I looked at the list and it's solid. I would have bumped Lightning Bolt down, Slow up, and Feign Death up to middle tier for the utility to rob vendors blind, but otherwise, everything else I agree with.
@@MajesticFerret why would you lower the lightning bolt rating? it deals the same damage as fireball (twice as much if you use the forbidden Bo'oh'o'wa'er-no-jutsu) it has a different 'damage area' than fireball, but that just means they're useful in different scenarios- especially for a sorcerer that doesn't have the 'no friendly-fire' perk evocation wizards get, that can be insanely useful to not fry your own party members while still allowing to do The Big Damage. Also, lightning is objectively a stronger damage type- less enemies resist it, more (and stronger) enemies are vulnerable to it, and it's so much easier to induce the vulnerability in those that aren't.
@@Kairax witchbolt is one of the best ealy game spell when you dont have much spellslots or cant upcast. Below level 5 its a really nice spell. After lv 5 it loses to cantrips
Mass healing word is amazing... If you have the necklace that gives you a free cast and they're combined with the ring that bless for two rounds on heal and the hell rider gloves that give blade ward.
Although I should have said so during the video, I am rating the spells based on their usage of a spell slot. In fact there are two of those necklaces that I have found in the game, and I feel like one of my characters almost always has it on!
Great tier list. I like the methodology and rationale, helps me understand the use-case of each spell (which is much more important than the specific tier it's placed into).
Fun one. Sanctuary gives you almost everything Blink does (you are still vulnerable to area damage), works every time, does not break concentration, and can be cast on other party members or allies. For a first level spell. I don’t know what they were thinking with Blink. Feign Death is also out classed by Sanctuary unless you’re using it for thievery (in which case Feign Death is an infinite money spell)
@@CasualVeteranGamerI've noticed when I have sanctuary active, and then I cast spirit guardians, it spends the level 3 spell slot but then cancels out the guardians instantly, totally wasting the slot
It wouldn't be ok even if it didn't break concentration imo. A defensive feature that's only on 50% of the time is pretty bad. If the first turn was guaranteed I'd be a bit kinder to it but imagine casting this spell and then it only works in one out of the next three turns, and then the battle is over.
I remember using it on a sorcerer cleric casting 2 warding bonds on melee characters. That way it further reduced the shared damage by half, effectively making it so she only incurred 1/8 of the damage for each character. I don't think it's optimal but it worked pretty well on a high con shadowheart with health buffs and death ward.
Correction: sleet storm actually breaks concentration in addition to knocking Prone (as a separate effect) - I tested this with characters with immunity to being knocked prone, and they stayed on their feet but lost concentration anyway.
I had this yesterday in a massively outnumbered fight. Hasted tempest cleric (drank speed potion as bonus action) was able to create water and call lightning in one turn, then following turns activate call lightning twice per turn. Swung balance well in our favor before going lethargic!
i LOVE animate dead, the ghuls synergise so well with the Ice Melphits, they make enemies prone, and the ghuls can 'devour' them, super combo, S Rank well deserved (also works with _anything_ that puts people prone, so ice, sleep or throwing them even)
Gaseous form also lets you pick up chests, and then shared pockets them to someone stronger. So you can go on a thieving binge with no one bothered by chests disappearing into a cloud of gas.
Hunger of Hadar (Warlock exclusive) pairs really well with plant growth (Bard) and grease (Wizard). You can cheese a whole section of a fight by using this combo as it works superbly well in a bottleneck battle. The major downside is that it will be hard for some of your party to attack enemies if they cannot see through darkness as well as how the grease and vines can be cleared away with fire. So its not foolproof completely abd gas drawbacks but does make tough fights much easier than they should be.
I would like to say thank you for making these videos. There is plenty of Spell ranking videos out there but most people just sit on the tiermaker website and don't show off the spells or niche uses of it in game. I hope people will find your videos more often.
The main problem with beacon of hope, is that for that same spell slot, you could cast another healing spell of tier 3 and get the same result on average, or potentially better, but not much worse, so you actually WIN by casting 2 healing spells... and casting 2 heal spells does not require concentration. Beacon of Hope only works, if you are going to cast several healing spells.
Another great video! So I found a funny thing about Feign Death on accident. Was doing the Inn fight in Act 2 and missclicked and cast it on Isobel. The enemy treater her as dead and ignored her for the rest of the fight. So, if you are having a problem w/ keeping an NPC ally alive in a combat, I guess you can use this.
Yeah, I like to try and keep as many of them alive as possible. Usually end up casting Aid at the highest level I can on all of them at the top of the fight. Really wish they wouldn't run through my wall of fire and spike growths though. Idiot heroics the Harpers are known for, I suppose.@@atticusstark5197
Crusader's mantle has a nice niche in fights like the revisit to moonrise tower, where you get a bunch of extra temporary members. adding 1d4 dammage 5-6 times per harper greatly increases it's usefullness.
Feign Death has a better use than just looting merchandise. Some quests want you to save an NPC, and it can keep them from being stupid. You may want to also cast Sanctuary on the NPC so they don't get targeted while feigning death.
Just wanted to add a couple things for Elemental Weapon. There is a weapon in Act 2 at Moonrise sold by Roah Moonglow that allows you to cast the spell without concentration, what you can do is drop your main weapon on the floor cast the spell onto the dropped weapon and you basically get a extra 1d4 on your attack and the spell will last until you long rest where you can just do the same thing again. Also since you can add thunder damage to your weapon, you can combine it with specific armor and jewelry it can add a lot of damage and conditions to one attack. i.e. combine it with Glove of Belligerent Skies and Ring of Spiteful Thunder and you will inflict reverberating and dazed to the attack. And even if you decide to cast the spell with concentration there aren't many spells for paladins that require concentration anyways besides Crusaders Mantle and Hunters Mark, so you can just cast the spell and add the Strange Conduit Ring which lets you deal an 1d4 psychic damage. Of course this requires getting all the items and setup which reduces the freedom players have in building their character so I can definitely understand why some people wouldn't want to do this. But for me Elemental Weapon definitely is at least high B low A tier.
Additionally you can have a sorcerer use a single sorcery point to use this on 2 weapons since most parties have more then one martial character with the twin spell
A small addendum to Stinking Cloud: It pairs REALLY well with the sorcerer's Careful Spell. Since your teammates automatically succeed saves against Careful Spells you can fight freely inside the cloud. This can render some fights completely trivial. It falls off in late act 2 but until then that combo is hilariously powerful.
You can also just combo it with being immune to poison condition (Protection against poison or Hero's Feast) and it won't do anything (Same with Cloudkill)
Love these videos! They're insanely useful, even though I've already beat the game twice already they manage to teach me new things and want to try new things out
One interesting detail about Blinding Smite is that as far as I know, its the only Smite spell that is able to target inanimate objects. Dunno if thats intentional, but it has its uses. (Act III spoilers ahead) I found it very useful for destroying the Soul Pillars during the Raphael fight.
I have been really liking these lists. Ive learned so many cool tips & tricks i didn't know about a bunch of lvl 1 & 2 spells and cantrips. Expect this to be the same. Thanknyou CVG!
If you have an oathbreaker paladin wielding phalar aluve casting crusader’s mantle, you have the ultimate buddy for a necromancer. All your minions will get huge attack buffs.
Hypnotic is S+ for me. It's my favorite L3 spell & favorite conc spell. Makes several fights trivial (ex: Moonrise and Sharran House of Grief) In extremely difficult encounters, Hold Monster might be your only good CC, but otherwise Hypnotic gets the job done quite well.
Fireball, I would put in A since many enemies tend to resist or be immune to fire. Haste I would put in A as well due to it's heavy downside if conc is broken and things like Celestial Haste and Speed Pots (granted only 3 turns w/ pots)
@@BlakeWhoLivesAtHome Fireball is S when you first get it (level 5), but enemy HP quickly scales too much with higher levels. Fireball ends up dropping to C, honestly, once you're past level 7 or so.
I agree. Hypnotic carried my first playthrough (Lore Bard/Theif). I had both Hypnotic and Stinking Cloud, and I almost always just found way more use out of Hypnotic.
Best spell tier list I've seen, love how you go through and test all the spells on the field so we get a more intuitive idea of what they do. Wonder if they've fixed warden of vitality/life cleric yet.
Good list, I agree with most of it (I would put hadar in S, just because warlocks get a lot of use out of it). My suggestion is to add a tier for niche use spells that are totally fine for spellcasters that can change their memorised spells on a whim, but are a terrible choice for spellcasters that can only change their memorised spells on level up. Saves having to compromise between the two.
Fear only lasts for one turn, the duration is bugged, like dissonant whispers. Call lightning is bugged to use the dc of last class picked on subsequent casts. Hunger of Hadar DC is still static 12. Lightning Bolt sticks to the ground, like a cloud, so no targeting across pits.
This is incredible work! One quick thing I want to note is I think you may be underrating Bestow Curse a bit. I think a really key thing about it is that, once it’s applied, the effect doesn’t go away if they pass a saving throw. So if you land Bestow Curse: Dread and they save on their first turn after that, the effect isn’t gone and they might still do nothing in subsequent turns. This makes it really good if a fight is going to be long (and given that it’s the type of spell best used on a boss, it’ll typically be used on long fights). So, for instance, let’s compare it to Resilient Sphere-a spell that you gave an A grade at level 4. In that video, you showed an example of Resilient Sphere having an 80% chance to work on a boss. With that 80% chance of success and a 3-turn duration, Resilient Sphere is going to average making the boss do nothing for 2.4 turns (i.e. 0.8*3 = 2.4). What if you used Bestow Curse instead? Well, let’s say the fight is 5 turns. We assume the same 80% chance for the spell to work (it’s actually higher on that particular boss, since that boss has higher DEX than WIS, but we’ll ignore that). You have an 80% chance for it to work, and then that makes the boss lose his turn 80% of the time after that. So, in a 5-turn fight, the average number of turns wasted by the Bestow Curse spell will be 3.2 turns (0.8*0.8*5 = 3.2). In other words, Bestow Curse will waste the boss’s time more on average than an A-tier level 4 spell that is geared towards the same purpose! And it’s actually even more advantageous than that, since Bestow Curse doesn’t prevent you from damaging the enemy. So you can focus the boss down while the spell is active. This is a big benefit. Meanwhile, one might point out that Resilient Sphere has other potential uses-such as using it on an ally. But Bestow Curse has other things it can do too-and in both cases it doesn’t make a big difference since the way you’ll typically be using it is to crowd control bosses. So, IMO, the bottom line is that Bestow Curse is pretty comparably good to the Resilient Sphere/Banishment/Polymorph group of spells that you put in A-tier at level 4. It can be used for the same purpose and be similarly effective, and often more effective if the fight isn’t short. And, of course, it goes without saying that a level 3 spell should not be in C-tier when it performs similarly well to A-tier level 4 spells.
Revivify: Scrolls are so easy to come by, I never even consider preparing this. Mass Healing Word: At lower levels this is great for saving yourself from a TPK, and at higher levels you can afford to "waste" 3rd level slots on this just to keep people in the fight. In BG3 like 5e before it, ALL healing is incredibly powerful when your HP is low because 1HP is the difference between doing nothing and doing something on your turn. It's a bonus action, and has a huge AOE. I will always prep this. Hunger of Hadar: a staple for any Warlock, I don't see how this can be anything but S tier unless we want to reserve S tier for truly exceptional spells like Haste and Spirit Guardians. But considering how generous you're being with S tier, Hadar deserves to be there too. Damage, reduced movement, blocks vision. Use it correctly with a choke point and it turns the tide of a battle. Plant Growth: Deserves A tier simply because it isn't concentration, you can combo this with a Stinking Cloud, Cloud Kill, Hadar, Insect Plague, Cloud of Daggers, etc. Haste: SS tier, probably the best spell in the game, and unlike in 5e it's absolutely broken because casters can use it to cast multiple full spells per turn.
Feign Death can be used to steal merchants that have 100relationship with you as they are considered allies. It's better than hold person in that regard, as it has no save and it doesn't register as a hostile action (NPC don't get angry at you).
Thanks for the awesome vids! New to this kinda game so I've just been throwing bullshit at my enemies without strategy. The lists help a lot with respeccing. Cheers
Haste is S on all casters, S+ (frankly completely OP and broken) on sorcerers. Actually having a soc just to cast twinned haste is a good decision, and this is kinda weird! Good list, agree on basically everything.
@@rm2569 I feel it's great but fair without twinned cast - it's the "right way" to augment single target DPS to compete with Fireball for a level 3 spell slot, and concentration is a big cost in terms of opportunity cost. Now, with twinned casting it's just bonkers.
@@Tentacl What takes me over the edge is that unlike in the TT (where you only get a extra attack), here you get a full extra action. That means you get essentially 2 or even 3 extra attacks per turn while hasted. It also lets you use spells.
When i see level 3 spell i think Fireball! When I see BG3 Fireball I think CSV! really enjoy these guides, you giving me ideas with some of the nuances of the spells and niche uses. I'd love to see your take on Illithid abilities compared to the 5e spells. I feel like Larian's additions makes some of the D&D specific spells seem restrictive.
Can't argue with your reasoning on any of them. Good list. Good channel. Feign death. No disagreement on the ranking, but it has its uses. Feign death would work on a "save the NPC" situation. I read you can do it with Isobel, but I just happened to be at that stage in my current run, and she's not an ally. May have been patched. Otherwise feign death is for merchants. I give all books to Dammon until he's 100 opinion in Act 1. I rob him blind from then on, which is good, cause he keeps moving. I do it when I have that slot left before a long rest. As an aside, if robbing someone, it's good to obscure so someone doesn't witness it.
Solid tier list. The only one I might quibble with is Grant Flight...despite being a concentration spell, 10 turns is usually more than enough for non-boss encounters, and I've got some solid use out of it for getting advantageous positioning. I'd probably put it in A or B tier; it's worth having on at least one of your casters.
I will say that magic weapon cast on a crossbow bard is really strong, the extra plus 1 to hit combined with the damage, you can also upcast for an additional +1 weapon bonus per spell level which can be nice
Elemental weapon is A-tier (S-tier when used on a fighter). The spell is used pre-combat so the paladin can use all actions to attack with smite, which is best use of paladin spell slots other than elemental weapon. The paladins have great concentration saving throws because of the aura and likely high constitution. Best case scenario Elemental weapon is used on a fighter who can attack 12(!!) times in a turn: improved extra attack and 3 extra actions from speed potion, elixir of bloodlust and action surge. Insane value from elemental weapon.
sleet storm can cause wetness after the spell ends and the ice melts. it also doesn't aggro foes who haven't decided to fight you yet. it also has a much higher area of effect than create water.
You're correct on the blink. Concentration stays across planar travel in 5e. It's likely programming issues that weren't addressed for one spell or the same interaction you'd get from camp coming out for some reason.
Plant Growth is easily one of my sleeper picks and an S-tier in my heart. In parties that do not use Fire Damage, this is easily high A or even S (though not having fire damage makes it less versatile). It does not use concentration so it's perfect for Druids when paired with Moonbeam or Call Lightning. In one of my playthroughs, I would always combo Plant Growth w/ Hunger of Hadar and it would single-handedly destroy encounters (even some boss ones).
My problem with paladin spells is that literally every single one of thier spells require concentration, so you cant even get the benefits of having a concentration spell up and using another spell during it
One of my favorites was Slow. -2 AC, can only take an action or bonus action not both and if they have multi attack they only attack once, their movement speed is halved, their saving throws have a -2 and they can't take reactions. I've made bosses basically as easy to kill as a goblin in tactician mode. Very strong spell. There's an invocation that gives it to you on warlock and Great Old one gets it as well. Its always taken on warlock for me.
@@CasualVeteranGamer Yeah, I've used almost all the spells at some point. Slow worked really well in situations were Hazard spells don't work so well, which is my preferred method of approaching combat. Its true it and every other spell is competing with the power of Haste though..
It trivialised Raphael fight for me. My Gale caste this on 7 enemies and flew far away from battleground. Low wisdom of enemies meant 6 of them were slowed for 10 turns while Laezel butchered them one by one. Gale flew in on his turns and cast magic missiles on the pillars. No overpowered spells needed. Not even Haste.
I totally slept on it bfore this vid in favour of haste. I'm doing a "don't caste haste spell" run to force myself to try out different concentration spells, so I'm looking forward to trying this and fear.
Hunger of Hadar is definitely S-Tier. I don't see it higher than almost any other spell in S-Tier, especially not spirit guardians or call lightning. This spell alone solocarries so many fights in the game, especially in Act 2 where you are often confronted with a fuckton of enemies. Combining it with void bulbs or spells that push enemies back and it's an absolutely amazing tool in a vast majority of fights. The amount of times it literally saved my honor run is insane: Last light when everyone turned zombie, moonrise towers, the fight against ketheric, against all the sahuagin in the iron throne - basically always if you're confronted with a large gathering of enemies, which happens often. It's not going to be that great against bosses themselves because most bosses have skills or abilites to get out easiely, but in any other situation, if you look at your spells and think: "Damn what could my warlock use this turn?", hunger of hadar is almost always going to be the right choice.
About daylight There's a major bossfight in act 3 (wont say who), where they have sunlight hyper-sensitivity, meaing that additionally on the disadvantage, they also take 20 radiant dmg at the start of their turn, really speeding the fight along.
Sleet storm with another call lightning or other source of lightning like the boot that create electrified puddle when stepping in is huge. Especially when you can melt the ice for wet then shocking it. Simply by having Karlach with Heat (immune to difficult terrain)
You just gotta turn it off before the post-fight cutscene, otherwise the cutscene will end early and you won't be able to choose what happens to the spawns.
Beacon of Hope: A tier. Yes it may be "Situational" but that situation can be defined as "any SITUATION that is very hard". There is a ring or cloak or gloves or something that gives Beacon of Hope once per long rest. That's when I found out how absolutely amazing this spell is. First of all, Wisdom saving throw advantage is the best Advantage you can get in terms of spell defenses. The maximum healing however did wonders for me during House of Hope and 2/3 Nether stone battles. It's actually really good. Maximum healing is really the best part about it. VERY strong. It may not be flashy and "cool" and do something fun or funny. But end of the day - when I am trying to beat a fight that is hard or too strong for me, BoH is the best advantage I can give myself. BoH will massively help you beat fights that are not easy.
I can see the maximum healing being strong when drinking the higher level healing potions. The amount of healing we get from most spells isn't very much. For me the concentration element makes me want to avoid it. The effects of the spell are good as you pointed out, but bless or spirit guardians are difficult to give up.
For Feign Death, having someone talk to the merchant makes it last forever so you can take all day to pickpocket the vendor. Otherwise, yeah, worst spell. Literally no good uses for combat.
Your voice lulls me into believing everything you say is objectively correct. You insights have me feeling like I am a B list player. I am grateful that i found your live streams when only 8 of us were watching. ❤
I clicked on this video to make sure that fireball was in S tier, and stayed because this dude makes good videos. Never see your channel before but earned my sub
I think the extra 1d8 necrotic damage from bestow curse CAN be useful if you're fighting an enemy with a lot of HP. My last playtrough was as a Fire sorveror, and seeing as I was flinging like, 12 scorching rays per turn as a maximum, it would add up.
Mass Healing Word and Warden of Vitality become S-Tier if they are on a dedicated healer/support character with the right items. If you put Whispering Promise, Hellrider’s Pride, and Boots of Aid and Comfort (All act 1 items), even if your entire party is full health Mass Healing Word becomes a 2 turn concentration free bless and blade ward for the whole party. Warden of Vitality becomes a bonus action heal+concentration free bless and blade ward every turn. My Tav on my first play through was a level 1 Storm Sorcerer, level 1 Life Cleric, Level 1 Wizard, level 9 Oath of the Ancients Paladin. Combat usually started with him hasting himself or the biggest damage dealer (Bae’Zel 10 EK/2 VP, or Karlach 5OHM/4 BB/3 TR Tavern Brawler Throwzerker Monkbarian) and casting Mass Healing Word with a bonus action with double bless staff. If he hasted himself then in round 1 then swap to big damage weapon, gives the entire party blade ward and double bless for two rounds, has haste cast and now on subsequent rounds he has 4 potential smite attacks with a big damage weapon and this isn’t even mentioning the temporary hit points from boots of aid and comfort. The combo becomes even sillier if he is the only melee in a summon party with like 10-15 summoned allies, then a level 3 mass healing word gives 10+ summoned allies and 4 party members 2 turns of blade ward bless and 3 temporary hit points effectively prehealong 52 hit points (104 if you count blade ward damage reduction) and increasing chance to hit by 10% for everyone. Warden of vitality with the same gear become a no concentration bonus action use to heal whoever bless them blade ward them and give them temporary hit points. On a melee Paladin there is often no use for bonus actions unless I am healing so reapplying bless to someone every round is super useful. If anyone reading is wondering why the classes on my Tav, first level storm sorcerer for Con Saving Throw Proficiencies, free flight after every spell cast, utility cantrips, shield and jump, second level life cleric for bonus healing and heavy armor proficiency, third level Wizard to always spells available of my maximum level via spell scroll learning, then the rest Paladin for all the Paladin abilities. It was a little slow to come online, but by focusing on charisma casting an support it made him less worried about the extra attack until later when his damage become usually my second or third highest and late game he was basically untouchable (30+ AC before shield and +15 or better to every saving throw)
Those guides are super helpful to get better at the game even with 400 hours of playtime. Peffect to cover up blind spots. For example, I didn't know Glyph of Warding was such a useful spell. Just overlooked it.
You can actually check if any condition is a curse by examining the entity and mousing over the condition. The bottom of the description will say "Cursed" So you can always tell when Remove Curse will be useful. imo it's a spell you always want on hand, at least in scroll form. It can get rid of the self-same trial curse, removes the mirror of loss debuff early, removes the necrotic aura from the girl in Cazador's mansion, et cetera. It isn't really a combat spell but there are lots of dungeon/story specific curses for it to negate
Sometimes if you are on the right question path after asking 4 questions you get to ask more although really its more akin to just clicking continue, but yeh, maybe its a bug but it happens fairly consistently, when speaking to dead
Speak with Dead also if you use it with the necklace from withers you can unequip it and still cast it all day as well. Im not 100% sure if it works that way with the other methods but it may.
I put Hypnosis high due to how massive the AoE is. With Save DC buffs you can basically pause a whole battlefield for 2 turns Great if you want/need time to heal, buff, or rearrange (like for a thunderwave of a bunch enemies off a cliff)
Remove Curse is good, outside of combat, when the player interact with some objects that give curses (I won't to do SPOILERS). It's situational, it's one of those spells that you prepare, use and then un-prepare.
I think slow is absolutely S. Yes, it competes with haste, but limiting 6 targets to a bonus or action on top of an ac, saving throw, and movement hit is awesome. Call lightning also scales excellently. It maintains upcast status so you can repeatedly slam people with a high upcast spell over and over. On sorcerer I can use a single sorcerery point to create water and then keep slamming people with double damage damage call lightning.
For animate dead you forgot to mention that they can infect an enemy with the zombie virus on a melee hit which, if they die before their turn will reanimate as an uncontrollable ally zombie which can also infect others. This can snowball pretty hilariously. The non playable zombies will die (again) shortly but im not sure if they lose HP after combat or just every turn
Hypnotic Pattern should be at least A - it does not allow ANY further saves against it until it is over unlike most enchantment spells where they can save each turn, so if you Extend Metamagic it - I have shut down entire fights with just this spell. (accidentally burning someone is just bad skills)
Personally I feel like the two I disagree with most are: speak with dead - I can’t agree with it being S tier because you can easily get an amulet very early game that does this exact thing. It’s great, definitely, but hardly worth taking. Plus it’s almost never important to speak to the dead. The other would be hypnotic pattern. I thought it sucked how much this was nerfed from tabletop, but after using it on my bard I see why. I’ve ended so many fights before they began with this spell. 2 turns doesn’t seem like a lot, but when your fighter is dishing out 4-9 attacks on their first turn… yeah it’s insane how powerful it can be. I would put it at A tier personally, because it’s not so insanely OP that every party should take it, but when the right scenario presents itself, locking down 3 enemies just completely imbalances the action economy. It’s particularly good on Lore bard because you can use cutting words as a reaction to your own spellcast - giving you a higher chance that enemies in the AOE fail their save.
Vampiric touch may be bad but my Spore, necro wizard that was spore hasted casted it for free with the Cherished staff twice to finish off the final boss and it felt very good shoving both hands into it and draining it off it's life..... that is all.
There’s an unintended use of feign death that actually makes it pretty powerful: if you barter with a shopkeeper so that their approval rating gets in the green, you can cast feign death on them and then take literally all their stuff without even having to roll for it. Infinite free loot!
I don't see surfaces being flammable as a down side. I actually like having the option to get an AOE fire burst from web/grease/plant growth with something free like fire bolt if I need it. And you can use it to extend fire surfaces that have already caught. Pulls double duty in my opinion!
Call Lightning is also my S tier spell, and Lightning Bolt I usually go with Evocation Gale and Tempest Shadowheart also, I am lazy to throw water so I miss on extra damage need to do it more often.
Something of note if you have zombies from animate dead or the fungal zombies when they hit at least 1 time an enemy and the enemy dies it will spawn a new temporary zombie that is green that moves on its own. It can snowball really fast.
Wow I did not realize that Animate Dead could be used on multiple targets (just never though to look or even try), I need to try out spells instead of just skipping whenever the description is boring lol
I might just piss a lot of ppl of here, but I dont really agree with Hast being S-tier, A-tier for sure, but in my eyes I'd rather use a Speed Potion at the right moment and have access to another concentrations spell, to control or deal dmg. I still get my extra actions (only for 3 turns though), but having the option to throw some strong concentration based control or dmg down range + the extra action, this have worked well for me.
Call lightning is amazing as a 3rd level spell, but it is worth mentioning that upcasting the spell only applies the +d10 per level on the initial cast, not on consecutive casts that do not consume a spell slot. This also applies to witch bolt. I have also found great success using slow on my warlock in my latest play through. You can get it at level 5 which is also when enemies start attacking multiple times per turn. I have also often times seen melee enemies waste an entire turn dashing to approach a nearby ally instead of attacking while under the effect of slow. Since it can be cast on 6 targets (you can even cast it several times on the same target to lower the chance of the affected entity to succeed its saving throw too), you can effectively halve the damage you take in many encounters while simultaneously making enemies easier to hit. Also it can be cast on every kind of creature, not just humanoids. Though upcasting it has no effect, it's overall very powerful and consistently useful for a level 3 spell slot.
I think Daylight should have a situational S ranking just because using it can entirely skip dealing with a difficult Act 3 boss that particularly does not like the sun
I don't remember for certain but i think instead of how the table top is death saves in bg3 you dont add your con mod to the roll so its literally just a 50/50 if you pass or fail which is honestly super annoying and a weird change since i swear i fail far more often than i pass.
Feign Death can be used to drop out of combat. If you are about to die and can't run away far enough to flee from the fight you can use feign death to get out
the list is objectively wrong tho
Thank you for your intellectual and insightful comment.
@@CasualVeteranGamer you are welcome, i am such a genious i only had to watch 2 min of the video to know
Is this sarcastic?
I looked at the list and it's solid. I would have bumped Lightning Bolt down, Slow up, and Feign Death up to middle tier for the utility to rob vendors blind, but otherwise, everything else I agree with.
@@MajesticFerret why would you lower the lightning bolt rating? it deals the same damage as fireball (twice as much if you use the forbidden Bo'oh'o'wa'er-no-jutsu) it has a different 'damage area' than fireball, but that just means they're useful in different scenarios- especially for a sorcerer that doesn't have the 'no friendly-fire' perk evocation wizards get, that can be insanely useful to not fry your own party members while still allowing to do The Big Damage. Also, lightning is objectively a stronger damage type- less enemies resist it, more (and stronger) enemies are vulnerable to it, and it's so much easier to induce the vulnerability in those that aren't.
Bonus info about Call Lighting:
Unlike witchbolt - Call lighting SAVES upcast power. So you get 6-60 base level6 lighting spell for 10 turns.
WHAT? REALLY? I assumed it reset to the default lv the same way the other spell did.
@@thoraero Guess another point to call witchbolt a useless piece of shit
@@Kairax witchbolt is one of the best ealy game spell when you dont have much spellslots or cant upcast. Below level 5 its a really nice spell. After lv 5 it loses to cantrips
Mass healing word is amazing... If you have the necklace that gives you a free cast and they're combined with the ring that bless for two rounds on heal and the hell rider gloves that give blade ward.
Although I should have said so during the video, I am rating the spells based on their usage of a spell slot. In fact there are two of those necklaces that I have found in the game, and I feel like one of my characters almost always has it on!
Great tier list. I like the methodology and rationale, helps me understand the use-case of each spell (which is much more important than the specific tier it's placed into).
I'm glad it helped. I do hope that showing the spells like this allows everyone to make their own choices and explore new ways of using each spell.
Fun one. Sanctuary gives you almost everything Blink does (you are still vulnerable to area damage), works every time, does not break concentration, and can be cast on other party members or allies. For a first level spell.
I don’t know what they were thinking with Blink.
Feign Death is also out classed by Sanctuary unless you’re using it for thievery (in which case Feign Death is an infinite money spell)
If it didn't break concentration then maybe it would be OK, but it's really not good in its current form.
@@CasualVeteranGamerI've noticed when I have sanctuary active, and then I cast spirit guardians, it spends the level 3 spell slot but then cancels out the guardians instantly, totally wasting the slot
It wouldn't be ok even if it didn't break concentration imo. A defensive feature that's only on 50% of the time is pretty bad.
If the first turn was guaranteed I'd be a bit kinder to it but imagine casting this spell and then it only works in one out of the next three turns, and then the battle is over.
I remember using it on a sorcerer cleric casting 2 warding bonds on melee characters. That way it further reduced the shared damage by half, effectively making it so she only incurred 1/8 of the damage for each character.
I don't think it's optimal but it worked pretty well on a high con shadowheart with health buffs and death ward.
@@lightlybatteredjustcrispy Casting it from within Globe of Invulnerability does this, too.
Correction: sleet storm actually breaks concentration in addition to knocking Prone (as a separate effect) - I tested this with characters with immunity to being knocked prone, and they stayed on their feet but lost concentration anyway.
Call of lightning is amazing even as single target damage in combination with tempest cleric and wet condition amazing spell
I had this yesterday in a massively outnumbered fight. Hasted tempest cleric (drank speed potion as bonus action) was able to create water and call lightning in one turn, then following turns activate call lightning twice per turn. Swung balance well in our favor before going lethargic!
i LOVE animate dead, the ghuls synergise so well with the Ice Melphits, they make enemies prone, and the ghuls can 'devour' them, super combo, S Rank well deserved (also works with _anything_ that puts people prone, so ice, sleep or throwing them even)
Nice combo! I hadn't thought of that.
This is genius, thank you!
Archers do a lot of damage too, from range so they don't take up space!
Gaseous form also lets you pick up chests, and then shared pockets them to someone stronger. So you can go on a thieving binge with no one bothered by chests disappearing into a cloud of gas.
Hah! I'll have to remember to use this the next time I play.
Another excellent review. Another "why haven't I been using _ _" In my case, "Animate Dead".
That's actually something I thought to myself when preparing for the video!
Hunger of Hadar (Warlock exclusive) pairs really well with plant growth (Bard) and grease (Wizard). You can cheese a whole section of a fight by using this combo as it works superbly well in a bottleneck battle. The major downside is that it will be hard for some of your party to attack enemies if they cannot see through darkness as well as how the grease and vines can be cleared away with fire. So its not foolproof completely abd gas drawbacks but does make tough fights much easier than they should be.
Been loving Hunger of Hadar. The advantage you get on attacks from enemies inside being blinded takes it from a good spell to being straight up OP
I would like to say thank you for making these videos. There is plenty of Spell ranking videos out there but most people just sit on the tiermaker website and don't show off the spells or niche uses of it in game. I hope people will find your videos more often.
The main problem with beacon of hope, is that for that same spell slot, you could cast another healing spell of tier 3 and get the same result on average, or potentially better, but not much worse, so you actually WIN by casting 2 healing spells... and casting 2 heal spells does not require concentration. Beacon of Hope only works, if you are going to cast several healing spells.
I think BoH is good because it will actually turn fights when you are getting your butt kicked.
It also works with potions, so if you think your party is going to be chugging potions then it should help as well.
@@CasualVeteranGamer True. Also Warden of Vitality is even better, if combined with life cleric.
Another great video! So I found a funny thing about Feign Death on accident. Was doing the Inn fight in Act 2 and missclicked and cast it on Isobel. The enemy treater her as dead and ignored her for the rest of the fight. So, if you are having a problem w/ keeping an NPC ally alive in a combat, I guess you can use this.
Hah, a real use! Thanks for letting us know.
Ooh, great to know. I have an issue keeping Jaheira alive during the moonrise brawl
Of course! @@CasualVeteranGamer
Yeah, I like to try and keep as many of them alive as possible. Usually end up casting Aid at the highest level I can on all of them at the top of the fight. Really wish they wouldn't run through my wall of fire and spike growths though. Idiot heroics the Harpers are known for, I suppose.@@atticusstark5197
I once tried doing this intentionally and it didn't work because she wasn't an "ally", just a neutral. Not sure how you changed that.
Crusader's mantle has a nice niche in fights like the revisit to moonrise tower, where you get a bunch of extra temporary members. adding 1d4 dammage 5-6 times per harper greatly increases it's usefullness.
Feign Death has a better use than just looting merchandise. Some quests want you to save an NPC, and it can keep them from being stupid. You may want to also cast Sanctuary on the NPC so they don't get targeted while feigning death.
Just wanted to add a couple things for Elemental Weapon.
There is a weapon in Act 2 at Moonrise sold by Roah Moonglow that allows you to cast the spell without concentration, what you can do is drop your main weapon on the floor cast the spell onto the dropped weapon and you basically get a extra 1d4 on your attack and the spell will last until you long rest where you can just do the same thing again.
Also since you can add thunder damage to your weapon, you can combine it with specific armor and jewelry it can add a lot of damage and conditions to one attack.
i.e. combine it with Glove of Belligerent Skies and Ring of Spiteful Thunder and you will inflict reverberating and dazed to the attack.
And even if you decide to cast the spell with concentration there aren't many spells for paladins that require concentration anyways besides Crusaders Mantle and Hunters Mark, so you can just cast the spell and add the Strange Conduit Ring which lets you deal an 1d4 psychic damage.
Of course this requires getting all the items and setup which reduces the freedom players have in building their character so I can definitely understand why some people wouldn't want to do this. But for me Elemental Weapon definitely is at least high B low A tier.
Additionally you can have a sorcerer use a single sorcery point to use this on 2 weapons since most parties have more then one martial character with the twin spell
A small addendum to Stinking Cloud:
It pairs REALLY well with the sorcerer's Careful Spell. Since your teammates automatically succeed saves against Careful Spells you can fight freely inside the cloud. This can render some fights completely trivial. It falls off in late act 2 but until then that combo is hilariously powerful.
You can also just combo it with being immune to poison condition (Protection against poison or Hero's Feast) and it won't do anything (Same with Cloudkill)
Love these videos! They're insanely useful, even though I've already beat the game twice already they manage to teach me new things and want to try new things out
One interesting detail about Blinding Smite is that as far as I know, its the only Smite spell that is able to target inanimate objects. Dunno if thats intentional, but it has its uses. (Act III spoilers ahead) I found it very useful for destroying the Soul Pillars during the Raphael fight.
Cast sleet storm, then fire ball (will melt the ice and make target wet), then lighting damage, once sleet storm rolls around again then freezes back.
Thank you so much for adding individual sections for each spell!
I have been really liking these lists. Ive learned so many cool tips & tricks i didn't know about a bunch of lvl 1 & 2 spells and cantrips. Expect this to be the same. Thanknyou CVG!
If you have an oathbreaker paladin wielding phalar aluve casting crusader’s mantle, you have the ultimate buddy for a necromancer. All your minions will get huge attack buffs.
Hypnotic is S+ for me. It's my favorite L3 spell & favorite conc spell. Makes several fights trivial (ex: Moonrise and Sharran House of Grief)
In extremely difficult encounters, Hold Monster might be your only good CC, but otherwise Hypnotic gets the job done quite well.
It really does shine when there are a lot of enemies, really turning the action economy in your favour.
Fireball, I would put in A since many enemies tend to resist or be immune to fire.
Haste I would put in A as well due to it's heavy downside if conc is broken and things like Celestial Haste and Speed Pots (granted only 3 turns w/ pots)
@@BlakeWhoLivesAtHome Fireball is S when you first get it (level 5), but enemy HP quickly scales too much with higher levels. Fireball ends up dropping to C, honestly, once you're past level 7 or so.
I agree. Hypnotic carried my first playthrough (Lore Bard/Theif). I had both Hypnotic and Stinking Cloud, and I almost always just found way more use out of Hypnotic.
2:18 Warlocks can also cast Animate Dead by picking Pact of the Tome. It's only at 3rd level and only once per long rest, but still...
Ah, thanks, I missed that!
Best spell tier list I've seen, love how you go through and test all the spells on the field so we get a more intuitive idea of what they do. Wonder if they've fixed warden of vitality/life cleric yet.
His persistence to keep Gale safe despite just doing a demonstration is so wholesome
Good list, I agree with most of it (I would put hadar in S, just because warlocks get a lot of use out of it). My suggestion is to add a tier for niche use spells that are totally fine for spellcasters that can change their memorised spells on a whim, but are a terrible choice for spellcasters that can only change their memorised spells on level up. Saves having to compromise between the two.
Fear only lasts for one turn, the duration is bugged, like dissonant whispers.
Call lightning is bugged to use the dc of last class picked on subsequent casts.
Hunger of Hadar DC is still static 12.
Lightning Bolt sticks to the ground, like a cloud, so no targeting across pits.
Thank you for informing us of these bugs.
This is incredible work! One quick thing I want to note is I think you may be underrating Bestow Curse a bit. I think a really key thing about it is that, once it’s applied, the effect doesn’t go away if they pass a saving throw. So if you land Bestow Curse: Dread and they save on their first turn after that, the effect isn’t gone and they might still do nothing in subsequent turns. This makes it really good if a fight is going to be long (and given that it’s the type of spell best used on a boss, it’ll typically be used on long fights). So, for instance, let’s compare it to Resilient Sphere-a spell that you gave an A grade at level 4. In that video, you showed an example of Resilient Sphere having an 80% chance to work on a boss. With that 80% chance of success and a 3-turn duration, Resilient Sphere is going to average making the boss do nothing for 2.4 turns (i.e. 0.8*3 = 2.4). What if you used Bestow Curse instead? Well, let’s say the fight is 5 turns. We assume the same 80% chance for the spell to work (it’s actually higher on that particular boss, since that boss has higher DEX than WIS, but we’ll ignore that). You have an 80% chance for it to work, and then that makes the boss lose his turn 80% of the time after that. So, in a 5-turn fight, the average number of turns wasted by the Bestow Curse spell will be 3.2 turns (0.8*0.8*5 = 3.2). In other words, Bestow Curse will waste the boss’s time more on average than an A-tier level 4 spell that is geared towards the same purpose! And it’s actually even more advantageous than that, since Bestow Curse doesn’t prevent you from damaging the enemy. So you can focus the boss down while the spell is active. This is a big benefit. Meanwhile, one might point out that Resilient Sphere has other potential uses-such as using it on an ally. But Bestow Curse has other things it can do too-and in both cases it doesn’t make a big difference since the way you’ll typically be using it is to crowd control bosses.
So, IMO, the bottom line is that Bestow Curse is pretty comparably good to the Resilient Sphere/Banishment/Polymorph group of spells that you put in A-tier at level 4. It can be used for the same purpose and be similarly effective, and often more effective if the fight isn’t short. And, of course, it goes without saying that a level 3 spell should not be in C-tier when it performs similarly well to A-tier level 4 spells.
ooo! the timestamps got REAL specific for this one! your effort is both noticed and appreciated!!
Blaze Liara Portyr is really having a rough time lately
Love your vids!
hunger of hadar not being in S is a crime
A crime against humanity!
Revivify: Scrolls are so easy to come by, I never even consider preparing this.
Mass Healing Word: At lower levels this is great for saving yourself from a TPK, and at higher levels you can afford to "waste" 3rd level slots on this just to keep people in the fight. In BG3 like 5e before it, ALL healing is incredibly powerful when your HP is low because 1HP is the difference between doing nothing and doing something on your turn. It's a bonus action, and has a huge AOE. I will always prep this.
Hunger of Hadar: a staple for any Warlock, I don't see how this can be anything but S tier unless we want to reserve S tier for truly exceptional spells like Haste and Spirit Guardians. But considering how generous you're being with S tier, Hadar deserves to be there too. Damage, reduced movement, blocks vision. Use it correctly with a choke point and it turns the tide of a battle.
Plant Growth: Deserves A tier simply because it isn't concentration, you can combo this with a Stinking Cloud, Cloud Kill, Hadar, Insect Plague, Cloud of Daggers, etc.
Haste: SS tier, probably the best spell in the game, and unlike in 5e it's absolutely broken because casters can use it to cast multiple full spells per turn.
Feign Death can be used to steal merchants that have 100relationship with you as they are considered allies. It's better than hold person in that regard, as it has no save and it doesn't register as a hostile action (NPC don't get angry at you).
Yea he showed it off in the video
Thanks for the awesome vids! New to this kinda game so I've just been throwing bullshit at my enemies without strategy. The lists help a lot with respeccing. Cheers
Haste is S on all casters, S+ (frankly completely OP and broken) on sorcerers. Actually having a soc just to cast twinned haste is a good decision, and this is kinda weird!
Good list, agree on basically everything.
Yeah, twinned haste is so powerful, it's hard to resist when playing a sorc.
@@CasualVeteranGamer Highkey I used it once and has since banned it in my personal playthrough
I've actually limited myself from using haste because it's so op.
@@rm2569 I feel it's great but fair without twinned cast - it's the "right way" to augment single target DPS to compete with Fireball for a level 3 spell slot, and concentration is a big cost in terms of opportunity cost.
Now, with twinned casting it's just bonkers.
@@Tentacl What takes me over the edge is that unlike in the TT (where you only get a extra attack), here you get a full extra action. That means you get essentially 2 or even 3 extra attacks per turn while hasted. It also lets you use spells.
When i see level 3 spell i think Fireball! When I see BG3 Fireball I think CSV! really enjoy these guides, you giving me ideas with some of the nuances of the spells and niche uses. I'd love to see your take on Illithid abilities compared to the 5e spells. I feel like Larian's additions makes some of the D&D specific spells seem restrictive.
FIREBALL!
Can't argue with your reasoning on any of them. Good list. Good channel.
Feign death. No disagreement on the ranking, but it has its uses.
Feign death would work on a "save the NPC" situation. I read you can do it with Isobel, but I just happened to be at that stage in my current run, and she's not an ally. May have been patched.
Otherwise feign death is for merchants. I give all books to Dammon until he's 100 opinion in Act 1. I rob him blind from then on, which is good, cause he keeps moving. I do it when I have that slot left before a long rest. As an aside, if robbing someone, it's good to obscure so someone doesn't witness it.
Thanks for these videos, I like them a lot. Looking forward to lvl 4 spells
Solid tier list. The only one I might quibble with is Grant Flight...despite being a concentration spell, 10 turns is usually more than enough for non-boss encounters, and I've got some solid use out of it for getting advantageous positioning. I'd probably put it in A or B tier; it's worth having on at least one of your casters.
I will say that magic weapon cast on a crossbow bard is really strong, the extra plus 1 to hit combined with the damage, you can also upcast for an additional +1 weapon bonus per spell level which can be nice
Elemental weapon is A-tier (S-tier when used on a fighter). The spell is used pre-combat so the paladin can use all actions to attack with smite, which is best use of paladin spell slots other than elemental weapon. The paladins have great concentration saving throws because of the aura and likely high constitution. Best case scenario Elemental weapon is used on a fighter who can attack 12(!!) times in a turn: improved extra attack and 3 extra actions from speed potion, elixir of bloodlust and action surge. Insane value from elemental weapon.
Thank you so much! I watched all level one through three videos, and they helped me understand BG3 spells!
sleet storm can cause wetness after the spell ends and the ice melts. it also doesn't aggro foes who haven't decided to fight you yet. it also has a much higher area of effect than create water.
You're correct on the blink. Concentration stays across planar travel in 5e. It's likely programming issues that weren't addressed for one spell or the same interaction you'd get from camp coming out for some reason.
Thanks for posting more content! Always a treat to wake up and see a new video!
Plant Growth is easily one of my sleeper picks and an S-tier in my heart. In parties that do not use Fire Damage, this is easily high A or even S (though not having fire damage makes it less versatile). It does not use concentration so it's perfect for Druids when paired with Moonbeam or Call Lightning. In one of my playthroughs, I would always combo Plant Growth w/ Hunger of Hadar and it would single-handedly destroy encounters (even some boss ones).
My problem with paladin spells is that literally every single one of thier spells require concentration, so you cant even get the benefits of having a concentration spell up and using another spell during it
One of my favorites was Slow. -2 AC, can only take an action or bonus action not both and if they have multi attack they only attack once, their movement speed is halved, their saving throws have a -2 and they can't take reactions. I've made bosses basically as easy to kill as a goblin in tactician mode. Very strong spell. There's an invocation that gives it to you on warlock and Great Old one gets it as well. Its always taken on warlock for me.
I used it a lot on my first playthrough but have since given other spells a chance!
@@CasualVeteranGamer Yeah, I've used almost all the spells at some point. Slow worked really well in situations were Hazard spells don't work so well, which is my preferred method of approaching combat. Its true it and every other spell is competing with the power of Haste though..
It trivialised Raphael fight for me. My Gale caste this on 7 enemies and flew far away from battleground. Low wisdom of enemies meant 6 of them were slowed for 10 turns while Laezel butchered them one by one. Gale flew in on his turns and cast magic missiles on the pillars. No overpowered spells needed. Not even Haste.
I totally slept on it bfore this vid in favour of haste.
I'm doing a "don't caste haste spell" run to force myself to try out different concentration spells, so I'm looking forward to trying this and fear.
These lists have been great, I am happy you're growing from these.
Hunger of Hadar is definitely S-Tier. I don't see it higher than almost any other spell in S-Tier, especially not spirit guardians or call lightning. This spell alone solocarries so many fights in the game, especially in Act 2 where you are often confronted with a fuckton of enemies. Combining it with void bulbs or spells that push enemies back and it's an absolutely amazing tool in a vast majority of fights. The amount of times it literally saved my honor run is insane: Last light when everyone turned zombie, moonrise towers, the fight against ketheric, against all the sahuagin in the iron throne - basically always if you're confronted with a large gathering of enemies, which happens often. It's not going to be that great against bosses themselves because most bosses have skills or abilites to get out easiely, but in any other situation, if you look at your spells and think: "Damn what could my warlock use this turn?", hunger of hadar is almost always going to be the right choice.
About daylight
There's a major bossfight in act 3 (wont say who), where they have sunlight hyper-sensitivity, meaing that additionally on the disadvantage, they also take 20 radiant dmg at the start of their turn, really speeding the fight along.
Very good point! Thanks for the tip.
Sleet storm with another call lightning or other source of lightning like the boot that create electrified puddle when stepping in is huge. Especially when you can melt the ice for wet then shocking it. Simply by having Karlach with Heat (immune to difficult terrain)
If it hasn’t been said already, daylight is quite useful against the final boss of Astarion’s quest. Makes it much easier
You just gotta turn it off before the post-fight cutscene, otherwise the cutscene will end early and you won't be able to choose what happens to the spawns.
Beacon of Hope: A tier.
Yes it may be "Situational" but that situation can be defined as "any SITUATION that is very hard".
There is a ring or cloak or gloves or something that gives Beacon of Hope once per long rest.
That's when I found out how absolutely amazing this spell is.
First of all, Wisdom saving throw advantage is the best Advantage you can get in terms of spell defenses.
The maximum healing however did wonders for me during House of Hope and 2/3 Nether stone battles.
It's actually really good. Maximum healing is really the best part about it. VERY strong.
It may not be flashy and "cool" and do something fun or funny.
But end of the day - when I am trying to beat a fight that is hard or too strong for me, BoH is the best advantage I can give myself.
BoH will massively help you beat fights that are not easy.
I can see the maximum healing being strong when drinking the higher level healing potions. The amount of healing we get from most spells isn't very much.
For me the concentration element makes me want to avoid it. The effects of the spell are good as you pointed out, but bless or spirit guardians are difficult to give up.
For Feign Death, having someone talk to the merchant makes it last forever so you can take all day to pickpocket the vendor. Otherwise, yeah, worst spell. Literally no good uses for combat.
Good to know, thanks for sharing.
I was waiting for this, lv 3 and lv4 spells
Great job gor ranking and testing them.
Saved me a bunch of hours. Thank you.
An excellent list Lord Veteran! You are a true master of this game!
Your voice lulls me into believing everything you say is objectively correct. You insights have me feeling like I am a B list player. I am grateful that i found your live streams when only 8 of us were watching. ❤
I clicked on this video to make sure that fireball was in S tier, and stayed because this dude makes good videos. Never see your channel before but earned my sub
Great series mate. Love the sharp editing with the demonstrations. While keeping in a few goofs.
I think the extra 1d8 necrotic damage from bestow curse CAN be useful if you're fighting an enemy with a lot of HP.
My last playtrough was as a Fire sorveror, and seeing as I was flinging like, 12 scorching rays per turn as a maximum, it would add up.
Mass Healing Word and Warden of Vitality become S-Tier if they are on a dedicated healer/support character with the right items. If you put Whispering Promise, Hellrider’s Pride, and Boots of Aid and Comfort (All act 1 items), even if your entire party is full health Mass Healing Word becomes a 2 turn concentration free bless and blade ward for the whole party. Warden of Vitality becomes a bonus action heal+concentration free bless and blade ward every turn.
My Tav on my first play through was a level 1 Storm Sorcerer, level 1 Life Cleric, Level 1 Wizard, level 9 Oath of the Ancients Paladin. Combat usually started with him hasting himself or the biggest damage dealer (Bae’Zel 10 EK/2 VP, or Karlach 5OHM/4 BB/3 TR Tavern Brawler Throwzerker Monkbarian) and casting Mass Healing Word with a bonus action with double bless staff. If he hasted himself then in round 1 then swap to big damage weapon, gives the entire party blade ward and double bless for two rounds, has haste cast and now on subsequent rounds he has 4 potential smite attacks with a big damage weapon and this isn’t even mentioning the temporary hit points from boots of aid and comfort.
The combo becomes even sillier if he is the only melee in a summon party with like 10-15 summoned allies, then a level 3 mass healing word gives 10+ summoned allies and 4 party members 2 turns of blade ward bless and 3 temporary hit points effectively prehealong 52 hit points (104 if you count blade ward damage reduction) and increasing chance to hit by 10% for everyone.
Warden of vitality with the same gear become a no concentration bonus action use to heal whoever bless them blade ward them and give them temporary hit points. On a melee Paladin there is often no use for bonus actions unless I am healing so reapplying bless to someone every round is super useful.
If anyone reading is wondering why the classes on my Tav, first level storm sorcerer for Con Saving Throw Proficiencies, free flight after every spell cast, utility cantrips, shield and jump, second level life cleric for bonus healing and heavy armor proficiency, third level Wizard to always spells available of my maximum level via spell scroll learning, then the rest Paladin for all the Paladin abilities. It was a little slow to come online, but by focusing on charisma casting an support it made him less worried about the extra attack until later when his damage become usually my second or third highest and late game he was basically untouchable (30+ AC before shield and +15 or better to every saving throw)
OOOMMGGG! sooo usefull!! ty for the good research! good bless you!
Those guides are super helpful to get better at the game even with 400 hours of playtime. Peffect to cover up blind spots. For example, I didn't know Glyph of Warding was such a useful spell. Just overlooked it.
Woah. I didn't know that Daylight last until long rest on an object!
Spirit guardian + haste on a cleric with a tonn of AC = fun.
You can actually check if any condition is a curse by examining the entity and mousing over the condition. The bottom of the description will say "Cursed"
So you can always tell when Remove Curse will be useful. imo it's a spell you always want on hand, at least in scroll form. It can get rid of the self-same trial curse, removes the mirror of loss debuff early, removes the necrotic aura from the girl in Cazador's mansion, et cetera. It isn't really a combat spell but there are lots of dungeon/story specific curses for it to negate
Sometimes if you are on the right question path after asking 4 questions you get to ask more although really its more akin to just clicking continue, but yeh, maybe its a bug but it happens fairly consistently, when speaking to dead
***No guards were assaulted in the making of this video***
Speak with Dead also if you use it with the necklace from withers you can unequip it and still cast it all day as well. Im not 100% sure if it works that way with the other methods but it may.
I put Hypnosis high due to how massive the AoE is.
With Save DC buffs you can basically pause a whole battlefield for 2 turns
Great if you want/need time to heal, buff, or rearrange (like for a thunderwave of a bunch enemies off a cliff)
i love these spell tier lists, keep em coming pls!
Remove Curse is good, outside of combat, when the player interact with some objects that give curses (I won't to do SPOILERS).
It's situational, it's one of those spells that you prepare, use and then un-prepare.
I think slow is absolutely S. Yes, it competes with haste, but limiting 6 targets to a bonus or action on top of an ac, saving throw, and movement hit is awesome. Call lightning also scales excellently. It maintains upcast status so you can repeatedly slam people with a high upcast spell over and over. On sorcerer I can use a single sorcerery point to create water and then keep slamming people with double damage damage call lightning.
For animate dead you forgot to mention that they can infect an enemy with the zombie virus on a melee hit which, if they die before their turn will reanimate as an uncontrollable ally zombie which can also infect others. This can snowball pretty hilariously.
The non playable zombies will die (again) shortly but im not sure if they lose HP after combat or just every turn
Hypnotic Pattern should be at least A - it does not allow ANY further saves against it until it is over unlike most enchantment spells where they can save each turn, so if you Extend Metamagic it - I have shut down entire fights with just this spell. (accidentally burning someone is just bad skills)
Personally I feel like the two I disagree with most are: speak with dead - I can’t agree with it being S tier because you can easily get an amulet very early game that does this exact thing. It’s great, definitely, but hardly worth taking. Plus it’s almost never important to speak to the dead.
The other would be hypnotic pattern. I thought it sucked how much this was nerfed from tabletop, but after using it on my bard I see why. I’ve ended so many fights before they began with this spell. 2 turns doesn’t seem like a lot, but when your fighter is dishing out 4-9 attacks on their first turn… yeah it’s insane how powerful it can be. I would put it at A tier personally, because it’s not so insanely OP that every party should take it, but when the right scenario presents itself, locking down 3 enemies just completely imbalances the action economy. It’s particularly good on Lore bard because you can use cutting words as a reaction to your own spellcast - giving you a higher chance that enemies in the AOE fail their save.
Blink is also one of the few things that deactivate the paladin auras, which I think is strong evidence that this is a bug.
Well thought out. I learned much thank you
Vampiric touch may be bad but my Spore, necro wizard that was spore hasted casted it for free with the Cherished staff twice to finish off the final boss and it felt very good shoving both hands into it and draining it off it's life.....
that is all.
bestow curse is also an action to cast unlike hunters mark and hex (i believe) which are bonus actions
There’s an unintended use of feign death that actually makes it pretty powerful: if you barter with a shopkeeper so that their approval rating gets in the green, you can cast feign death on them and then take literally all their stuff without even having to roll for it. Infinite free loot!
I don't see surfaces being flammable as a down side. I actually like having the option to get an AOE fire burst from web/grease/plant growth with something free like fire bolt if I need it. And you can use it to extend fire surfaces that have already caught. Pulls double duty in my opinion!
Hunger of Hadar + Black Hole means as long as your targets can't teleport out, they're kinda screwed
Call Lightning is also my S tier spell, and Lightning Bolt I usually go with Evocation Gale and Tempest Shadowheart also, I am lazy to throw water so I miss on extra damage need to do it more often.
Something of note if you have zombies from animate dead or the fungal zombies when they hit at least 1 time an enemy and the enemy dies it will spawn a new temporary zombie that is green that moves on its own. It can snowball really fast.
Also stinking cloud stacks with surfaces since it isn't a surface itself. Combine it with hunger of hadar and it's brutal.
Wow I did not realize that Animate Dead could be used on multiple targets (just never though to look or even try), I need to try out spells instead of just skipping whenever the description is boring lol
I might just piss a lot of ppl of here, but I dont really agree with Hast being S-tier, A-tier for sure, but in my eyes I'd rather use a Speed Potion at the right moment and have access to another concentrations spell, to control or deal dmg. I still get my extra actions (only for 3 turns though), but having the option to throw some strong concentration based control or dmg down range + the extra action, this have worked well for me.
Can you farm speed potions ?
it's amazing how many duds there are in level 1-2, but then once you get to level 3 spells they're all decent choices.
Finally, a tutorial for this game's magic system.
The game is almost Elden-Ringey in the knowledge it teaches you
Call lightning is amazing as a 3rd level spell, but it is worth mentioning that upcasting the spell only applies the +d10 per level on the initial cast, not on consecutive casts that do not consume a spell slot. This also applies to witch bolt.
I have also found great success using slow on my warlock in my latest play through. You can get it at level 5 which is also when enemies start attacking multiple times per turn. I have also often times seen melee enemies waste an entire turn dashing to approach a nearby ally instead of attacking while under the effect of slow. Since it can be cast on 6 targets (you can even cast it several times on the same target to lower the chance of the affected entity to succeed its saving throw too), you can effectively halve the damage you take in many encounters while simultaneously making enemies easier to hit. Also it can be cast on every kind of creature, not just humanoids. Though upcasting it has no effect, it's overall very powerful and consistently useful for a level 3 spell slot.
Thank you for making this post.
Honestly, when it comes to blink, it seems better to either get a one level dip or burn a feat to get Sanctuary instead
I think Daylight should have a situational S ranking just because using it can entirely skip dealing with a difficult Act 3 boss that particularly does not like the sun
I don't remember for certain but i think instead of how the table top is death saves in bg3 you dont add your con mod to the roll so its literally just a 50/50 if you pass or fail which is honestly super annoying and a weird change since i swear i fail far more often than i pass.
Feign Death can be used to drop out of combat. If you are about to die and can't run away far enough to flee from the fight you can use feign death to get out
i just want to mention that Beacon Of Hope is one of the few spells that helps when reading Necromancy of Thay during Act 1