@SheyD78 true strike is widely considered the worst cantrip. You spend an action AND have to maintain concentration to have a better chance to hit next turn. It's far better just to make another attack roll. In both cases, you're rolling 2 D20s to attack, but with making 2 attacks, if you roll well, you hit twice. If you roll well with True Strike, you still only hit once. In the best case scenario, it's just worse than just attacking twice. In the worst case scenario, it actively makes you less likely to win that fight. So with how bad it is, he picks it intentionally, to troll the viewers, some of which will rage in the comments about how bad it is and how he shouldn't pick it
Some min/max options for itemization: Act 1 - take duel weirder at lvl 4 and dw Spellsparkler and Mel’s staff for +1 spell save dc, +1 AC, and lightning chargers to really pump up scorching ray dmg. Act 3: Dw Rhapsody in your offhand with Markoheshkir. After 3 kills you have +3 to weapon and spell attack rolls, damage, and spell save dc for the rest of the day. Also re: Callous Glow Ring Not sure if this is a bug, but CGR seems to also add radiant damage to the fire damage you take from Heat stacks (gained from setting Markoheshkir to fire). Not that big of a deal, but the self damage can sneak up on you when you have a full 7 stacks of heat.
Oh is that what happens. I was always getting hit with damage after the fight ended and I abandoned the for Socerer I had…Is there a way to,avoid this.
@@oval291 As long as you set Markoheshkir to fire, you’ll have the heat condition stacking up whenever you do fire damage. You can not set Marko to fire, or you can use the Heat Convergence ability to consume all heat stacks to buff your next attack. It’s more work, but you can keep heat stacks lower this way which saves some health.
@@nicovermon458 thanks for taking time to reply but I figured it out and I am glad what I figured gelled with what you said. New player and was trying this build and getting blasted with self damage and end of each fight. Do I need to add daylight for callous glow ring to work. Trying to get a better understanding of the game mechanics
@@oval291 You’re welcome friend. So the game has three light levels. On console you can click in the right stick to see the light level of where your cursor is located. Not sure how to check on PC. Anyways, In order for CGR to active, the target of your spells need to be in a fully unobscured area (the brightest of the 3 light levels).The icon the game uses for that light level is a sun. Essentially, the enemy needs to be standing in direct sunlight (not in the shade) or you need to have some sort of light source next to the enemy. Easiest way to guarantee that is to cast Light or Sunlight on a melee companion, cast Sunlight as an AOE over the battlefield, or have your melee companions use gear that has intrinsic Illumination (ex. The Blood of Lathander Mace)
TIL that the arsonist water exploit exists. Cleric: Create Water Swords Bard: Spray everyone with arsonist oiled bolts Sorcerer: 🔥 No one else gets a turn. Seems perfectly balanced.
Love your guides! I really appreciate showing whats possible and stressing that you dont need to min/max. I believe in an earlier video you mentioned having quite a bit of time playing tabletop DnD. I think many of us would appreciate insight into character building there and if you have had positive experience with online DnD. I am looking forward to your multi classing and if you do a party building guides.Keep up the great work!
Thanks very much! I haven't personally played a lot of online D&D except with people I already knew very well - or rather, when I was younger and was playing online with strangers, the internet was so different that my experience is just no longer possible since forums mostly no longer exist. Honestly trying to figure out how people can - in the modern corporatized online context - form the kind of communities I was able to find in the early 2000s is something I'd really like to do, but solving a deep-seated societal problem is outside the scope of this channel probably :P As for tabletop build guides, that's definitely something I'm interested in doing, though I'm not sure how best to incorporate them - when I figure it out you'll all be the first to know!
@cephalopocalypse I would love to watch you discuss tabletop builds. BG3 and your videos have really gotten me into DnD, I’ve started talking to my friends about getting a session together to do a one shot. I’d definitely love to show them your videos when it comes to building characters
Another very entertaining build! My first play through was a fire sorcerer. I wasn't very impressed with Scorching Ray. I recognized how amazing it was on paper; you could stack so much damage, and do so much in theory by the end of the game. But my hit rate was apallingly low, especially when I really needed it. Paraphrasing a wise youtuber, unreliability is the enemy of optimization. I ended up relying mainly on magic missile even at level 10 or so, because I was guaranteed hits with all of those riders, even though Scorching Ray offered so many more dice. I did do well with scorching rays using a sniper approach, using stealth and invisibility to get into position before zapping targets. I also used the Hold Person followed by Scorching Ray trick. Looking forward to your next build.
Arcane acuity (from the hat of fire acuity) makes your attack rolls much more accurate, and you could even use the risky ring to get advantage on all attacks
You were struggling to hit? I did my first run as a fire sorc without following a guide and always had pretty insane hit chance, early game just having chr as your highest stat is good, you can even pick up some early staffs that improve attack a little bit more. Then late game I felt like most of my armor was helping me land hits or increase on hit damage, to the point that I had probably an 85% hit chance with each bolt on most targets. The hat mentioned in this also makes that go from 85% to 99% real fast... Using MM isn't bad for heavily armor targets but the base damage difference is pretty significant, especially if you include the legendary staff giving bonus to fire, and sorc getting bonus to fire spell damage, its the difference of 1d4+1 and 2d6+10 baseline. average 3 damage vs average 16 per hit, damage riders don't outway the difference here. Also also, when wearing the item that gives all attacks advantage you are rolling the d20 14times with a sixth level cast, and if any land on a 20 it's a crit, AKA usually you get one crit at least with every attack
@@ThanhLai5 Doing another playthrough, possibly in tandem. I mean people can play how they want but erasing all my progress every time I see a new way to play that MIGHT be fun to me sounds like a special kind of hell. There are plenty of great fights to have in ACT 2 and 3 not to mention content you haven't experienced yet. Just keep playing.
With regards the Pyroquickness hat, if you are "wet" at the time of casting a fire spell, you are immune to the "burning" condition, and therefore get the extra bonus action without taking the damage. Just another thing to keep your mage hand (or your invisible quasit - which if it only attacks potions, will remain out of the combat order and free to hit the bottle of water at your feet) busy.
I feel like not mentioning the “heat” mechanics with this build was a missed opportunity. I really just want your input on any potential use of the “heat” mechanic.
Heat is a pretty small damage boost for this build - you'll get it from markoheshkir (7 stacks from a 6th level ray), and then when you activate it it will add 7 damage to your first ray from the next shot, consuming all the heat. +7 damage isn't nothing and we'll certainly use it, but it's a pretty small percentage of the build's damage since it only adds to the first attack.
I suggest that you go with the Gold Dragon ancestry and get the Disguise Self spell. Why? Because you can disguise yourself as, say, a Drow...you get the Superior Darkvision, the ability to fool goblins, and NORMAL movement speed--all while retaining your Halfling Luck. Plus, if you get the Shifter ring from the Ox in Act 1, that's another benefit/bonus!
@@SirCharles12357 I just want to add that I believe it also tricks gear (for example, weapons that only benefit Giths will benefit other races while they're disguised as Gith).
I'm genuinely surprised you didn't mention the Thermodynamic gloves. With those and the ability to cast both a scorching ray and either a fireball or a firewall in the same turn you can use them to boost fire damage immensely in one turn without taking any yourself. I did this during my fight in the Shadowfell first time through with Gale thanks to a Speed potion rather than a Sorceror's quickened spell, but with the gloves on, each scorching ray beam adds two stacks of the Heat resource from the gloves. I think I used a leveled scorching ray to hit 4 enemies with the ray and gain 8 stacks of heat, then turned on the Heat Convergence to consume each of those stacks and add that as flat damage to an upcast fireball (I had firewall, but was concentrating on a control spell that was keeping about of a third of the enemies locked down) for everyone hit in the radius of the blast. That maneuver was absolutely devastating, but frankly, it was extremely unoptimized compared to this build, which could add onto it extremely easily and just wreck everything with the additional additional damage from the charisma bonus on top of the heat convergence bonus damage for every instance of damage in a single hit. But basically, with those gloves, Scorching ray acts as your build up of Heat stacks, and then you finish it off with a fireball or firewall with the Heat Convergence, it only adds to the extra damage on the initial cast (in the case of firewall), but by doing so the Heat stacks do no damage to your caster because they're consumed in the process!
Helldusk armor with pyrokinesis hat. You get the advantage of the hat, and the helldusk armor gives you fire resistance and you can't be burned (plus anyone can wear the helldusk as it comes with proficiency for it built in). Yes its an act three item, but its a good combo.
@@isaaccruel3994 I know it's 4 months ago, but it is an exploit. If you know where Raphael will spawn in act 1 to talk to you, split your party and trigger the cut scene. Then switch to a character that isn't talking to Raphael and attack him and he will flee. As soon as you enter the mountain pass, it will force you into camp and Raphael will be in the camp. Cast silence on him and bludgeon him with non-lethal attacks (will take some time) and when you finally knock him out, take his helldusk armor. Profit 😅
Thank you for another inspiring video! I think I will stick with my storm sorcerer (which is inspired by your previous sorcerer build) with 2 level dip into wizard for portent and 2 level for tempest cleric, but it’s good to know there is another cool option out there :-) Every time I learn something new from your content which saves me plenty of time on deep exploring the game and enhances my overall experience and enjoyment of bg3.
I am thinking of running both of these builds - gale as storm sorcerer and either lazel or my TAV as this fire build. Didn't think they would work well together due to wet until I learned the arsonist oil effect from this video. Seems like getting everyone wet and letting gale use lightning spells, then have bard shoot them with arsonist oil and letting this char go to town with scorching ray would be a deadly combo.
Elemental Adept: Fire will also makes your character more vulnerable to Heat stacks that you get. If you have fire resistance- EA:F will remove it for Heat damage that you inflict on yourself AS WELL AS ensuring minim heat damage that you take is 2 instead of 1.
I do enjoy builds that aren't gear dependent. Or Hag hair dependent. Very nice build! I'm on Act 3 of Tactician mode and will be trying Honour Mode after, and this could be a very good late game nuker for me. Thanks!
@@adamskeans2515 that 17+1 may feel minor, but it completely saves a feat for ASI which could be put into something else like warcaster, it is quite a big difference.
23:28 Hold person only guarantees crit if you hit in melee range. Not always you'll run in melee on attack rolls for range attack spells to have crits. It's possible but situational. 34:50 Also Halfling lucky passive doesn't work on damage rolls, only attacks, ability checks and Saving throws.
Extend is better than Distant. being able to double spells durations is so useful. Gloomstalker with pass without trace and a sorc that can extend greater invis is good. or globe for 6 turns.
This is the video I needed! I went Sorcerer Tiefling fighting the Dark Urge on my first Co-op playthrough (finally playing this game!) You convinced me to go straight Sorc and mix this fire build with a magic missile build. Gotta level up and find the magic missile gear :)
if you do not have a light cleric in your party sure you can equip the gloves of radiating orb on the sorc, but if you have, spellmight gloves might be the BIS, since you can quickspell scorching ray and stack acuity, THEN activate the gloves for 1d8 in every attack and cast more scorching rays with acuity, so -5 will make no difference, also stormy cloud boots with spiteful thunder ring make a great combo stacking reverberation and doing even more damage. worth mentioning dual wielding staff of spellpower, so you haste and upcast 3 lvl 6 scorching ray (one quickened) in one turn (two with gloves on) without using the spell level itself, and probably have freecast avaiable too
If using Hat of Fire Acuity, one of the better powerful options is trade one level of sorcerer for fiend warlock and get irresistible command. With extended spell it can even be 2 turns instead of one, and you can quicken scorching ray, then extend command, which is basically a win button.
A certain fight in act 3 has a boss which is immune to being wet. However, the boss has an action which gives it resistance to fire, which allows you to use the arsonist oil on it to remove the resistance. Next turn, when it loses the resistance effect, the boss becomes vulnerable to fire damage.
Also the shadow lantern is a good item for this build if you are running radiating orb. Strength drain from the shadow plus radiating orb sounds like an easy win
I absolutely love your guides, but I do find it challenging to go back and find the nuts and bolts of a build without having to watch the entire video again. For anyone else who may find it useful, here is the build synopsis: BURN IT ALL DOWN - BG3 Fire Sorcerer - Cephalopocalypse STR 8 DEX 14 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 10 CHA 17 Race: HALFLING, Gith, Half-Elf, Humans, Duergar, Asmodeus Tiefling Skills: (Urchin or Guild Artisan) Persuasion, Intimidation Draconic Ancestor: Any Fire (Red Dragon) Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Friends, Minor Illusion (cluster enemies), Mage Hand (grenade at later levels) Spells: Chromatic Orb, Shield 2: Meta: Distant, Meta: Twin, Magic Missile 3: Meta: Quickened, Cloud of Daggers 4: Any Cantrip, Misty Step, Feat: Actor 5: Counterspell, Replace Magic Missile with Haste 6: (Elemental Affinity: Damage), Fireball, Replace Cloud of Daggers with Scorching Ray 7: Wall of Fire, Replace Fireball with Hypnotic Pattern (if no control spells from other party members) 8: CHA +2, Hold Person 9: (Optional: 1 level of Warlock for Hex), Hold Monster or Sleet Storm or Fear or Ice Storm 10: Meta: Heightened, Sleet Storm or Slow, Any Cantrip (Blade Ward) 11: (Fly), Globe of Invulnerability 12: Fear or Confusion or Slow or Greater Invisibility or any other utility spells, Feat: Alert or Spell Sniper or War Caster or Elemental Adept: Fire (if not Halfling) Key Items Early: Nature's Snare, Arsonist's Oil (used by ally or Mage Hand) - put on weapon, Hat of Fire Accuity, Callous Glow Ring, Luminous Gloves Late: Markoheshkir, Pyroquickness Hat (be careful!)
A small improvement you can make to this build is multiclassing with 1 level in fiend warlock. That gives you access to hex and command. Hex obviously adds 1d6 to every scorching ray you fire, and command is the best control spell that does not use concentration. Especially when upcast. You can make use of the hat of fire acuity to guarantee hitting your command spells, the band of the mystic scoundrel to cast command as a bonus action, and the extended spell metamagic, to disable up to 6 opponents for 2 whole turns, guaranteed, as a bonus action. Command is absolutely brutal. You can not only make them skip their turn, but forcethem to drop their weapon, and even use flee, which counts as voluntary movement, which means that their movements triggers opportunity attacks
Also, you can grab eldritch blast, even though it wouldn't have the bonus riders, it would be helpful for fighting all the fire immune crap at in act 3.
Or you can make your Firebolt be on steroids. -There's a necklace that adds your spell casting modifier to the damge of cantrips with certain elements, fire being one of them (found in the Githyanki Creche, on your right past W'wargaz ) -There's also the ring you mentioned, although I don't know if Firebolt would trigger since it is you know... fire -And of course the robes that you get from Alfira that gives more damage to cantrips equal to your Charisma modifier So ... at level 12; -Lvl 6 feature giving the spell casting modifier to fire based attacks (does it affect Fireball and Firewall?), so at lvl 12 with 24 CHA., +7 -3d10 (at level 5, firebolt is 2d10 and at level 10, 3d10) -The robes and necklace gives a wopping +14 if you have 24 CHA as you mentioned in the vid -The staff that I'm not gonna even attempt to spell that you mentioned, another +4 -And the li'l ol' ring giving +2 damge to illuminated targets. (Possibly, idk if Firebolt is viable for the ring). Conclusion, 3d10+27, average 44 And that's before Arsonists's oil and crits. Definitely not the most optimal way, but funny for a basic ass cantrip.
Best in slot for gloves is definitely the Spellmight gloves…you pretty easily negate the -5 penalty with Arcane Acuity and add quite a bit of damage. Also Helldusk armor is great if you can get it (tough boss for this char!), as it makes you immune to the burn damage from Heat. I had that knock my concentration a few times so it’s quite annoying…probably worth getting war caster if you’re not going to do Raphael.
I thought ice abjuration wizard with armor of agathis is the best spellcaster. Extreme defense to the point of enemies skipping their turn rather than swinging at you combined with the double damage from getting them wet and with the void power sucking enemies together. Amazing build doing 1000 damage through multiple enemies. BUT this fire build is ridiculous. I never thought a fire build would compare to the ice. Now I'm gonna do a fire sorcerer. Thanks for the build
I am almost through my first run on a cold sorcerer. I have loved the sorc so much I have already started a Wild Magic Sorc to throw in some randomness. I will most likely to a fire sorc sometimes. It's odd, in most RPG games I am so bad at magic users. In BG3, they really can burn down the house. And stay alive doing it, lol.
Larian is an incredible studio at making status effects and elemental hazards super fun to interact with and magic users have the easiest time manipulating those mechanics. It's the same in Divinity, cover enemies in oil and light them up or make it rain on a whole group and freeze them solid. I can never go back to playing a martial character lol
Nice. I already knew a lot of this. My Tiefling Sorcerer is already doing most of this. Though, I hadn't thought of getting the Actor Feat, that is good. Also, missed the idea with the Callous Glow Ring. I have that on Shadowheart. This will change.
You can use the Pyroquickness hat with impunity by wearing the Helldusk armor that you can cheese off of Raphael in act 1. It gives immunity to burn and negates fire damage less than 7.
You've swapped out both chromatic and magic missile. You should have kept one. By Act 3 there is a significant amount of enemies who are entirely immune to fire damage. You should be keeping something to deal with them. This is why there is so much that enhances fire builds : because anyone who puts so much into fire damage, are going to be rendered near-useless against enemies with high Wis saves and fire immunity. House of Hope, for instance, will be brutal because enemies have high wis saves and are all immune to fire. Having a nice lightning charge - magic missile backup was absolutely key for my fire sorc surviving that section.
We use arsonist's oil to get around fire resistance - it makes resistant enemies your best targets. For immune enemies, by act 3 you should have plenty of scrolls you can use, or simply cast haste on two allies and play support for that fight.
I just hope they fix wyll's fire bolt and fire ball animation as its delayed and this build with the fiend dip would be perfect for him. great build! any chance we get your take on a sorcadin for a future build?
winning initative with alert, twin casting haste on either self + karlach or karlach + la'zel, just pure brutality. especially giving those two the ensured critical hit once a day tadpole powers
this build is crazy, even without arsonist oil when i fought apostle it wasnt super difficult, the spell sparkler does wonders for this build too since its extra dmg (tactician though)
So many different damage riders apply to scorching ray it's insane. Phalar aluve shriek, callous glow ring, lightning charges, scarlet remittance, it even works with gaping wounds for some reason.
Funnily enough I stumbled upon the op-ness of fire sorc on my first honor playthru. I had a hard time pacing my spell slots (i.e. if you are about to have a big, or even medium, fight, and are missing say couple sorcery points or say a few lv3-4 slots, are you REALLY going to conserve the 80 camp supply?) so I took warlock 2 and wore potent robe the entire game but basically never used eb in "important" fights. Not having 6th level slots is definitely suboptimal but the game is not hard enough for me to notice, and if it was command as a way to cc and group spread out enemy without concentration more than makes up for it. There are a few places I would differ from this build. if you don't have an alert team I'd take thunder wave and keep it. Throwing people off cliffs is fun and being able to peel yourself is important. As one might notice from the video, you also just run out of spells you want. Finally lv1-2 spell slots don't have much use outside of shield. For the above 2 reasons I also took enhance ability. I'd also also take bone chill over blade ward/true strike since ~3 uses is more than 0. Then there are some omissions so glaring I can't help but wonder if, rather than true strike, these were the actual bait to get people to comment. Spellmight, for one, is almost as core as markoheshkir (marko is 4 dmg over spellpower and burns you, while spellmight is a d8 above and...say 6 atk below helldusk? but nullified by acuity). The weirdly light mention of command, for another, which would be a much bigger reason than hex to dip warlock. More importantly, dual wielding, which is inexplicably rated like b or c tier in the feats list despite being solidly s. There are enough stat sticks that it's competitive with asi even early game, and clearly pulls ahead once say rhapsody becomes obtainable. Failing that, why honorable mention to spell sniper when you can off hand a KoUK or a bloodthirst? Offhand bloodthirst is strictly 2 more ac than spell sniper with no downsides!
BTW one fun fact about callus glow ring is that it adds that dmg when you burn yourself as well, so besides the 1d4 dmg you take from burning your ass, you take another 2 dmg of radiant dmg as well ! . So if you pair that with the Pyroquickness hat(its also pretty buggy on honour mode, sometimes i just loses the bonus action for no reason), you can take alot of radiant dmg alongside the fire one you already take. Still very very powerful though. Especially if you combine with the illithid power where you gain 1d4 extra dmg on every hit, you can do an incredible amount of dmg. You can also stack their charisma to 24 too if you do the mirror of loss + auntie ethel hair thing and make your scorching ray doing +7 instead of +5. This is probably one of the best character at abusing auntie ethel hair cause you benefit alot from high charisma, so i think makes the best party face as well. No other character i can imagine has this big of an advantage on Charisma stacking imo
So if you really REALLY want the extra bonus action from the helmet and don't mind dropping a little spell attack bonus from Robe of the Weave - and you don't have a martial char that wants it - comboing Helldusk Armor with the Pyroquickness Hat gets you the free extra bonus action without taking the damage or getting burned :D
I've spent 300 hours in this game and have never once beaten it. The furthest I've gotten is part way through Act 3, but I keep making new characters so I can play a specific build throughout the whole game and then I never make it past 10 hours. I think these videos might have something to do with it lol
I think another excellent sorc would take spell sniper as first feat and pick eldritch blast, twinned haste, then action blast then quicken bonus blast at lvl 5 that would be 6 beams per turn with 10% chance to crit before other items
38:00 I don't know if you tested it or not but that oil doesn't work like the description says (in honour mode at least). It seems to give enemies fire vulnerability but doesn't remove their fire resistance. Which means that you only have enemies that have their fire resistance removed as a result. Using Create Water to apply wet seems much simpler and gives the same effect.
Theoretically depending on choices, this could be adjusted for any of the elements couldn’t it. I saw a build option for “ice assassin” build, warlock 2, tempest cleric 1, abjure wizard. I was wondering what your take would be on it? And of course thank you so much your builds are awesome, and you explain everything beautifully! ❤
It definitely could! The main downside of other elements is they don't have a multi-instance damage spell to abuse the way scorching ray can be, but you can definitely power up any element and there are items that can help do more damage instances as well
I haven't seen the video so I don't have questions yet but I was wondering if you'll be making a guide for those that are thinking of using the tadpole? As always, thank you for all the work you put into your guides.
If your gonna take the big tadpole id swap 2 levels for warlock for EB, devils sight and hex since youll get fly from the tadpole powers. all you lose is a feat and a level 6 spell but you can use sorcpoints to make more level 5 slots and the short rest pots to make a lot of points
Did you start filming multiclass tier list yet? How about you pick a class, then rank remaining 11 classes as multiclassing options in relation to that class? That would make 12 videos oops) Just saying
Finding out ideas for MC only is one thing, finding out ideas for the other party members is another thing. That's the reason why inspirational videos like this is very helpful. Nice video. 1 build that I believe as a must build in the party at least one is 3 Thief Rogue + 9 Open Hand Monk. Because it's the cheapest yet effective build.
You are right with what you say. But after the golden Run with a Fire sorcerer - i would 10000% took a wizzard at his place. free fireball on everything + modifier to everything later on? It was a hard time to get those dice but knowing you are pure havock is a Wizard only and only with one spec. Evocation is the best and easiest way to go all the TIME!
I don't get what you're saying about how elemental adept is less effective due to being a halfling? The re-roll 1s for halfling doesn't apply to damage and can only re-roll a roll once, so if you get two 1's in a row, you still take the 1. Elemental Adept applies to damage, and the reroll 1s is infinite: you can never roll a 1 for any damage of the selected type. It's supremely favourable to therefore get both. There's a LOT of enemies who are resistant to fire damage and elemental adept is the only way around that.
This would have been a good video to mention the amazing spellmight gloves, not because the build needs it (though it could benefit from it), but because so many people forget they exist since unless you pickpocket them they're gatekept behind finding all of Dribbles the Clown -_-
Sounds like a fun build! I’m curious about what your strategy is for powerful enemies that are immune to fire damage, like Grym and Raphael? (Also, it’s just a personal thing but I don’t think I could bring myself to take the Actor feat. If you start with/respec to 15 CON instead, you can bump WIS to 12 and use the first feat to get 16 CON and 18 CHA. This effectively gives you a +1 bonus to WIS saves and skill checks instead of bonuses to deception and performance checks, which just seems more optimal to me. I’ve never found those particular skills to be very important, especially if you have proficiency in persuasion!)
I used this build for my honour mode run! grym & raphael were actually fairly simple bc my build had one level in warlock for command. Essentially it took advantage of the fire acuity hat by stacking a saving throw dc up to a level that even raphael could not save from and extending that spell for 2 turns. while you can't necessarily do big damage on those enemies with scorching ray, you can keep them on their knees while your tavern brawler karlach beats the ever loving crap out of grym and/or raphael. (twin haste to start really helps with this too)
my first playthrough ran a pyro, truely an insaneeeee glass cannon. I could quick cast dobule lvl 6 scorching ray with the legendary staff giving the extra spell slot.... It was like 300damage as an opener... With no haste potion entering combat
Hey guy! Your guides are really informative, but I do have a critique with them. I'm as big a believer in theorycrafting builds as the next guy, and your videos do that well with the explanations you give per level. But, with that said, I find the videos lack a lot of punch, because there's usually no type of demonstration. From memory I believe you've demonstrated the Sentinel Fighter, the Elements Monk, and the Lightning Wizard Cleric in practice. Otherwise for most other build videos, you seem to just show the leveling itself, leaving me as a man with Goopy Goblin Baldur Brain otherwise dissatisfied because I don't see the build in action. Obviously whatever you're doing is working, and I don't mean to disparage your quality, but I do think these build guides would be much, MUCH better served with an actual, tangible demonstration of their capabilities that isn't just fighting the Oathbreaker Knight or your camp allies. One for each guide really proving their mettle in Honor Mode would do a lot for the quality of these build guides, in my opinion. Possibly in a boss fight of some kind? I hope you know this is a good faith critique and I'm not trying to shit on your work, it's just something I've been thinking about with these guides.
Thanks! The reason I mostly don't do this is twofold: one, it's a LOT of additional work, and two, people don't watch it. When I've tried including gameplay, those videos didn't do any better in terms of views and often did worse, with the gameplay segments in particular losing a lot of retention. When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense - there's thousands of gameplay videos out there, so by including that suddenly I'm competing with professionally edited let's plays from studios with entire production teams behind them. On the other hand, when it comes to builds I have world-class knowledge to share so it's something people can't easily get elsewhere. More importantly though, it's just not that fun for me - I enjoy creating and talking about builds, but playing the same fights over and over for demo purposes would get boring fast.
Technically this build is only using things that Larian put into the game on purpose, but I still feel it’s abusing the bad ruling that you’re allowed to use quicken to cast two levelled spells in the same round. Still, the fact that I can’t do that (I modded it out of the game) really only makes the build more fun - not less. 🙂
I decided to pick Careful Spell as one of my first 2 metamagics, I played as storm sorcere last playthrough and I realise I didn't use Distant spell once lol, but I could have used some anti-friendly fire ability
For me the best feats are asi, DW and ele adept or spell sniper, simply because I don’t want to go first on fire sorcerer because he wants someone coating enemies in arsonists oil before blasting.
Hey, thanks so much for the support! I really appreciate it :D This build would be totally fine for a dark urge, how easy it is to kill stuff would make the invis cloak trigger constantly, which would be great. Channel membership might not be in some regions, I'm not sure - there should be a "join" button under the videos, or this link should hopefully work: ruclips.net/channel/UCieQlcvyyk5208GxlVU43Rgjoin Thanks either way though!!
@@Cephalopocalypsethanks for the link. I’m glad I can support the person who’s made bg3 a game I’ve spent countless hours in because your videos always galvanise me to try a new build and go again.
I actually started recording a combat segment for this one but kept running into an annoying bug and after a few minutes of that was like well the video's 40 minutes already. Next time hopefully!
Hello, unfortunately I don't understand English very well and would like to understand your video properly. Could you perhaps add German to options/subtitles? kind regards
very true! Another option as someone else pointed out is to take a quick shower - when you're wet, you're immune to burning (the inverted rain cloak can do that permanently as well!)
heyho, pls excuse me if this question is unrelevant, i am kinda new to dnd and bg3, but isnt it a waste to have nothing in the other hand? there are races with shield proficiency or two handed weapon feat. am i wrong?
Yes, you can use half-elf or human for example to get the shield prof. You can see on his other caster builds he chooses Gale and it's so he can also run a shield. It is a waste objectively speaking but it's a fair trade from halfling's racial feat.
I just learned the hard way that Halfling luck is bugged. Rolled a critical failure with the US encounter right at the beginning of the game and it didn’t let me reroll. Did Sam Riegal get into the code somehow? Anyways I assume it’s not build breaking but I was looking forward to that feature. How important is to the build?
I have been running Wyll as a sorlock but i may need to lean into fire damage. I may also have to swap Shadowhart to the gloves of belligerent sky and give Wyll the gloves of illumination.
I know this build is gear agnostic but it seems like it could benefit from the Dual Wielder feat and carrying 2 staffs. Melf’s Staff and Spellsparkler early on, any two attack roll boosts later, the Markoheskir and whatever you like at the end. Lots of options so it’s still pretty agnostic.
@@MannyUchiha There are a few flavors possible, all involving White Bloodline for Armour of Agathis, and eventually Frost of Dark Winter from Kereska's Favour - Pure: 12 Sorc, similarly to the Fire option this just works, only shame is no good lvl3 Cold option - Tank: 1 Cleric/6 Sorc/5 Abj Wiz, bit MAD because of the mix of Int and Cha but with AC stacking can frontline cast Ice Storm on everyone around them because it barely hurts them self (With Wet from Cleric Create Water) - Sorlock: 5 Warlock/7 Sorc, Hunger of Hadar does Cold damage, 7 Sorc needed to get Ice Storm Fun items to use are Winter's Clutches and the Coldbrim Hat for possibly freezing enemies, and of course the Mourning Frost for early game Staff (And an honorable mention that is barely Sorc, but kills things by doing nothing: 1 Sorc/11 Abj Wiz, minimize your AC as much as possible, use max Armour + Fire Shield Cold, get hit)
I think you mentioned the potential to get to 24 charisma? +2 from mirror and +2 from birthright hat? Im guessing 22 with fire acuity hat would probably still be stronger though.
A tempest cleric, a thrower fighter, an armoured abjuration wizard, and a pyromancer walk into a bar the bar is now a cloud of electrified ash and steam Cannot wait to try this!
Omg I'm so annoyed... :) On a more serious note, I really enjoy these videos since I'm relatively new and don't want to build through every class to see what they all can do. Would be interested in seeing a class breakdown of each subclass and how it might pair well with other classes, instead of direct builds.
It's goofy, but you take a shower! When you're wet you're immune to burning so the heat convergence doesn't affect you (though you won't always need to be concentrating on anything on this character)
@@Cephalopocalypse hey found out if you wear the helldusk armor you just skip the heat damage as well. Btw thanks for responding, keep making cool vids👍👍
Heat is a pretty small damage boost for this build - you'll get it from markoheshkir (7 stacks from a 6th level ray), and then when you activate it it will add 7 damage to your first ray from the next shot, consuming all the heat. +7 damage isn't nothing and we'll certainly use it, but it's a pretty small percentage of the build's damage since it only adds to the first attack.
How do you keep him permanently? I got him on a bard and obviously he died eventually cuz I forgot about him but I couldn’t resummon him. He’s so funny lmao
@@Quantum_BluntzTo get Shovel thru dialogue you need to be a warlock or draconic sorc, or else be a wizard and simply learn his scroll. All others can't keep him, sadly
@@Quantum_BluntzShovel specifically hates Storm sorcerer and cannot be gotten by them through dialogue. Any other kind of sorcerer, wizard, or warlock can get him though, even if you respec out of the class later.
Considering how much Speed potions one can buy and craft, I'd personally gravitate towards skipping the Haste spell, but it does last 10 turns, in contrast to the potion's 3.
![The BEST SORCERER in Baldur's Gate 3 - [Updated] Honour Build Guide](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_MJwdRd8koY/mqdefault.jpg)
![The BEST SORCERER in Baldur's Gate 3 - [Updated] Honour Build Guide](/img/tr.png)
"pick true strike, just to annoy everyone in the comments" is a level of petty troll I can respect and was also the moment you won anther subscriber
That's what made me sub too 🤣
Him merely stating that lets you know how much it’s gotten to him 😂
😂
I've caught that phrase in a couple of videos but don't get the reference. Help me out here.
@SheyD78 true strike is widely considered the worst cantrip. You spend an action AND have to maintain concentration to have a better chance to hit next turn. It's far better just to make another attack roll. In both cases, you're rolling 2 D20s to attack, but with making 2 attacks, if you roll well, you hit twice. If you roll well with True Strike, you still only hit once. In the best case scenario, it's just worse than just attacking twice. In the worst case scenario, it actively makes you less likely to win that fight.
So with how bad it is, he picks it intentionally, to troll the viewers, some of which will rage in the comments about how bad it is and how he shouldn't pick it
Some min/max options for itemization:
Act 1 - take duel weirder at lvl 4 and dw Spellsparkler and Mel’s staff for +1 spell save dc, +1 AC, and lightning chargers to really pump up scorching ray dmg.
Act 3: Dw Rhapsody in your offhand with Markoheshkir. After 3 kills you have +3 to weapon and spell attack rolls, damage, and spell save dc for the rest of the day.
Also re: Callous Glow Ring
Not sure if this is a bug, but CGR seems to also add radiant damage to the fire damage you take from Heat stacks (gained from setting Markoheshkir to fire). Not that big of a deal, but the self damage can sneak up on you when you have a full 7 stacks of heat.
Oh is that what happens. I was always getting hit with damage after the fight ended and I abandoned the for Socerer I had…Is there a way to,avoid this.
@@oval291 As long as you set Markoheshkir to fire, you’ll have the heat condition stacking up whenever you do fire damage. You can not set Marko to fire, or you can use the Heat Convergence ability to consume all heat stacks to buff your next attack. It’s more work, but you can keep heat stacks lower this way which saves some health.
@@nicovermon458 thanks for taking time to reply but I figured it out and I am glad what I figured gelled with what you said. New player and was trying this build and getting blasted with self damage and end of each fight. Do I need to add daylight for callous glow ring to work. Trying to get a better understanding of the game mechanics
@@oval291 You’re welcome friend. So the game has three light levels. On console you can click in the right stick to see the light level of where your cursor is located. Not sure how to check on PC. Anyways, In order for CGR to active, the target of your spells need to be in a fully unobscured area (the brightest of the 3 light levels).The icon the game uses for that light level is a sun.
Essentially, the enemy needs to be standing in direct sunlight (not in the shade) or you need to have some sort of light source next to the enemy. Easiest way to guarantee that is to cast Light or Sunlight on a melee companion, cast Sunlight as an AOE over the battlefield, or have your melee companions use gear that has intrinsic Illumination (ex. The Blood of Lathander Mace)
@@nicovermon458 thanks. Easy to understand explanation. I am on PS5 so even better. lol.
TIL that the arsonist water exploit exists.
Cleric: Create Water
Swords Bard: Spray everyone with arsonist oiled bolts
Sorcerer: 🔥
No one else gets a turn.
Seems perfectly balanced.
This is really good. Great combo...
Love your guides! I really appreciate showing whats possible and stressing that you dont need to min/max. I believe in an earlier video you mentioned having quite a bit of time playing tabletop DnD. I think many of us would appreciate insight into character building there and if you have had positive experience with online DnD. I am looking forward to your multi classing and if you do a party building guides.Keep up the great work!
Thanks very much! I haven't personally played a lot of online D&D except with people I already knew very well - or rather, when I was younger and was playing online with strangers, the internet was so different that my experience is just no longer possible since forums mostly no longer exist. Honestly trying to figure out how people can - in the modern corporatized online context - form the kind of communities I was able to find in the early 2000s is something I'd really like to do, but solving a deep-seated societal problem is outside the scope of this channel probably :P
As for tabletop build guides, that's definitely something I'm interested in doing, though I'm not sure how best to incorporate them - when I figure it out you'll all be the first to know!
@cephalopocalypse I would love to watch you discuss tabletop builds. BG3 and your videos have really gotten me into DnD, I’ve started talking to my friends about getting a session together to do a one shot. I’d definitely love to show them your videos when it comes to building characters
Another very entertaining build! My first play through was a fire sorcerer. I wasn't very impressed with Scorching Ray. I recognized how amazing it was on paper; you could stack so much damage, and do so much in theory by the end of the game. But my hit rate was apallingly low, especially when I really needed it. Paraphrasing a wise youtuber, unreliability is the enemy of optimization.
I ended up relying mainly on magic missile even at level 10 or so, because I was guaranteed hits with all of those riders, even though Scorching Ray offered so many more dice. I did do well with scorching rays using a sniper approach, using stealth and invisibility to get into position before zapping targets. I also used the Hold Person followed by Scorching Ray trick.
Looking forward to your next build.
Arcane acuity (from the hat of fire acuity) makes your attack rolls much more accurate, and you could even use the risky ring to get advantage on all attacks
I hear ya. Got 12 toons and only one has even been in the Underdark, none into Act II
You were struggling to hit? I did my first run as a fire sorc without following a guide and always had pretty insane hit chance, early game just having chr as your highest stat is good, you can even pick up some early staffs that improve attack a little bit more. Then late game I felt like most of my armor was helping me land hits or increase on hit damage, to the point that I had probably an 85% hit chance with each bolt on most targets. The hat mentioned in this also makes that go from 85% to 99% real fast...
Using MM isn't bad for heavily armor targets but the base damage difference is pretty significant, especially if you include the legendary staff giving bonus to fire, and sorc getting bonus to fire spell damage, its the difference of 1d4+1 and 2d6+10 baseline. average 3 damage vs average 16 per hit, damage riders don't outway the difference here. Also also, when wearing the item that gives all attacks advantage you are rolling the d20 14times with a sixth level cast, and if any land on a 20 it's a crit, AKA usually you get one crit at least with every attack
Great one as always. At this point, the hardest part of the game is deciding which 4 builds to use.
Was just trying to finally do Act 2...
Well here I go character creating again
You know you can just respecc and don't have to start over every time, right?
@@aldoushuxley5953With Lae'zel origin run
@@aldoushuxley5953But you can't have full experience with the build. How can he go back and kill defeated enemies in act one if he just repecs?
@@ThanhLai5 Doing another playthrough, possibly in tandem. I mean people can play how they want but erasing all my progress every time I see a new way to play that MIGHT be fun to me sounds like a special kind of hell. There are plenty of great fights to have in ACT 2 and 3 not to mention content you haven't experienced yet. Just keep playing.
The real final boss of every RPG - the character creation screen
With regards the Pyroquickness hat, if you are "wet" at the time of casting a fire spell, you are immune to the "burning" condition, and therefore get the extra bonus action without taking the damage. Just another thing to keep your mage hand (or your invisible quasit - which if it only attacks potions, will remain out of the combat order and free to hit the bottle of water at your feet) busy.
Great catch! That's definitely a good trick for when you want the extra burst
@@Cephalopocalypsecould cast water on both Tav and enemy plus Arson oil on enemy
Sounds like a good use for the reverse rain cloak
I feel like not mentioning the “heat” mechanics with this build was a missed opportunity. I really just want your input on any potential use of the “heat” mechanic.
Heat is a pretty small damage boost for this build - you'll get it from markoheshkir (7 stacks from a 6th level ray), and then when you activate it it will add 7 damage to your first ray from the next shot, consuming all the heat. +7 damage isn't nothing and we'll certainly use it, but it's a pretty small percentage of the build's damage since it only adds to the first attack.
@@Cephalopocalypse note that the +7 also works on fireballs and affects every target. Really solid boost
I suggest that you go with the Gold Dragon ancestry and get the Disguise Self spell. Why? Because you can disguise yourself as, say, a Drow...you get the Superior Darkvision, the ability to fool goblins, and NORMAL movement speed--all while retaining your Halfling Luck. Plus, if you get the Shifter ring from the Ox in Act 1, that's another benefit/bonus!
that was an incredibly Shino-like response.
In BG3 Disguise Self only affects your appearance and social interactions. Unfortunately you get no other benefits.
@@SirCharles12357 I just want to add that I believe it also tricks gear (for example, weapons that only benefit Giths will benefit other races while they're disguised as Gith).
Thanks for the video, really liking how in-depth your character builds are
I'm genuinely surprised you didn't mention the Thermodynamic gloves. With those and the ability to cast both a scorching ray and either a fireball or a firewall in the same turn you can use them to boost fire damage immensely in one turn without taking any yourself.
I did this during my fight in the Shadowfell first time through with Gale thanks to a Speed potion rather than a Sorceror's quickened spell, but with the gloves on, each scorching ray beam adds two stacks of the Heat resource from the gloves. I think I used a leveled scorching ray to hit 4 enemies with the ray and gain 8 stacks of heat, then turned on the Heat Convergence to consume each of those stacks and add that as flat damage to an upcast fireball (I had firewall, but was concentrating on a control spell that was keeping about of a third of the enemies locked down) for everyone hit in the radius of the blast.
That maneuver was absolutely devastating, but frankly, it was extremely unoptimized compared to this build, which could add onto it extremely easily and just wreck everything with the additional additional damage from the charisma bonus on top of the heat convergence bonus damage for every instance of damage in a single hit.
But basically, with those gloves, Scorching ray acts as your build up of Heat stacks, and then you finish it off with a fireball or firewall with the Heat Convergence, it only adds to the extra damage on the initial cast (in the case of firewall), but by doing so the Heat stacks do no damage to your caster because they're consumed in the process!
Helldusk armor with pyrokinesis hat. You get the advantage of the hat, and the helldusk armor gives you fire resistance and you can't be burned (plus anyone can wear the helldusk as it comes with proficiency for it built in). Yes its an act three item, but its a good combo.
You can actually get the helldusk armor super early going into act 2
@@robertofigueroa1495i r talking abt the flawed one?
@@isaaccruel3994 nope it's the final one you get from killing Ralphel, just search helldusk armor early game
@@robertofigueroa1495you can get it in act 1
@@isaaccruel3994 I know it's 4 months ago, but it is an exploit. If you know where Raphael will spawn in act 1 to talk to you, split your party and trigger the cut scene. Then switch to a character that isn't talking to Raphael and attack him and he will flee. As soon as you enter the mountain pass, it will force you into camp and Raphael will be in the camp. Cast silence on him and bludgeon him with non-lethal attacks (will take some time) and when you finally knock him out, take his helldusk armor. Profit 😅
I was looking for a fire sorcerer build! Thanks for the video :)
Thank you for another inspiring video!
I think I will stick with my storm sorcerer (which is inspired by your previous sorcerer build) with 2 level dip into wizard for portent and 2 level for tempest cleric, but it’s good to know there is another cool option out there :-)
Every time I learn something new from your content which saves me plenty of time on deep exploring the game and enhances my overall experience and enjoyment of bg3.
I am thinking of running both of these builds - gale as storm sorcerer and either lazel or my TAV as this fire build. Didn't think they would work well together due to wet until I learned the arsonist oil effect from this video. Seems like getting everyone wet and letting gale use lightning spells, then have bard shoot them with arsonist oil and letting this char go to town with scorching ray would be a deadly combo.
Elemental Adept: Fire will also makes your character more vulnerable to Heat stacks that you get. If you have fire resistance- EA:F will remove it for Heat damage that you inflict on yourself AS WELL AS ensuring minim heat damage that you take is 2 instead of 1.
I do enjoy builds that aren't gear dependent. Or Hag hair dependent. Very nice build! I'm on Act 3 of Tactician mode and will be trying Honour Mode after, and this could be a very good late game nuker for me. Thanks!
considering it's only a +1, I don't feel that any build is Hag hair dependent, it's only a nice addition.
@@adamskeans2515 that 17+1 may feel minor, but it completely saves a feat for ASI which could be put into something else like warcaster, it is quite a big difference.
23:28 Hold person only guarantees crit if you hit in melee range. Not always you'll run in melee on attack rolls for range attack spells to have crits. It's possible but situational.
34:50 Also Halfling lucky passive doesn't work on damage rolls, only attacks, ability checks and Saving throws.
Extend is better than Distant. being able to double spells durations is so useful. Gloomstalker with pass without trace and a sorc that can extend greater invis is good. or globe for 6 turns.
This is the video I needed! I went Sorcerer Tiefling fighting the Dark Urge on my first Co-op playthrough (finally playing this game!) You convinced me to go straight Sorc and mix this fire build with a magic missile build. Gotta level up and find the magic missile gear :)
Great guide, would have been nice to see a showcase of trivialising content with this :)
I'm basing my 4th run, 2nd Honour playthrough on this build. Thanks for the inspiration, starting my run right now! Cheers !
if you do not have a light cleric in your party sure you can equip the gloves of radiating orb on the sorc, but if you have, spellmight gloves might be the BIS, since you can quickspell scorching ray and stack acuity, THEN activate the gloves for 1d8 in every attack and cast more scorching rays with acuity, so -5 will make no difference, also stormy cloud boots with spiteful thunder ring make a great combo stacking reverberation and doing even more damage. worth mentioning dual wielding staff of spellpower, so you haste and upcast 3 lvl 6 scorching ray (one quickened) in one turn (two with gloves on) without using the spell level itself, and probably have freecast avaiable too
I never use mage hand but the way you utilize it in this build will 100% make me use it on other builds as well. so interesting
If using Hat of Fire Acuity, one of the better powerful options is trade one level of sorcerer for fiend warlock and get irresistible command.
With extended spell it can even be 2 turns instead of one, and you can quicken scorching ray, then extend command, which is basically a win button.
A certain fight in act 3 has a boss which is immune to being wet. However, the boss has an action which gives it resistance to fire, which allows you to use the arsonist oil on it to remove the resistance. Next turn, when it loses the resistance effect, the boss becomes vulnerable to fire damage.
Also the shadow lantern is a good item for this build if you are running radiating orb. Strength drain from the shadow plus radiating orb sounds like an easy win
I absolutely love your guides, but I do find it challenging to go back and find the nuts and bolts of a build without having to watch the entire video again. For anyone else who may find it useful, here is the build synopsis:
BURN IT ALL DOWN - BG3 Fire Sorcerer - Cephalopocalypse
STR 8
DEX 14
CON 16
INT 8
WIS 10
CHA 17
Race: HALFLING, Gith, Half-Elf, Humans, Duergar, Asmodeus Tiefling
Skills: (Urchin or Guild Artisan) Persuasion, Intimidation
Draconic Ancestor: Any Fire (Red Dragon)
Cantrips: Fire Bolt, Friends, Minor Illusion (cluster enemies), Mage Hand (grenade at later levels)
Spells: Chromatic Orb, Shield
2: Meta: Distant, Meta: Twin, Magic Missile
3: Meta: Quickened, Cloud of Daggers
4: Any Cantrip, Misty Step, Feat: Actor
5: Counterspell, Replace Magic Missile with Haste
6: (Elemental Affinity: Damage), Fireball, Replace Cloud of Daggers with Scorching Ray
7: Wall of Fire, Replace Fireball with Hypnotic Pattern (if no control spells from other party members)
8: CHA +2, Hold Person
9: (Optional: 1 level of Warlock for Hex), Hold Monster or Sleet Storm or Fear or Ice Storm
10: Meta: Heightened, Sleet Storm or Slow, Any Cantrip (Blade Ward)
11: (Fly), Globe of Invulnerability
12: Fear or Confusion or Slow or Greater Invisibility or any other utility spells, Feat: Alert or Spell Sniper or War Caster or Elemental Adept: Fire (if not Halfling)
Key Items
Early: Nature's Snare, Arsonist's Oil (used by ally or Mage Hand) - put on weapon, Hat of Fire Accuity, Callous Glow Ring, Luminous Gloves
Late: Markoheshkir, Pyroquickness Hat (be careful!)
A small improvement you can make to this build is multiclassing with 1 level in fiend warlock. That gives you access to hex and command. Hex obviously adds 1d6 to every scorching ray you fire, and command is the best control spell that does not use concentration. Especially when upcast.
You can make use of the hat of fire acuity to guarantee hitting your command spells, the band of the mystic scoundrel to cast command as a bonus action, and the extended spell metamagic, to disable up to 6 opponents for 2 whole turns, guaranteed, as a bonus action.
Command is absolutely brutal. You can not only make them skip their turn, but forcethem to drop their weapon, and even use flee, which counts as voluntary movement, which means that their movements triggers opportunity attacks
Yup, it's a solid option - I discuss this in the video!
Also, you can grab eldritch blast, even though it wouldn't have the bonus riders, it would be helpful for fighting all the fire immune crap at in act 3.
Early bird eyyyyy. Always sat for more of your builds.
Or you can make your Firebolt be on steroids.
-There's a necklace that adds your spell casting modifier to the damge of cantrips with certain elements, fire being one of them (found in the Githyanki Creche, on your right past W'wargaz )
-There's also the ring you mentioned, although I don't know if Firebolt would trigger since it is you know... fire
-And of course the robes that you get from Alfira that gives more damage to cantrips equal to your Charisma modifier
So ... at level 12;
-Lvl 6 feature giving the spell casting modifier to fire based attacks (does it affect Fireball and Firewall?), so at lvl 12 with 24 CHA., +7
-3d10 (at level 5, firebolt is 2d10 and at level 10, 3d10)
-The robes and necklace gives a wopping +14 if you have 24 CHA as you mentioned in the vid
-The staff that I'm not gonna even attempt to spell that you mentioned, another +4
-And the li'l ol' ring giving +2 damge to illuminated targets. (Possibly, idk if Firebolt is viable for the ring).
Conclusion, 3d10+27, average 44
And that's before Arsonists's oil and crits. Definitely not the most optimal way, but funny for a basic ass cantrip.
Best in slot for gloves is definitely the Spellmight gloves…you pretty easily negate the -5 penalty with Arcane Acuity and add quite a bit of damage. Also Helldusk armor is great if you can get it (tough boss for this char!), as it makes you immune to the burn damage from Heat. I had that knock my concentration a few times so it’s quite annoying…probably worth getting war caster if you’re not going to do Raphael.
I thought ice abjuration wizard with armor of agathis is the best spellcaster. Extreme defense to the point of enemies skipping their turn rather than swinging at you combined with the double damage from getting them wet and with the void power sucking enemies together. Amazing build doing 1000 damage through multiple enemies. BUT this fire build is ridiculous. I never thought a fire build would compare to the ice. Now I'm gonna do a fire sorcerer. Thanks for the build
I am almost through my first run on a cold sorcerer. I have loved the sorc so much I have already started a Wild Magic Sorc to throw in some randomness. I will most likely to a fire sorc sometimes.
It's odd, in most RPG games I am so bad at magic users. In BG3, they really can burn down the house. And stay alive doing it, lol.
Larian is an incredible studio at making status effects and elemental hazards super fun to interact with and magic users have the easiest time manipulating those mechanics. It's the same in Divinity, cover enemies in oil and light them up or make it rain on a whole group and freeze them solid. I can never go back to playing a martial character lol
Nice. I already knew a lot of this. My Tiefling Sorcerer is already doing most of this. Though, I hadn't thought of getting the Actor Feat, that is good. Also, missed the idea with the Callous Glow Ring. I have that on Shadowheart. This will change.
You can use the Pyroquickness hat with impunity by wearing the Helldusk armor that you can cheese off of Raphael in act 1. It gives immunity to burn and negates fire damage less than 7.
Was literally talking about a fire caster with someone from work today! The algorithm knows too much 😂😂😂
You've swapped out both chromatic and magic missile. You should have kept one. By Act 3 there is a significant amount of enemies who are entirely immune to fire damage. You should be keeping something to deal with them. This is why there is so much that enhances fire builds : because anyone who puts so much into fire damage, are going to be rendered near-useless against enemies with high Wis saves and fire immunity. House of Hope, for instance, will be brutal because enemies have high wis saves and are all immune to fire. Having a nice lightning charge - magic missile backup was absolutely key for my fire sorc surviving that section.
We use arsonist's oil to get around fire resistance - it makes resistant enemies your best targets. For immune enemies, by act 3 you should have plenty of scrolls you can use, or simply cast haste on two allies and play support for that fight.
Great build if you have the skill and playing style to use it properly. I don't have either yet. But maybe someday. :-)
I just hope they fix wyll's fire bolt and fire ball animation as its delayed and this build with the fiend dip would be perfect for him. great build! any chance we get your take on a sorcadin for a future build?
Thanks very much! I'm fairly sure I have a sorcadin build up, but if not I definitely need to post one!
winning initative with alert, twin casting haste on either self + karlach or karlach + la'zel, just pure brutality. especially giving those two the ensured critical hit once a day tadpole powers
Your guides are very good, though I'd love some demonstration segments :)
this build is crazy, even without arsonist oil when i fought apostle it wasnt super difficult, the spell sparkler does wonders for this build too since its extra dmg (tactician though)
Ah, my favorite “scorching ray” build❤
So many different damage riders apply to scorching ray it's insane. Phalar aluve shriek, callous glow ring, lightning charges, scarlet remittance, it even works with gaping wounds for some reason.
Only an optional 1-level multi-class and item independent! Nice build
Funnily enough I stumbled upon the op-ness of fire sorc on my first honor playthru. I had a hard time pacing my spell slots (i.e. if you are about to have a big, or even medium, fight, and are missing say couple sorcery points or say a few lv3-4 slots, are you REALLY going to conserve the 80 camp supply?) so I took warlock 2 and wore potent robe the entire game but basically never used eb in "important" fights. Not having 6th level slots is definitely suboptimal but the game is not hard enough for me to notice, and if it was command as a way to cc and group spread out enemy without concentration more than makes up for it.
There are a few places I would differ from this build. if you don't have an alert team I'd take thunder wave and keep it. Throwing people off cliffs is fun and being able to peel yourself is important. As one might notice from the video, you also just run out of spells you want. Finally lv1-2 spell slots don't have much use outside of shield. For the above 2 reasons I also took enhance ability. I'd also also take bone chill over blade ward/true strike since ~3 uses is more than 0.
Then there are some omissions so glaring I can't help but wonder if, rather than true strike, these were the actual bait to get people to comment. Spellmight, for one, is almost as core as markoheshkir (marko is 4 dmg over spellpower and burns you, while spellmight is a d8 above and...say 6 atk below helldusk? but nullified by acuity). The weirdly light mention of command, for another, which would be a much bigger reason than hex to dip warlock.
More importantly, dual wielding, which is inexplicably rated like b or c tier in the feats list despite being solidly s. There are enough stat sticks that it's competitive with asi even early game, and clearly pulls ahead once say rhapsody becomes obtainable. Failing that, why honorable mention to spell sniper when you can off hand a KoUK or a bloodthirst? Offhand bloodthirst is strictly 2 more ac than spell sniper with no downsides!
BTW one fun fact about callus glow ring is that it adds that dmg when you burn yourself as well, so besides the 1d4 dmg you take from burning your ass, you take another 2 dmg of radiant dmg as well ! . So if you pair that with the Pyroquickness hat(its also pretty buggy on honour mode, sometimes i just loses the bonus action for no reason), you can take alot of radiant dmg alongside the fire one you already take. Still very very powerful though. Especially if you combine with the illithid power where you gain 1d4 extra dmg on every hit, you can do an incredible amount of dmg. You can also stack their charisma to 24 too if you do the mirror of loss + auntie ethel hair thing and make your scorching ray doing +7 instead of +5. This is probably one of the best character at abusing auntie ethel hair cause you benefit alot from high charisma, so i think makes the best party face as well. No other character i can imagine has this big of an advantage on Charisma stacking imo
So if you really REALLY want the extra bonus action from the helmet and don't mind dropping a little spell attack bonus from Robe of the Weave - and you don't have a martial char that wants it - comboing Helldusk Armor with the Pyroquickness Hat gets you the free extra bonus action without taking the damage or getting burned :D
Really cool build idea. I would have liked to have seen an example of combat with it though
I've spent 300 hours in this game and have never once beaten it. The furthest I've gotten is part way through Act 3, but I keep making new characters so I can play a specific build throughout the whole game and then I never make it past 10 hours.
I think these videos might have something to do with it lol
That's always the danger! I can't tell you how many times I've played the first 5 hours of an rpg over and over
Agreed
Can always respec companions, tav, or even hirelings with Withers instead of restarting!
@@skylerdama my brain doesnt wanna count it because it "wasnt the original run"
I think another excellent sorc would take spell sniper as first feat and pick eldritch blast, twinned haste, then action blast then quicken bonus blast at lvl 5 that would be 6 beams per turn with 10% chance to crit before other items
I'm atm still at the beginning of this (8 minutes in), but I can already see either myself or someone else recreating Triss Merigold with this build.
38:00 I don't know if you tested it or not but that oil doesn't work like the description says (in honour mode at least). It seems to give enemies fire vulnerability but doesn't remove their fire resistance. Which means that you only have enemies that have their fire resistance removed as a result. Using Create Water to apply wet seems much simpler and gives the same effect.
Theoretically depending on choices, this could be adjusted for any of the elements couldn’t it.
I saw a build option for “ice assassin” build, warlock 2, tempest cleric 1, abjure wizard. I was wondering what your take would be on it?
And of course thank you so much your builds are awesome, and you explain everything beautifully! ❤
It definitely could! The main downside of other elements is they don't have a multi-instance damage spell to abuse the way scorching ray can be, but you can definitely power up any element and there are items that can help do more damage instances as well
I haven't seen the video so I don't have questions yet but I was wondering if you'll be making a guide for those that are thinking of using the tadpole? As always, thank you for all the work you put into your guides.
If your gonna take the big tadpole id swap 2 levels for warlock for EB, devils sight and hex since youll get fly from the tadpole powers. all you lose is a feat and a level 6 spell but you can use sorcpoints to make more level 5 slots and the short rest pots to make a lot of points
Thanks very much! Illithid powers tier list/guide is definitely on the list :D
Did you start filming multiclass tier list yet? How about you pick a class, then rank remaining 11 classes as multiclassing options in relation to that class? That would make 12 videos oops) Just saying
Finding out ideas for MC only is one thing, finding out ideas for the other party members is another thing. That's the reason why inspirational videos like this is very helpful. Nice video. 1 build that I believe as a must build in the party at least one is 3 Thief Rogue + 9 Open Hand Monk. Because it's the cheapest yet effective build.
You are right with what you say. But after the golden Run with a Fire sorcerer - i would 10000% took a wizzard at his place. free fireball on everything + modifier to everything later on? It was a hard time to get those dice but knowing you are pure havock is a Wizard only and only with one spec. Evocation is the best and easiest way to go all the TIME!
I don't get what you're saying about how elemental adept is less effective due to being a halfling? The re-roll 1s for halfling doesn't apply to damage and can only re-roll a roll once, so if you get two 1's in a row, you still take the 1. Elemental Adept applies to damage, and the reroll 1s is infinite: you can never roll a 1 for any damage of the selected type. It's supremely favourable to therefore get both. There's a LOT of enemies who are resistant to fire damage and elemental adept is the only way around that.
He uses arsonist oil to get around the fire resistance and turn it to vulnerability
This would have been a good video to mention the amazing spellmight gloves, not because the build needs it (though it could benefit from it), but because so many people forget they exist since unless you pickpocket them they're gatekept behind finding all of Dribbles the Clown -_-
Or make a tribute to Bhaal
Sounds like a fun build! I’m curious about what your strategy is for powerful enemies that are immune to fire damage, like Grym and Raphael?
(Also, it’s just a personal thing but I don’t think I could bring myself to take the Actor feat. If you start with/respec to 15 CON instead, you can bump WIS to 12 and use the first feat to get 16 CON and 18 CHA. This effectively gives you a +1 bonus to WIS saves and skill checks instead of bonuses to deception and performance checks, which just seems more optimal to me. I’ve never found those particular skills to be very important, especially if you have proficiency in persuasion!)
I used this build for my honour mode run! grym & raphael were actually fairly simple bc my build had one level in warlock for command. Essentially it took advantage of the fire acuity hat by stacking a saving throw dc up to a level that even raphael could not save from and extending that spell for 2 turns. while you can't necessarily do big damage on those enemies with scorching ray, you can keep them on their knees while your tavern brawler karlach beats the ever loving crap out of grym and/or raphael. (twin haste to start really helps with this too)
my first playthrough ran a pyro, truely an insaneeeee glass cannon. I could quick cast dobule lvl 6 scorching ray with the legendary staff giving the extra spell slot.... It was like 300damage as an opener... With no haste potion entering combat
Hey guy! Your guides are really informative, but I do have a critique with them. I'm as big a believer in theorycrafting builds as the next guy, and your videos do that well with the explanations you give per level. But, with that said, I find the videos lack a lot of punch, because there's usually no type of demonstration. From memory I believe you've demonstrated the Sentinel Fighter, the Elements Monk, and the Lightning Wizard Cleric in practice. Otherwise for most other build videos, you seem to just show the leveling itself, leaving me as a man with Goopy Goblin Baldur Brain otherwise dissatisfied because I don't see the build in action.
Obviously whatever you're doing is working, and I don't mean to disparage your quality, but I do think these build guides would be much, MUCH better served with an actual, tangible demonstration of their capabilities that isn't just fighting the Oathbreaker Knight or your camp allies. One for each guide really proving their mettle in Honor Mode would do a lot for the quality of these build guides, in my opinion. Possibly in a boss fight of some kind?
I hope you know this is a good faith critique and I'm not trying to shit on your work, it's just something I've been thinking about with these guides.
Thanks! The reason I mostly don't do this is twofold: one, it's a LOT of additional work, and two, people don't watch it. When I've tried including gameplay, those videos didn't do any better in terms of views and often did worse, with the gameplay segments in particular losing a lot of retention. When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense - there's thousands of gameplay videos out there, so by including that suddenly I'm competing with professionally edited let's plays from studios with entire production teams behind them. On the other hand, when it comes to builds I have world-class knowledge to share so it's something people can't easily get elsewhere.
More importantly though, it's just not that fun for me - I enjoy creating and talking about builds, but playing the same fights over and over for demo purposes would get boring fast.
Good video but I am really eager to see your multi-class sub-class tier lists
Wait, you can play this game without being naked?!
Having trouble with low initiative with this build. Am i missing something? I am always going last in combat
Technically this build is only using things that Larian put into the game on purpose, but I still feel it’s abusing the bad ruling that you’re allowed to use quicken to cast two levelled spells in the same round.
Still, the fact that I can’t do that (I modded it out of the game) really only makes the build more fun - not less. 🙂
I decided to pick Careful Spell as one of my first 2 metamagics, I played as storm sorcere last playthrough and I realise I didn't use Distant spell once lol, but I could have used some anti-friendly fire ability
what are your thoughts the variants of this that uses 1 level of Fiend Warlock for command?
For me the best feats are asi, DW and ele adept or spell sniper, simply because I don’t want to go first on fire sorcerer because he wants someone coating enemies in arsonists oil before blasting.
34:14 as a halfling with the rerolls that’s 5.25% extra crit chance. 👍
Brings you to 10.5% crit chance while other races would be at 10%.
Do you think this build would work for a durge build? Also is channel membership only available in the USA as I can never get it to work. Thanks.
Hey, thanks so much for the support! I really appreciate it :D
This build would be totally fine for a dark urge, how easy it is to kill stuff would make the invis cloak trigger constantly, which would be great.
Channel membership might not be in some regions, I'm not sure - there should be a "join" button under the videos, or this link should hopefully work: ruclips.net/channel/UCieQlcvyyk5208GxlVU43Rgjoin Thanks either way though!!
@@Cephalopocalypsethanks for the link. I’m glad I can support the person who’s made bg3 a game I’ve spent countless hours in because your videos always galvanise me to try a new build and go again.
Surprised you didn’t talk about heat and heat convergence. Doesn’t marko give that automatically?
I so sad taht you didnt show it in combat :(
I actually started recording a combat segment for this one but kept running into an annoying bug and after a few minutes of that was like well the video's 40 minutes already. Next time hopefully!
Hello, unfortunately I don't understand English very well and would like to understand your video properly. Could you perhaps add German to options/subtitles? kind regards
Great, guide, but you left out the best part. Demoing the build. We want to see the massive damage output!
Raphaels armor could help negate the heat feedback. Fire resist and 3 dmg reduction so that d4 should do 0 every proc I would assume.
very true! Another option as someone else pointed out is to take a quick shower - when you're wet, you're immune to burning (the inverted rain cloak can do that permanently as well!)
That's not a bad idea either.
heyho, pls excuse me if this question is unrelevant, i am kinda new to dnd and bg3, but isnt it a waste to have nothing in the other hand? there are races with shield proficiency or two handed weapon feat. am i wrong?
Yes, you can use half-elf or human for example to get the shield prof. You can see on his other caster builds he chooses Gale and it's so he can also run a shield. It is a waste objectively speaking but it's a fair trade from halfling's racial feat.
Gold dragon is the best if you constantly speak with the dead to not swap to Divinity: Original Sin II helmet.
I just learned the hard way that Halfling luck is bugged. Rolled a critical failure with the US encounter right at the beginning of the game and it didn’t let me reroll. Did Sam Riegal get into the code somehow? Anyways I assume it’s not build breaking but I was looking forward to that feature. How important is to the build?
I have been running Wyll as a sorlock but i may need to lean into fire damage. I may also have to swap Shadowhart to the gloves of belligerent sky and give Wyll the gloves of illumination.
I know this build is gear agnostic but it seems like it could benefit from the Dual Wielder feat and carrying 2 staffs. Melf’s Staff and Spellsparkler early on, any two attack roll boosts later, the Markoheskir and whatever you like at the end. Lots of options so it’s still pretty agnostic.
What would be a normal rotation for this build? I’m sure you mentioned it but it was a lot of info here.
Had been considering a fire damage build. But I'm not playing dwarves or halflings.
Isn’t Raphael a huge problem for this build? It would be one thing if he were resistant to fire damage, but he’s straight up immune to it.
You'll just need to use your control spells then. Mainly hold monster on raphael.
When doubt cc out
I have built a lot of Ice Sorcs, but it seems I will have to try out a Fire Sorc next time :D
What's some good ice sorcs build, was thinking about playing one for next run
@@MannyUchiha There are a few flavors possible, all involving White Bloodline for Armour of Agathis, and eventually Frost of Dark Winter from Kereska's Favour
- Pure: 12 Sorc, similarly to the Fire option this just works, only shame is no good lvl3 Cold option
- Tank: 1 Cleric/6 Sorc/5 Abj Wiz, bit MAD because of the mix of Int and Cha but with AC stacking can frontline cast Ice Storm on everyone around them because it barely hurts them self (With Wet from Cleric Create Water)
- Sorlock: 5 Warlock/7 Sorc, Hunger of Hadar does Cold damage, 7 Sorc needed to get Ice Storm
Fun items to use are Winter's Clutches and the Coldbrim Hat for possibly freezing enemies, and of course the Mourning Frost for early game Staff
(And an honorable mention that is barely Sorc, but kills things by doing nothing: 1 Sorc/11 Abj Wiz, minimize your AC as much as possible, use max Armour + Fire Shield Cold, get hit)
I think you mentioned the potential to get to 24 charisma? +2 from mirror and +2 from birthright hat? Im guessing 22 with fire acuity hat would probably still be stronger though.
18 CHA base. Then +1 CHA Hag Hair, +1 CHA Mirror, +2 CHA Mirror (yes, you can get +3 CHA from mirror of loss ACT3) = 24
@@BrickArmsWillyou can only go up to 17 base…
Very much so, yes. Birthright Hat is for EB builds or Pact of the Blade builds imo
A tempest cleric, a thrower fighter, an armoured abjuration wizard, and a pyromancer walk into a bar the bar is now a cloud of electrified ash and steam
Cannot wait to try this!
Light cleric 6 sorcerer 6
Can you add gameplay examples to your buids?
Omg I'm so annoyed... :)
On a more serious note, I really enjoy these videos since I'm relatively new and don't want to build through every class to see what they all can do.
Would be interested in seeing a class breakdown of each subclass and how it might pair well with other classes, instead of direct builds.
Question for U. How to do you counter the heat convergence you get from the staff. It messes with my fire acuity and I lose concentration with haste
It's goofy, but you take a shower! When you're wet you're immune to burning so the heat convergence doesn't affect you (though you won't always need to be concentrating on anything on this character)
@@Cephalopocalypse hey found out if you wear the helldusk armor you just skip the heat damage as well. Btw thanks for responding, keep making cool vids👍👍
Thumbnail confused me, skip bayless is in bg3?
Have you considered incorporating the Heat mechanic?
Heat is a pretty small damage boost for this build - you'll get it from markoheshkir (7 stacks from a 6th level ray), and then when you activate it it will add 7 damage to your first ray from the next shot, consuming all the heat. +7 damage isn't nothing and we'll certainly use it, but it's a pretty small percentage of the build's damage since it only adds to the first attack.
Really sucks that halfling is basically needed for this build. Really absurd unless you take lucky feat.
Thoughts on elemental adept fire?
Draconic sorcerers also can get Shovel the quasit as a summon
How do you keep him permanently? I got him on a bard and obviously he died eventually cuz I forgot about him but I couldn’t resummon him. He’s so funny lmao
@@Quantum_BluntzTo get Shovel thru dialogue you need to be a warlock or draconic sorc, or else be a wizard and simply learn his scroll. All others can't keep him, sadly
@@cannyvalley8522 ahh ok. Thanks for the info. I might roll one then. It has to be Draconic Sorc? Is Storm applicable?
@@Quantum_Bluntz afaik only draconic sorcerer
@@Quantum_BluntzShovel specifically hates Storm sorcerer and cannot be gotten by them through dialogue. Any other kind of sorcerer, wizard, or warlock can get him though, even if you respec out of the class later.
Is this objectiveky better than a magic missile build? IE lv 10 evocation wizard with itemization
Sorc are broken: twinned metamagic doubles damage.
Considering how much Speed potions one can buy and craft, I'd personally gravitate towards skipping the Haste spell, but it does last 10 turns, in contrast to the potion's 3.
That would make sense but twin casting haste is beyond absurd.
You can bunh up your team real close and throw the potion at the ground -- the splash will affect all 4 of you for the price of 1.@@CMiY0
Twin Haste is broken and can be cast just before battle. And doesn’t waste a bonus action (which is basically an action because of quickened spells)
There is a hat in act 3 that grants +2 to charisma i think it could be good for this build
For sure!