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#711135 21/10/20 07:23 PM
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Clerics feel unnecessary/weak compared to some of the other classes. Fighters, Rogues and Rangers all benefit the most from the BG3 changes to attacks (high ground gives advantage, shadows give advantage, backstab gives advantage, 1d4 extra damage from dipping, 2d4 if you dip with dual wielding, etc.). Wizards get really good guaranteed damage with Fire Bolt, as well as great CC with ray of frost.

Meanwhile all the good things about clerics are diminished in BG3. Food heals, making healing spells less important. Getting max HP between every encounter is now trivial. There is no long resource grind through a dungeon. Buff spells like bless are often redundant because of all the advantage everywhere. The way the game works my cleric in most fights finds himself sitting on some high ground making bow attacks with a -1 attack mod and a -1 damage mod because advantage + dip is just so busted. Seems like there's no reason to pick cleric over ranger for most situations.

With the better action economy in BG3 vs 5e, fights are more about finishing enemies off rather than more sustained fights where healing, buffs/nerfs, and crowd control are more important (did i mention food and potions are bonus actions?). The level 2 cleric spells include some good CC, but the fact that they require concentration in a world where the floor is lava make them much harder to sustain. Giving 3 enemies -1d4 to attack rolls is fine, but when your attacks could do 1d8+1d4+3 with 90%+ chance to hit, generally just killing things is better (no concentration required!)

Shadowheart, our default cleric is locked into the trickery domain, which is just absolutely awful. At level 2 Trickery Domain Clerics unlock "invoke duplicity", which creates an illusion and gives advantage to attackers if both they and the illusion are within 10 feet of a target. Since you can just walk behind an enemy to get advantage, this spell is absolute garbage. The other trickery domain spells increase her tankiness, so you could build into that, but she has -1 DEX mod so it doesn't really make much sense.

Throwing a healing word on a downed teammate is still useful, but other than that just stacking damage dealers makes a lot more sense than slowing your party down with a cleric imho.


Last edited by genobeam; 21/10/20 07:35 PM. Reason: Grammar
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They really should fix her stats. She could eaisly be 8/14/14/16/14 and that would be just fine. Once the level cap raised a little she would start to become a good caster, since lockpicking is changed she could fill in somewhat ok to open locks so you wouldnt need a rogue, and once you got third level spells you could run a party of her, two light/medium armor characters and a heavy armor character and buff everythings stealth skill up to let you open hard fights with optimal positioning. At least it would feel like it was all working around a theme.

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Trickery is lackluster. I find the light domain cleric to be good, though.

Food healing should be removed, but it will at least become less efficient and useful as we level (e.g it start to take three dozen apples to fully heal).

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I think that food makes clerics more fun and relevant. You get to use your spells proactively instead of having to save up to healbot between encounters. Now I can use aggressive spells and buffs way more freely than I could without food. It feels as good as a Pathfinder cleric where healing is basically a separate resource from spells.

As far as advantage goes, yes bless is slightly worse but its still absolutely amazing. +1d4 is still a huge increase to the chance of succeeding a roll and you get to apply it to many many rolls per casting. I think it's just hard to notice because we don't see every roll we're making. Bringing downed teammates backup is the best use of healing word by a ton anyways.

Shadowheart is very far from optimal, but I still found her incredibly useful.

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If they actually include the full list of encumbrance rules for 5e 8 str is going to be troublesome as soon as you hit 40lbs. Movement is reduced by 10 and then it starts to compound. We dont know currently if the system is just a WIP or fully implemented.

Also OP walking behind a mob doesnt give you advantage it gives you flanking rules. Flanking and Advantage stack.

Jaz




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Originally Posted by communal
I think that food makes clerics more fun and relevant. You get to use your spells proactively instead of having to save up to healbot between encounters. Now I can use aggressive spells and buffs way more freely than I could without food. It feels as good as a Pathfinder cleric where healing is basically a separate resource from spells.

As far as advantage goes, yes bless is slightly worse but its still absolutely amazing. +1d4 is still a huge increase to the chance of succeeding a roll and you get to apply it to many many rolls per casting. I think it's just hard to notice because we don't see every roll we're making. Bringing downed teammates backup is the best use of healing word by a ton anyways.

Shadowheart is very far from optimal, but I still found her incredibly useful.



Hard agree. I think someone pointed out in another thread that she uses the default half-elf cleric stats that are in the CC if you pick that class/race so hopefully later on Larian actually gives her an appropriate stat roll that makes more sense for her domain and backstory. But like, besides that, I take her everywhere, I find Bless and Aid to be immensely useful. Also Guiding Bolt does a crapstack of damage if it lands? Like holy crap. I gave her an axe that does fire damage too so if she does end up in melee with someone she can actually do some damage to them. That's just me, though. I like it. Some of the food could probably weigh a bit less but other than that? I dig being able to eat and potion. More wiggle room that way.

Last edited by Milani; 21/10/20 07:51 PM.
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Idk. Necrotic touch inflict wounds competes with menacing strike in terms of damage per resource spent, which is fairer than comparing it to bane. I agree that cleric's identity as a healer is weaker than it could be. Maybe adding more maladies to food, like with juicy apples, could help safer healing from cleric feel justified.

Last edited by Splorer; 21/10/20 08:04 PM.
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Clerics as primary healers seems to have become severely diluted over the years. The damage that they can cure is not really enough to make healing in combat a primary goal, and their offensive abilities have been upgraded so that they are really better used as armoured casters than as first-aiders.

Healing Word is now possibly the most useful healing spell because it can be used when a party member is downed to stabilise and get them moving out of the way (or drink a potion or whatever). The burst healing is also handy when the whole party is getting roughed up.

Last edited by Sadurian; 21/10/20 08:10 PM.
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I like the trickster cleric paired with a rogue. They have awesome spells for stealth and stuff. Depends on the playstyle I guess.

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Clerics in 5e are not as strong as their 3.5 counterparts. But in some ways they can be better. They are a bit of a slow roller to get things started. If you customize your cleric instead of using shadowface, you will find they are much better. They are very versatile and *not as powerful* as the other classes. But they are a great backbone to any party. With concentration breaking so easy in EA they feel weak. They will feel stronger when that becomes less of an issue.

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I've been playing recently with a high dex/con Light domain cleric and they are awesome! Quickly got to a 19 AC and am very tanky. Radiance of the Dawn is just a fantastic ability. Its a great jack of all trades class (I even got Slight of Hand and Stealth so I don't even need a rogue).

Poor Shadowheart just has a poor stat spread. Although bumping her dex to 10 and con to 14 at level 4 really helps.

I'm not a D&D player but it seems like Dexterity is overpowered . . . bonus to hit/damage with finesse weapons - melee or ranged, AC, initiative, rogue skills. You just get so much for dex.

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Played a Dex based cleric 3rd play through and used mainly offensive spells. Light domain, with Faerie Fire and Scorching Ray, is completely broken. Wood Elves are very good for this build. And you have to keep in mind, this is only level 4. Higher level spells they just get stronger.

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Remember that AC for DEX is restricted when you wear heavier armour. Medium Armour restricts you to gaining +2 from DEX, while Heavy Armour does not allow any bonus from DEX.

Finesse weapons are only low base damage, so you'll never get the same damage output with a high DEX Finesse fighter as with a high STR fighter with a normal fighter Martial weapon (well, a 2H one anyway).

But yes, DEX is a good stat. It has become better in recent editions through the inclusion of Finesse and extra damage to missile weapons (AD&D only used DEX to hit with missile weapons, and not damage or for melee), and subsequent editions slowly improved DEX-based fighting to improve Rogues. It might have become too potent, especially combined with the rapier, and I'll admit that I never use DEX as a dump stat.

Last edited by Sadurian; 21/10/20 10:47 PM.
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1. Changes in mechanics that have nerfed clerics:

Easier access to advantage for attack roll, along with lower AC's, allow other classes to consistently make attacks, while cleric's Sacred Flame remains stagnant. This won't matter as much when we reach higher levels, get a higher Spell save DC and more Spellslots to cast actually good spells.

Increased sources of unavoidable damage equals more concentration rolls, and the cleric relies heavily on concentration. I think Larian needs to brainstorm how to balance the concentration system if they intend to keep these sources in play.

Saving throws on persistent spells take place on the beginning of an enemies turn, as opposed to at the end. This is a significant nerf to control spells such as hold person or bane, because your opponent must fail 2 saves to have any penalty to their turn.

Particular to Trickster Clerics- Blessing of the Trickster should not require concentration.


2. Things clerics don't have yet because EA, that makes them feel weaker:

Spiritual weapon gives clerics a strong attack on their bonus action without requiring concentration. They should get this at level 3. Once this is implemented Clerics will feel much stronger.

Light Cleric's don't have flaming sphere yet. It functions similarly to spiritual weapon.

Trickster Cleric's Invoke Duplicity is supposed to function as a perfect Silent Image that you can move with a bonus action and cast spells from. I feel like this will be in by release.

Once we hit 5 we will have Spirit Guardians and be fully online.

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If you had the light domain+the mace from the knolls you wouldn't think clerics are weak. If you find yourself surrounded and low HP you channel and suddenly you're full and half the weaker enemies are dead

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Shadowheart has tons of utility - buffs, debuffs, the best spell in the game <out of combat group heal> which keeps me out in the field for much longer - resting is one of the things I hate about D&D - and with the mace you can get, she can do good damage and heal herself at the same time? You are greatly underestimating her wink


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Originally Posted by Jazhara202


Also OP walking behind a mob doesnt give you advantage it gives you flanking rules. Flanking and Advantage stack.

Jaz





You're not correct.

Here is an attack with just backstab: (91% to hit)

[Linked Image]

Here is an attack with backstab + invoke duplicity: (91% to hit)

[Linked Image]

They do NOT stack. Backstab just gives advantage. "Flanking Rules" are not a thing in BG3

Last edited by genobeam; 22/10/20 01:15 AM.
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I feel like clerics are mostly nerfed by the terrible concentration system in 5e. Like every spell you want to cast is concentration, and you can only have one of them up. It's lame.

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Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
I feel like clerics are mostly nerfed by the terrible concentration system in 5e. Like every spell you want to cast is concentration, and you can only have one of them up. It's lame.


3e Clerics who could stack every buff spell in the book could become a bit ridiculous yeah. But no one else can do that anymore, either, so they've made it a bit more level.


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Originally Posted by Delaredia
Originally Posted by Firesnakearies
I feel like clerics are mostly nerfed by the terrible concentration system in 5e. Like every spell you want to cast is concentration, and you can only have one of them up. It's lame.


3e Clerics who could stack every buff spell in the book could become a bit ridiculous yeah. But no one else can do that anymore, either, so they've made it a bit more level.



That was the point of clerics though, heals and buffs.

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