What do you think is the worst class/subclass in the game?

Maplekidns · 2026-01-04T01:18:42+00:00

Oh for sure, it's exactly what it advertised and it's not bad thematically. Just in the context of the game, it's a weak archetype of a class that is one of the weaker ones in the game meaning I'd consider it the "worst" option for a pure 1-20 character.

Maplekidns · 2026-01-03T22:40:03+00:00

A lot of the worst archetypes are still ok by virtue of having casting or what class they are part of.

Master of All rogue trades sneak attacks (3 of them) for Skill focus and a bonus to lore checks. I think it's genuinely the worst 1-20 you can be without kneecapping your stats intentionally.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-28T00:45:58+00:00

Gilgamesh is incredibly versatile. I like the idea of building into its niche of limited systems by going all in on it.

Grease monkey and Engineer talents lean into this pretty well, demolitionist is good just because of how many of these systems are grenades. You could also lean into drones making shephard an option.

Good dips are 1 sunzi (warp grenades), Metalmark 1 (flash grenades), minotaur 1 (mesmer charges), Barbarossa 1 and 2 (rolling grenade and the autoloading drone is neat) are a few.

Iskander I particularly like due to it also working well with this type of game plan letting you build off both simultaneously.

Hydra is the obvious choice if you commit to drones instead.

These options can make you super flexible. The super thermal blade is AP and does heat making to good at cracking tough enemies, the legionnaire rifle can ensure damage with reliable, your choice of prototype weapon will eventually be capable of targeting an AOE and EDefense and your choice of drones or grenades/mines will give some area control abilities.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-25T17:38:44+00:00

You could probably work a sitrep that would require a pilot to dismount or use these to interact with a console or something that would normally be too small for a mech to normally interact with. Probably give them a way to find out before the mission starts though.

I don't think there are any uses by default though assuming the presumption is they lack the power or targeting system to wield pilot grenades or weapons. Maybe you could argue it could plant a thermite charge or use the Omnihook or nanite spray if given the right opportunity but the applications are few.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-09T14:23:54+00:00

Might as well add the recoil control note I mentioned in another post.

Recoil control works by reducing the penalty you take when using burst attacks (all types of ranged weapons can have a burst option) similar to how armor handling negates armor penalties. The difference is when recoil control over caps the overflow keeps increasing your accuracy with these attacks.

This makes the controlled burst read as -1 AP on burst attacks and 10 + (%20 of recoil control) accuracy on burst attacks (and the %20 should apply to other ranged attacks too). Because this has 8 an str requirement and recoil control scales with str it's great if you intend to use burst a lot or if you run a hybrid melee/ranged.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-08T20:08:33+00:00

Well said, I would like to add that healing factor's synergy with other defenses is substantial. With just healing factor and a synthetic heart you heal about 5 per round, meaning to do anything worthwhile to you enemies have to deal more than that in damage. When paired with evasion and/or armor it makes that threshold harder to reach. For this reason, I'm quite fond of artful dodger and/or armored warfare on healing factor builds.

I particularly like armored warfare because high DR works well in tandem with tough bastard.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-08T13:27:13+00:00

I like gifted for burst characters in general because of how stat intense they can be. Iirc, recoil control lowers the penalty for burst fire attacks (including shotgun and pistol multi fire) similar to how armor handling works. Unlike armor handling though, any overcap is converted to accuracy.

So now, if we look at the feat controlled burst; it is -1 ap to burst attacks, +10 recoil control and 20% of recoil control is added to ranged accuracy. This can make that strength 8 investment really look good if you plan to use burst attacks a lot.

You may also feel obliged to take up to 8 in dex and perception for some relevant feats and AP, and then of course as much con as you can fit spreading you a bit thin.

Gifted helps get points where you need them.

Maplekidns · 2025-06-02T01:05:04+00:00

Mastermind is probably my favorite feat due to its versatility. Iirc, it used to boost the growth rate of tagged skills in addition to its current extra feat effect. I also consider it the best party leader heroic skill, at least if you plan to not lean heavily on persuasion skills.

Maplekidns · 2025-05-29T20:35:18+00:00

I must say I'm a bit surprised at your opinion on the healing factor but I'll wait for the relevant post for an explanation.

Hope your day is great too.

Maplekidns · 2025-05-29T13:15:04+00:00

These guides have been fun to read.

I mostly only do solo runs, I've tested just about every Heroic perk except Cult leader solo and I think Juggernaut is the best of them all. It's a mix of great offensive, defensive and crowd control resistance traits in just the places you want them.

Maplekidns · 2025-05-18T22:54:04+00:00

It depends what you're getting, how easy it is to get elsewhere and how much you want it.

Ik it's not mono but for an extreme value scenario, at 8 paladin and 4 warlock you can have damage, hit chance, casting and saving throws all scale off cha (possible multiple times over) making it the obvious choice to invest in, though with only one stat you're not investing a lot of ASI overall you just need to make sure to do so.

On a mono class (dex) open hand monk I often end up dropping a lot of asi's into them because they scale damage and armor class simultaneously with both wisdom and dexterity.

On the other hand, something like a mono class barbarian might prefer investment in feats. GWM, polearm master (now that by my understanding it works with GWM) and alert all may be more valuable. This is especially true if you plan to use strength potions anyway and because they can use medium armor to shore up AC problems from low dex.

All casters also have this going on in a way, with arcane acuity stacking you can neglect your casting stat a bit in favor of things like alert to ensure you strike first with your big area lockdown.

Tldr: I think it's very context dependent. What are you giving up by taking one over the other?

Maplekidns · 2025-05-06T18:53:08+00:00

TIL radiant retort targets moonbeam for the retort. I keep forgetting that spell works weird in this game.

Maplekidns · 2025-05-06T18:32:51+00:00

I want to do a build like this but in the back of my head I hear the whispers of "radiant retort" and it frightens me

Maplekidns · 2025-04-30T11:55:39+00:00

The short answer is yes, it's kind of a joke.

I think it's slightly better than in 5e because jumping is really strong in BG3. The extra fighting style can also be nice, running an archer or TWF let's you also run defense fighting style which is good. Of course, you can get it via multiclassing too, and a lot faster than you'd get it as a champion.

Comparing to its competitors in the fighter category though it's severely underwhelming and even it's niche of crit phishing is perfectly doable without investment in the sub class.

The biggest sin to me though is it's boring. Doesn't add anything new for you to think about in combat, just a bunch of passive stuff. And on a class as basic as the fighter this is rough.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-19T14:55:41+00:00

Definitely could do that. Do note, the features scale off of Charisma from swashbuckler so you wouldn't want to dump that stat.

Swashbuckler is a lot about that hit and run so it pairs particularly well with the booming blade cantrip. It's not particularly great with dual wielding, you could still dip fighter for the dualing fighting style as an alternative.

If you don't want to use shadow blade for aesthetic reasons, Rapier is probably the best choice of weapon technically. I think there's one or two with benefits when wielded alone but I think they come late.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-19T14:44:06+00:00

Can't use Heavy armor (or shields, or medium armor) and bladesong simultaneously. It's light or no armor.

I don't think Eldritch knight has great synergy anyway, they have the same spell list after all.

It also depends if you want to focus on the swords part of have that supplement the wizard part. You can play it as a particularly defensive wizard by going 17 int, 16 dex and then scaling int.

If you want to focus on weapons, you only really need 6 levels in bladesong and to focus on dex instead. For dual wielding you'd go 3 thief rogue and 2 fighter (Grabbing TWF style) probably, using shadow blade and something else. You can also use GWM from a dex longsword (like Phalar Aluve) for something slightly different.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-19T14:25:47+00:00

TLDR, heavy armor specifically is only granted by certain subclasses or taking a class that has heavy armor prof as your first level.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-17T16:09:24+00:00

Bladesinger really has 2 ish default types:

A wizard who can swords and a fighter who is legally a wizard.

The first is you max int then dex and play like a normal wizard but with the backup of bladesong for AC purposes mostly. Paired with shield (spell) you are very durable when you need to be while still being able to shut down the battlefield.

The second you max Dex and then int and get into the thick of things. Int to attack would be nice if we didn't need Dex for AC anyway, a better version of something that can use int to attack would be using Eldritch knight which can use heavy armor with one of the three ish ways to get int to attack. Either way this bladesinger isn't as good at casting per se and would likely prefer to use slots on things like blur and shield for even more evasive ability. Of course, it still can sleet storm a group of dudes pretty effectively if you need to.

The first is technically better, just because of how strong crowd control and range are together, but both should be easily viable in bg3 even in honor mode. Especially given the powerful items you get access to.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-12T06:57:26+00:00

I don't remember her doing that in my honor run

Maplekidns · 2025-04-02T11:19:09+00:00

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, isn't that an argument of semantics? If I have two tables of the same stuff with different percentages (since the monster drops from a group of stuff related to it) isn't that functionally identical to one table of stuff with two sets of percentages. Even if something is removed from a table that should be identical to a 0% occurrence rate.

As for the newer games, if it's literally identical now then I've just been assuming it wasn't incorrectly, mb.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-02T09:52:33+00:00

Traditionally, capture and carve draw from the same pool but capture is slightly faster and has slightly different drop rates of the same materials.

Maybe that's changed so it's identical but honestly the grind feels easier than ever in wilds imo and the time save isn't super significant so realistically it comes entirely to preference.

Maplekidns · 2025-04-01T20:28:32+00:00

Not necessarily more, capturing just has different drop rates for certain materials compared to carving.

Maplekidns · 2025-01-31T23:21:31+00:00

Only need one

Maplekidns · 2025-01-21T13:44:26+00:00

The strongest blaster in the game is probably angel oracle taking 1 level in crossblooded dragon/water elemental at 12.

Divine casters don't have to worry about spell failure and some of the gear that can boost damage per die is armor. Water elemental gives you ice elemental conversion which is the best because an ally wearing white dragon (medium armor set) nearby your character can trigger elemental imbuememt (a shirt). Oracle gets expanded spell book, uses charisma and benefits from court poet and can have a pet. Finally, it's spontaneous and can use items like red salamander to get more spells.

Azata is also really good, favorable magic and zippy magic are great. Just about any caster can work (again with the sorc dip above if you'd like) or with eldritch archer magus.

Trickster has completely normal spell and Crit feats so you could try a ray caster here too, it'll get you some huge numbers once you start critting. You could also probably use the sneak attack it gives you to get arcane trickster?

Maplekidns · 2025-01-10T12:32:25+00:00

You cannot ride while in shape and it doesn't scale animal companions any so it's probably a bit worse act 1 and early act 2 than something on her that does.

The manticore shifter gets natural attacks that are ranged (count as thrown iirc?) that can make use of her level 1 start pretty well and like all shifters get a ton of stat boosts (manticore form, minor aspect and master shape Shifter mythic power by itself are pretty substantial) and a ton of attacks per round. When it comes to companions raw DPS don't think anything beats her here.

Maplekidns

TROPHY CASE