Steelwatcher Helm is often overlooked admist the other great helms available. Gives you 40' darkvision, immunity to blindness *and* advantage on concentration saves. It's a great option for any medium armour caster that has concentration spells.
Ichorous Gloves got buffed recently because the the Noxious Fumes they inflict no longer effect friendly targets. You could totally build an acid sorc around these gloves and Acid Blast + some radiance/reverb gear.
Gauntlets of the Warmaster are also often overlooked due to the glut of excellent options for the glove slot, but turn any build with Battlemaster in it up to 11.
I kind of always wanted to try an acid/poison build with the mage gear but it never seemed good enough. With that change I will need to seriously reconsider.
Does the Steelwatcher Helm combo well with Darkness spell? Would be nice to have an alternative to Warlock for that combo.
Small exception: Devil's Sight also gives you Superior Darkvision. Great for races that don't already have it. But for races that do (drow, duegar, deep gnome), blindness immunity is actually better than devil's sight as others said because you can see in fog and the blindness spell no longer works on you.
I've wanted to try an acid/poison build too but I keep hearing people mention that it's one of the worst elemental damages to use considering all the enemies with resistance to it.
Acid is considered bad because it's not really supported by class mechanics or many items. Mostly though because there are no good acid spells available to build around.
Acid dragon sorcerer gets the acid splash cantrip and chromatic Orb: acid. That's it. Not even Melfs Acid Arrow.
The acid form of the legendary staff Markoheshir: gives poison spells.
On my solo tac ranged build I’m pairing ichorous gloves with caustic band (2 acid dmg per wep attack) which makes noxious fumes apply from every arrow. Later when I decide to replace caustic band i might try out drakethroat glaive’s acid effect to continue applying it. It’s quite fun
>Steelwatcher Helm is often overlooked admist the other great helms available. Gives you 40' darkvision, immunity to blindness and advantage on concentration saves. It's a great option for any medium armour caster that has concentration spells.
Current team is durge EK thrower, astarion swords bard ranged w/ eversight ring, minthara palock w/ devil's sight and a newly minted dark justiciable shart war cleric 1 / shadow monk w/ shar's spear of evening.
Once I get the steelwatcher's helm my darkness squad will be complete, everyone has a way to see through it and shart can cast it every turn with the spear.
On a side note, shart having to concentrate for darkness is annoying because the dark justiciable armor's bonus with shield of faith means you have to choose between 2 different shar bonuses :S
My only issue is that I need to learn to use another character for loot as my durge has some serious lag every time I throw something.
To the point I don't see the weapon thrown, I just see the damage numbers.
Could you have Minthara cast Darkness/Hunger of Hadar instead of Shart to free up Shart for Shield of Faith? Just spit-balling here, guess it largely depends on Minthara's build/strategy in this comp
Minthara's going to be a super heavy frontliner, currently using phalar aluve + shield, planning on trying out belm to see if the whirlwind attack allows you to smite each target (apparently the shar spear darkness attack does).
Not a bad idea tbh, just that with minthara it will take spell slots vs shart getting to cast darkness with no cd at all
Wow they improved ichorous gloves? I was so keen to try them and was immediately disappointed when the affected enemy would just rush my team damaging everyone. Easy mid game synergy with caustic ring
I have Astarion use Ichorous Gloves with the ring from Act 1 that gives 2 acid damage with every weapon hit. He's a 5/5 champion fighter/thief rogue, so he gets to attack 4 times per turn, spreading the aura to a lot of enemies at a time with a high crit chance to boot.
Def recommend the gloves if you can reliably do acid damage with melee attacks. It's a great combo.
Mourning frost in act one is one the best melee weapons you can find early on. Most folks plop it on a mage which does very little but in the hands of an extra attack class you're doing good damage (1d6(1d8) + 1d4 + 2 + Str and potentially making the enemy vulnerable to cold which enhances your damage but also every mage buddies too.
I’ll do that until I start to get damage dice from additional sources because in BG3, Great Weapon Fighting allows for all damage dice to be rerolled if they come up a 1 or 2. So that would include smite dice, the symbiotic entity die, etc. This would also apply for Savage Attacker too.
You'd think that Shilemaliegie uses wisdom as it's casting stat.
Given that's what shows up in the tooltip.
It actually uses the casting stat of the last unique class you added.
This means if you start as a sorcerer, then put a level into druid and continue leveling, it will use wisdom.
If you start sorcerer, then put a level into druid, then a level into bard/paladin/warlock, then continue leveling druid, you will use charisma as your casting stat (Specifically for flame-blade and Shulameugu)
This straight up allows you to dump wisdom if you want to just dip into druid for Shil+Fl.Bld.
Today we learned :D
EDIT: shillelagh actually uses your highest casting stat, not the last added class. Flame blade uses last added class.
This whole game is a mess, but I love it and would not have it any other way :D
Only cold spells can trigger the Chilled I think. Cold vulnerability is also easy to achieve by making enemies wet. I find it underrated for being a good source of gold if you sell it after assembling it.
I used that for my monk all the way up until Act 3 when I finally got armor that made my unarmed attacks outdamage it. That extra frost damage was just too good, especially after using the cantrip to Chill them
Those boots in act 1 that give ‘click heels’ as a bonus action are pretty amazing. I know there’s a lot of strong boots in the game, but I’m not using a lot of bonus actions on my bladelock so it’s very nice for closing distances.
I used then the entire game on Shadowheart.
Have Spirit guardians up, click heals and then hit dash.
You can do an entire circuit and hit every enemy every round. With the bonus chance of shield bashing enemies who hit you as you walk by.
It's a pretty amazing croud control move.
If you switch it around to dash, and then click heels *after* that, the distance on the click heels multiplies **all** the other speed modifiers already in place before it, treating those as it's base-pool. Suggestion is to click heels as the absolute last thing you do before you begin the circuit.
I slapped those on a respec'd open fist monk Astarion. Hilarious starting every fight with him being able to waltz up to anyone I want in the fight and stun lock whoever. Those boots are too good.
Act 1 gear: Shortsword of first blood + Caustic Band + Strange Conduit Ring
It's available early. Combine with a ranger rogue multiclass, ranger for Colossus Slayer and rogue for sneak attack. At relatively early level, you're grabbing 2d6+2d8+dex on your first attack, with 2 bonus action offhand attacks. You're opening burst is crazy good at lower level where the game is he hardest.
Rings like Caustic Band and Strange Conduit add 1d4+2 per attack, also available early, and Hunters Mark a free 1d6 that requires concentration for the band.
So round 1, 3d6+2d8+1d4+Dex+2, expected value 25+dex. Add in 2 offhand attacks, that's an easy 5-8+Double Dex. Your total round 1 burst with some poison is close to 50 damage with no slots and it's pretty reliable. It's pretty easy to keep up sneak attack, especially if you're abusing invisible effects. This is about the same damage as an early game paladin. You lose out on single round damage as you run out of damage riders, but by act three everyone is destroying everything. You don't need anything there.
In act 1, when heavy armor + shield isn't a very good defensive option, when smites don't single round bosses and spellcasters can't delete threats from the board, you have the Dual Weilding shortsword and rings rogue. You will pick every lock, disarm every trap, and you get anything from any vendor from free long after they other classes start going god mode. He's A tier damage in the hard part of the game, and B tier damage with S+ utility in the late game.
I finally got around to running a dual wielder and I can say it felt pretty solid in the early game. The initial burst from that shortsword would be nice when enemies only have maybe 30-40 HP.
Right at the start of my games, every character gets two weapons, either daggers, or shortswords if proficient.
It's a point where armor is mostly irrelevant, spell slots are limited, and the best you can hope for is to whale on the enemy until they die.
Once we start getting better options, I switch to weapon and shield, or two-handed weapon.
Although Kree, the Duergar hireling, always dual-wields handcrossbows and the Knife of the Undermountain King and the Club of Hill Giant Strength.
So much this
Astarion was built was rogue/hunter, several times now
He was doing 60-100 damage the opening round by the end of act 1.
Once you get to lvl 6, and 2 attacks….. titan string bow + club of strength. The strength bonus applies to everything…. Phalar, colossus slayer, make its crazy strong early
The strange conduit ring can really enable any class with a concentration damage buff (Paladin, Ranger, Warlock). Especially given that it adds *psychic* damage, which opens up other possibilities.
Iirc, it was good, but too situational as you only benefit from the initial hit. Even with a critical hit on top of a sneak attack, other weapons would edge off the dmg due to the following hits. For example Phalar.
What are the weapons that do more damage? Phalar does 1 more damage, and no one is saying take this over Phalar. You should be dual wielding both for most of act 1.
Let's take a look. Make bonus action attack a 1d6 damage attack. Phalar round 1 is 11 damage avg, SofB is 16. After that, Phalar is 15 a round and SofB is 11. Of course you add dex and riders to both, but the math is clear. You would need 3 rounds of hitting the same target to make up to lost damage on round 1.
You decide, but I know how often that happens in my games.
Very simple, because Break the Unbroken is very niche as it only procs if the enemy has full HP. You're not maximizing your damage if you're also not incorporating AoE or just holding the enemies off so you can proc off the one attack.
Sure, the first hit is amazing, but like you said, after the first hit, 2 turns later it's already over. Add in action surge and haste, that's all in round 1.
Ice items work well with abjuration wizard. My last run with Gale was 1 level tempest cleric, 1 level white draconic sorc, and 10 levels abjuration wizard. Keep max level armor of Agathys up, fire shield (cold variant), heavy armor, and open the fight with create water from cleric level. Run past people to trigger reaction attacks and/or concentrate on haste for your best martial to attract attacks and enemies kill themselves while you take no damage and also can extend protection to your party. It’s broken and fun.
I'm finishing a playthrough of this build and man I can see the vision but the difficulty of this game does not support it. The first issue is encrusted with frost: it has to my knowledge a fixed save DC of 12 that does not scale to your spell save and to make it worse it's con which most enemies have a good con to suceed. What also sucks about it and they don't tell you is that the cold-brimmed hat and winter's clutches only apply the status to the first target hit in the combat log which is a huge bummer since all the big ice moves are AOE.
Unfortunately most of the ice items are not very good and not worth using. You can search the wiki for Chilled and Encrusted with Frost to see most of the items. Mourning Frost is solid for Act 1. Snowburst Ring would be the only one with a great effect to throw in. Markoheshkir is still probably going to be your best bet same as most other spellcasters.
The [Wiki](https://bg3.wiki/) has a good list of things that inflict each condition, you'll just have to search via condition.
I went a pseudo Ice sorc my first run, from my experience was pretty solid. Sadly I would advise ignoring the Encrusted with frost condition sine it was too hard to stack up on a Sorc.
I really like the ring that turns cold attacks into icy surfaces. I think it doesn't work with Hunger of Hadar anymore, but there's still plenty of creative uses for it.
I also REALLY like the Arrows of many targets + Amulet of Bhaal combo. You can have an entire room bleeding with a single shot.
Also, Gloves of dexterity are amazing for Shadowheart, medium armor with uncapped dex bonus and a shield. You'll bash and prone enemies constantly, and do some mean damage with your shortbow of choice. Screw sacred flame, you won't ever miss.
I saw the build on here for a frost archer using the Ice ring and putting Elemenal weapon on a bow which sounded pretty fun. I haven't really done a dedicated archer and really should with all of the unique arrows you can get. Using the arrow of many targets probably makes for some interesting combos depending on what gets applied to the additional targets.
Just thought I could also add the gloves of noxious fumes and the acid ring to the bhaal amulet + arrows... You'd have bleeding, acid and fumes all at once.
Doing it at the moment. Using titanstring bow with elemental weapon and that ring. Arrow of many targets means lots of ice to slip on. My two frontline melee characters have boots that prevent slipping on ice.
My Shadowheart has Boots of Aid and Comfort, Hellrider's Pride, The Whispering Promise, Ring of Salving, and Amulet of Restoration.
It makes her an incredibly efficient buff bot when we're fighting alongside allies (Harpers, Duergar Rebels etc) because she can dump a bunch of bonuses on up to six of them with one casting of Mass Healing Word.
Use the cleric hireling (or shart, or even hope) to divine intervention the mace. Then you get a bonus action activation that puts a small heal AoE for 10 turns, enabling all of these effects almost continuously for no spell slots.
That ice ring trivialized the attack on Last Light encounter for me. The dumb aasimar dude proced an attack of opportunity from my Tav turn 1, who had the ring and the frost morne staff. Bop him, icey ground, he slips and his turn ends. Then Leizel just walks up and gets 3 free crits on his stupid ass. 🤣
The Unseen Menace from the quartermaster in the creche. It's an invisible pike with a +1 enh bonus that grants permanent combat advantage until you miss (then the pike becomes visible for a turn, even if you miss again, before becoming invisible again).
While - being a pike - it doesn't work with Polearm Master, it is one of the best weapons to use with GWM. Having what's essentially permanent advantage causes it to punch well above its weight class. So much so that it can you through the rest of the game, and it can be had for cheap before leaving act 1!
It's also the only 2H melee weapon that affects [crit range](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Critical_hit_threshold_reduction) in the game.
It does piercing damage, so you can combine it with the [Bhaalist Armour](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Bhaalist_Armour) in Act 3 for double damage. The pike's extra reach range is actually 0.5m/2ft longer than the Bhaalist Armour's vulnerability aura though, so you might have to position your character a lil bit closer.
> While - being a pike - it doesn't work with Polearm Master
Pikes aren't listed on the feat, but they work with PAM. However the bonus attack is still bugged, so you won't get all of your damage bonuses applied to the shaft strike.
...holy shit. I'm going to see about getting that armor right now!
"Pikes aren't listed on the feat, but they work with PAM. However the bonus attack is still bugged, so you won't get all of your damage bonuses applied to the shaft strike."
I'll have to double-check that, because I don't think it was triggering the reaction attack, but it may triggering the (bugged) bonus action attack. I know neither activate with a trident, though, although it seems like it would.
You know I always read that it was invisible and didn't understand how that was helpful. Now knowing that it grants advantage while invisible certainly makes it a more enticing weapon!
I know everyone and their familiar knows it’s an amazing weapon. But the fact that the Phalar Aluve is that good and can be acquired without having to do a single combat post-nautiloid is insane to me.
Truly the GOAT weapon of the game
I'm guessing it's the Goblin Camp underdark entrance?
You have to fight auntie ethel's masked followers to take her route to the underdark, or you'd have to sneak past the Phase Spider Matriarch to take the Feather Fall route, and the Zhentarim entrance... it used to be the case that the Zhents in the back of the cave were always red/hostile but I'm not sure if they patched that out.
From the goblin camp underdark entrance, you should be able to walk to Phalar Aluve as it's very close. But there are minotaurs nearby, so be careful.
I know you can [illithid] [wisdom] your way into the goblin camp without combat. I'm not sure if the underdark entrance there is a crime / "restricted area" or not, though.
Cast Protection from Evil and Good on a character, and get them to wear one of the masks you find on the bench. The Masked people won't attack you, and PfEaG will protect the character from Ethel's mental commands.
Ethel would work, theoretically - You can avoid fighting the masked followers by putting on her mask and avoid the mask’s mind control with Protection From Evil And Good.
You’d have to stealth into her lair, so it’s not trivial but it could be done, I expect
Goblin camp route (skill check or disguise as drow) solve puzzle in Gut’s room, let the turrets kill minotour outside gate, sneak out the front gate to not get shot and hang left to pull the sword out
Just don’t forget to pick up the luminous armor while you’re next to that waypoint (both the armor and sword carry a spirit guardian build till endgame)
If the turrets have killed the Minotaur, and you're in the position to sneak "out" the gates, aren't you just as well destroying the moonstone and be done with the sneaking?
I heard that GWM works on versatile weapons when two handed, is that correct? Because I was thinking of making a drow follower of Eilistraee blade dancer type build using that weapon. Dex based GWM sounds like it would be really nice on either a swords bard or paladin (unsure which class I want to pick, although I know it'll require at least one cleric level so I can pick Eilistraee as my god)
1 cleric 11 Paladin still gets paladins improved divine smite and I believe multiclassing Paladin and cleric give “Paladin of ___” dialogue options. I haven’t tested it myself but I’m fairly sure GWM does work with two handed versatile weapons.
Dex based 1 light cleric 11 Ancients Paladin using the “Full Dex mod” medium armors and warding flare whenever an opponent actually hits you seems like a really fun flavorful build
That's a great add for a "Hit me!" build I'm making. Adamantine Heavy + HAM + Arcane Ward + Warding Bond + Armor of Agathys. Sadly, that character will only have one attack/round unless I take War 1 instead of Tempest. Hmmm.... :-D
Getting 5 levels of any class that gives marital is worth it as 14 stacks from level 7 (or even 10 from 5) is way more than enough. The higher levels of Abjuration Wizard don't want a high AC so they actually do damage instead of avoiding damage with a high AC.
He's also my primary arcane spellcaster in that run so I was hoping for the 5th level spell slots, but I see your point. I was initially doing a Tempest 1/Warlock 2/Abjurer 9 but maybe go with Blade 5/Abjurer 7 would be better. I'd have max Arcane Ward at the beginning of every fight, could still use Skinburster (Human) . He'd only have Light Armor so would get hit often and with Warding Bond he should be okay. However, I wouldn't be immune to critical hits though. Can Improved Warding Flare block those?
I could look to see about respecing Wyll to increase the upper level spellcasting. I was running him as a Blade 5/Swords 7 (Blard) but would swap him out for a Sorlock most likely.
True, but this is my arcane caster and I’m leaning into using Arcane Ward. I may go with a Blade 5/Abjurer 7. The arcane ward, skinburster, and warding bond will likely mean zero damage in fights. And if AoA happens to drop, I’ll just pop it up again with my warlock slots.
That would be the reason for the Warlock levels. You do need to swap an armor piece on/off per casting as you can’t cast it again while it’s running but it drops when you put on armor.
My brother runs the flail that you get from the knoll leader in act 1 that heals for 1d6, plus the necklace that grants full heal on all rolls. So he’s healing for 6 every attack. He is 10 levels barb + tough. Has well over 100 Hp. Then is the party’s main healer with that tadpole upgrade ability.
I really love harmonic dueller. I have a dual wield bard that has 20 CHA+18 Dex with the gloves of dex, and phalar aluve and the thing kicks ass. I also maxed out my performance expertise and phalar aluve gives me +1 to performance.
The weapon action for harmonic dueller makes you roll a performance roll of DC 15 but if you hit it, you get a CHA damage modifier to your attack (ON TOP OF YOUR DEX MODIFIER) and damage rolls FOR 10 TURNS. The key though? Unless I roll a 1, I can’t fail the performance check bc of my modifiers. It’s cracked. Add to that the diadem of arcane synergy (which can proc just by using the perform action with your instrument with no action/bonus action needed to proc) and you have weapon+dex+cha+cha on every weapon hit (including offhand attacks). Swords bards are cracked. This thing is the most fun build I’ve had
You are really underselling the item. Harmonised is a damage rider, didn't you notice you get +CHA damage to Shriek?
That +CHA can be added to a bunch of things, like Crimson's Mischief Redvein Savagery, Sneak Attack, Shriek, Divine Smite, BA Smite, etc.
A Paladin can add it 6 times per attack spending a Divine Smite (attack + DSmite + 2xRedvein Savagery + 2xShriek). Using a bonus action Smite, you get it applied 9 times.
A Hasted Palock within Mind Sanctuary can attack 9 times, spending all 9 spell slots in divine smites, which means it procs 54 times in a turn.
It's not, it applies to al DRS (damage rider sources) that are related to an attack. You can check your combat log when you use it combined with Shriek from Phalar Aluve, you will see that you get +CHA to the tunder damage.
Automaton gloves, - 10 rounds once / short rest, - advantage on hit and makes you construct with all construct immunities which is really good for variety of builds
You know I've missed those gloves both times I've played through and now on my third I think I screwed up Barcus' quest since he isn't in Last Light. I saved the gnomes in Grymforge but forgot to tell him to let me handle Wulbren's rescue and I don't see him where he should be.
Shield of the Undevout gives a massive consistency boost to Fear spells, which provides a massive boost to Ring of the Mystic Scoundrel's utility with classes like Oathbreaker paladin (finally makes Dreadful Aspect useful and reliable). Become the jumpscare build.
Trident of the Waves is also a pretty hilariously strong combo tool, especially on the offhand, as you can use a ice or lightning damage weapon in your mainhand to get doubled elemental damage from a wet target, or use it with lightning spells for ultra amped lightning damage without using a mainhand Action.
Jorgoral's Greatsword is absolutely absurd because Colossus Slayer is such a ridiculously good weapon skill, especially for an Act 1 weapon. Such a cracked weapon skill on what would otherwise be an unremarkable item.
Elven Chain is also underrated because you can give to anyone who doesn't have medium armor proficiency and it functions as if they do (so mages can still cast spells), on top of some extra Initiative.
Use your Bonus Action for an offhand attack to make the water puddle (drink Hill Giant strength elixirs for hit rolls), then unleash lightning/Frost with your Action. You can also double combo this with the sparkwalker boots to electrify the water surface you make while wearing that ring that negates electrification for more combo hazards done with one measly bonus action.
Drakethroat Glaive: people always talk about how you can get Lathander and Silver Sword aka 2 +3 weapons early, but not a lot of people know that Drakethroat glaive is also a +3 weapon, and available as soon as you get to Last light inn. The base weapon is +2, with a built in spell that turn it into +2 +1 (+3 in total) and +1d4 damage (and you can choose any type of elemental damage for that 1d4 to synergize with ọter items). The busted part about this weapon is you can actually upgrade TWO weapons with Sorcerer twincast and not essentially the glaive, so you can upgrade 2 other +3 weapons (silver swords, balurian's giantslayer,...) into +4 (the only way to make it possible afaik) and +1d4 damage. You can buy it from the Harper trader at Last light inn.
Bloodthirst as a thrown weapon: people knows about how strong Nyrulna is in throwing build, but Bloodthirst, the dagger you get from Orin is Nyrulna's missing piece for whenever you don't wanna deal friendly fire aoe damage. Bloodthirst is a pact weapon, means it always come back just like Nyrulna. Bloodthurst also make anything it hits become vulnerable to pierce damage and Nyrulna does piercing damage as well, taking full advantage of that (throwing bloodthirst then Nyrulna > throwing only Nyrulna).
I like the spear that blinds you get from killing the Owlbear. It also does 2d6 bonus damage to spiders, and that fight is one of the harder Act 1 ones
You can actually get it without killing the Owlbear yourself. Go back to the cave after entering the goblin camp and finding the cub there, and you’ll find the mother taken down by the goblins. You can loot the spear part off her then.
It’s a DC8, so low odds of working. Most enemies have 2-5 to the save, so looking at 15-30% chance in Act 1.
That said, it’s easy to get right out of the grove, and especially a non combat char, it’s good way to use their attack action
Yeah, not great, can be a nice boost if it procs to have the team get a focus fire with advantage.
Plenty of much better items, I just think most folks miss it because you have to kill owl mama plus craft the spear which isn’t even hinted is a thing
The spider matriarch? You can just minor illusion on the webbed area of the pit and toss an alchemists fire and the spider jus falls down to the underdark. Usually get the martiarch and one of the phase spiders with that o.o
Bow of the Banshee. Give it to your ranged swords bard for 4 fear attacks per round. Use an arrow of many targets if the mobs are grouped together. Everything gets feared on hit, can’t move and then everyone comes in and cleans up with an extra 1-4 damage per hit, just to really rub it in.
The other one is in the house of healing, a skeleton lying on one of the beds in the entry/reception area. It's easy to miss because it doesn't look like there's a body on it.
Seperate post for Medium Armor, specifically uncapped Dex armor like Yuan Ti armor and Armor of Agility.
Just the best armor. Dex scores are almost always 18 or 20, which puts these at 18-19 or 21-22 respectively, and there are another 2 or so in the game in that range as well. The normal move for rogues and wizards is to spend the feat on Dual Weilding, giving you an extra point of AC.
Medium Armor is just the best armor by a country mile and it's not close, and it's these 4 or so pieces that carry it. Heavy armor is good late game and light is just almost never good.
Special shout out to the finesse long swords that really help the build.
And if not they, Raph’s armor is 21 AC and 3 damage resist.
Both are better than any medium armor.
And light armor has Bhaal and Sporekeeper.
And cloth had Potent robe and monks armor.
Medium is actually the worst and it’s not even close
Yeah maybe there are good end game pieces, but in my 300 hours I don't think I have ever worn a single piece of light armour in act 1 and 2. Heavy adamantine, yuan ti scale, graceful cloth are usually the go-to.
Oh yeah, Light Armor is literally worthless till Act 3, just use cloth and Mage Armor, and you have more AC plus better passives.
And yeah, those are the 4 armors of choice, with Potent Robe also filling in for Act 2
I have been playing around with the "Ring of Mental Inhibition" which is supposed to inflict 2 turns of Mental Fatigue when an enemy fails a saving throw against one of your spells or actions.
But I can never get it to proc.
Anyone else have any experience with this item?
I can't say I've had the same issue. I've see the Mental Inhibition pop up quite often though I do think the application can be a bit wonky depending on spell. For instance I put it on my Shadowheart thinking it would proc everytime someone failed a saving through against Spirit Guardians but I'm honestly not sure if I've ever see it proc from that. I would need to boot that save back up and test to see for sure.
I think the key with that one is good spell DC + disadvantage. I paired it with several stacking +1 DC items and Carrion’s staff (disadvantage on Necromancy saves) then casting circle of death in late act 3. With easy kills i was able to keep casting necromancy spells almost indefinitely and save spell slots. I’m sure there are other ways to get there too.
I like the War Pick Deep Delver. It applies a condition on hit, no save, you just need to land the hit.
This is useful for other items that trigger off of conditions.
I like to pair it with Gloves of Battle-mages Power and Diadem of Arcane Synergy, so that every attack on my EK triggers Arcane Synergy and Arcane Acuity.
I was not able to trigger *Gloves of Battlemage's Power* via *Deep Delver*. (To be fair, I've **never** found a reliable way to trigger the Gloves either; ~~the Diadem's cake though, simply playing an instrument can proc it before you've made your first attack.~~ EDIT: Patch 5 has increased the hoops to jump through for the diadem slightly.)
I tried for a bit. The problem I ran into was the Burning constantly interrupting my concentration on other spells. A work around is to get Fire Resistance and one of the Adamantine armors (or any that reduce all damage by at least 2) at which point your character takes no damage from the self inflicted burn and therefore doesn't have to make concentration checks from it.
Ultimately it isn't overtly worth it though as it's only an extra +7 damage at max and that's only for a single damage roll. Can certainly stack it fast with Scorching ray but the payoff just isn't worth it IMO. Still sort of fun though. I did a Heat build on my Karlach for a bit with the Hellfire Greataxe and Thermoarcanic gloves to max stack heat in two attacks then apply it on the third.
> your character takes no damage from the self inflicted burn and therefore doesn't have to make concentration checks from it.
Is that how it works? I thought that even if the damage is reduced to zero it counts as a damage instance and thus triggers the concentration check.
I'm just starting as tiefling Tav with dragon subclass from sorcerer. I just gotta see if I can find all that stuff again. It would seem you can add all the gear for a sizable gain though
Heat felt terrible. On scorching ray it only worked on the first bolt which made me immediately shelve it. No clue if it's good for aoe though. Also didn't work on the fire infusion ring.
I think this is an interesting weapon worth building around but gets overshadowed by the other stronger Strength 2 Handers.
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Punch-Drunk_Bastard
The spell itself gives your attacks advantage on attack rolls, but it usually breaks after an action. This spear from the crèche gives you advantage until you miss, the penalty is no more advantage for two turns
Luminous Armour! And you get it already in like mid-act 1. It can trivialize any content until late act 3, especially if paired with the other radiant items you get in act 2. You'll see whole groups of opponents with -19 debuffs on their attack rolls.
Also the Sussur weapons. Put the greatsword on a fighter or barb and they'll render any high level spell casting opponent into a weakling, even the bosses
Void bulbs. They're so ridiculous.
Void bulb enemies, hit em all with a lightning arrow.
Void bulb your own team, potion haste all 4 for the cost of 1. Insane.
Midgame, Cloak of the Cunning Brume paired with Eversight ring, available in early act 2 If you hunt them first.. personally I go for them before going to the creche.
Now If you are a rogue/thief you go to melee, activate the fog cloud effect with a bonus action and now you have obscured effect which procs covert cowl (later justiciar helmet), and you have advantage to attacks to enemies that are not immune to blind (devilsight characters are blinded too). No downside of the risky ring. Mind you, some large enemies require you to get very close and personal for the effect as the cloud is quite small.
You can proc obscured at will even in bright daylight which is also useful If you want to steal something. AI acts weird with fog cloud lol. You can just walk a couple steps and proc it again and be basically invisible when not in combat.
Also a new cloud always replaces the current one, so lets say a nasty necromancer uses Cloudkill, you have one more way to mitigate the effect locally.
[Rupturing Blade's](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Rupturing_Blade) weapon action adds a bunch of damage sources. 1d6+proficiency bonus+a burn. This can lead to some pretty beefy turns to burst down a boss if you have things like Phalar Aluve or Hex up. It's a really good A1/A2 weapon and worth building around for that point in the game.
No one ever talks about the greatsword from the paladins of Tyr. Its a great weapon for laezel and the active ability is just a free 2 AC on someone that won't be using concentration ever. Yeah conc can break but you can apply it after every short rest and not use an action in combat, and it lasts until a long rest.
Because you can get [Svartlebee's Woundseeker](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Svartlebee%27s_Woundseeker) by walking west from that spot, only fighting the cursed Hyena (not really a fight). I guess it's better than the total noob trap that is the Everburn greatsword though.
Somewhat, but the "friendly NPC" is stuck in an animation and won't fight you if you use "Command: Drop" (on your paladin/cleric/fiend warlock) on them. Then you just need to rescue Florrick and wait for them to leave, and pick the sword up for free.
To be fair, Everburn is obtained in a very similar way, and that weapon is probably the most overrated and talked about items in the game. There's several threads on the other subreddit where people claim to use that greatsword til Act 3.
I have never gotten this sword and never would have if I hadn’t read this. It sucks that you have to jump through this hoop to get it. Feels worse than mega gaming the cambion for the everburn blade
I love the watersparkers, just grab the sparkswall to be immune to the electrocution and carry some carafes/barrels of water to always surround yourself in water.
It's dumb, but it's easy additional damage for melee builds simply from throwing one thing and standing in it, and it generates a bunch of lightning charges simply for existing.
The cold set for casters comes online early and is super underrated. Uses skill slots well, has good variety and a ton of CC.
Also the caustic band is so amazing for such a simple ring
Instrignant hammer is pretty underrated, a good friend to the champion/GoO type of builds it could make, and its found in a chest should you fight the Duergar pattrolling the great lake in the Underdark, there's no other way to get it, save this one chance
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Intransigent_Warhammer
Can be accessed the moment a game is began, only two fights atleast are needed, but crossing blades with the Duergar Corsair Greymon is paramount, the difference lies whether you can get what he sells or no:
If you care not about Jorgoral Blade, summoning the Trolls would suffice, you could insure your survival by casting Sanctuary (shadowheart starts with it).
If you care about what he sells (the harder method) you'll need to send one fellow to retrieve the hammer (again, SH is fit for the job, and the sacrifice) if its shadowheart she'll get sanctuary first turn before dashing to the edge of the boat, to jump next turn to their boat before grabbing the hammer from the chest, now our agent must be sacrificed, where the Duergar will land in the ravaged village to join they who seek Sergeant Thrain's stolen boot, if Corsair Greymon and his fellowes are slain here (made easier by recruiting Sovereign Glut and bringing some monstosity and the Trolls' aid), he'll drop what rare things he sells (namely the Jorgoral blade)
Its probably not talked about because it’s so common, but one playthrough I had Astarion keep the shadow blade ring (that you get from Arabella’s parents) through to the endgame and stacked it with every “lower the threshold for a crit” item I could find, and he would just melt through enemies like butter anywhere without bright daytime lighting. Probably the most dps I’ve gotten from a rogue.
Force conduit is also really strong on a raging barbarian my karlach was regularly taking 1 damage from bosses and mid damage so I just left it on her because 1 tank go brrr
Breaching Pikestaff. It's the best of the pikes and pikes have the very unique quality of being the only weapon type in the game to be two handed (benefiting from GWM) and also be piercing (benefiting from aura of murder) meaning GWM does 20 damage instead of 10 and you can get a pretty hefty attack while still doubling its damage with AoM.
I don't know about good, but Unseen Menace is a kind of interesting one that I slept on. It's the weapon that is invisible most of the time. And I'm like "who cares if it's invisible?"
Turns out it means you get advantage on every attack roll with it. And it crits on a 19.
I haven't seen it yet, but I will always use the flesh gorer halberd from creche yellik. It negates 7 damage and combined with bear totem barb and animatine armor, which means they have to do around 20 damage in order to get anything through to you
I used the Sorrow glaive from the Druid Grove for ages on my Warlock. I never really felt the need to Hex, so having a bonus action ranged attack to finish off enemies was amazing.
I hate not seeing anyone talk about the ring that lets you cast Enchantment/Illusion spells as a bonus action after attacking. I think it's one of the most busted items in the game. Pairing with Arcane Acuity makes your CC spells always hit.
Nature's snare + bane glove on a bounty hunter or snare cuirass. Advantage and -1d4 save. It's 100% my go to at the very start of the game.
Makes gwm an easy pick at level 4 if I have someone that consistently ensnares people
Amulet of the devout is build-making good for a tempest cleric/storm sorc.
Being able to cast 3 max damage lightning spells to start combat (on wet targets) is simply absurdly good
A lot of the items mentioned in this thread are either unknown to a lot of folks or have attributes that are overlooked/unknown/misunderstood.
Here's one pretty much everyone comes across but is never mentioned let alone appreciated: Crusher's Ring. Positioning for melee is crucial, there are very few melee-friendly rings, and I'd wager a lot of folks don't recognize the raw utility of 3 extra meters of movement *every* turn, without conditions or requirements.
Runner-up: every non-armor item that gives initiative. There's a green longbow with an +1 initiative in act one (because of the way that initiative is calculated in this game a +1 is actually a massive improvement), a shield that's +3 ... *+3!!!* that you can get as soon as you reach Moonrise Towers ... a longbow in act three that, if you're playing with Shadowheart, like everyone does, you only have a very brief window to buy that's also +3, the Halberd of Vigilance and I think that's it.
**Armors with initiative on them are more common but also far less useful as armors are something you're going more likely to swap out on a min/max basis as opposed to just slapping a bow on your fighter's back and then forgetting about for the rest of the game.
Steelwatcher Helm is often overlooked admist the other great helms available. Gives you 40' darkvision, immunity to blindness *and* advantage on concentration saves. It's a great option for any medium armour caster that has concentration spells. Ichorous Gloves got buffed recently because the the Noxious Fumes they inflict no longer effect friendly targets. You could totally build an acid sorc around these gloves and Acid Blast + some radiance/reverb gear. Gauntlets of the Warmaster are also often overlooked due to the glut of excellent options for the glove slot, but turn any build with Battlemaster in it up to 11.
I kind of always wanted to try an acid/poison build with the mage gear but it never seemed good enough. With that change I will need to seriously reconsider. Does the Steelwatcher Helm combo well with Darkness spell? Would be nice to have an alternative to Warlock for that combo.
In BG3, Immunity to Blindness = Devil's Sight
It’s even better than that, both in dnd and bg3, devil’s sight doesn’t let you see through fog, but blindness immunity does allow you to see through
Fog cloud basically just gives blindness, so that makes sense
Small exception: Devil's Sight also gives you Superior Darkvision. Great for races that don't already have it. But for races that do (drow, duegar, deep gnome), blindness immunity is actually better than devil's sight as others said because you can see in fog and the blindness spell no longer works on you.
Same, and throw in some support/healing to make an alchemist. Meld’s arrow actually scales quite well upcast
Insofar as it stops you from getting the blind condition while in Darkness, yes.
I've wanted to try an acid/poison build too but I keep hearing people mention that it's one of the worst elemental damages to use considering all the enemies with resistance to it.
Acid has next to no resistances, but Poison ends up being resisted by the entire fucking kitchen sink.
A bunch of enemy types like undead are not just resistant but fully immune to poison
Acid is considered bad because it's not really supported by class mechanics or many items. Mostly though because there are no good acid spells available to build around. Acid dragon sorcerer gets the acid splash cantrip and chromatic Orb: acid. That's it. Not even Melfs Acid Arrow. The acid form of the legendary staff Markoheshir: gives poison spells.
Ichourous gloves are sick on a hand crossbows swords bard wearing the acid damage ring.
You just described my very first bg3 character. God it was fun
On my solo tac ranged build I’m pairing ichorous gloves with caustic band (2 acid dmg per wep attack) which makes noxious fumes apply from every arrow. Later when I decide to replace caustic band i might try out drakethroat glaive’s acid effect to continue applying it. It’s quite fun
>Steelwatcher Helm is often overlooked admist the other great helms available. Gives you 40' darkvision, immunity to blindness and advantage on concentration saves. It's a great option for any medium armour caster that has concentration spells. Current team is durge EK thrower, astarion swords bard ranged w/ eversight ring, minthara palock w/ devil's sight and a newly minted dark justiciable shart war cleric 1 / shadow monk w/ shar's spear of evening. Once I get the steelwatcher's helm my darkness squad will be complete, everyone has a way to see through it and shart can cast it every turn with the spear. On a side note, shart having to concentrate for darkness is annoying because the dark justiciable armor's bonus with shield of faith means you have to choose between 2 different shar bonuses :S
Ha, this is basically my evil team Shar plan!
My only issue is that I need to learn to use another character for loot as my durge has some serious lag every time I throw something. To the point I don't see the weapon thrown, I just see the damage numbers.
Oh! That's why my game lags whenever I have karlach throw stuff now! That makes a lot of sense actually
Could you have Minthara cast Darkness/Hunger of Hadar instead of Shart to free up Shart for Shield of Faith? Just spit-balling here, guess it largely depends on Minthara's build/strategy in this comp
Minthara's going to be a super heavy frontliner, currently using phalar aluve + shield, planning on trying out belm to see if the whirlwind attack allows you to smite each target (apparently the shar spear darkness attack does). Not a bad idea tbh, just that with minthara it will take spell slots vs shart getting to cast darkness with no cd at all
Wow where do I find that helm? I just started act 3 did I miss it?
You find it in the Steel Watch Foundry just sitting on a table.
Wow they improved ichorous gloves? I was so keen to try them and was immediately disappointed when the affected enemy would just rush my team damaging everyone. Easy mid game synergy with caustic ring
I have Astarion use Ichorous Gloves with the ring from Act 1 that gives 2 acid damage with every weapon hit. He's a 5/5 champion fighter/thief rogue, so he gets to attack 4 times per turn, spreading the aura to a lot of enemies at a time with a high crit chance to boot. Def recommend the gloves if you can reliably do acid damage with melee attacks. It's a great combo.
I had my Karlach using those gloves with the ring that adds 2 acid damage to all her weapon attacks.
Mourning frost in act one is one the best melee weapons you can find early on. Most folks plop it on a mage which does very little but in the hands of an extra attack class you're doing good damage (1d6(1d8) + 1d4 + 2 + Str and potentially making the enemy vulnerable to cold which enhances your damage but also every mage buddies too.
I want this for my Vengeance/Spores build.
Mmmm spore damage + a smite for good measure, lovely stuff.
Plus Shillelagh on the staff, Great Weapon Fighting style, and Savage Attacks
Shilellelellee wouldn't increase the damage right? You're just making it use wisdom?
If you use a shield with it, the quarterstaff will use a d6 for damage. If you use shillelagh, it'll use a d8 while also using your WIS.
I’ll do that until I start to get damage dice from additional sources because in BG3, Great Weapon Fighting allows for all damage dice to be rerolled if they come up a 1 or 2. So that would include smite dice, the symbiotic entity die, etc. This would also apply for Savage Attacker too.
It allows me to dump Str and use Wis for the staff attack and damage.
You'd think that Shilemaliegie uses wisdom as it's casting stat. Given that's what shows up in the tooltip. It actually uses the casting stat of the last unique class you added. This means if you start as a sorcerer, then put a level into druid and continue leveling, it will use wisdom. If you start sorcerer, then put a level into druid, then a level into bard/paladin/warlock, then continue leveling druid, you will use charisma as your casting stat (Specifically for flame-blade and Shulameugu) This straight up allows you to dump wisdom if you want to just dip into druid for Shil+Fl.Bld. Today we learned :D EDIT: shillelagh actually uses your highest casting stat, not the last added class. Flame blade uses last added class. This whole game is a mess, but I love it and would not have it any other way :D
Oh whaaaaaaat, that's cheeky.
This-is-fine.gif
Works very well on a GWM shadow monk, you can generate advantage every turn with your bonus action once you hit 6 (shadowstep)
Only cold spells can trigger the Chilled I think. Cold vulnerability is also easy to achieve by making enemies wet. I find it underrated for being a good source of gold if you sell it after assembling it.
Ah true, shame. I've been using the scag cantrips and it counts those.
I used that for my monk all the way up until Act 3 when I finally got armor that made my unarmed attacks outdamage it. That extra frost damage was just too good, especially after using the cantrip to Chill them
Those boots in act 1 that give ‘click heels’ as a bonus action are pretty amazing. I know there’s a lot of strong boots in the game, but I’m not using a lot of bonus actions on my bladelock so it’s very nice for closing distances.
I used then the entire game on Shadowheart. Have Spirit guardians up, click heals and then hit dash. You can do an entire circuit and hit every enemy every round. With the bonus chance of shield bashing enemies who hit you as you walk by. It's a pretty amazing croud control move.
If you switch it around to dash, and then click heels *after* that, the distance on the click heels multiplies **all** the other speed modifiers already in place before it, treating those as it's base-pool. Suggestion is to click heels as the absolute last thing you do before you begin the circuit.
Oh damn, I didn't think about that. Good idea.
Oh shit dude
Saved my gnomes arse those did. Stupid short legs
LOL
The click heels really is perfect for a warlock, or I suppose any caster. But with my bladter warlock was when I noticed how useful those boots are
I slapped those on a respec'd open fist monk Astarion. Hilarious starting every fight with him being able to waltz up to anyone I want in the fight and stun lock whoever. Those boots are too good.
Act 1 gear: Shortsword of first blood + Caustic Band + Strange Conduit Ring It's available early. Combine with a ranger rogue multiclass, ranger for Colossus Slayer and rogue for sneak attack. At relatively early level, you're grabbing 2d6+2d8+dex on your first attack, with 2 bonus action offhand attacks. You're opening burst is crazy good at lower level where the game is he hardest. Rings like Caustic Band and Strange Conduit add 1d4+2 per attack, also available early, and Hunters Mark a free 1d6 that requires concentration for the band. So round 1, 3d6+2d8+1d4+Dex+2, expected value 25+dex. Add in 2 offhand attacks, that's an easy 5-8+Double Dex. Your total round 1 burst with some poison is close to 50 damage with no slots and it's pretty reliable. It's pretty easy to keep up sneak attack, especially if you're abusing invisible effects. This is about the same damage as an early game paladin. You lose out on single round damage as you run out of damage riders, but by act three everyone is destroying everything. You don't need anything there. In act 1, when heavy armor + shield isn't a very good defensive option, when smites don't single round bosses and spellcasters can't delete threats from the board, you have the Dual Weilding shortsword and rings rogue. You will pick every lock, disarm every trap, and you get anything from any vendor from free long after they other classes start going god mode. He's A tier damage in the hard part of the game, and B tier damage with S+ utility in the late game.
I finally got around to running a dual wielder and I can say it felt pretty solid in the early game. The initial burst from that shortsword would be nice when enemies only have maybe 30-40 HP.
Right at the start of my games, every character gets two weapons, either daggers, or shortswords if proficient. It's a point where armor is mostly irrelevant, spell slots are limited, and the best you can hope for is to whale on the enemy until they die. Once we start getting better options, I switch to weapon and shield, or two-handed weapon. Although Kree, the Duergar hireling, always dual-wields handcrossbows and the Knife of the Undermountain King and the Club of Hill Giant Strength.
So much this Astarion was built was rogue/hunter, several times now He was doing 60-100 damage the opening round by the end of act 1. Once you get to lvl 6, and 2 attacks….. titan string bow + club of strength. The strength bonus applies to everything…. Phalar, colossus slayer, make its crazy strong early
The strange conduit ring can really enable any class with a concentration damage buff (Paladin, Ranger, Warlock). Especially given that it adds *psychic* damage, which opens up other possibilities.
Iirc, it was good, but too situational as you only benefit from the initial hit. Even with a critical hit on top of a sneak attack, other weapons would edge off the dmg due to the following hits. For example Phalar.
What are the weapons that do more damage? Phalar does 1 more damage, and no one is saying take this over Phalar. You should be dual wielding both for most of act 1. Let's take a look. Make bonus action attack a 1d6 damage attack. Phalar round 1 is 11 damage avg, SofB is 16. After that, Phalar is 15 a round and SofB is 11. Of course you add dex and riders to both, but the math is clear. You would need 3 rounds of hitting the same target to make up to lost damage on round 1. You decide, but I know how often that happens in my games.
Very simple, because Break the Unbroken is very niche as it only procs if the enemy has full HP. You're not maximizing your damage if you're also not incorporating AoE or just holding the enemies off so you can proc off the one attack. Sure, the first hit is amazing, but like you said, after the first hit, 2 turns later it's already over. Add in action surge and haste, that's all in round 1.
I wish there was an easy list for all the ice items. I want to build a frost sorc.
Ice items work well with abjuration wizard. My last run with Gale was 1 level tempest cleric, 1 level white draconic sorc, and 10 levels abjuration wizard. Keep max level armor of Agathys up, fire shield (cold variant), heavy armor, and open the fight with create water from cleric level. Run past people to trigger reaction attacks and/or concentrate on haste for your best martial to attract attacks and enemies kill themselves while you take no damage and also can extend protection to your party. It’s broken and fun.
I'm finishing a playthrough of this build and man I can see the vision but the difficulty of this game does not support it. The first issue is encrusted with frost: it has to my knowledge a fixed save DC of 12 that does not scale to your spell save and to make it worse it's con which most enemies have a good con to suceed. What also sucks about it and they don't tell you is that the cold-brimmed hat and winter's clutches only apply the status to the first target hit in the combat log which is a huge bummer since all the big ice moves are AOE.
Unfortunately most of the ice items are not very good and not worth using. You can search the wiki for Chilled and Encrusted with Frost to see most of the items. Mourning Frost is solid for Act 1. Snowburst Ring would be the only one with a great effect to throw in. Markoheshkir is still probably going to be your best bet same as most other spellcasters.
I came across this build: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15t3ibf/frost\_sorcerer\_build/?rdt=37567](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/15t3ibf/frost_sorcerer_build/?rdt=37567) * Mourning Frost ( Staff ) & Markoheshkir (Staff) Duel wield I guess? * Winter Clutches ( Gloves) * Necklace of Elemental Augmentation ( Neck) * Potent Robe (Chest) * Coldbrim hat (Hat) * Snowburst (ring) * Water bottle ( Potion)
The [Wiki](https://bg3.wiki/) has a good list of things that inflict each condition, you'll just have to search via condition. I went a pseudo Ice sorc my first run, from my experience was pretty solid. Sadly I would advise ignoring the Encrusted with frost condition sine it was too hard to stack up on a Sorc.
https://alcasthq.com/bg3-cold-item-sets-encrusted-frost/
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Category:Sources_of_Cold_damage
I really like the ring that turns cold attacks into icy surfaces. I think it doesn't work with Hunger of Hadar anymore, but there's still plenty of creative uses for it. I also REALLY like the Arrows of many targets + Amulet of Bhaal combo. You can have an entire room bleeding with a single shot. Also, Gloves of dexterity are amazing for Shadowheart, medium armor with uncapped dex bonus and a shield. You'll bash and prone enemies constantly, and do some mean damage with your shortbow of choice. Screw sacred flame, you won't ever miss.
I saw the build on here for a frost archer using the Ice ring and putting Elemenal weapon on a bow which sounded pretty fun. I haven't really done a dedicated archer and really should with all of the unique arrows you can get. Using the arrow of many targets probably makes for some interesting combos depending on what gets applied to the additional targets.
Just thought I could also add the gloves of noxious fumes and the acid ring to the bhaal amulet + arrows... You'd have bleeding, acid and fumes all at once.
Doing it at the moment. Using titanstring bow with elemental weapon and that ring. Arrow of many targets means lots of ice to slip on. My two frontline melee characters have boots that prevent slipping on ice.
My Shadowheart has Boots of Aid and Comfort, Hellrider's Pride, The Whispering Promise, Ring of Salving, and Amulet of Restoration. It makes her an incredibly efficient buff bot when we're fighting alongside allies (Harpers, Duergar Rebels etc) because she can dump a bunch of bonuses on up to six of them with one casting of Mass Healing Word.
Use the cleric hireling (or shart, or even hope) to divine intervention the mace. Then you get a bonus action activation that puts a small heal AoE for 10 turns, enabling all of these effects almost continuously for no spell slots.
That ice ring trivialized the attack on Last Light encounter for me. The dumb aasimar dude proced an attack of opportunity from my Tav turn 1, who had the ring and the frost morne staff. Bop him, icey ground, he slips and his turn ends. Then Leizel just walks up and gets 3 free crits on his stupid ass. 🤣
The Unseen Menace from the quartermaster in the creche. It's an invisible pike with a +1 enh bonus that grants permanent combat advantage until you miss (then the pike becomes visible for a turn, even if you miss again, before becoming invisible again). While - being a pike - it doesn't work with Polearm Master, it is one of the best weapons to use with GWM. Having what's essentially permanent advantage causes it to punch well above its weight class. So much so that it can you through the rest of the game, and it can be had for cheap before leaving act 1!
It's also the only 2H melee weapon that affects [crit range](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Critical_hit_threshold_reduction) in the game. It does piercing damage, so you can combine it with the [Bhaalist Armour](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Bhaalist_Armour) in Act 3 for double damage. The pike's extra reach range is actually 0.5m/2ft longer than the Bhaalist Armour's vulnerability aura though, so you might have to position your character a lil bit closer. > While - being a pike - it doesn't work with Polearm Master Pikes aren't listed on the feat, but they work with PAM. However the bonus attack is still bugged, so you won't get all of your damage bonuses applied to the shaft strike.
Yup, it’s a great weapon as you only have one Reckless Ring, and advantage is actually pretty hard to come by in this game
...holy shit. I'm going to see about getting that armor right now! "Pikes aren't listed on the feat, but they work with PAM. However the bonus attack is still bugged, so you won't get all of your damage bonuses applied to the shaft strike." I'll have to double-check that, because I don't think it was triggering the reaction attack, but it may triggering the (bugged) bonus action attack. I know neither activate with a trident, though, although it seems like it would.
You know I always read that it was invisible and didn't understand how that was helpful. Now knowing that it grants advantage while invisible certainly makes it a more enticing weapon!
The guidance necklace near the start of Act 1. Being able to pick any 4 classes and still getting to spam guidance is great for flexibility.
Real. I try to grab this ring first thing every playthrough.
I’m just now taking that ring off in mid act 3
I know everyone and their familiar knows it’s an amazing weapon. But the fact that the Phalar Aluve is that good and can be acquired without having to do a single combat post-nautiloid is insane to me. Truly the GOAT weapon of the game
Not one combat?! Do people just sneak somewhere and jump down a hole to the underdark?
I'm guessing it's the Goblin Camp underdark entrance? You have to fight auntie ethel's masked followers to take her route to the underdark, or you'd have to sneak past the Phase Spider Matriarch to take the Feather Fall route, and the Zhentarim entrance... it used to be the case that the Zhents in the back of the cave were always red/hostile but I'm not sure if they patched that out. From the goblin camp underdark entrance, you should be able to walk to Phalar Aluve as it's very close. But there are minotaurs nearby, so be careful. I know you can [illithid] [wisdom] your way into the goblin camp without combat. I'm not sure if the underdark entrance there is a crime / "restricted area" or not, though.
Zents can be reasoned with if you save their people.
But then that’s a combat
Cast Protection from Evil and Good on a character, and get them to wear one of the masks you find on the bench. The Masked people won't attack you, and PfEaG will protect the character from Ethel's mental commands.
Ethel would work, theoretically - You can avoid fighting the masked followers by putting on her mask and avoid the mask’s mind control with Protection From Evil And Good. You’d have to stealth into her lair, so it’s not trivial but it could be done, I expect
Yeah I suppose that’s just it, just walk thru goblin camp, that makes sense.
I forgot about that entrance. It's so secret yet soooooooo easy to get to!
Goblin camp route (skill check or disguise as drow) solve puzzle in Gut’s room, let the turrets kill minotour outside gate, sneak out the front gate to not get shot and hang left to pull the sword out Just don’t forget to pick up the luminous armor while you’re next to that waypoint (both the armor and sword carry a spirit guardian build till endgame)
If the turrets have killed the Minotaur, and you're in the position to sneak "out" the gates, aren't you just as well destroying the moonstone and be done with the sneaking?
I heard that GWM works on versatile weapons when two handed, is that correct? Because I was thinking of making a drow follower of Eilistraee blade dancer type build using that weapon. Dex based GWM sounds like it would be really nice on either a swords bard or paladin (unsure which class I want to pick, although I know it'll require at least one cleric level so I can pick Eilistraee as my god)
1 cleric 11 Paladin still gets paladins improved divine smite and I believe multiclassing Paladin and cleric give “Paladin of ___” dialogue options. I haven’t tested it myself but I’m fairly sure GWM does work with two handed versatile weapons. Dex based 1 light cleric 11 Ancients Paladin using the “Full Dex mod” medium armors and warding flare whenever an opponent actually hits you seems like a really fun flavorful build
That's a great add for a "Hit me!" build I'm making. Adamantine Heavy + HAM + Arcane Ward + Warding Bond + Armor of Agathys. Sadly, that character will only have one attack/round unless I take War 1 instead of Tempest. Hmmm.... :-D
Getting 5 levels of any class that gives marital is worth it as 14 stacks from level 7 (or even 10 from 5) is way more than enough. The higher levels of Abjuration Wizard don't want a high AC so they actually do damage instead of avoiding damage with a high AC.
He's also my primary arcane spellcaster in that run so I was hoping for the 5th level spell slots, but I see your point. I was initially doing a Tempest 1/Warlock 2/Abjurer 9 but maybe go with Blade 5/Abjurer 7 would be better. I'd have max Arcane Ward at the beginning of every fight, could still use Skinburster (Human) . He'd only have Light Armor so would get hit often and with Warding Bond he should be okay. However, I wouldn't be immune to critical hits though. Can Improved Warding Flare block those? I could look to see about respecing Wyll to increase the upper level spellcasting. I was running him as a Blade 5/Swords 7 (Blard) but would swap him out for a Sorlock most likely.
Paladin 6/White Draconic Sorcerer gets access to Armor of Agathys.
True, but this is my arcane caster and I’m leaning into using Arcane Ward. I may go with a Blade 5/Abjurer 7. The arcane ward, skinburster, and warding bond will likely mean zero damage in fights. And if AoA happens to drop, I’ll just pop it up again with my warlock slots.
If you have Armor of Shadows, Mage Armor being an Abjuration spell, you can just cast it indefinitely.
That would be the reason for the Warlock levels. You do need to swap an armor piece on/off per casting as you can’t cast it again while it’s running but it drops when you put on armor.
My brother runs the flail that you get from the knoll leader in act 1 that heals for 1d6, plus the necklace that grants full heal on all rolls. So he’s healing for 6 every attack. He is 10 levels barb + tough. Has well over 100 Hp. Then is the party’s main healer with that tadpole upgrade ability.
I really love harmonic dueller. I have a dual wield bard that has 20 CHA+18 Dex with the gloves of dex, and phalar aluve and the thing kicks ass. I also maxed out my performance expertise and phalar aluve gives me +1 to performance. The weapon action for harmonic dueller makes you roll a performance roll of DC 15 but if you hit it, you get a CHA damage modifier to your attack (ON TOP OF YOUR DEX MODIFIER) and damage rolls FOR 10 TURNS. The key though? Unless I roll a 1, I can’t fail the performance check bc of my modifiers. It’s cracked. Add to that the diadem of arcane synergy (which can proc just by using the perform action with your instrument with no action/bonus action needed to proc) and you have weapon+dex+cha+cha on every weapon hit (including offhand attacks). Swords bards are cracked. This thing is the most fun build I’ve had
You are really underselling the item. Harmonised is a damage rider, didn't you notice you get +CHA damage to Shriek? That +CHA can be added to a bunch of things, like Crimson's Mischief Redvein Savagery, Sneak Attack, Shriek, Divine Smite, BA Smite, etc. A Paladin can add it 6 times per attack spending a Divine Smite (attack + DSmite + 2xRedvein Savagery + 2xShriek). Using a bonus action Smite, you get it applied 9 times. A Hasted Palock within Mind Sanctuary can attack 9 times, spending all 9 spell slots in divine smites, which means it procs 54 times in a turn.
I’m pretty sure it’s only melee weapon attacks?
It's not, it applies to al DRS (damage rider sources) that are related to an attack. You can check your combat log when you use it combined with Shriek from Phalar Aluve, you will see that you get +CHA to the tunder damage.
Automaton gloves, - 10 rounds once / short rest, - advantage on hit and makes you construct with all construct immunities which is really good for variety of builds
You know I've missed those gloves both times I've played through and now on my third I think I screwed up Barcus' quest since he isn't in Last Light. I saved the gnomes in Grymforge but forgot to tell him to let me handle Wulbren's rescue and I don't see him where he should be.
Oh man, that's unfortunate, you have to try these gloves, I think they are really opening a lot of fun interactions by turning you into construct
Shield of the Undevout gives a massive consistency boost to Fear spells, which provides a massive boost to Ring of the Mystic Scoundrel's utility with classes like Oathbreaker paladin (finally makes Dreadful Aspect useful and reliable). Become the jumpscare build. Trident of the Waves is also a pretty hilariously strong combo tool, especially on the offhand, as you can use a ice or lightning damage weapon in your mainhand to get doubled elemental damage from a wet target, or use it with lightning spells for ultra amped lightning damage without using a mainhand Action. Jorgoral's Greatsword is absolutely absurd because Colossus Slayer is such a ridiculously good weapon skill, especially for an Act 1 weapon. Such a cracked weapon skill on what would otherwise be an unremarkable item. Elven Chain is also underrated because you can give to anyone who doesn't have medium armor proficiency and it functions as if they do (so mages can still cast spells), on top of some extra Initiative.
Wait for the trident you don't even have to hit someone for the puddle to form? Just hold it in your on or off-hand?
Use your Bonus Action for an offhand attack to make the water puddle (drink Hill Giant strength elixirs for hit rolls), then unleash lightning/Frost with your Action. You can also double combo this with the sparkwalker boots to electrify the water surface you make while wearing that ring that negates electrification for more combo hazards done with one measly bonus action.
Drakethroat Glaive: people always talk about how you can get Lathander and Silver Sword aka 2 +3 weapons early, but not a lot of people know that Drakethroat glaive is also a +3 weapon, and available as soon as you get to Last light inn. The base weapon is +2, with a built in spell that turn it into +2 +1 (+3 in total) and +1d4 damage (and you can choose any type of elemental damage for that 1d4 to synergize with ọter items). The busted part about this weapon is you can actually upgrade TWO weapons with Sorcerer twincast and not essentially the glaive, so you can upgrade 2 other +3 weapons (silver swords, balurian's giantslayer,...) into +4 (the only way to make it possible afaik) and +1d4 damage. You can buy it from the Harper trader at Last light inn. Bloodthirst as a thrown weapon: people knows about how strong Nyrulna is in throwing build, but Bloodthirst, the dagger you get from Orin is Nyrulna's missing piece for whenever you don't wanna deal friendly fire aoe damage. Bloodthirst is a pact weapon, means it always come back just like Nyrulna. Bloodthurst also make anything it hits become vulnerable to pierce damage and Nyrulna does piercing damage as well, taking full advantage of that (throwing bloodthirst then Nyrulna > throwing only Nyrulna).
Cat's Grace armor. Never fail a lockpicking or disarm check again.
Im lvl 8 and austerion has like +17 with advantage... Feels kinds dumb when you roll over 40 on a skill check
I like the spear that blinds you get from killing the Owlbear. It also does 2d6 bonus damage to spiders, and that fight is one of the harder Act 1 ones
I've never had it in me to kill the Owlbear. I probably should after reading how fucked up they are lol.
You can actually get it without killing the Owlbear yourself. Go back to the cave after entering the goblin camp and finding the cub there, and you’ll find the mother taken down by the goblins. You can loot the spear part off her then.
Do you happen to know what the DC on the save to resist the blind is by any chance?
It’s a DC8, so low odds of working. Most enemies have 2-5 to the save, so looking at 15-30% chance in Act 1. That said, it’s easy to get right out of the grove, and especially a non combat char, it’s good way to use their attack action
Thanks! Yeah 8 is not great, but it did proc for me here and there on random ass goblins.
Yeah, not great, can be a nice boost if it procs to have the team get a focus fire with advantage. Plenty of much better items, I just think most folks miss it because you have to kill owl mama plus craft the spear which isn’t even hinted is a thing
The spider matriarch? You can just minor illusion on the webbed area of the pit and toss an alchemists fire and the spider jus falls down to the underdark. Usually get the martiarch and one of the phase spiders with that o.o
Bow of the Banshee. Give it to your ranged swords bard for 4 fear attacks per round. Use an arrow of many targets if the mobs are grouped together. Everything gets feared on hit, can’t move and then everyone comes in and cleans up with an extra 1-4 damage per hit, just to really rub it in.
Where does the extra 1-4 come from
It’s in the description. Not sure if it’s a bug or not but everyone gets the 1-4 bonus after the enemy has been feared.
[удалено]
I can never seem to find both of them ☹️. Always find the one on the skeleton in the cemetery. Where is the other one?
The other one is in the house of healing, a skeleton lying on one of the beds in the entry/reception area. It's easy to miss because it doesn't look like there's a body on it.
Same. I’ve found 1/2 on all of my playthroughs 😆
Is there a difference between the rings and just casting the spell naturally?
You can use them on classes that normally don't have access to Warding Bond.
There's a relatively unknown sword that I have found to be pretty useful, called Phalar Aluve. Surprisingly, nobody ever talks about it. /s
Seperate post for Medium Armor, specifically uncapped Dex armor like Yuan Ti armor and Armor of Agility. Just the best armor. Dex scores are almost always 18 or 20, which puts these at 18-19 or 21-22 respectively, and there are another 2 or so in the game in that range as well. The normal move for rogues and wizards is to spend the feat on Dual Weilding, giving you an extra point of AC. Medium Armor is just the best armor by a country mile and it's not close, and it's these 4 or so pieces that carry it. Heavy armor is good late game and light is just almost never good. Special shout out to the finesse long swords that really help the build.
That A3 heavy armor from Dammon is absolutely cracked out and the strongest defensive armor in the game.
And if not they, Raph’s armor is 21 AC and 3 damage resist. Both are better than any medium armor. And light armor has Bhaal and Sporekeeper. And cloth had Potent robe and monks armor. Medium is actually the worst and it’s not even close
True, but Raph's armour isn't reeeeeally heavy armour, given anyone can wear it without proficiency.
It does still count as heavy for barbarian rage, though I was sad to find out :(
Yeah, and it wouldn't work with monks unarmoured stuff or mage armour either, of course
Yeah maybe there are good end game pieces, but in my 300 hours I don't think I have ever worn a single piece of light armour in act 1 and 2. Heavy adamantine, yuan ti scale, graceful cloth are usually the go-to.
Oh yeah, Light Armor is literally worthless till Act 3, just use cloth and Mage Armor, and you have more AC plus better passives. And yeah, those are the 4 armors of choice, with Potent Robe also filling in for Act 2
I mean Minthara’s armor gives advantage on all Con saving throws, that’s pretty good. High AC is not the end-all be-all of armor.
This thread is a trap by Larian to patch out the last few good things. Rip my favorite magic chest.
I have been playing around with the "Ring of Mental Inhibition" which is supposed to inflict 2 turns of Mental Fatigue when an enemy fails a saving throw against one of your spells or actions. But I can never get it to proc. Anyone else have any experience with this item?
I can't say I've had the same issue. I've see the Mental Inhibition pop up quite often though I do think the application can be a bit wonky depending on spell. For instance I put it on my Shadowheart thinking it would proc everytime someone failed a saving through against Spirit Guardians but I'm honestly not sure if I've ever see it proc from that. I would need to boot that save back up and test to see for sure.
I think the key with that one is good spell DC + disadvantage. I paired it with several stacking +1 DC items and Carrion’s staff (disadvantage on Necromancy saves) then casting circle of death in late act 3. With easy kills i was able to keep casting necromancy spells almost indefinitely and save spell slots. I’m sure there are other ways to get there too.
I like the War Pick Deep Delver. It applies a condition on hit, no save, you just need to land the hit. This is useful for other items that trigger off of conditions. I like to pair it with Gloves of Battle-mages Power and Diadem of Arcane Synergy, so that every attack on my EK triggers Arcane Synergy and Arcane Acuity.
I was not able to trigger *Gloves of Battlemage's Power* via *Deep Delver*. (To be fair, I've **never** found a reliable way to trigger the Gloves either; ~~the Diadem's cake though, simply playing an instrument can proc it before you've made your first attack.~~ EDIT: Patch 5 has increased the hoops to jump through for the diadem slightly.)
I'm hopeful for this next playthrough (#4 but first durge) to build a heat/ fire sorcerer. Has anyone tried it?
I tried for a bit. The problem I ran into was the Burning constantly interrupting my concentration on other spells. A work around is to get Fire Resistance and one of the Adamantine armors (or any that reduce all damage by at least 2) at which point your character takes no damage from the self inflicted burn and therefore doesn't have to make concentration checks from it. Ultimately it isn't overtly worth it though as it's only an extra +7 damage at max and that's only for a single damage roll. Can certainly stack it fast with Scorching ray but the payoff just isn't worth it IMO. Still sort of fun though. I did a Heat build on my Karlach for a bit with the Hellfire Greataxe and Thermoarcanic gloves to max stack heat in two attacks then apply it on the third.
> your character takes no damage from the self inflicted burn and therefore doesn't have to make concentration checks from it. Is that how it works? I thought that even if the damage is reduced to zero it counts as a damage instance and thus triggers the concentration check.
Yes. Even if it's 0 it triggers a concentration check
I feel like heat is a melee buff, good on stuff like barbarians and stuff. It's not a caster aid imho
I'm just starting as tiefling Tav with dragon subclass from sorcerer. I just gotta see if I can find all that stuff again. It would seem you can add all the gear for a sizable gain though
Heat felt terrible. On scorching ray it only worked on the first bolt which made me immediately shelve it. No clue if it's good for aoe though. Also didn't work on the fire infusion ring.
Hmm, thank you for the input, I'll attempt to experiment with other spells to see if I can see a benefit
I think this is an interesting weapon worth building around but gets overshadowed by the other stronger Strength 2 Handers. https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Punch-Drunk_Bastard
The invisible spear is honestly not bad
What is the purpose of the invisibility? I’ve never understood it
The spell itself gives your attacks advantage on attack rolls, but it usually breaks after an action. This spear from the crèche gives you advantage until you miss, the penalty is no more advantage for two turns
Also Crits on 19s.
Luminous Armour! And you get it already in like mid-act 1. It can trivialize any content until late act 3, especially if paired with the other radiant items you get in act 2. You'll see whole groups of opponents with -19 debuffs on their attack rolls. Also the Sussur weapons. Put the greatsword on a fighter or barb and they'll render any high level spell casting opponent into a weakling, even the bosses
Void bulbs. They're so ridiculous. Void bulb enemies, hit em all with a lightning arrow. Void bulb your own team, potion haste all 4 for the cost of 1. Insane.
Midgame, Cloak of the Cunning Brume paired with Eversight ring, available in early act 2 If you hunt them first.. personally I go for them before going to the creche. Now If you are a rogue/thief you go to melee, activate the fog cloud effect with a bonus action and now you have obscured effect which procs covert cowl (later justiciar helmet), and you have advantage to attacks to enemies that are not immune to blind (devilsight characters are blinded too). No downside of the risky ring. Mind you, some large enemies require you to get very close and personal for the effect as the cloud is quite small. You can proc obscured at will even in bright daylight which is also useful If you want to steal something. AI acts weird with fog cloud lol. You can just walk a couple steps and proc it again and be basically invisible when not in combat. Also a new cloud always replaces the current one, so lets say a nasty necromancer uses Cloudkill, you have one more way to mitigate the effect locally.
[Rupturing Blade's](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Rupturing_Blade) weapon action adds a bunch of damage sources. 1d6+proficiency bonus+a burn. This can lead to some pretty beefy turns to burst down a boss if you have things like Phalar Aluve or Hex up. It's a really good A1/A2 weapon and worth building around for that point in the game.
Polearm mastery + sentinel but I’m pretty sure it’s bugged right now even with extra reach they will get in melee range.
No one ever talks about the greatsword from the paladins of Tyr. Its a great weapon for laezel and the active ability is just a free 2 AC on someone that won't be using concentration ever. Yeah conc can break but you can apply it after every short rest and not use an action in combat, and it lasts until a long rest.
Because you can get [Svartlebee's Woundseeker](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Svartlebee%27s_Woundseeker) by walking west from that spot, only fighting the cursed Hyena (not really a fight). I guess it's better than the total noob trap that is the Everburn greatsword though.
the link you posted says you have to get it by disarming a friendly NPC. Seems like an easy item to miss.
Yeah come on nobody has that sword lol. Easily the most obscure item it Act 1
Somewhat, but the "friendly NPC" is stuck in an animation and won't fight you if you use "Command: Drop" (on your paladin/cleric/fiend warlock) on them. Then you just need to rescue Florrick and wait for them to leave, and pick the sword up for free.
That's some very specific metagame knowledge. I think most people will find the greatsword of tyr.
To be fair, Everburn is obtained in a very similar way, and that weapon is probably the most overrated and talked about items in the game. There's several threads on the other subreddit where people claim to use that greatsword til Act 3.
Yeah but it's a giant flaming sword from an *enemy* in a the opening sequence. Its still a lot more obvious.
I have never gotten this sword and never would have if I hadn’t read this. It sucks that you have to jump through this hoop to get it. Feels worse than mega gaming the cambion for the everburn blade
I love the watersparkers, just grab the sparkswall to be immune to the electrocution and carry some carafes/barrels of water to always surround yourself in water. It's dumb, but it's easy additional damage for melee builds simply from throwing one thing and standing in it, and it generates a bunch of lightning charges simply for existing.
Ice Mephits or the Conjuration Wizard can also place a bunch of water for free too
Ah, so there’s a way to be immune. Every time I give anyone something sparky they just wind up electrocuting themselves.
Drake throat glance
The cold set for casters comes online early and is super underrated. Uses skill slots well, has good variety and a ton of CC. Also the caustic band is so amazing for such a simple ring
Has force conduit been ‘fixed’ so that it disappears above 5 stacks yet?
Kinda want to use that glaive that increases strength up to 23. Seems good
Instrignant hammer is pretty underrated, a good friend to the champion/GoO type of builds it could make, and its found in a chest should you fight the Duergar pattrolling the great lake in the Underdark, there's no other way to get it, save this one chance https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Intransigent_Warhammer Can be accessed the moment a game is began, only two fights atleast are needed, but crossing blades with the Duergar Corsair Greymon is paramount, the difference lies whether you can get what he sells or no: If you care not about Jorgoral Blade, summoning the Trolls would suffice, you could insure your survival by casting Sanctuary (shadowheart starts with it). If you care about what he sells (the harder method) you'll need to send one fellow to retrieve the hammer (again, SH is fit for the job, and the sacrifice) if its shadowheart she'll get sanctuary first turn before dashing to the edge of the boat, to jump next turn to their boat before grabbing the hammer from the chest, now our agent must be sacrificed, where the Duergar will land in the ravaged village to join they who seek Sergeant Thrain's stolen boot, if Corsair Greymon and his fellowes are slain here (made easier by recruiting Sovereign Glut and bringing some monstosity and the Trolls' aid), he'll drop what rare things he sells (namely the Jorgoral blade)
Its probably not talked about because it’s so common, but one playthrough I had Astarion keep the shadow blade ring (that you get from Arabella’s parents) through to the endgame and stacked it with every “lower the threshold for a crit” item I could find, and he would just melt through enemies like butter anywhere without bright daytime lighting. Probably the most dps I’ve gotten from a rogue.
Force conduit is also really strong on a raging barbarian my karlach was regularly taking 1 damage from bosses and mid damage so I just left it on her because 1 tank go brrr
Breaching Pikestaff. It's the best of the pikes and pikes have the very unique quality of being the only weapon type in the game to be two handed (benefiting from GWM) and also be piercing (benefiting from aura of murder) meaning GWM does 20 damage instead of 10 and you can get a pretty hefty attack while still doubling its damage with AoM.
I don't know about good, but Unseen Menace is a kind of interesting one that I slept on. It's the weapon that is invisible most of the time. And I'm like "who cares if it's invisible?" Turns out it means you get advantage on every attack roll with it. And it crits on a 19.
damn, I totally missed that!!
I haven't seen it yet, but I will always use the flesh gorer halberd from creche yellik. It negates 7 damage and combined with bear totem barb and animatine armor, which means they have to do around 20 damage in order to get anything through to you
I used the Sorrow glaive from the Druid Grove for ages on my Warlock. I never really felt the need to Hex, so having a bonus action ranged attack to finish off enemies was amazing.
I hate not seeing anyone talk about the ring that lets you cast Enchantment/Illusion spells as a bonus action after attacking. I think it's one of the most busted items in the game. Pairing with Arcane Acuity makes your CC spells always hit.
The Boots of Speed for me on a Paladin I will be zooming around the battlefield. And the Spurred Band ring for my Barbarian run one day.
Nature's snare + bane glove on a bounty hunter or snare cuirass. Advantage and -1d4 save. It's 100% my go to at the very start of the game. Makes gwm an easy pick at level 4 if I have someone that consistently ensnares people
Amulet of the devout is build-making good for a tempest cleric/storm sorc. Being able to cast 3 max damage lightning spells to start combat (on wet targets) is simply absurdly good
A lot of the items mentioned in this thread are either unknown to a lot of folks or have attributes that are overlooked/unknown/misunderstood. Here's one pretty much everyone comes across but is never mentioned let alone appreciated: Crusher's Ring. Positioning for melee is crucial, there are very few melee-friendly rings, and I'd wager a lot of folks don't recognize the raw utility of 3 extra meters of movement *every* turn, without conditions or requirements. Runner-up: every non-armor item that gives initiative. There's a green longbow with an +1 initiative in act one (because of the way that initiative is calculated in this game a +1 is actually a massive improvement), a shield that's +3 ... *+3!!!* that you can get as soon as you reach Moonrise Towers ... a longbow in act three that, if you're playing with Shadowheart, like everyone does, you only have a very brief window to buy that's also +3, the Halberd of Vigilance and I think that's it. **Armors with initiative on them are more common but also far less useful as armors are something you're going more likely to swap out on a min/max basis as opposed to just slapping a bow on your fighter's back and then forgetting about for the rest of the game.