If you think that spells are underpowered, try a blastlock (Pact of the Fiend warlock focused around Eldritch Blast, using Hex) you end up playing like a ranger (hex in place of hunters mark, eldritch blast in place of using a bow), and from level 2 onwards the blast gets your charisma mod as damage, and can do a push-back that can fire people off ledges. You also get temporary hitpoints whenever you kill something (via Fiend pact) to make up for being a bit less tough (Don't go Old One pact. It's the best pact for flavour but they haven't given them any of the subclass's abilities yet so the only reason to go it atm is access to Dissonant Whispers and Tasha's Hideous Laughter that are normally bard spells and otherwise can't be learned in the early access game yet).
Wizards generally suffer from limited options at low levels so for this early access version Gale isn't really getting to reach his stride since the EA version only goes up to level 4. Wizards hit their stride at level 5 when they get Fireball and Counterspell among other things. Most of Gale's usability at the levels we're at for me so far has been environmental. A few nasty fights have been cut a lot shorter by Gale tossing a firebolt into a barrel of oil or firewine and setting half the battlefield on fire. (EDIT: Also if you find him to be squishy, go Abjuration School wizard for the damage ward, then make sure you cast Mage Armor each morning and give him a nice chunky boost of shield hit points to keep him safe and better AC)
Warlocks like Wyll require quite specific builds at low level to make the most of them, and suffer from the EA version not having pact of the blade or pact of the tome which are the better two pacts, though a Chain imp familiar is massively useful in the game with the invisibility and poison. Warlocks also get dramatically better at 5th when they gain another invocation and eldritch blast splits into two beams that you can aim at the same or different target, both beams get your charisma bonus from agonising blast, both trigger repelling blast, and both get an extra d6 from Hex.
Cleric, if your interpretation of how good they are is based off Shadowheart, I'll let you know right now she's a pretty poorly built cleric. She's a trickster cleric for a start which while great as an RP class, is pretty horrid in combat. She's also a half-elf which means her stat boost is mainly to Charisma, which is useless as a Cleric. Of the three domains currently in EA (Trickster, Light, Life) the best one is Life (Heavy armor proficiency to keep them alive, boosts to your healing magic to make them actually worth using, and a channel divinity that heals instead of the pretty sorry excuse Invoke Duplicity is for the trickster) and you generally will want to build them out as if they were a melee combatant (so you want high wis and strength, decent constitution) and they end up as basically a slightly weaker fighter with way more sustainability and utility magic.
And when all else fails, remember Rogue is OP as hell (Thief Rogue with dual-wielding gets 3 attacks per turn at level 3, for example)
Also, if you're working out what else is left to clear, did you get to the Githyanki Patrol yet? That's what leads to the actual ending of the starting zone.
Last edited by Hudson316; 11/10/20 02:08 PM.
