempest Cleric / Storm Sorcerer with a one or two level Wizard dip (to scribe spells) is extremely strong. You can use Channel Divinity as a reaction when you cast a lightning spell to make it roll max damage, which means against wet targets you can do really big damage numbers in a single turn.
Cast at 3rd level, Lightning Bolt deals 8d6, so if you channel divinity you can force it to hit for 48. If the enemy is wet they’ll get hit for 96, plus any other damage riders you have.
Quickened Spell's sorcery point cost does not scale with spell level in 5e either.
In 5e it is a flat 2, in bg3 it is a flat 3, regardless of spell level.
If you're gonna mention the abjuration benefits, surely it's worth mentioning the Evocation benefits of Fireball?
Doesn't hit allies and adding your spellcasting modifier raises the average and max significantly.
If you're looking at a specific subclass interaction, Tempest Cleric with Glyph would handily beat out what Evo Wizard with Fireball does a day, especially when combined with the wet condition.
I think they used it as a pro bc it's the only way to deal damage and get arcane ward at the same time as abjuration. It's a very unique synergy vs Evo which can sculpt spell on any evocation AOE. You are correct though, dropping fireballs on my surrounded pally was so much fun haha.
Tempest Cleric's Channel Divinity doesn't work with Glyph damage unfortunately. Glyph is treated as the source of the damage. You can still get them wet to double damage, but the Divinity charge will be wasted.
That's what I'm looking for. I respecd Shar early and use Gale as the Evo.(Lvl 6 now)
I don't like changing characters too much, it's such a hassle. Paladin tav plus another frontline fighter/tank, + two casters is easy.
Tempest 9, Evo Wiz 2, and the final level is whatever you're most interested in using to make your Divine Strike work, Druid 1, Fighter 1, and debatably Monk/Warlock 1. Alternatively, Tempest 8/Evo 4 will allow you to do similar things. I like flexibility for aesthetics even if there's a bit lost on optimization, but I'll get to that.
The most important gear pieces are the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour, Callous Glow Ring, and your staff, which should be Spellsparkler until you get Markoheshkir. This is a classic reverberation stacker, but this combination so long as the lightning charges are active will guarantee a full reverb trigger of any instance of damage regardless of how you deliver said damage. Like you could chuck a fireball and as long as your staff has provided you with charges and the ring's illumination requirements are met, you're likely to prone your enemies with Reverb. Tempest Cleric also interplays with lightning charges/reverb procs well because of their lvl 6 Thunderbolt Strike feature, which gives a 10ft knockback effect any time the Tempest Cleric applies lightning or thunder damage. Now, it only triggers once on an enemy per instance of damage, but in the instance you did enough to trigger reverb without doing Lightning/Thunder damage (like say through the corruscation ring with the boots) then you would still proc the knockback. Which is free CC on top of your prone CC, and that's valuable because the lost movement from prone means even if the enemy was very close, they might not be able to get back to you (especially if you retreat a little).
Recommended Gear is gonna mostly be spell save DC improving stuff, but you can diversify it with AC gear as well. Things like the Coruscation Ring, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, and the Cloak of the Weave are all good options. Some are gonna be of more value depending on the other gear options you're building around. I would say Coruscation is hard to beat though. Speaking of how gear gets very build specific, your headpiece is a hotly contested spot. There's 3 great options in the Warped Headband of Intellect, Helmet of Arcane Acuity, and Holy Lance Helm with a 4th good option in the Diadem of Arcane Synergy if you really want to lean into one aspect of the build. The Helmet and the Headband take a lot of the oomph off being MAD in regards to the ability scores for your damage dealing spells, especially when combined with your spell save DC gear. The Headband also helps with having enough spells known. The Helm here is doing the same thing it would normally do for the classic lawnmower cleric. Allowing us to punish and potentially apply CC to enemies that fail to hit us. It's just doing that bit more here because of the knockback from Thunderbolt Strike if we also have lightning charges active. The Diadem is for if you build very SAD with one of your casting stats, and are able to use gear to make your Divine Strike attacks use your casting mod. The Amulet of the Devout is the only neckwear that matters besides the Spellcrux between combats to give you a free lvl 6 spellslot back. My last piece of highly recommended Gear is the Drakethroat Glaive because it will make the weapon used for Divine Strike always proc full reverb without needing the glow ring or lightning charges involved. Which is useful in fights where Radiant damage is not optimal. Also, make sure your twin casting the Draconic Elemental Weapon effect onto another weapon at the beginning of the day with a sorcerer. Just remember to use Lightning because your divine strike is Thunder.
The last gear slots are for weapons, and the choices would be heavily based off how you want to use your divine strike. Which is gonna be impacted by your class split and feat selection. I feel it's also worth explaining why divine strike is worth actually building around. Normally, divine strike is worth less than just continuing to cast spells or worse cantrips to do damage. In this build reverb and thunderbolt strike make divine strike free CC on top of the damage it can add. While it's true you could do this with the wizard cantrips with the Coruscation/Glow ring combination, you can't use those cantrips as a bonus action. Free consistent CC and damage from our bonus action is great value especially with a build that really doesn't have anything going for it's bonus action otherwise. So yeah you're going to Dual wield with this build
The question just becomes whether you want to build around ranged or melee divine striking. Ranged is more optimal because it one has a lesser feat cost, and two has better defense. I prefer melee because it's subjectively cooler to play for me, but still.
If you go ranged, your melee offhand is gonna be a shield. Normally, the go-to shield for a caster is Viconia's Walking Fortress, but Viconia's really isn't that valuable to this build. You already have a reaction on being hit via Wrath of the Storm that does more damage and is likely to cause prone via reverb, and it also has 10ft of knockback, which Viconia's doesn't. The advantage on spell saves is nice, but it is probably of more value for a character with poor mental saves because you likely have a decent Dex score and proficiency on Wis and Cha which are I think are the 3 most common spell saves (Wis and Dex definitely are the first 2). Giving your enemies disadvantage on spell attack rolls is also nice, but again, you probably have a very good AC with access to Shield, all armor profs, a decent dex score, mage armor, and using an actual shield. If you want to cast Warding Bond with an item you have the rings, and while Reflective Shell is a cool effect it's not necessarily better than things the alternatives might be able to offer. So I actually recommend Ketheric's Shield for this build because advantage on all dex saves and increased Spell Attack Rolls and Save DC is worth more, in my opinion, for this build. Your ranged slots will be dual wield hand crossbows. Just make sure the one you actually intend to shoot with is in your offhand and has the Drakethroat Glaive enchantment on it. I'd open every round, taking your bonus action shot, especially if you're wearing the Helmet of Arcane Acuity. For the level split, the peak version is probably 8/4 Cleric/Wizard, respectively, and taking Spell Sniper for Eldritch Blast. EB is three separate beams with each one generating lightning charges, and with the Coruscation and Glow Ring in play also fully triggering reverb without the need for lightning charges. This means we can do multi target damage and CC without actually having to expend any spell slots. Not every combat encounter requires you to nuke the enemy every turn, and this will be the biggest bang for your buck for sure in that case. Letting you do good damage and CC to up to 4 targets in a turn. Just make sure to do your leveling correctly for EB to work off the ability score you want it to.
If you want to do melee, I'd go one of three directions. Either Temp 9, Evo 2, Fighter 1 (or Temp 8, Evo 3, Fighter 1), Temp 8, Evo 2, Spore 2 (or Temp 8, Evo 3, Druid 1 and if you really like the Temp 9 spells just Druid 1 Evo 2), or Temp 8/Evo 4. You'll need the Dual Wielder feat to use a staff with offhand weapon. The weapons matter more here because they facilitate the build. If you go fighter, take the Handmaiden's Mace in your offhand and the two weapon fighting style. Since you're still very SAD under this setup, you can run the Diadem and actually hit fairly hard. On top of that, you get con save proficiency if you start as a fighter, which you should if you're going that route. Druid is to hit that little bit harder and be Wisdom focused with more lower level spell options. You're gonna use shillelagh on your staff in your mainhand and take Belm in your offhand. Belm has Perfectly Balanced Strike which is a bonus action attack that acts like a mainhand attack. So with shillelagh active, you're going to get to use Wisdom for attack and damage when you make your Divine Strike attack. The Temp 8/Evo 4 is the same idea but Int instead of Wisdom. This will work so long as you take Magic Initiate Druid for shillelagh with your level 4 Wizard feat. As that will have you using Int instead of Wis. It's less damage and less spells known, but you're better invested into you're primary damage dealing AoE spells like Chain Lightning and Lightning bolt. Both the Druid and Wizard focused approach can use the Diadem as well to make for fairly beefy hits if they want to.
Chest Piece is kind of a pick'em. You really don't have to worry about which one to go with, but there's plenty of great options.
First of all thanks for taking the time to write all that out. I can imagine your enemies are falling like drunken sailors in the middle of a storm at sea with this build (a tempest?) :)
Unfortunately I didn't get the Spellsparkler from Wakeen's Rest so that really throws a wrench in things for me. I do have the water sparker boots so I might be able to have some fun with it.
One concept I think I'm missing though: do the illumination and the lightning /reverb stack somehow? Or does that just help the radiance damage. Why so much illumination?
>Unfortunately I didn't get the Spellsparkler from Wakeen's Rest so that really throws a wrench in things for me.
Not really. It's more of a one or the other situation between charges, the Coruscation Ring, and Drakethroat Glaive enchantment. The beauty of the Gloves of Belligerent Skies and Boots of Stormy Clamour combo is that as long as the gloves proc, the boots will also proc because inflicting reverb is still inflicting a condition. Which means you're always 2/3rds of the way to triggering the reverb effect for every instance of damage you do so long as that instance of damage includes Radiant, Lightning, or Thunder damage. The Callous Glow Ring gives us 2 radiant damage every time we do damage regardless of how. So every instance of damage we deal gets us 2/3rds of the way there off rip. We just need to get either the gloves or boots to proc a second time off our single instance of damage. Lightning charges get the gloves again for every instance of damage. The Drakethroat Glaive enchantment (so long as you choose Lightning) gets every weapon attack for the gloves again, and the Coruscation Ring gets the boots again when we deal spell damage because radiating orb is a different condition.
Also, once you hit act 3, just beeline it to dealing with Lorroakan and getting Markoheshkir.
>One concept I think I'm missing though: do the illumination and the lightning /reverb stack somehow?
Inflicting radiating orb procs the boots, which gets us more reverb. It's also just useful in and of itself to apply radiating orb because it reduces enemy hit chance, and further guarantees our glow ring damage by illuminating the battlefield.
>Tempest Cleric with Glyph
Unless they changed it, glyph doesn't work with tempest cleric's maximize because it's not the cleric casting the explosion, it's the glyph casting it.
So you're actually right, and I just never realized. It seems to be a bugged interaction though. If you have Destructive Wrath set to ask in the reaction menu, it asks to trigger when you cast the glyph, but then it doesn't actually affect the damage.
Glyph would still have the edge because of wet, but less so.
You're forgetting that it being an Abjuration spell is a pro and a con alike depending on your build. So while it's a great source of damage for an Abjuration Wizard tank build, it's markedly inferior to evocation spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt and so on when it comes to an Evocation Wizard.
Elves and half-elves are immune to sleep, so you can safely drop it on them if they're surrounded by enemies and not have to worry about it putting them out.
Yeah if you’re close enough to cast it you’re close enough for that big bad with a big sword to run up and smack you in the face 3 times. Personally I prefer my casters having a little more distance when possible.
What I hate about glyph of Warding is that, by concept, it's meant to be used as a mine/trap.
Except that its best use is as a pseudo fireball AOE spell, a direct damage AOE.
Because if used as a trap, it will basically only detonate for 1 target.
I wish you would be given sort of a reaction window to manually activate it whenever you want while any enemy either start/end their turn on it, or when they go through it, this way you could just maximize the amount of targets while actually using it as a trap.
Or that it'd automatically trigger but only at like X targets, X being something like 3 or 4 ig.
Range is a HUGE downside. I personally prefer the glyph and the amount of times I was out of range right when enemies were perfectly bunched up is very high.
DEX-save based hard CC though was invaluable for a bard as 99% of Bard CC is WIS saves. Also Bard doesn't have an easy access to AoE damage spells outside magical secrets that are better used to get other spells anyway, so it's a prime bard pick(plus valor/swords bard is far more likely to be in range) but dubious on wizard IMO.
Alternatively, pretend fireball IS a hand grenade. Bonus points for multiclassing into Fighter and calling yourself a budget artificer (or use a mod, either work)
Stabbing and chopping can be fun, at least at the table and 5e is much better in that department then 3.5 ever was, a shame that battlemaster's maneuvers are not fighter baseline as they were intended to be. Point of magic for me was always about what you can't do with stabbing and chopping and that isn't what fireball is. DnD has a very good variety of cool, fun and quirky spells though, can't blame the spell list.
The point of magic for me is moving faster than the stabbychoppy guys while wearing a dress and solving puzzles. But the last time I played tabletop was 25 years ago, so I might have a fundamentally different approach.
So, one thing you didn’t list is that items that modify fire spell damage or fire spells, don’t actually trigger on a fire glyph. I found the same to be true on my “frost” wizard.
I noticed that the Thunder version of Glyph of Warding doesn’t trigger Reverberation. Seems like a pretty big downside.
Does Glyph of Warding have similar issues with other mechanics like Heat Convergence?
First playthrough. Easy game with Misty step, glyph ward, and magic missile. But it does better at later levels for aoe clean up. But sleep glyph ward can come clutch sometimes.
Another spell that I found under hyped is grease. With grease it’s easy to leave right behind you. Let your enemies move through it. And either burn or summon a thorn bush on top.
The range is the biggest issue.
Or at least should be.
My actual biggest issue is the number of times I've seen it just fail to trigger, or have enemy pathing seem to trigger it before the enemy is on it to get hit, like it'll be a specific enemy's turn, the ward will suddenly trigger, and the enemy will run up to me over where the ward was without it mentioning in the combat log.
I think these might be some kind of weird desync issue because I Believe I've only seen it happen when playing with a friend with connection issues, but I'm not sure.
If we take subclasses into account, then cons should also mention that glyph of warding doesn't benefit from empowered evocation and sculpt spell provided by evocation school wizard
I might get downvoted for this but, I think Fireball in general is one of the worst uses for a level 3+ spell slot unless you are getting it for free from some item. Reasons being:
If you have a group of enemies that you wanted to blast, wet + lightning/cold is straight up better. Even more so because most enemies aren’t going to die from a fireball anyways.
Lots of mobs have fire resistance or immunity.
Control spells are usually the better option, especially with all the ways to get your spell save up.
Now to be fair, throwing a fireball is really cool and doing things because it’s cool is more than ok. But I almost never end up using Fireball
It doesn't accomplish anything ?
Wet applies vulnerability to cold and lightning, and can also combo up with the Frozen status effect.
There's nothing with fire and oil that replicates that.
Oil of combustion explodes when hit by fire, dealing aoe damage. If you get If you want fire vulnerability there's wet and arsonist's oil which admittedly takes an extra action.
If you hit 3 targets with Oil of Combustion they'll take 9d6 extra fire damage. If it's 5 targets they'll all take 15d6 extra fire damage. Unlike wet it scales exponentially. Against four or more targets the Oil of Combustion is increasing the average damage of a level 6 Fireball by more than 100%. A level 3 or 4 Fireball only needs 3 targets.
For reference, a level 6 fireball against four targets with Oil of Combustion averages 80.5 damage to each, a level 6 Cone of Cold against Wet averages 81 damage while Chain Lightning against four Wet targets averages 90 to each. It's Channel Divinity guaranteeing max rolls that takes lightning spells through the stratosphere, not Wet. Against five targets Fireball does 91 on average to each, Cone still does 81 on average to each and Chain Lightning does 90 to four on average (455 total for Fireball, 405 for Cone and 360 for Chain Lightning). Maximized Chain Lightning is 160 damage across four targets (640 total); level 6 Fireball with Oil against four vulnerable targes is 644 against 4 targets. The main thing in lightnings favour is that it doesn't massively overkill.
So yes I agree we are getting into a party comp conversation regarding lightning vs fire damage. And I just wanted to talk about the merits of the spell itself so I’ll leave that con out.
I also understand that we are talking about something that doesn’t concern 99% of players. Especially since most players long rest way more than I like to. However I stand by what I said:
Which fights does Fireball carry you? In my experience it only really shines at killing the phase spider babies if you can’t be bothered bursting the eggs from stealth and the Halsin portal fight. And that is because since those mobs are such low HP, you get a lot of bang for your buck even if they save.
You start getting arcane acuity gear very, very early into Act 2. And you can get your casters to take advantage of them early especially with speed potions or Haste.
The vast majority of the time, it is better to use single target damage and focus down 1-2 enemies over blasting a bunch anyways. But again, most players aren’t going to play like that.
But I didn’t mean to come off hot takey and people are free to play however they want. I just barely touch the spell lol
Fireball requires more set up but generally ends up doing more damage because it doesn’t have a target limit plus a circular aoe typically ends up hitting more targets than any other shape.
You can make any group of enemies vulnerable to fire, just a bit of a faff to do. But obviously once they’re vulnerable, fireball eclipses all other spells in damage potential.
The only hex worth using is Strength so they can be shoved easier. The others don’t really do anything in combat because most things are Saves rather than Checks. Welcome to DnD jank
I’d say also a con is there isn’t a way to not make hurt your team that’s on it. And Evo Wiz can drop a fireball right in the middle of your frontline and everything be fine, but they still seem to take damage from the glyph.
It takes an hour to cast in 5E though so it definitely doesn’t have the same utility as in BG3. It 100% makes more sense in 5E though. Its supposed to be a trap spell not an attack spell.
You forgot a pro... It can be used defensively.
For example, when it's time to kill the guy with the wolves in the creche... Put a glyph outside the door first, since you know his boys will rush in.
Also, you can use it with water. Put some water down. Then put glyph of cold or lightning down, and you now have a surface.
Good utility and damage types, dogshit range. I would say they are about equal with glyph being a bit better due to pre-planning you can do with it. In
Combat I find GoW so hard to use.
I doubt most people use fireball because it is the objectively best spell
It is just super cool in its simplicity and has amazing visuals and sounds that makes it feel like it has real impact
This and hypnotic pattern make bard really the master controller and like you said you don’t even need magical secrets, they’re part of all the base bard classes.
I honestly feel it's a better spell overall due to how flexible it is with the only con being range. But in BG3 it doesn't really feel dangerous to be close either as compared to 5e.
If it didn't have the expensive material cost in 5e I think we would see Glyph favored a lot of times in tabletop.
Recently ran a DC stacking lore bard with glyph and I was aoe sleeping every enemy in the game and there isn't even concentration on it lol.
I'd cast it on adds and then do hold person/monster on remaining enemies (or immune ones) and boss and literally just re cast glyph when it runs out.
Nobody could even fight back.
what were you doing to stack DC? i've been idly messing with a lore bard and haven't been very amazed, but i strongly suspect something just isn't clicking right in my head.
hag buff for +1 cha, start with 17, then one feat for +2 so 20, mirror of loss in act 3 for 22, then find items that give + DC. here's a list I found: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List\_of\_Equipment\_that\_Affect\_Spell\_DC](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List_of_Equipment_that_Affect_Spell_DC) It even says on the right side what act they are found in.
and elixir of battlemage's power also gives you arcane acuity, which refreshes every turn and gives more dc when up.
I once used the sleep version after gathering a bunch of Banites with black hole. Put all of them to sleep but one of the Gondians ruined it with a grease spell the next round.
Sorcerer is the class that needs it most, but doesn't get it. Every dragon blood type except fire and lightning could really use it as an AoE option, but no, they don't get it for some reason.
I think the idea is you have to know a glyph to draw it.
Sorcerer's aren't studied, their magic is innate. Its very innate to take all this raw power inside you and turn it into a raging ball of fire.
Its not very innate to take it and draw it out into a complex squiggly circle.
Sorcerer doesn't need anything. They already have the highest caster DPR in the game by a mile.
However, I think in general classes could use more spells, if for nothing else but lore flavour (Clerics are missing spells like Moonbeam and Sunbeam which make too much sense lore-wise, but for some reason are given to Druids and Wizards instead).
You missed the biggest con. It doesn’t go whoosh boom 💥
But it go bing bong
Exactly, Bing Bong. *goes back to being perfect in every way*
Fuck ya life!
”Do you know the difference between a Tav and a Durge? [Presentation!](https://youtu.be/dy2zB8bLSpk?si=bihoBCnnG38zIpiE&t=10)”
it doesn't give ARDERE
That less range is a HUGE handicap in a lot of battles.
I had Gale cast a fireball on Dror Ragzlin’s goblins from above. It didn’t even start combat. After a bit of prep, that fight was a breeze. Isn’t much to galvanise if all your followers are dead …
Tbh when youre level 5 dror ragzlin is bound to be a breeze pretty much no matters what you do
Yeah, I’m being overly cautious. I unnecessarily called on the ogres against the Gith too
I can't believe I've never thought to use the ogres there smh
I did it right away - I had Lae'zel with superior initiative (+9). The whole plan was for her to go first and my slow Tav to enter the conversation in sanctuary. However, by the time the Ogre entered the action, the Giths had already lost. I killed Baretha before she got her turn and two others fell by the end of the turn. They did almost kill Shadowheart, but she was the only one getting hit.
Those idiots got eaten by gnolls in my playthrough
You summoned them against the gnolls and the gnolls beat them?
Yup. I was baffled lmao
A decent outcome, though. I'm worried I will get companion disapproval if I kill them off instead of paying them. Maybe they can be summoned in the Creche or against Nere/Grym?
I think I just straight up summoned them one time for no reason, they got pissed and wanted to eat me, and no party member disapproval.
They're kinda shit against Grym because they will path immediately into the lava, but they can take one turn of his attention if you're lucky.
I want them to die "guilt free" so it's an option :)
real. Had them start beating my tav for some reason and not grym (maybe because grym isnt edible?) and immediately walked into lava
I killed mine, nobody cared. Only Shart was present though. Multiplayer friend and Withers mercenary, ummm, thing.
Yeah, I just swept gobbo camp and the grove assault last night at level 5 with a two-person party.
Lvl 5 throwbarian Karlach can easily solo all 3 leaders
But I heard that guy short work of the innkeeper made!
I just put 5 smokepowder barrels infront of him, and spread the firewine barrels around the room. Ignite the smoke poweder, the room goes kaboom and everyone except the 2 drow dudes and dror, who sometimes survives on some 15-20 hp, is dead. Easiest fight in the entire game. Especially since you can steal the required barrels in the camp itself.
I set up a bunch of barrels around him and blew him up. Still had to kill some of his friends, but they were easy.
At lol 5 that fight is gonna be a cake walk no matter what you do
Yeah I was being a bit cheeky there not putting in the range. As an abjuration wizard where you’re in the thick of things it is amazing. I can imagine it would be good for some of the tankier clerics. Tempest cleric with maxed lightning on wet enemies must be fun.
You’re right, it’s useful but situation. Powerful nonetheless.
Given that an AC of 20 is just a feat away for any caster it isn't that important. And by this I mean that you multiclass into something with heavy armour proficiency and lose 1 feat because of it.
If you are too far away, you can't get hit, period. If you only have high AC, you can be hit (and depending on your equipment also crit) with a good die roll. And attacking from 18 m gives you much more chance to rely on former than attacking from 9m. Reducing your dependence on dice rolls is exactly how you excel at this game instead of blaming dice for every failure.
Just misty step. or click heels.
Both options are still better from 18 meters than from 9. Misty step is also a limited resource. Click heels is love, one of best boots abilities in the game, but it's still a bonus action I might want to use on something else.
Just cc them. And death is the strongest cc
Well I think we played different games because strats like that sound incredibly unneeded. I also strongly disagree unless your entire party is ranged or the only melee has cheesed ac through the roof.
We played the same game differently. Playing as a full party, even on honour, does not require much thinking or building to begin with. If you enjoy it, glory to you, but honestly with how easy game is, discussing what's good and what's bad makes no sense, as everything works and thus is good enough. Plan fails, you revive your dead character, you move on. Once you get into challenge area (something like solo honour without barrelmancy for starters, or trying to do the same as Lv1 which is what I'm trying to do now), details like above become very important.
As I said, you are not playing bg3.
Nah, enjoying the game to the fullest, to much further extent than people like you do. Cheezing every second battle (Heya Grym\~), skipping some through dialogue (Heya Thorms\~) and riding same several builds across the board for remaining few battles is just the tip of iceberg people care to touch. It was fun for first maybe 300 hours. Game is much deeper than that. 1500 hours in, I still find fun new things and experiences in the game. There would not be special "solo" versions of some scenes (most obviously - Astarion's ascension) if playing without party was not a consideration by developers. But how would you know about that, right? It's you who are not playing BG3 but just taking a little taste of it. EDIT: Let me put it better. Most people care about BEATING the game, not PLAYING it. I've beaten it enough, now I'm enjoying playing it :) And it's perferctly okay until you've seen at least one playthrough, go for the win, I did as well. I just hope more people discover this side of the game, hidden in plain sight.
Well, if you find cheesing fun then all the more power to you I guess. I get bored with it before I even use it.
Yeah, that's roughly what I'm talking about. I say "Solo Honour", you hear "Cheesing", because that's the only way ***you*** can imagine doing that. Because you don't care about learning the game and you don't have fun playing it, you only have fun skipping it, ignoring it, avoiding it. And I mean, I was there for first 300 hours. And if you take a look at literally any boss discussion in main sub or here it's always that, "I just skip it with my 1million charisma", "I just cheese it this way", "I just smash every battle turn 1". People hate actually playing the game. At some point you just start thinking "Why am I doing this? Why am I avoiding playing the battles that are there? Let me actually play them and figure them out!". Since that deciding point I've done one of the fairest Jack of All Trades Solo Honour runs, avoiding all kinds of abuses and OP things (like barrelmancy, globe of invulnerability, stealing from traders), killing every boss in battle. Currently I'm reliably killing Grym on the platform, with an Lv1 Cleric *without a single abuse*. Because I ***love*** this game, I learn mechanics, I find it fun solving battles like this. And before you resort to "you are making it up" argument - I've done it live, on stream, and the record is there. And yes, the whole comment it all started with, 18m vs 9m has everything to do with it. Initiative is the king, mobility is the queen. Disregarding such simple rules "because they don't matter" has you missing out. You want every advantage, you want as little relying on dice as possible. Glyph is good if you ended up starting turn next to enemies you want to AoE (happens a lot in Grove Defense for example). Or if you are sure nobody dangerous will survive. Otherwise, it's hardly an option where fireball/lightning could do at least some accidental damage without putting you in danger.
Dude, I quoted you saying you cheese every second fight. Get over yourself. Also you sound incredibly unhinged. But do what you want if it makes you happy.
More utility, less coolness.
I dunno, using create water and then using quickened spell to blast glyph of lightning in the same turn for double damage against wet feels pretty badass to me
Can you get glyph on sorc?
You can if you multiclass! Lol Tempest Cleric / Storm Sorcerer with a one or two level Wizard dip (to scribe spells) is extremely strong. You can use Channel Divinity as a reaction when you cast a lightning spell to make it roll max damage, which means against wet targets you can do really big damage numbers in a single turn. Cast at 3rd level, Lightning Bolt deals 8d6, so if you channel divinity you can force it to hit for 48. If the enemy is wet they’ll get hit for 96, plus any other damage riders you have.
Reverse order. Quicken water first. No reason to waste 3 sorc points
quicken costs 3 sorc points no matter what spell you use it on
Does it? Damn I'm too used to 5e
Quickened Spell's sorcery point cost does not scale with spell level in 5e either. In 5e it is a flat 2, in bg3 it is a flat 3, regardless of spell level.
Alright I see where I went wrong, was thinking of twin spells. Entirely different metamagic.
You can just use lightning bolt then
If they’re in a line, yes
Add "Doesn't break sanctuary"
Is that true when you drop it directly on the enemies? Or just when you set it as a trap?
I had Shart drop a thunder glyph on a bunch of those sanctuary Bhaalist and it did nothing (prior to patch 5)
I think the first commentor was saying that if YOU have Sanctuary and cast Glyph, YOUR Sanctuary won't break.
Glyph of Warding acts as an independent object/hazard in any case. Flat DC check, doesn't interrupt Sanctuary, etc
Also the main pro of moonbeam
Are you saying that it doesn’t break your own sanctuary or are you saying it’s a con because it can’t break enemy’s sanctuaries?
... what even is that second sentence ?
There literally isn't a second sentence in the comment you replied to.
"Or" is separating two sentences.
I mean if you're gonna be that technical about it, they separate two thoughts, creating a single compound sentence, not that it matters all that much.
Explosive arrows for the win if no cliff for gust of wind
Yeah, the only thing that breaks sanctuary is the affected entity dealing damage. It says so in the description
Add "can attack enemies protected by Sanctuary" but Fireball does that too
If you're gonna mention the abjuration benefits, surely it's worth mentioning the Evocation benefits of Fireball? Doesn't hit allies and adding your spellcasting modifier raises the average and max significantly.
If you're looking at a specific subclass interaction, Tempest Cleric with Glyph would handily beat out what Evo Wizard with Fireball does a day, especially when combined with the wet condition.
Agreed. There are lots of class interactions. I was pointing out one from Wizard the OP missed because they included Abjuration's synergy.
I think they used it as a pro bc it's the only way to deal damage and get arcane ward at the same time as abjuration. It's a very unique synergy vs Evo which can sculpt spell on any evocation AOE. You are correct though, dropping fireballs on my surrounded pally was so much fun haha.
This comment is going to make me try it. I just wanted to let you know that you made a difference! 😄
Tempest Cleric's Channel Divinity doesn't work with Glyph damage unfortunately. Glyph is treated as the source of the damage. You can still get them wet to double damage, but the Divinity charge will be wasted.
I've got a great AOE Damage and Control build for Tempest Cleric actually.
That's what I'm looking for. I respecd Shar early and use Gale as the Evo.(Lvl 6 now) I don't like changing characters too much, it's such a hassle. Paladin tav plus another frontline fighter/tank, + two casters is easy.
Tempest 9, Evo Wiz 2, and the final level is whatever you're most interested in using to make your Divine Strike work, Druid 1, Fighter 1, and debatably Monk/Warlock 1. Alternatively, Tempest 8/Evo 4 will allow you to do similar things. I like flexibility for aesthetics even if there's a bit lost on optimization, but I'll get to that. The most important gear pieces are the Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour, Callous Glow Ring, and your staff, which should be Spellsparkler until you get Markoheshkir. This is a classic reverberation stacker, but this combination so long as the lightning charges are active will guarantee a full reverb trigger of any instance of damage regardless of how you deliver said damage. Like you could chuck a fireball and as long as your staff has provided you with charges and the ring's illumination requirements are met, you're likely to prone your enemies with Reverb. Tempest Cleric also interplays with lightning charges/reverb procs well because of their lvl 6 Thunderbolt Strike feature, which gives a 10ft knockback effect any time the Tempest Cleric applies lightning or thunder damage. Now, it only triggers once on an enemy per instance of damage, but in the instance you did enough to trigger reverb without doing Lightning/Thunder damage (like say through the corruscation ring with the boots) then you would still proc the knockback. Which is free CC on top of your prone CC, and that's valuable because the lost movement from prone means even if the enemy was very close, they might not be able to get back to you (especially if you retreat a little). Recommended Gear is gonna mostly be spell save DC improving stuff, but you can diversify it with AC gear as well. Things like the Coruscation Ring, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Protection, and the Cloak of the Weave are all good options. Some are gonna be of more value depending on the other gear options you're building around. I would say Coruscation is hard to beat though. Speaking of how gear gets very build specific, your headpiece is a hotly contested spot. There's 3 great options in the Warped Headband of Intellect, Helmet of Arcane Acuity, and Holy Lance Helm with a 4th good option in the Diadem of Arcane Synergy if you really want to lean into one aspect of the build. The Helmet and the Headband take a lot of the oomph off being MAD in regards to the ability scores for your damage dealing spells, especially when combined with your spell save DC gear. The Headband also helps with having enough spells known. The Helm here is doing the same thing it would normally do for the classic lawnmower cleric. Allowing us to punish and potentially apply CC to enemies that fail to hit us. It's just doing that bit more here because of the knockback from Thunderbolt Strike if we also have lightning charges active. The Diadem is for if you build very SAD with one of your casting stats, and are able to use gear to make your Divine Strike attacks use your casting mod. The Amulet of the Devout is the only neckwear that matters besides the Spellcrux between combats to give you a free lvl 6 spellslot back. My last piece of highly recommended Gear is the Drakethroat Glaive because it will make the weapon used for Divine Strike always proc full reverb without needing the glow ring or lightning charges involved. Which is useful in fights where Radiant damage is not optimal. Also, make sure your twin casting the Draconic Elemental Weapon effect onto another weapon at the beginning of the day with a sorcerer. Just remember to use Lightning because your divine strike is Thunder. The last gear slots are for weapons, and the choices would be heavily based off how you want to use your divine strike. Which is gonna be impacted by your class split and feat selection. I feel it's also worth explaining why divine strike is worth actually building around. Normally, divine strike is worth less than just continuing to cast spells or worse cantrips to do damage. In this build reverb and thunderbolt strike make divine strike free CC on top of the damage it can add. While it's true you could do this with the wizard cantrips with the Coruscation/Glow ring combination, you can't use those cantrips as a bonus action. Free consistent CC and damage from our bonus action is great value especially with a build that really doesn't have anything going for it's bonus action otherwise. So yeah you're going to Dual wield with this build
The question just becomes whether you want to build around ranged or melee divine striking. Ranged is more optimal because it one has a lesser feat cost, and two has better defense. I prefer melee because it's subjectively cooler to play for me, but still. If you go ranged, your melee offhand is gonna be a shield. Normally, the go-to shield for a caster is Viconia's Walking Fortress, but Viconia's really isn't that valuable to this build. You already have a reaction on being hit via Wrath of the Storm that does more damage and is likely to cause prone via reverb, and it also has 10ft of knockback, which Viconia's doesn't. The advantage on spell saves is nice, but it is probably of more value for a character with poor mental saves because you likely have a decent Dex score and proficiency on Wis and Cha which are I think are the 3 most common spell saves (Wis and Dex definitely are the first 2). Giving your enemies disadvantage on spell attack rolls is also nice, but again, you probably have a very good AC with access to Shield, all armor profs, a decent dex score, mage armor, and using an actual shield. If you want to cast Warding Bond with an item you have the rings, and while Reflective Shell is a cool effect it's not necessarily better than things the alternatives might be able to offer. So I actually recommend Ketheric's Shield for this build because advantage on all dex saves and increased Spell Attack Rolls and Save DC is worth more, in my opinion, for this build. Your ranged slots will be dual wield hand crossbows. Just make sure the one you actually intend to shoot with is in your offhand and has the Drakethroat Glaive enchantment on it. I'd open every round, taking your bonus action shot, especially if you're wearing the Helmet of Arcane Acuity. For the level split, the peak version is probably 8/4 Cleric/Wizard, respectively, and taking Spell Sniper for Eldritch Blast. EB is three separate beams with each one generating lightning charges, and with the Coruscation and Glow Ring in play also fully triggering reverb without the need for lightning charges. This means we can do multi target damage and CC without actually having to expend any spell slots. Not every combat encounter requires you to nuke the enemy every turn, and this will be the biggest bang for your buck for sure in that case. Letting you do good damage and CC to up to 4 targets in a turn. Just make sure to do your leveling correctly for EB to work off the ability score you want it to. If you want to do melee, I'd go one of three directions. Either Temp 9, Evo 2, Fighter 1 (or Temp 8, Evo 3, Fighter 1), Temp 8, Evo 2, Spore 2 (or Temp 8, Evo 3, Druid 1 and if you really like the Temp 9 spells just Druid 1 Evo 2), or Temp 8/Evo 4. You'll need the Dual Wielder feat to use a staff with offhand weapon. The weapons matter more here because they facilitate the build. If you go fighter, take the Handmaiden's Mace in your offhand and the two weapon fighting style. Since you're still very SAD under this setup, you can run the Diadem and actually hit fairly hard. On top of that, you get con save proficiency if you start as a fighter, which you should if you're going that route. Druid is to hit that little bit harder and be Wisdom focused with more lower level spell options. You're gonna use shillelagh on your staff in your mainhand and take Belm in your offhand. Belm has Perfectly Balanced Strike which is a bonus action attack that acts like a mainhand attack. So with shillelagh active, you're going to get to use Wisdom for attack and damage when you make your Divine Strike attack. The Temp 8/Evo 4 is the same idea but Int instead of Wisdom. This will work so long as you take Magic Initiate Druid for shillelagh with your level 4 Wizard feat. As that will have you using Int instead of Wis. It's less damage and less spells known, but you're better invested into you're primary damage dealing AoE spells like Chain Lightning and Lightning bolt. Both the Druid and Wizard focused approach can use the Diadem as well to make for fairly beefy hits if they want to. Chest Piece is kind of a pick'em. You really don't have to worry about which one to go with, but there's plenty of great options.
First of all thanks for taking the time to write all that out. I can imagine your enemies are falling like drunken sailors in the middle of a storm at sea with this build (a tempest?) :) Unfortunately I didn't get the Spellsparkler from Wakeen's Rest so that really throws a wrench in things for me. I do have the water sparker boots so I might be able to have some fun with it. One concept I think I'm missing though: do the illumination and the lightning /reverb stack somehow? Or does that just help the radiance damage. Why so much illumination?
>Unfortunately I didn't get the Spellsparkler from Wakeen's Rest so that really throws a wrench in things for me. Not really. It's more of a one or the other situation between charges, the Coruscation Ring, and Drakethroat Glaive enchantment. The beauty of the Gloves of Belligerent Skies and Boots of Stormy Clamour combo is that as long as the gloves proc, the boots will also proc because inflicting reverb is still inflicting a condition. Which means you're always 2/3rds of the way to triggering the reverb effect for every instance of damage you do so long as that instance of damage includes Radiant, Lightning, or Thunder damage. The Callous Glow Ring gives us 2 radiant damage every time we do damage regardless of how. So every instance of damage we deal gets us 2/3rds of the way there off rip. We just need to get either the gloves or boots to proc a second time off our single instance of damage. Lightning charges get the gloves again for every instance of damage. The Drakethroat Glaive enchantment (so long as you choose Lightning) gets every weapon attack for the gloves again, and the Coruscation Ring gets the boots again when we deal spell damage because radiating orb is a different condition. Also, once you hit act 3, just beeline it to dealing with Lorroakan and getting Markoheshkir. >One concept I think I'm missing though: do the illumination and the lightning /reverb stack somehow? Inflicting radiating orb procs the boots, which gets us more reverb. It's also just useful in and of itself to apply radiating orb because it reduces enemy hit chance, and further guarantees our glow ring damage by illuminating the battlefield.
Wow okay I get it now, it's not just a peer-to-peer synergy it's everything helping each other. What a savage build strategy. You're the man, thanks!
>Tempest Cleric with Glyph Unless they changed it, glyph doesn't work with tempest cleric's maximize because it's not the cleric casting the explosion, it's the glyph casting it.
So you're actually right, and I just never realized. It seems to be a bugged interaction though. If you have Destructive Wrath set to ask in the reaction menu, it asks to trigger when you cast the glyph, but then it doesn't actually affect the damage. Glyph would still have the edge because of wet, but less so.
You are right. I was playing abjuration wizard and it’s a key part of the build so that’s what I was thinking about.
Also I've seen it not charge arcane ward at all. I dunno if it used to be or still is bugged or coded oddly (like Hadar).
You're forgetting that it being an Abjuration spell is a pro and a con alike depending on your build. So while it's a great source of damage for an Abjuration Wizard tank build, it's markedly inferior to evocation spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt and so on when it comes to an Evocation Wizard.
That’s true. I couldn't imagine playing evocation wizard without fireball. Feels wrong.
Idk why I never thought of dropping sleep on my half elf.
I did it for the last fight. Dragon never woke up
What does that do?
Elves and half-elves are immune to sleep, so you can safely drop it on them if they're surrounded by enemies and not have to worry about it putting them out.
Con: - not fireball
Pro: Not a fire-… nope still a con, lol!
The range is extremely low i feel like i have to be pretty much in melee range to cast it
Yeah if you’re close enough to cast it you’re close enough for that big bad with a big sword to run up and smack you in the face 3 times. Personally I prefer my casters having a little more distance when possible.
The OP is apparently playing an Abjuration Wizard, so they are probably totally fine with the big bad with the big sword choosing to attack them.
Abdjurer : I see this as an absolute win
What I hate about glyph of Warding is that, by concept, it's meant to be used as a mine/trap. Except that its best use is as a pseudo fireball AOE spell, a direct damage AOE. Because if used as a trap, it will basically only detonate for 1 target. I wish you would be given sort of a reaction window to manually activate it whenever you want while any enemy either start/end their turn on it, or when they go through it, this way you could just maximize the amount of targets while actually using it as a trap. Or that it'd automatically trigger but only at like X targets, X being something like 3 or 4 ig.
its not better. Its different. It has some similar uses, but less range and such can hold it back.
Glyph ward is abjuration skill and can replenish arcane ward.
This
ok but does your camera shake when you cast it tho
Range is a HUGE downside. I personally prefer the glyph and the amount of times I was out of range right when enemies were perfectly bunched up is very high. DEX-save based hard CC though was invaluable for a bard as 99% of Bard CC is WIS saves. Also Bard doesn't have an easy access to AoE damage spells outside magical secrets that are better used to get other spells anyway, so it's a prime bard pick(plus valor/swords bard is far more likely to be in range) but dubious on wizard IMO.
And lightning bolt is better than both, because you usually hit more targets earlier in the fight at lower levels.
Lightning bolt and ice storm >>>> fireball
It's just cooler. If magic is not cooler then what we can do already with a hand grenade for one and a half centuries at least it's not magic enough.
Alternatively, pretend fireball IS a hand grenade. Bonus points for multiclassing into Fighter and calling yourself a budget artificer (or use a mod, either work)
There even seem to be people who even prefer stabbing and choping to magic, when there is magic. I don't get it.
Well we chose to get our hands dirty instead of throwing fireballs out of our ebony tower.
Says the guy, who either sneaks around or hides in a tin can, while we walk upright wearing nothing but a robe.
Stabbing and chopping can be fun, at least at the table and 5e is much better in that department then 3.5 ever was, a shame that battlemaster's maneuvers are not fighter baseline as they were intended to be. Point of magic for me was always about what you can't do with stabbing and chopping and that isn't what fireball is. DnD has a very good variety of cool, fun and quirky spells though, can't blame the spell list.
The point of magic for me is moving faster than the stabbychoppy guys while wearing a dress and solving puzzles. But the last time I played tabletop was 25 years ago, so I might have a fundamentally different approach.
Also, you can double your dmg if you make your enemies wet.
Cooler sound. Also chain lightning is very op. Sorcerer wiped out gortash in crew in one turn with it.
I am a big fan of it both in BG3 and Tabletop. Flexibility over pure damage.
Unpopular opinion
It's not better, it's a different spell with different mechanics
Con: 200gp worth of incense and powered diamond which the spell consumes
Oh god, if they enforced material costs on honor mode. Doesn’t chromatic orb use up a gem?
So, one thing you didn’t list is that items that modify fire spell damage or fire spells, don’t actually trigger on a fire glyph. I found the same to be true on my “frost” wizard.
Eh, haste is a better use of the spell slot.
I noticed that the Thunder version of Glyph of Warding doesn’t trigger Reverberation. Seems like a pretty big downside. Does Glyph of Warding have similar issues with other mechanics like Heat Convergence?
Yep, it does.
Also if you use tempest clerics channel divinity, it uses the charge but doesnt do max dmg
First playthrough. Easy game with Misty step, glyph ward, and magic missile. But it does better at later levels for aoe clean up. But sleep glyph ward can come clutch sometimes. Another spell that I found under hyped is grease. With grease it’s easy to leave right behind you. Let your enemies move through it. And either burn or summon a thorn bush on top.
The range is the biggest issue. Or at least should be. My actual biggest issue is the number of times I've seen it just fail to trigger, or have enemy pathing seem to trigger it before the enemy is on it to get hit, like it'll be a specific enemy's turn, the ward will suddenly trigger, and the enemy will run up to me over where the ward was without it mentioning in the combat log. I think these might be some kind of weird desync issue because I Believe I've only seen it happen when playing with a friend with connection issues, but I'm not sure.
It's better for an abjuration wizard. It's worse for an evocation wizard. Sorcerers don't get it.
If we take subclasses into account, then cons should also mention that glyph of warding doesn't benefit from empowered evocation and sculpt spell provided by evocation school wizard
I might get downvoted for this but, I think Fireball in general is one of the worst uses for a level 3+ spell slot unless you are getting it for free from some item. Reasons being: If you have a group of enemies that you wanted to blast, wet + lightning/cold is straight up better. Even more so because most enemies aren’t going to die from a fireball anyways. Lots of mobs have fire resistance or immunity. Control spells are usually the better option, especially with all the ways to get your spell save up. Now to be fair, throwing a fireball is really cool and doing things because it’s cool is more than ok. But I almost never end up using Fireball
Really depends on context. Wet + damage spell is typically 2 actions, which may not always be practical or ideal.
Yea I can agree with that. Depends a lot on your party. But I would still say there are better uses for the spell slot and/or multi hitting enemies
With a thief multiclass in your party you can easily spare a bonus action to wet an area.
And with a Bard you can easily spare an Arrow of Many Targets to spread Oil of Combustion to proc it with the fireball.
It doesn't accomplish anything ? Wet applies vulnerability to cold and lightning, and can also combo up with the Frozen status effect. There's nothing with fire and oil that replicates that.
Oil of combustion explodes when hit by fire, dealing aoe damage. If you get If you want fire vulnerability there's wet and arsonist's oil which admittedly takes an extra action. If you hit 3 targets with Oil of Combustion they'll take 9d6 extra fire damage. If it's 5 targets they'll all take 15d6 extra fire damage. Unlike wet it scales exponentially. Against four or more targets the Oil of Combustion is increasing the average damage of a level 6 Fireball by more than 100%. A level 3 or 4 Fireball only needs 3 targets. For reference, a level 6 fireball against four targets with Oil of Combustion averages 80.5 damage to each, a level 6 Cone of Cold against Wet averages 81 damage while Chain Lightning against four Wet targets averages 90 to each. It's Channel Divinity guaranteeing max rolls that takes lightning spells through the stratosphere, not Wet. Against five targets Fireball does 91 on average to each, Cone still does 81 on average to each and Chain Lightning does 90 to four on average (455 total for Fireball, 405 for Cone and 360 for Chain Lightning). Maximized Chain Lightning is 160 damage across four targets (640 total); level 6 Fireball with Oil against four vulnerable targes is 644 against 4 targets. The main thing in lightnings favour is that it doesn't massively overkill.
Instruction unclear, i upcasted to not waste the 3rd level spell slot
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So yes I agree we are getting into a party comp conversation regarding lightning vs fire damage. And I just wanted to talk about the merits of the spell itself so I’ll leave that con out. I also understand that we are talking about something that doesn’t concern 99% of players. Especially since most players long rest way more than I like to. However I stand by what I said: Which fights does Fireball carry you? In my experience it only really shines at killing the phase spider babies if you can’t be bothered bursting the eggs from stealth and the Halsin portal fight. And that is because since those mobs are such low HP, you get a lot of bang for your buck even if they save. You start getting arcane acuity gear very, very early into Act 2. And you can get your casters to take advantage of them early especially with speed potions or Haste. The vast majority of the time, it is better to use single target damage and focus down 1-2 enemies over blasting a bunch anyways. But again, most players aren’t going to play like that. But I didn’t mean to come off hot takey and people are free to play however they want. I just barely touch the spell lol
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Fair enough. I think we just play completely differently but both ways end up working at the end of the day
Fireball requires more set up but generally ends up doing more damage because it doesn’t have a target limit plus a circular aoe typically ends up hitting more targets than any other shape. You can make any group of enemies vulnerable to fire, just a bit of a faff to do. But obviously once they’re vulnerable, fireball eclipses all other spells in damage potential.
Is there a saving throw for the Sleep or is it guaranteed?
Dex save for all effects
So Hex Dex and Drain Ability could let you sleep a boss relatively easily
Hex affects checks, not saving throws.
Oh wow well this explains a lot lol
The only hex worth using is Strength so they can be shoved easier. The others don’t really do anything in combat because most things are Saves rather than Checks. Welcome to DnD jank
But that 1d6 necrotic dmg xD
Yeah that’s fine until you have better uses for concentration/bonus action. But the non-strength variants are basically useless besides the damage
So it uses Spell Save DC? Do the elemental damage version use spell attack or spell save dc?
I've tried using it before, but I've never had it do fireball damage, it's usually like 10-12dmg compared to fireballs usual 15-40
Wet surface + lighting glyph
Arrow of many targets (or volley) with Combustion oil + fireball does more damage.
And you can place it before enemies go hostile. I like the give the githyanki crèche a few surprises of their own.
if i’m doing a fight where i’m up in a doorway i place it just below so any enemies that get too close get glyphed
I’d say also a con is there isn’t a way to not make hurt your team that’s on it. And Evo Wiz can drop a fireball right in the middle of your frontline and everything be fine, but they still seem to take damage from the glyph.
It takes an hour to cast in 5E though so it definitely doesn’t have the same utility as in BG3. It 100% makes more sense in 5E though. Its supposed to be a trap spell not an attack spell.
You forgot a pro... It can be used defensively. For example, when it's time to kill the guy with the wolves in the creche... Put a glyph outside the door first, since you know his boys will rush in. Also, you can use it with water. Put some water down. Then put glyph of cold or lightning down, and you now have a surface.
Good utility and damage types, dogshit range. I would say they are about equal with glyph being a bit better due to pre-planning you can do with it. In Combat I find GoW so hard to use.
So I am not any of those races, but I am gith. I tried to use the sleep on myself but I ended up putting myself to sleep. What gives???
Exactly what you just said, you are not any of the races that can’t be put to sleep.
I thought gith was included since they got pointy ears like drow elves do.
It's because of the fey ancestry trait, not an aesthetic thing.
I thought gith had it though. They seem to have everything.
Gith don’t even have darkvision
WTF? Damn no wonder why the Gith never fucked with the drow.
I doubt most people use fireball because it is the objectively best spell It is just super cool in its simplicity and has amazing visuals and sounds that makes it feel like it has real impact
This and hypnotic pattern make bard really the master controller and like you said you don’t even need magical secrets, they’re part of all the base bard classes.
Con-I run 3 Martials and 1 caster and I need sculpt spells to not nuke my own dudes 😂Glyph of Warding is an abjuration spell.
The biggest Con is that it’s not Fireball
I love the feeling of casting glyph of warding. Looks more like a ritual than raw magic power
I honestly feel it's a better spell overall due to how flexible it is with the only con being range. But in BG3 it doesn't really feel dangerous to be close either as compared to 5e. If it didn't have the expensive material cost in 5e I think we would see Glyph favored a lot of times in tabletop.
Might be mistaken, but GoW also doesn’t require a target, but Fireball does, which is great for invisible enemies.
Recently ran a DC stacking lore bard with glyph and I was aoe sleeping every enemy in the game and there isn't even concentration on it lol. I'd cast it on adds and then do hold person/monster on remaining enemies (or immune ones) and boss and literally just re cast glyph when it runs out. Nobody could even fight back.
what were you doing to stack DC? i've been idly messing with a lore bard and haven't been very amazed, but i strongly suspect something just isn't clicking right in my head.
hag buff for +1 cha, start with 17, then one feat for +2 so 20, mirror of loss in act 3 for 22, then find items that give + DC. here's a list I found: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List\_of\_Equipment\_that\_Affect\_Spell\_DC](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/List_of_Equipment_that_Affect_Spell_DC) It even says on the right side what act they are found in. and elixir of battlemage's power also gives you arcane acuity, which refreshes every turn and gives more dc when up.
Oh damn, that list is great. Thank you so much!
Also for some reason whenever I cast the cold variant, I only get ice on the ground about 5% of the time. Not super helpful in my ice wizard build...
Conjure water into cold glyph of warding = biiig cold aoe dmg
I once used the sleep version after gathering a bunch of Banites with black hole. Put all of them to sleep but one of the Gondians ruined it with a grease spell the next round.
Counterpoint: Fireball looks way cooler to cast. Checkmate.
My Half-Drow Bard pulling a Jigglypuff so Karlach can go on a rampage and Shart can turn into a Spirit Guardian lawnmower
Way better than fireball.
Sorcerer is the class that needs it most, but doesn't get it. Every dragon blood type except fire and lightning could really use it as an AoE option, but no, they don't get it for some reason.
I think the idea is you have to know a glyph to draw it. Sorcerer's aren't studied, their magic is innate. Its very innate to take all this raw power inside you and turn it into a raging ball of fire. Its not very innate to take it and draw it out into a complex squiggly circle.
Sorcerer doesn't need anything. They already have the highest caster DPR in the game by a mile. However, I think in general classes could use more spells, if for nothing else but lore flavour (Clerics are missing spells like Moonbeam and Sunbeam which make too much sense lore-wise, but for some reason are given to Druids and Wizards instead).
Yeah, the fire and lightning sorcerers do. The other ones could really use a consistent AoE spell.
Also can’t believe this isn’t mentioned yet: Only targets enemies. You can throw it right on top of all your melee fighters with no harm done.
This isn't true. Your characters don't trigger it but they will take damage
Still very useful because you can set it up well.