Baldur's Gate 3 Class Tier List and Guide (2023)

This article is a resource for optimizing your tavs! It's entry three of four in my Baldur's Gate 3 guide and ranking series.first entryI analyzed and ranked the six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. This analysis served as the basis for thesecond article, my race leaderboard where I discussed and ranked all the subraces in the game. In this article, I'll cover the 7 classes and 15 subclasses available in Early Access so far in the same way. Hope you find it useful!

basic assumptions

Before we dive into my ranking system, let's take a moment to discuss how I think this guide will differ from the previous two. So far I've classified abilities, subraces, and now classes. Of the three, the classes are the most complex and have the greatest impact on their careers. This means that classifying the classes is much more difficult than classifying the others. I also think the class system in BG3 is pretty balanced overall. The classes I'll give at an S tier will still suck if you build them wrong, and the classes I'll give at a C tier can still be great if you make the right choices. Therefore, I want this article to be a guide and not a ranking. My main goal in writing this article is to help you, the reader, get the most out of whatever class you choose to play, because they are all so much fun! To that end, I've included a build synopsis for each subclass for you to try out.

Now, some of you might be wondering, "So why do they have a tier rating?" There are a few reasons. One is that thinking about the relative power of certain options compared to others is a great way to understand those options, which means that power rankings help us get the most out of our favorite subclasses. Another reason is that I hope articles like this one and the discussions that follow will help Larian further balance the game. Probably the biggest reason is that power rankings and leaderboards are just a fun part of gaming culture that I enjoy! If you don't like them, you can still find many useful tips in this article.

Combat levels and roles.

I'm going to use a tier system similar to the one I used in my career tier list. It is:

S level:Consistently amazing classes that make you feel like you don't have anyone on your team. A class that offers something worthwhile to build your entire team's strategy. For subclasses, an S layer denotes a subclass whose features greatly complement the base class, adding new function options to the class or refining the original function.

One step:Classes that stand out in their respective functions. For subclasses, features that enhance the function of its base class by one level.

level B:Classes that are median in their respective functions. For subclasses, features that offer small improvements but aren't big enough to move the base class to a higher level.

level C:Classes that tend to be shadowed in their role. These classes could use a buff. For subclasses, features that are rarely used due to their opportunity cost and therefore are not improvements to the base class.

level of public relations:Classes and subclasses completely outclassed by others. Select these options only if you are playing an RPG. There is always a better option.

The roles mentioned in the classification are the roles a character can assume in a combat encounter. They are:

To control:The hallmark of a controller is effects, which ruin the enemy's day, but not because they do a lot of damage. Controllers manipulate the battlefield with an arsenal of status effects and debuffs.

Defender:The defender's role is to generate aggression and control the enemy's movement by advancing against him.

Attacker:An attacker's role is to distribute damage generously. This damage can be dealt to a single target or multiple targets. It can be sustained damage over a long period of time or focused on a single round. It can be dealt with from afar or in close combat. All of that counts as amazing in my book.

Support to:Supporters empower their allies with buffs and healing. Again, there are many different types of buffs (attack, defense, mobility, etc.) but they all activate allies, so they all count as support for me. In previous editions of D&D, this role was called "leader", but I prefer the direct description of support.

Something needs to be said about the defender's role. Many people think that any permanent class or building is a defender. This is not correct considering how I defined these terms. The defender's role is to draw aggro. Durability is all about being able to withstand more enemy approach. I see durability in the 5e as similar to mobility - it's something all roles can benefit from and isn't a hallmark of any particular role. A Durable Forward deals more damage when surviving longer. You will also be able to better achieve priority goals. A constant supporting or controlling role will be better able to maintain focus. Longevity does not define roles, but it is almost always valuable. Of course, some roles benefit more from durability than others, and the defender will benefit the most.

In the ranking I will list the roles of each base class. Many classes can be created for more than one function or for several functions at the same time. However, each class should have only one main role it is best at, and all other roles should be secondary. Note that when I list a class's functions, the parent function is always listed first. Most subclasses do not change the role of their base classes. For the few that do, I'll note it down in your review.

Disclaimer for basic assumptions

I know you're probably excited to qualify and we're almost done, but there's one more thing we need to clear up. My classifications only make sense under certain basic premises, which I will now list.

First, I'll make the same assumptions as in my last two articles on combat and non-combat utility. For those who haven't read it, starting with the most valuable and going to the least valuable:

direct combat program --> indirect combat program --> convenience --> role play program

The reason I'm making these assumptions is that what constitutes a better RPG experience varies from person to person, while combat utility, on the other hand, is easy to compare and measure. I go into more detail about this in my previous articles. I recommend reading them first, I will base myself on the arguments I make there for this ranking.

This ranking is also based on the basic premise that you try to minimize the amount of cooldowns and long rests you take on your runs as much as possible.

Okay, that's out of the way. Let's begin!

• health points:1d8 progress
• Safeguards:wisdom and charisma
• Expertise:Light and medium armor, shields, basic weapons
• equipment roll:support, control

We start hot! There's a lot to talk about in this class. The Cleric base class provides two invaluable support buffs at this stage of the game. The first is Bless, a focus team precision and saving play buff. Blessing gives you +2.5 on average on saving throws and attack rolls. That's a big deal (in the Grandmaster Weapon version, +2.5 accuracy adds an average of 4 damage per hit, which is a lot). The second spell is Aid, which increases your allies maximum hit points by 5. With a group of 4, a single use of this spell increases the group's hit point total by 20. It's not a concentration spell, so you can heap it with blessings. Also note that he doesn't have temporary hit points, but has increased maximum hit points so you can still stack him with temporary hit points. It's easy to overlook small buffs that stack on multiple allies like this, but getting a guaranteed 20 HP from a single cast is a very efficient use of a 2nd level spell slot.

Clerics also receive the Word of Healing spell, a subtle spell that is an effective cheat code for most fights. Cure Word is like Cure Wounds, but heals 1d4 + your modified ability within 60 feet at the cost of an extra action. If you're not sure why this is good, play Darkest Dungeon and you'll find out. Basically, in BG3, as well as in Darkest Dungeon, combat healing is not designed to be efficient. You should never be able to reliably heal more damage than your enemies are dealing. An effective use of healing in combat is when it revives a downed character, or when it gives a character enough hit points to survive an attack that would otherwise have knocked him down, allowing him to take another action.

Let's model it in our mind. Imagine a cleric, an enemy owlbear, and an allied fighter alternating in that initiative order. When it's Owlbear's turn, he will knock the fighter down, but a Cure Wounds spell allows the fighter to survive the attack with 1 HP left. This is an efficient execution of Cure Wounds, because at the cost of one action, you give the fighter one action and force Owlbear to spend another action to kill the fighter; it's a 1 to 2 trade. As good as it is, Healing Word is even better. The healing word doesn't heal enough to save the fighter from Owlbear's attack, so the Cleric will spend his turn attacking Owlbear. When it's Owlbear's turn, he will knock the fighter down. The fighter loses his turn and we return to the cleric. The cleric can then cast Healing Word to revive the fighter.with a bonus promotionand spend your action to attack again. Now it's Owlbear's turn again, and he's in exactly the same situation as last time: he must use his action to knock the fighter down. Assuming Owlbear deals an average of 20 damage per action, he must spend that 20 damage to knock the fighter down, even if the fighter only has 6 health left. So casting Healing Word in this situation effectively absorbs 20 damage at the cost of an extra action... That's incredibly efficient.

Put the words Blessing, Helping, and Healing together and you have a class that, as long as it's alive and focused, will tip the action economy in your favor.

But there's more to this class than just its phenomenal support benefits. Cleric also has some higher level control spells like Bane and Hold Person. Hold Person is an important spell. In short, it's a single-target death knell if it hits, as all melee attacks against a held target are automatically critical hits. Bane is an underrated debuff. It is the offensive counterpart to Bless, subtracting an average of 2.5 from the enemy's saving throws and attack rolls. The saving throw debuff is the most important, as it can help you achieve debilitating control effects like Hold Person more reliably.

Now let's look at Cleric's subclass options.

Clerics of the Domain of Light receive three upgrades to the base Cleric class: Guardian Fire, Dawnbright, and additional Domain spells. Warding Flare penalizes attacks at the cost of a reaction. You can use Protector Flare a number of times per long pause equal to your Wisdom modifier. This is a great skill that really complements the base class. Not getting hit means not losing focus. Also, finding ways to use your reaction bonus is very efficient, as it has a very low opportunity cost.

Dawn's Radiance is an area-of-effect (AoE) nuclear spell that you can cast at the cost of an action and your channeled Divinity, which refreshes with a short rest. The spell's damage value is equal to a typical level 2 (it does an average of 2.5 less damage per target than Shatter, but has a much wider AoE), so the net effect is that you end up with a spell of level 2 which is upgraded to a short break. This is awesome! Mainly because the opportunity cost of Channel Divinity is also small. Turn Undead is only useful when fighting the undead, so in most encounters you won't be able to use Channel Divinity without Radiance of Dawn.

Finally, the bonus spells that the Dominion of Light gains are all useful. Most of the time they are given fire-based nuclear spells like Burning Hands or Scorching Ray. Nuking spells are always welcome, especially Burning Hands, as the Cleric's core spell list doesn't include AoE damage. Faerie Fire is an interesting debuff spell that counteracts invisibility and gives allied attacks an advantage against enemies who fail their saving throws. Unfortunately, it requires concentration, so it competes with Bless. In most encounters you should use Bless, but if your damage relies on sneak attacks (if you have a rogue) or if you need to counter invisibility, having Faerie Fire nearby is useful, it's a great spell.

Overall, Light Domain uses underutilized action assets in a way that brings a combination of defense and raw damage to an already formidable base class that can benefit from both.

To build:A wood elf cleric of light is a great match. For your starting stats, buy maximum Wisdom at 16 and then 14 on Constitution and Dexterity. Just place the remaining 7 stitches wherever you like. At level 4, take the ASI to increase your Wisdom to 18. This build makes it very unlikely for someone to break your focus, as you have 19 AC + Warding Flare (21 AC if you use your focus as a shield) and are immune to sleep, which is the most reliable focus switch in the game.

Life Domain adds Disciple of Life, Preserve Life, Heavy Armor Skill, and Domain spells to the Cleric base class. Younger of Life is a small boost to healing power. That's fine, but 80% of the healing value comes from reviving downed allies, which you get even if you heal 1 HP (if that statement confuses you, read my Word of Healing review in the Cleric's Base Class Review).

Preserve Life is an AoE heal that costs an action and your Channel Divinity. Again, Divinity's basic channel - Turn Undead - is useful for the situation at its best, so a persistently useful option like Preserve Life is valuable as it allows you to reliably utilize a resource that refreshes. At level 4, if you hit all allies with it and each ally has taken at least 12 damage, Preserve Life heals 48 HP and refreshes with a short pause. This will add a lot of durability to your party. If you're playing a life domain cleric, don't be afraid to take some damage to maximize your own damage output. Play offensively, trading blows for blows, as it is in these fights that you will get the most efficiency from this subclass.

Life Mastery bonus spells are useful staples for the cleric, such as blessings and aid. They're good spells, but you'd take them anyway. I prefer mastery spells to add new options to the basic spell list. Mastery of heavy armor is forgettable given the current state of the game. It allows you to spend dex, and this is one of the few subclasses that can afford it.

To build:A simplified build would be kind of Wood Elf, but I recommend Gold Dwarf just because it's fun and interesting. Take the ASI at level 4, your stats should be 14,8,18,8,16,12. It is a sturdy melee cleric build with incredible durability. If you focus on Bless, it will be rare to miss. Its melee damage is small but reliable. Your AC should be 18, with 48 hp when Aid is running. It's a great support/tank build.

Trickery Cleric is a fun utility that unfortunately doesn't translate well to a video game format. Larian also made some decisions that hurt the subclass in really unexpected ways. Tricky Domain adds Trickster's Blessing, Invoke Duplicity, and Domain Spells to the Cleric base class.

Trickster's Blessing is any ability that gives an ally an advantage on Stealth checks. Stealth is really useful, so it must be a really valuable resource. As it stands now, however, it occupies the cleric's important point of concentration. If the resource followed the rules in the Player's Handbook, it shouldn't compete for focus, but for some reason it does in BG3. Focus really detracts from this feature, but it's still useful in certain situations.

Summoning Duplicity costs an Action, Focus, and your Divinity to cast an illusion to distract enemies. If you or an ally attacks an enemy within 10 feet of the illusion, that attack has a bonus. This is another casualty of some of Larian's recent EQ decisions. First, this is another feature that doesn't require Focus in the Player's Handbook (though it does require something like Focus, but doesn't take up the Focus space), but in BG3 it does, resulting in a high opportunity cost to cast. It used to be in BG3 that the attack advantage was trivially easy to obtain without this feature, but Larian has removed the attack advantage in backstab and high-ground. Now that that's changed, this feature isn't entirely useless. However, the fact that he's competing with Bless for his focus point really hurts. I only use this feature when I'm ending a basic encounter and don't want to use the tier 1 spell slot in Bless.

However, Deception Mastery is saved from tier C thanks to its fantastic bonus spells. Level 3 gives you access to mirror image and pass without a trace. Mirror Image gives you a whopping +9 bonus to AC, decreasing by 3 every time an enemy misses you. Also, I've found that the enemy AI will avoid high AP targets, meaning you'll end up dodging a lot more attacks than just the ones that drain your frames. Avoiding attacks is the best way to stay focused, and staying focused is everything to clerics. Pass Without a Trace is a focus spell that grants all allies in the area a +10 bonus on Stealth checks. How good is a +10? A level 4 character maximized for stealth, with the high roll-on buff, also gets +10 stealth... which means your cheater with this level 2 spell will make everyone in your party the equivalent of fully optimized Schleichers . And that +10 bonus stacks with other bonuses like the buff you get from the trickster's blessing or a guidance bonus and even standard knowledge. With this spell you must never be seen, which means you basically have an invisibility spell that won't be broken if you attack enemies. The big problem with Clerics of the Deceit Domain is that they have too many good tier 2 spells to choose from.

To build:For most readers, the question "How should I build a Trickery Cleric?" is equivalent to asking "How should I build Shadowheart?" So I'm answering the last question. I recommend spending your ASI to increase your Wisdom or Constitution. Clerics can afford to invest in attributes other than Wisdom because Wisdom improves the DC of your spells and improves you as a controller, but most tricky cleric spell slots aren't used to cast control spells . You lose 1 DC on Hold Person, which hurts, but you get better focus checks and more hit points if you choose Constitution. Honestly, both options are good.

• health points:1d8 progress
• Safeguards:wisdom and intelligence
• Expertise:Light and medium armor, shields, druid weapons
• equipment roll:Control, Advance, Support

The druid is a weird kind of magic class that isn't really about spells. However, he is strong and has one of the most interesting subclasses in the game, so read the subclasses.

The Druid base class gains two features: Spellcasting and Wild Form, which we'll discuss in that order. The druid cast works the same as the cleric cast, but they have their own spell list. So far, I've found the druid spell list to be mediocre. I don't have the space in this article to review all the spells (I'll do that in my next caster level list), so we'll have to settle for just a few. The biggest problem with their list of spells is that many of them require concentration. After casting a focus spell, I spend many turns poring over my spell list, looking for something else to cast before settling on a mediocre cantrip. That said, druids still have access to some great spells. Heat Metal is a devastating DPR on a single target or disarms it, and both are good. Spike Growth is also a fantastic DPR if you can get enemies moving through it. You get Healing Word and Pass Without Trace, which is what we discussed in the Cleric review above. They have Hold Person, an important control spell. These are all good options, it's a shame there are so many competing for your approach.

The Wild Shape feature allows your druid to transform into different animals as if you were an Animorph. You can use this feature twice per short interval which is very useful. At level 4 you have six wildly options, seven if you choose the correct dialogue options. These seven are: Badger, Cat, Raven, Spider, Wolf, Deep Rothe and Aberration. Badger, Cat, and Raven are suboptimal in combat and more useful for scouting, so let's leave them out and look at the others. The spider is the most mobile, has the web ability as a bonus action, and its attacks can induce the poison condition. The wolf has a very interesting ability once per short rest that grants a critical strike to the closest ally attacking a target. You can also improve allies' movement speed once per battle. Deep Rothe, which you get at level 4, is the ultimate wild DPR form. The Degenerate has a powerful intelligence attack ability, but use this form with care as NPCs will attack you if they see you.

Wild shape costs an action, but you maintain focus on your wild shape. When you are reduced to zero hit points in animal form, you revert to your human form with as many hit points as you had in wild form. Therefore, animal form hit points act as temporary hit points, and you get two wild forms for every short pause. For example, the spider has 20 HP, so if you use all your wild forms on the spider, you can get up to 120 extra health per long break. That's a lot of extra durability.

In short, the Druid is a weak spellcaster, but he makes up for it with his Wild Shape feature, which grants him unparalleled durability. Now let's look at druid subclasses.

An S-level rating indicates a subclass whose traits greatly complement the base class, whether it's adding new function options to the class or refining the original function. Moon Druid is S-level because it adds a new role, Defender, to the base Druid class. I think it's the only true defense class in the game so far. Circle of the Moon adds three features to the base druid class: Combat Wildform, Lunar Repair, and Improved Wildforms.

Combat Wild Shape gives you Wild Shape at the cost of an additional action instead of a standard action. The usefulness of this feature is simple and obvious, so we won't waste too many words discussing it.

While in wild shape, Lunar Mend allows you to heal yourself for the cost of an additional action and a spell slot. You heal 1d8 per caster level of the slot you are using. Druids are already incredibly durable, so Lunar Mend is like turning into a rock. It's like Paul Simon said, "rocks feel no pain and moon druids never die". Remember how druids would look at their spell lists and not need to cast a spell because so many of them require concentration? Well, Lunar Mend takes care of that dilemma. You can now use your spell slots to heal yourself.

The final feature is Enhanced Wild Shapes, two unique shapes only available to Lunar Druids. They are Tier 2 Polar Bear and Tier Dire Raven 4. Polar bears have 30 hit points. This means that if you use each wild shape to transform into a polar bear, you'll gain an additional 180 hit points... This is in addition to your Lunar Mend trait... which is a taunt ability. When using it, enemies within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw or be forced to attack you. This is one of the few taunt mechanics in 5e. Combine this form with Lunar Mend and the Druid base class and you have a highly resilient character who can draw enemy fire via a taunt ability at will. The Dread Raven is an extremely agile form that can blind enemies while attacking. It doesn't offer much more. Mobility can be useful for positioning yourself for your spells or flying out of a sticky situation, but it doesn't add much to this subclass.

To build:Lunar Druids are easy to build as all of your physical abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution) are replaced when you create wilds. All you really need is prioritizing wisdom. Gold Dwarf is therefore a good choice due to its wisdom and bonus hit points. Take Produce Flame and Thornwhip as cheats. For spells, use anything that looks cool! You'll be using most of your spell slots to heal yourself anyway. In combat, cast a Focus Spell, then Wild Shape and start tanking for your team. Moonbeam, Spike Growth, and Heat Metal should be your options for using your focus. Take an ASI in Wisdom at level 4 to increase it to 18.

This subclass is the king of casters. Choosing Earth Circle grants you three features: natural recovery, a bonus cantrip, and circle spells.

Natural recovery allows you to restore some spell slots between encounters. You can use it once per long break, and the spell slots restored must be equal to or less than half your druid level (rounded up). So a level 4 druid can restore one level 2 spell slot or two level 1 spell slots. This isn't a flashy feature, but it's great as it gives you more spells to cast.

At 2nd level, earth druids also gain an additional cantrip. We don't talk about druid tricks, so this is a good place to do so. Druids have two gimmicks that stand out from the rest, they are Produce Flame and Thornwhip. Both are cheats with spell attacks. Produce Flame deals 1d8 damage, but can be held in the hands and emits light in a 10-foot radius. Casting this before shapeshifting can help counter the lack of darkvision in your animal forms. Thornwhip deals 1d6 damage, but also pulls its target 10 feet toward you. There is no drag test. The remaining tricks to choose from are unlikely to be used much. The guide is fantastic, but you already have access to it through an article that is very easy to acquire. Shillalegh is probably the best option, it's a nice trick, but druids should try to avoid melee attacks while in human form, so you'll rarely use it. So getting a bonus trick might sound great at first, but in the end it doesn't do much good.

Finally, at level 3, earth druids choose a biome that represents the natural environment they study and protect. There are eight biomes to choose from, and each gives your druid two additional spells that are always learned. It is this ability and natural recovery that makes earth druids kings of mages. Classes like Cleric receive bonus spells to give them more options. Casters gain spell recovery abilities for more spells per long pause. Earth Druids are the only class option that offers both.

What I expect from my choice of circle spells are spells that don't require focus, are consistently useful and unavailable to druids, and complement the earth druid's combat role as controller. Shore and Swamp spells best meet this criteria. It's a matter of preference between the two. For Swamp, chaining Acid Arrow with Druid-focused DPR options like Heat Metal or Moonbeam means a lot of consistent damage. However, taking Coast allows Misty Step into Thunderwave combos, which are always fun, and druids already get a lot of benefits from Thunderwave when using it to push enemies into their ground effects like Entangle or Spike Growth.

Honestly, as good as Mood Druid is, I have more fun playing as Circle of the Land. I'm not a living animorph and casting spells is fun.

To build:I did a very detailed build for a Circle of Earth Druid that I am namingTo score. This is really cool! Please check it out!

• health points:1d10 progress
• Safeguards:strength and constitution
• Expertise:Light, medium and heavy armor, shields, basic and combat weapons.
• equipment roll:attacker

In addition to the excellent increase in health and abilities, fighters receive the following features: Second Wind, a fighting style and an action increase. Let's analyze them one by one.

Second Wind is a self-healing bonus action that refreshes on a short pause. Heals for 1d10 + your fighter level, so at level 4 it's an average of 9.5 bonus health per short rest. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot of extra durability if you use it three times per long rest.

A fighting style represents the specialized combat training a fighter receives. There are six styles to choose from, and each style offers a different bonus:

• Archery: Grants a +2 bonus on attack rolls with ranged weapons.
• Defense: Grants AC +1 while wearing armor
• Dueling: Increases damage by +2 when attacking with a melee weapon from one hand while the other is free.
• Great Weapon Fighting (GWF): Allows the player to roll 1 and 2 on damage dice when attacking with two-handed melee weapons.
• Protection: Allows the player to use their reaction to debuff attacks against allies within 5 feet of them.
• Two Weapon Fighting (TWF): Allows the player to add their skill modifier to the damage dealt with their left-handed attack.

Most of them are useful but not crucial bonuses. Let's look at some of the weaker ones first. Duel is currently the worst of the DPR boosting options. On the table, it starts to glow as soon as the fighter takes three or even four attacks per turn. But even with four attacks per turn it adds less damage than we can get with TWF and GWF right now. If this surprises you, read on and I'll explain.

Protection is technically the strongest boost, but its use is extremely restrictive. I always wanted to lead a phalanx duo at the table where two players choose this style and always fight in formation, but many of my friends are asked to chain themselves to this concept. From a pure optimization perspective I think it's an underrated option, but there are still better build paths out there.

Defense sucks, but great, and is almost always the best option for melee builds. The extra AK results in about 5-6% damage reduction over the run (in most situations, the AK reduces damage by 3.5% + 0.5% points for every +1 attack stat modifier , so I'm going to assume that most attacks against you have a +3 to +5 ability modifier to attack and damage rolls). I used to think it was the best choice for melee builds, but on my last few tries I started to get scared. I'm finding it harder and harder to pass on fighting styles that actually deal more damage to me, as fighters are an advanced class.

TWF is the highest DPR increase among styles, but is the two-weapon style better than the two-handed weapons with the Grand Gunsmith talent? As of patch 7, it's hard to say. I think they're almost even now, which is great! Dual Wielding's power comes from combining this fighting style and gaining an additional bonus action from Helm of Grit. With two bonus actions, this fighting style's already high damage boost is doubled! Riposte also attacks with both weapons if you change your attacks to dual weapons!

GWF has the most interesting math ever and it's easy to miss how good it can be. You've probably heard from other reviewers that this equates to +1.3 average damage when using a mace or greatsword and +0.8 damage when using a greataxe. Heck, I said this in previous versions of this guide too. The problem is that this is not true. This is the extra damage you take with a hit, and only if you haven't added more damage dice to your roll. The average damage bonus is doubled on a critical hit (making it the only DPR combat style that increases your critical hits). More importantly, in BG3 you can reroll all damage dice, not just your basic weapon dice. To take 1d4 damage from underwater fire, you also roll a 1 and a 2, adding another 0.5 damage on average. Do you use Light of Creation, which deals 1d6 lightning damage on hit? Yes, you can also reroll it and it does an average damage of 0.666. And if you crit it becomes 1.3 and if you crit a wet target it becomes 2.6/ you get the picture. Adding more damage dice gives this fighting style more benefits, and it's not hard to get an average of +3-4 damage per hit. It's worth taking it with you.

That's all for fighting styles, let's turn our attention to another fighter resource - Action Surge. Action Boost gives you a second action in a turn and refreshes on a short rest. This feature is really fun! It's like a burst damage spell that drops from your standard action DPR, which you can cast three times per long pause. There are two situations where you would want to use this. First, when the bonus attack reliably kills a target that would otherwise survive your turn. This is efficient because not only do you get another standard action for yourself, but it removes an entire turn that your opponent would win. The second situation is when you can target enemies under status effects that grant critical hits, such as sleep or paralysis. Two critical hits in a single round is a death knell for most enemies.

Overall, the base Fighter class is a solid foundation for a reliable Forward. It is reliable because its resources are easy to use, useful in any combat situation and are always available or updated at a short interval. Furthermore, the fighter also has a high level of durability compared to other attack classes in the game, allowing them to constantly charge towards priority targets and survive long enough to deal the damage they want. It's best to think of the brawler not as a defense class, but as a long-lasting advanced class.

This subclass pretty much does what it says on the tin: it dominates battles. But seriously, this class is a meat grinder. Battle Masters adds combat maneuver functionality to the base Fighter class. Maneuvers are spell-like abilities that use a special resource called Superiority Dice. Basically, a superiority die is a resource you spend to perform the maneuver (like a spell slot for a spell), and most maneuvers require you to roll the expended dice (a d8) and add them to the maneuver's effect. , somehow. You start with 4 superiority dice, which refresh after a short pause, meaning you get a maximum of 12 "rolls" per long pause. Some maneuvers require the opponent to make a saving throw, in which case the DC is always "8 + ability bonus + Strength or Dexterity modifier (whichever is higher)"

So far in Early Access, you can choose 3 maneuvers from a total of 6 options. These options are:

• Menacing Attack: You make a standard attack against the target, adding the Superiority roll to the damage. The target must also succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be afraid of you until the end of your next turn.
• Lunge Attack: You make a standard attack against the target, adding the Superiority roll to the damage. If the target is Large or Small, it must attempt an Energy saving throw or be knocked prone within 15 feet of you.
• Rally: As a bonus action, spend a Superiority die to give an ally within 5 feet of you 8 temporary hit points. These hit points last for 10 turns.
• Response: If an ally misses you with a melee attack, use your reaction to respond. Make a standard attack against the target, adding the Superiority roll to the damage.
• Stumble Attack: You make a standard attack against the target, adding the Superiority roll to the damage. The target must also succeed on an energy saving shot or be knocked back.
• Disarm Attack: You make a standard attack against the target, adding the Superiority roll to the damage. The target must also succeed on a saving throw or drop its weapon on the ground.

We will discuss these options individually.

Threatening attack is good. It takes two "hits" to have a full effect: first the attack must hit, then it must fail the saving throw. If you manage to hit both, the enemy will be scared for one round. Frightened penalizes attack rolls and ability checks. In the old days, terrified enemies would run from you, provoking an attack of opportunity, and when that was the case, it was probably the best maneuver. However, it was changed to what it is now in patch 7 and is a huge nerf. As a general rule, two-hit maneuvers are situational at best, and Menace Charge is no exception. Unlike the other two attack maneuvers, the new Daze you can apply as a bonus action with weapons that have access to Pommel Strike penalizes enemy Wisdom rolls, allowing you to land the second attack more confidently.

It's worth running the Pushing Attack. If you can use it to knock your target off a high place, it will do a lot of damage and put them face down, which is useful. Otherwise it's disappointing.

Rally would be awesome if it worked like the Player's Handbook says, but Larian has made it nearly useless in BG3. In table rules, Rally has no set expiration date, it only lasts until he takes enough damage to break temporary hit points or until he takes his next long rest. This means you can start each day of adventure by transferring the Rally to your group and then get some rest. Spent domain data refreshes with the brief pause, but temporary hit points remain. In fact, each day you increase your party's hit points by an average of 18 (even more if you have a positive Charisma modifier) ​​at level 3 without actually costing you anything. Larian apparently noted the potential for abuse and gave the maneuver an expiration date. They tried to improve it by always letting it heal for a maximum of 8, but it's usually a loss of one die. However, the fact that it is an additional promotion is good.

Riposte allows you to build your reaction, an underutilized resource in your action budget. The cost of one supremacy die gives you one extra attack per turn, which is awesome. Use the answer liberally. I go from long rest to long rest on a regular basis and the answer is the only maneuver I've ever used. These are good adventure days!

Trip Attack is decent if you haven't used your Action Surge before. Upon landing, you can attack Action Surge and with advantage before they can get up. It's only decent as it's still a double whammy maneuver.

Finally, the disarming attack is strong but limited to targets using weapons, ie. H. Animals such as owls, bullets or grasshoppers are not allowed. The AI ​​currently does not work well with secondary weapons. Hitting one of them can virtually neutralize deadly enemies like Gith Soldiers or Bernard.

Finally, I would like to say something about Battle Master and the ongoing DPR.I consider the Battle Master to be the highest DPR subclass in the game because he has the most reliable methods of arming all of his action types, especially his reaction.(This no longer applies since the addition of the Berserker in Patch 7.) Some people object to him putting aftershocks or attacks of opportunity in his sustained DPR because they technically don't trigger every turn (although I think it's close). So, here's a chart comparing the DPR of a Battlemaster Grandmaster weapon with and without Reaction Attack:

As you can see, putting this answer together is a big problem. Battlemasters can do this 4 times per short break. If we were to say exactly what counts as sustained DPR, we wouldn't include Riposte's damage, but 4 times per short rest is A LOT, so not including it is also a distorted picture. So going forward, I'll include both lines in my Sustain DPR graphs to provide context.

To build:Just like I did with Trickery Domain Cleric, I'm going to propose a Battlemaster build for a companion, this time Lae'zel. Lae'zel is actually very close to being an optimized Battlemaster, which is just awesome. Take Response, Rally, and Thrust Attack at level 3, then the Grand Weapons Master talent at level 4. This build focuses on maximizing damage per attack, then multiplies attacks with Response, Action Rush, and Master of Weapons with the Great's Cleave characteristic. Assuming you split about half of your turns, activate response, and attack with advantage, you'll get an average of 34.9 DPR against a range of 5-25 AC. This does not take into account blessings or guaranteed critical hits from spells such as sleep and hold person. If you have a team that can support Lae'zel with spells like this, you'll be dropping DPR into the stratosphere. It's the most sustained DPR build I've found in BG3 at the moment, and it even has burst damage and area of ​​effect options with Greatswords' Action Surge and Cleave abilities. It's the best advanced setting in the game, and you can get it from a Stock Companion. I can't say enough good things about it!

This class will be very good at full release, probably A tier, maybe S, but right now it just can't compete with Battle Master. He didn't get enough attention from Larian in early access, so picking Eldritch Knight over Battle Master is going downhill from here.

Eldritch Knights add spells to the base warrior class. You'll learn two cantrips and up to four spells at level 4. Three of those four spells must be in the summoning or summoning school. At level 4, they have three 1st-level spells per long rest. Your spell modifier is Intelligence.

The problem with this feature is that there aren't enough spells in Early Access to support it. As of patch 4, there are six summons or summoning spells to choose from. They are Burning Hands, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil and Good, Thunderwave and Witch Bolt. None of them pair well with the base Fighter class. Cheat selection doesn't fare much better. As for the only spell you get that isn't restricted, there are three interesting options: Jump, Sleep, and Tasha's Ghastly Laugh. All three are good spells, you'll use them often, but they're not enough to compete with Riposte or Menacing Strike.

Instead, let's talk about what can happen between this patch and the full release for Eldritch Knight to be good. The obvious solution would be to add new spells and cantrips. Spell Shield, for example, is notoriously good for Eldritch Knights and basically serves as a defensive counterpart to Riposte. Eldritch Knight also gains two very important class features at levels 7 and 10. The level 10 feature is particularly good, as it is one of the few ways in the 5e ruleset to reliably penalize a target's saving throws, preparing him for those devastating attacks. stun spells. With more options, Eldritch Knight should serve as a more durable and control-oriented alternative to Battle Master.

To build:An ideal build would do something like our Battle Master build above, take Great Weapon Master and optimize for DPR, but we found that Eldritch Knight can't compete, so I'll describe a sub-optimal but fun-to-play build. some unique interactions available for this subclass. Choose Gold Dwarf as your race, max your Constitution, and make sure you have 14 Dexterity. Get Shocking Grip and Blade Guard as cheats at level 3. Get your feet wet at level 4. You should have 52 health at level 4, the highest you can get in early access. Normally a tank build like this will be two behind the curve for accuracy, but with the Intel headband your shock grip will only be slightly behind the curve. Your damage will still be painfully low, but you'll have high stamina to compensate.

• health points:1d10 progress
• Safeguards:strength and skill
• Expertise:Light and medium armor, shields, basic and combat weapons.
• equipment roll:attacker

Rangers are an interesting class in D&D history. I never felt they were well executed, accept in this issue that for whatever reason we all choose to hate them. Larian greatly changed the way the ranger worked in the Player's Handbook. They have tried to provide consistently more useful options. In addition to the things described above, a Ranger's base class is defined by four traits: Favored Enemy, Natural Ranger, Fighting Styles, and Spellcasting.

Favored Enemy represents the ranger's special training in hunting certain targets. You must choose one of five options:

• Bounty Hunter: Gain proficiency in investigations and learn the Thief Management passive skill. Creatures holding you have a harder time escaping. (Note that I'm not sure what "harder breakout times" means mechanically.)
• Keeper of the Veil: You gain proficiency in Arcana and can cast Protection from Good and Evil.
• Mage Destroyer: Gain proficiency with Arcanes and the True Strike Trick.
• Ranger Knight: Gain knowledge of history and heavy armor
• Holy Seeker: Gain proficiency in Religion and the Holy Flame Cantrip. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

These are all mediocre features. Neither one particularly stands out, probably Ranger Knight is best by a small margin just for being "always on". Right now, heavy armor options are weaker than light and medium armor options.

Natural Explorer represents a ranger's specific training in a specific environment. Again, you can choose one of five options:

1. Beast Tamer: You can cast Find Familiar as a ritual.
2. Urban Tracker: You will gain knowledge on how to use costume set and thieves tools.
3. Wasteland Wanderer (Cold): Resistance to cold damage
4. Wasteland Wanderer (Fire) - Gain resistance to fire damage
5. Wasteland Wanderer (Poison) - Gain resistance to poison damage

These functions are much more useful. Fire resistance is probably the best option, followed by Beast Tamer. Really, any of the resistors will do you good. Pass the Urban Tracker unless you really need it for a concept.

The Ranger's fighting styles are identical to the feature of the same name in the base Fighter class, only the Ranger has access to fewer options. Rangers can choose between archery, defense, dueling and two-weapon combat. Nothing in the Ranger class changes my analysis of that function with Fighter. It's best to go for Archery if you plan to attack mainly with ranged weapons, go for TWF if you plan to work with two grips, and go for Defense in all other cases.

Finally, the base ranger class also gains access to level 2 spellcasting. Their spell list is small and mediocre for the most part, but there are some solid spells worth discussing. Hunter's Mark is the first of what I call "4e Striker spells". These are spells that add a d6 to your damage when you attack the marked target. Spells always hit the target, are an extra action to cast, and can be switched to new targets if the first one dies without taking up an extra spell slot. They usually require concentration as well. It actually helps to imagine them arming your focus slot and adding an average of 3.5 damage to your DPR when you hit. It's a decent use of a focus slot in early levels and an extremely efficient use of a tier 1 spell slot. Jump is an amazing mobility spell in BG3. Use it to fly when you focus on ranged attacks, and use it to select priority targets when in close combat.

Ensnaring Strike is a unique ranger spell that promises a lot, so it's worth taking a second to talk about it. Launches the attack and stops a hit target that misses an energy save. In addition to being immobilized, the target takes 1d6 damage per round while immobilized. Restricted is a useful condition, especially if you can chain it with other spells targeting Dex saves (which is tricky at this point in early access). Damage is comparable to Hunter's Mark, but does not refresh if the target dies. It's also one of those dreaded spells that needs to hit twice for full effect (hit on attack and hit on save). It competes with the Hunter's Mark for focus, so 95% of the time you should favor the Hunter's Mark.

*I haven't tested Beastmaster since patch 4, so some of this information may be out of date*

Beastmaster adds the Summon Companion feature to the Ranger base class. As the name suggests, this feature lets you summon an animal companion to fight alongside you. You can summon this companion an infinite number of times out of combat, allowing you to have him in every battle, but if he falls in battle, you cannot summon him again while the battle is in progress.

Technically there are five ways to summon animals, but functionally there are only four. The five options are Bear, Boar, Crow, Spider, Wolf, but there's really no reason to choose Boar, it's outclassed by the other options. Bear gets a taunt feature and has more hit points at 19. In terms of raw stats, Spider used to be overpowered compared to the other options, but it needed a major nerf. Still, he gains a web ability as a bonus action, and his attacks have a chance to inflict the poisoned condition, which penalizes attacks, so it's not bad. Raven is carving her own niche by being able to blind opponents and fly to safety as a hit-and-run move. Blind imposes a debuff on its attacks and a buff on all attacks. The wolf makes the highest DPR of any one-touch decision, and the wolf's attacks have a chance to inflict the Vulnerable condition. If you prefer the state vulnerable to spider venom or crow's blindness, you might prefer the wolf.

Well, we don't discuss subpoenas in general, so now is a good time to do so. Summons are really useful because they come with their own actions and have no real opportunity cost. The only opportunity cost is the cost of choosing a calling function over another function. Also, summoned allies are usually better when you first get them and decrease in power as your character progresses. However, in Early Access we are limited to the lowest levels, which inflates the value of summons in general. Since Beastmaster gets Spider, one of the best summons in the game, he is an A-tier subclass. However, I don't expect him to retain his A-rank after full release.

To build:The Beast Master pet feature doesn't scale with anything, so go wild. An optimized ranger would become a mountain dwarf and take on a grand weapons master at level 4. However, for my Beast Master game, I played with my son John Dell (after the Adventures in Odyssey character from the Castles and Cauldrons episode written in 1990 to warn parents about D&D's secret Satanism). John Dell is a strong-hearted halfling with Agnes, his faithful spider companion. John Dell was a cold-blooded killer in every possible sense of the term.

The Hunter adds the Hunter's Prey feature to the base Ranger class. Hunter's Prey lets you choose one of three options to represent your ranger's particular experience fighting a specific type of monster:

• Colossal Assassin: Once per round, your weapon attack deals an extra 1d8 damage if the target is below its hit point maximum.
• Giant Slayer: When a Large or larger creature attacks you, you can use your reaction to make a melee attack.
• Horde Breaker – Target two nearby creatures and attack them in quick succession.

Giant Killer and Horde Breaker are effective but too situational to trigger. Giant Killer looks really enticing to read as there are some tough fights against large or larger creatures in early access. However, in these fights, I find it hard to force aggression efficiently on my ranger, meaning you're just not activating this feature enough to do significant damage. Colossus Slayer is the best option simply because you can constantly activate it in most battles. The damage boost he gives you stacks with the Hunter's Mark, making damage-dealing Hunters very flexible.

To build:For this build I recommend Schildzwerg. Buy a 16 in Strength and Constitution, a 14 in Dexterity, and the rest in Wisdom (you should get a 13 with one point left). At level 2, take TWF for your fighting style. At level 4, take the Dual Wielder talent. I recommend using the broken flail on your left hand.

• health points:1d8 progress
• Safeguards:dexterity and intelligence
• Expertise:Light armor, basic and rogue weapons.
• equipment roll:attacker

A C-level rating may surprise some readers. I planned to rank the Rogue base class and Thief subclass much higher than I did, but when I did the analysis and compared the Rogue's average DPR to other Striker classes, I found that I was overselling them. It surprised me too. I will try to present all my reviews in detail. If you think I've missed something, I'd appreciate your input.

The Rogue base class gets two features in BG3: Sneak Attack and Cunning Action. Sneak Attack is like a 4e Striker spell, but it scales and is more situational to activate. Whenever you attack with advantage or attack a target within 5 feet of an ally, your standard action attack deals an extra 1d6 damage or 2d6 damage after 3rd level (gains 1d6 for each odd-numbered level). This is a strong feature of BG3 as it is very easy to gain an advantage. However, as we'll see later when we talk about the Thief subclass, it doesn't compare well with attack-multiplying traits like Battlemaster's Riposte.

Smart Action in BG3 allows you to perform the Dash action as an additional action. Dash doubles your movement; a practical mobility boost. Its value is weakened a bit because it competes with Jump for its bonus action. With a lot of strength, the Jump can be used to get a few extra meters. However, Dash offers more movement and requires no energy investment. Both advanced and rogue mobility can be used to close distances to priority targets in melee or to fly in ranged combat.

Compared to Fighters and Rangers, Rogues have more mobility but are less durable and deal less damage. It's not a cheap trade-off for them, hence the C rating.

Just this once, let's break the alphabetical order and discuss the Thief subclass before its Arcane Trickster counterpart. Larian transformed Thief, added some flashy features, and became a fan favorite.

This subclass adds two functions to the Rogue base class: fast hands and second floor work. Working on the second floor offers resistance to damage from falls. It wasn't noticed in any of my Thief runs. The real reason The Thief is so highly regarded is Fast Hands.

Fast Hands gives the thief an additional bonus action. That's right, instead of one bonus action per round, you now have two. Now you can jump twice in a row, use the Dash bonus action and take cover, push two goblins off a roof, drink two health potions, you know, there are so many options. Probably the most tempting of these is the combination of fast dual-wielding hands and two off-hand attacks in one turn, for a total of three attacks per turn. How can it not be S-Tier?

The biggest problem is that the left hand attacks aren't very good unless you have the TWF fighting style that Fighters and Rangers offer. Without TWF, you can't add your ability modifier to your damage, and this drastically hurts dual-wielding efficiency.

However, there is a clever way to deal some damage to these left-handed attacks, and that is to bring the Magic Initiate: Warlock feat to level 4 instead of the ASI. This talent lets you cast Hex, which is buggy (patch 6) so you can use it multiple times during a long break if gorged with the talent. Hex adds 1d6 (average 3.5) necrotic damage to each of his attacks, including his left hand, greatly improving the thief's damage.

Here's a graph comparing the average damage per turn of the three Martial Forward classes available so far: Thieves, Hunters, and Battlemasters, with (mostly) maxed tier 4 builds. The X-axis represents the average DPR each attacking building has for the corresponding AC value on the Y-axis. Thief is considered a sneak attack (but not with advantage). Each class must also have +1 enchanted weapons.

It's also worth noting that Thief deals an average of 33 damage on a critical hit, Dual Wield Hunter 29 and Battlemaster 22 (31 if using a maneuver). Since critical hits are common thanks to spells like Sleep, Hold Person, etc., having a higher critical hit like Thief means a lot.

To build:Probably the most fun I had in BG3 was playing a gith thief! Gith gains additional strength and bounces like racial spells. Strength gives you a greater jump distance, the jump spell this distance, and quick hands allow you to jump twice in one round. You can move about 50m in a turn (if my calculations are correct) and still have action to attack! With strength, you also get stronger boosts. Additionally, Githyanki gains an invisible mage's hand as a trick, allowing you to consistently demonstrate a sneak attack. Building is pretty simple, just use gith, max strength, grab an ASI strength or dual wielding skill at level 4 and go crazy! Note that you cannot use Hex and Mage Hand together, as they both require concentration. If you want to do the Hex Thief build I graphically showed above, I recommend using half Wood Elf and prioritizing Dexterity over Strength.

If the thief is overrated, the arcane trickster is underrated. In my opinion, the difference between these two subclasses is quite small. The Arcane Trickster is a resourceful subclass that has an interesting niche of its own compared to the Thief.

Selecting Arcane Trickster gives you two features: Mage Hand Prestidung and Spellcasting.

Magician's sleight of hand is incomplete. The tooltip says it gives the summoned mage's hand more actions, but not yet. Right now, it just makes the Hand of the Mage invisible when it's first summoned. It's barely noticeable.

Arcane Trickster's spellcasting is similar to that of Eldritch Knight, which we discussed earlier. You'll learn 2 cantrips and up to 4 spells at level 4. 3 of those 4 spells must be in the Enchantment or Illusion school. At level 4, they have 3 level 1 spells per long break. Your spell modifier is Intelligence. Just like Eldritch Knight, your spell selection is small. There are five tier one spells in these two schools. Unlike Eldritch Knight, however, the really important spells are available: Sleep and Tashas. We talked about sleeping a little louder. At early levels, it's probably the best control spell in the game, as it has no saving throw and the first melee attack against a sleeping target is a guaranteed critical hit. Tashas is like Sleep, but with a saving throw. Rogues get a very high critical strike stat because they multiply damage from sneak attacks. So an Arcane Trickster is a Striker that comes with some of its own controls.

To build:Choose Half Wood Elf as your race and set the two ability bonuses to Dexterity and Constitution. Your level 1 stats should be 8,16,16,8,14,12 (it really only matters that you have 16 Dexterity and Constitution, otherwise you can do anything). For your spells, make sure you have slept. Choose Longstrider for your bonus spell. You must gain an extra 15 feet of movement between Longstrider and your dash, which you can double each turn if you dash as a bonus action. At level 4, get the ASI to increase Dexterity to 18. You must now also have the intellect headband so your intelligence is 17. You are now a highly mobile attacker/controller. This subclass is comparable in power to the Thief. It's still not as good as Rangers and Fighters, but it's still underrated. Note that you can do the same build in Astarion.

• Hit Points: 1d8 Progress
• Saving Throws: Wisdom and Charisma
• Abilities: Light Armor and Basic Weapons.
• Team Role: Controller, Forward

Warlocks are a standout class in terms of design, in my opinion. They are powerful and flexible, supporting a wide range of viable builds. They have a lot of features to talk about, so here we go.

The Warlock base class has three traits: spellcasting, supernatural summoning, and your pact blessing. We will discuss them individually.

Casting spells works differently for the sorcerer than it does for most classes. Warlocks gain two spell slots that refresh on a short rest instead of a long rest. Additionally, your spells are always cast at the highest available caster level (caster level 2 for a level 4 wizard). Warlocks use Charisma as a spellcasting ability. For the most part, her spell list is the same as a wizard's, with a few notable unique spells that more or less define her class. In this article, we'll only look at the really important ones, though I'll discuss each spell in detail in my next caster level list article, so wait for that!

The spell that defines the sorcerer's class is actually a cantrip: Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast is a ranged attack that deals 1d10 Strength damage on impact. When it comes to damage scaling (not yet in Early Access), you also have the option to split attacks between multiple targets and set separate attack roles for each beam. It's a solid damage spell on its own, but the sorcerer can also power it up with multiple invocations. In Early Access, there are two Summons that amplify Eldritch Blast, which we'll discuss below.

Hex is Warlock's 4e Forward spell. It's identical to Hunter's Mark, except it adds the added feature of inflicting a debuff on the target on an attribute check of your choice for the duration of the spell (note, it's an attribute check, not a saving throw. I made this mistake for an embarrassing amount of time). I tend to use the extra feature to penalize strength checks for easier poke targets. However, Hex's bread and butter is the extra 1d6 necrotic damage on successful attacks you make against the target. Adds a large amount of damage to a single spell.

Armor of Agathys and Hellish Blame deal retaliatory damage, which I value a lot as it has a low opportunity cost. Agathys' armor is the better of the two, but it only responds to melee attacks. Hellish Blame attacks from afar, so launch it with ranged builds and use Armor of Agathys for melee builds.

For control spells, the most important one is obviously Hold Person, but there are other options as well. Some of the better alternatives are available specifically for certain subclasses, so we'll discuss them there.

Eldritch Summons are small boosts meant to represent a sorcerer's supernatural powers. You choose two of nine options:

• Burst of Agony: When you cast Eldritch Burst, you now add your Charisma modifier to the damage dealt.
• Shadow Armor: You can wear mage armor at will without consuming a spell slot.
• Speech of the Beast: You can cast Speak to Animals at will without consuming a spell slot.
• Seductive Influence: You gain proficiency on Deception and Conviction checks.
• Fel Gaze: You can see normally, both magically and non-magically, in the dark to a range of 60 feet.
• Fel Power: You can cast false life on yourself at will as a 1st-level spell without consuming a spell slot.
• Mask of Many Faces: You can cast Disguise at will without consuming a spell slot.
• Repelling Blast: When you hit a creature with Eldritch Blast, you can knock the creature up to 15 feet.
• Thief of Five Fates: Once per long pause, you can cast Bane with a Warlock spell slot.

Some of them don't have direct combat use, like Seductive Influence, Beast Speech, and Mask of Many Faces, so we're leaving them out. Agonizing Blast is a standout option, especially for ranged builds. Pass on shadow armor, it's +2 AC at the start, but you can eventually find equivalent magic armor, and it's useless if you have medium armor proficiency as a racial bonus. Devil's Sight is a great summon in combination with the Darkness spell, but it appears that Larian has yet to incorporate a distinction between magical and non-magical darkness into the game. So if you have Darkvision from your race, Devil's Sight is redundant (I haven't tested this since patch 3, so it might be fixed). Fiendish Vigor is +7 temporary HP at the cost of an action, not bad but not surprising as temporary HP doesn't stack. Repelling Blast is also a mediocre boost in most situations, but it kicks in automatically when you perform an action you'll be doing a lot anyway, which makes it pretty good. Knockback effects can be very effective in BG3 due to Larian's vertical encounter design. Finally, Thief of Five Fates is a great spell, but a single spell per long rest isn't enough, pass. In short, Dying Blast and Repelling are the best options for most builds. Fiendish Vigor and Devil's Sight can be good in certain builds. None of the others compare in terms of combat efficiency.

The third and final resource Warlocks get is the Pact Boon. There are four official options for picking Boons in Tabletop 5e, but so far in BG3 there is only one: Chain Pact. This Boon allows you to summon a special familiar out of combat at will (similar to summoning the Beastmaster). There are several options, but this class review is already taking up too much space, so instead of discussing them all, I'll just recommend the one I think is the best, which is goblin. Imps have resistance to most common damage types (including non-magical attacks, piercings, and blackjacks). They also have flying speed and a chance to deal additional poison damage when attacking. Possibly the best summoning option in the game so far, it's definitely between them and the spider. Summons are really useful because they come with their own actions and have no real opportunity cost.

In short, sorcerers have a ton of features and they're all great, so why didn't I give them an S-tier rating? It has to do with my own value judgments and the way I built the tier system. The hallmark of an S-Tier class like the one I built is when you really feel its absence when you don't have it in your group. As good as the sorcerer is, it's not, probably because the sorcerer is a selfish class. It's pretty good on its own and doesn't gain much in performance when you plug it into a party designed for it. Likewise, Warlock is good at two roles but great at neither. If you need a striker, there are better strikers. If you need a driver there are better drivers out there. In my opinion, 5e prefers classes that specialize in one function and interact with other functions in a multiplicative rather than simply additive fashion. All in all, Warlock is still a great base class that easily gets an A-tier rating, and your party won't suffer from having one if it's built right.

Furious! That was a lot! Now let's look at the subclasses.

The Fiend subclass represents a pact made with a lower-level devil or demon. They add two features to Warlock's base class: Dark One's Blessing and Subclass Spells.

Blessing of Darkness grants you temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + warlock level when you kill an enemy. This feature addresses a weakness of the base class, namely durability. I don't think it's crazy to expect your sorcerer to kill an average of 1-2 targets per encounter, giving them 8-16 extra health per encounter at level 4 (assuming you have an ASI Charisma). That's a lot of extra health. However, that's not a durability boost to help you stay focused, which is something we prefer in a mage class like Warlock. Note that invoking Fiendish Vigor grants you 7 temporary HP per spell, which does not stack with Dark One's Blessing, so taking it with this subclass is not recommended.

Like Clerics, Warlock subclasses have expanded spell lists that grant two additional spells that are learned for each spell level up to level 5. Fiend Warlocks gain Burning Hands and Command at level 1, and Blindness/Deafness plus Searing Ray at level 1. level 2. Both sets give them decent hits and control, but aren't the best for their role.

Both stats are useful, but not enough to raise the base Warlock class to an S-tier. Choosing the Fiend subclass basically means having a slightly more durable Warlock.

To build:There are several interesting ways to build a Fiend Warlock, but a simple long-range build around Eldritch Blast is the best, in my opinion. You can use this build on Wyll. Make sure you have maximum Charisma and Dexterity (or at least 14 Dexterity for a race that achieves Medium Armor Proficiency). For cantrips, get Eldritch Blast and whatever you prefer (I recommend Chill Touch or Blade Ward. If you're not sure how useful Blade Ward can be, keep an eye out for my upcoming spell tier list, I'll cover that there). Use Hex and Infernal Blame for your spells. At level 2, you get the Repelling Blast and Agonizing Blast and Armor of Agathys summons for your spell. For your tier 2 spells, get the Hold Person and Mist with the Charisma ASI step at tier 4. If you find you don't use Reprove from Hell much, switch to something else, maybe "Command", "Reflection", or Debuff Lightning .

Like Eldritch Knight, this class is not complete yet. It looks like Larian wants to revamp it, but it hasn't finished development yet. I expect the class to do very well in full release, assuming they retain some of their key features from the tabletop version and Mind Flayers remain the game's main enemy.

This subclass adds two 1st-level spells to the warlock's known spells. These spells are Dissonant Whispers and Tasha's Ghastly Laughter. Both are very good spells. Tasha's Assurance's discordant critics and whispers can be used to trigger attacks of opportunity. None of the spells scale very well when cast, which is sort of a wizard's magic trick, but they stay strong throughout the EA.

To build:Just follow the compilation I described for the Fiend subclass.

• health points:1d6 progress
• Safeguards:intelligence and wisdom
• Expertise:Wizard weapons.
• equipment roll:Driver, Front, Support

This class is a bit odd at the moment and benefits from a bug that is unlikely to survive the full release. The bug is fun, so enjoy it while we've got it! Wizards are the best drivers available so far and will likely remain the best drivers until the full release, although I don't expect them to remain S-Tier in the full release.

The Mage base class has three roles: spellcasting, arcane restoration, and what I call the learn magic role. Let's analyze them one by one.

Casting spells is like casting druid or cleric spells. It has the same progression, refreshes on a long cooldown, only it uses Intelligence instead of Wisdom as an ability modifier. The caster spell list is extensive and flexible, so there isn't enough space to discuss all the spells in this article (I'll go over each spell in my next caster level list article). There is one spell reserved only for arcane casters (such as wizards) that needs to be mentioned and that is sleep. If you've read this rating in order, you've heard me talk about sleep many times. Sleep is the ultimate control spell in the early levels. It's an AoE roll that affects a number of targets up to 24 hit points (32 if cast as a level 2 spell), and there's no saving throw to resist. It targets current hit points, not maximum hit points, so you can get multiple targets if you smooth them out first. What's really powerful about this is the dream state. When you make a melee attack against a sleeping target, it automatically hits and crits (this is a benefit of how it works in the rules on the table). The target wakes up after taking damage. Since the target will inevitably have less than 32 health, there's a good chance that an attacker's melee attack will kill them immediately. So, with the right equipment, sleep is a death sentence when it comes, and there's no chance of saving it. I love that Sleep is so powerful in BG3, as Sleep is also very powerful in the original BG games, it feels like the same world. Note that Tasha's horrible laugh is exactly the same as sleeping, accept that a saving throw is required and not the hit point system. It gets better in some situations and worse in others. Both must fire frequently.

Arcane Recovery allows you to restore certain spell slots between encounters. You can use it once per long break, and the spell slots restored must be equal to or less than half your wizard level (rounded up). So a level 4 caster can restore one level 2 spell slot or two level 1 spell slots. This isn't a flashy feature, but it's great as it gives you more spells to cast. That and the caster's spell list make them the most powerful controllers in the game thus far.

The final resource participants get is hidden; is the Learn Spells feature. It doesn't show up as a class resource when you select the class or when you level up, but it's there anyway. The name explains it very well, with the Learn Spell feature you can learn how words are spelled. Don't know how to spell expedited? Be a magician, it says right there in “Accelerated Withdrawal”. This is the feature that really makes the base Wizard S-Class level a no-brainer due to its usefulness outside of the game.

Okay, sorry, I couldn't resist. Learning spells is actually learning new spells, not spelling. Unlike other classes, the Wizard can learn new spells from the scrolls you acquire during your adventures. You simply pay 50g per caster level and you can now add this spell to your available spells to cast. On its own, this feature is nice, but it's also buggy now in a way that makes it awesome. The flaw is that every spell you find can be learned like a scroll.regardless of whether it is part of the Mage spell list or not. Yes, that means you can learn Agathy's Blessing or Armor or any other spell you can find as a scroll. This greatly expands the already extensive list of Wizards spells. It also works with cheats, so you get every cheat you can find in one scroll for the price of 50g. I don't expect this bug to survive Early Access.

In general, the spellcaster is excellent for the sheer volume and variety of spells he can cast. If you want to know more about my thoughts on spells, I cover them all in myCaster Level List Item. Now let's look at its subclasses.

Wizard subclasses represent training in specific arcane knowledge. The school of abjuration is a tradition that emphasizes magic that protects and protects. So far it adds a role to the base caster class and that is the Arcane Ward role. Whenever you cast a dispel spell (not a cantrip), you gain temporary hit points. The first time you cast such a spell after a long pause, you gain temporary HP equal to twice your caster level plus your Intelligence modifier (ie, 12 HP at 4th level and 18 Intelligence). This amount represents his maximum value, and no matter how many dispels he casts, his temporary HP can never exceed this number. Each abjuration spell cast after the first "heals" the ward for an amount equal to twice the spell's level. It's tricky, but I think it's reasonable to expect this feature to provide a temporary amount of HP comparable to a Dark One's Own Blessing fel warlock (maybe a little less). It gives your caster a significant increase in durability, which casters can really use.

A complication of this feature is the rather dismal selection of abjuration spells available thus far. There are only two spells on the caster's spell list: mage armor and protection from good/evil. Realistically, you won't do this very often in a day's adventure. Armor of Agathys now fixes this. It's a spell you can learn from a scroll that you're likely to cast often. When Agathys's Armor is lifted, it is extremely strong, and at this time, the Arcane Ward's temporary HP not only stacks with it, but also triggers Retribution damage, allowing you to more than double the temporary HP to retaliate with power. Take a look at the compilation I offer below to learn more about it.

In short, the spell school offers mediocre durability. Also, it's hard to get the most out of the Limited Early Access Abjuration Spells feature. It's a disappointing subclass, unless you get lucky and cast an Armor Scroll of Agathys then it becomes pretty good. Since this combo requires a random item that you might not get with each run, I'm putting it at tier B.

To build:This is one of my favorite compilations, I call itArcane Knight of Faith. The purpose of the build is to use the greatsword skill that Githyanki gains to allow the dispeller to use the Sword of Justice. In addition to being a +1 greatsword, the Sword of Justice allows its wielder to cast the Shield of Faith once per combat (out of combat at will). Shield of Faith is a useful dispel spell that activates Arcane Wards, allowing you to keep your supplied Wards without expanding valuable spell slots. You also gain knowledge of githyanki medium armor, making your caster function as a magical warrior. There are a lot of interesting details that I'll cover in my longer article, so check them out if you're interested!

The School of Evocation is a tradition specializing in spells that release elemental energy. This subclass emphasizes the advanced aspect of the caster by adding the ability to cast spells to the base class. Sculpt spells create nests of safety in your summoning spells. Friendly creatures are automatically saved and take no damage from these spells. Due to the nature of this feature, you will not gain any benefit from casting single target summoning spells. After all, why cast a single summoning spell on an ally? Therefore, this spell only affects AoE summoning spells that have saving throws. There are three such spells in play: Burning Hands, Thunderwave, and Shatter (Darkness is an AoE summoning spell, but it has no saving throw). I tested if it also works on the ground effects of summoning spells, like when you cast a witch ray at a target that is standing in water, but it doesn't work (Larian, if you're reading this, you should change this to cause effects of evocation). Ground when casting spells as well. It won't change the game balance, but it will make sculpting spells more interesting.) The three spells it empowers are all decent spells, but we're still getting into a realm of extreme situationalism for this feature. It's only effective when you're casting one of the three spells AND when you couldn't have otherwise positioned the spell so that it hits as many enemies as possible without hitting allies. There shouldn't be many of them, so this subclass gets a C rating from me.

Still, you can build your group to make better use of this resource. For example, if you have a moon druid and an evocation caster, you can have the moon druid taunt enemies to group them, and then the evocation caster can smite them without hitting the target. Druid. There's still a lot designed for a mediocre payout.

To build:There are no tricks to this subclass, it's more or less a vanilla mage.,So I'll use this section to explain how I recommend building Gale. Gale has good stats for a summon spellcaster. The biggest choice for building it comes at level 4. How should you spend your ASI? The determining factor should be whether or not you have another member on your team who can use the Headband of Intellect. If you do, spend the ASI to raise your Intelligence to 18, then trade the headband for the other party member. Otherwise, divide the ASI between Constitution and Wisdom to increase them to 16 and 12, respectively. When choosing spells, make sure you have Burning Hands, Thunderwave, and Shatter. Sleep and Hold Person are still required. Misty Step is another solid option, as you can effectively chain it with Thunderwave in vertical terrain encounters.

• health points:1d6 progress
• Safeguards:constitution and charisma
• Expertise:dagger, staff, light crossbow
• equipment roll:driver, front

The last class released since patch 6. The Sorcerer base class is characterized by two characteristics: its unique spellcasting and its metamagic. We will discuss each below. As a spellcaster, the sorcerer class is very similar to the wizard, but with a smaller set of spells. Unlike mages, mages cannot learn spells from scrolls, and they also learn far fewer spells based on their level. Additionally, there are currently spells that the mage can learn based on their level that the mage cannot learn, meaning they also choose from a smaller pool of spells. However, the main arcane control spells are available to casters: Sleep, Hold Person, Misty Step, Cloud Dagger, etc. This means that the caster can cast the same S-level arcane spells that he can cast, but cannot cast anything. more; You lose the ability to customize your spell options for upcoming encounters. To compensate for the loss of customization when choosing spells, the caster gains the metamagic feature, which allows them to customize the spells they can cast on the fly. Metamagic works a bit like Battlemaster's maneuvers, but for spells instead of attacks. You choose from a list of additional effects to add to your normal spells, and you are given a resource, sorcery points, to manage those effects. Its caster gains two sorcery points at 2nd level, then one per level thereafter. Spell points will replenish during a long break or when you use spell slots to buy more, more on that later. First, let's look at the skills you can spend these points on. Metamagic abilities are different in BG3 and Tabletop 5e. At Bg3 you choose two metamagic abilities from a reduced list at 2nd level, then at 3rd level you can choose another from an expanded list of some of the more expensive and powerful abilities.

Level 2 Metamagic Abilities (choose two):

• Care Spell (costs 1 sorcery point): This ability modifies aoe spells that require saving throws. If you use this, any ally hit by one of these spells automatically succeeds on their saving throw. To be honest, I haven't tested this skill very often, mainly because I can't imagine it being very effective given the spells we have in early access. There are three spells available to casters, possibly five, that I can imagine would cause this ability: Burning Hands, Thunderwave, Shatter, Grease, and Web. For the first three, even if your allies succeed on the saving throw, they still take half damage... not an efficient use of a sorcery point. Grease and Web would be helpful, but I'm not sure if Careful Spell will nullify the save every turn or just the first save in the cast. If it's the latter, this skill is useless, just pass it on. If it's the former, I can see it's useful. *Note* Using a stealth spell with Thunder Wave will prevent the spell from stacking your allies, which can be useful. Thanks to Reddit user Hi_I'm_A for bringing it to my attention.
• Distant Spell (1 Spell Point): This skill is really interesting. It's great to be able to cast spells from such a long distance, and you can imagine a build that takes advantage of this to always stay out of reach of your enemies. The problem is that it's not a persistent skill that costs a finite resource that refreshes on a long pause, and extending a spell's range isn't the peak combat change you want from a finite resource skill you need, at least. way Larian planned his combat encounters.
• Expand Spell (1 Sorcery Point): Here we come to a basic metamagic ability. Extend spells doubles the duration of conditions, summons, and ground effects. For the cost of a single sorc point, that's incredible. The best spells to use this are conditions and buffs that have durations but not concentration. Of these, the two obvious candidates are Sleep and Blade Ward.
• Twin Spells (1 sorcery point per caster level): This ability modifies single-target spells to affect two targets instead of one. This is a phenomenal ability, especially for single target focus debuffs like Hold Person or Crown of Madness, effectively doubling your focus slot potency. Do not pass this skill.

Level 2 Metamagic Abilities (choose one):

1. Improved Spell (3 Sorcery Points): This ability modifies spells that require a saving throw and inflicts a penalty on the target's first saving throw against that spell. Not much to say here, except that it makes your saving spells more accurate. While this is simple, it is extremely important given the effectiveness of many saving throws. Landing a Hold Person on the right target, even for a single turn, can single-handedly win a fight, so for those occasions, packing an upgraded spell is a game changer.
2. Spell Hasten (3 Spell Points): This ability allows you to spend three magic points to cast a spell with an extra action that would otherwise cost an action. In Table Top 5e only one level spell can be cast per turn, but in BG3 you can use this to chain multiple spells together in one turn. This is a powerful effect that is almost always useful to you. It also has an interesting interaction with the Circlet of Fire item. A character wielding the Circle of Fire gets a bonus action when hitting with a non-cantrip spell that deals fire damage, though this only works once per turn. If you have the headband, haste spell, and six sorcery points, you can cast 3 spells in a single turn, as long as one of them is a fire spell that hits.
3. Subtle Spell (1 Sorcery Point): Subtle Spell allows you to cast any spell while silenced. Obviously, if you get silenced, you're almost useless, as spells are a mage thing to do. So it's great to counter silence for such a small cost. However, silence is not very common in my careers. Subtle Magic would be great if you had more metamagic abilities to choose from, but since you can only choose one from this list and it competes with some of the better options, it's rarely worth picking up.

I think you should always select Extend and Twinned Spell at level two if you want to modify. They are simply better than the other options, stronger, more flexible and easier to use. The really interesting metamagic choice comes at level 3, between Spell Accelerated and Spell Intensified. Choose what you like best. I suspect Augmented Magic is better, but only slightly.

Metamagic isn't the only thing you can use your spell points for. You can also use them to exchange points for spell slots and vice versa. Trading points for an additional spell slot costs the spell slot's level plus one (i.e. 2 for a tier 1 spell and 3 for a tier 2 spell). Converting your spell slots to points gives you points equal to the spell slots' level. Both types of exchange can be performed as a bonus action in combat. This feature also has a fun interaction with an item: Spell Thief, a magical longbow that you can buy from Aunt Ethel in the Grove. Once per short rest when you critically strike with Spellthief, you regain a level 1 spell slot. You can trade this spell slot for sorcery points, saving an additional 3 spell points per long rest, allowing you to do so. fun stuff like all three spells in one turn with Quickened Spell and Circlet of Fire. Now you might be thinking, am I really going to be critting reliable enough for Spellthief to be useful? If you're just hoping to roll a 20 on an attack, no you won't. However, you can guarantee critical hits by attacking sleeping or paralyzed targets from melee range. It needs to be melee to work. Chances are, if you spam Sleep and Hold Person like I did, you have plenty of opportunities to get hit by sleeping or paralyzed targets. Have fun with all your spells/extra points! As a final, quick note, before we move on to discussing wizard subclasses, it's important to note that, unlike other wizards in the game thus far, wizards gain proficiency on Constitution saving throws, which is the saving throw used to maintain concentration and therefore the most important savings for rollers. This is a fantastic resource that is easy to miss.

Wizard subclasses are the origin and source of your characters' unique magical gift. The Draconic Bloodlines are sorcerers descended from dragons, whose arcane power derives from their magical heritage. Since the subclass represents the origin of this class, they pick it up at level 1. Mechanically, Dragon Origin adds two traits to the base Warlock class: Dragon Kinship and Dragon Resilience. Draconic Resilience increases hit points and armor class. You gain one additional hit point per caster level, and when not wearing armor, your base armor class is 13 + your Dexterity modifier, as opposed to the typical 10 + Dexterity modifier. Extra hit points are always useful. The AC boost is only effective for characters who don't want to wear armor, so choosing a race with armor proficiency has negative synergy with this feature. Most arcane casters without armor knowledge will cast mage armor which also grants a 13+ dex modifier, so essentially draconic caster saves a tier 1 spell per long rest, which is great! Draconic Ancestry represents the specific type of dragon you are descended from. There are two main types of dragons in D&D: chromatic and metallic. Chromatic dragons tend to have an evil alignment, while metallic ones tend to be good. If you choose the Draconic Bloodline subclass, you can choose one of ten bloodline options, which we'll discuss below. Each pick is mechanically differentiated by an elemental damage type, increasing damage and situational resistance to that type at level 6. Since early access only goes up to level 4, damage type doesn't really matter yet. However, each bloodline also gains a bonus spell. The lineages are:

• Red Dragon (Fire): Burning Hands
• Black Dragon (Acid): Fat
• Blue Dragon (Lightning): Lightning Witch
• White Dragon (Cold): Armor of Agathys
• Green Dragon (Poison): Ray of Disease
• Golden Dragon (Fire): Disguise
• Silver Dragon (Cold): Featherfall
• Broncedrache (Blitz): Nebelwolke
• Copper Dragon (Acid): Tasha's horrible laugh
• Bronze Dragon (Fire): Sleep

There isn't enough space to talk about each one individually, so I'll just point out the two that I think are the best, which are the White Dragon and the Copper Dragon. Both offer versatile S-tier spells that the caster wouldn't otherwise have access to. Armor of Agathys pairs well with an advanced Blade Ward spell and will add some much needed durability to your caster. In a solo race I would recommend the White Dragon for this reason. For everything else, Copper Dragon is better. Tasha's horrible laugh is like Sleep, but with a saving throw instead of targeting hit points. Being able to duplicate or augment Tasha's spells is extremely effective with a team that can take advantage of free critical hits.

To build:I recommend building a Drow Dragon Wizard. Buy 16 Dexterity, 16 Charisma, and 14 Constitution and use what's left as you see fit. Choose the Copper Dragon bloodline. For spells, go for Chromatic Orb and Sleep (go for Blade Ward, Chill Touch, then anything else you live for cheats). At level 2, take twin spells and expand spells like your metamagic abilities and something fun for your new level 1 spell, for example jump (we'll replace it at the next level so it doesn't matter too much). At level 3, take the Enhanced Spell metamagic ability, Cloud of Daggers, then replace Leap (or whatever you choose) with Hold Person. Finally, at level 4, get the ASI to raise your Charisma to 18, then use Misty Step as your spell. Your final list of spells should be Chromatic Orb, Sleep, Tasha's Ghastly Laughter, Cloud of Daggers, Hold Person, and Misty Step. Its main meta-strategies are using augmented spell with Tashas and Hold Person, using twin spell in combination with chromatic orb for burst damage, and using extended spell with Blade Ward when you can't avoid damage, or sleep if you can prevent the targets. they wake up. I think this build is the best controller yet in Early Access, and it also does a lot of single target and AoE damage while being reasonably durable and mobile. It's an S-tier build in my books.

For those familiar with this class, it might surprise you that I assign it the same rank as the Dragon Bloodline subclass. I've completed a game with each subclass, and I think that, as the game stands, wild mages can be at least as powerful as the more predictable draconian mages. If you're curious to know why, read on! Wild mages have a natural grip on the arcane, which is both powerful and unpredictable. Mechanically, this manifests itself in two features: Tides of Chaos and Wild Magic Surge. Tides of Chaos gives you advantage on attack rolls, saving throws, or short or long rest ability checks. In previous patches this would have been almost useless, but the benefit of backstab and lift attacks has been removed, making it a nifty little bonus when you need it. However, I don't recommend saving it for the right moment. Use it at the first useful opportunity that comes along, because once used, wild magic waves will become more common. Now let's move on to this function to understand how useful it can be.

Wild Magic Surge is a random effect that can occur in addition to a spell you cast when you cast a level 1 or higher spell (i.e. no tricks). You have no control over which effect happens, or if it happens at all, except that you can increase a wave's chance by using your Tides of Chaos feature, as we discussed above. I don't have a complete list of possible outbreaks, but some that have occurred in my game are:

• Enchant Weapons: You and your allies' weapons in a large area around you are enchanted. On your next strike with this weapon, deal an extra 1d4 power damage and critical hits. This effect lasts until the next hit with the weapon.
• Teleport: Until the end of your next turn, you can teleport up to 30 feet as a bonus action.
• Summon Mephit – Summon an enemy Mephit to your side.
• Swap: For the next few turns (can't remember how many), whenever you hit someone with a spell or cantrip, switch places with that target.
• Heal: Whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher, all creatures within 10 feet are healed for 1d4 hit points.
• Cloud of Mist – A blinding cloud of mist is summoned directly above you.
• Blur: All creatures within 30 feet of you (including you) gain the Blur bonus as if the Blur spell had been cast on them.
• Burn: All creatures around the caster are ignited for 5 turns.
• Sorcery Points: Spells return Sorcery Points equal to the spell's level.
• Turn Magic: A random magic effect is activated at the start of each turn.

Some outbreaks that didn't happen to me but have been reported by other players on Reddit are:

• Water: A pool of water is summoned directly to the caster (I think it's like casting the Create Water spell).

No doubt many more waves will be added in future patches, but for now we hope you find that all these waves are good for you or could be good for you. For example, consider summoning a Mephit. You might be thinking, "How good can it be to summon an enemy creature? Isn't it just another villain to fight?" Problem is, the Mephit in my races is also hostile to whatever you're fighting, so an enemy can waste a turn killing him for you! In one of my fights, an unnamed goblin attacked him, but in another situation, it could have been an Owlbear, a Minotaur or a Githyanki Fighter. Imagine wasting a Minotaur's turn on top of the spell you're casting... that's an extremely efficient use of a spell. The same principle applies to a wave like Fog Cloud, sure you are blind, but everyone is trying to attack you! With a little smart thinking, you can use most of them to your advantage.

Then there are the waves, which are extremely good and have almost no drawbacks. Two of the strongest are enchanted weapons and position shifting. The enchanted weapon turns your next hit with your weapon into a critical hit and lasts until your next hit, meaning that if you launch this wave in a routine fight against a weak enemy, you can save this weapon for the next boss fight. . . That's huge! Changing positions can also completely change the outcome of a fight. You could Misty Step somewhere high, switch places with an enemy, and drag them to their deaths. Alternatively, you can place your soft wheel next to your striker. Have you lost height? No longer! Again, with a little creative thinking, these waves turn into huge buffs.

Since waves are almost always beneficial to me, I try to spam Tides of Chaos to get as many waves as possible in one game. That's why I'm also giving the Wild Mage subclass an A-tier rating. If they add some nasty waves in the future, I hope the subclass drops to B. However, it will always be S-tier for fun!

To build:If you're looking for a mod, you should probably build your wild mage as a tiefling of sorts so he can withstand the painful fire wave. However, I built mine as a light middleweight for the “double lucky” PR angle. The ideal selection of attributes and spells will be similar to the Draconic Mage build I described above, but with a few differences. Instead of Extended Spell, Distant Spell can be fun to play in combination with the possible Position Swap Burst. I also recommend doing Misty Step as early as possible (level 3), as the ability to change position is crucial to using many of the waves to your advantage.

Hit Points: 1d12 progress Saving Throws: Strength and Constitution Abilities: Light and medium armor, shields, simple and martial weapons. Role in the team: Forward

It is useful to compare the barbarian to the fighter, as they are very similar. With just the base stats and abilities, the barbarian trades a heavy armor ability for a 1d12 HP increase (instead of the fighter's 1d10). So far in Baldur's Gate 3 this is objectively a better trade for the barbarian. In 5th edition, I generally prefer hit points over armor class for my defenses, as the simplified math means you can't avoid getting hit with armor class alone. You'll get some stray hits, so you better have the hit points to do this. Furthermore, medium armor is currently superior to heavy armor, so fighters don't even benefit from this heavy armor.

Barbarians also gain four features from their base class; two on level 1 and two on level 2.

The first is Unarmored Defense, which your barbarian gains at level 1. With this feature, your unarmored AC is "10 + Dex Mod + Con Mod", so your Constitution modifier is added to your usual Constitution modifier. You should think of it as a ribbon feature; It's useful for roleplaying unarmed barbarians, but it doesn't add anything from an optimization point of view. Typically at level 4 you can expect an AC of 16-17 without armor, which we could easily achieve with medium armor. Technically, I think it's possible to get an AC of 18 without armor at level 4, becoming a strong-hearted Halfling, optimizing Dexterity and Constitution, using Witch's Hair to increase Dexterity to 18, then + 2 dex ASI leads to level 4 Hmm... now I want to try this. I always end up playing a medium as my first run in every patch.

The second resource you get at level 1 is the real MVP. It's the Rage function. Rage is a buff that lasts for 10 turns and can be used multiple times per long rest depending on the level (3 times per long rest at level 4). As you progress, you'll gain the following benefits:

• Deal two additional points of damage with melee weapons, improvised weapons, and thrown items (left-hand attacks do not count).
• They also have resistance to cuts, stabs, and club damage.
• You have advantage on strength checks and saving throws.

You cannot cast spells or maintain your concentration while berserk. If you go an entire turn without attacking or taking damage, your rage automatically ends. You can't hold back your anger unless you're in the middle of a fight.

All three benefits of anger are helpful, so let's discuss them one by one. Extra damage is extra damage, who doesn't want that? Contrary to the tables, in BG3 you can take this damage by attacking with Dexterity. So if you want to do dex spikes, go nuts!

Resistance to physical damage is enormous. I indicated earlier that hit points at 5e is a better method of defense than the armor class. Resistances are like doubling your effective hit points against these types of damage, and physical damage is the most common type!

Finally, it's easy to overlook the benefit of strength checks and saving throws, especially if you're new to BG3, but let me tell you, it's a very powerful feature! Larian has made design decisions that make pushing an important part of the tactics in this game. Pushes are defended with an Acrobatics (dex) or Athletics (str) check, but are always made with an Athletics check. This means that while enraged barbarians have an advantage when it comes to executing and resisting all attacks. They are the best pushers in the game, and that's really important.

At level 2, Barbarians gain two more abilities: Danger Sense and Reckless Strike, and yes, both are awesome. Danger Sense gives you an advantage on all Dexterity checks against spells, traps and ground effects, basically anything you want Dexterity for. The advantage of a save is roughly +4 to your roles, so you can think of it as a double-fight. For saving throws, three are most important: Constitution, Dexterity, and Wisdom. The Barb gets significant bonuses to two of those three, and you still don't see this kind of saving throw coverage in any other class in the game.

Reckless Attack lets you use your attacks to gain advantage one turn at the cost of each attack against you until you also gain advantage the next turn. So you sacrifice durability for accuracy. It's a good deal? Absolutely. Spam this shit is so good. If you don't know why, think of it this way: they can't fight back if they're dead. If his hit points drop to zero, they are erased, but if his hit points drop to zero, he simply pays his healing word tax and is back in the fight! Remember that you don't care if you get hit by attacks, because you are resistant to most of that damage and you have 50 hit points.

Overall, I think it's safe to say that the Barbarian is currently the best base class for Martial Forwards. I think Fury alone is enough to make this class at least as good as Fighter and then add Danger Sense and Reckless Attack! Still, the difference between A-Tier and S-Tier is huge, and I don't think Barbara deserves that "S" with her base class alone. It's an A+ though.

The Battlemaster has officially been dethroned, Berserker is the new king of raids! This subclass adds the Frenzy function to the barbarian base class. Frenzy is an enhanced rage. When a Berserker rages, he rages and gains the ability to attack as his bonus action, in addition to all standard Rage bonuses.

Do you know what a great skill is? action boost! You do your attack, then you can do Action Surge and another one, it's awesome! But what if you could do that each round for up to ten rounds, and then you could do THAT three times per long rest? That's what berserkers do. This is how your DPR compares to other classes:

This assumes the Berserker is berserk and has brought the GWM to level 4. As you can see, Berserkers only have comparable damage to Battlemasters on the turns that the Battlemaster makes reaction attacks (via Riposte or from the Battlemaster's attacks of opportunity). Menacing Strike). . I think any fair estimate will say that there will be more turns a Berserker rages than turns a Battlemaster uses reaction attacks. Note that this graph does not take into account other general factors such as Bless or guaranteed critical hits from sleep. These factors will favor the Battlemaster. It also doesn't take into account the Helm of Grit, which greatly favors the Berserker.

Considering the Berserker hits this damage curve along with the high durability of the Barbarian base class, this isn't fair to other Forward classes. In Table Top 5e, Berserker is balanced with a mechanic that causes cumulative fatigue penalties every time you end a frenzy. In fact, it limits frenzy usage to two per short pause. Larian, if you're reading this, I encourage you to implement the fatigue mechanic for this class. I've heard people say that this makes the tabletop berserker too weak, but I really don't think that's the case. The reason why Berserker is considered underpowered in tabletop games is that its main trait (attack with a bonus action) competes with several other traits that are easier to acquire, such as the polearm master feat or even dual wielding. Berserker's Attack is better, but not better enough to justify choosing it over other subclasses. I think the easiest way to fix this is with magic weapons, not removing fatigue. The stock of a polearm weapon shouldn't get all the hit buffs of an enchanted weapon, whereas a frenzy attack should. Shields too! Frenzy is the best bonus action attack that works with shields. Having valuable weapons and shields in play should make the Berserker an attractive option.

Building: Let's try a building that takes advantage of the Berserker's unique ability to perform two attacks using a shield. This build isn't technically ideal, but it's still very strong and even more fun! During character creation, go to Strongheart Halfling with Str 12, Dex 17, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 9, Car 12. That's right, let's make a Berserker Dex! At level 4, take ASI divided between Dexterity and Wisdom by 18 and 10 respectively. Without armor, his AC is 19. I play this guy as a true cannibal, like the Halflings of the Dark Sun.

Wildhearts are barbarians with a little more culture. They add a beatial heart feature; an animal whose spirit amplifies the barbarian's rage. Mechanically, you can choose a totem from a list of five. Each totem has a passive and an active ability linked to its rage. The five options are:

• Wear:
  • Passive: You now have resistance to all damage except psychic damage while raging.
  • Active - Relentless Ferocity: While you are berserk, you can heal yourself for 1d8 hit points + your Constitution modifier. This is a standard action that must be cast.
• Adler:
  • Passive: While you are raging, you can charge as a bonus action, and all attacks of opportunity against you have a penalty.
  • Active - Dive Strike: You can attack an enemy with a melee dive when you are 2m or more above them. You take no fall damage from this attack. Deals damage normally, but also knocks the target back (no saving throw) on hit.
• Elk:
  • Passive: While enraged, your movement speed increases by 15 feet.
  • Active - Primal Stampede: While berserk, as an action, you can charge up to 30 feet to an enemy target, striking the target, a small area around it, and all enemies in between. All targets hit must make a saving throw or take 1d4 + Strength modifier damage and be knocked prone. The game still doesn't say what kind of saving throw it is and how the DC is calculated. I think it's a bug because the DC is always 12 regardless of my build.
• Tigre:
  • Passive: While enraged, your jump distance increases by 15 feet
  • Active - Tiger Bloodthirst: While frenzy, you can perform a cleave attack (as the weapon action) as an action. Each enemy hit takes half your normal attack damage and begins to bleed. Note that half damage only halves weapon damage + ability modifier. Fixed (unrolled) bonuses added after that are not halved. Therefore, +2 damage from Rage or +10 damage from GWM is applied in full on each hit.
• lobo
  • Passive: While berserk, allies gain melee attack advantage against enemies within 2 meters of you.
  • Active - Inciting Howl: While enraged, you can howl as an action, increasing your speed and the speed of all allies within 30 feet of you by 10 feet.

We will evaluate these options individually.

Wear

I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but I think Bearheart is mediocre. It sounds great to get resistance to any type of non-psychic damage, but I really don't think it adds that much resistance. My estimate is that 90% of damage taken will be physical, which all barbarians are already resistant to. So choosing this will only give you resistance to 10% of the damage you take. Also, of that 10%, in my experience, 90% is evenly split between fire, poison, and violence. You can gain resistance to any of these three racial options (dwarf, hearty halfling, tiefling). Otherwise, you can mitigate the damage simply by aiming. Got a sorcerer spamming Eldritch Blasts? kill him first. The same applies to mages with Magic Missile. The problem is that Bear Heart doesn't help you kill them, so I think you can mitigate more damage by choosing one of the mobile or offensive options. While stacking resistances is great for barbarians, you can basically already resist 93% of the damage you take with the base class and your racial choices.

Relentless debauchery does not save the day. Requires your action... Barbarians are an attacker class, just use your action to kill your enemies and you don't have to worry about healing. Also, attacking ensures you keep your rage, so why would I heal? Leave the healing to your healer.

Adler

Those are the powers Nacho Libre climbed those cliffs for, and dammit if they aren't worth it! At first glance, this kit gives him a lot of mobility, which means better targeting for a striker. Target selection is often very important, especially for a barbarian who has such a well-defined weakness: the caster. Blitz beyond your O line, dispense with your magic users and battles will be much smoother.

Then there's the value you can get from this kit with item synergies. In patch 7, Larian added some new items that increase when you carry. The strongest of these are the Speedy Lightfeet, which you can get right at the start of the game, which give +1 on hit and +1 lightning damage on hit for 3 turns when running. If you take two turns in a row, you deal an extra 1d8 lightning damage in addition. Lightning damage is one of the best damage types because you can make it vulnerable with Create Water. Therefore, when spamming as a bonus action, Eaglehearts can gain +1 to hit and +3.25 damage per hit or +6.5 damage per hit on average with Create Water. Phenomenal! In comparison, it's like an improved spell, except it takes a bonus action every turn, not just the first.

Finally, Diving Strike is quite useful, making it better than most active abilities Wildhearts get. The vulnerable effect is hard to use, so don't wait and be pleasantly surprised if you can. Basically, it just offers an extra dimension of mobility. It's like a free pen case. However, you don't technically NEED to be on a pole to use it, you can only use it to perform a 9 meter attack. This is corny, but if you really need another 30 feet, you can go up and drop the boxes. Just carry 3 or 4 containers and stack them when you need them!

elk

To be honest, I don't see the point in Elk. It seems to offer more mobility in the class, but already has the Eagle for that. Primal Stampede isn't an attack, it's an inherently less accurate saving throw ability, making its passive and active functions worse versions of something Eagle already offers. I hope Larian revisits this one because the aesthetic is great! I love the sound of the moose calling when you get angry.

Tigre

This one has its own niche, namely AoE attacks with Cleave. The tiger's bloodlust is probably the best asset of all the options. The extra jump distance is... another mobility option. Not sure why 4 out of the 5 options need to give you more exercise in some way. Still, it will be fun to play around with that particular impulse. The leap distance can be tripled with the leap spell, so an additional 15 feet becomes 13.5 meters.

lobo

Wolfheart's niche is friendship and teamwork, and I love it! Giving advantage to allied attacks is a big problem. Above, I was excited about how awesome Reckless Attack is. Think of Wolf Heart as giving everyone on your team a merciless attack, minus the debuffs. Animated howls aren't bad, but it doesn't matter because the passive is pretty good.

Since this subclass is something like five subclasses, I classify each option individually

Bear - Level B

Eagle - Level A

Any - Level C

Tiger - Level B

Wolf - Level A

I think Wolfheart is the better of the two A's. There's a good argument that he deserves S-Tier as he adds a support role to the barbarian base class, but I'll try to keep it conservative for now because I'm already as excited about Berserker as people think. I'm biased. I may change the ratings to Berserker and Wolfheart in the future once I gain more experience with them, as no one seems to agree with me on Berserker I might be overrated.

Conclusion

If you want to discuss this article with me or others, you canon here.I accept all comments and criticisms!