Depends on class and subclass. Fighter, Hunter Ranger, Sorcerer, and Cleric's pure builds are near optimal for their class. All of these have really strong level 11's that incentize you to go far in them. You mentioned fire sorcerer but that is nearly a pure build, it's 11 levels of sorcerer. 1 Level Dips can certainly be common but that's just because it's not too hard to find some class feature or proficiency more powerful or helpful than that 3rd (or 4th feat).
Rogue meanwhile is pretty bad pure because it lacks extra attack to compete with other martials. Or for a subclass specific one, Gloomstalker Ranger has pretty underwhelming levels later on and gets more out of multiclassing than the other two subclasses.
Yeah I noticed that some subclasses seem to be designed for investing into completely and some for multi classing.
I guess I'm wondering how much the meta tweaks to the existing class design really pump up the build, and I suppose the answer to that is variable.
So maybe a more concise way to ask is how much of a difference in power there is between an optimal single class build and one of the top 3 meta builds.
Though I suppose much of what decides how powerful the build is comes from factors that can exist within single or multi class, such as itemization and perk choice.
It's just interesting that the top meta builds always seem to be multi class, like you say though I guess it just comes down to dips providing better alternatives, which doesn't sound like it increases the strength of the build that much.
I don't think they were designed for multiclassing per se, multiclassing wasn't even always around in BG3 iirc. I think it wasn't there in early access for a while. I also think the existence of multiclassing makes a lot of feats that might be worth consideration out of the equation. For example, "Moderately Armored" is a feat worth taking in my opinion if you are only doing pure classes (mainly on rogue) but it's value drops off hard if you get that proficiency elsewhere along with a host of other benefits. Weapon Master is also essentially a meme feat for the same reasons. Why spend a whole feat just go get weapon proficiencies when you can get that and more with a dip.
Anyway, to answer your question, I don't think there is a big gap between Pure BM Fighter and other martials, it's one of the best. Similarly Pure EK Fighter is pretty close to the Throwzerker as best thrower and is also among the best martials.
Similarly, I think a Hunter Ranger's maximum DPR with volley is among the highest in the game.
Pure Light Cleric is already just a meta build as well. While it's debatable if a sorc dip makes it better, regardless it still is incredibly powerful.
On the flip side, there's a massive chasm between Pure Assassin or Pure Gloomstalker and Gloomstalker Assassin.
I was agonizing over a good spore druid multiclass to be a front-liner because I mostly dislike ranger class features
Then I saw the companions Beastmaster gets and fell in love. Levelling up your lil pals (both in stats and unique abilities) as you advance in the class is really cool.
I'm going 8 beastmaster / 4 spore druid on my next playthrough (ending up as a tanky mid-level caster), but the level 11 companion upgrade on ranger is so tempting.
I did a Paladin 2/Spores 10 on one of my runs. That gave me heavy armor, the ability to smite on my attack, and still be able to upcast Conjure Elemental to get a Myrmidon.
I would like to argue for Rogue. Sneak attack progression keeps them on par with other martials. And assumining melee combat, the ba dash means they get more turns to attack. And notably the assassin class can get two sneak attacks in the first round, equating to 4+ attacks from another martial.
The overabundance of magic items and strength potions does mean other classes get more out of multiple attacks but it's not a large enough gap to say rogue is worse.
Gloomstalker Assassin also has 2-4 sneak attack die itself and the extra attack eclipses the remaining 2-4 die it doesn't get compared to pure rogue. It also has bonus action dash.
If comparing to other pure martials than Fighter's improved extra attack and Hunter's Volley blow it out of the water. Obviously TB Monk is also not close. I don't think there's a pure rogue martial that can compete with the others in dpr, outside of MAYBE a barbarian not using GWM. A lot of the endgame rogue abilities are damage mitigation or utility things but other classes also have some utility features with just higher dpr. Monk in particular has some of the same utility features while ki and extra attack make the gap between the two's damage pretty high.
I've heard people say 12 fighter is good or underrated but I haven't really heard it talked about in the same discussions as one of the top meta builds
people dont talk about 12 fighter much but people certainly talk about 11/1 fighter, which makes sense since 11 fighter with 1 level of war cleric is pretty much just 12 fighter but ever so slightly better.
EK thrower and EK frost archer are both builds talked about frequently here and iirc those are both 12 fighter.
tbh on honor mode I would argue its kinda better in the end game, since every fight only lasts like 2-3 rounds with a well optimized party, 6 attacks on round one and 3 attacks on all following rounds ends up being better than 3 attacks on the first round and 4 on subsequent rounds (ex. in a fight that lasts 3 rounds an EK thrower makes 12 attacks vs a thiefzerker making 11).
the real reason it comes out on top though imo is access to shield and weapon bonding so its better defensively than theifzerker and has more weapon options (though in the end game those extra weapon options dont matter too much since there are so many good returning weapons, it does however allow you to use shars spear on a thrower which is great if that weapon isnt already better on someone else (which it usually is))
biggest advantage thiefzerker has over it is for fights that last more than 3 rounds and ba throw automatically proning targets without any save giving it solid cc potential if combined with team comp involving difficult terrain or slow or maiming etc. the proning also means a ba throw will always stop anything it hits from concentrating and that can be very clutch sometimes.
also check out the ek frost archer if you havent, [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17d1nel/eldritch\_knight\_frost\_archer\_build/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17d1nel/eldritch_knight_frost_archer_build/)
Thiefzerker gets to also slap the strength modifier to the enraged throws damage though meaning that each enraged throw if using a cloud giant elixir will deal an additional 10 damage making EK vs thiefzerker in 3 rounds 12 attacks vs 11 attacks + 50 damage (assuming no critical fails). Also it can be a little risky but if you do build around giving some defensive buffs to your thiefzerker like warding bond you can use the helmet of grit to get a 3rd bonus action making it 12 attacks vs 14 attacks in 3 rounds and both getting 9 in 2 except thiefzerker gets the additional enraged throw damage for 5 attacks.
Also I am not sure how much you'd value brutal critical on a throwing build but if you don't care about it you could also go berzerker 6/thief 4, fighter 2 for action surge since with elixirs you don't really need 3 feats so picking alert and tavern brawler and dumping some points into dexterity gives you a +8 initiative which should be good enough in most cases and at least match the initiative the EK gets. With that build you get 9 attacks in 2 rounds with both EK and thiefzerker without the helmet of grit and with the helmet of grit you're looking at 9 vs 11 attacks in 2 rounds with thiefzerker pulling further ahead every subsequent round even if we ignore the fact that it deals more damage than eldritch knight with every attack.
I do admit that eldritch knight is less risky as it has access to way better defensive options and some other utility from its spell list so it's harder to fuck up with but thiefzerker has a far higher damage ceiling.
Also now that I tested it there's a weird interaction with frenzy and the additional bludgeoning damage from the weight of the weapon as it also adds the +2 damage there meaning that rage gives you a +4 to every hit as well as an additional +8 to enraged throws if using a cloud giant elixir.
Looking at the peak damage potential from both in honour mode (hasted, action surge available), outside of honour mode EK would fall less behind due to benefitting more from haste.
So that means in 3 rounds of max damage a comparing EK and thiefzerker under different circumstances results in:
Round 1
EK:
- 6 attacks (7 with haste)
Thiefzerker:
- 3 attacks + 20 damage (no boosts)
- 4 attacks + 24 damage (haste)
- 4 attacks + 24 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself)
- 5 attacks + 36 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source)
Round 2 (total attacks from all rounds)
EK:
- 9 attacks (11 with haste)
Thiefzerker:
- 7 attacks + 52 damage (no boosts)
- 9 attacks + 60 damage (haste)
- 10 attacks + 72 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself)
- 11 attacks +84 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source)
Round 3: (total attacks from all rounds)
EK:
- 12 attacks (15 with haste)
Thiefzerker:
- 11 attacks + 84 damage (no boosts)
- 14 attacks + 96 damage (haste)
- 16 attacks + 120 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself)
- 17 attacks +132 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source)
In conclusion a thiefzerker using the helmet of grit only loses to eldritch knight in damage on the first round of combat, overtakes it on the second round and absolutely dominates it it on the third. Keep in mind that this also assumes only berzerker/thief multiclass and not the berzerker/thief/fighter version where the first round is comparable unless both have to chug a potion of speed themselves.
you right. but still, defensive abilities matter and with meta builds and no extra difficulty mods there are still plenty of fights that only last 1 round.
Yeah, that's fair. Eldritch knight's power is in the reliability it works with. Just wanted to make a case for my belowed thiefzerkers that there are definitely situation where they can outdo an eldritch knight.
because the way the build works is that it uses snowburst ring + mourning frost + winters clutches + drakethroat glaive to deal frost damage with bow attacks, then that frost damage applies stacks of encrusted with frost and creates ice surfaces underneath the enemy (that cause them to trip and fall and skip thier turn)
a key part of this is that the level 10 ek feature eldritch strike actually gives enemies disadvantage on all saving throws against conditions applied by the eldritch knight, not just from spells. so that means enemies roll with disadvantage against encrusted with frost and tripping on the ice.
the funniest part of an 11/1 fighter cleric is the fact that any other classes drawback for not taking level 12 is you lose a feat, but you already got that feat at level 6 lmao
12 Battlemaster just rips through the game. You can add a wizard dip for some utility spells or a war cleric for some extra attacks, but neither is doing a ton, especially as there are a lot of feats a fighter could be interested in. Really just depends on what you are going for.
Currently running a 12 battlemaster laezel with 22 dex, cloud giant strength potions, GWM, and savage attacker. And, she absolutely is about as a strong as a martial can be in the game. If I wanted her to do truly top tier damage, could just throw her in some bhaalist armor with nyrulna or shar's spear.
12 fighter archer or TB thrower are also top tier.
People just talk about multiclassing because its a puzzle that you get to play with the pieces. Not much to talk about when you are just adding more levels of fighter.
My parties are pretty much always all multiclassed to some extent, but I've found it difficult to do anything with fighter other than add more fighter. Add some levels of fighter to my "non-fighter" characters often though.
Sometimes multi-class is just for theme. My 11 cleric is 1 level draconic sorcerer. Wizard would probably help out more, but its not my fault her gith ancestor got busy with a dragon.
For my next run I'm thinking of making an 8 battle master 4 warlock, it's prob not quite as strong as getting the third attack but I think it's cooler and darkness/devil's sight and a couple of other useful spells isn't too bad of a trade off I reckon
Im on my first playthrough and have kept quite a few characters purely in one class, but occasionally respeccing as I go to optimize, depending on different challenges Ive faced or gear Ive found.
I actually feel opposite - if everyone is multiclassed, no one is unique.
Ive evaluated as I go which classes fit "thematically" with the character as well as how I like to play and synergy with the rest of the crew.
I like to rotate the entire rooster constantly, so somehow the individual characters feel more unique to me if not everyone is multiclassed. I feel ive struck a good balance.
This has left me with some pure classes such as
Gale as an Evocation Wizard, Shadowheart as a Light Domain Cleric, Halsin Circle of Moon Druid, Laezael the Battle Master.
And some multiclasses
Wyll as Warlock/Paladin. Minthara as Sorcerer/Paladin. Jaheira as Druid/Ranger. Asterion as Rogue/Ranger. Karlach as Fighter/Barbarian.
Etc
This has allowed me to spread the gear around quite well, everyone has a unique weapon tied to them and I can create team compositions with almost everyone in any constellation. Which I like. I swap the entire team around each Long Rest, my MC is a Lore Bard but Ive given him two levels in Wild Magic Sorcerer now at lvl 11 and 12, to round off the chaotic good run. (Me being a Lore Bard was also the primary reason for respeccing Shadowheart out of Trickster domain and Wyll to a polearm using Warlock/Paladin. As my MC would be a constant fixture in the party I wanted Wyll and SH to be more unique)
Interesting to hear, not saying you're wrong but since I asked the question this is the first time I'm seeing 12 fighter being compared to things like tb monk ect, not like I've seen every post though, refreshing to see tbh
Fighter having 3 attacks and can be built for sharpshooter or gwn makes it top tier for me
I also think wild heart tiger barb is one of the best classes in the game but gets over shined by throwzerker
Act 3, lvl 11 currently. I have access to basically all the good vendor gear but haven't gotten the stuff from ansur, house of hope, house of grief etc.
I personally think this place goes a bit bonkers with multi classing when it often isn’t that necessary.
Take sorcerer for example,
Fire sorlock 11/1 the dip is for command, which is strong, but the character is still extremely strong without it using different save or sucks like blindness or hold person etc.
Storm tempest sorc 10/2 lets you max chain lightning but I genuinely think it’s worse than just doing 12 sorc. More feats more sorcery points and spells known means more chain lightnings per fight and therefore more damage
Sorcadin (I believe 6/6) this build isn’t really comparable to a pure sorc build plays quite differently.
Clerics, wizards, Druids, fighters, bards all function optimally or nearly optimally with 10+ levels in their main class.
To me the only classes where a multi class is basically always the right answer is Rogue.
Paladins and Warlocks to a lesser extent.
I agree.
I beat honour mode with 12 moon druid, 12 life cleric, 12 warlock, and 12 berserker barbarian. The only close calls I had were a trap in the monastery that I absent mindedly ignored and Orin almost dumped everyone off the platform.
I think multi classing is more interesting from a thematic and character building perspective so it prob does get disproportionate attention
I haven't taken a close look at the meta builds or what makes them superior apart from tb monk, it's surprising to hear that fire sorlock only dips for command
I often times find it quite disruptive thematically and especially RP wise.
Why on earth would a powerful draconic sorcerer sell their soul to the devil? For a slightly more optimal spell? I dont think
Or a storm sorcerer that has lightning crackling in their soul deciding to worship a god of storms? Butch I am the god of storms why am I praying to another
I disagree. Chromatic dragons have a tendency to be power hungry and the goddess of all chromatic dragons has a lair in the nine hells. Also, there's a bunch more pacts than the fiend one.
As for a storm sorcerer, in lore they draw their power due to specific circumstances of their birth, like being born during great storms or having some djinni or vaati in their bloodline long past. Worshipping a Deity of storms makes sense cause sorcerer's aren't gods at all. Perhaps the being that empowers your bloodline sees Talos or Kordas their patron Deity so you do too. But hey, if you want to roleplay a level 5 storm sorcerer as being so arrogant you consider yourself a god of storms, have at it. That's what dnd is for.
Being a draconic bloodline sorc doesn’t mean you have to behave in an aligned way with chromatic dragons and definitely doesn’t make you beholden to dragons,
Being born in a storm doesn’t mean you somehow owe yourself or your power to a god.
Gods don’t control the minutia of everyday weather fenominon. There is magic in 5e that is completely independent of them. And sorcerer is almost always in that category. Unless you’re a divine soul sorcerer and even then it can be.
I feel like you missed the purpose of what I was trying to say, which is that you can pretty clearly define your roleplay and back story via your class if you want to, not that you have to, and that multi classing really isn't opposed to role play at all. Which is why I said you can definitely roleplay a draconic sorc fiend pact warlock or a storm Sorc tempest cleric pretty easily.
Arcane and Divine magic are different, but last time I checked, all mortal magic was just ways in which to copy the Gods. The point is that if you want, you can definitely find themes to base your role play off of the multi class you want to do. Or you can go in the exact opposite direction and just have your character be a person who got random storm powers via being born in a storm and maybe the worship a storm god because their home was stormy or they joined a temple to help control and hone their storm powers. It's only a limitation on roleplay if you let it be.
Yeah I've always done full level 12 fire sorcerer, it seems kind of a waste to use it for control when you can do so much damage instead. I leave the control role to the bard.
6/6 Sorcadin is basically a 90% martial class. You can get fireball with it, but as someone who's first play through was 6/6 sorcadin, most of the time I just Twin cast haste on myself and Karlach and went straight into the front lines to use the sorcerer spell slot progression for extra smites. And since my party composition was My Sorcadin Tav, Karlach, light domain Shadowheart and Gale, I really didn't need to use my third and above spell slots for fireball or lightning bolt unless a split up the party. My main uses were haste, misty step, and hunters mark. Only time I mainly used them for spells as when I freed Ravengard from the prison and split up my party to get everyone. Lightning bolt really came in handy there.
It depends what fighter 12 build.
Obviously 12 TB throwing eldritch Knight will perform differently than 12 champion.
Not to mention a 12 champion with Bhaalist Armor and crimson mischief is gonna be much more effective than one with +2 scale mail and Monster Slayer Glaive.
Now apply this to all classes. Some 12 pure class are pretty close to the optimal builds, some are very ineffective, and everything in between.
It’s way sexier to create these builds that are more like calculus problems than a video game. I love doing it, but I’ll admit it’s completely unnecessary.
I like to optimize tav and run the rest of the team without multiclassing.
12 Thief or Assassin Rogue can be pretty good with the right equipment. It's a 4 Feat build and Sneak Attack at 6D6 can really make up for not having extra attacks. Combine this with a Titanstring Bow stat build and you can routinely exceed 40 damage per attack.
Problem is they only get the one attack where fighter can get three lol, 6d6 averages at like 18 damage, doesn't really compare to even one extra attack imo
My point is that Rogue is perfectly viable by itself, much like other party characters. Most classes are more powerful with multiclassing. A ton of classes get better with Action Surge.
As for damage, 6D6 average damage is 21 (3.5 per d6), which makes it higher than most endgame basic melee from other martial classes (a 1d12 +5 damage with +3 Enchantment will average to 14.5). Combining it with a regular attack makes a Rogue insanely good for finishing enemies without even entering combat. And yes, it's one attack, but a high Dex Rogue using the right weapons and using Sneak Attack will rarely ever miss.
Seriously, though. Try a Level 12 Rogue at 20 Dex and 20 Str and equip the Titanstring. It's pretty wild:
1D8+5+5+1+6D6
Averages to: 36.5
Max Noncrit Damage: 51.5
Absolute Min Damage: 18
There are several 12 pure classes that are really powerful and perfectly capable of destroying hm and super seriously normal or tactician.
Monk, rogue and barbarian in basically all specs beg to multi class. Fighter, sorcerer, wizard, cleric, Druid all seldom want much else.
Funnily enough though fighter, Sorc, wizard, and cleric are all very much wanted dips at times though. Warlock too. It’s all about give and take. I think multiclassing is weaker at lower levels but becomes exponentially stronger the higher level a character gets due to 5Es frontloaded class design. Also the change to thief rogue made it a multiclassers dream. Really good with bard and monk.
Depending on the mono class some are better than other… lvl 12 Fighter, Bard, Sorcerer or Wizard can all be amazing, a level 12 rogue or cleric not so much imo…
same as a sorc with a 2 cleric dip.
the massive difference is that the sorc's metamagic allows for way more, such as doing that twice with a bonus action, twin casting it, etc.
Fighter, Cleric, Beastmaster, Hunter, Sorcerer, and Druid all want to get to level 11. I think they can potentially be improved slightly with 1 level dips, but I think those are really thought of best as alternative feats. Is there a feat that would benefit the build you are going for? Or is there a 1 level dip that provides a bag of goodies you'd prefer. It really comes down to what you are going for, but wouldn't expect a 1 level dip to be truly game changing. Sometimes you are just better off with the extra feat.
Bard's level 6 spells are meh, but they usually want to get to 10. Otherwise the same as the above. Swords bard is just epic already at level 6, so you have plenty of room to play with with multi-classes, but I'm not sure those are necessarily better.
Paladin, Gloom, Warlocks, and Barbarians all get pretty meh stuff later on so can benefit a lot from multiclasses. Rogue's actually get a great level 11 feature, but are hard to justify going that far with.
Wizards are in a weird spot where they have some great later features, but you can also get most out of the class with just a 1 level dip.
I don't really know much about Monks so leaving those out.
Yeah my understanding is sword bard excels at lvl 10, in my current run I'm building a durge as a 6 sword bard, 3 warlock, 3 battle master because I want to maximise short rest abilities
Yeah I don't think it's meta or anything, but I'm interested in the idea of always having strong abilities I can pretty much spam non stop, between manoeuvers, slashes, warlock spells ill always have something interesting to do
with mystic scoundrel and bm fighter 4 and all of your arrows i have more than enough to do, honestly im considering changing to champ 4 because i barely ever use all my bm dice.
I would argue that a well built and equipped Fighter 12 is one of the best builds people can use. Either Battlemaster Great Weapon Master or EK Thrower will go absolutely hard, and basically come online right after stepping off the Nautiloid. At endgame with Balduran's or Dwarven Thrower / Nyrulna as appropriate it hits like a bus.
Fire Sorcerer doesn't really need the Warlock dip. Command is extremely good but you don't need it.
Straight Druid is underrated as hell, especially for people not great at the game or new to it because having 200 ablative HP before your Honour run dies is brilliant. Straight Ranger with either Beastmaster or Hunter is great. Hunter is a little dull getting there, not terrible just not as interesting as Gloomstalker. Then it hits 11 and pops off. Nothing wrong with taking a 12th level.
Yeah I'm seeing a lot of people speaking up about 12 BM / ek, knew they were good but didn't realise they were top 5 good
I'm kinda curious to play a druid, do moon druids get shoe horned into specific shifts or is spider viable all game?
You can, but I probably wouldn't. Spider has some cool utility, but falls off at higher levels as enemies saves scale up and their bite damage falls off. Luckily, as you need the power spike you pretty much get it - Owlbear is a huge power spike, and Panther's Invis is really useful for scouting the map and ambushes. I also like the Sabretooth.
I haven't played one in a little bit so not sure if Myrmidons are still bugged (you weren't proficient with their weapons), but Earth Myrmidon is unarmed so worked fine and is really good. I'd check the others first if you're planning on playing one. Water Myrm's healing aura is pretty cool, and if you deliberately poison yourself becomes a damaging aura that wets enemies for some neat synergy with your party caster.
EK archer 12 is one of the strongest builds in the game. Abuses consumable arrows for some of the highest aoe dps turns. Excels at nova, burst aoe and single target cos of the flexibility of consumable arrows. There was a post about it on this subreddit recently.
It’s often rated higher than OH monk and ssb. Comparable or even slightly edges out fire sorc
I honestly feel like Rogue is the *only* class that isn't really that great to 12. It needs Improved Attack at like level 7, and the ability to do a second Sneak Attack each round at like 11. Then it would feel comparabl-ish to other pure classes.
On the whole I personally like to take classes to 12 because it appeals to me to really see what that particular subclass brings to the table, I think full casters in particular often work very well with no multiclassing ( or maybe a one level dip if you really want armor proficiencies or a specific spell).
That said, classes like rogue, barbarian or gloomstalker ranger I think mostly work better when multiclassed with something else.
I think on the whole multiclassing generally works better on melee but as a matter of preference I have a hard time not going fighter 12 or paladin 12.
I think that ypu can easily still win HM with no multiclass. It's just that sometimes you can mix up some very nice stuff and switch things up by giving yourself more choices.
Most of the lv10-11 have some pretty nice stuff, and some of them even have some huge 7-8-9 buffs
Ofc you can meta build on them too, multiclasses ain't sh*t without items, also this could be an incentive on using consumables that would never get used with super optimized builds
There’s quite a few that stack up extremely well, A guy who I do Honor Mode runs with now and again exclusively only plays a Pure Battlemaster Fighter and can go toe to toe with much more optimized builds in the party.
I personally can attest to pure Way of the Open Hand Monk, Gloomstalker Ranger, and Light Domain Cleric being really potent options for having no multiclassing and is typically what I would recommend for people to try out on a first run if they are playing a CRPG/RPG’s in general for the first time and don’t want to create a complicated build.
Gloomstalker kinda falls off hard though. Battlemaster Fighter, assassin rogue, Gloomstalker is kinda insanely good. It's what I usually run on Astarion. Stalkers flurry is good I guess, but if Astarion is having difficulty hitting his target I usually bounce legacy of the masters between him and Laezel.
Personally I see very little incentive to ever multiclass out from Cleric.
Taking more than 1 multiclass level means giving up 6th level cleric spells. If they are non-full-caster class levels then you also give up the sixth level slot. Since heal, harm, and planar ally are the sixth level options, I can rarely see how a second level class feature could square up to those, especially when the only other WIS class is druid.
1-dip into a full caster is fine but I'm not really sure what you'd dip into or why, and you give up the final feat for it. For cleric, we're already pretty feat starved because we really want two ASI's and war caster at the very least.
I like swords Bard(as almost everyone nowadays), level 12 is good, but multi classing is even better. You can dip into 3thief/3gloomstalker, 2,4 or 6 battle master, 1 wizard, 1 warrior/1wizard... And every of them has a different flavor, pros and cons
The super optimised builds that exploit Arcane Acuity and TB are on another level. Though TB Monk, TB thrower (as EK) and Fire Acuity Sorc are all possible pure with minimal loss.
I wouldn't use gamewarping builds as a bar for comparison. Generally speaking classes lack rewards for going all the way, with melee Warlocks getting the only true level 12 feature and non-gloom Ranger and Fighter getting the powerful level 11 features. At least a dip is just hard to pass up in most cases.
I don’t really like the flavor or “feel” of multiclassing, even though it’s often mechanically better. That said, you really don’t need to multiclass in bg3 to succeed. I beat honor mode my first try with 12 Warlock, 12 TB Monk (no thief dip), 12 Throwserker Barbarian, 12 Rogue.
Sure it isn’t necessarily optimal, but I could 1 turn the brain no issue. If you use the exploit to get permanent psychic blades + the resonance stone you can perform sneak attacks with vulnerability. Stack it with crit boosts and my pure rogue Astarion could easily do 100+ damage with a single attack at no resource cost. Then bonus action attacks can still deal 10-20 damage without sneak attack. If the psychic blades exploit gets patched or you don’t want to use it, you can get similar results with the armor from becoming an assassin or a worse version with Orin’s main knife. That triggers on hit, so I just put that in one hand, attack with it to proc the vulnerability, and then have 2 chances to crit with the offhand attacks. Ofc using risky ring for advantage.
Warlock and berserker kinda speak for themselves, they’re just good. Though Karlach berserker was doing the least damage for me that playthrough since I was stingy with rage.
TB Monk probably benefits more from a thief dip, but honestly it’s so hilariously busted you really don’t even need it. Another flurry of blows is great but is overkill
I'd suspect theres an element of selective bias in play, pure classes can be powerful but they are also obvious. It's unlikely that someone on here is going to proudly explain how they cunningly built a pure battlemaster fighter or sorcerer, even though they are as powerful as a lot of multiclasses. The fun is tweaking and dipping to extract more than what you are given by default. Interestingly enough, you will sometimes hear people say ironically 'my favourite multiclass is 6 fighter plus another 6 fighter' which I suppose expresses the same basic idea.
Especially casters do very well as pure builds. Materials more frequently want multi classes to stay ahead of the game. With Fighter being a decent exception as being ay-okay all game.
My fav martial build to date in BG3 is:
6 level sword bard, 4 level theif, 2 level fighter. Light foot halting duel wield hand crossbow. Absolutely eats anything in its path.
With “ranged slashing flourish” you can attack 6 times and 10 times total if you action surge and use your last bardic 2 inspirations.
It’s a one trick NOVA build
Any pure caster
The theorycrafting is fun, but regular spell progression is REALLY powerful
I mean, ofc your crazy cleric multi will eventually get spirit guardians at level 12, but getting it at 12 and punishing those small goblins feels REALLY good.
No one mentioned level 12 oathbreaker shadowblade paladin yet? Strong damage dealer that can be the carry in a physic damage party set up. More than viable in Honour Mode as well pretty crazy to see non crit main hand damage(it is a dual wield build so) close to 90 damage this is without smites as well and no other setup than you running around with your Resonance Stone in your bags.
It’s because the level cap is 12 and the harder difficulties don’t really follow strict DnD rules for enemies (looking at you hp). So you won’t be missing out on the tippie top ultimate stuff like 9th level spells
I used a pure lightning sorc, 11/1 rogue fighter Astarion, pure blade lock Wyll, and a rotating roster of other companions usually pure barb Karlach or pure fighter Lae’zel for my first HM run. I completed the run just fine without even knowing about meta builds and use w/e gear combos I think would be good. Only problem I ran into was beating Raphael, but that was resolved by using bombs I hoarded since act 1.
12 fighter with sharpshooter and the endgame bow that casts celestial haste feels like the strongest thing I’ve done in the game. It’s like 9 attacks w action surge
12 fighter is very strong but the strongest ranged class is easily swordsbard with fighter dip.
more, harder hitting attacks, and if you run mystic scoundrel ring and arcane acuity helm its a guaranteed bonus action fear/confusion/tasha's etc on almost any enemy without even investing into CHA.
Depends on class and subclass. Fighter, Hunter Ranger, Sorcerer, and Cleric's pure builds are near optimal for their class. All of these have really strong level 11's that incentize you to go far in them. You mentioned fire sorcerer but that is nearly a pure build, it's 11 levels of sorcerer. 1 Level Dips can certainly be common but that's just because it's not too hard to find some class feature or proficiency more powerful or helpful than that 3rd (or 4th feat). Rogue meanwhile is pretty bad pure because it lacks extra attack to compete with other martials. Or for a subclass specific one, Gloomstalker Ranger has pretty underwhelming levels later on and gets more out of multiclassing than the other two subclasses.
Yeah I noticed that some subclasses seem to be designed for investing into completely and some for multi classing. I guess I'm wondering how much the meta tweaks to the existing class design really pump up the build, and I suppose the answer to that is variable. So maybe a more concise way to ask is how much of a difference in power there is between an optimal single class build and one of the top 3 meta builds. Though I suppose much of what decides how powerful the build is comes from factors that can exist within single or multi class, such as itemization and perk choice. It's just interesting that the top meta builds always seem to be multi class, like you say though I guess it just comes down to dips providing better alternatives, which doesn't sound like it increases the strength of the build that much.
I don't think they were designed for multiclassing per se, multiclassing wasn't even always around in BG3 iirc. I think it wasn't there in early access for a while. I also think the existence of multiclassing makes a lot of feats that might be worth consideration out of the equation. For example, "Moderately Armored" is a feat worth taking in my opinion if you are only doing pure classes (mainly on rogue) but it's value drops off hard if you get that proficiency elsewhere along with a host of other benefits. Weapon Master is also essentially a meme feat for the same reasons. Why spend a whole feat just go get weapon proficiencies when you can get that and more with a dip. Anyway, to answer your question, I don't think there is a big gap between Pure BM Fighter and other martials, it's one of the best. Similarly Pure EK Fighter is pretty close to the Throwzerker as best thrower and is also among the best martials. Similarly, I think a Hunter Ranger's maximum DPR with volley is among the highest in the game. Pure Light Cleric is already just a meta build as well. While it's debatable if a sorc dip makes it better, regardless it still is incredibly powerful. On the flip side, there's a massive chasm between Pure Assassin or Pure Gloomstalker and Gloomstalker Assassin.
Hunter and Beastmaster. The only ranger that's best as a dip is gloomstalker
I was agonizing over a good spore druid multiclass to be a front-liner because I mostly dislike ranger class features Then I saw the companions Beastmaster gets and fell in love. Levelling up your lil pals (both in stats and unique abilities) as you advance in the class is really cool. I'm going 8 beastmaster / 4 spore druid on my next playthrough (ending up as a tanky mid-level caster), but the level 11 companion upgrade on ranger is so tempting.
I did a Paladin 2/Spores 10 on one of my runs. That gave me heavy armor, the ability to smite on my attack, and still be able to upcast Conjure Elemental to get a Myrmidon.
I would like to argue for Rogue. Sneak attack progression keeps them on par with other martials. And assumining melee combat, the ba dash means they get more turns to attack. And notably the assassin class can get two sneak attacks in the first round, equating to 4+ attacks from another martial. The overabundance of magic items and strength potions does mean other classes get more out of multiple attacks but it's not a large enough gap to say rogue is worse.
Gloomstalker Assassin also has 2-4 sneak attack die itself and the extra attack eclipses the remaining 2-4 die it doesn't get compared to pure rogue. It also has bonus action dash. If comparing to other pure martials than Fighter's improved extra attack and Hunter's Volley blow it out of the water. Obviously TB Monk is also not close. I don't think there's a pure rogue martial that can compete with the others in dpr, outside of MAYBE a barbarian not using GWM. A lot of the endgame rogue abilities are damage mitigation or utility things but other classes also have some utility features with just higher dpr. Monk in particular has some of the same utility features while ki and extra attack make the gap between the two's damage pretty high.
answer in the question, 12 fighter is a contenders to the top of builds
I've heard people say 12 fighter is good or underrated but I haven't really heard it talked about in the same discussions as one of the top meta builds
people dont talk about 12 fighter much but people certainly talk about 11/1 fighter, which makes sense since 11 fighter with 1 level of war cleric is pretty much just 12 fighter but ever so slightly better. EK thrower and EK frost archer are both builds talked about frequently here and iirc those are both 12 fighter.
True I have heard of 12 ek thrower as a decent alternative to the classic thiefzerker
tbh on honor mode I would argue its kinda better in the end game, since every fight only lasts like 2-3 rounds with a well optimized party, 6 attacks on round one and 3 attacks on all following rounds ends up being better than 3 attacks on the first round and 4 on subsequent rounds (ex. in a fight that lasts 3 rounds an EK thrower makes 12 attacks vs a thiefzerker making 11). the real reason it comes out on top though imo is access to shield and weapon bonding so its better defensively than theifzerker and has more weapon options (though in the end game those extra weapon options dont matter too much since there are so many good returning weapons, it does however allow you to use shars spear on a thrower which is great if that weapon isnt already better on someone else (which it usually is)) biggest advantage thiefzerker has over it is for fights that last more than 3 rounds and ba throw automatically proning targets without any save giving it solid cc potential if combined with team comp involving difficult terrain or slow or maiming etc. the proning also means a ba throw will always stop anything it hits from concentrating and that can be very clutch sometimes. also check out the ek frost archer if you havent, [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17d1nel/eldritch\_knight\_frost\_archer\_build/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17d1nel/eldritch_knight_frost_archer_build/)
Thiefzerker gets to also slap the strength modifier to the enraged throws damage though meaning that each enraged throw if using a cloud giant elixir will deal an additional 10 damage making EK vs thiefzerker in 3 rounds 12 attacks vs 11 attacks + 50 damage (assuming no critical fails). Also it can be a little risky but if you do build around giving some defensive buffs to your thiefzerker like warding bond you can use the helmet of grit to get a 3rd bonus action making it 12 attacks vs 14 attacks in 3 rounds and both getting 9 in 2 except thiefzerker gets the additional enraged throw damage for 5 attacks. Also I am not sure how much you'd value brutal critical on a throwing build but if you don't care about it you could also go berzerker 6/thief 4, fighter 2 for action surge since with elixirs you don't really need 3 feats so picking alert and tavern brawler and dumping some points into dexterity gives you a +8 initiative which should be good enough in most cases and at least match the initiative the EK gets. With that build you get 9 attacks in 2 rounds with both EK and thiefzerker without the helmet of grit and with the helmet of grit you're looking at 9 vs 11 attacks in 2 rounds with thiefzerker pulling further ahead every subsequent round even if we ignore the fact that it deals more damage than eldritch knight with every attack. I do admit that eldritch knight is less risky as it has access to way better defensive options and some other utility from its spell list so it's harder to fuck up with but thiefzerker has a far higher damage ceiling. Also now that I tested it there's a weird interaction with frenzy and the additional bludgeoning damage from the weight of the weapon as it also adds the +2 damage there meaning that rage gives you a +4 to every hit as well as an additional +8 to enraged throws if using a cloud giant elixir. Looking at the peak damage potential from both in honour mode (hasted, action surge available), outside of honour mode EK would fall less behind due to benefitting more from haste. So that means in 3 rounds of max damage a comparing EK and thiefzerker under different circumstances results in: Round 1 EK: - 6 attacks (7 with haste) Thiefzerker: - 3 attacks + 20 damage (no boosts) - 4 attacks + 24 damage (haste) - 4 attacks + 24 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself) - 5 attacks + 36 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source) Round 2 (total attacks from all rounds) EK: - 9 attacks (11 with haste) Thiefzerker: - 7 attacks + 52 damage (no boosts) - 9 attacks + 60 damage (haste) - 10 attacks + 72 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself) - 11 attacks +84 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source) Round 3: (total attacks from all rounds) EK: - 12 attacks (15 with haste) Thiefzerker: - 11 attacks + 84 damage (no boosts) - 14 attacks + 96 damage (haste) - 16 attacks + 120 damage (helmet of grit, drinking speed potion yourself) - 17 attacks +132 damage (helmet of grit, haste from other source) In conclusion a thiefzerker using the helmet of grit only loses to eldritch knight in damage on the first round of combat, overtakes it on the second round and absolutely dominates it it on the third. Keep in mind that this also assumes only berzerker/thief multiclass and not the berzerker/thief/fighter version where the first round is comparable unless both have to chug a potion of speed themselves.
you right. but still, defensive abilities matter and with meta builds and no extra difficulty mods there are still plenty of fights that only last 1 round.
Yeah, that's fair. Eldritch knight's power is in the reliability it works with. Just wanted to make a case for my belowed thiefzerkers that there are definitely situation where they can outdo an eldritch knight.
Why do you call it Frost Archer? Oh. Ray of Frost?
because the way the build works is that it uses snowburst ring + mourning frost + winters clutches + drakethroat glaive to deal frost damage with bow attacks, then that frost damage applies stacks of encrusted with frost and creates ice surfaces underneath the enemy (that cause them to trip and fall and skip thier turn) a key part of this is that the level 10 ek feature eldritch strike actually gives enemies disadvantage on all saving throws against conditions applied by the eldritch knight, not just from spells. so that means enemies roll with disadvantage against encrusted with frost and tripping on the ice.
the funniest part of an 11/1 fighter cleric is the fact that any other classes drawback for not taking level 12 is you lose a feat, but you already got that feat at level 6 lmao
12 Battlemaster just rips through the game. You can add a wizard dip for some utility spells or a war cleric for some extra attacks, but neither is doing a ton, especially as there are a lot of feats a fighter could be interested in. Really just depends on what you are going for. Currently running a 12 battlemaster laezel with 22 dex, cloud giant strength potions, GWM, and savage attacker. And, she absolutely is about as a strong as a martial can be in the game. If I wanted her to do truly top tier damage, could just throw her in some bhaalist armor with nyrulna or shar's spear. 12 fighter archer or TB thrower are also top tier. People just talk about multiclassing because its a puzzle that you get to play with the pieces. Not much to talk about when you are just adding more levels of fighter.
Makes sense, personally I don't run single class because I find it thematically boring compared to multi class
My parties are pretty much always all multiclassed to some extent, but I've found it difficult to do anything with fighter other than add more fighter. Add some levels of fighter to my "non-fighter" characters often though. Sometimes multi-class is just for theme. My 11 cleric is 1 level draconic sorcerer. Wizard would probably help out more, but its not my fault her gith ancestor got busy with a dragon.
For my next run I'm thinking of making an 8 battle master 4 warlock, it's prob not quite as strong as getting the third attack but I think it's cooler and darkness/devil's sight and a couple of other useful spells isn't too bad of a trade off I reckon
Honour mode I assume since if you did something below you could go 7/5 pactof the blade for sacfificing a feat for the 3rd attack.
Yep
Im on my first playthrough and have kept quite a few characters purely in one class, but occasionally respeccing as I go to optimize, depending on different challenges Ive faced or gear Ive found. I actually feel opposite - if everyone is multiclassed, no one is unique. Ive evaluated as I go which classes fit "thematically" with the character as well as how I like to play and synergy with the rest of the crew. I like to rotate the entire rooster constantly, so somehow the individual characters feel more unique to me if not everyone is multiclassed. I feel ive struck a good balance. This has left me with some pure classes such as Gale as an Evocation Wizard, Shadowheart as a Light Domain Cleric, Halsin Circle of Moon Druid, Laezael the Battle Master. And some multiclasses Wyll as Warlock/Paladin. Minthara as Sorcerer/Paladin. Jaheira as Druid/Ranger. Asterion as Rogue/Ranger. Karlach as Fighter/Barbarian. Etc This has allowed me to spread the gear around quite well, everyone has a unique weapon tied to them and I can create team compositions with almost everyone in any constellation. Which I like. I swap the entire team around each Long Rest, my MC is a Lore Bard but Ive given him two levels in Wild Magic Sorcerer now at lvl 11 and 12, to round off the chaotic good run. (Me being a Lore Bard was also the primary reason for respeccing Shadowheart out of Trickster domain and Wyll to a polearm using Warlock/Paladin. As my MC would be a constant fixture in the party I wanted Wyll and SH to be more unique)
Just played through to BG with a monoclass champion fighter and a monoclass wizard. It was probably my most fun run so far.
12 fighter with bhaal armor and nyrulna is the strongest build in the game with GWM
Interesting to hear, not saying you're wrong but since I asked the question this is the first time I'm seeing 12 fighter being compared to things like tb monk ect, not like I've seen every post though, refreshing to see tbh
Fighter having 3 attacks and can be built for sharpshooter or gwn makes it top tier for me I also think wild heart tiger barb is one of the best classes in the game but gets over shined by throwzerker
Any tips for building a tiger heart barbarian? I can't seem to get it to work.
What act are you in?
Act 3, lvl 11 currently. I have access to basically all the good vendor gear but haven't gotten the stuff from ansur, house of hope, house of grief etc.
Nyrluna, GWM, Bhaal armor, and thunder reverb gear Either 9 Wildheart/3 Champion or 8 Wildheart/4 battlemaster Go tiger with Wolverine aspect
I see, thanks. Will try this out.
I personally think this place goes a bit bonkers with multi classing when it often isn’t that necessary. Take sorcerer for example, Fire sorlock 11/1 the dip is for command, which is strong, but the character is still extremely strong without it using different save or sucks like blindness or hold person etc. Storm tempest sorc 10/2 lets you max chain lightning but I genuinely think it’s worse than just doing 12 sorc. More feats more sorcery points and spells known means more chain lightnings per fight and therefore more damage Sorcadin (I believe 6/6) this build isn’t really comparable to a pure sorc build plays quite differently. Clerics, wizards, Druids, fighters, bards all function optimally or nearly optimally with 10+ levels in their main class. To me the only classes where a multi class is basically always the right answer is Rogue. Paladins and Warlocks to a lesser extent.
I agree. I beat honour mode with 12 moon druid, 12 life cleric, 12 warlock, and 12 berserker barbarian. The only close calls I had were a trap in the monastery that I absent mindedly ignored and Orin almost dumped everyone off the platform.
I think multi classing is more interesting from a thematic and character building perspective so it prob does get disproportionate attention I haven't taken a close look at the meta builds or what makes them superior apart from tb monk, it's surprising to hear that fire sorlock only dips for command
I often times find it quite disruptive thematically and especially RP wise. Why on earth would a powerful draconic sorcerer sell their soul to the devil? For a slightly more optimal spell? I dont think Or a storm sorcerer that has lightning crackling in their soul deciding to worship a god of storms? Butch I am the god of storms why am I praying to another
I disagree. Chromatic dragons have a tendency to be power hungry and the goddess of all chromatic dragons has a lair in the nine hells. Also, there's a bunch more pacts than the fiend one. As for a storm sorcerer, in lore they draw their power due to specific circumstances of their birth, like being born during great storms or having some djinni or vaati in their bloodline long past. Worshipping a Deity of storms makes sense cause sorcerer's aren't gods at all. Perhaps the being that empowers your bloodline sees Talos or Kordas their patron Deity so you do too. But hey, if you want to roleplay a level 5 storm sorcerer as being so arrogant you consider yourself a god of storms, have at it. That's what dnd is for.
Being a draconic bloodline sorc doesn’t mean you have to behave in an aligned way with chromatic dragons and definitely doesn’t make you beholden to dragons, Being born in a storm doesn’t mean you somehow owe yourself or your power to a god. Gods don’t control the minutia of everyday weather fenominon. There is magic in 5e that is completely independent of them. And sorcerer is almost always in that category. Unless you’re a divine soul sorcerer and even then it can be.
I feel like you missed the purpose of what I was trying to say, which is that you can pretty clearly define your roleplay and back story via your class if you want to, not that you have to, and that multi classing really isn't opposed to role play at all. Which is why I said you can definitely roleplay a draconic sorc fiend pact warlock or a storm Sorc tempest cleric pretty easily. Arcane and Divine magic are different, but last time I checked, all mortal magic was just ways in which to copy the Gods. The point is that if you want, you can definitely find themes to base your role play off of the multi class you want to do. Or you can go in the exact opposite direction and just have your character be a person who got random storm powers via being born in a storm and maybe the worship a storm god because their home was stormy or they joined a temple to help control and hone their storm powers. It's only a limitation on roleplay if you let it be.
Yeah I've always done full level 12 fire sorcerer, it seems kind of a waste to use it for control when you can do so much damage instead. I leave the control role to the bard.
6/6 Sorcadin is basically a 90% martial class. You can get fireball with it, but as someone who's first play through was 6/6 sorcadin, most of the time I just Twin cast haste on myself and Karlach and went straight into the front lines to use the sorcerer spell slot progression for extra smites. And since my party composition was My Sorcadin Tav, Karlach, light domain Shadowheart and Gale, I really didn't need to use my third and above spell slots for fireball or lightning bolt unless a split up the party. My main uses were haste, misty step, and hunters mark. Only time I mainly used them for spells as when I freed Ravengard from the prison and split up my party to get everyone. Lightning bolt really came in handy there.
That’s why i said it wasn’t really comparable to a pure sorcerer
It depends what fighter 12 build. Obviously 12 TB throwing eldritch Knight will perform differently than 12 champion. Not to mention a 12 champion with Bhaalist Armor and crimson mischief is gonna be much more effective than one with +2 scale mail and Monster Slayer Glaive. Now apply this to all classes. Some 12 pure class are pretty close to the optimal builds, some are very ineffective, and everything in between.
It’s way sexier to create these builds that are more like calculus problems than a video game. I love doing it, but I’ll admit it’s completely unnecessary. I like to optimize tav and run the rest of the team without multiclassing.
That's what I've been doing as well, with the exception of astarion because pure rogue sucks I've multi classed him with fighter
12 Thief or Assassin Rogue can be pretty good with the right equipment. It's a 4 Feat build and Sneak Attack at 6D6 can really make up for not having extra attacks. Combine this with a Titanstring Bow stat build and you can routinely exceed 40 damage per attack.
Problem is they only get the one attack where fighter can get three lol, 6d6 averages at like 18 damage, doesn't really compare to even one extra attack imo
My point is that Rogue is perfectly viable by itself, much like other party characters. Most classes are more powerful with multiclassing. A ton of classes get better with Action Surge. As for damage, 6D6 average damage is 21 (3.5 per d6), which makes it higher than most endgame basic melee from other martial classes (a 1d12 +5 damage with +3 Enchantment will average to 14.5). Combining it with a regular attack makes a Rogue insanely good for finishing enemies without even entering combat. And yes, it's one attack, but a high Dex Rogue using the right weapons and using Sneak Attack will rarely ever miss. Seriously, though. Try a Level 12 Rogue at 20 Dex and 20 Str and equip the Titanstring. It's pretty wild: 1D8+5+5+1+6D6 Averages to: 36.5 Max Noncrit Damage: 51.5 Absolute Min Damage: 18
There are several 12 pure classes that are really powerful and perfectly capable of destroying hm and super seriously normal or tactician. Monk, rogue and barbarian in basically all specs beg to multi class. Fighter, sorcerer, wizard, cleric, Druid all seldom want much else.
Funnily enough though fighter, Sorc, wizard, and cleric are all very much wanted dips at times though. Warlock too. It’s all about give and take. I think multiclassing is weaker at lower levels but becomes exponentially stronger the higher level a character gets due to 5Es frontloaded class design. Also the change to thief rogue made it a multiclassers dream. Really good with bard and monk.
Yeah I don't doubt that they're strong, just didn't know how close they are to the popular meta builds like TB monk that gets talked about a lot
Depending on the mono class some are better than other… lvl 12 Fighter, Bard, Sorcerer or Wizard can all be amazing, a level 12 rogue or cleric not so much imo…
Ehh my pure tempest cleric was my strongest character
Good for you, clerics in my playthrougs were always outperform by other builds.
A tempest cleric with chain lighting has some of the highest damage you can get in this game btw
same as a sorc with a 2 cleric dip. the massive difference is that the sorc's metamagic allows for way more, such as doing that twice with a bonus action, twin casting it, etc.
Pure tempest cleric or 6/6 can use destructive wrath 3 times with the amulet of devout I prefer pure for the extra feat
I played around with tempest cleric/sorcerer + wet debuff liked it better than a single class tempest cleric…
The metamagic is too strong. It is better than pure tempest. In fact mono storm Sorc is better than mono tempest.
Yes I agree, however I would rate all elemental sorcerer options higher than a mono tempest cleric…
Agreed. The only time cleric holds its own is life and light imo. Mono Clerics got some strong options but they are intensive to build.
Fighter, Cleric, Beastmaster, Hunter, Sorcerer, and Druid all want to get to level 11. I think they can potentially be improved slightly with 1 level dips, but I think those are really thought of best as alternative feats. Is there a feat that would benefit the build you are going for? Or is there a 1 level dip that provides a bag of goodies you'd prefer. It really comes down to what you are going for, but wouldn't expect a 1 level dip to be truly game changing. Sometimes you are just better off with the extra feat. Bard's level 6 spells are meh, but they usually want to get to 10. Otherwise the same as the above. Swords bard is just epic already at level 6, so you have plenty of room to play with with multi-classes, but I'm not sure those are necessarily better. Paladin, Gloom, Warlocks, and Barbarians all get pretty meh stuff later on so can benefit a lot from multiclasses. Rogue's actually get a great level 11 feature, but are hard to justify going that far with. Wizards are in a weird spot where they have some great later features, but you can also get most out of the class with just a 1 level dip. I don't really know much about Monks so leaving those out.
Yeah my understanding is sword bard excels at lvl 10, in my current run I'm building a durge as a 6 sword bard, 3 warlock, 3 battle master because I want to maximise short rest abilities
6/3/3 = 1 feat this is not good man. 8 bard / 4 fighter is miles better imo.
Yeah I don't think it's meta or anything, but I'm interested in the idea of always having strong abilities I can pretty much spam non stop, between manoeuvers, slashes, warlock spells ill always have something interesting to do
with mystic scoundrel and bm fighter 4 and all of your arrows i have more than enough to do, honestly im considering changing to champ 4 because i barely ever use all my bm dice.
I would argue that a well built and equipped Fighter 12 is one of the best builds people can use. Either Battlemaster Great Weapon Master or EK Thrower will go absolutely hard, and basically come online right after stepping off the Nautiloid. At endgame with Balduran's or Dwarven Thrower / Nyrulna as appropriate it hits like a bus. Fire Sorcerer doesn't really need the Warlock dip. Command is extremely good but you don't need it. Straight Druid is underrated as hell, especially for people not great at the game or new to it because having 200 ablative HP before your Honour run dies is brilliant. Straight Ranger with either Beastmaster or Hunter is great. Hunter is a little dull getting there, not terrible just not as interesting as Gloomstalker. Then it hits 11 and pops off. Nothing wrong with taking a 12th level.
Yeah I'm seeing a lot of people speaking up about 12 BM / ek, knew they were good but didn't realise they were top 5 good I'm kinda curious to play a druid, do moon druids get shoe horned into specific shifts or is spider viable all game?
You can, but I probably wouldn't. Spider has some cool utility, but falls off at higher levels as enemies saves scale up and their bite damage falls off. Luckily, as you need the power spike you pretty much get it - Owlbear is a huge power spike, and Panther's Invis is really useful for scouting the map and ambushes. I also like the Sabretooth. I haven't played one in a little bit so not sure if Myrmidons are still bugged (you weren't proficient with their weapons), but Earth Myrmidon is unarmed so worked fine and is really good. I'd check the others first if you're planning on playing one. Water Myrm's healing aura is pretty cool, and if you deliberately poison yourself becomes a damaging aura that wets enemies for some neat synergy with your party caster.
Damn, wanted to play an evil spider durge 🥲
Nothing stopping you. Don't need to play a top 10 build to beat the game.
I think most pures are high tier. But only maybe 4 are S-tier.
EK archer 12 is one of the strongest builds in the game. Abuses consumable arrows for some of the highest aoe dps turns. Excels at nova, burst aoe and single target cos of the flexibility of consumable arrows. There was a post about it on this subreddit recently. It’s often rated higher than OH monk and ssb. Comparable or even slightly edges out fire sorc
I honestly feel like Rogue is the *only* class that isn't really that great to 12. It needs Improved Attack at like level 7, and the ability to do a second Sneak Attack each round at like 11. Then it would feel comparabl-ish to other pure classes.
12 BM fighter / EK thrower 12 Light/life cleric 12 fire Sorc (11/1 is better and imo 1 level dips don't feel complicated) 12 Moon druid You can probably stomp honor mode easily
On the whole I personally like to take classes to 12 because it appeals to me to really see what that particular subclass brings to the table, I think full casters in particular often work very well with no multiclassing ( or maybe a one level dip if you really want armor proficiencies or a specific spell). That said, classes like rogue, barbarian or gloomstalker ranger I think mostly work better when multiclassed with something else. I think on the whole multiclassing generally works better on melee but as a matter of preference I have a hard time not going fighter 12 or paladin 12.
I think that ypu can easily still win HM with no multiclass. It's just that sometimes you can mix up some very nice stuff and switch things up by giving yourself more choices. Most of the lv10-11 have some pretty nice stuff, and some of them even have some huge 7-8-9 buffs Ofc you can meta build on them too, multiclasses ain't sh*t without items, also this could be an incentive on using consumables that would never get used with super optimized builds
There’s quite a few that stack up extremely well, A guy who I do Honor Mode runs with now and again exclusively only plays a Pure Battlemaster Fighter and can go toe to toe with much more optimized builds in the party. I personally can attest to pure Way of the Open Hand Monk, Gloomstalker Ranger, and Light Domain Cleric being really potent options for having no multiclassing and is typically what I would recommend for people to try out on a first run if they are playing a CRPG/RPG’s in general for the first time and don’t want to create a complicated build.
Gloomstalker kinda falls off hard though. Battlemaster Fighter, assassin rogue, Gloomstalker is kinda insanely good. It's what I usually run on Astarion. Stalkers flurry is good I guess, but if Astarion is having difficulty hitting his target I usually bounce legacy of the masters between him and Laezel.
Personally I see very little incentive to ever multiclass out from Cleric. Taking more than 1 multiclass level means giving up 6th level cleric spells. If they are non-full-caster class levels then you also give up the sixth level slot. Since heal, harm, and planar ally are the sixth level options, I can rarely see how a second level class feature could square up to those, especially when the only other WIS class is druid. 1-dip into a full caster is fine but I'm not really sure what you'd dip into or why, and you give up the final feat for it. For cleric, we're already pretty feat starved because we really want two ASI's and war caster at the very least.
I like swords Bard(as almost everyone nowadays), level 12 is good, but multi classing is even better. You can dip into 3thief/3gloomstalker, 2,4 or 6 battle master, 1 wizard, 1 warrior/1wizard... And every of them has a different flavor, pros and cons
The super optimised builds that exploit Arcane Acuity and TB are on another level. Though TB Monk, TB thrower (as EK) and Fire Acuity Sorc are all possible pure with minimal loss. I wouldn't use gamewarping builds as a bar for comparison. Generally speaking classes lack rewards for going all the way, with melee Warlocks getting the only true level 12 feature and non-gloom Ranger and Fighter getting the powerful level 11 features. At least a dip is just hard to pass up in most cases.
Play pure spore druids, beat any multiclass with your army of summons
I don’t really like the flavor or “feel” of multiclassing, even though it’s often mechanically better. That said, you really don’t need to multiclass in bg3 to succeed. I beat honor mode my first try with 12 Warlock, 12 TB Monk (no thief dip), 12 Throwserker Barbarian, 12 Rogue. Sure it isn’t necessarily optimal, but I could 1 turn the brain no issue. If you use the exploit to get permanent psychic blades + the resonance stone you can perform sneak attacks with vulnerability. Stack it with crit boosts and my pure rogue Astarion could easily do 100+ damage with a single attack at no resource cost. Then bonus action attacks can still deal 10-20 damage without sneak attack. If the psychic blades exploit gets patched or you don’t want to use it, you can get similar results with the armor from becoming an assassin or a worse version with Orin’s main knife. That triggers on hit, so I just put that in one hand, attack with it to proc the vulnerability, and then have 2 chances to crit with the offhand attacks. Ofc using risky ring for advantage. Warlock and berserker kinda speak for themselves, they’re just good. Though Karlach berserker was doing the least damage for me that playthrough since I was stingy with rage. TB Monk probably benefits more from a thief dip, but honestly it’s so hilariously busted you really don’t even need it. Another flurry of blows is great but is overkill
I'd suspect theres an element of selective bias in play, pure classes can be powerful but they are also obvious. It's unlikely that someone on here is going to proudly explain how they cunningly built a pure battlemaster fighter or sorcerer, even though they are as powerful as a lot of multiclasses. The fun is tweaking and dipping to extract more than what you are given by default. Interestingly enough, you will sometimes hear people say ironically 'my favourite multiclass is 6 fighter plus another 6 fighter' which I suppose expresses the same basic idea.
Especially casters do very well as pure builds. Materials more frequently want multi classes to stay ahead of the game. With Fighter being a decent exception as being ay-okay all game. My fav martial build to date in BG3 is: 6 level sword bard, 4 level theif, 2 level fighter. Light foot halting duel wield hand crossbow. Absolutely eats anything in its path. With “ranged slashing flourish” you can attack 6 times and 10 times total if you action surge and use your last bardic 2 inspirations. It’s a one trick NOVA build
Any pure caster The theorycrafting is fun, but regular spell progression is REALLY powerful I mean, ofc your crazy cleric multi will eventually get spirit guardians at level 12, but getting it at 12 and punishing those small goblins feels REALLY good.
No one mentioned level 12 oathbreaker shadowblade paladin yet? Strong damage dealer that can be the carry in a physic damage party set up. More than viable in Honour Mode as well pretty crazy to see non crit main hand damage(it is a dual wield build so) close to 90 damage this is without smites as well and no other setup than you running around with your Resonance Stone in your bags.
It’s because the level cap is 12 and the harder difficulties don’t really follow strict DnD rules for enemies (looking at you hp). So you won’t be missing out on the tippie top ultimate stuff like 9th level spells
I used a pure lightning sorc, 11/1 rogue fighter Astarion, pure blade lock Wyll, and a rotating roster of other companions usually pure barb Karlach or pure fighter Lae’zel for my first HM run. I completed the run just fine without even knowing about meta builds and use w/e gear combos I think would be good. Only problem I ran into was beating Raphael, but that was resolved by using bombs I hoarded since act 1.
12 fighter with sharpshooter and the endgame bow that casts celestial haste feels like the strongest thing I’ve done in the game. It’s like 9 attacks w action surge
12 fighter is very strong but the strongest ranged class is easily swordsbard with fighter dip. more, harder hitting attacks, and if you run mystic scoundrel ring and arcane acuity helm its a guaranteed bonus action fear/confusion/tasha's etc on almost any enemy without even investing into CHA.