@@Vyndyka his pillars take double force damage. Disintegrate 1 hit kills them. Though tbh a sorlock can do it with eldritch blast even better. But hey if you got spare scrolls of disintegrate which are pretty easy to find in ramazith's tower then anyone in your party can 1 hit kill a soul tower.
Chain Lightning can also be twinned with sorcerers. And if you use freecast to cast a spell, you can also use metamagic for free. So Markoheshkir + Tempest 2 + Wet + Twinned = Win
I did Tempest 2/Evocation Wizard 10 so I could learn 6th level spells, use Summons, and have Tempest Channel Divinity to maximize the 3 free Chain Lightning spells per day with Markoheshkir
For the Deva you can wear the Abyss beckoners and it gains Resistance to every type of dmg, making it into a good tank as well as decent damage. It can't fail the saving throw for madness with 20 wisdom and proficiency and whatever it has. Best summon ally strat imo.
This is super niche, but I did find a use for Disintegrate late game. There's a staff you can get in Act 3 which lets you cast any spell without expending a slot. There's also an Ilithid power which does the same. On a sorcerer with twinned spell and quickened spell, and/or with haste/bloodlust elixirs you can potentially fire 6 of these off in a single turn. Thats enough to shred through some bosses with high HP or, in some fights with several powerful casters with low HP that are spread around the arena so you can't just AoE burst them with ice storm or whatnot, this can be a great way of just nuking out a massive chunk of the encounter's enemy HP pool. That being said, I totally agree with your assessment overall, you have to work pretty dang hard to get good mileage out of it. And MISSING a shot and being out a 6th level slot that just did sweet FA for you is incredibly disappointing. Great video, anyway! Looking forward to the honor mode content
I like to use desintegrate as a scroll to destroy some things in act 3, like the locked doors in the iron throne, because my high dex characters where ocupied with other stuff in the area.
There are actually 2 staffs, one from the Tower and one from the House. Also - yes, using haste, freecast and quickened spell I managed to simply MELT some of the final bosses' faces off in a single turn. Turns out giant brains have really low dex save, who would have thought.
fun fact each bolt of chain ligthning wil only hit one enemy if the enemies are to far awey from each other so it can do a ton of dmg to a single enemy instead of spreading the dmg across enemies
If a target is large enough enemies don't even need to be far away. I've had it do 300-500 damage on single targets in one blast despite being near their allies.
Had Otto's Irresistable Dance on a scroll and it saved my fight against Saverok, lol. It was also hilarious watching this very serious edgelord, full of malice and evil, dancing. But stopping him from doing anything for a turn was just enough time for my Karlach to recover from lethargy due to her speed poiton ending, and then ending the fight on her next turn. Great series! Enjoyed hearing your reasoning behind each spell.
I actually cut a whole rant on Longstrider in this video. I thought "its been long enough that no one cares about this anymore." Should have left it in for the Longstrider Gang!
another good turn based series to checkout is dragon age! not as in depth as bg3 but its a great one with a fun story and some cool characters and to boot those games a dirt cheap now
Just wanted to let you know your analysis has been very useful! Finally beat the game. Did it more or less blind on honor mode. Absorbed a few tips like using globe of invulnerability from watching your videos, but more important than anything like what rank a spell is, it's your in depth commentary on what makes a spell useful. Watched them all, and it really changed the way I analyzed situations in game. Looking forward to more!
Breaking boss encounters with Otto's irresistible dance is so much fun. In my tactician run I just had raphael dance himself to death and it completely broke the encounter.
I appreciate your videos and how they are largely spoiler free information. I notice how you purposely leave out details for certain things regarding the story and game breaking cheese methods. I played about 30 hours of early early access and only just now replaying the game with the latest honor mode patch. I've lost many playthroughs already but, your guides have been crucial, and I get better every run. I find it quite fun!
AMA question: Are you planning to diversify what you call your "dry educational material"? Maybe something along the lines of "The first things I do in each act" or "The toughest parts of the game and what I do to prepare"? Love the tier lists and best item content though, looking forward to the best items in act 3 video!
Eyebite panicked is actually GOATED for builds with ice terrain or death clouds like mosquito swarm or wall of ice because enemies will run straight into your traps which if you have the staff of cherished necromancy means you can make people run to their deaths over and over and over
Also ive had fun casting freezing spheres with scrolls waiting 9 turns, casting mage hand and create water and letting mage hand throw the spheres at enemies dealing huge damage while not wasting any of my teams actions
I think you're undervaluing Chain Lightning a bit personally, lightning is easily the easiest damage type to build around; only Ansur is a problem with it. You can buy a massive supply of chain lightning scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries and absolutely go off. I kind of build around it in my most recent playthrough. Pure sorcerer, blue dragon ancestry draconic bloodline, Elemental adept lightning, and Markoheshikir, then just maxed out on equipment and buffs that let me deal the most. Drinking a speed potion and then firing off two twinned Chain Lightnings to start a combat was INSANE. In the final battle I melted all of the guardians off the map on my first turn and had dealt 130ish damage to the Dragon before any of my allies had even moved. It feels so good
Sunbeam is one of the best scrolls in the game. Two levels in evocation wizard and you can just blind most of act 3 which is already crazy strong, and then you can stack radiating orb if you want. Throw this on a 10 eldritch knight, 2 evocation wizard and you should be able to sunbeam and attack in one turn with free constitution saving throw proficiency. Its fantastic as a scroll, much less so as a 6th level spell slot
Blade barrier is at the very least A-tier. It carried me thru so many fights on first run it's crazy. You can combine with something more for freaking freelo wipe of entire enemy squad. Shines in Act3 where there is just ton of choke points for you to use. It's wide so you can put it along the corridors instead of across - NOTHING will go alive thru that. Heroe's Feast is overrated AF. Unless you play some very tightly packed team comp - it's useless. Diseased and Poisoned statuses are too rare, extra hit points are irrelevant advantage on Wisdom savings alone are NOT worth T6 spell. At best - it's very situational, in most fights tho - absolutely waste of T6.
I like to open the cazador fight with flesh to stone since if you have a decent dc he will 100% fail and so the fight is basically over in three turns and cazador is slowed
Hope you had a good trip. I hope that future patches and maybe an expansion will give us more content including spells. Patch 5 seems to have given a new party and other content. As far as the spells, yeah the Chain Lightning is crazy. It's possible to have Create Water, then Twin Chain Lightning and maybe with Haste (and a Staff that allows the user to not use a Spell Slot), Twin another Chain Lightning for a Total of 4 Chain Lightnings.
Between the ilithid powers, free casts from staffs, free spell slot from the warden neclace you should be getting 3-4 casts of 6th level spells per rest unless you dont use them for some reason. Thats assuming you dont abuse the mechanics like the necro staff.
It doesnt make sense to judge these by "your ruleset" judge by the ruleset. This is like a food critic saying they dont like tomatoes and then giving spaghetti a d tier, its completely biased. If you are going to judge these you need to be impartial, or if theyre not for other peopel and this is your personal list, just private the video.
There is no objective rule set really. I can't make an impartial list without assuming certain things about how the game is played. For example, the game allows you to save during combat and reload after every role until its a crit. Its in the game, so should I assume everyone is doing that for my videos? Obviously that would be dumb. The game also allows you spam Minor Illusion to isolate enemies and take them down in smaller numbers. Should I assume everyone is playing that way? Nah, no one has the time for that. So the best thing I can do is write down the rules I assume - i.e. my ruleset - so you know about them and can adjust your own thoughts accordingly.
AMA Question: What do you think about items/gear (magical or non-magical) for players, for BG3, but also for tabletop? I also DM and always wonder how to balance items/gear. Also, specifically for BG3, if you do *not* take any magical gear in BG3, what party build would you go for? Thanks for all the cool content!
The same way you suggested that people go in-game and cast "Haste" to see how good it is, I urge you to give "Sweetplum Gales" from the Djinni a go. The "Restricted" condition being 1 turn on a 15 CONS save, means that creatures caught inside the radius of the spell must do the CONS save or remain inside the area, which will then force them to do another CONS save the next turn. The reason why it is 1 turn of "Restricted" is so that the system will not impose a 10 Turn (or Concentration break) on a creature that is "shoved out" of the area by Thunderwave or the likes. I've cast this on Mindflayers, Spectators and most Humanoids and I've never seen them do the Constitution Save after being caugh inside the Gale (not sure if this is intended). The best part is that you can have 2 or more areas of Gales (again, not sure if this is intended or a bug), which I believe makes this spell consistently good, and sometimes amazingly life saving. Works great with "Call Lightning".
Yeah, thats why they stopped at level 12. Its difficult enough to consider and implement all the effects and interactions of the existing spells, the difficulty increases exponentially for each level afterwards.
we'll seed what dlc they have on offer if any. If you notice, the game does keep track of character xp after 12lvl even if the bar doesn't show. Seems like a future proof mechanic in the event they give us higher levels to play through.
Hold on. Could you use arcane gate in the ansur fight to avoid his nuke attack? I dont know if the range is enough, but anything that could make that fight easier in tactician/honor mode would be helpful
These are great man. Dont worry about views, they will come in time with more popularity of BG3 + DLCs. I think a guide for basics in BG3 like what is AC, how do you get extra actions and how do you move attacks into bonus actions. How does stealth work in BG3? What to craft? Best items that are very simple to get stuff like that. I dont know AC does or i dont really know how the damage on spells/attacks its calculated except the modifier from str +3 for example is added to the weapon but maybe there is more, like a combo of attacks or things like this. Basic stuff people love and trust me 99% of BG3 players are clueless.
The mummy confuses me, I get that you can cheese it out witb tbe staff or that one piece of equipment that lets you conjure one, but I don't understand how it competes on any level with the myrmidons. The myrmidons have more health, do more damage, have more utility, and are more mobile
@Aestus_RPG it kind of sucks trying to rp as a necromancer because any class that has access to the undead summoning spells will also have access to elementals and such, and all of those are so categorically superior there's very little reason to not at least supplement your undead army with them
Chain Lightning should be the highest DPS output in spell My build is: Dragon Sorc Lightning (extra lightning damage at level 6), Elemental adept lightning (ignore resistance), Lightning Charges, Marko with Kereska Favour to boost it up, Wet enemy, Twinned Spell Metamagic. So that is full blast high DPS 8 (YES EIGHT) target lightning spell. So in one LONG REST, you will have 2 Chain Lightning from metamagic, 4 from Marko (1 Arcane battery, 3 from short rest). So that is total of 24 High dps target spell. There is a reason why this spell is unavailable in Warlock
Yeah! Sorcerer is one of my favorite classes and still one of the best classes in the game. In my current Honour Mode run I playing a Wizard with a Sorcerer dip and (assuming I complete the run) I plan on posting the whole thing to this channel. Its pretty easy to cheat Honour Mode, so I wanted a full, unedited run as proof that I did it without cheating.
Another reason to hate on create undead, in my experience you cant even use the multiattack on frightened enemies unless they were frightened by the mummy’s dreadful glare ability. I tried using it on my goolock and it was worthless
agreed, I was kinda annoyed by it was well. I didn't use it very long, but I had some Warlocksin my party (or more like, everyone else was a Warlock) and a Necromancer specc. One of my Locks got a crit and frightened an enemy, and I was like 'nice, finally the mummy can deal its obscene damage!' .... except no. Mummies are so underwhelming :(
Has anyone ever thought of creating a group full of necromancers? -Wizard 12 (School of Necromancy) -Druid 12 (Circle of Spores) -Cleric 12 (Trickery? For advantage) -Paladin 8/Warlock 4 (Oath of the Ancients? Summons will take zero/half damage from the spells and they will receive +6/+7 for each save
AMA Question colon and then put down your question: How would you evaluate BG3 as a sequel? Is it a worthy successor to BG1 and 2, both in terms of mechanics but, especially in terms of narrative? What would you have wanted to have been done differently as a sequel?
Interesting you would put chain lighting in s tier. Get the staff from sorcerer sundries and give it your tempest cleric. Using bolts of doom can cast chain lightning and thunderbolt once a short rest. Combine with the wet condition and and destructive wrath and you will do 160 damage (half on save) to 5 targets. Ive used this to completely nuke cazador before, ending his fight in1 turn.
I didn't ever use wall of blades but then I locked Gortash into a corner while blind, burning, and bleeding with a wall of blades just shredding him 😂 it was very satisfying
Hey thanks so much for this series! As someone who has never played tabletop OR anything in the bg series, it has been very helpful. Even though we get descriptions, the examples of how it actually works in-game really brought me up to speed. E.g., I’m in act 3 of my first playthrough and just leaning what arcane acuity is for lol I’ll definitely be watching more of your content!
@@kw3494 Im fine with it being S-tier to be honest, I just thought it was a step below Heroes Feast and Globe of Invulnerability, so to communicate that I put it in A-tier.
I really need to play through honor mode so I can truly appreciate these later spells. Playing tactician and not using any specific rules, I'm so stacked with scrolls by the end I can basically cast almost anything with any caster whenever, and I actually refrain myself from casting globe of invulnerability so I can at least experience end game bosses instead of just slaughtering them
AMA Question: Favorite movie/tv show scene? Love your content btw and appreciate it a lot that you're fostering a space for discussions and theory crafting. Keep up the good work and take care!
disintegrate is definitely a shit tier spell but an S+ scroll imo. You can get a bunch of these and it's honestly enough, not worth a 6 spell slot. With a high enough spell DC and arcane acuity saving against it is pretty hard and the damage is phenomenal for something that only consumes an action. I always hoard them for the late game and use them with great effect at the last fight
AMA question: Who was your favorite character to play as at a table, to have been played at your table, and to have written? And what made each of them so interesting?
I've never actually seen Chain Lightning hit a target, even against things like a 16% chance to hit. i've also seen it do gargantuan single target DPS too, but I've not figured out how to do that consistently Still though, It's the single best spell in the game the second someone in your party has Create Water, or is carrying around the bottles you find throughout the game. In fact, I much prefer a throwing build to use the bottles, since then you don't need to spend a spell slot on Creat Water, and can still get in another throw thanks to extra attack Edit: Flesh-to-Stone is exclusively for turning Mizora into a statue after Wyll's dad gets saved. Boom, no more Devil trying to kill the guy you spent hours saving
Chain Lightning is either glitched or you're using it against monk or rogue enemies with evasion. It's not an attack roll. It's a save, and if the enemy succeeds, they take half damage. If the enemy has evasion, they take zero on a save.
Thank you very much so for your videos! I just finished my second playthrough and I was waiting for your spell tier list videos all the time as I was playing. Your videos were very helpful and some of the spells I might have missed if not for them. Fear was something I picked up from your earlier video and I ended up winning many battles because of it. 6th level spell wise I think globe of invulnerability is op, maybe even makes the fights too boring. Keep up the good work! I like your perceptive, insightful and well argumented views. PS. I think longstrider is an s tier spell. My half illithid flying open hand monk destroyed enemies with its amazing movement range. Very often I needed the extra yards from longstrider.
I rewatch this for build inspirations : longbow radiant eldritch knight, and my 2handed githyanki bard, and my and agathys spirit guardian druid and warding bond barbarian I have improved from this video
Important mention about planar ally: (idk if you can still pull it off in current version of the game) Deva's mace is 1d6 bludgeoning + 4d8 radiant dmg. The trick is to somehow loot it from the summon for yourself. It does not have +3 to attack rolls which makes it a bit inaccurate (tho humble paralysed status abusers do not care about attack rolls). So, if it's still possible, this spell should be moved to S. And globe should be moved to "legally banned" tier. Because there is no way any spell in the game can be in the same tier as globe. There are globe scrolls everywhere in act 3 and this spell insta-wins any fight
Disintegrate doesn’t destroy loot. I vaporized Lorrikan and Gale is absolutely wearing his robe rn. Perilous stakes plus disintegrate plus heightened spell let me chunk Raphael for almost 400 damage in two turns with good rolls. Sure other characters could have one turned him but I don’t care. Disintegrate is a hilarious spell when you get a high ass spell save DC and while I love it to DEATH, it’s absolutely worthy of RP tier. Globe of Invulnerability or Chain lightning is just 100% better. I used twinned chain lightning on the 3 watchers and Titan at the end of the foundry and just absolutely OBLITERATED them. All that being said, Scorching Rays go BRRRRRR. My main tav is a gold Draconic sorcerer white Dragonborn and fuuuuuck did he tear this game a new one with damage riders and scorching rays. I consistently ended up just casting scorching rays as my 6th level slot. There was literally one encounter (Raphael) where that wasn’t an option. Everything else I was doing 7x2D6+6 ignoring 1s and resistances with elemental adept. With my spell attack being what it was I basically always hit, so it was guaranteed at LEAST 70 damage on any combo of targets I chose plus riders. Max roll would be 126. If I quicken the second one with Markoheskir spell battery, that’s goes up to 252 damage max per turn into either one enemy or across the entire enemy force. Add haste for ANOTHER 12D6+36, Add psionic overload for ANOTHER 20D4 psychic damage to that, which is hilariously silly. Spending 2/3 6th level slots, plus one 5th slot, plus 3 sorcery points, plus psionic overload, I have 40D6+78 fire plus 20D4 psychic for a potential max total of 390 damage against however many creatures I point my finger at. If fuckin Shart could ever actually land a “Hold” spell, that would ALL be doubled leading to a grand total potential is a perfect scenario of 780 damage. Is this a stupid amount of setup? Yes. Is it worth it? Probably not. Is it hilarious to watch a machine gun of fire rays go BRRRRRRRR for a solid 20ish seconds of real time as I take a flaming dump on the battlefield? Yes. Yes it is.
Circle of death is the very definition of a roleplay spell and it doesn’t deserve anything higher than that. Its purpose in tabletop is that it’s basically the death star, just a really easy way for a villain to flex their power with some green lasers. It isn’t meant to be used against players, only weak NPCs. Even with the staff, the radius isn’t enough to justify the horrible damage for a sixth level spell-plus it targets con for the save, which most enemies will have a lot of, so you can’t expect it to hit for the full 8d6 half the time.
Unless they changed how Eyebite works, it's easily S tier and probably the most OP spell in the game. Eyebite's sleep is actually its weakest mode. Eyebite: panicked does not give normal frightened, but fearful for (I believe) 10 turns, which means that they don't get any actions, because they will use all of them to run away, if they have a way to attack you still, they have disadvantage on them AND they don't get to save unless they are out of sight with you, which shouldn't really happen most of the time. So unlike with sleep, you can just continue to attack them without them being able to do anything. And you can of course do that to every enemy, once per action.
I mean, Disintegrate on scrolls isn't really what you're measuring for your tier list but it was the keystone of my Honor Mode strategy to beat the final boss, which A) does not drop loot, B) rewards limiting your damage type in a turn, and C) has a bad Dex save. So there is at least that use case for it.
You put disintegrste in rp amd chain lightning in a....your opinion is not valid after thag...chain lightning is just not great. Id put it in b or c. By late game you basically just want to focus on the boss And you put create undead above it...really? Really dude? You have to have certain corpses to MAYBE Get dreadful glare on something
Don't really agree on Blade barrier being B tier. Yes, casting two chain lightning on wet mobs is insane, but it requires setup and 2 actions. Blade barrier obviously cant compete with that, nor should it. As a simple action with no real setup required, its quite insane. Use the amulet to be able to use Heroes feast at the start of the day, and blade barrier later on your cleric. Literally makes any fight with lots of mobs just completely trivial - if you didn't consider them trivial before. Blocks line of sight, makes difficult terrain, AI sucks ass so they just walk back and fourth in the wall, cant be destroyed, does damage when cast, and when enemies start their turn so 2 hits per mob for sure - although probably more.
AMA: (I know it’s late, I only just found your channel) Have you ever played the CRPG Septerra Core? It was one of my first, and it’s unfortunately passed by a lot of people’s radars.
I dont know, I find 6th lvl spellslots not particulary scarce. You get free cast from the ilithid power, the sorcerers sunrise staff gets you another, and the spellcrux amulet. Makes 4 6th lvl spells per long rest and makes the game far far far more lenient with using these powerful spells
I used disintegrate to kill the netherbrain lmao. It was casting the remove platform spell that would have killed 3 of my party members and I doubt I would have been able to finish the fight in the remaining turns if I failed
Flesh to Stone is not RP Tier, save or suck spells are pretty broken in act 3 because of all the boni to spellsaves your casters have. Namely raphael and gortash cant even make the save. It just lets you ignore a bunch of Bossfights.
I hate how underpowered Necro spells are, but are always placed higher because of one broken Item you can get act3. It kinda feels bad, since you will only ever have one Necro character because you can aonly get the item once....
[SPOILERS] Could be wrong but I’m pretty sure the only weakness the globe of invulnerability has is that the mind flayers in the final fight can actually stun you through the globe and break your concentration
you shoould have shown a short clip of the spell in-game. That would add a lot more value to your video, instead of just talking an half an hour, you could still talk while the clip is playing.
Heroes feast was almost 100% of the time the spell I used with Arcane Battery throughout Tactician. Just cast it for free after a long rest and then have full spell slots for the day
League of Legends Playing is a mental illness... HAH, I literally laughed on that one. Takes a lot to get me to laugh out loud anymore. Kudos, that was funny as hell. Excellent spell list review by the way, you make compelling arguments for using some spells I normally would pass on, or vice versa...
Globe of Invulnerability made the final boss a joke. As a SPELL...I don't think it's great. Not by any means weak...but as a Scroll? Absolutely busted to buy/steal them up in the city.
I disagree with disintegrate being rp tier. Isn’t it situationally good if you use the sorcerers twin damage? That is twice as much as curriculum of strategy
I've never found another way to get the heroes feast buffs so that's my level 6 spell of choice....most other (good) lvl 6 spells you can get a scroll for
ok...but have you considered that Disintegrate is just really cool?
I disintegrated Larroakan into a pile dust
Its REALLY GOOD for raphael.
@@pokemonmusiclover5why
@@Vyndyka his pillars take double force damage. Disintegrate 1 hit kills them. Though tbh a sorlock can do it with eldritch blast even better. But hey if you got spare scrolls of disintegrate which are pretty easy to find in ramazith's tower then anyone in your party can 1 hit kill a soul tower.
I assumed you don’t get the loot?
Chain Lightning can also be twinned with sorcerers.
And if you use freecast to cast a spell, you can also use metamagic for free.
So Markoheshkir + Tempest 2 + Wet + Twinned = Win
Good point!
I did Tempest 2/Evocation Wizard 10 so I could learn 6th level spells, use Summons, and have Tempest Channel Divinity to maximize the 3 free Chain Lightning spells per day with Markoheshkir
@@nathanfivecoate5848 I did Tempest 2/ Evocation 2/ Storm 8 for the same reason :)
That’s insane. In DnD you cannot twin it, so I would have never tried!
Thanks for the tip.
It's my favorite sorcerer spell!
Heal can also briefly fix Durge's brain and trigger a childhood memory
Really! Cool! I didn't know that actually.
@@Aestus_RPG There are even two different memories based on whether you have defeated Orin or not.
Heal triggers a scene as well as the noblestalk in act 1.
Is it too late to try if you’ve defeated her. I want to go back to a save and see
League player catching strays 💀💀
For the Deva you can wear the Abyss beckoners and it gains Resistance to every type of dmg, making it into a good tank as well as decent damage. It can't fail the saving throw for madness with 20 wisdom and proficiency and whatever it has. Best summon ally strat imo.
This is super niche, but I did find a use for Disintegrate late game. There's a staff you can get in Act 3 which lets you cast any spell without expending a slot. There's also an Ilithid power which does the same. On a sorcerer with twinned spell and quickened spell, and/or with haste/bloodlust elixirs you can potentially fire 6 of these off in a single turn. Thats enough to shred through some bosses with high HP or, in some fights with several powerful casters with low HP that are spread around the arena so you can't just AoE burst them with ice storm or whatnot, this can be a great way of just nuking out a massive chunk of the encounter's enemy HP pool.
That being said, I totally agree with your assessment overall, you have to work pretty dang hard to get good mileage out of it. And MISSING a shot and being out a 6th level slot that just did sweet FA for you is incredibly disappointing.
Great video, anyway! Looking forward to the honor mode content
Killed several bosses doing this + the illithid power that gives double damage, found it super powerful personally
I like to use desintegrate as a scroll to destroy some things in act 3, like the locked doors in the iron throne, because my high dex characters where ocupied with other stuff in the area.
There are actually 2 staffs, one from the Tower and one from the House.
Also - yes, using haste, freecast and quickened spell I managed to simply MELT some of the final bosses' faces off in a single turn. Turns out giant brains have really low dex save, who would have thought.
Super useful in the raphael fight to one shot the pillars as well
fun fact each bolt of chain ligthning wil only hit one enemy if the enemies are to far awey from each other so it can do a ton of dmg to a single enemy instead of spreading the dmg across enemies
If a target is large enough enemies don't even need to be far away. I've had it do 300-500 damage on single targets in one blast despite being near their allies.
Had Otto's Irresistable Dance on a scroll and it saved my fight against Saverok, lol. It was also hilarious watching this very serious edgelord, full of malice and evil, dancing. But stopping him from doing anything for a turn was just enough time for my Karlach to recover from lethargy due to her speed poiton ending, and then ending the fight on her next turn.
Great series! Enjoyed hearing your reasoning behind each spell.
Confusion did the same thing for me! He skipped one turn and then attacked an ally on another
@@ProbeAway Nicer. At the time I didn't know OID was a guarenteed stick for the first round so it was really a hail mary for me, lol.
@@WestOfEarthIt ain't called "Irresistable" for nothing
Heroes' Feast trivialized my fight against Mystic Carrion. It makes you immune against all status effects in that fight.
Longstrider Gang checking in!
I actually cut a whole rant on Longstrider in this video. I thought "its been long enough that no one cares about this anymore." Should have left it in for the Longstrider Gang!
Oooh I kinda want a Longstrider rant, seems like a no-brainer to me. I love your videos to help me rethink my builds, so rant away!
Make it a separate video I'd watch that lmao
@@driftingnitro6490 I probably will!
Frankly Longstrider is better than any of these spells.
Great videos.. I went from never playing these type of turn-based games, to now playing BG3 on Tactician lol thanks for the content.
Thanks! That genuinely means a lot to me!
another good turn based series to checkout is dragon age! not as in depth as bg3 but its a great one with a fun story and some cool characters and to boot those games a dirt cheap now
Just wanted to let you know your analysis has been very useful! Finally beat the game. Did it more or less blind on honor mode. Absorbed a few tips like using globe of invulnerability from watching your videos, but more important than anything like what rank a spell is, it's your in depth commentary on what makes a spell useful. Watched them all, and it really changed the way I analyzed situations in game. Looking forward to more!
Breaking boss encounters with Otto's irresistible dance is so much fun. In my tactician run I just had raphael dance himself to death and it completely broke the encounter.
Hey I did this too! Add in his singing duet with Hope and we've got a regular old Musical alla Infernale.
💀💀💀 LOL Players 💀💀💀
I appreciate your videos and how they are largely spoiler free information. I notice how you purposely leave out details for certain things regarding the story and game breaking cheese methods. I played about 30 hours of early early access and only just now replaying the game with the latest honor mode patch. I've lost many playthroughs already but, your guides have been crucial, and I get better every run. I find it quite fun!
AMA question: Are you planning to diversify what you call your "dry educational material"? Maybe something along the lines of "The first things I do in each act" or "The toughest parts of the game and what I do to prepare"? Love the tier lists and best item content though, looking forward to the best items in act 3 video!
Eyebite panicked is actually GOATED for builds with ice terrain or death clouds like mosquito swarm or wall of ice because enemies will run straight into your traps which if you have the staff of cherished necromancy means you can make people run to their deaths over and over and over
Also ive had fun casting freezing spheres with scrolls waiting 9 turns, casting mage hand and create water and letting mage hand throw the spheres at enemies dealing huge damage while not wasting any of my teams actions
I kinda wish that I could give you two likes for that League of Legends comment.
AMA question: If you're so interesting and cool, have u considered streaming?
I think you're undervaluing Chain Lightning a bit personally, lightning is easily the easiest damage type to build around; only Ansur is a problem with it. You can buy a massive supply of chain lightning scrolls from the Sorcerous Sundries and absolutely go off. I kind of build around it in my most recent playthrough. Pure sorcerer, blue dragon ancestry draconic bloodline, Elemental adept lightning, and Markoheshikir, then just maxed out on equipment and buffs that let me deal the most. Drinking a speed potion and then firing off two twinned Chain Lightnings to start a combat was INSANE. In the final battle I melted all of the guardians off the map on my first turn and had dealt 130ish damage to the Dragon before any of my allies had even moved. It feels so good
Sunbeam is one of the best scrolls in the game. Two levels in evocation wizard and you can just blind most of act 3 which is already crazy strong, and then you can stack radiating orb if you want. Throw this on a 10 eldritch knight, 2 evocation wizard and you should be able to sunbeam and attack in one turn with free constitution saving throw proficiency. Its fantastic as a scroll, much less so as a 6th level spell slot
Blade barrier is at the very least A-tier. It carried me thru so many fights on first run it's crazy. You can combine with something more for freaking freelo wipe of entire enemy squad. Shines in Act3 where there is just ton of choke points for you to use. It's wide so you can put it along the corridors instead of across - NOTHING will go alive thru that.
Heroe's Feast is overrated AF. Unless you play some very tightly packed team comp - it's useless. Diseased and Poisoned statuses are too rare, extra hit points are irrelevant advantage on Wisdom savings alone are NOT worth T6 spell. At best - it's very situational, in most fights tho - absolutely waste of T6.
I like to open the cazador fight with flesh to stone since if you have a decent dc he will 100% fail and so the fight is basically over in three turns and cazador is slowed
Sunbeam + mind sanctuary + haste allows you to cast 3 beams per turn without expending any spell slots.
I do this with upcasted call lightning on my tempest cleric. 6d10 plus vulnerable from wet is nasty.
Im going to need the real tier list my guy.
The genitals tier list.
AMA question: what’s your opinion on the ship of Theseus?
Hope you had a good trip. I hope that future patches and maybe an expansion will give us more content including spells. Patch 5 seems to have given a new party and other content.
As far as the spells, yeah the Chain Lightning is crazy. It's possible to have Create Water, then Twin Chain Lightning and maybe with Haste (and a Staff that allows the user to not use a Spell Slot), Twin another Chain Lightning for a Total of 4 Chain Lightnings.
Between the ilithid powers, free casts from staffs, free spell slot from the warden neclace you should be getting 3-4 casts of 6th level spells per rest unless you dont use them for some reason. Thats assuming you dont abuse the mechanics like the necro staff.
AMA Question: What are the top 5 CRPGs that you'd recommend to someone who had never touched CRPGs before Baldur's Gate 3? (It's me. I'm that someone)
AMA question: As a DM, how much freedom do you allow for the spell 'Wish' or does it depend on the wish of the player before you make a judgement?
AMA Question: Would you ever consider doing a BG3 letsplay or explained run?
It doesnt make sense to judge these by "your ruleset" judge by the ruleset. This is like a food critic saying they dont like tomatoes and then giving spaghetti a d tier, its completely biased. If you are going to judge these you need to be impartial, or if theyre not for other peopel and this is your personal list, just private the video.
There is no objective rule set really. I can't make an impartial list without assuming certain things about how the game is played. For example, the game allows you to save during combat and reload after every role until its a crit. Its in the game, so should I assume everyone is doing that for my videos? Obviously that would be dumb. The game also allows you spam Minor Illusion to isolate enemies and take them down in smaller numbers. Should I assume everyone is playing that way? Nah, no one has the time for that. So the best thing I can do is write down the rules I assume - i.e. my ruleset - so you know about them and can adjust your own thoughts accordingly.
AMA Question: What do you think about items/gear (magical or non-magical) for players, for BG3, but also for tabletop? I also DM and always wonder how to balance items/gear. Also, specifically for BG3, if you do *not* take any magical gear in BG3, what party build would you go for? Thanks for all the cool content!
The same way you suggested that people go in-game and cast "Haste" to see how good it is, I urge you to give "Sweetplum Gales" from the Djinni a go.
The "Restricted" condition being 1 turn on a 15 CONS save, means that creatures caught inside the radius of the spell must do the CONS save or remain inside the area, which will then force them to do another CONS save the next turn. The reason why it is 1 turn of "Restricted" is so that the system will not impose a 10 Turn (or Concentration break) on a creature that is "shoved out" of the area by Thunderwave or the likes.
I've cast this on Mindflayers, Spectators and most Humanoids and I've never seen them do the Constitution Save after being caugh inside the Gale (not sure if this is intended).
The best part is that you can have 2 or more areas of Gales (again, not sure if this is intended or a bug), which I believe makes this spell consistently good, and sometimes amazingly life saving.
Works great with "Call Lightning".
What do you think about ranking class skills (other than spells) for each class and subclass?
Hmm, I'll have to think that over.
I wish Larian gave us more spell levels, 9th is when things get crazy.
Yeah, thats why they stopped at level 12. Its difficult enough to consider and implement all the effects and interactions of the existing spells, the difficulty increases exponentially for each level afterwards.
Naw, level 7 is when spells get crazy!
we'll seed what dlc they have on offer if any. If you notice, the game does keep track of character xp after 12lvl even if the bar doesn't show. Seems like a future proof mechanic in the event they give us higher levels to play through.
Hold on. Could you use arcane gate in the ansur fight to avoid his nuke attack? I dont know if the range is enough, but anything that could make that fight easier in tactician/honor mode would be helpful
These are great man. Dont worry about views, they will come in time with more popularity of BG3 + DLCs. I think a guide for basics in BG3 like what is AC, how do you get extra actions and how do you move attacks into bonus actions. How does stealth work in BG3? What to craft? Best items that are very simple to get stuff like that. I dont know AC does or i dont really know how the damage on spells/attacks its calculated except the modifier from str +3 for example is added to the weapon but maybe there is more, like a combo of attacks or things like this. Basic stuff people love and trust me 99% of BG3 players are clueless.
The mummy confuses me, I get that you can cheese it out witb tbe staff or that one piece of equipment that lets you conjure one, but I don't understand how it competes on any level with the myrmidons. The myrmidons have more health, do more damage, have more utility, and are more mobile
The Myrmidons are so much better, the people responsible for translating these spells obviously didn't communicate with each other.
@Aestus_RPG it kind of sucks trying to rp as a necromancer because any class that has access to the undead summoning spells will also have access to elementals and such, and all of those are so categorically superior there's very little reason to not at least supplement your undead army with them
Chain Lightning should be the highest DPS output in spell
My build is: Dragon Sorc Lightning (extra lightning damage at level 6), Elemental adept lightning (ignore resistance), Lightning Charges, Marko with Kereska Favour to boost it up, Wet enemy, Twinned Spell Metamagic. So that is full blast high DPS 8 (YES EIGHT) target lightning spell.
So in one LONG REST, you will have 2 Chain Lightning from metamagic, 4 from Marko (1 Arcane battery, 3 from short rest). So that is total of 24 High dps target spell.
There is a reason why this spell is unavailable in Warlock
Can you make a Sorcerer build from start to finish for Honour Mode by chance? Can't wait for the honour mode content!
Yeah! Sorcerer is one of my favorite classes and still one of the best classes in the game. In my current Honour Mode run I playing a Wizard with a Sorcerer dip and (assuming I complete the run) I plan on posting the whole thing to this channel. Its pretty easy to cheat Honour Mode, so I wanted a full, unedited run as proof that I did it without cheating.
"Man, if only I had more castings": The 14 unused spell scrolls in his inventory 👁👃👁
I ban scrolls in my runs.
@Aestus_RPG ahh gotcha. Also wow that is some wild response time. Kudos
Another reason to hate on create undead, in my experience you cant even use the multiattack on frightened enemies unless they were frightened by the mummy’s dreadful glare ability. I tried using it on my goolock and it was worthless
agreed, I was kinda annoyed by it was well. I didn't use it very long, but I had some Warlocksin my party (or more like, everyone else was a Warlock) and a Necromancer specc. One of my Locks got a crit and frightened an enemy, and I was like 'nice, finally the mummy can deal its obscene damage!' .... except no.
Mummies are so underwhelming :(
Has anyone ever thought of creating a group full of necromancers?
-Wizard 12 (School of Necromancy)
-Druid 12 (Circle of Spores)
-Cleric 12 (Trickery? For advantage)
-Paladin 8/Warlock 4 (Oath of the Ancients? Summons will take zero/half damage from the spells and they will receive +6/+7 for each save
Oathbreaker
AMA Question colon and then put down your question:
How would you evaluate BG3 as a sequel? Is it a worthy successor to BG1 and 2, both in terms of mechanics but, especially in terms of narrative? What would you have wanted to have been done differently as a sequel?
Yikes. What about destructive wave? It'l really help i a pinch.
I've been waiting patiently for this. I love your videos and I appreciate what you do sir!
Sorry it took so long!
@@Aestus_RPGLife happens man. I think we're all just grateful you put these videos out at all. Thanks again!
I appreciate the LOL reference 😂
My friends still play LOL instead of spamming BG3 with me....
Interesting you would put chain lighting in s tier. Get the staff from sorcerer sundries and give it your tempest cleric. Using bolts of doom can cast chain lightning and thunderbolt once a short rest. Combine with the wet condition and and destructive wrath and you will do 160 damage (half on save) to 5 targets. Ive used this to completely nuke cazador before, ending his fight in1 turn.
I put it A-tier, which is pretty good.
I didn't ever use wall of blades but then I locked Gortash into a corner while blind, burning, and bleeding with a wall of blades just shredding him 😂 it was very satisfying
AMA Question: Do you use any digital resource for making D&D battle maps/ world maps? If so, what is your favorite or what would you recommend?
Hey thanks so much for this series! As someone who has never played tabletop OR anything in the bg series, it has been very helpful. Even though we get descriptions, the examples of how it actually works in-game really brought me up to speed. E.g., I’m in act 3 of my first playthrough and just leaning what arcane acuity is for lol
I’ll definitely be watching more of your content!
Why is chain lightening not S tier?
It is not a tire.
Fair enough, lol, I'll correct my misspelling
@@kw3494 Im fine with it being S-tier to be honest, I just thought it was a step below Heroes Feast and Globe of Invulnerability, so to communicate that I put it in A-tier.
When this video popped up in my feed, I made a barely human man-pig sound, somewhere between a grunt and a squeal. So happy.
I really need to play through honor mode so I can truly appreciate these later spells. Playing tactician and not using any specific rules, I'm so stacked with scrolls by the end I can basically cast almost anything with any caster whenever, and I actually refrain myself from casting globe of invulnerability so I can at least experience end game bosses instead of just slaughtering them
Until patch 4 I believe flesh to stone did not proc aggro if cast outside combat. It was a fun spell then
AMA Question: Favorite movie/tv show scene?
Love your content btw and appreciate it a lot that you're fostering a space for discussions and theory crafting. Keep up the good work and take care!
Otto's... I made the red dragon in the final fight dance. For 3 turns. It's amazing! (got it from a scroll, so didn't waste a spell slot lol)
disintegrate is definitely a shit tier spell but an S+ scroll imo. You can get a bunch of these and it's honestly enough, not worth a 6 spell slot. With a high enough spell DC and arcane acuity saving against it is pretty hard and the damage is phenomenal for something that only consumes an action. I always hoard them for the late game and use them with great effect at the last fight
AMA question: Who was your favorite character to play as at a table, to have been played at your table, and to have written? And what made each of them so interesting?
I've never actually seen Chain Lightning hit a target, even against things like a 16% chance to hit. i've also seen it do gargantuan single target DPS too, but I've not figured out how to do that consistently
Still though, It's the single best spell in the game the second someone in your party has Create Water, or is carrying around the bottles you find throughout the game. In fact, I much prefer a throwing build to use the bottles, since then you don't need to spend a spell slot on Creat Water, and can still get in another throw thanks to extra attack
Edit: Flesh-to-Stone is exclusively for turning Mizora into a statue after Wyll's dad gets saved. Boom, no more Devil trying to kill the guy you spent hours saving
Chain Lightning is either glitched or you're using it against monk or rogue enemies with evasion. It's not an attack roll. It's a save, and if the enemy succeeds, they take half damage. If the enemy has evasion, they take zero on a save.
Thank you very much so for your videos! I just finished my second playthrough and I was waiting for your spell tier list videos all the time as I was playing. Your videos were very helpful and some of the spells I might have missed if not for them.
Fear was something I picked up from your earlier video and I ended up winning many battles because of it.
6th level spell wise I think globe of invulnerability is op, maybe even makes the fights too boring.
Keep up the good work! I like your perceptive, insightful and well argumented views.
PS. I think longstrider is an s tier spell. My half illithid flying open hand monk destroyed enemies with its amazing movement range. Very often I needed the extra yards from longstrider.
AMA: What D&D class would you want to be in real life?
I rewatch this for build inspirations : longbow radiant eldritch knight, and my 2handed githyanki bard, and my and agathys spirit guardian druid and warding bond barbarian I have improved from this video
Important mention about planar ally: (idk if you can still pull it off in current version of the game) Deva's mace is 1d6 bludgeoning + 4d8 radiant dmg. The trick is to somehow loot it from the summon for yourself. It does not have +3 to attack rolls which makes it a bit inaccurate (tho humble paralysed status abusers do not care about attack rolls). So, if it's still possible, this spell should be moved to S. And globe should be moved to "legally banned" tier. Because there is no way any spell in the game can be in the same tier as globe. There are globe scrolls everywhere in act 3 and this spell insta-wins any fight
Piercing damage on wall of thorns could be very relevant. Bhaalist armor is kind of super strong.
Disintegrate doesn’t destroy loot. I vaporized Lorrikan and Gale is absolutely wearing his robe rn. Perilous stakes plus disintegrate plus heightened spell let me chunk Raphael for almost 400 damage in two turns with good rolls. Sure other characters could have one turned him but I don’t care. Disintegrate is a hilarious spell when you get a high ass spell save DC and while I love it to DEATH, it’s absolutely worthy of RP tier. Globe of Invulnerability or Chain lightning is just 100% better. I used twinned chain lightning on the 3 watchers and Titan at the end of the foundry and just absolutely OBLITERATED them.
All that being said, Scorching Rays go BRRRRRR. My main tav is a gold Draconic sorcerer white Dragonborn and fuuuuuck did he tear this game a new one with damage riders and scorching rays. I consistently ended up just casting scorching rays as my 6th level slot. There was literally one encounter (Raphael) where that wasn’t an option. Everything else I was doing 7x2D6+6 ignoring 1s and resistances with elemental adept. With my spell attack being what it was I basically always hit, so it was guaranteed at LEAST 70 damage on any combo of targets I chose plus riders. Max roll would be 126. If I quicken the second one with Markoheskir spell battery, that’s goes up to 252 damage max per turn into either one enemy or across the entire enemy force. Add haste for ANOTHER 12D6+36, Add psionic overload for ANOTHER 20D4 psychic damage to that, which is hilariously silly. Spending 2/3 6th level slots, plus one 5th slot, plus 3 sorcery points, plus psionic overload, I have 40D6+78 fire plus 20D4 psychic for a potential max total of 390 damage against however many creatures I point my finger at. If fuckin Shart could ever actually land a “Hold” spell, that would ALL be doubled leading to a grand total potential is a perfect scenario of 780 damage. Is this a stupid amount of setup? Yes. Is it worth it? Probably not. Is it hilarious to watch a machine gun of fire rays go BRRRRRRRR for a solid 20ish seconds of real time as I take a flaming dump on the battlefield? Yes. Yes it is.
Circle of death is the very definition of a roleplay spell and it doesn’t deserve anything higher than that. Its purpose in tabletop is that it’s basically the death star, just a really easy way for a villain to flex their power with some green lasers. It isn’t meant to be used against players, only weak NPCs. Even with the staff, the radius isn’t enough to justify the horrible damage for a sixth level spell-plus it targets con for the save, which most enemies will have a lot of, so you can’t expect it to hit for the full 8d6 half the time.
Unless they changed how Eyebite works, it's easily S tier and probably the most OP spell in the game.
Eyebite's sleep is actually its weakest mode. Eyebite: panicked does not give normal frightened, but fearful for (I believe) 10 turns, which means that they don't get any actions, because they will use all of them to run away, if they have a way to attack you still, they have disadvantage on them AND they don't get to save unless they are out of sight with you, which shouldn't really happen most of the time.
So unlike with sleep, you can just continue to attack them without them being able to do anything. And you can of course do that to every enemy, once per action.
I mean, Disintegrate on scrolls isn't really what you're measuring for your tier list but it was the keystone of my Honor Mode strategy to beat the final boss, which A) does not drop loot, B) rewards limiting your damage type in a turn, and C) has a bad Dex save.
So there is at least that use case for it.
You put disintegrste in rp amd chain lightning in a....your opinion is not valid after thag...chain lightning is just not great. Id put it in b or c. By late game you basically just want to focus on the boss
And you put create undead above it...really? Really dude? You have to have certain corpses to MAYBE Get dreadful glare on something
Don't really agree on Blade barrier being B tier. Yes, casting two chain lightning on wet mobs is insane, but it requires setup and 2 actions. Blade barrier obviously cant compete with that, nor should it. As a simple action with no real setup required, its quite insane. Use the amulet to be able to use Heroes feast at the start of the day, and blade barrier later on your cleric.
Literally makes any fight with lots of mobs just completely trivial - if you didn't consider them trivial before.
Blocks line of sight, makes difficult terrain, AI sucks ass so they just walk back and fourth in the wall, cant be destroyed, does damage when cast, and when enemies start their turn so 2 hits per mob for sure - although probably more.
AMA: (I know it’s late, I only just found your channel) Have you ever played the CRPG Septerra Core? It was one of my first, and it’s unfortunately passed by a lot of people’s radars.
I dont know, I find 6th lvl spellslots not particulary scarce. You get free cast from the ilithid power, the sorcerers sunrise staff gets you another, and the spellcrux amulet. Makes 4 6th lvl spells per long rest and makes the game far far far more lenient with using these powerful spells
I used disintegrate to kill the netherbrain lmao. It was casting the remove platform spell that would have killed 3 of my party members and I doubt I would have been able to finish the fight in the remaining turns if I failed
Flesh to Stone is not RP Tier, save or suck spells are pretty broken in act 3 because of all the boni to spellsaves your casters have. Namely raphael and gortash cant even make the save. It just lets you ignore a bunch of Bossfights.
I hate how underpowered Necro spells are, but are always placed higher because of one broken Item you can get act3. It kinda feels bad, since you will only ever have one Necro character because you can aonly get the item once....
[SPOILERS]
Could be wrong but I’m pretty sure the only weakness the globe of invulnerability has is that the mind flayers in the final fight can actually stun you through the globe and break your concentration
you shoould have shown a short clip of the spell in-game. That would add a lot more value to your video, instead of just talking an half an hour, you could still talk while the clip is playing.
Heroes feast was almost 100% of the time the spell I used with Arcane Battery throughout Tactician. Just cast it for free after a long rest and then have full spell slots for the day
heroes feast is a run banned spell for any self respecting person, it is OP and sunbeam not on cleric spell list (not even light cleric) is a crime
League of Legends Playing is a mental illness... HAH, I literally laughed on that one. Takes a lot to get me to laugh out loud anymore. Kudos, that was funny as hell. Excellent spell list review by the way, you make compelling arguments for using some spells I normally would pass on, or vice versa...
Globe of Invulnerability made the final boss a joke. As a SPELL...I don't think it's great. Not by any means weak...but as a Scroll? Absolutely busted to buy/steal them up in the city.
i two-turned the Netherbrain with Disintegrate + Curriculum of Stratagem on my first playthrough.
I disagree with disintegrate being rp tier. Isn’t it situationally good if you use the sorcerers twin damage? That is twice as much as curriculum of strategy
I've never found another way to get the heroes feast buffs so that's my level 6 spell of choice....most other (good) lvl 6 spells you can get a scroll for
Globe of Invulnerabilty was what helped me keep THE FUCKING GONDIANS alive
Ama: favorite build? Either for team build or a build for a character.
Also favorite visious mockery insult?
Wall of ice will leave behind the ice cloud if breaking the concentration by caster's self. it'll deal 20d6 damage in one turn.
huh I beated the game without using S tier 6th level spells, I guess I didn't cared about it since I deal so much dmg with my sorcerer
Blood of Lanthander has sunbeam on the weapon and you get that in act 1 (1.5 whatever). So thats pretty cool
I made a dragon Dance itself to death (with a bit of Eldrich help), 10/10 gaming experience.
Ok hear me out...all if these are super cool and dripping with flavor, so I MUST use them! 😂
I know the elemental is not a lv6 spell, but the lv6 elemental (myrmidon) can destroy the rest of the game, even after the nerf.
Playing durge and using Otto irresistible dance on Orin is straight up cheating. I just cast it on her and beat her to death with two salamis
Disintegrate may suck but I also enjoy spells that let me go "fuck that one guy in particular"
In regards to gaseous form aoe, isn't that pretty similar to an aoe globe of invulnerability?
Pretty sure Disintegrate doesn't destroy the loot. It's still available on the pile of ashes.
Never had someone succeed a throw against Disintegrate 🤷♂️ always got good damage out of it.
I think summon elemental should’ve been on this list even though it’s not a 6th lvl spell but I’m almost always upcasting it