Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The best Domain for Shadowheart (Light)

Whatever your feelings are about SH's history or Alignment. I think we can all agree that the Trickery domain is C tier at best. I thought it would be fun to talk through the other possibilities with you guys

Life - With the availability of healing potions as bonus actions, it feels like Life Domain isn't helpful as it could be in TT
Knowledge - I think this is only a contender if you want to go skill monkey, otherwise it is D tier
Nature - The only reason to pick this up is if you want to be a SAD Shillelagh user, the rest is meh
War - This one is solid if you don't want to multiclass for extra attack, but the channel divinity needs more uses to be any good, and the spell list isn't anything to write home about

This brings me to the only two I think are really viable, Tempest and Light. Both have solid Domain spell lists that boost her offensive casting abilities. Their level 1/6 abilities and channel divinities are what make the biggest difference. I am assuming that the limits on the 1st level powers are the same. So let's compare:

Tempest -
1st level - Heavy Armor and a close combat rebuke - S tier for a single class Melee focused Cleric
Channel Divinity - One time max damage roll is great, but it would be better if it had better AoE spells - A Tier
6th level - Add a push to a lightening spell. This one actually feels counter intuitive to the subclass that otherwise favors close combat and doesn't have a lot of spells to use this with. Maybe if you pick up shocking grasp you can use this as an emergency button, but really it is C Tier

Light
1st level - Lame Cantrip but great power forcing disadvantage on an enemies attacks can be the difference between life and death - A Tier
Channel Divinity - Radiant AoE is great, but becomes less powerful as time goes on. The darkness dispelling is useful throughout though - S Teir at lower levels A Tier as you hit level 7+.
6th Level - extend your reaction to your allies. Your tank just got tankier at the cost of a reaction that a backline Cleric was never going to use - S Tier


I think it is a bit of a wash and really comes down to where you want her on the battlefield. If you want a moderately tanky/punchy SH go with Tempest. If you want a blasty supporting SH go with Light.

I'll be taking light for both mechanical and story reasons

What do you guys think?

I think this thread is just a ranking of cleric domains and doesn't seem to have anything to do with SH as a character.

With that being said, I think the top tier of cleric domains (that are available in bg3, and working on the limited implementation knowledge we have) would be Life for full healer, Light for blaster, and War for tanky build.

I don't see Light as being right for a cleric of Shar.

Best is going to be following whatever sorcerous power she displays

This.

I don't know her ability scores, but if anything, I might respec that, so she can go Trickery / Thief for her ultimate shadow spy infiltration shenanigans. Extra Bonus action on a Cleric? Yes please. In that case, she doesn't really need high Wis, her spells don't get saves; they're jsut there to augment her tricksy stuff and the odd heal. Might even go Trickery / Gloom - Gloom isn't thematically accurate, but mechanically very much so.

The problem is I generally hate multiclassing clerics. There's just too much to lose. I think my fallback is to hope for dex gloves like the headband of intellect and slap them on SH, take a rapier prof and have at it. I wish that Invoke Duplicity was more in line with tabletop, since it's generally a really really good ability.

I use her as the party Thief.

Ordinarily, at the table - I'd agree with you; but in BG3, apparantly, multiclassing seems to favor casters with a bit of a workaround to get their spell levels quicker. I think I will dip her in two or four levels of rogue.. BUt even if not - a Trickery Cleric is only really useful for stealth play, really. And as a full cleric, she doesn't shine at that.

If Invoke Duplicity gets fixed, I think people are going to enjoy Trickery Cleric more, at low levels.

Pass Without A Trace can be really strong, but it requires all of the PCs to stay very close to the caster. The AI seems to struggle with always keeping all party members within the radius of the spell.

Trickery clerics get some nice high level spells in 5E, like Polymorph. If Larian does a good job implementing Pokymorph, I think a lot of people will enjoy it.

That being said, I think it is pretty clear that Shadowheart has some kind of connection to Selune, and I have no problems with her being a Light Domain cleric.

I am fine leaving Shadowheart just unoptimized. I’d rather stick with what is more true to her character. I think the game is more interesting that way.

Yeah, that is exactly the reason I think it is perfect. It accentuates all the choices she makes, which are so off from who she thinks she is.

Also I will most definitely be respecing her stats to make her more survivable with medium armor and a shield and able to keep the concentration spells going.
Str 10
Dex 14
Con 16
Int 10
Wis 16
Cha 8

So why do people even play an RPG if they are so uninterested in the story that they would respec a "Daughter of Darkness" into Light domain lol.

Why do companions need to be optimized in the first place?

I just hope Larian aren't going to be half-assing the companion builds simply because "you can respec" and "we can't please everyone". Like she probably shouldn't have that Fire Bolt cantrip but Minor Illusion or Chill Touch instead. If she would turn out to be a brainwashed Selunite or something, having the Light or Dancing Lights cantrip would be a nice clue. But Fire Bolt just seems very unrelated to everything, plus she can already use a Crossbow at range with her 14 Dex.

Let's break down your question to what you're actually asking.

"Why do people even play a roleplaying game if they want to choose how to roleplay their companions?"

Are WE roleplaying? Or is Larian?

I don't know. I kind of feel like the companions have a set origin. There are other topics about this but what if I wanted Gale to be a barbarian?

Anyway I always wanted Geralt to be a bisexual but alas it wasn't going to happen.

Yep, folk are free to play the game however they like.

I also hope that I'm able to effectively use companions "as they come" as I don't want to respec, but if others do and it turns out they can (well, even if it's not official, they'll be able to do it with mods) then that's totally their call. We can privately despair at their choices if we like, of course, or even politely ask them what they get out of so doing if we're interested in the answer.

Tempest clerics getting to do a push when dealing lightning damage could actually be slightly broken.

The PHB description of Thunderbolt Strike is:
At 6th level, when you deal lightning damage to a Large or smaller creature, you can also push it up to 10 feet away from you.

It doesn't say anything about how you deal the lightning damage or how many times per turn you can do it. Just deal lightning damage, hand out a push. There's also no mention of a save against the push.

And moving enemies around is quite broken, particularly with the verticality in BG3. I'm not sure it is strictly speaking "better" than light domain, which turns into a well armoured fireball-blaster with good health at level 5, but it does sound fun. And just a little bit broken.

I think the brokeness really depends on access to lightning damage. For sure the rebuke style reaction would be great for pushing away attackers when you need to bail, but it is probably going to be limited use. If it was thunder or lightning damage, that would be a game changer, but I think they wanted to keep the thunderwave shenanigans to a minimum.