I’ve personally found great effectiveness using cloud of daggers maybe more than any other spell. Funnelling enemies through a passageway with multiple cloud of daggers cast on the spot is probably my current meta. Then I utilize thunder wave/ black hole to keep the enemies on the other side of the daggers once they make it through.
Another thing if found amazing success with is getting a party to strength 20 as fast as I can, which then I find 90% of enemies can be thrown off cliffs for instant kills. Throwing enemies off cliffs also only requires stealth checks where the body hits the ground and dies.
Lastly there is a fun little cheese strategy I’ve picked up that I don’t see anyone talking about. If you cancel an improvised weapon attack with an NPC before you deal damage, you can move NPC’s without angering anyone.
Any persistent AoE damage spells seem to be extremely good, especially if you can set them up in a choke point and continually shove enemies back into them. Hunger of Hadar, Wall of Fire, Cloud of Daggers, Spike Growth, etc.
Spells that reposition enemies can also take the place of shoves: Thuder Wave, Eldritch Blast with repelling invocation. You miss out on loot if you kill a boss this way, but sometimes the cheese is too delicious.
Spirit Guardians has been good to me. Sometimes I just have Shadowheart cast it and spend her action dashing through all the enemies on screen.
Would definitely recommend giving Astarion the Thief subclass for the broken bonus action economy. It meshes well with his vampire bite ability.
I’d say Thief just seems to be way to go for any Rogue. Surprise can be a little unreliable to get in the game’s combat system for Assassin and last I checked, Mage Hand Legerdemain still isn’t working for Arcane Trickster.
I respecced Shadowheart to have more strength initially, and a reroll later after finding certain gloves, and made her a tank with spirit guardian. Stays in range of other characters for more potent touch heals, can take a blow, and Spirit Guardians in the middle of a pack of a restraining CC spell, and it builds up the damage. Freedom of movement, or equipment that grants the same/similar are super useful for this strategy. That said, I have only played on the Balanced setting, so take it with a grain of salt.
Edited to add, Life domain provides juicier heals and access to heavy armor.
For raw damage output, I don’t know if anything’s topping the Open Hand Monk + Tavern Brawler Build. Run STR instead of DEX, dip into Thief for an extra bonus action, and use some of the tons of unarmed attack bonus gear that the game throws at you.
My favourite tactic is based around Hunger of Hadar, a Warlock spell that creates a zone that a) deals damage to everything in it at the start and end of its turn; b) is difficult terrain (aka slows everything down); c) blinds everything in it; d) best of all, has no save. Plonk it down in the middle of the enemy team, use another control spell to slow everyone inside even more, use shove/repelling blast/whatever to push anything that’s made its way to the edge back to the middle. Wait for everything to die, rinse & repeat.
But the greatest cheese in the game must be casting darkness (or shooting arrow of darkness) on your own party. As long as you’re inside the cloud you are basically untargettable by spells and ranged attacks - and the enemies don’t seem to be smart ebough to be throwing Fireballs on just any weird clouds they see. On your turn you just need to step out, cast/shoot, step back in. The only way they can get you is if they come inside the cloud with you (aka in range of whoever is on blender duty, Lae’zel or Karlach like this posting a lot), and the AI gets a bit confused when it can’t see you so it’s not a sure bet that they’ll even try. It’s a thing of beauty.
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I like my ballistic missile Karlach: she’s built for speed. A ring of speed (+3m), aspect of speed (+1.5m), fast movement (+1.5m), longstrider (+3m, so 18m base speed), and boots of speed (bonus action for twice the speed, so 36m). This allows her to go absolutely anywhere on the battlefield and kill the target. With a potion of speed it’s even more ridiculous. She’s the MVP of the group.
My paladin on the other hand is the immortal pillar of the group: armour of persistance, shield, ring of regeneration, cloak of displacement, and defense fighting style. Nothing can hit him. So he can grind any fight and revive who needs to be. He is the backup piece, when Karlach can’t do fast enough.
Of note was the slow spell during my playthrough. This was the best controle spell I could use, because the area it can affect enemies is absolutely gigantic and it completely neuter the enemies. I didn’t use it all the time though, only when a fireball or wall of fire wouldn’t do it. Globe of invulnerability was also key for some encounters.
That’s the height of my first playthrough. I’m not the optimizer kind though.
CC was always the meta in baldur games. You have spells that literally banish the enemy or hold them in one position making them super vulnerable. It’s overpowered.
What is CC?
Crowd control
I knew CC was crowd control, I just don’t know what that means in the context of this game. Is it a specific class, stats skill / spell? What is CC in BG3?
Usually magic wielders have great tools for this. In dnd classically wizards are great for it.
There’s just so many good ways to apply it. Blind, holds, polymorphs and banishes.
my friend and i have been using summon spikes with hungar of hador on top of it. my friend also summons a whole god damn party with his druid to drop more spikes on the ground
Another thing if found amazing success with is getting a party to strength 20 as fast as I can, which then I find 90% of enemies can be thrown off cliffs for instant kills. Throwing enemies off cliffs also only requires stealth checks where the body hits the ground and dies.
lmao, I’ve got to try this
