@iamniss1155

9 months ago

A few optimizations I see for anyone that wants them: On Cleric: Do not ward a Berserker with warding bond!! The rulebook states that resistance can only be applied once per attack and this is true in BG3. Rage and warding bond both give resistance (50% less damage taken) so they don't stack! Warding bond does add resistance to elements whereas rage does not - but you're taking mostly physical damage anyway and she's a tiefling with native fire resistance. So you're just sharing all physical/fire damage you would be taking on Karlach 1:1 with Shadowheart for no reason. If you do this keep rage turned off, but then why use a berserker? Ward your off tank instead! :) And maybe your squishy, too. But beware there are other sources of "Resistance" that do not stack with this spell. Damage that Shadowheart takes after it has been shared can be resisted again though as it's a separate instance of damage. So it's worth it to take blade ward and warding bond and stack those so if they physically strike the tank 50% goes to tem and 25% to Shadowheart or they target Shadowheart and she only takes 50%. This makes Shadowheart really durable in between support and heal spells if they're targeting her. Though you can also use Sanctuary on her in hard fights and only buff/debuff/heal/spawn spiritual weapons. Just spam blade ward in between to keep shared damage diminished, getting a strong defense on a squishy DPS. Also some effects that reduce damage by a flat amount in BG3 work really well with this, as they go last in the damage calculation. (Not default in 5e!) For example: Currently my fighter has resistance from the bond for -50% and heavy armour mastery for -3 damage on all physical damage rolls. He also wears an enchanted chain mail for -1 slashing damage so -4 in total on that. Shadowheart has resistance from blade ward and then an extra -1 piercing damage from a breastplate herself. Rolling a 11 damage slashing attack on my tank drops it down to 11-6-4= 1. 1 is then shared to Shadowheart who reduces it to 0 with blade ward. Rolling a 13 damage piercing attack on my tank drops it down to 13-7-3= 3. 3 is then shared to Shadowheart who reduces it to 0. -2 from blade ward and -1 from the armor enchantment. Rolling a 20 damage piercing critical sneak attack on my tank drops it down to 7. 7 is then shared to Shadowheart who reduces it to 2. -4 from Blade Ward and -1 from the armor enchantment. Imagine a cleric that also picks up Heavy Armour Master after obtaining the proficiency from a subclass, domain or the feat. You could ward both or all 3 of your companions and just spam blade ward while you chug potions to lower incoming damage and heal it each round. Can use the throw feature to toss potions at your feet standing next to an ally to heal both from the damage that was just split between you. Just don't eat AoE's. My tank needs to be hit for 50 blunt damage, 52 slash damage, 54 piercing damage or 22 elemental damage before Shadowheart takes more than 10 damage in a hit. This is really nice for concentration. You should always concentrate Shadowheart on Bless it's by far the most effective boost. And beware that using Warding Bond will cause all shared damage above 0 to force concentration checks which are DC10 or equal to incoming damage. This is why it's nice to respec Shadowheart to have 16 Con, medium armor helmet, the safeguard shield and she could Bless herself as 1 of the 3 targets. Unless you drop warding bond. This will give +3 from Con, +1 from Helm, +1 from Shield, 1d4 from Bless and the 1d20 making it harder to break her concentration by sharing <10 damage. Add advantage from war caster at level 4 not 8 and bless won't be interrupted as much even under ward. Then go grab heavy armor proficiency and master or resilience: constitution with Tough to soak everyone's damage. Also should grab Aid and upcast it to give the whole party a sweet max hitpoints boost until next long rest including any and all summons. This stacks with Heroes' Feast. On Wizard: When you choose the Evocation school at level 2 you already get a passive ability to stop any and all Evocation magic from causing friendly fire so the warning on fireball isn't needed. This is also why Elemental Adept: Fire is a great feat to pick even if you roll out of it later for intel accuracy and damage scaling. I prefer it over 5% accuracy from topping intel up to 18 early on. Turning fireballs 8-48 into 16-48 or scorching rays 8-36 into 12-36 (or more when upcasting!) makes it more reliable to DPS. Accuracy should come from elevation, bless, advantage and debuffing your enemies. You want to put intel to 18 at class level 8 for accuracy and an extra +1 min damage at level 10. Pick up Misty Step and Grant Flight for positioning keep that dimension door and keep spamming spells from afar. Unless you want to play a supportive wizard drop that banishment, sleep, magic weapon and IMO wall of stone. Keep hold person in a pinch it's an insanely good spell. On Fighter: Spell sniper gives you a passive that states it only works on spells. This appears to be true as it really only works on SPELLS it does not even work on cantrips even though you get a free cantrip alongside it. If you have Great Weapon Fighter I would first choose Great Weapon Master alongside it since you already have something to reroll a low dice. And make sure you use a 2d6 instead of a 1d12 weapon with that talent so you get 2 chances at rerolling a bad roll each attack. Great weapon master gives +10 damage in a hit if you have the accuracy to pay and you can always just turn it off to get back that 5% accuracy. Savage Attacker could turn an unlucky rerolled 1 into a 6 for +5 but when does that happen? It could just as easily give another bad damage roll. Great weapon master is always +10 damage per attack on at your command as long as you can pay the accuracy loss. You're also forgetting with the improved critical hit and 3 attacks per turn you will quite often proc the ability to use your bonus action for a fourth attack from great weapon master. That Resilient: Dexterity feat was unnecessary imo I'd drop that for great weapon master. I'd reroll base stats, pick Heavy armour master, Great weapon master, Savage attacker and ability improvement for another +2 str at the end. On Warlock: Pick up Hellish Rebuke it can give some great burst damage to finish off targets outside your turn. It has a pretty good damage roll and it will upcast. You will want to cast eldritch blast (EB) with most action points anyway especially after Hexing. I like it much better than Arms of Hadar early on you shouldn't be in melee range and if you are you'll probably AoE the party. Also do not just waste a spellslot at the start to misty step into battle you are ranged DPS and you have legs. That thing is for emergencies. Cast Hex immediately and start blasting. Hex > scorching ray is sweet as each hit will apply hex and it upscales into even more hits at higher level. One of the Invocations should have been Armour of Shadows, definitely not beast speech. There's potions for that. May even want to pick Armour of Shadows before Repelling Blast. Can't fault most of the other choices and you'll probably still beat the game with all these builds. :P Some changes are just mathematically better or make it a bit easier overall.

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