Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Best none GWM fighter build for Lae'zel

Hi guys, I'm kind of a RP player and I'm running my first tactician mode game.

I've already used Lae'zel as a GWM user in a previous game, so I'm woundering what would be the best option aside from 2hander ?

Is DW or sword and board fighter would be the best ?

The rest of my team isn,t that powerfull, War domain shadowheart, Arcane trickster Astarion and a pure wizard Gale.

Technically, the most powerful would be Eldritch Knight Thrower build.

But if that's not your style, you can do some dual wield builds. I'm quite fond of Champion Crit builds (Where you utilize items like Knife of the Undermountain King and some Act 2 Justiciar items to stack crit on top of Champions innate +1 crit). But you can also do more regular Battlemaster or EK builds.

If you want, you can still go SnB build for that extra AC (Without losing much damage as you get more from going 11 Fighter for the extra attack than dipping Thief for Fast Hands due to how Extra Attack works better with Action Surge and Haste so dual wield as a Fighter mostly just gets you 1 single off-hand attack - With the main exception being weapons with bonus effects which can add some extra damage). Both Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight offer some nice extras to spice up gameplay while being a more tanky frontliner.

At the end of the day, it's up to you really. Both DW and SnB are fine and about equal powerwise, DW simply offers a little bit more damage through using bonus action for an off-hand attack while SnB gets a bit of extra AC.

I'm not entirely against a trowing build but I need her to be in melee to soak some damage. Is trowing penalized when someone is in melee range of you like archery ?

Yes, if you are engaged then you get disadvantage on throwing just as if you were using a bow (Or non-touch range spell)

Of course, as a Throwing build prioritizes Strength, you are very much capable of Shoving an enemy that is engaged with you away allowing you to then throw without disadvantage.

Not to mention... You can still actually melee with a throwing build. Like, you are very much able to throw at the start of the fight, then when enemies start to get close run in to melee and start meleeing and absorbing damage. You're not necessarily bad at melee, it's just it won't be anywhere near as strong as your thrown attacks (Which are ridiculously strong thanks to Tavern Brawler feat)

The strongest melee Fighter as of Patch 8 is Eldritch Knight. The problem is that most of the damage of a Fighter comes from Great Weapon Master, Sharpshooter or Tavern Brawler. Using a onehanded sword and shield greatly reduces the damage.

If you don't mind using a twohanded weapon, you could make a controlling Fighter with Sentinel, Polearm Master, Savage Attacker and one ASI. I'd prefer GWM for such a build over Savage Attacker, but if you want to avoid it, the other variant isn't much worse. Anyway, a polearm build does play differently from a pure GWM damage build.

You could make the Fighter with sword and board and use Phalar Aluve, to increase the other party members damage considerably. With Battlemaster you still have the means to control the enemy, with Eldritch Knight you can still use Booming Blade and have 4 attacks with ease, that's 40 less damage than with GWM but still ok.

BTW my main is an allround Eldritch Knight Fighter, she has GWM and Sharpshooter and is Dex based. Her main weapons are Phalar Aluve and the Ttanstring Bow. I like to be able to act at any distance. Shooting a bow is also not as annoying as throwing, for my taste. It plays a bit differently than a pure melee GWM build, but in the end it's GWM when in melee, so maybe not for you.

If you don't mind a ranged Fighter, Arcane Archer is insanely strong (in my party Astarion is one), wether you use 12 levels Fighter with a bow or make an 8 Fighter/4 Rogue Thief mix with hand crossbows. Of course such a Fighter does play quite differently than a GWM based build.

To the rest of your group, War domain Cleric and Arcane Trickster Rogue may not be that strong, but a pure Wizard can win many fights mostly alone, if specced in certain ways and long-resting a lot, so I would like to come to Gale's defense here. To be honest, I cannot imagine Lae'zel without a twohander. Because my main occupies that role, Lae'zel is not in my party except for the creche (my party always consists of Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale, while only Astarion is allowed to multiclass).

If you want melee but not a fighter you can go with a Monk Lae'Zel.

If you want Lae’zel in melee and specifically not GWM, I’d lean sword-and-board Battle Master over dual wield.

Reason is simple: without GWM, Fighter damage drops anyway, so DW doesn’t gain as much as people expect unless you build heavily around it. Meanwhile shield + Battle Master gives you a sturdier frontliner, which your party seems to want, and maneuvers still keep her impactful with control/disruption.

I’d go sword & board tbh. It fits Lae’zel well and makes her way tankier for tactician, which your team kinda needs.

DW can work, but it feels a bit weaker and more gear-dependent. Sword + shield is just solid, consistent, and still hits hard enough.

Just for the record, the best character to "soak up damage in melee" is of course Wildheart Barbarian 7 with Bear Heart and Stallion Animal Aspect / Thief 5.

Wildheart 3 gives you Bestial Heart; Bear gives you resistance against every damage type except psychic during the Rage.

Wildheart 6 gives you Animal Aspect; Stallion gives you double Barbarian level temporary hitpoints whenever you Dash.

Rogue 2 gives you Dash as Bonus Action

Thief 3 gives you a second Bonus Action per round

Rogue 5 gives you Uncanny Dodge, allowing you to half damage taken once per round, using your Reaction. This actually stacks with Resistance.

Barbarian 7 gives you Feral Instinct; a slightly weaker version of Alert.

By the way Stallion doesnt care if you actually move, only that you used a Dash action. So you can just Dash with your Rogue once per round as one of your two Bonus Actions and refresh your temporary hitpoints, and possibly use the other Bonus Action through Thief 3 to consume a healing potion.

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On top of that, you can have a Cleric to halven the damage even further with the level 2 spell Warding Bond. This spell is available through a pair of Rings in Act 2, too, so you can have an Abjuration Wizard as the one who shares the damage (and, in case of Abjurer, mitigate it away into nothing).

This AGAIN stacks with the other two effects, so now your Barbarian only receives 1/8th of the damage, which then hit the temporary hitpoints first.

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If that still isnt enough, you can build a Lore Bard 8 / Thief 3 / Life Cleric 1 who picks Warden of Vitality as their Magical Secret. Warden of Vitality allows for 10 rounds to heal as a Bonus Action, and Thief 3 allows to have two Bonus Actions per round, and Life Cleric boosts your heals further, nevermind all the extra items you can use to boost healing even early on. So this character can heal 2d6 hitpoints twice per round, plus all the bonuses they can apply on top.

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The best tanking is of course to give your opponents this convenient Status: Dead. They all dont do too much against any of your characters after they received that Status.

So the best tanking is to go first and have lots of damage for single targets, and control for larger groups of lesser opponents.

Actually, it's Abjurer Wizard with Heavy Armour Mastery.

Especially if you're using Warding Bond meaning you're getting resistance to all damage types anyway (Meaning Bear Heart is redundant)

You even mention this when you state to have a Abjurer Wiz be the user of Warding Bond so they can "Mitigate [the damage] into nothing". If they can mitigate the damage into nothing, then the original target can too.

You don't need to bother with getting Temp HP or healing if everything just deals 0 damage anyway.

While the Abjuration Wizard is impressively tanky too, he cannot halven the damae twice before it is even considered.

I mean... Nothing stops you from multi-classing Rogue to get the exact same tools as your Barbarian build to do that exact thing.

Not that you need it, since you can reduce everything to 0 easily enough anyway (If it even hits you because Shield reactions)

Barbarian is an easy tank, because you can get a bunch of resistances level 3 with Bear Heart - Which can combo with stuff like Stallion or a popular choice is going Moon Druid to get Bear (And later Owlbear) form while Raging for extra health from the form plus all the resistances from Rage.

But Abjuration Wizard with Heavy Armour Mastery is the best tank, due to having the best mitigation (Especially if you hoard up magical items that grant uses of Abjuration spells for free Ward charges), especially when using Warding Bond to provide the resistances. Taking literally 0 damage from almost everything. It's just a little trickier because it doesn't come online properly until after Grymforge as Adamantine Plate is the first available heavy armour with damage reduction.

Not that such min-maxed things are necessary in the game, especially when you can have characters fully devoted to dealing damage that still are pretty tanky due to high AC's and utility spells (Shield, Counterspell, Darkness etc)