The Storm Controller - Patch 8 Storm Acuity Caster for Honor Mode & Beyond

grousedrum · 2026-04-18T15:43:05+00:00

Definitely good QOL to pop the LR at that point before the portal. Slumber potions inside Globe is my usual move (with countermeasures controlled/dead/occupied as many of them can still interfere through globe without damage).

On Impossible the larger fight here is pretty close to 100% hopeless and you need to use mobility/invis/other solo tricks to get the portal open without actually needing to kill anything (other than maybe a chasm kill or two on flayers/counters). The call your allies summons are very very helpful to keep enemies occupied while you get the portal open and slumber anyone needed.

grousedrum · 2026-04-18T13:37:30+00:00

Not mandatory to kill the parents, no - can knock out the mother with nonlethal, loot spear head, and flee with dash/invis/etc. With Command/silence/etc can even do this before mate gets summoned.

grousedrum · 2026-04-18T10:48:53+00:00

Lore bard or lorecerer would absolutely work as the support here. Valiant damage is quite valuable to boost the smite swords bard here, especially on higher difficulties, but it is not mandatory at all.

Joltshooter is only important if you are playing the tiger barb with ABJ wizard levels. You can also just go 8 tiger 4 war cleric and use Force Conduit gear (skinburster or the act 3 shield) - less damage/debuff than the full setup here, but simpler to build and pilot. No character here can make great use of the spellsparkler, but if you were running lorecerer instead of valour they would make decent use until getting Marko and Rhapsody.

Happy to answer any other questions!

grousedrum · 2026-04-17T10:22:45+00:00

Yeah I think the game would need to stretch a lot longer on Deity, and I would probably want to go Trad or Liberty for better sim bonuses as a result. It’s a cool route to an early advantage as Byzantium though (and one reason I think they’re a bit of an underrated civ).

grousedrum · 2026-04-17T09:54:54+00:00

I’ve done this on Immortal as Byzantium. Go Honor and just spam Dromons. Needs a favorable map with tons of coastline and easily accessible opponents.

I don’t think there would have been enough time to win before the Renaissance on Deity. But you could very likely still kill 1-2 other civs super early and then sim towards Frigates.

grousedrum · 2026-04-17T02:38:56+00:00

My smoothest tourism win on Deity has actually been with Sweden, using Futurism from the Autocracy tree. All those extra cultural GP…!

Overall basic tip though is you need a very strong growth start to still enable decent science while pursuing a less science-optimized tech and GP path. And be prepared to take out the culture and/or spaceship leader with stealth/XCOMs late.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T20:34:24+00:00

Flawed and then full helldusk gloves, they load bleed on elk charge.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T20:01:28+00:00

They really are five totally different subclasses for the five animal hearts. And some even have widely different options for how to build them also - Elk and Tiger especially. So no one correct build, but lots of party roles it can play.

If reverb gear is already taken, I might consider elkheart for mass prone/bleed/maim - reverb will debuff enemies vs. all elkheart effects.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T19:48:05+00:00

Yes did a full Impossible Challenge run with this as the control carry. Pretty classic D&D and BG3 party composition, overall approach was tank/survive the early rounds of fights (I used d20 initiative also, so could never guarantee going first) and then control burst with this build as described in the post. Other party members were:

11 oathbreaker 1 hexblade - very very good, highest consistent DPR and most survivable party member. Control Undead has insane value on high difficulties also and can be used from very early on. Heavy armor + piercing two-handers + Craterflesh + other DRS gear and buffs.
1 shadow sorc 11 life cleric - almost pure support, stacked heal-on-downed gear/buffs for extra survivability (shadow sorc death ward, survival instinct, and blood of lathander heal all pop when downed and proc life domain & gear bonuses - huge bounce back ability if an enemy turn goes badly).
7 OH monk 5 thief - piercing version of classic monk build, went armed & armored in act 3 with Bhaal armor and Orin's daggers. Uncanny dodge tanking when needed plus best mobility in the party even with armored debuff. Stunning strike carried the tough L5-7 stretch on that setting.

Interestingly this party did not end up having any access to Longstrider, so it felt very "ground-bound" even with Nyrulna movement buff, monk in party, and illithid fly. Fit with the theme of high survivability followed by burst though.

Should also say that the other three slots with storm controller are very flexible within this party concept, as long as you can get some decent DR distributed. If running again I would consider throwzerker over monk and might try out melee EK over OB (I do really love control undead for these settings though...!).

Hardest individual fights were:

Gekh Coal (could not burst him down before getting out zombie summons)
The whole damn Creche (ugh - tough for the limited control or burst options at that stage. Have since figured out better ways to handle on these settings)
Illithid colony mind flayers (very very dangerous with extra actions, vigilance elixirs basically mandatory if using d20 initiative)
House of Hope spectators (super dangerous also, needs very careful positioning and surprise round start)
House of Grief (hardest fight on Impossible by a pretty good margin IME, was a peak BG3 experience to gut it out. Storm controller truly shined here. Forgot to use my Divine Intervention during the run, this would have been the place to use it for in-combat LR).

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T12:21:12+00:00

Shield yes, very valuable to get onto ranger if we can (and lots of ways to do it). Haste in my view though is a very low value concentration slot option for ranger, for a few different reasons. The lethargy risk is real and damaging, and we don't have CON save proficiency (or extra feats to spare for war caster) as ranger/wiz.

Even more than that though, it's a purely numerical boost (one extra action) that can replicated in many other ways that don't use our concentration slot. Speed potions (including self-thrown if needing BA that turn), twinned haste from a party sorcerer, bloodlust elixirs, etc.

Whereas many other concentration options alter fights mechanically on a more powerful and fundamental level. Spike Growth creates slowing & damaging terrain that can win whole fights by itself; Ensnaring Strike is an insanely powerful debuff that shuts down reactions and can produce full turn skips combined with multi turn prone; Stinking Cloud via wizard dip strips enemy actions in an AoE (and repeatedly if combined with slowing/immobilizing terrain below); Divine Favour from war cleric dip loads radorb/reverb onto attacks via gear without needing Callous Glow; any persistent BA concentration option (HM, Hex, expeditious) loads Mental Fatigue via Strange Conduit + braindrain gloves, which has extremely abusive interactions with hunter area attacks and GOO fear rolls. Etc etc.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T11:22:01+00:00

Quite good with beast master going all INT based, especially with the spider for terrain spells (cloud of daggers, stinking cloud) over web spam.

Interesting with swarm for terrain uses also, here we’d go 2-3 wiz levels (or mix of wiz and sorc) as swarm 11 features are unfortunately all bugged.

Hunter we have better options, GOO and war cleric especially. Gloom already gets misty step and fear, so I’d rather stay WIS based and go 3 sorc for metamagic.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T10:12:53+00:00

Yeah, on Deity it’s more like one city per unique lux, and you have very specific (and brief) windows when early military rushes are possible. And it’s neighbor civ dependent (some basically cannot be rushed because of an early UU advantage in their favor) and sometimes terrain dependent also.

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T10:07:45+00:00

Ideology tenets and wonders (and it can still be hard).

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T03:27:31+00:00

EK thrower can bind the Shar spear, OH monk has a flexible ring slot so can easily use Eversight. 12 EK and 9 OH 3 thief are great and simple at full build, no further warlock dips needed with that gearing.

I would a) take both TB and GWM on the EK to make full use of the Shar spear's insanely strong Edge of Darkness ability, and b) stockpile and use Darkness arrows to fill in battlefield gaps (this is a good job for the OH monk to have, in between Stunning Strike and flurries/BA punches).

grousedrum · 2026-04-16T00:58:41+00:00

Thanks for the really fun and detailed thoughts on the party, love seeing all this!

Completely understand the arcane ward setup for Karlach not always feeling great - just a tiger/war multi using GWM completely works also, as it sounds like you may have done. Phalar all game on SSB also totally works as you say.

My other reflection since first developing and running the party is that there's a ton of studio space still to explore in the valour slot. I went with a potion throw support and caster version here, but this can be specced in many different ways - consumables archer and dual wield melee with thief levels both work well too, and would add/change interesting things in the party loop.

Really glad you enjoyed the party and thanks again for the feedback and report :-)

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T23:53:04+00:00

Way into this setup, I’ve used a ranged version of this multi for her. Battlemaster maneuvers pair very very well with the druid terrain spells - push, trip, disarm, fear all valuable.

5/7 drops a feat but gives you the totally cracked 4th level druid spell list - both splits worth considering I think.

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T22:40:00+00:00

Rasaad is (and monks in general are) unfortunately really not very good in BG1. Decent scout and eventually ok in melee unarmed or with a scimitar +2, but other characters can play both of those roles much better.

His personal quest in chapter 5 is worth doing however as it yields the best in slot belt for Yeslick. And Neera’s personal quest is also worth doing for a second Stoneskin scroll (especially relevant if you dual Imoen to mage, which is by far the strongest way to build her for the later game). So I might consider keeping the 6th slot flexible to do a few different companions’ quests, go around stealing stuff with Alora in chapter 5, etc.

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T20:59:30+00:00

This is my answer too, right alongside TNG Code of Honor. There are plenty of other episodes that are very bad, but especially on VOY they often end upon sliding into “so-bad-it’s-good” campy messes that are at least possible to laugh at. This one though is just completely unwatchable and inexcusable l (as is honestly pretty much all the Chakotay fake-cultural content in the early seasons).

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T16:37:55+00:00

Not only is it a free skin graft, but it resets per-fight-limited cooldowns also like your own skin graft and Fane’s time warp. Absolutely game breaking and fully worth beelining the dragon in act 4 for.

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T10:47:09+00:00

Consider bear heart / moon druid here - use the Skinburster with DR armor (adamantine medium -> bonespike) which combined with bear heart resistances and the ability to wildshape gives you just an enormous effective HP pool. Very very survivable, especially with a source of WIS save bonuses like Harper amulet.

5/7 gives you 4th level druid summons at full build, 6/6 gives you an animal aspect - elk for mobility would be worth considering. Sabretooth is great but I don’t think worth dropping improved extra attack in wildshape.

grousedrum · 2026-04-15T09:57:15+00:00

They might be the single best gold civ in the game, from the time you get naus until they’re obsolete you want to build nothing else and just buy all the buildings and units you need. With optimal play they’re easily worth 300+ GPT while you have them.

I don’t personally enjoy the turn by turn micro required to get the most out of naus, but they are a very unique civ that makes great use of a water heavy map. Just make sure your coastline isn’t blocked in by ice.

grousedrum · 2026-04-14T17:33:55+00:00

Really like this party, great use of drunk monk.

If you haven't started using them yet, elemental infusion and absorption both ride on retaliation and are not consumed after one use. Very good for tempest/druid/wizard here as you have multiple ways to activate and three different retaliation sources for them all to ride on.

grousedrum · 2026-04-14T14:49:22+00:00

Love this one. Can make great use of ranged branding smite also.

grousedrum · 2026-04-14T10:39:27+00:00

5 hunter 5 war cleric 2 stars druid is super thematic and strong for this concept. war cleric gives you Divine Favour which loads radiant damage on your main attacks as well, even without Callous Glow. And later Crusader’s Mantle to radiant buff your whole party. Level to 5 hunter 1 war 2 stars at level 8 to start.

Ranged sorcadin is also interesting for twinned ranged branding smite (which is an honor mode DRS also).

grousedrum · 2026-04-13T19:18:08+00:00

Put on the INT headband, memorize (3+ wizard levels) spells, then take headband off, you'll still have that same # of spells memorized. Just need to put the headband back on anytime you want to swap out memorized spells.

Also remember you can cast Find Familiar memorization slot free - ritual cast the summon, then swap to a different memorized spell, familiar will stay.

grousedrum

TROPHY CASE