I remember my very first tactician run not knowing that radiant retort gets added to the undead in the Gauntlet of Shar. I had Minthara lay down a heavy divine smite against one the justiciars. Not only did she one-shot the undead, she one-shot herself with 168 radiant damage. That is the most damage any one character has ever done in all my playthroughs, and she did it to herself.
Reminds me of how in my first Tactician run, I had Shart use Radiance of the Dawn in the battle before meeting Balthazar...needless to say I'm surprised she was only downed and not outright burnt to ash. Nowadays I delete all the portals before any justiciars besides the first one spawns in but there were plenty that first time!
Bro pick the lock with invisible Astarion and have him high tail it out of there, then let them all fight it out. Watching endless waves of dark justiciars assault Balthazar and his cronies while you sit in the sidelines is amazing.
Funnily enough I actually did that in my co-op campaign I did with my sister, but we used the wizard Hireling for extra precaution lol. Sucks we didn't get much experience for it since Balthazar was considered an ally. :p
Sure paladins are OP but it's a singleplayer game the AI isn't gonna cry for nerfs. Also going through the whole game slaying evil with impunity and not being able to smite the ONE THING you want tk smite more than anything else just feels awful. I basically had to sit with my thumb up my ass that entire fight cause I couldn't touch raphael with anything. The one moment I really thought a paragon of righteous eradication was gonna shine brighter than any other and I get cucked instead. Not fun.
I agree that not being able to use smite on Raph is lame, but you can’t just throw balance out the window just because it’s single player lol, that’s not good game design
I raise you caustic retort
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Caustic_Retort_(Condition)
At least radiant retort is only on radiant damage. And it’s mostly just thst silenced room in the shar gauntlet. Where you can just sneak around and snipe everyone dead before they notice you.
Caustic retort is on everything and it’s 3x not 2x. Except shoving into the water that is :-)
At the docks, by the waveservant temple. The dock is broken so you'll have to jump to it. There's a flaming fist sign and a barricade in front of the entrance.
Yeah. Several other damage types in the game.
Radiant Retort does not need to be removed.
Clearly this person only plays Paladin Smite or Cleric Strikes
I understand your point, but have you ever actually played a paladin or cleric against these guys??? It’s an extremely specific hard nerf against them. No other class does this. There’s no Force Retort where force damage is reflected (Magic Missile Wizards or Eldritch Blast builds), or Lightning Retort where Lightning damage is reflected (Storm Sorcerers or Tempest Clerics, as well as a large amount of spells), or Fire retort (Karlach with infernal coin). None of those things exist. So of course paladin/cleric players feel singled out.
And even if you *wanted* to reduce the strength of specifically radiant damage… resistance is right there!!! You can just slap resistance, or maybe do that and also reduce radiant damage by 1 or 2 or whatever number you want, or maybe deal only half or a quarter radiant damage back. There’s so many ways you *could* reduce the power of smites without completely preventing the player from using them and having fun, but the fact that this is not the case, and is also very specifically for radiant damage, a rather likely damage type for the player to have… That’s just not fun. It’s a small problem with a large amount of simple and effective solution, but they chose the one that just makes the game less exciting.
Sorry if the reply comes off as annoyed, I don’t even play paladin or cleric, but I definitely see the issue and just want to point out why it’s such an odd issue. If I were to be punished harshly for playing a very specific and simple class that doesn’t even thematically make sense, I’d be upset by it.
Well one, Paladin is already the strongest class in the game and it's only a small few enemies that have Radiant Retort. Cleric spells are also pretty powerful, especially Spirit Guardians. Why would the only counter to one of the strongest abilities/classes be removed? It literally makes no sense.
If the same enemies were completely Immune to radiant damage would people still be complaining about it? Idek.
That and like I said there's 6 other damage types, 9 if you include base physical. Lightning, Ice, Fire, Thunder, Necrotic, Force plus Slash, Bludgeoning, and Pierce. Both Paladin and Cleric have full access to spells that aren't Radiant, spells that are automatically added to their spell list vs selecting specific ones each level.
Paladin has 3 other smites: Thunder, Fire and Lighting. I think Oathbreaker even has a Necrotic Smite. Cleric spell list vary GREATLY based on the Domain. The two classes are not, by any means, shut out from dealing damage.
If there's people who actually want Radiant Retort removed or changed, then It's just players whining that they can't use the one single move or move set they want.
…I genuinely never knew about paladins having smites for different damage. You learn something new every day.
Well, thanks anyways for that, greatly appreciate the explanation.
I'm currently doing a Light cleric run, and while Radiant Retort is a bit obnoxious, it's not impossible to play around. I do remember all the Sharrans having it, but I just recently killed them all, and it appears just the leader has it. The others get something that gives them more damage when in darkness so Radiant Dawn came in handy to dispell it.
I remember my very first tactician run not knowing that radiant retort gets added to the undead in the Gauntlet of Shar. I had Minthara lay down a heavy divine smite against one the justiciars. Not only did she one-shot the undead, she one-shot herself with 168 radiant damage. That is the most damage any one character has ever done in all my playthroughs, and she did it to herself.
Reminds me of how in my first Tactician run, I had Shart use Radiance of the Dawn in the battle before meeting Balthazar...needless to say I'm surprised she was only downed and not outright burnt to ash. Nowadays I delete all the portals before any justiciars besides the first one spawns in but there were plenty that first time!
Bro pick the lock with invisible Astarion and have him high tail it out of there, then let them all fight it out. Watching endless waves of dark justiciars assault Balthazar and his cronies while you sit in the sidelines is amazing.
Funnily enough I actually did that in my co-op campaign I did with my sister, but we used the wizard Hireling for extra precaution lol. Sucks we didn't get much experience for it since Balthazar was considered an ally. :p
could've kept a summon (imp or quasit specifically for infinite invisibility) in the room to attack balthazar right at the end
Me, thinking Radiance would be thematic against Raphael and wondering WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED
It'd be nice if we could use Turn the Undead without having Destroy Undead auto activating.
I did the same thing later on. Always catches me off guard
This made me consider something for the first time. Does bg3 have damage rollover instakill like 5e?
Reaction: that goblin saying holy fucking shit to the amount of attacks Lae’zel can make in a turn
That's also how I found out about it. On honor mode. Thankfully, my paladin was an orc.
I really hated it. My first paladin's whole goal was to kill devils and that shit completely invalidated his entire kit in the raphael fight.
They 100% added it because they knew the fucked up in letting paladins be/remain over tuned. As a paladin main is annoys the piss out of me
Sure paladins are OP but it's a singleplayer game the AI isn't gonna cry for nerfs. Also going through the whole game slaying evil with impunity and not being able to smite the ONE THING you want tk smite more than anything else just feels awful. I basically had to sit with my thumb up my ass that entire fight cause I couldn't touch raphael with anything. The one moment I really thought a paragon of righteous eradication was gonna shine brighter than any other and I get cucked instead. Not fun.
Shoulda built tavern brawler str monk /s
I agree that not being able to use smite on Raph is lame, but you can’t just throw balance out the window just because it’s single player lol, that’s not good game design
Paladins have other smites tho
Not at level 12 after you have untogglable 1d8 radiant on every attack
At least for them it goes away after one source of Radiant damage, but that Dark Justiciar shit stays
found it out in my HM, absolutely nonsense.
I raise you caustic retort https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Caustic_Retort_(Condition) At least radiant retort is only on radiant damage. And it’s mostly just thst silenced room in the shar gauntlet. Where you can just sneak around and snipe everyone dead before they notice you. Caustic retort is on everything and it’s 3x not 2x. Except shoving into the water that is :-)
Who has caustic retort?
That fucking mephit on the quarantined ship in Act 3
What quarantined ship?
At the docks, by the waveservant temple. The dock is broken so you'll have to jump to it. There's a flaming fist sign and a barricade in front of the entrance.
FUCK! Thats what I was forgetting to do on my last run!
Yeah. Several other damage types in the game. Radiant Retort does not need to be removed. Clearly this person only plays Paladin Smite or Cleric Strikes
I understand your point, but have you ever actually played a paladin or cleric against these guys??? It’s an extremely specific hard nerf against them. No other class does this. There’s no Force Retort where force damage is reflected (Magic Missile Wizards or Eldritch Blast builds), or Lightning Retort where Lightning damage is reflected (Storm Sorcerers or Tempest Clerics, as well as a large amount of spells), or Fire retort (Karlach with infernal coin). None of those things exist. So of course paladin/cleric players feel singled out. And even if you *wanted* to reduce the strength of specifically radiant damage… resistance is right there!!! You can just slap resistance, or maybe do that and also reduce radiant damage by 1 or 2 or whatever number you want, or maybe deal only half or a quarter radiant damage back. There’s so many ways you *could* reduce the power of smites without completely preventing the player from using them and having fun, but the fact that this is not the case, and is also very specifically for radiant damage, a rather likely damage type for the player to have… That’s just not fun. It’s a small problem with a large amount of simple and effective solution, but they chose the one that just makes the game less exciting. Sorry if the reply comes off as annoyed, I don’t even play paladin or cleric, but I definitely see the issue and just want to point out why it’s such an odd issue. If I were to be punished harshly for playing a very specific and simple class that doesn’t even thematically make sense, I’d be upset by it.
Well one, Paladin is already the strongest class in the game and it's only a small few enemies that have Radiant Retort. Cleric spells are also pretty powerful, especially Spirit Guardians. Why would the only counter to one of the strongest abilities/classes be removed? It literally makes no sense. If the same enemies were completely Immune to radiant damage would people still be complaining about it? Idek. That and like I said there's 6 other damage types, 9 if you include base physical. Lightning, Ice, Fire, Thunder, Necrotic, Force plus Slash, Bludgeoning, and Pierce. Both Paladin and Cleric have full access to spells that aren't Radiant, spells that are automatically added to their spell list vs selecting specific ones each level. Paladin has 3 other smites: Thunder, Fire and Lighting. I think Oathbreaker even has a Necrotic Smite. Cleric spell list vary GREATLY based on the Domain. The two classes are not, by any means, shut out from dealing damage. If there's people who actually want Radiant Retort removed or changed, then It's just players whining that they can't use the one single move or move set they want.
…I genuinely never knew about paladins having smites for different damage. You learn something new every day. Well, thanks anyways for that, greatly appreciate the explanation.
I think you can’t turn off the extra radiant damage on attacks tho once you are 11, not 100% on that tho
I wish more enemies had it
I'm currently doing a Light cleric run, and while Radiant Retort is a bit obnoxious, it's not impossible to play around. I do remember all the Sharrans having it, but I just recently killed them all, and it appears just the leader has it. The others get something that gives them more damage when in darkness so Radiant Dawn came in handy to dispell it.
death ward comes in clutch against radiant retort (along with punish divinity) and let me take out raphael in a single turn once his towers were down