Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Paladin - most damage output . no missies or resists

Paladin has the most damage output without any missies or resists.
The is the most played class by the same reason , auras , buffs , high AC , and insane amount of damage.
clearly requires a balance to be in par with other classes with damage output.

And the Wizard spells are not working as per D&D 5E.

Paladin has good damage in, like, one fight, and then needs a nap because all that smiting power gets exhausted real fast. They are popular because of their iconic status, and their Charisma, so you can have a party face MC (ditto sorcerer).

They don't have the most damage output, fwiw. After all, that statement lacks any context for *anyone* to be highest. At what range? With how much forewarning? With how many encounters preceding this one? At what AC? Vs how many combatants, and what is their relative positioning?

If you are starting from 300m away, a Paladin won't be tops at all, because they're slow and pretty much need to be in melee range. Ranged specialists may well finish the fight before they deal a single point of damage. If you're facing a cluster of 9 enemies all adjacent to each other, they're not going to be tops at all, your hasted 3x/round Fireball slinging Sorc will be. If you have unlimited setup time, a Barrelmancer will absolutely destroy them in damage output. And so forth.

They have a ton of upsides, Boz listed quite a few of them, and you're correct in that their high AC and especially auras make them quite popular. As far as filling the "tank" role, they do that very well, and they bring more utility and flexibility and fun burst damage than a straight fighter. I love paladin and am playing one in a single player campaign. But the only context in which they're top damage output is if you're talking about starting at melee range vs a single target dummy and having say 4 rounds to blast out as much damage to it as you can, and even then that's quite debatable.

Did you do your homework? Fighter has 3 attacks, superiority dice and action surge. Lvl 12 paladin and lvl 12 fighter that isnt using Action Surge literally deal almost same damage on average, but fighter can double his damage with action surge and both action surge and superiority dice replenish on short rest alowing fighter to go nova several times before he needs a long rest, while paladin has only 10 spell slots and once he used his lvl 3 spellslots paladin's average damage drops lower than fighter's average. And thats without accounting for haste giving a full action which benefits fighter with 3 attacks more than paladin.

Err I would still play Paladin, even if they would suck. I simply like the flair of the class.

I also play female Highelf and she's chaste and if I could, she would get an unicorn as mount; and an all white armor.

I also didnt pick Vengeance. Though I might turn Oathbreaker if it turns out its too much of a PITA to stay true to the Oath. I heard rumors about that.

Paladin is one of the classes that are a LOT more interesting to play now than back in BG1 and BG2.



Superiority Dice is only a thing for Battle Master Fighters, though.

What about the monk with all that gear they have everywhere hidden in game. Fists, stunpower, ki powers and then extra attacks.... not to mention you can run across the whole map and deflect missile attacks.

Yup, second this. Not to mention you can put 2 hand xbow on them and they still can output tons of damage and has 1 more feat.
By the way, the rogue can go up to 60 damage in 1 sneak attack, and the assassin can make sure that it crit, and Durge's mantle can make sure that whenever you kill someone, the combat will end instantly so you can 'surprise' them again, and because it is a suprised sneak attack, it is always >95% hit rate.

People really overrate this class. Battle Master and Berserker are nice too.

It's not remotely overrated. For one, it boasts similar combat potency as either of those, except it has more burst interaction with paralysis and especially the half-orc broken racial that gives an extra damage dice on crits. Second, the class has access to group support and aoe CC the other two don't have. And on top of that, it's a charisma based class so it's incredibly powerful as a face character for all of the game. Persuasion/Intimidation dice checks are a joke, and they're the most important rolls in the game by far. The time it saves you save scumming dice rolls or not having to rely on consumables is humongous.

Just because the martials as a class are a busted category overall doesn't make paladins any less busted.

Go play a Bard or Beastmaster Ranger or druid or a pure warlock without a martial class in the party and a caster without Act 3 legendary staff and clown gloves and get back to me how it feels when you're doing less than a third of the damage.

No idea how this relates to my post. No idea what staff and gloves you talking about, so ... 50% is done :P
Can you be more precise which class 'i shouldn't play' so i can prove it's possible?

Possible does not relate to this post either. It's about comparison. You can probably complete the game with a full party of trickery clerics. Doesn't mean it's close to the efficiency of a party with strong martial classes in it.

The gloves is a broken piece of equipment that says "For spells with attack rolls to hit an enemy, you can take a -5 to the attack roll, and do +1d8 damage". This is rather weak with 90% of the attack roll spells in the game, kinda good with Scorching Ray because it has multiple projectiles, and absolutely broken bonkers with Magic Missile, because Magic Missile auto-hits, always, and it shouldn't even work with it, since it doesn't roll to hit.

I didn't said anything about martial classes in general, i said Paladin is overrated (read title, and OP post for clue).

Overrated IN RELATION TO WHAT. There you go, you made a comparison of class power. You made no comment as to whether paladin or fighter could complete a campaign. And now you're playing dumb about it. This was always a discussion about the comparative strength of classes. When someone states a class is OP, it's always in relation to the others.


And if you do that, you killed the gloves, because martials are getting gloves and feet with 1d6 rolls without a negative attack penalty roll, and once you remove magic missiles as the only spell that can compete with the single target damage of martials, you are going to have to massively buff single target lv5-lv6 spells, because the fact a single cast lv6 Disintegrate that has a DEX save or it does zero damage, and its damage range of 50-100 for a once per long rest use while the martials are swinging Balduran Greatsword for 40-50 damage per attack will put casters in the garbage bin, the only reason they aren't in a garbage bin to begin with right now is because of sorcerers and chain lightning and magic missiles. Wizards might as well be dead without the gloves and Art of War interaction, and warlocks are already in the dustbin as they're capped at lv5 spells and don't even get access to the good ones with 3 pathetic spell slots. Won't even touch caster druids, which are just as bad as warlocks.

...you want arcane casters to have 1:1 comparable damage to martials, AND the enormous utility bag of the rest of the spells, too?
Yeah. Okay. Sure. Aham.

Insane utility my ass. Killing enemies is insane utility, if I can 2 turn a boss as a martial, and my martial utility is I can coat a venom to paralyze 95% of bosses in the game and autocrit them for half their life per turn, I don't care what you have to claim for caster utility. But do go on what insane utility a caster has when the game floods you with spell scrolls martials can use and magic gear that grants fly, talk to dead, guidance, feather fall, vault and misty step.

Do tell me where this magic gear is. I've yet to see vault, feather fall or fly on an item.

There is one item with fly. Helldusk Armor. Also happens to be the armor any good Paladin would want.

Fly also comes from Illithid powers, and you need those anyway for your alpha strike crit smite.

There's a ring that grants vault, it's from Act 1, the feather fall boots are the boots of Mystra from the Arcane Tower in the Underdark. Zero cooldown by the way, no short or long rest limitations. The Underdark also provides a misty step and immune to difficult terrain/enweb/restrain legendary boots, there's a misty step amulet as well, and the guidance amulet is also on Act 1.

There's a Charm Person amulet in Act 2 btw, so yet more caster utility handed out for free to martial classes, there's a bunch of items that grant aid, and a ring and shield that grants Warding Bond, which is universal elemental resistance and +1 AC to a partner. There's a ring in Act 3 with Paralyzing Ray, perfectly usable by martials. An Amulet from the Spectator in Act 1 granting Wounding Ray and Fear. An amulet that grants Fog.

The list just goes on. It's always caster spells and perks that are given to martials for free, but those extra attacks martials have or coating venoms and paralysis autocrit limited to being within 3m of the target? Those stay exclusive to martials. No accessories to grant martial weapon proficiencies, by the way, and there's a single armor that grants proficiency with heavy armor, at the very end of the game behind the hardest boss, but since it doesn't grant spell attack rolls or DC, you want to stick to the single existing very rare wizard robe in the game, which is where you find the single legendary staff in the game while the game has 4+ legendary martial weapons handed out.

Oh, and you know that cantrip longstrider and the very expensive lv5 spell freedom of movement granting immunity to paralysis and restrain? Granted by some boots. Cheers, "insane caster utility".

Ignored wisdom/int/cha as stats as a martial? Worry not, a whole treasure trove of amulet and rings to grant you advantage and +1 to wis/int/cha based saving throws, in case the parade of misty step or fly armor/accessories and immunity to difficult terrain rained on you to negate the supposed disadvantages of a melee playstyle wasn't enough.

Read title and OP post with attention? You can't determine this based on title and OP post?
If you somehow manage to figure out this, i just said Paladin is overrated. I don't think presenting you any arguments will change anything. Get over yourself. Playing chess with pigeons makes no sense.