Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Why would I ever play anything else than Ice Sorcerer?

My first Tav was an ice sorcerer, even though he accidentally started as a warlock while I was still playing in German (“Hexenmeister” meant sorcerer in 3.5 but means warlock in 5E). Lore-wise, he was always supposed to be a silver dragon’s offspring, so that’s what I turned him into. I’m now playing him again, as a sorcerer from the start, with Adjustable Party Limit and Tactician Enhanced mods.

The problem I notice, the more I understand the meta of BG3: Why would I ever play anything else but ice sorcerer? This game was literally made for them:

The secret main character, the Dark Urge, is a white Dragonborn sorcerer. There are no recruitable sorcerers — you can mod in Alfira as a bard, and Orpheus is a monk, but you can’t recruit the Dark Urge. I’d rather re-spec Gale into sorcerer than summon the sorcerer hireling, since sorcerers and wizards are often redundant to each other.

I could still try and build sorcerers around other themes — especially draconic bloodline incentivises this — but everything else seems objectively weaker:

- Lightning is usually included in most ice builds, since it also synergises with Wet; however, Shocking Grasp cannot be twincast, due to being melee, and twincasting a Witch Bolt is worse than twincasting Ray of Frost, since Witch Bolt takes a level 1 spell slot.

- Fire synergises with oil and grease, but those are nowhere near as easy to create as water surfaces. And barrelmancy defeats the purpose of having spellcasters to begin with, since any half-elf or high elf with a Firebolt can blow up barrels.

- Poison and acid don’t have enough support, and for poison specifically, many enemies are resistant to it. I built a hireling necromancer around these damage types, but in synergy with the group, the best thing for him to do is often still to cast Chromatic Orb with cold damage.



Looking at other classes, wizards are usually outmatched by sorcerers when it comes to raw damage dealing. My question was originally, “Why play anything other than Evocation wizard?”, but that only applies to wizards in particular, and what to do with Gale. If I don’t raise the party limit, he usually stays at camp, so he could become a Transmutation potion maker, but I usually use a hireling for that.

For martials, all of these are present among your companions, even if Minthara requires jumping through a few hoops. Monk is the exception (Orpheus is only present for the finale). I do have a Tactician run with a monk going, but Open-Hand Monk is kind of one-note to me. I enjoy taking Sina’zith along for support, but a Monk Tag gets only a handful of unique dialogue options, and can otherwise hardly afford investing points into Charisma, since Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom are so important.

And for Bards, Alfira is mainly just shooting her two hand crossbows and using Slashing Flourish, with the occasional Glyph of Warding for ice or lightning when enemies are wet. Playing a Bard Tav would feel more like playing a charismatic Rogue to me.

The only thing that would be really different to my current playstyle is Gloomstalker Assassin. I started a Tactician run for that, but it’s not my top priority, as Thief: Deadly Shadows quickly showed me I’m not into stealth games. Running away like in Mirror’s Edge, sure (guess who my monk is ) — but not hiding in constant tension, fearing you’ll be dead as soon as you’re discovered.


Of course, I could play a less optimised build, like Fire sorcerer. But who would ever do that intentionally on higher difficulties? Unless they’re doing it as a challenge for YouTube, of course. ^^

Was I just somewhat unlucky perhaps that I tried one of the strongest archetypes on my very first run (even though nowhere near optimised back then)?

My gut reaction to this is: Because it is fun? But of course what defines fun can be very personal.

For me the fun comes from making things work and not from going for the approved most powerful builds - I often find those a little boring to be honest. (Gloomstalker Assassin feels too little like Deadly Shadows for me. XD ) But I also never got the impression that the game is so difficult that you are forced to min-max your group. Maybe if you are on a solo honour mode run? I don't know. I also feel no attachment to Durge. Maybe they are the mastermind behind the plot, but the haunted one didn't manage to feel like a captivating narrative for me, so I rather make one of the other Origins the main character of my game and take their struggles as the motivations to be my main story.

My Avatar-Shadowheart with her incredibly low Charisma (I granted her two additional points to get out of the minus) lets Astarion, Gale or Lae'zel do the talking for her, depending on if we want to deceive, persuade or bully, (though it has become somewhat harder through the forced player interactions) which makes the gang feel much more like a team, instead of the groupies of the main character, which I enjoy a lot.

Wizards are great. I love their dialogue options, half of which backfire in some way. The subclasses, I have tried, have some unique charm to them which makes them desirable to play while feeling thematic. Divination might be my favourite due to the way the portent dice work. My main issue with wizards is, that I often don't know what to do with my bonus action. So I like a two level dip into Wild Magic Sorcery for the added chaos (or Storm Sorcery for less Chaos and bonus relocation), meta magic and some bonus action action.

I also feel that with magic, raw power often isn't its main appeal. Like to me the main appeal of ice is that I can make a very big slippery surface so the surviving enemies are either slowed or loose their turn. Lighting on the other hand is more of a death by a thousand cuts approach due to wet + electrocuted and the whole lighting set being build around this. But like you said, they synergise very well with each other giving the dual effect of incapacitating more durable enemies while instantly deep frying the smaller ones. So having an ice and a lightning based caster on the same team can be quite spectacular. (Electrified Steam is also just very pretty.) Fire is for people with a death wish due to how heat works, but it is also fun, I just never found it as compelling as a group set-up. Which is maybe another point, I don't really build my main character, I build my team.

I could go on, but I feel, I have been rambling already. So I hope this could at least show why I would play other things than ice sorcs. =)

Unironically, Fire Sorcerer is one of the strongest classes in the entire game.

Quicken Spell Scorching Ray + Regular cast Scorching Ray upcasted to the highest level with Draconic Sorcerer's bonus CHR modifier (On every single projectile) absolutely deletes targets.

Sure, you lose out on the double damage from Wet, but instead you just deal raw damage without need of any set up. You just fling a billion projectiles each doing a bunch of damage at targets (Of course, you can still add more damage with set up... Amulet of Elemental Torment while stood in Fire (Or Lava) also adds damage to each individual projectile)


To be fair, there's more to the game than raw damage output.

Wizards have several subclasses that can provide significant features to a party.

- Abjuration Wizards can be the best tanks in the game. As Arcane Ward can provide a ton of damage reduction making you take 0 damage from most attacks when set up properly (Warding Bond, Heavy Armour, Heavy Armour Mastery, all the magical equipment that gives you an Abjuration spell cast to let you stack up your Arcane Ward for free)

- Divination Wizards have their Portent Dice which can completely warp the game. Making deadly enemy attacks fail or enabling your party to use powerful abilities that are guaranteed to work. This feature can actually vastly outstrip the raw damage of a Sorcerer when used correctly (Such as landing Hold Person and then having your party get guaranteed critical hits on a target for at least 1 turn)


To be fair, that just stems from your outlook on playing Bard.

Bard itself offers a number of playstyles in the class. From the Lore Bard being basically a Sorcerer (Just instead of Metamagic you get access to Magical Secrets allowing you to use powerful spells from Divine casters), Swords and Valor Bards can be played like Fighters or Rangers. Then there's a supportive playstyle focused around buffing allies (And/or debuffing enemies)


Not really. It mostly comes down to your outlook of "Damage > All" and the limitations you impose on yourself because other classes are found as default classes on companions (As well as lack of understanding on optimal builds)

Like, you dismiss Monk as a class, despite it being literally the strongest class in the game for damage (Something you value highly). Due to how you're building it, with a focus on Dexterity instead of dumping everything but Wisdom and Constitution while using Elixirs of Strength to boost Strength to 21/29 and using Tavern Brawler, Manifestation of Soul and Fast Hands to pump out absolutely absurd damage.

Fighter is another top tier class for damage output due to Elixirs of Strength, Tavern Brawler and thrown weapons (Pike of Returning, Lightning Jabber, Nyrulna) and associated equipment can push out obscene damage with their Improved Extra Attacks and Action Surge.

Paladins can be rather powerful as well. With one of the best damage output builds being Oathbreaker multiclass with Warlock to access Improved Pact of the Blade to provide a weapon that scales with CHR, an extra attack that stacks with Extra Attack bonuses (For 3 attacks per standard action) along with Oathbreakers Aura of Hate for CHR modifier as damage on attacks (So you get your CHR modifier twice for damage) and Divine Smites to spend all your spell slots on for even more damage.

Barbarians can also do quite well with Elixirs of Strength, Tavern Brawler and thrown weapons with Berserker giving them bonus action throws (Which can be boosted with Thief dip for Fast Hands) but it's not quite as potent as Fighter given the debuffs from Enraged Throw.

Then of course there's other casters that while they don't output as much raw damage as a Sorcerer (Or Evo Wiz) can still provide bunches of power to a party;

- Druids have their Call Lightning which is a super powerful spell that is very spell slot efficient while being able to summon support with Conjure Elemental and Conjure Woodland Being providing more damage and control to a party. Spore Druids also can access the chest armour in Act 3 that lets them use spore buffs at will, enabling full uptime on Haste Spores that can give your entire party Haste (Without need of Concentration like a Sorc using Twin Spell Haste does to provide the effect to only 2 characters). Of course, Haste is less potent on Honour Mode but is still very good (And is outright OP on any other difficulty)

- Clerics have great support, synergies with Radiant Damage which when combined with Radiant Orb items can debuff enemies severely. Then there's also Tempest Domain which has hilarious power of control, namely things like using the Watersparkers (Plus the Sparkswall) to stand in pools of water, electrifying them and then in combination with their 6th level bonus making it so anything that touches the electrified water gets knocked back, creating impassable terrain for enemies (Or outright gluing them to a wall/corner constantly taking damage and being pushed back into the wall)

- Warlocks have potential for some very strong damage that doesn't rely on spell slots. Eldritch Blast with the Agonizing Blast invocation will add your CHR bonus to each projectile. Add on the Potent Robe from Act 2 and you're now dealing double your CHR bonus on each projectile. From there you can multiclass Sorc for Quickened Spell (Or Twin Spell) for more Eldritch Blasts per turn. Or Evo Wiz and get INT bonus on all damage types (Including Eldrich Blast's Force damage). Sprinkle on some Hex for more damage per projectile or you can use your Concentration and spell slots on control with things like Hunger of Hadar or Hold Person... Or even more damage with Wall of Fire (Which is super funny when you also have the Repelling Blast invocation and can toggle it on to knock enemies back into the flames if they leave them)

Really it's mostly just Rangers and Rogues that kind of pale in comparison to other classes. Not that they're "Bad" just that they don't offer the same level of power as other classes if focused on (Rogue is often multiclassed in powerful builds because of Fast Hands providing extra bonus actions - Especially for classes that can make good use of them like Sorcerer Quickening 2 spells out to cast 3 leveled spells in one turn, Monk having their bonus unarmed attacks and most builds that use Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master feats or dual wielding for bonus action attacks)

@Strato: Out of curiosity, what's your pick for the best level 6 spell between Otto's Frozen Sphere, Chain Lightning, and upcasted Cone of Cold? I'm not going anywhere with this and I don't plan on responding to your answer specifically, I'm just genuinely interested in which you like better.




I could not agree more! Poison damage really feels like it gets shafted in BG3. Early on after getting the game, I decided to go all-in on a poison dragonborn draconic sorcerer. It was so bad XD Cloudkill is pretty decent, yeah, but with so many enemies outright immune to poison damage it really seems kind of not worth it.



Mmm, I would argue that the premise of this thread is flawed.

In terms of just raw power, there a lot of things that can give ice sorcerers a run for their money.

Gloom Stalker Assassin stands out because of guaranteed crits and Arrows of Many Targets. That's already extremely powerful, but there is just a huge variety of compounding bonuses to stack on top of that it's ridiculous. My preference is Titanstting, Cloud Giant Elixir, double Dolor Amarus, Mask of Soul Perception, and Legacy of the Masters. That way you don't just crit, you get higher damage rolls and bonus crit damage on top of it. (I dislike using the GSA build though, it really is too strong to be fun for more than one playthrough, at least for me.)

I prefer looking in another another category for power, though. No sells. "No selling" is a thing in a professional wrestling routine when the protagonist of the match is suddenly just immune to everything. Some of my favorite no sells in BG3 are...

Arcane Ward: If your ward is sufficiently strong, and you have damage reduction effects like Warding Bond and Magical Plate, most things are simply incapable of doing any damage to you at all. You can add in paralysis immunity for even more defense, or abuse Armor of Agathys and enemies' inability to pass on opportunity attacks to turn that defense into offense.

Force Conduit: Very similar to Arcane Ward, but simpler. The tradeoff is it's only effective against physical attacks.

Arcane Acuity: Saving throws? I think not. Combine a high casting stat with 10 stacks of AA and enemies have very poor chances of rolling those 30+ saving throws to beat your SSDC. Particularly brutal with control spells and bards.

Stealth archery: GSA strikes again! It's already overwhelmingly powerful in battle, but it is capable of easily annihilating enemies without entering combat to begin with. It's a lot easier to do with the speed and accuracy of a mouse, but if you abuse stealth archery you can easily kill a dude and move before anyone can spot you. (There are of course other ways to abuse stealth, but archery has the most advantages and no disadvantages I can think of.)



Ditto. I felt like the learning curve was rather sharp because there's just so many systems interacting, but after getting the hang of it you really do need restrictions(or mods) to find difficulty in the game.

In a way, I wish there was a challenge or arena type mode to put even optimized teams through the wringer, with something neat like permanently unlocking unique camp clothes as a reward. I know I was so dissatisfied when I saw those yellow dice lol.



You must have ESPN, because you just read my mail!

I've never tried multiclassing to specifically solve that problem, but I often ran Gale with Boots of Speed. I'll definitely try your solution though, it sounds more fun than what I've been doing.



Cool. I needed an idea to run an oathbreaker and you've just given me a good place to start.

Thanks a lot for your extensive replies!



Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to try this out! I am aware of the power of Scorching Ray, of course, but mainly on Warlocks with Hex, since they automatically upcast Scorching Ray.


The reason I go by damage first is that healing is comparatively weak in BG3, as has been widely established. The best healing is therefore the damage you prevent from being dealt, by removing the damage source. In other words: Offence is the best defence. Especially on Honour Mode, any enemy you take out before they take a turn can make or break your run. In Magic: The Gathering logic, "I don't have creature removal, but I do have player removal"; removing a player automatically means they skip their turns. So it's ultimately about action economy.

Of course, there are other ways of making opponents skip turns, from slipping on ice surfaces (then again, that's obviously a major part of ice sorcerer, aside from raw damage) to confusion, hold person, and disarming. The latter conditions however are ones that opponents can make saving throws against, allowing them to return from the incapacitating state. There is no returning from the incapacitating state "death", with a few noteworthy exceptions (the undead in the Mountain Pass, and Sovereign Glut, of course, being able to revive other enemies).



I am aware of the power of both of these; on the higher difficulties, I'm already making my wizard Abjuration, rather than Evocation. The problem I've found is that Arcane Ward is fairly weak on lower levels, because it's quickly depleted - and at least on my first attempt, Abjuration spells that are reactions, like Shield, didn't actually build up any Arcane Ward. I have no doubt it's going to come online later. But that's kind of the problem with a lot of powerful builds. An extreme example is Hunter, which gets its best abilities at Level 11. Fine for Minsc, who joins the party at Level 12, but not really a reason to play a Hunter Tav.

As for Divination, the strength and flexibility of the Portent Dice would make it annoying to me, as I would constantly have to dismiss the reaction whenever I don't want to use a Portent Die, which is still going to be the majority of dice rolls.



Lore Bard is one I still want to give a try eventually. There always seems to be one subclass per class that is just outclassed by the other two (the two Wild Magic subclasses for Sorcerer and Barbarian, College of Valor for Bard, Arcane Trickster for Rogue etc.). So I get why they're adding a new subclass for each class in Patch 8, since many classes only seem to have two out of three subclasses which are actually viable.



Here you've jumped to conclusions. As I've stated in the opening post, I actually do have a run as a Monk Tav, and I'm doing precisely the elixir-Tavern-Brawler thing that everyone else does. That's what I meant by "getting into the meta".
The reason I stated Dex, Con, and Wis are so important for Monk was precisely because I know you can just dump Str for Monks. So I didn't mean Str were unimportant as a stat for Monks in general, quite the opposite - only that it's unimportant for investing any skill points into.

The problem I have with Open-Hand Monks is that they're pretty much a glass canon, similarly to Warlocks. Sure, I could do a bunch of things, but most of them are going to be strictly worse than just Flurry of Blows (plus, on later levels, Stunning / Ki-Resonation Strike + Ki-Resonation Blast). Just like with Warlocks, I could cast one of my Warlock spells, but I really need a strong reason not to just use my action on Eldritch Blast 95% of the time.

A Monk in the party as a support damage dealer, like hireling Sina'zith, is fun to me - a Monk Tav however has little to no skill points left for Charisma, and that was the reason I brought up Dex, Con, and Wis. Especially on Honour Mode, I would still like the option to talk myself out of as many dangerous encounters as possible. Monks are already MAD, and Charisma isn't one of the stats they normally need. Warlocks, in contrast, are largely SAD, being able to do pretty much everything with Charisma - but they're just as much of a glass canon, thanks to Eldritch Blast and the occasional Hunger of Hadar.



My first time casting Cloudkill was on my very first run during the battle at Moonrise Towers - and it promptly earned me the "Enemy of Justice" debuff, because a Harper was stupid enough to run into it, and apparently that's my fault. Luckily, that debuff didn't stick around as I went into Act III, nor did it cause anyone to attack me when I returned to Last Light Inn after the Ketheric fight (I went there to test this, so that I wouldn't lose even more progress by first proceeding into Act III).

On my second run, I cast Hunger of Hadar instead, placing it a little further in the middle of the room, so that only enemies got stuck in there, none of the Harpers - and made sure to quickly cancel concentration on it as soon as the fight was over (in turn-based mode, as far as I recall).

At least I found a use for Circle of Death (necrotic) on my first run, in the courtyard battle during the finale. :P On my second run, I've only used Circle of Death to clear out the rats in the Elfsong Tavern. "Kill lots of small things" seems to be the primary application for it, as I had heard in the meantime that Circle of Death is supposed to be a spell for villains only, so that they can kill a lot of civilians and thus earn the heroes' hatred.



I usually do that with Karlach, making her a Berserker for Enraged Throw instead. I added three levels of Fighter (Eldritch Knight) recently, but found it adds little extra value, so I turned those levels into Rogue (Thief) levels for the extra bonus action instead. I don't actually want to use any bound weapons, even though Karlach has all the ones you mentioned in her inventory, as her main weapon is the Harmonium Halberd that raises her strength, combined with the Mighty Cloth. Throwing the Returning Pike would lower her strength as soon as it returns to her hand. So now I have the trade-off of always having to run around to pick up my Lightning Jabbers etc. ^^

Throw Barbarian is still somewhat of a glass canon to me, again thanks to the bustedness of Tavern Brawler. Much like my Monk, Karlach spends most combats doing the same things. Lae'zel as a Battle Master at least gets to vary her manoeuvres, depending on whether a given enemy can be disarmed, tripped, shoved, goaded, frightened etc.



I'm already using those in my current playthrough, precisely because I'm playing an Ice Sorcerer Tav. Obviously, Druids and Clerics who can cast Create Water and Call Lightning synergise well with this. The Spark equipment set I gave to Wyll, and he kept it for the majority of my current run. The Potent Robe is worn by my Tav.

This synergy makes the build even more powerful - but also the entire team more one-note. Why should my Druids ever use any of their Wildshapes, if they can just keep casting Call Lightning? Sometimes, I turn Halsin into a Water Myrmidon, because the attacks synergise with the Wet condition.

Shadowheart (Tempest Cleric for Destructive Wrath) at least occasionally gets to do Spirit Guardians + Click Heels - i.e., a different damage type (Radiant) - but only when there are a bunch of small enemies to take out, like Cazador's bats. As long as there are sponges of enemies to take out - keep in mind Tactician Enhanced raises the HP to compensate for the higher party limit - making everything wet and then just spamming lightning and cold damage onto enemies to take out individual opponents before they get more than one turn is usually the most efficient strategy.

Wyll, as said before, is mainly just doing Eldritch Blast - I don't even need to do the whole Darkness setup - and Hunger of Hadar really only comes up occasionally for large enemy groups. That's usually when the Druids finally get to do something different, casting Spike Growth and Plant Growth. Wyll's spell slots in the end game are often best used by summoning an elemental - especially if I have to short-rest anyway, and Wyll still has one spell slot remaining, might as well summon an elemental. Again, though, I rarely see a reason to summon anything other than a Water Elemental, because of the cold attacks.

So as you can see, it's not just that Ice Sorcerer is one of the strongest builds - it's that the builds it synergises with are also some of the strongest builds for the other classes.

I do want to try out what it looks like when I build my entire team around fire damage (Fire Sorcerer, Light Cleric etc.). But I assume that's quickly going to devolve into barrelmancy, at least when it comes to large enemy groups. Grease alone won't add as much damage as Water does for Cold or Lightning damage. The Scorching Ray thing is probably most comparable to the Call-Lightning or the Twinned Ray of Frost thing: Great for taking out individual enemies with large health pools, occasionally two enemies at once, but not large crowds.

Light Cleric is ironically more defensive than Tempest Cleric, thanks to Warding Flare. So whether I'd make Shadowheart a Light Cleric on Honour Mode is dependent on how scared of dying I am - picking Tempest Cleric for more damage is the greedy option. Much like Oath of Vengeance Paladin for even more damage vs. Oath of Ancients for healing.



I found Ranger the most disappointing class overall - the main one I hear people gushing about is Gloomstalker, but of course in combination with Assassin Rogue. Considering all the hoops you have to jump through to recruit Minsc, and how late in the game you get him, on my first run, where I didn't re-spec anyone aside from Shadowheart (into Light Cleric when the story called for it ), I was extremely underwhelmed by Minsc. Now he's a Berserker/Open-Hand Monk/Fighter without any Ranger levels, and I don't miss them at all. Lightning Arrow alone, despite being unique to Rangers, isn't worth taking all the other sub-optimal features. So Ranger is the class I'm most curious about when it comes to Patch 8, hoping the new class will finally make me actually want to play a Ranger, rather than playing one out of a sense of obligation, merely because Gloomstalker is OP.



Chain Lightning, no questions asked.

I've always had a soft spot for Cone of Cold, but after having watched Cephalopocalypse's rankings of the spells, I agree that a lof of the Level IV and V spells have pretty underwhelming average damage when compared to Level III spells, and just upcasting those.

Otiluke's Freezing Sphere can only be learned by Wizards, much like Ice Wall, and it's not strong enough for me to shift from Sorcerer to full-on Wizard. Especially considering that you can buy plenty of scrolls for both Freezing Sphere and Ice Wall, and just cast those as a Sorcerer. Better yet, a single level of Wizard is enough for a Level-11 Sorcerer to learn these spells. I even saw a build yesterday where somebody managed to take two levels of Tempest Cleric on top of that, while still being able to cast Level-6 spells.

It's literally no different to most offensive abilities requiring Attack Rolls (Or Saving Throws!)

Both Saving Throws and Attack Rolls require your opponent to fail a roll for them to apply (Sometimes there are conditions for still having half impact on a successful save... Though a failed Attack Roll is always 0 damage)

Controlling enemies can in fact lead to more damage than raw damage output. Like in the case of Hold Person, I could cast 1 leveled spell worth of damage... Or I lock an enemy down and make the other 3 people on my party have at least 1 turn of dealing double damage with free attack rolls...


It can come online pretty early actually. Around level 5.

1 level dip into Fighter for Heavy Armour Proficiency, then take Heavy Armour Mastery as your level 4 Feat and Warding Bond from a Cleric (It's a Level 2 spell so accessed very early). Then so long as you've gone around collecting a bunch of random magical items that are strewn over Act 1, you can stack Arcane Ward pretty easily.

It'll hit its power spike when you get to Grymforge and thus can access the first Heavy Armour with innate damage reduction on it (The Adamantine Plate), but the build overall comes online as soon as you get the Feat and Warding Bond together.


I don't find it particularly difficult to afford reasonable CHR points when dumping stats, even on Honour Mode.

Like, yes, pump WIS as high as possible... But then like 14 Dex, 14 Con, and some points into CHR isn't too hard (Plus Proficiency from Background and/or Rogue dip (Which you'd want for Fast Hands anyway)) which does enough.

I don't find the need to pump Dex and Con to the moon even on Honour Mode. Especially with proper control available through a decent Tank and control spells.


The thing to remember is that those aren't necessarily the strongest builds for those classes. Plus those builds can synergize with other strategies too.

Like, Tempest Cleric with the Spark set up pushing enemies into a corner can still be amazing with Fire buidls, stacking Walls of Fire onto them. Sure, Wall of Fire doesn't benefit from Wet, but it just does a bunch of raw damage on its own.


Debatable. Light Cleric gets Radiance of the Dawn, Scorching Ray, Fireball and Wall of Fire. Potent Spellcasting can also be used alongside Spell Sniper: Eldritch Blast for nice damage too. These can allow the subclass to deal a bunch of damage.


I've never had any need to "Barrelmancy" to make fire builds good. Wall of Fire is simply so strong on its own for AoE damage. Sometimes I like to combine it with Hunger of Hadar to ensure ranged enemies run into it (And enemies all get slowed) and then things like Repelling Blast and Fighter/Barbarian/Monk/Bard characters that can push enemies back into the killbox if they manage to leave. (Which again, highlights that Raw Damage isn't always the best form of offense... Hunger of Hadar as a control tool can facilitate so much damage in such setups because of how it makes enemies get stuck inside massive damage areas)


Aye, I'm not a big fan of Rangers in this game. Even the Gloomsassin build just feels kind of trash after they nerfed Assassin (It used to be that you'd benefit from Assassinate: Ambush on the attack you initiated combat with, meaning you'd be able to do a guaranteed crit full attack to start combat, then get another guaranteed crit full attack from Assassinate: Initiative and then get your guaranteed crit mainhand attack from Gloomstalker. But now you only get Assassinate: Ambush while in combat so you miss out on that first full attack crit)

Even more so given all the "Combat after forced dialogue" or "Forced combat" encounters in the game that can just completely remove Assassin's bonuses completely.

Beastmaster could be decent... If the companions stats weren't absolute trash on Tactician... The bonus damage and effects (Along with Hunter's Mark synergy) could be useful, but on Tactician the companions all have like 40% accuracy and die if anything sneezes near them...

Meanwhile Hunter is just bad... Like, outside Colossus Slayer + Arrow of Many Targets it's just an inferior Rogue/Bard (And the level 11 skills are just awful. Arrow of Many Targets is far better than either of them)

"Ranking" content...worth watching???

mind=blown

I haven't used those three spells in probably a year. Couldn't even remember the name of one, ha. Neat. I'll have to go over them again. I suspected I might hear an interesting opinion, I never imagined it'd include a positive assessment of something with a clickbait title!

Good to know, thanks — to me, that’s already the beginning of the early mid-game, though. The critical part is the slog from level 3 to 5.

Especially 4 to 5 is a bottleneck on Honour Mode, because all the Level 4-5 enemies (Anders, Ethel, Flind, the Minotaurs, the Bulette etc.) are potential run enders if you face them a bit too early: You don’t have extra attack yet, and even certain feats like Great Weapon Master don’t reach their full potential yet. I’ve dipped into War Cleric for Lae’zel at level 4 instead, to give her an extra attack before she gains Extra Attack, and will then respec into pure Fighter when she reaches character level 5.

There’s usually this gap in XP, after having already done the harpies, the ettercaps, the couple in the barn, the ogres, the windmill with the gnome, the hyenas and gnolls without Flind, Waukeen’s Rest, Priestess Gut etc., where you still need some more XP to get to Level 5, and therefore usually have to risk the encounter with one of the above-mentioned enemies.