Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Glamour bard is kind of bad

Cutting right to the chase: it's because the two unique abilities it has don't get much use.

Mantle of Inspiration only has an effect when something hits you specifically with a melee attack. Archers and casters don't care. Armor of Agathys and similar buffs cancel it(understandable but still). Worst of all, if you're playing well enemies simply don't get the opportunity to do melee attacks at all. You could use summons like mephits or Nimbus to bait attacks, but then you're making a plan to get hit instead of just killing everything.

Mantle of Majesty has little value if you don't have enemies that are already charmed. You either need to have someone waste an action charming enemies(when you could just kill them instead) or having a teammate with Mantle of Inspiration get themselves hit.


I spent my time in the patch 8 stress test goofing around, but when I'm actually trying? College of glamor? More like college of...self-defeating game mechanics! Am I right or am I right? Ok, but it really feels bad, as though any other bard could do it's job, but have more features to in situations other than mistakes.

I mean, it still provides allies with some extra health.

But yeah, it's kind of underwhelming compared to other Bard subclass bonuses.

Glamour Bard feels like it's sort of in the same boat as Wild Magic Barb.

Where it can be pretty nice early game. But kind of falls off by the end of Act 1.

WM Barb has this by its WM procs can be pretty nice early on. But as they don't scale at all they quickly fall off as Extra Attacks and Cantrip Dice kick in.

While Glamour Bard can be decent throwing around that Temp Health (Especially with the early supportive Bard equipment that provides extra healing). which is meaningful early on and you won't have the tools to overwhelm many early encounters so you can proc some charms (Especially places like the Goblin Camp and the Creche). But as you get access to more power and health, it becomes less relevant.

Poor Alfira. It's not bad enough she ends up giving Durge's camp a fresh coat of paint, but all she gets from patch 8 is a subclass only as good as one of the weakest pairs of boots in the game.



That reminds me, I need to use another one of those. I haven't used that subclass since I gained a decent grasp on the game...and I've had a wild magic sorcerer on the backburner for ages just begging for some extra chaos.

Hmm listening to some people one could think its the uber class.

But yeah none of the new additions really convince me, and certainly also not Glamour Bard.

Any ability that requires your opponent to hit you in the first place isnt going to be great, and thats all these Glamour Bards ever get.

Some of them aren't bad.

Swashbuckler is by far the best pure Rogue subclass (Provided you're not one of those "Pure Rogue is complete and total garbage" types because you ONLY use Hasted Tavern Brawler builds). Bonus initiative, free sneak attacks (Without needing to worry about Advantage or having someone stand next to the target) and free bonus action Disarms and Blinds with no resource cost (Which when used also give Advantage on your next attack)

Giant Barb is really good (Unless you play on Honour Mode, where it got nerfed into the ground) because in non-Honour Mode difficulties the bonus elemental damage takes on every damage bonus the attack would get (I.e. Strength damage, Rage bonus damage, Tavern Brawler, Ring of Flinging, Gloves of Uninhibited Kuchigo etc) making it essentially double your damage but as elemental damage (So you can abuse Wet by opting for Lightning/Cold damage)

Stars Druid, Hexblade and Arcane Archer are okay. Nothing stand out amazing but decent options that provide some small benefits (Stars having weaponized bonus action from forms and essentially Bardic Inspiration/Cutting Words, Hexblade is Warlock with free Medium Armour proficiency, Arcane Archer is Fighter but with bonus special arrows to utilize)

The rest though... Have a difficult time trying to justify themselves over existing subclasses...

Glamour Bard compared to Lore Bard favours Lore which gets its Cutting Words and extra Magical Secrets

Death Domain compared to Light or Tempest Domain... Oh boy I can Cantrip against 2 targets (But don't even get Potent Spellcasting). Or I can get OP spells and abilities from Light and Tempest.

Drunken Master compared to Open Hand. I mean, anything compared to Open Hand is going to struggle. But it's even worse here because it's like "I can spend Ki to make someone Drunk and then spend more Ki to do a single attack that gets 1d8 + WIS bonus to remove it" meanwhile Open Hand is sitting there with every unarmed attack just dealing a bonus 1d4 + WIS damage and spends its Ki just double punching everything to death with this insane damage rider.

Crown compared to Vengeance. "Taunting" enemies doesn't really work and Vengeance Paladin has the most powerful Oath ability with its 10 turns of Advantage (Especially with the implementation that means applying it to yourself means you get Advantage against everything for the duration)

Swarmkeeper compared to Gloom or Hunter. Swarmkeeper is kind of like a slightly better Beast Master as it's basically the same thing but you're not gimped by the awful Companion stats on higher difficulties... But compared to the Gloomssassin or Colossus Slayer + Arrow of Many Targets shenans it's whatever.

Shadow Magic compared to Draconic... Sure the doggo scales with difficulty for some reason. But it's like, I could mess around with trying to get it to apply its curse and then capitalize on it... Or just play Draconic Fire/Ice/Lightning and explode everything with bonus damage.

Bladesinger compared to Abjuration or Divination... Like, sure, for a pure Wizard Gish, Bladesinger comes out ahead. But the ease of doing a 1 level Fighter dip and getting access to all weapons, shields and Medium/Heavy Armour (And being able to use them. Bladesinger is stuck using only its single weapon type and Light/No Armour and no shield) just makes for better Gish builds.

Crown Pally gives proficiency bonus to attack. This is worse than advantage in pretty much all cases that matter. Early game its a lot worse, but late game when proficiency bonus is +4 its only slightly worse.

Still worse, but... you can put that on your companions, whereas vengeance pally is self only. Depends on comp whether that's useful, but it does create a use case for crown.

I agree with the rest of your analysis. The new subclasses are mostly for RP.

I didnt meant that they are bad per se, but that they dont really interest me. Sure I may feel like playing around and play whatever. But none of them are my favorite option for that class.