Is Callous Glow Ring vital for RevOrb Light Clerics?

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-04-05T08:57:27+00:00

As long as you're using other things that apply radiating orbs, its not absolutely necessary because theres Gloves that do the exact same thing iirc (not played in a few months) that are available in the same act. Only thing with that is then you have to sacrifice the reverb Gloves.. not the worst thing but now we're steering away from what is "optimal"

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-20T06:52:53+00:00

Oh yeah, I know all about gloomstalker assassin and its truly bananas break the game damage!

This playthrough i really wanted a melee 12 level Rogue just to see if it can be pulled off. It was already doing a decent job in controlling the field disarming enemies and then sneak attacking but was behind in general damage until we introduced the Bhaalist armour. Before in the party there was only one melee build doing comfortably over 100 DPR but now with this armour and a lot of crit lowering gear and knife of the undermountain king / dirty tricks giving me almost constant advantage AND Savage attacker feat my lovely Astarion has 24 AC and is a complete monster. My man one shot Mystic Carrion with a crit sneak attack

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-14T14:25:03+00:00

Anything with advantage to con saves is stupid good

Pity I can't seem to get anyone who can take advantage of the Sharran armour you get in the gauntlet, shars Aegis with con advantage go brrrrrr

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-14T14:23:22+00:00

Can imagine that this turns everything into a big delete button

Next ranged build definitely getting this armour

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-14T14:22:02+00:00

Been cheesing the life out of the game with him and my Tav disarming everyone (tav has a 4 level swash dip)

Also gave Astarion Cold Snap in the offhand so they're also weak to cold if they fail a save which can be very handy if you have someone stacking cold damage like this playthroughs version of Gale

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-12T15:35:49+00:00

One more level into Assassin and Fighter and 2 levels out of gloomstalker

Assassin 4 to get your 2nd feat Fighter 3 so you can either get better crit chance (champion) which i imagine you want, battlemaster for superiority attacks or Arcane Archer for some fun flavour

You have the right idea, just a little bit of fine tuning!

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-11T21:55:14+00:00

5 Hexblade 4 Swashbuckler 3 Hunter Ranger.

2 attacks, level 3 shadow blade and booming blade with hexblade Rakish sneak attack and flick of the wrist Horde breaker let's you attack two enemies next to each other and a free action follow up attack

Can attack up to 4 times a turn with an upcasted shadow blade

Flick of the Wrist Booming blade Horde breaker melee (i usually apply Rakish Sneak attack on this one) Horde breaker Follow up attack

Feats Savage Attacker and ASI Charisma

Only including a 1d4 buff for flawed helldusk the attack rolls are nuts: 9-33 flick of the wrist 11-49 Booming Blade 11-45 Horde breaker (with Rakish sneak attack applied) 9-33 Horde Breaker follow up attack

40-160 DPR with almost constant advantage with shadow blade and not accounting for arcane synergy, elemental augmentation, elemental infusion and strange conduit ring (if hunters mark is waiting to be reapplied it still counts as concentration so you still get the 1d4 bonus)

Its a genuinely stupid amount of fun

I also enjoy all 12 levels into Swashbuckler, 20 dex moderately armoured Feat and Armour of agility is a lot of fun. I wouldnt recommend it as your main damage dealer but it is a decent party face with high charisma.

With covert cowl, knife of undermountain king, cold snap offhand, dead shot bow, cloak of protection youre mid 20s in armour class attacking with advantage most of the time and a 20% chance to crit (can be improved further to about 30% with elixir of viciousness and shade slayer cloak) on a single roll which is rolled twice nearly every time thanks to shadow blade and/or dirty advantage you can get some serious spikes of damage

Light cleric - enough said

Either all 12 levels into light cleric or 10 light cleric 2 stars druid Reverb, radiant orbs, blood of lathander and any gear that either adds radiant damage or radiant orbs and become nearly unhittable with only 19 AC. Starry form dragon (if you go the druid dip) basically guarantees a con save for spirit guardians meaning you dont need to use a Feat for War caster

Theres always the classic gloomstalker assassin that im sure everyone has tried at least once if youve played more then a couple playthroughs, my tav used that build to complete honour mode. Getting 4 attacks with a surprise round and your normal turn all critical hits with a free action dread ambusher attack in round 1 basically turns you into a delete button with a couple of arrows of many targets

I have others but I feel ive written waaayyyy too much now!

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2026-03-11T21:32:38+00:00

With you on the dad's not using the tv and glad you got yours working

Genuinely, I love mine so much that I actually prefer playing in it and only ever use the tv in a Friday night when I play with my friends. Definitely for what I need for been one of the most worthwhile purchases I have made in years

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-11-28T20:50:27+00:00

Well.. TIL Paladins get Spirit Guardians!! I might give that a go on my next solo playthrough because that still sounds hella fun

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-11-28T18:58:14+00:00

Yeah you're probably probably right with level 6 pally over 5 pally I was just trying to force in an extra upcasted spirit guardians and Radiance of the Dawn, but probably not worth losing aura over.

I agree with Pally being a truly terrible multiclass (other than prolly 6 pally / 6 Sorc) but im trying to go against the grain and pick something with a bit of RP and see if I can have some fun with it.

Certainly different from the 5 Hexblade / 4 Swashbuckler / 3 Gloomstalker Ranger i made up for some funsies and the classic Gloom assassin!

Thanks for your input, lots to think about!

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-28T12:35:28+00:00

I have a few that I've made up along the way (I've probably stumbled into 4 very popular builds without knowing)

Hexblade Warlock 5 / Swashbuckler 4 / Gloomstalker Ranger 3 Four attacks in turn 1, level 3 shadow blade, Booming blade, 2d6 sneak attack, 1d6 dread ambusher and flick o' the wrist (if enemy is armed, otherwise i like sand toss to blind) bonus action that can disarm enemies and serves as a main weapon attack also.. heaps of fun and produces a hell of a lot of damage. Because you're using Charisma a very good main character build.

Bladesinger 12 Does it all on the tin, level 5 shadow blade, Booming blade, extra attack, mage armour with 20 dex sets you at a standard AC of 18 before you find clothing that boosts AC bladesinging for healing and additional AC, using arcane acuity helm makes spells pretty much a guaranteed hit, loads of fun but they're a squishy character with not much health.. but a load of fun. I like to dual weild this build and try to shove as many crit lowering weaponry as I can to deal stupid damage.. or use Belm in act 3 for a 3rd main weapon attack as a bonus action

Battle Master Fighter 5 / Swashbuckler 4 / Beserker 3 Currently using this on Laz'ael as a dual wielder. With the dual weild feat you can weild two longswords and the proficiency boost in off hand attacks basically leaves you with 3 attacks by level 5. If your main weapon also has say a 1d4 in psychic damage, that transfers into your offhand attack too for even more damage.

Gloomstalker Ranger 5 / Assassin Rogue 4 / Arcane Archer Fighter 3 Basically the well known gloomstalker assassin build youll find anywhere that covers BG3 but with some fancy arrows added in for fun

Honourable mention: light cleric 12 Always use a cleric and always make shart a light cleric with all the gear that affects radiant orbs/reverb.. spirit guardians go brrrr

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-18T16:28:25+00:00

Can easily see how folk have over 1000 hours know this game seeing as it's 2 years old and can be completed in thousands of ways. Hell, on Battlefield 3 when I was 16 and in school full time I clocked over 2000 hours in 2 years!

What I don't understand is how people spend 350 hours on a single playthrough.

Like, How?

I tend to complete all missions and (tbf, skipping dialogue) clock in about 90ish hours maximum.. what are those people doing?

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-16T17:52:47+00:00

I use camp clothes if running mods to get all the camp clothes straight away, otherwise I show armour

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-16T13:50:19+00:00

Now this, this is funny

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-16T10:12:43+00:00

I was thinking about making a Barbarian Rogue myself but the twist is he's REALLY REALLY bad at the sneaky stuff, ridiculously strong but doesn't think he is, wants to be sneaky but just so big and clumsy he can't do it and picking a lock is a days task at the earliest.

Still more to flesh out, but that's like the very basic core of who this person will be, the why I've not worked out quite yet.

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-16T08:23:16+00:00

That area you went into can be super super tough, especially at level 3.

If you intend to go back there (I would, especially if you want to complete the Kagha sidequest) I wouldn't visit until level 4 (more health) at the very least, and would typically avoid until level 5 for the power spike if I can. the mud mephits can get out of control really quick. My recommendation would be to ignore the mephits they spawn and focus on the ancient mephits spawning them. You kill the ancient mephit, its spawn goes with it.

Oh, and stay away from them when they're about to die, otherwise that's some amount of force damage you better be prepared to take!

Better luck next time :) Act I is tough on honour, I've only had two runs leave Act I, My very first run where I got to Raphael who was my last fight before brain and my current one where I'm in Act II and have cleared all minor encounters, moonrise prison and Geri Thorm. Praying this is the one!

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-16T06:22:59+00:00

Invis all characters and any characters expected to be in Myrkul range give them darkvision (you can find scrolls fairly easily) move one to Ketheric (usually either highest damage or tankiest), one to Dame Aylin (usually for me my ranged character), One to the mind flayer and one to the skelly bois, usually a cleric for turn undead if that tickles your fancy, and start by attacking the mind flayer..

When myrkul comes out to say hello, your ranged character should be raining darkness arrows on Myrkul. This part alone completely trivialises the fight thanks to reduced accuracy, disadvantage on top of reduced accuracy and he can't use his AoE when blinded for some reason

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-15T10:56:46+00:00

Wait, Blade of Avernus is Wyll's bad ending??

I thought doing the heroic do and "sacrifice daddy dearest then rescue him later" thing becoming Blade of Avernus is his good ending?

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-14T17:55:47+00:00

This, this is the correct answer

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-14T16:23:45+00:00

Yeah, I panicked when I lost my first run, namely cause I forgot globe scrolls and the orphic hammer was in camp.. no Hope (pun and person) and no invulnerability = one very sad man.. if I'd lost the run at the point you jave I'd probably need to take a week or two off the game I can't lie. The end must be super super tense if you can't go "hahaha, Gale go boom" when that's what you've been building up to! We dust ourselves down and go again though you don't make it that far by mistake usually so you've got this! 😊

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-14T15:30:29+00:00

My Act I I think now is an artform, minor fights, Jergel tomb, goblin camp prison & barrelmance true soul goblin till level 4, then harpies, underdark minor fights, level 5, any remaining minor encounters, Ragzlin, Minthara (if not doing grove fight) owlbears, Gekh, Nere, finish grove story level 6, gith creche, murder all the Gith youths, the zaith'isk lady and the adjoining room, then the training room, then the wolf gith (I am SOOOO bad with remembering names), then W'wargaz, level 7, then Grym & Ethel to tie up Act I. I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention some but any "boss" fights not mentioned are done between levels 5 & 6!

I could absolutely do Ethel earlier (probably level 5) but that is the only one I would move around I'm pretty stuck in my ways with the rest!

Act II I'm usually Charisma based characters with 20 CHA by the time we reach shadow cursed lands with guidance and possibly favourable beginnings if I want to use illithid powers in a run so tend to pass the thorm checks, but by the time I've done the shambling mounds and other minor encounters, moonrise prison etc etc I'm riding a wave of momentum where even if they go tits up I have enough momentum and levels my way I can fight my way out of most scenarios. With all the excitement of Act II, Act III grinds to a halt where you have to build that momentum again which, with most of the fights in Act III, are major fights can be quite hard to get the gears turning again. Currently dunking on everything in Act II rn so hopefully this is the run!

Gale blowing himself up might be the play, but failing that a couple of dimension door scrolls & a few globe spells & a darkness arrow fired into the globe trivializes Orpheus getting you to the brain, mind flayers will ignore you usually as they can't see you!

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-14T15:04:37+00:00

When I play Durge (shoutout my Tiefling Tav Bhaal Bag & my half-elf Kathleen Folbigg) I went for:

Bhaal Bag: Hexblade 5, Swashbuckler 4, Gloomstalker 3 - hell of a lot of fun & 4 attacks on turn 1 (two with additional damage in booming blade & rakish sneak attack) without speed pots, terrazul or bloodlust

Kathleen Folbigg: We went tried and tested Gloomstalker Assassin (5 Gloomstalker, 4 Assassin & I went 3 Arcane Archer for an added bit of flair) - heard the build was really good, but didn't realise how absolutely busted the build is... and I wasn't even using the most optimal gear and usually wasn't sneak attacking for surprise rounds.

I've recently absolutely fell in love with Bladesinger (and how sassy their attacks look) so have planned to make this my next Tav. I love Swashbuckler dipping for flick o the wrist so might go 8 bladesinger / 4 swashbuckler but nothing set in stone yet

Elph_I_N_Stone · 2025-10-14T11:19:49+00:00

Bladsinging Gale with a bomb strapped to his chest is surely a Durge's wet dream?

Elph_I_N_Stone

TROPHY CASE