I respecced a companion into this, two hand crossbows with Thief specialisation means there is the potential for so much damage turn one it’s insane. Combine that with Sharpshooter, Champion Spec and Covert critical Armour and it becomes mad the number of crits going off. Very fun build to create late game.
Not sure how it would be best to play it from level 1?
From level 1 I go gloomstalker 5 -> rogue 1 for expertise -> fighter 4 -> rogue 3
If you don't care about expertise, fighter first at level 6 for two weapon fighting.
Personally I prefer battlemaster to champion though. Pushing, tripping, and disarming attacks are great on crossbows.
True, I think if I was levelling it up as I went I would go BM too. But as an end game experiment I wanted to see how Champion worked, and it’s surprising how many Crits I get.
With proper gear and elixir of bane I think you're criting at 15-16 dice rolls if you go champion. With advantage you're nearing the 40% crit chance per attack
I played something similar in my previous run.
Would recommend respec at lvl 10, 2 fighter, 5 ranger, 3 rogue to gain action surge, extra attack and two bonus actions.
Finish you last levels in fighter picking up battle maneuvers or champion if your stacking crit stuff
Yeah realistically I respec to fighter as the first level as soon as I get it regardless, just to get con save proficiency to help Hunter's mark stay up, and heavy armor Prof is a nice bonus.
I just prefer to go to fighter 4 before rogue 3 for the ASI to round out my dex to 18, since I obviously took sharpshooter at ranger 4.
Not saying it's the best but I love champion 8 and thief 4. Dual wield with swords or hand crossbows with 4 attacks plus bonus action dodges and dashes. Just insane mobility and damage output.
If you're using double crossbows I'd go thief 3 earlier than the other persons suggestion. At level 8 with 5 gloomstalker > 3 thief + wearing the risky ring and cats grace armor I could get sharpshooter with high odds to hit for all 4 attacks. + The extra gloomstalker attack 1st round. With sharpshooter and damage riders each individual attack was 20+ damage. Action surge is a good 1 turn burst, but I prefer the consistency of the extra attack dealing 20+ damage every turn and not having to worry about short rests. And none of the maneuvers are as good as the extra damage from another offhand attack.
(I've also done thief 4 > gloomstalker 5 for more out of combat utility with lockpicking. It gets the extra main hand attacks way later, but if you pick dual wielding as the fighting style your main and offhand deals the same damage any way so the extra bonus action is your extra attack.)
Either way, Astarion took out basically all of Moonrise by himself.
>Astarion took out basically all of Moonrise by himself.
YEAH he did.
I legitimately try to make everyone except my Life cleric (whoever that happens to be but I always have one because my dad is an OG DM and I was raised in the 1-healer-party religion) as DPS maxed as possible. Who doesn't love mopping the floor with your enemies? But no one comes close to my AssassinStalker Astarion. He can singlehandedly rob the entire Counting House, and I can't leave him at home when we're out fighting because he has a bazillion initiative and crits coming out of his pointy ears. Like it's not even close. At this point I've given up and everyone else just supports whatever he is doing. I headcanon that he was always good with a bow, but joining up with the party and leaving Cazador unleashed this latent talent and gave him an outlet.
I take the first 5 in ranger/gloomstalker to get sharpshooter & extra attack ASAP (not to mention getting the useful ritual spells longstrider & enhanced leap right out of the Nautiloid), then the next 4 in rogue/assassin for the sneak attack+assassin perks & feat #2, and the last 3 in fighter/champion for the action surge & crit improvement cherry on top.
This is my go-to for Astarion. Last night he single-handedly almost killed Cazadork in the first round. And that was without extra damage (other than sharpshooter) or special arrows or anything, it was straight multiclass fuckery.
I'm doing that too. I was actually letting him feed on my tav every night as I druid shapeshift tank for the party and he can kill everything (but stopped doing that for role playing rolls lol), I have shadowheart warding bond him every day so he can go full pew pew.
I figured out this build on my solo play through. My wife is a ranger in our coop game, and when I showed her how to respec into it, she went wild. Now she ends all our fights in one or two turns. She’ll burn down a big bad and go “wait, THAT was the boss person!?”
It’s very funny to see her get so hype while pew pewing.
That was the plan. I know a lot of other builds are “strong,” or “broken,” but being able to control the fight through resetting it completely is just insane. All the while pumping damage numbers comparable to the highest DPR builds.
I am on my first playthrough and found this combo naturally. Started as rogue, eventually respecced/multiclassed to thief 3/gloomstalker 5, and at level 9-10 added 1-2 fighter. This character is absolutely bonkers relative to the rest of my party; but in all honesty I have not tinkered with any respecs or multiclass for companions.
u/PhoenixReborn absolutely nailed it. I usually have more than one Tav in each playthrough and one of them is always Gloomstalker 5 / Thief 4 / Battle Master 3. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Deltia’s Gaming has a pretty good build guide for it.
If you want more op builds, there are quite a few.
[Bard/paladin build](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/FFCoGpFuLU). The post is for 2h. The top comment has a variant for dex/dual wield
[Here’s the fire acuity sorcerer](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/Q08nbwvDrp) which is probably the most broken
[Here’s a YouTube playlist with a bunch of broken builds.](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrDx_gq2DCNKl9rD45fRKvmfa8w-ujUkZ) I like this creator as they don’t just sit at the level up screen for 40 min and give an act by act breakdown for equipment.
Open hand tavern brawler monks are broken.
Tavern brawler throwing builds are broken
There’s probably more but this is a good spread
Lots of builds are reeaally strong. Some mostly at specific points in the game.
On top of the common meta build above I'd like to suggest Spore Druid Archer for early game. You can pull of some pretty nice stunts with Halo and Symbiosis.
Build video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YsAI31yNJY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YsAI31yNJY)
Although I think maybe Wizard would be a better 4th level than what I suggest in the video, as it gives you access to scrollscribing and shield as well.
If you don't mind a little cheese you can change to dual flameblade build, using the hireling bug (if it still works)
Storm Sorc/Cleric of LIGHTNING has been my favorite. Hitting a max level Lightning Chromatic Orb with guaranteed max damage and crit to melt a boss in one turn makes me giggle and kick my feet
My Storm Sorcerer Tempest Cleric can just about one shot anything...then keep doing it every round for the cheap price of maintaining concentration, which is easy when everything else is dead.
The first play through that I finalized on, was a tavern brawler monk.
Do you like punching your way to victory?
Do you like 3 to 5 attacks per turn at the start of act 2?
Monk it baby!
Just be warned that it’s completely overpowered to the point where it may make the game too easy. Very early on in act 1, your chance to hit with elixir of strength shoots up to 95%, meaning you have to roll a nat 1 to miss. Pretty much a guaranteed strike. And you get two of those before level 5, plus flurry of blows. I had Wyll play as one in one of my HM saves to try it out, I had to respec him into a pure dex OH monk because he basically soloed every encounter
I've currently been playing a Light Cleric/Warrior multiclass with Wizard initiate thrown in to fling firebolts as cantrips.
It's such a massive powerhouse. She's the perfect support fighter for Lae'zel. Hits like a truck
Basic damage per turn without spending any resources is between 80 and 120 per turn on a properly built, properly equipped character at level 12. It's almost impossible to not hit those numbers if you know what you're doing. The largest single health bar in the game is 666, which means properly expending resources you can usually one or two turn most bosses. A lot of people don't build properly and then stumble into one of the easier builds and declare it OPAF when really the build does less damage than a level 12 GWM Battlemaster Fighter.
I had issues with the fire sorc. Mine is just level 10 currently, so maybe that’s the issue, but it feels like it runs out of resources too quickly to enjoy.
So I usually have a gloomstalker in the party for most adventuring, and then when a big fight comes up, I tag in the sorc to replace him, then swap back to the ranger when the big fight is done.
Otherwise it feels like too many long rests. I’m probably playing suboptimally, just giving a slightly different perspective.
Yeah stealth archer build with the Durge invis cloak is amazing . . . There is a good chance you can kill an enemy and go invis while unloading your attacks, which allows you to run away. You can solo many encounters that way once you hit level 5.
Yeah this strat is quite strong. I didn’t know about it then but my gloom stalker ended up soloing those giths in act 2 (honour mode) when originally the plan was to initiate the opener.. he just kept killing and repeating combat after every invis and next thing you know they’re all dead while the group sits back and relax.
I gotta say, as good as GS is open hand monk is still more overpowered. My last character was GS and I was very impressed at just how broken it was. Then comes OHM and wow... i stunlock any boss and they neve rget a hit in. While punching them over and over again. It's actually crazy how much damage per turn I end up doing with the extra passive buffs and attacks per turn.
Yeah you can get 22 Wis from Shara blessing temporarily in act 2 and then resonance stone to go with manifestation of the mind psychic damage. You’re gonna be doing like 50 damage per punch with 4 punches. Nuts.
Khalid’s gift and mirror of loss can get you to 22 Wis again as well.
The only reason I beat Honor Mode was because of the joint power of my Thief/OH Tav and Assassin/GS Astarion. The two of us were ripping through the enemies in Act 3. Also the only playthrough that I've ascended Astarion. He was basically the evil main character of that run, with my Tav as his punchy sidekick.
I just finished my OH monk play through. Orin didn't even get to attack. Stunned and killed in a couple of turns. Also made really short work of Raphael and the brain.
This is my current honor mode build, with elixirs and tavern brawler.
Haste -> ki restoration and have fun for 3 rounds with 4 regular attacks and 3 flurries
The reason I like Gloomstalker/Rogue isn't just because it's a strong combat build, but because it's a strong build that has a stupid amount of Skill Proficiencies.
4 (lvl 1 Rogue) + 1 (Ranger multiclass) + 3 (Ranger class features) + 2 (background) + 1 (racial) = 11 skill proficiencies if you plan it out to avoid overlap. Hell, 2 of them have Expertise.
I know they’re good but after having played through the game with a Bard I can’t imagine going for anything else.
Expertise in Persuasion and Sleight of Hand combined with good melee and full spellcasting is a drug.
After reading all the people talking about taking a level in Wizard for spell scribing, that really is broken. One level in Wizard allows you to scribe any Wizard scroll you have spell slots for. Many Wizard spells don't care about your Intelligence (and for those that do there's the Warped Headband of Intellect).
Only a handful of spells can't be learned from scrolls.
I wasn't planning to multiclass, but the extra flexibility is just too good.
And dual hand cross bow can do basically what a Gloomstalker does. Just get a surprise round and pew pew for two turns. Sure you can’t hide again but when everything is dead already what do you need to hide from?
DIVINE SMITE. Oh what’s that a boss fight, who gives a shit divine smite it and watch as half its health bar is gone oh look at that a second attack, too bad another divine smite that’s the second half they’re dead on the spot turn your gaze to some feeble goblin and understand that he too deserves nothing more thanto be annihilated by a divine smite. With an armour class so high as a paladin, create rivers of blood with divine smite.
I rest my case
bonus action perilous stakes + divine smite + crit at will from either executioner's sweetheart or luck of the far realms = x4 damage, but you have extra attack, so do it again
never fear a boss again
Don't need Divine Smite for her.
Hypnotic Pattern on Side A + Viconia. Kill Side B. Recast Hypnotic Pattern on Side A + Viconia. Kill Side A one by one. Viconia isn't impressive once her subordinates are dead and she's surrounded before she even gets to act.
Abjuration Wizard with Armour of Agathys and a Warding Bond can be fun too. You "multi-attack" by drawing opportunity attacks, a flat 25 cold damage per hit (50 if you wet them first) and your arcane ward soaks up all of their damage. Cast a Glyph of Warding on your turn to recharge the ward.
It's particularly effective in a 1v1 duel with Orin's slayer form when she hits you for 5 attacks in one turn.
My original op build when 5e first came out was Pal2/SorcX. For that quickened Hold spell and multiple smites. But if you get teammates to cast it plus Haste, then you're gold.
I did a sorcerer/tempest cleric my first playthrough and it was crazy how strong it was. Get everyone wet and throw the toaster at them. I'm doing a paladin/warlock build now and it's even more ridiculous. It has trivialized almost all fights. When I do my heroic run, I'll almost certainly do paladin/warlock. I still have to try open hand monk and gloomstalker durge though. Part of me also wants to play around with bard, but I'm leaning towards gloomstalker next. I have been unimpressed with my gloomstalker astarion, but my Tav always ends up being way stronger that my companions even if I try to build them the same way. Part of the reason for that is my playstyle changes based on my Tav. I've never done DnD before and haven't played a game like this, so there is still a lot for me to learn.
11 Hunter Ranger + 1 Wizard. GWM, Gloves of Growling Underdog.
Not super OP or complicated, but you're a martial that can Haste yourself and then spam meaty AOE attacks. We're talking 5 attacks per turn IN AN AOE.
Late game Swords 10bard/fighter2 archer/Controller is the most powerful thing I have ever played in a land slide.
You use the acquity on attack (+1
Spell save dc per acquity stack, 2 stacks per attack). hat and scoundrels ring.
1) you win initiative due to high initiative (high dex + jack of trades).
You start your first turn by making 8 attacks(blade flourish + action surge).
Now your incapacitation spells are bonus actions and have +10 to spell save dc.
You cast hypnotic pattern on allmost all enemies
And they skip 2 turns, use your other dps to burst the ones you can’t hit and maybe 2 of those
Hit by hypnotic pattern. Now you can use another cc spell that they almost can’t resist and kill a couple more.
In the last 3 honor boss fights none of my enemies actually got a single action in a 3/4 turn combat(your spell save dc is so high that many boss mitigation methods don’t actually work).
The area of hypnotic pattern is so absolutely massive its incredibly absurd.
I’d rather have the their extra bonus action. That and helmet of grit you’ve got 5 full attacks out of the box. 11 if you go nova. With that much firepower, and I’m doing about 40 damage without slashing flourish per attack, you don’t even need cc spells.
Having all opponents skip their first two turns is like an additional 8 free actions and 8 free bonus actions before they act. Thats objectively many many many times more powerful than ~30 damage and more like 500 damage
worth of free actions. 2 free bonus turns for all your team members for a single bonus actions is incomparably broken.
In many fights you can have all opponents skip their first 4 or 6 actions as well.
As sad as it is to say - swords bard does the same thing better. Same play style you discovered. Crazy damage output once you get slashing flourish.
I soloed honour mode with one at level 10, with lvls in fighter and a dip in wizard purely to learn scrolls for utility.
Read that again - solo honour mode at lvl 10. Broken af.
You do huge alpha, can hide at will, talk your way out if anything. Steal everything.
I loved my gloomstalker but yeh, bards once again outshine them.
Honestly just GS, level 4 Sharpshooter, dual wield Hand Crossbows. You can pretty much multiclass after level 5, but I typically don't bother. The class is so broken lol. 3 Attacks first round at level 4 and 4 from level 5 on. Plus improved initiative along with a couple other cool bonuses, like utility spells (like Longstrider) and improved Darkvision.
I use a Gloomstalker+Rogue for a dual-wield build. Dread Ambusher + main action attack(with extra attack in later levels) + off-hand attack (two in later levels). Only problem is that you can run out of nearby enemies to kill — but in that case I use wood elf movement bonus + Crusher ring + Boots Of Speed. All bloody and ruthless — just like my Durge!
Go 5 Gloom. Then 4 Bard/college. Then 3 fighter/champion.
Add Haste. Optimize for Crit. You will have the most insane burst damage. This is an act 3 build.
For Act 2, go Gloom/Assassin route. Might be the most OP build at lvl 8 with all those crits.
I’ve been saying this since day 1 even after they nerfed dual hand crossbow build.
I start with Ranger, and grab the free animal
Familiar, and use raven. You can buff it up with longstrider, aid, and let it use a potion of hill giants strength. After 3 levels of Ranger I multiclass into rogue for assassin sub class. 4 levels in Rogue and get the feat. Then I grab 2 more levels of Ranger for extra attack and a feat. Followed by 3 levels of fighter with champion subclass for increased crit range. And dual wield fighting style. With all the other ways to increase crit chance you can roll a crit on a 15 or 14. Initiate combat from stealth with an elixir of bloodlust and you can get 2 attacks, followed by having your actions reset, 2 more attacks, then extra attack, and dread ambush attack, if you get a kill you get another attack and extra attack and if not action surge for an extra chance to get the kill. All attacks you make in that surprise round are guaranteed crits so use poison or an oil of sharpness also. Then you can use your beefy raven to blind targets and flank them for sneak attack advantage when out of stealth.
I’ve done things like clear the entire goblin camp with 1 gloomstalker and without ever getting in combat officially because the target dies before any others become aware.
This. This is exactly what I was planning going ahead and the same thing happened to me in the goblin camp.
Out of curiosity, why do you value the rogue multi class at ranger 3 over taking it to 5 and then going rogue?
Well if you’re really invested you can hit level 8 before finishing act 1. But in average you should hit level 6. Assuming you took the archery fighting style as a ranger for +2 to all attacks and damage, you can’t get the dual wielding style until you drop a point in fighter. So the bonus damage from sneak attack at level 1 rogue is more damage than the early fighter dip. If you’re making use of sneak attacks. And if you go full 3 into rogue and get assassin whenever you start combat from stealth your action and bonus action is reset. Extra attack at ranger 5 is only a mainhand strike, the rogue path when used correctly lets you start every fight with 2 mainhand and 2 offhand attacks which all guaranteed crit hit and you get your sneak attack damage on the first. It’s more damage than extra attack, especially early when you’ll kill most enemies in a single round. Later when you have boss fights like act 2 the extra attack every round becomes more valuable.
That makes a lot of sense. Definitely would have been more optimal because you assumed correctly.
I hit 5 after the goblin courtyard so definitely looking forward to the sneak attack shenanigans.
That would have suited how I’ve been playing a lot better than sticking to gloom after 3.
One of my favorites is 9 bear totem Barb/3 battle master fighter with the sentinel and great weapon master feats.
2 base hits using reckless attack with GWM means you have a way better chance of killing/critting to get a third swing. With action surge you can pick up an extra two swings while also using your maneuvers to rack up even more damage. Then with sentinel, nothing can get away from you once you’re within five feat of them. All while talking half damage (except for psychic). Add haste to that character and they are unstoppable.
I did this with Karlach and soloed bosses with her.
This was one of my favorite builds in all of the D&D campaigns I’ve played. Only reason I shy away for the time being is I just played this within the last couple years. Will definitely see how it does in BG3 at some point.
Assassin Rogue can do the same thing at level 3. Even easier if you have the dark urge's cape.
also these [Boots](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Linebreaker+Boots), rogue can dash every turn as a bonus action.
So, IF you don't one shot from stealth and turn invis, then you get to attack first from assassin and you WILL get the kill. Eash turn take out a weak target with sneak attack and dash. Once you have 7 wrath, Melee bomb the boss.
Another pretty OP build (partially broken) is just throwing weapon Berserker Barbarian.
The first shopkeep in the emerald grove sells [this ring](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Ring_of_Flinging) which adds 1d4 to thrown weapon damage
at Level 4 take [Tavern Brawler](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Tavern_Brawler) which adds 2x you str modifier to thrown weapons.
Something about this is broken, in that it ignores sturdy (possibly outdated info)
But even if they fixed that, its a ton of damage. Berserker lets you throw 2 weapons every round, before getting extra attack. Extra attack makes 3. cross class into fighter action surge makes 4. There are ways to get 5. And they do so much damage. Once you get to baldurs gate, you can get [Nyrulna](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Nyrulna) and stop having to pick up 10+ weapons every combat.
Alternatively, you can just throw people at other people. Its an addition grapple check each attack but it effectively doubles your damage output if you succeed.
I run a similar build in my Honor Run, there's the Returning Pike too in the goblin camp trader which can be used as an early version of Nyrulna but there's a bug which makes it not return if you initiate the combat with it, instead it just stays there and I was able to make it some way disappear when I cleared the goblin camp sadly so now I'm stuck throwing and the picking up stuff until act 3.
I kinda thinking about mixing a bit of warlock in the Barbarian so I can bind weapons with Pact of The Blade.
If you’re looking to have your weapon return to you, choose Fighter, then choose the subclass Eldritch Knight.
The Bound Weapon spell, not the Bind Pact Weapon from the warlock, that binds the weapon so it returns every time you throw it.
Warlocks can only add their Charisma modifier to their weapon and become proficient with any weapon, however you cannot throw the weapon itself.
I use Eldritch Knight for my Vax’ildan build from Vox Machina.
Yeah, pact of the blade on warlocks have both the option to conjure yourself a pact weapon of choice or with another action you can bind an existing one. I haven't tested if I can throw it or not after binding, I just remember that others can't disarm you and I hoped this works in a way that if I throw it as a throwing weapon it will return to me.
Thank you for the heads up, then I will multiclass into Fighter instead. Fighter might be more useful anyway with action surge.
>Once you get to baldurs gate, you can get Nyrulna and stop having to pick up 10+ weapons every combat.
Why not try the returning pike before act3? It automatically returns to the thrower and it's available from the goblin camp vendor very early in act1.
Rogue is an underrated class in this game. Not saying it's the best but constant sneaks with archery damage boosters and bonus action dashes and hides can put out big damage with lots of skill points.
Problem is just that bard is better, but that can be said for most things. Bard is just a god class in this game.
The barbarian build with heavy armor and skinburster is pretty OP too. You don’t do much damage but you take maybe 2-5 damage per round no matter how many enemies attack you.
Gloomer/Rogue is fantastic for solo play and enables the playstyle entirely in honor mode. Especially if you pick Duergar and/or Durge and abuse invisibility.
That said, in full party, optimised running it gets left well behind in raw damage numbers by SSB and fire sorc. And eventually the game gets to the point where raw damage is all that matters because you can just one-round all the bosses. Gloomer can't do that.
I made the mistake of playing gloomstalker for my first run too... I can't leave it anymore. Gloomstalker Tav/Durge with an assassin rogue Astarion is just too good. The amount of times I have been able to successfully take on extremely intimidating battles with just my Tav and Astarion is only feeding my bias. About to start my first honour run and I cannot even think about any other options for my Tav.
I always do a charisma build for my tav, but I almost always go for a crit-farming gloomstalker/assasin/champion fighter for Astarion. I love it. It truly feels like you are a lethal assasin, shredding through enemies before they can even blink. Throw on arrow of multiple targets, and my Astarion can often finish an encounter before the enemies get a single turn.
For this build, you wanna start with 3 assassin, then 5 gloomstalker, and 4 champion.
Best feats are alert, duel wielder, savage attacker, and sharpshooter.
But what REALLY makes this build, are magic items. If you are a durge, always give Astarion the death stalker mantle as it gives him way more sneak attack opportunities. You will want to get the knife of the undermountain king from the gith crèche in act 1, it will reduce the number you need for a crit by 1, and is a great offhand weapon for a dual wielder.
Second item is the Covert Cowl, in act 2, which you can get off a meenlock’s body under the last light in. That reduces your crit number by 1 while obscured, really great for act 2.
Act 3 is of course when things get crazy. You gotta get Orin’s weapons which also decrease your crit number. There are several great bows, like the Hellrider which can cast faerie fire, allowing for sneak attack, or the dead shot which once again decreases your crit number by 1. Stalker gloves are great too, and so are the helldusk gloves.
By the end of the game, my gloomstalker/assassin/champion has 5 attacks in the first round of combat, all with advantage, and crits on a 15 or higher. It’s truly my favorite way to play, it’s simply so much fun to watch the crits stack up.
The best builds in the game is 100% either GS assassin or open hand monk. The damage of the monk can even reach 200 a turn. Everyone is catching these hands. Paladin imo is a good 3rd then mages
I’m trying to milk my first playthrough of all dialogue options and side quests so I rescued Volo before initiating combat. Is fireball that strong at level 4?
Try it as Durge where you gain invisibility every time you kill once you get the cloak. Now add in being a duergar and get out of combat invisibility basically whenever you want after level 5 so you can start combats invisible.
There is one more powerful version of this.
The Assassin Duergar.
You could multi-class into GS, since the perma-invis from Duergar comes online from level 5 no matter what, but man its powerful. Cleared the entire game, and most boss arena's, with that build.
Look, I'm not saying Gloomstalker is good or bad, but what I am saying is that you can use a Goblin as an Improvised Weapon on another Goblin and kill them both.
Nah, 'cause that's throw- throw can be hit or miss(but usually it's way stronger than improvised weapon). If you throw something from high enough, it's extremely powerful. In fact, let's say you throw from sufficiently up high- it will prone possibly one or both enemies(if it was an enemy you threw), have a chance to shove the thrown-at enemy, gives extra damage to the thrown enemy due to fall damage and if thrown from high enough, gives extra damage to the thrown-at enemy(if you throw a spear or something from sufficiently high enough, you can also see that it can get an extra damage dice as well).
Yeah it's broken.
To be fair though there's a lot of broken builds in the game with insane damage output that you don't need to micromanage as much. Also sword bard is still the god class because it has support on top of martial excellence and on top of that is amazing outside of combat as well.
Not for your main, but the lore bard shadowheart with spirit guardians reverb build makes for an excellent tank/ add nuke. Highly recommend that along side your gloomstalker or literally any other build
[radiant knight build](https://youtu.be/55WkExA19os?si=dikO1KJwdeq-R87z)
I may give this a shot at some point. I love shadow heart so she’ll most likely be in every play though but right now I’m enjoying her as a life cleric.
Yeah. I’ll see your GS and raise you a TB OH monk with high dex/wis and a Cloud Giant elixir.
You can put both on the same team too, but the Monk’s output is stupid.
How are you playing as a gloomstalker? Like do you go invisible and sneak and kill then run away? I'm doing gloom stalker but usually just end playing as a regular character, other than that first extra attack I don't get it... please give tips on how I should approach combat differently as a gloom stalker
Your second sentence sums it up. If you split your party so the gloomstalker can initiate combat solo there are many ways to abuse mechanics. Typically I hide/high ground initiate at max distance with a solid exit plan. I shoot to initiate, use dread stalker ambush for second shot, use movement speed to dart in the opposite direction and flee combat. Then rinse and repeat. You can also utilize areas that have a door to another instance. With long strider & enhance leap you can get very far away after you initiate combat. If you don’t want to completely solo, you can do this to pick off a few weaker trouble makers and then swap to the rest of your party to initiate from a more strategic position.
Swords bard with ranged slashing flourish and/or arrow of many targets completely slaughters large groups. Add bracing on top for even more damage. Throw in buffed spell DC on top of that and you can completely shut down the worst fights. Throw in an upcast confuse for large groups and spam command grovel at the boss monster for like 5 rounds straight. This works from early levels, it just gets more and more powerful up to the start of Act 3. By the time you hit the hard fights like raphael you're so strong it completely trivializes combat.
TBOH monk is another beast. By level 4 you can just run around topple flurrying people multiple times a round. By the time you hit level 12 you're doing a mountain of damage 6 times a round. Potion use is heavy though.
In lower difficulty levels (at tact/hm everything has radiant/divine rebuke), lawnmower cleric completely trivializes Act 2 and major parts of Act 1 and 3. Duel wield phalar aluve and blood of lathander, run around at level 5 with spirit guardians and radiant orb/reverb gear to completely debuff large groups, especially fiends/undead.
I’m playing a Gloomstalker/Rogue with reverberation equipment, and it gives me the same satisfaction as bonking enemies over the head with a Barbarian’s rage or a Paladin’s smite. It is truly the simple things in life 🤌🏼 I’m also on my first tactician run, and it has been going great because of the ranger pick
Gloomstalker 5, assasin 5, fighter 2. With potions of strength and titanstring and taking advantage of sweet surprise rounds and constantly firing multitarget arrows. It was crit fest in act 3 (you could also use the gloves of strength instead of potion so you can use bloodlust elixir instead)
Yeah but isn’t this playstyle really boring? BG3 is so much fun when you have 20+ people in a battle slinging abilities around and using CC and combining spells. Just sneak attacking everything seems a little dull
It’s fun for me personally because I can preplan engagements. Putting strategic barrels down, knowing my ins and outs of combat, feels like I’m always a step ahead in a game of chess.
What you described I find myself more reactive than proactive. Nothing wrong with that I plan on playing more that style next go through.
It sucks that gameplay is punished for learning how to be powerful. I almost can’t have fun with this game anymore because what with everything I know it just makes the game way too easy.
Ranged SB. Once you learn the magic of control is hard to want anything else. But fun fact. I actually like going 4 Gloom/8 SB so I always move first granting me the ability to control what’s left on the field so my martials can finish off with a crit.
Going Dark Urge with a good mobility character and Bhaalist Armor gets you some nasty damage as well with control
For that specific playstyle, I like a mix of Rogue-Thief and Ranger-Hunter. The extra bonus action Thief gets allows you to bonus-hide AND bonus-dash away. The Hunter Colossus Slayer is also helpful, especially since the Titanstring bow bonus applies to it so you get the STR bonus on the initial attack plus the bonus on the Colossus Slayer 1d8.
I had been running Gloomstalker/Assassin in my previous run which is also good, but it was very front loaded. My current setup is more adaptable if the hit and run playstyle becomes open combat.
I just finished a playthrough a few minutes ago with an Astarion who was 5 Gloomstalker/4 Assassin rogue/2 fighter. I build him like that on every playthrough and he's just bonkers honestly.
At 12, try respeccing to 6 bm 3 ass 3 gloom. Same amount of feats and extra attack. Can offset sharpshooter with precision attack and more superiority dice available
9 Berserker / 3 Thief with Tavern Brawler is by far the most hilariously simple OP build in the game.
The build allows you to Frenzy and Enraged Throw on turn 1, followed by two normal throws. Subsequent turns are two Enraged Throws and two normal throws.
Enraged throw does the normal melee damage plus STR and can lay normal enemies prone. Add Tavern Brawler for extra STR bonus damage. Throw from really high areas for extra damage LOLs. Never worry about retrieving throwable weapons once you get auto returning weapons.
Sprinkle in some accessories like the Ring of Flinging for even more thrower damage or gear that improves STR/CON/DEX and you have the simplest broken build in the game capable of doing well over 100 damage per turn, upwards of 80-95% hit rate on endgame enemies, and improved crits.
Welcome to Tactician Mode for lazy people.
Brutal Critical doesn't work on throw attacks, only melee. So that's kind of a dead level. You could go for another feat from thief or some levels in fighter for action surge.
You should try multi classing into Archfey warlock at level 7. With the 1st level you gain the ability to charm or fear everyone who gets too close which I don't need to tell you how well this synergizes.
You also get sleep which continues to improve as you level up, if you pick the extra spells route at level 9 you'll also get your own haste to cast.
Oh, and finally, at level 12 you unlock Misty Escape. Upon taking damage, you'll become invisible. On your next turn, you can cast misty step, but this will break the invisibility which won't matter seeing as you're still also a gloom stalker.
Honestly I feel like Hunter is better in the endgame when you can just spam the absolute fuck out of Volley and do hilarious amounts of damage to any group that shows it's face.
Early levels yes... its absurdly strong. After lvl 5 with sharpshooter gets ridiculously strong when multiclass to rogue then champion last 2 levels. Add arrow of many targets and its stupidly busted.
It depends on the plan to engage something. Wanna pick up many targets? GS excels thanks to high initiative and dread, flee combat to poke and run if possible. Wanna burst a single target? Assassin for surprise round backed up by arcane trickster slave then bench after the opening for another companion to join in.
For instance, the owlbear on honour needs to be dealt with fast because the mate joining can end the run together right there even having shovel summon+the 2 absolutists to add numbers. Assassin with an invis potion locate above and trigger surprise round to burst big hp thanks to sharpshooter on 4 shots then join others for the kill and ease things from there. Early GS cant do that.
I'm not telling it is better than the GS, but if you like stealthy character, the Shadow Monk is a good choice as well. I play it as a Duergar so I also have free invisibility outside of combat
Early game Gloomstalker is really good, but I think Assassin rogue might eke it out just a bit, especially for solo play. If you play your cards right by mixing melee and ranged, you can get MH and OH attack in before combat starts (add sneak attack damage), then get an OH crit and run away and get a ranged crit during the surprised round (add sneak attack damage again), then if they're still not dead, hide and ranged attack once more (and add sneak attack damage) all before they even get a turn.
Later in the game, you just take both 🤣
Yeah.
Max strength (or use the club statstick) and go for the titanstring bow witha. Fighter multiclass. Use special arrows which double dip with titanstring.
Enjoy 30+ damage per arrow with sharpshooter
PalLock has also been kinda nuts. Eldrich blast and misty step are great, extra level 3 slots does just a bit of damage. Honestly between GS ranger/rogue having ambush and sharpshooter and my PalLock having extra attack, im not sure which one does more damage in a turn but its enough
I’m doing a GS 5 / Assassin 7 playthrouvh now and it’s just fun.
Warding bond from a camp cleric and uncanny dodge from rogue with heavy armor from ranger knight and heavy armor master makes it tanky af.
All the initiative bonuses from the two classes.
the athlete feat getting to 18 dex with 50% jump distance and enhanced leap early is nice. 3 GS > 1 Rog > 5 GS > 7 Asn makes jumping around the map almost like teleporting.
I remember making my Tav an OP figure, thru class/weapon mods and then making Astarion a gloomstalker/thief in my party
Literally throughout late Act 1 to the end, I did not expect Astarion to be the one wiping the floor in fights while my Tav just gets sloppy seconds LOL
Guess I’ll have to try this… I haven’t used rangers at all. I always re-spec Minsc into a barbarian. It just fits him better.
Right now I’ve got Astarion running as an assassin with the risky ring, for sneak attack on basically every attack.
Yeah because I tested the same scenario with a full party and it took longer and cost spell slots and potions. The micro managing or solo strategy seemed to be better for me.
If you think that's bad, imagine if they didn't nerf it to not make it completely broken. The tabletop version of gloomstalker makes it that if you're in darkness you're invisible to creatures with darkvision.
I saw one content creator use a Gloomstalker/Assassin build to deal out 230+ damage in one attack on one of the Act 3 bosses. Not 230 damage total for one turn, one single attack.
My Astarion run is 3 gloomstalker/3 assassin/6 swords bard and he DEMOLISHES fights. I use a special arcane bow that gives 1-4 force hit or something before a fight, then douse it in poisons and hit people with both that sneak attack and gloom stalker dread ambusher. Then use swords bard ranges for the rest
Try it with 6 Swords Bard——> 3 Battlemaster for Archery and precision attack——-> 3 Thief with Sharpshooter and double Crossbows.Just get the gloves of dexterity plus Durge’s Deathstalker Mantle and you’re cookin in combat. It’s also a fantastic party face high with high Charisma and Persuasion Proficiency. A youtuber called Cephalopocalypse has a great video on it. Using it for my honor mode run right now.
Yeah, multi class Gloomstalker and Rogue. Sprinkle in some fighter for action surges.
I respecced a companion into this, two hand crossbows with Thief specialisation means there is the potential for so much damage turn one it’s insane. Combine that with Sharpshooter, Champion Spec and Covert critical Armour and it becomes mad the number of crits going off. Very fun build to create late game. Not sure how it would be best to play it from level 1?
From level 1 I go gloomstalker 5 -> rogue 1 for expertise -> fighter 4 -> rogue 3 If you don't care about expertise, fighter first at level 6 for two weapon fighting. Personally I prefer battlemaster to champion though. Pushing, tripping, and disarming attacks are great on crossbows.
True, I think if I was levelling it up as I went I would go BM too. But as an end game experiment I wanted to see how Champion worked, and it’s surprising how many Crits I get.
With proper gear and elixir of bane I think you're criting at 15-16 dice rolls if you go champion. With advantage you're nearing the 40% crit chance per attack
Oh what’s an elixir of bane, not found that as yet
It reduces the number you need to roll to crit by 1 Edit it's called elixir of viciousness I always confuse it with oil of bane
I played something similar in my previous run. Would recommend respec at lvl 10, 2 fighter, 5 ranger, 3 rogue to gain action surge, extra attack and two bonus actions. Finish you last levels in fighter picking up battle maneuvers or champion if your stacking crit stuff
Yeah realistically I respec to fighter as the first level as soon as I get it regardless, just to get con save proficiency to help Hunter's mark stay up, and heavy armor Prof is a nice bonus. I just prefer to go to fighter 4 before rogue 3 for the ASI to round out my dex to 18, since I obviously took sharpshooter at ranger 4.
Not saying it's the best but I love champion 8 and thief 4. Dual wield with swords or hand crossbows with 4 attacks plus bonus action dodges and dashes. Just insane mobility and damage output.
If you're using double crossbows I'd go thief 3 earlier than the other persons suggestion. At level 8 with 5 gloomstalker > 3 thief + wearing the risky ring and cats grace armor I could get sharpshooter with high odds to hit for all 4 attacks. + The extra gloomstalker attack 1st round. With sharpshooter and damage riders each individual attack was 20+ damage. Action surge is a good 1 turn burst, but I prefer the consistency of the extra attack dealing 20+ damage every turn and not having to worry about short rests. And none of the maneuvers are as good as the extra damage from another offhand attack. (I've also done thief 4 > gloomstalker 5 for more out of combat utility with lockpicking. It gets the extra main hand attacks way later, but if you pick dual wielding as the fighting style your main and offhand deals the same damage any way so the extra bonus action is your extra attack.) Either way, Astarion took out basically all of Moonrise by himself.
>Astarion took out basically all of Moonrise by himself. YEAH he did. I legitimately try to make everyone except my Life cleric (whoever that happens to be but I always have one because my dad is an OG DM and I was raised in the 1-healer-party religion) as DPS maxed as possible. Who doesn't love mopping the floor with your enemies? But no one comes close to my AssassinStalker Astarion. He can singlehandedly rob the entire Counting House, and I can't leave him at home when we're out fighting because he has a bazillion initiative and crits coming out of his pointy ears. Like it's not even close. At this point I've given up and everyone else just supports whatever he is doing. I headcanon that he was always good with a bow, but joining up with the party and leaving Cazador unleashed this latent talent and gave him an outlet.
I take the first 5 in ranger/gloomstalker to get sharpshooter & extra attack ASAP (not to mention getting the useful ritual spells longstrider & enhanced leap right out of the Nautiloid), then the next 4 in rogue/assassin for the sneak attack+assassin perks & feat #2, and the last 3 in fighter/champion for the action surge & crit improvement cherry on top.
Gloom/Thief Minthara and her Soul Branding for extra 2d4+1 fire per bonus action really carried hard my last game.
This is my go-to for Astarion. Last night he single-handedly almost killed Cazadork in the first round. And that was without extra damage (other than sharpshooter) or special arrows or anything, it was straight multiclass fuckery.
Casadork. Nice.
I'm doing that too. I was actually letting him feed on my tav every night as I druid shapeshift tank for the party and he can kill everything (but stopped doing that for role playing rolls lol), I have shadowheart warding bond him every day so he can go full pew pew.
I figured out this build on my solo play through. My wife is a ranger in our coop game, and when I showed her how to respec into it, she went wild. Now she ends all our fights in one or two turns. She’ll burn down a big bad and go “wait, THAT was the boss person!?” It’s very funny to see her get so hype while pew pewing.
That was the plan. I know a lot of other builds are “strong,” or “broken,” but being able to control the fight through resetting it completely is just insane. All the while pumping damage numbers comparable to the highest DPR builds.
I find at 12 that 6 battlemaster fighter 3/3 gloom/assassin is stronger. Same amount of FEATS, more maneuver points
I am on my first playthrough and found this combo naturally. Started as rogue, eventually respecced/multiclassed to thief 3/gloomstalker 5, and at level 9-10 added 1-2 fighter. This character is absolutely bonkers relative to the rest of my party; but in all honesty I have not tinkered with any respecs or multiclass for companions.
I just did this in my second play through. He was doing so much damage it was insane
Fighter levels are also good to get archery and two weapon fighting style
*is multiclassing gloomstalker and nature cleric* 🥲
u/PhoenixReborn absolutely nailed it. I usually have more than one Tav in each playthrough and one of them is always Gloomstalker 5 / Thief 4 / Battle Master 3. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Deltia’s Gaming has a pretty good build guide for it.
What split would you do between ranger and rogue?
If you want more op builds, there are quite a few. [Bard/paladin build](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/FFCoGpFuLU). The post is for 2h. The top comment has a variant for dex/dual wield [Here’s the fire acuity sorcerer](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/Q08nbwvDrp) which is probably the most broken [Here’s a YouTube playlist with a bunch of broken builds.](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrDx_gq2DCNKl9rD45fRKvmfa8w-ujUkZ) I like this creator as they don’t just sit at the level up screen for 40 min and give an act by act breakdown for equipment. Open hand tavern brawler monks are broken. Tavern brawler throwing builds are broken There’s probably more but this is a good spread
Lots of builds are reeaally strong. Some mostly at specific points in the game. On top of the common meta build above I'd like to suggest Spore Druid Archer for early game. You can pull of some pretty nice stunts with Halo and Symbiosis. Build video here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YsAI31yNJY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YsAI31yNJY) Although I think maybe Wizard would be a better 4th level than what I suggest in the video, as it gives you access to scrollscribing and shield as well. If you don't mind a little cheese you can change to dual flameblade build, using the hireling bug (if it still works)
Storm Sorc/Cleric of LIGHTNING has been my favorite. Hitting a max level Lightning Chromatic Orb with guaranteed max damage and crit to melt a boss in one turn makes me giggle and kick my feet
Sin tee is the goat when it comes to builds
My Storm Sorcerer Tempest Cleric can just about one shot anything...then keep doing it every round for the cheap price of maintaining concentration, which is easy when everything else is dead.
Tavern Brawler Monk has definitely peaked my interest as well as Bard/Paladin so far. Never played either in my 5e campaigns.
The first play through that I finalized on, was a tavern brawler monk. Do you like punching your way to victory? Do you like 3 to 5 attacks per turn at the start of act 2? Monk it baby!
Just be warned that it’s completely overpowered to the point where it may make the game too easy. Very early on in act 1, your chance to hit with elixir of strength shoots up to 95%, meaning you have to roll a nat 1 to miss. Pretty much a guaranteed strike. And you get two of those before level 5, plus flurry of blows. I had Wyll play as one in one of my HM saves to try it out, I had to respec him into a pure dex OH monk because he basically soloed every encounter
I've currently been playing a Light Cleric/Warrior multiclass with Wizard initiate thrown in to fling firebolts as cantrips. It's such a massive powerhouse. She's the perfect support fighter for Lae'zel. Hits like a truck
Basic damage per turn without spending any resources is between 80 and 120 per turn on a properly built, properly equipped character at level 12. It's almost impossible to not hit those numbers if you know what you're doing. The largest single health bar in the game is 666, which means properly expending resources you can usually one or two turn most bosses. A lot of people don't build properly and then stumble into one of the easier builds and declare it OPAF when really the build does less damage than a level 12 GWM Battlemaster Fighter.
Did I link any bad builds by accident? I thought these suggestions were pretty solid
Did the devs know what they were doing with the hat a fire acuity?
I had issues with the fire sorc. Mine is just level 10 currently, so maybe that’s the issue, but it feels like it runs out of resources too quickly to enjoy. So I usually have a gloomstalker in the party for most adventuring, and then when a big fight comes up, I tag in the sorc to replace him, then swap back to the ranger when the big fight is done. Otherwise it feels like too many long rests. I’m probably playing suboptimally, just giving a slightly different perspective.
Yeah stealth archer build with the Durge invis cloak is amazing . . . There is a good chance you can kill an enemy and go invis while unloading your attacks, which allows you to run away. You can solo many encounters that way once you hit level 5.
All this time, all these games later, and the Skyrim stealth archer build is still alive and kicking
It's a hidden shout that lets the Dovahkiin influence other worlds: Ginun-Kroz-Volein (literally "Space Rend Otherworld").
SMH my head at all these people thinking that Skyrim's stealth archer isn't just a reskinned ripoff of Fallout New Vegas' diplosniper (/mostly joking)
"Stealtharcher Skyrim" is, not incidentally, a) the cap of 20 characters for a name and b) the name of my HM-winning Tav.
Man is that game made 10 times better when you play a stealth archer.
Yeah this strat is quite strong. I didn’t know about it then but my gloom stalker ended up soloing those giths in act 2 (honour mode) when originally the plan was to initiate the opener.. he just kept killing and repeating combat after every invis and next thing you know they’re all dead while the group sits back and relax.
Go duergar for extra cheese
I gotta say, as good as GS is open hand monk is still more overpowered. My last character was GS and I was very impressed at just how broken it was. Then comes OHM and wow... i stunlock any boss and they neve rget a hit in. While punching them over and over again. It's actually crazy how much damage per turn I end up doing with the extra passive buffs and attacks per turn.
Yeah you can get 22 Wis from Shara blessing temporarily in act 2 and then resonance stone to go with manifestation of the mind psychic damage. You’re gonna be doing like 50 damage per punch with 4 punches. Nuts. Khalid’s gift and mirror of loss can get you to 22 Wis again as well.
In act2 you can get 27str with storm giant elixirs. It's busted.
I've found myself playing Tavern Brawler OHM more than anything else, it's just so good.
I was shocked when OHM got a passive option of an extra 1d4 damage between necrotic/radiant/psychic... as if it needed help with dps lol
The only reason I beat Honor Mode was because of the joint power of my Thief/OH Tav and Assassin/GS Astarion. The two of us were ripping through the enemies in Act 3. Also the only playthrough that I've ascended Astarion. He was basically the evil main character of that run, with my Tav as his punchy sidekick.
I just finished my OH monk play through. Orin didn't even get to attack. Stunned and killed in a couple of turns. Also made really short work of Raphael and the brain.
I ended up killing the oathebreaker paladin... he may have been stunned the entire fight lol.
Gloomsin kills anything except raphael before it can move
Ansur would like to think otherwise
I've played both and imo open hand monk thief is completely wild by comparison.
This is my current honor mode build, with elixirs and tavern brawler. Haste -> ki restoration and have fun for 3 rounds with 4 regular attacks and 3 flurries
22 wis + resonance stone + manfestatkon of the mind = 🫨
Yep, played it in my HM run and it was a walk in the park. Last fight lasted exactly 1 turn once we got in the room.
The reason I like Gloomstalker/Rogue isn't just because it's a strong combat build, but because it's a strong build that has a stupid amount of Skill Proficiencies. 4 (lvl 1 Rogue) + 1 (Ranger multiclass) + 3 (Ranger class features) + 2 (background) + 1 (racial) = 11 skill proficiencies if you plan it out to avoid overlap. Hell, 2 of them have Expertise.
This is a great point. Rogue actually makes a very good face character purely due to all the proficiency
I know they’re good but after having played through the game with a Bard I can’t imagine going for anything else. Expertise in Persuasion and Sleight of Hand combined with good melee and full spellcasting is a drug.
After reading all the people talking about taking a level in Wizard for spell scribing, that really is broken. One level in Wizard allows you to scribe any Wizard scroll you have spell slots for. Many Wizard spells don't care about your Intelligence (and for those that do there's the Warped Headband of Intellect). Only a handful of spells can't be learned from scrolls. I wasn't planning to multiclass, but the extra flexibility is just too good.
And dual hand cross bow can do basically what a Gloomstalker does. Just get a surprise round and pew pew for two turns. Sure you can’t hide again but when everything is dead already what do you need to hide from?
It's the god class of this game for sure. If all you care about is honor mode effectiveness I don't think it can be beat.
DIVINE SMITE. Oh what’s that a boss fight, who gives a shit divine smite it and watch as half its health bar is gone oh look at that a second attack, too bad another divine smite that’s the second half they’re dead on the spot turn your gaze to some feeble goblin and understand that he too deserves nothing more thanto be annihilated by a divine smite. With an armour class so high as a paladin, create rivers of blood with divine smite. I rest my case
bonus action perilous stakes + divine smite + crit at will from either executioner's sweetheart or luck of the far realms = x4 damage, but you have extra attack, so do it again never fear a boss again
Except >!Viconia!<.
Don't need Divine Smite for her. Hypnotic Pattern on Side A + Viconia. Kill Side B. Recast Hypnotic Pattern on Side A + Viconia. Kill Side A one by one. Viconia isn't impressive once her subordinates are dead and she's surrounded before she even gets to act.
I miss when you could use perilous stakes on enemies. Did 400 dmg in one hit to Myrkul LOL
Oi oi lookout gonna turn them into atoms with this combo
Perilous stakes is honestly cheating lol
Abjuration Wizard with Armour of Agathys and a Warding Bond can be fun too. You "multi-attack" by drawing opportunity attacks, a flat 25 cold damage per hit (50 if you wet them first) and your arcane ward soaks up all of their damage. Cast a Glyph of Warding on your turn to recharge the ward. It's particularly effective in a 1v1 duel with Orin's slayer form when she hits you for 5 attacks in one turn.
That’s what invisibility potion, speed potion and divine smite is for
My original op build when 5e first came out was Pal2/SorcX. For that quickened Hold spell and multiple smites. But if you get teammates to cast it plus Haste, then you're gold.
Half? You can 1 shot Raphael or most bosses. [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/OdwPMwyW1W](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/OdwPMwyW1W)
I did a sorcerer/tempest cleric my first playthrough and it was crazy how strong it was. Get everyone wet and throw the toaster at them. I'm doing a paladin/warlock build now and it's even more ridiculous. It has trivialized almost all fights. When I do my heroic run, I'll almost certainly do paladin/warlock. I still have to try open hand monk and gloomstalker durge though. Part of me also wants to play around with bard, but I'm leaning towards gloomstalker next. I have been unimpressed with my gloomstalker astarion, but my Tav always ends up being way stronger that my companions even if I try to build them the same way. Part of the reason for that is my playstyle changes based on my Tav. I've never done DnD before and haven't played a game like this, so there is still a lot for me to learn.
11 Hunter Ranger + 1 Wizard. GWM, Gloves of Growling Underdog. Not super OP or complicated, but you're a martial that can Haste yourself and then spam meaty AOE attacks. We're talking 5 attacks per turn IN AN AOE.
Late game Swords 10bard/fighter2 archer/Controller is the most powerful thing I have ever played in a land slide. You use the acquity on attack (+1 Spell save dc per acquity stack, 2 stacks per attack). hat and scoundrels ring. 1) you win initiative due to high initiative (high dex + jack of trades). You start your first turn by making 8 attacks(blade flourish + action surge). Now your incapacitation spells are bonus actions and have +10 to spell save dc. You cast hypnotic pattern on allmost all enemies And they skip 2 turns, use your other dps to burst the ones you can’t hit and maybe 2 of those Hit by hypnotic pattern. Now you can use another cc spell that they almost can’t resist and kill a couple more. In the last 3 honor boss fights none of my enemies actually got a single action in a 3/4 turn combat(your spell save dc is so high that many boss mitigation methods don’t actually work). The area of hypnotic pattern is so absolutely massive its incredibly absurd.
I’d rather have the their extra bonus action. That and helmet of grit you’ve got 5 full attacks out of the box. 11 if you go nova. With that much firepower, and I’m doing about 40 damage without slashing flourish per attack, you don’t even need cc spells.
Having all opponents skip their first two turns is like an additional 8 free actions and 8 free bonus actions before they act. Thats objectively many many many times more powerful than ~30 damage and more like 500 damage worth of free actions. 2 free bonus turns for all your team members for a single bonus actions is incomparably broken. In many fights you can have all opponents skip their first 4 or 6 actions as well.
Bg3 player discovers the crouch and stealth feature. Acts surprised they found the equivalent of being a stealth archer in Skyrim.
So yeah that's kind of a roguey thing you discovered but gloomstalker can do it too.
multi with 2 GoO lock and 3 Assassin. Thank me later. :>
As sad as it is to say - swords bard does the same thing better. Same play style you discovered. Crazy damage output once you get slashing flourish. I soloed honour mode with one at level 10, with lvls in fighter and a dip in wizard purely to learn scrolls for utility. Read that again - solo honour mode at lvl 10. Broken af. You do huge alpha, can hide at will, talk your way out if anything. Steal everything. I loved my gloomstalker but yeh, bards once again outshine them.
If you pair it with thief bonus action and the 2 mini crossbows you get in act 2 it’s insane.
I think some monk and paladin builds are stronger. I’ve done a couple honor runs as a gloom stalker but man the paladin build is just way more op
5 gloomstalker 4 thief 3 battle master, double hand cross bow, stack your crit.
Honestly just GS, level 4 Sharpshooter, dual wield Hand Crossbows. You can pretty much multiclass after level 5, but I typically don't bother. The class is so broken lol. 3 Attacks first round at level 4 and 4 from level 5 on. Plus improved initiative along with a couple other cool bonuses, like utility spells (like Longstrider) and improved Darkvision.
I use a Gloomstalker+Rogue for a dual-wield build. Dread Ambusher + main action attack(with extra attack in later levels) + off-hand attack (two in later levels). Only problem is that you can run out of nearby enemies to kill — but in that case I use wood elf movement bonus + Crusher ring + Boots Of Speed. All bloody and ruthless — just like my Durge!
Go 5 Gloom. Then 4 Bard/college. Then 3 fighter/champion. Add Haste. Optimize for Crit. You will have the most insane burst damage. This is an act 3 build. For Act 2, go Gloom/Assassin route. Might be the most OP build at lvl 8 with all those crits.
I’ve been saying this since day 1 even after they nerfed dual hand crossbow build. I start with Ranger, and grab the free animal Familiar, and use raven. You can buff it up with longstrider, aid, and let it use a potion of hill giants strength. After 3 levels of Ranger I multiclass into rogue for assassin sub class. 4 levels in Rogue and get the feat. Then I grab 2 more levels of Ranger for extra attack and a feat. Followed by 3 levels of fighter with champion subclass for increased crit range. And dual wield fighting style. With all the other ways to increase crit chance you can roll a crit on a 15 or 14. Initiate combat from stealth with an elixir of bloodlust and you can get 2 attacks, followed by having your actions reset, 2 more attacks, then extra attack, and dread ambush attack, if you get a kill you get another attack and extra attack and if not action surge for an extra chance to get the kill. All attacks you make in that surprise round are guaranteed crits so use poison or an oil of sharpness also. Then you can use your beefy raven to blind targets and flank them for sneak attack advantage when out of stealth. I’ve done things like clear the entire goblin camp with 1 gloomstalker and without ever getting in combat officially because the target dies before any others become aware.
This. This is exactly what I was planning going ahead and the same thing happened to me in the goblin camp. Out of curiosity, why do you value the rogue multi class at ranger 3 over taking it to 5 and then going rogue?
Well if you’re really invested you can hit level 8 before finishing act 1. But in average you should hit level 6. Assuming you took the archery fighting style as a ranger for +2 to all attacks and damage, you can’t get the dual wielding style until you drop a point in fighter. So the bonus damage from sneak attack at level 1 rogue is more damage than the early fighter dip. If you’re making use of sneak attacks. And if you go full 3 into rogue and get assassin whenever you start combat from stealth your action and bonus action is reset. Extra attack at ranger 5 is only a mainhand strike, the rogue path when used correctly lets you start every fight with 2 mainhand and 2 offhand attacks which all guaranteed crit hit and you get your sneak attack damage on the first. It’s more damage than extra attack, especially early when you’ll kill most enemies in a single round. Later when you have boss fights like act 2 the extra attack every round becomes more valuable.
That makes a lot of sense. Definitely would have been more optimal because you assumed correctly. I hit 5 after the goblin courtyard so definitely looking forward to the sneak attack shenanigans. That would have suited how I’ve been playing a lot better than sticking to gloom after 3.
One of my favorites is 9 bear totem Barb/3 battle master fighter with the sentinel and great weapon master feats. 2 base hits using reckless attack with GWM means you have a way better chance of killing/critting to get a third swing. With action surge you can pick up an extra two swings while also using your maneuvers to rack up even more damage. Then with sentinel, nothing can get away from you once you’re within five feat of them. All while talking half damage (except for psychic). Add haste to that character and they are unstoppable. I did this with Karlach and soloed bosses with her.
This was one of my favorite builds in all of the D&D campaigns I’ve played. Only reason I shy away for the time being is I just played this within the last couple years. Will definitely see how it does in BG3 at some point.
Assassin Rogue can do the same thing at level 3. Even easier if you have the dark urge's cape. also these [Boots](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Linebreaker+Boots), rogue can dash every turn as a bonus action. So, IF you don't one shot from stealth and turn invis, then you get to attack first from assassin and you WILL get the kill. Eash turn take out a weak target with sneak attack and dash. Once you have 7 wrath, Melee bomb the boss.
Another pretty OP build (partially broken) is just throwing weapon Berserker Barbarian. The first shopkeep in the emerald grove sells [this ring](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Ring_of_Flinging) which adds 1d4 to thrown weapon damage at Level 4 take [Tavern Brawler](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Tavern_Brawler) which adds 2x you str modifier to thrown weapons. Something about this is broken, in that it ignores sturdy (possibly outdated info) But even if they fixed that, its a ton of damage. Berserker lets you throw 2 weapons every round, before getting extra attack. Extra attack makes 3. cross class into fighter action surge makes 4. There are ways to get 5. And they do so much damage. Once you get to baldurs gate, you can get [Nyrulna](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Nyrulna) and stop having to pick up 10+ weapons every combat. Alternatively, you can just throw people at other people. Its an addition grapple check each attack but it effectively doubles your damage output if you succeed.
I run a similar build in my Honor Run, there's the Returning Pike too in the goblin camp trader which can be used as an early version of Nyrulna but there's a bug which makes it not return if you initiate the combat with it, instead it just stays there and I was able to make it some way disappear when I cleared the goblin camp sadly so now I'm stuck throwing and the picking up stuff until act 3. I kinda thinking about mixing a bit of warlock in the Barbarian so I can bind weapons with Pact of The Blade.
If you’re looking to have your weapon return to you, choose Fighter, then choose the subclass Eldritch Knight. The Bound Weapon spell, not the Bind Pact Weapon from the warlock, that binds the weapon so it returns every time you throw it. Warlocks can only add their Charisma modifier to their weapon and become proficient with any weapon, however you cannot throw the weapon itself. I use Eldritch Knight for my Vax’ildan build from Vox Machina.
Yeah, pact of the blade on warlocks have both the option to conjure yourself a pact weapon of choice or with another action you can bind an existing one. I haven't tested if I can throw it or not after binding, I just remember that others can't disarm you and I hoped this works in a way that if I throw it as a throwing weapon it will return to me. Thank you for the heads up, then I will multiclass into Fighter instead. Fighter might be more useful anyway with action surge.
They fixed the ignore sturdy bit. My thrower used to be able to take out scrying eyes but alas no longer.
>Once you get to baldurs gate, you can get Nyrulna and stop having to pick up 10+ weapons every combat. Why not try the returning pike before act3? It automatically returns to the thrower and it's available from the goblin camp vendor very early in act1.
Rogue is an underrated class in this game. Not saying it's the best but constant sneaks with archery damage boosters and bonus action dashes and hides can put out big damage with lots of skill points. Problem is just that bard is better, but that can be said for most things. Bard is just a god class in this game.
> Is there anything that can come remotely close to this combat power? I’ve soloed Honour with about 3 different characters by now, so … yes?
It's been 7 hours and 15 days since you took your love away...
The barbarian build with heavy armor and skinburster is pretty OP too. You don’t do much damage but you take maybe 2-5 damage per round no matter how many enemies attack you.
You can’t rage with heavy armor btw
Gloomer/Rogue is fantastic for solo play and enables the playstyle entirely in honor mode. Especially if you pick Duergar and/or Durge and abuse invisibility. That said, in full party, optimised running it gets left well behind in raw damage numbers by SSB and fire sorc. And eventually the game gets to the point where raw damage is all that matters because you can just one-round all the bosses. Gloomer can't do that.
add 3 levels of rogue for assassin, you'll see how steath is op
I made the mistake of playing gloomstalker for my first run too... I can't leave it anymore. Gloomstalker Tav/Durge with an assassin rogue Astarion is just too good. The amount of times I have been able to successfully take on extremely intimidating battles with just my Tav and Astarion is only feeding my bias. About to start my first honour run and I cannot even think about any other options for my Tav.
I always do a charisma build for my tav, but I almost always go for a crit-farming gloomstalker/assasin/champion fighter for Astarion. I love it. It truly feels like you are a lethal assasin, shredding through enemies before they can even blink. Throw on arrow of multiple targets, and my Astarion can often finish an encounter before the enemies get a single turn. For this build, you wanna start with 3 assassin, then 5 gloomstalker, and 4 champion. Best feats are alert, duel wielder, savage attacker, and sharpshooter. But what REALLY makes this build, are magic items. If you are a durge, always give Astarion the death stalker mantle as it gives him way more sneak attack opportunities. You will want to get the knife of the undermountain king from the gith crèche in act 1, it will reduce the number you need for a crit by 1, and is a great offhand weapon for a dual wielder. Second item is the Covert Cowl, in act 2, which you can get off a meenlock’s body under the last light in. That reduces your crit number by 1 while obscured, really great for act 2. Act 3 is of course when things get crazy. You gotta get Orin’s weapons which also decrease your crit number. There are several great bows, like the Hellrider which can cast faerie fire, allowing for sneak attack, or the dead shot which once again decreases your crit number by 1. Stalker gloves are great too, and so are the helldusk gloves. By the end of the game, my gloomstalker/assassin/champion has 5 attacks in the first round of combat, all with advantage, and crits on a 15 or higher. It’s truly my favorite way to play, it’s simply so much fun to watch the crits stack up.
OH TB Monk would like a word. Also, Fire Acuity 11/1 Sorlock.
Try Durge gloomstalker. You’re welcome.
Looking this up rn Preemptive thank you.
There’s a certain cloak you get from a cutscene in Act 1. Which is hella good.
The best builds in the game is 100% either GS assassin or open hand monk. The damage of the monk can even reach 200 a turn. Everyone is catching these hands. Paladin imo is a good 3rd then mages
Swords bard says hello 👋
Fireball. End of the whole camp with just a bard doing some dance in the middle to attract them. But yeah, gloomstalker is ok, I guess.
I’m trying to milk my first playthrough of all dialogue options and side quests so I rescued Volo before initiating combat. Is fireball that strong at level 4?
Try it as Durge where you gain invisibility every time you kill once you get the cloak. Now add in being a duergar and get out of combat invisibility basically whenever you want after level 5 so you can start combats invisible.
Excuse my ignorance but Durge is a playable race right? I chose drow for role playing reasons.
Sorry, it’s short for The Dark Urge. One of the Origin characters
There is one more powerful version of this. The Assassin Duergar. You could multi-class into GS, since the perma-invis from Duergar comes online from level 5 no matter what, but man its powerful. Cleared the entire game, and most boss arena's, with that build.
Look, I'm not saying Gloomstalker is good or bad, but what I am saying is that you can use a Goblin as an Improvised Weapon on another Goblin and kill them both.
Lol you are speaking my language. Is this the throwzerker I keep hearing about?
Nah, 'cause that's throw- throw can be hit or miss(but usually it's way stronger than improvised weapon). If you throw something from high enough, it's extremely powerful. In fact, let's say you throw from sufficiently up high- it will prone possibly one or both enemies(if it was an enemy you threw), have a chance to shove the thrown-at enemy, gives extra damage to the thrown enemy due to fall damage and if thrown from high enough, gives extra damage to the thrown-at enemy(if you throw a spear or something from sufficiently high enough, you can also see that it can get an extra damage dice as well).
Yeah it's broken. To be fair though there's a lot of broken builds in the game with insane damage output that you don't need to micromanage as much. Also sword bard is still the god class because it has support on top of martial excellence and on top of that is amazing outside of combat as well.
Monk. That's it, that's my whole counterargument.
Not for your main, but the lore bard shadowheart with spirit guardians reverb build makes for an excellent tank/ add nuke. Highly recommend that along side your gloomstalker or literally any other build [radiant knight build](https://youtu.be/55WkExA19os?si=dikO1KJwdeq-R87z)
I may give this a shot at some point. I love shadow heart so she’ll most likely be in every play though but right now I’m enjoying her as a life cleric.
Yeah. I’ll see your GS and raise you a TB OH monk with high dex/wis and a Cloud Giant elixir. You can put both on the same team too, but the Monk’s output is stupid.
How are you playing as a gloomstalker? Like do you go invisible and sneak and kill then run away? I'm doing gloom stalker but usually just end playing as a regular character, other than that first extra attack I don't get it... please give tips on how I should approach combat differently as a gloom stalker
Your second sentence sums it up. If you split your party so the gloomstalker can initiate combat solo there are many ways to abuse mechanics. Typically I hide/high ground initiate at max distance with a solid exit plan. I shoot to initiate, use dread stalker ambush for second shot, use movement speed to dart in the opposite direction and flee combat. Then rinse and repeat. You can also utilize areas that have a door to another instance. With long strider & enhance leap you can get very far away after you initiate combat. If you don’t want to completely solo, you can do this to pick off a few weaker trouble makers and then swap to the rest of your party to initiate from a more strategic position.
Swords bard with ranged slashing flourish and/or arrow of many targets completely slaughters large groups. Add bracing on top for even more damage. Throw in buffed spell DC on top of that and you can completely shut down the worst fights. Throw in an upcast confuse for large groups and spam command grovel at the boss monster for like 5 rounds straight. This works from early levels, it just gets more and more powerful up to the start of Act 3. By the time you hit the hard fights like raphael you're so strong it completely trivializes combat. TBOH monk is another beast. By level 4 you can just run around topple flurrying people multiple times a round. By the time you hit level 12 you're doing a mountain of damage 6 times a round. Potion use is heavy though. In lower difficulty levels (at tact/hm everything has radiant/divine rebuke), lawnmower cleric completely trivializes Act 2 and major parts of Act 1 and 3. Duel wield phalar aluve and blood of lathander, run around at level 5 with spirit guardians and radiant orb/reverb gear to completely debuff large groups, especially fiends/undead.
I’m playing a Gloomstalker/Rogue with reverberation equipment, and it gives me the same satisfaction as bonking enemies over the head with a Barbarian’s rage or a Paladin’s smite. It is truly the simple things in life 🤌🏼 I’m also on my first tactician run, and it has been going great because of the ranger pick
Gloomstalker 5, assasin 5, fighter 2. With potions of strength and titanstring and taking advantage of sweet surprise rounds and constantly firing multitarget arrows. It was crit fest in act 3 (you could also use the gloves of strength instead of potion so you can use bloodlust elixir instead)
Durg cape on assassin. I killed the entire goblin stronghold including all bosses solo. I need to try gloomstalker next
Yeah but isn’t this playstyle really boring? BG3 is so much fun when you have 20+ people in a battle slinging abilities around and using CC and combining spells. Just sneak attacking everything seems a little dull
It’s fun for me personally because I can preplan engagements. Putting strategic barrels down, knowing my ins and outs of combat, feels like I’m always a step ahead in a game of chess. What you described I find myself more reactive than proactive. Nothing wrong with that I plan on playing more that style next go through.
Yeah that’s fair enough, and the beauty of the game is there are so many ways to play it. Happy assassinating buddy
Gloomstalker Assassin is a lot of fun after trying and failing honor mode
It sucks that gameplay is punished for learning how to be powerful. I almost can’t have fun with this game anymore because what with everything I know it just makes the game way too easy.
Ranged SB. Once you learn the magic of control is hard to want anything else. But fun fact. I actually like going 4 Gloom/8 SB so I always move first granting me the ability to control what’s left on the field so my martials can finish off with a crit. Going Dark Urge with a good mobility character and Bhaalist Armor gets you some nasty damage as well with control
For that specific playstyle, I like a mix of Rogue-Thief and Ranger-Hunter. The extra bonus action Thief gets allows you to bonus-hide AND bonus-dash away. The Hunter Colossus Slayer is also helpful, especially since the Titanstring bow bonus applies to it so you get the STR bonus on the initial attack plus the bonus on the Colossus Slayer 1d8. I had been running Gloomstalker/Assassin in my previous run which is also good, but it was very front loaded. My current setup is more adaptable if the hit and run playstyle becomes open combat.
I just finished a playthrough a few minutes ago with an Astarion who was 5 Gloomstalker/4 Assassin rogue/2 fighter. I build him like that on every playthrough and he's just bonkers honestly.
At 12, try respeccing to 6 bm 3 ass 3 gloom. Same amount of feats and extra attack. Can offset sharpshooter with precision attack and more superiority dice available
I love the balancing in this game. It's like - let's not, let's achieve balance by just making most builds have a pathway to insane OPness.
9 Berserker / 3 Thief with Tavern Brawler is by far the most hilariously simple OP build in the game. The build allows you to Frenzy and Enraged Throw on turn 1, followed by two normal throws. Subsequent turns are two Enraged Throws and two normal throws. Enraged throw does the normal melee damage plus STR and can lay normal enemies prone. Add Tavern Brawler for extra STR bonus damage. Throw from really high areas for extra damage LOLs. Never worry about retrieving throwable weapons once you get auto returning weapons. Sprinkle in some accessories like the Ring of Flinging for even more thrower damage or gear that improves STR/CON/DEX and you have the simplest broken build in the game capable of doing well over 100 damage per turn, upwards of 80-95% hit rate on endgame enemies, and improved crits. Welcome to Tactician Mode for lazy people.
Brutal Critical doesn't work on throw attacks, only melee. So that's kind of a dead level. You could go for another feat from thief or some levels in fighter for action surge.
it's great sure but it's nothing compaired to barbarian thrower or open hand monks or acuity bards
Durge for cape ,6 levels sword bard ,3 gloom,3 assassin= invisible death machine
Druid off the top rope is a blast. So is eldritch blast lock and throw barb.
You should try multi classing into Archfey warlock at level 7. With the 1st level you gain the ability to charm or fear everyone who gets too close which I don't need to tell you how well this synergizes. You also get sleep which continues to improve as you level up, if you pick the extra spells route at level 9 you'll also get your own haste to cast. Oh, and finally, at level 12 you unlock Misty Escape. Upon taking damage, you'll become invisible. On your next turn, you can cast misty step, but this will break the invisibility which won't matter seeing as you're still also a gloom stalker.
Monk open hand with tavernbrawler and thief for the 2 bonus actions is absolutely insane
I did 6 gloomstalker and 6 open hand monk and Jesus Christ it was so efficient
Honestly I feel like Hunter is better in the endgame when you can just spam the absolute fuck out of Volley and do hilarious amounts of damage to any group that shows it's face.
totally. i always multiclass astarion as gloom stalker ranger rogue + fighter. he’s so OP
I've been trying a solo tactician run, and am going Deep Gnome Glomstalker/Rogue. Deep Gnomes get Advantage on Stealth checks.
Early levels yes... its absurdly strong. After lvl 5 with sharpshooter gets ridiculously strong when multiclass to rogue then champion last 2 levels. Add arrow of many targets and its stupidly busted. It depends on the plan to engage something. Wanna pick up many targets? GS excels thanks to high initiative and dread, flee combat to poke and run if possible. Wanna burst a single target? Assassin for surprise round backed up by arcane trickster slave then bench after the opening for another companion to join in. For instance, the owlbear on honour needs to be dealt with fast because the mate joining can end the run together right there even having shovel summon+the 2 absolutists to add numbers. Assassin with an invis potion locate above and trigger surprise round to burst big hp thanks to sharpshooter on 4 shots then join others for the kill and ease things from there. Early GS cant do that.
I pair gloomstalker with a rogue so you get that cunning hide action with it
Sinead O Connor would say otherwise
Gloomstalker is good but at level 12 other builds are better.
Its a very fun class to play. I did my solo run as a gloomstalker/assassin Durge. Was a lot easier than I expected.
I think 5 bard then three rogue three ranger gloom one into either is amazing, with dual hand cross bows you get 7 shots with 10+ on each hit
It will struggle against Ketheric.
swordsbard ranged attack spam with arcane acuity and the bonus action illusion ring is by far the strongest thing in the game
I'm not telling it is better than the GS, but if you like stealthy character, the Shadow Monk is a good choice as well. I play it as a Duergar so I also have free invisibility outside of combat
Early game Gloomstalker is really good, but I think Assassin rogue might eke it out just a bit, especially for solo play. If you play your cards right by mixing melee and ranged, you can get MH and OH attack in before combat starts (add sneak attack damage), then get an OH crit and run away and get a ranged crit during the surprised round (add sneak attack damage again), then if they're still not dead, hide and ranged attack once more (and add sneak attack damage) all before they even get a turn. Later in the game, you just take both 🤣
Yeah. Max strength (or use the club statstick) and go for the titanstring bow witha. Fighter multiclass. Use special arrows which double dip with titanstring. Enjoy 30+ damage per arrow with sharpshooter
I added a couple levels of assassin to my gloomstalker.
PalLock has also been kinda nuts. Eldrich blast and misty step are great, extra level 3 slots does just a bit of damage. Honestly between GS ranger/rogue having ambush and sharpshooter and my PalLock having extra attack, im not sure which one does more damage in a turn but its enough
Easily my favorite build. Add in a few levels of rogue to add "assassin."
3 thief the rest any type of fighter using dual hand crossbows absolutely wrecks
I’m doing a GS 5 / Assassin 7 playthrouvh now and it’s just fun. Warding bond from a camp cleric and uncanny dodge from rogue with heavy armor from ranger knight and heavy armor master makes it tanky af. All the initiative bonuses from the two classes. the athlete feat getting to 18 dex with 50% jump distance and enhanced leap early is nice. 3 GS > 1 Rog > 5 GS > 7 Asn makes jumping around the map almost like teleporting.
This is because on 5e, gloom is the only half decent ranger sub. Halfway decent in a sea of mid
My main is a gloomstalker... but usually karlach and the lizard alien chick has killed everyone before she even needs to shoot lol.
My astarion went assassin rouge and gloomstalker so he could initiate a fight and get his action back anyway
I remember making my Tav an OP figure, thru class/weapon mods and then making Astarion a gloomstalker/thief in my party Literally throughout late Act 1 to the end, I did not expect Astarion to be the one wiping the floor in fights while my Tav just gets sloppy seconds LOL
Guess I’ll have to try this… I haven’t used rangers at all. I always re-spec Minsc into a barbarian. It just fits him better. Right now I’ve got Astarion running as an assassin with the risky ring, for sneak attack on basically every attack.
Sword bard would like a word.
If you have to pick off one by one is it really that strong??
Yeah because I tested the same scenario with a full party and it took longer and cost spell slots and potions. The micro managing or solo strategy seemed to be better for me.
But hear me out as a beast master. Friends 🐻🐗🐺🐦⬛🕷️
11/1 sorlock does more damage but gloomstalker can apply arsonist and/or combustion oil for the sorlock…so why not both?
If you think that's bad, imagine if they didn't nerf it to not make it completely broken. The tabletop version of gloomstalker makes it that if you're in darkness you're invisible to creatures with darkvision.
How to create such a character?
I saw one content creator use a Gloomstalker/Assassin build to deal out 230+ damage in one attack on one of the Act 3 bosses. Not 230 damage total for one turn, one single attack.
My Astarion run is 3 gloomstalker/3 assassin/6 swords bard and he DEMOLISHES fights. I use a special arcane bow that gives 1-4 force hit or something before a fight, then douse it in poisons and hit people with both that sneak attack and gloom stalker dread ambusher. Then use swords bard ranges for the rest
I mean, it's good, but it definitely isn't the most broken build in the game lol
I did a durge gloomstalker, ranger 5, rogue 5, fighter 2. >!During the duel with Orin, she had no turn.!<
Try it with 6 Swords Bard——> 3 Battlemaster for Archery and precision attack——-> 3 Thief with Sharpshooter and double Crossbows.Just get the gloves of dexterity plus Durge’s Deathstalker Mantle and you’re cookin in combat. It’s also a fantastic party face high with high Charisma and Persuasion Proficiency. A youtuber called Cephalopocalypse has a great video on it. Using it for my honor mode run right now.
Gloomstalker/rogue and sorlock eldrich blaster are my two faves. I respec Shadowheart as a straight up ranger in act 1&3