The 10 Best Weapons in BG3 Act 1 

I was playing with my friend when the game first released blind. When it came to the puzzle to get the blood of Lathlander we didn't roll too well, so we couldn't turn the statues. Bummer. But then my friend, who isn't a roleplayer had this idea to grease up the statues to make it easier to turn them. Turns out it works and you can turn them even if you fail the strength test!

I agree 100% percent about equipment that you can find early and ride with for the entire playthrough. Feels like >90% of the builds on reddit and youtube so far have come online at 12th level and rely mainly on Act 3 gear. It takes like 80-100 hours to get to that point though, so what exactly is the point?

something i truly love about BG3s itemization is just how much you can get in the early game that still will keep value for long after act 1. its something almost no other rpgs really allow due to the overreliance of damage numbers instead bespoke abilities and utility items

Just a quick note on Lathander's Blood: If you fail the strength check to rotate the statue, you can hit it with a weapon attack and then rotate it without requiring any checks.

Spellsparkler with the magic missle amulet (also in act 1) which gives you a free spell AND adds 1 missile to every cast. So basically a free +1 upcast. Using those together is awesome. What’s even better is having someone using the offensive shriek on Phalar Aluve. Bro it’s absolutely insane the amount of damage you can do in act 1 with that setup :D

Phalar Aluve isn't the only longsword with Finesse. I've also found 1 at the Githyanky Creche called Larethian's Wrath

Titanstring bow + club of hill giant strength has turned my hunter ranger into an absolute monster at level 6. Especially with the club now giving 19 strength.

Blood of lathander: Remember the part of the creche where you are trying to break into it? Remember how you kept finding ceremonial weapons (kobold looter, eagle nest, spirit guardian, 1 already in the right spot). Put them on the correct stone slab based on the stained glass in the middle of the room. This opens up a secret that gives you a seal. When you later get the actual blood item you can progress through the security area. Once you are about to pull the mace out... Stop... and look for a small interactable box just below the mace. Put the seal you got from earlier and you get to pull out the lathander for free with no check and no doomsday weapon activation.

A little combo I used is blood of lathander + diadem of arcane synergy (upon inflicting a condition let’s you add spellcasting ability modifier to weapon damage). The blinding counts as inflicting a condition so you don’t have to spend any action economy to proc that. Really good on a war cleric build or other non gwm hybrid.

Also, for titanstring you can just equip the club of giant strength as a stat stick and get +4 damage and fantastic jump range, which is really good for archery builds.

There is a book in rosymon that says that whenever the statues get stuck you just "grease" it.

While it is not in Act II, it is important to note that if you do not resolve the druid plot line before going to the Mountain Pass section, the druids will complete the ritual without your intervention. So going to temple will cut off a LOT of quests if you B-line for it.

thank you for this awesome guide - I'm still wrapping my head around some of the theorycrafting/etc of the game and working out what actually is strong and the possibilities of some these items. your explainations and logic between why things are valuable was incredibly helpful for me and opened up some real ideas (i.e the greatsword with lae'zel, I never would have understood it's full value until you explained how it can really swing entire fights around initiative and it's powerful stun move).

This is an outstanding video in a market flooded with bg bs. Concise, thoughtful and well rounded. I appreciate your passion too.

I feel pike tye returning pike deserves an honorable mention too. Strength based throwing builds are just so strong and throwing counts for extra attack, and with the returning pike you don't have to actually worry about running out of weapons to throw.

Really great build ideas - covered amazingly well, great job; would love to see more of these!

Thank you so much for this. Perfect and easy to understand. Timestamps are wonderful too

I think Spellsparkler is incredible with Magic Missile and the amulet that adds a missile to every magic missile you cast. Magic Missile never misses and also scales well into the late game. It is just way more consistent since it can't miss

Dude your knowledge, research, testing, and presentation are top notch. I really appreciate your work. Especially here because you can make quality builds all day but you still need the equipment synergy. This game has taken over my life recently and it seems we have the same min max approach to rpgs. Cheers!

Something to think about with Phalar Aluve: Bane is a 1st level spell and its a Charisma saving throw. Drop shriek, then drop Bane, then go nuts with Hold Person/Hypnotic Pattern/Slow, and your martials will have a cakewalk of a fight ahead of them + that nice little 1d4 thunder damage on all attacks

there is actually a way to get the legendary gith "silver sword of the astral plane" from the dragon rider if you use command:drop or ranged disarming attack, but you might have to save scum it bc it has a low chance to make him actually fail his saving throw, but it's worth it. it's basically the soulbreaker greatsword but better.

Your in depth explanations deserve respect

great vid, shows your knowledge, and also well edited. TY

This is Amazing. TY! This is like an instant +3 to my whole play through!

There is a way to get The Blood of Lathander pretty easily doing a puzzle in the monastery above the githyanki

Im sure someone else has already mentioned this but for the blood of lathander strength check you can cast grease over the statues and that lets them move without any check.

I’ve been using Mourning Frost on my Druid build and having a ranged damage cantrip (if you don’t play high elf variants that get fire bolt) is so nice. Plus the boost of damage on it, paired with the necklace of elemental augmentation means that I’m consistently dealing like 20-30 cold damage with the cantrip. It’s a great staff Also, on the Blood of Lathander strength check.. if you hit the statue and give it a slight bit of damage, it’ll turn even if you’ve failed the check already

The layout of this video is top tier good job.

also, thanks for pointing out phalar aluve is a finesse weapon! I never realized that. awesome video, keep it up!

Titan String bow - this pairs EXTREMELY well with another act 1 item you find in the underdark, club of hill giant strength. your strength is then set at 19 while you carry it in your offhand, and you're basically adding +4 damage on all your shots from as early as level 5/6, and this can cary you all the way through early act 3 easiy :)

A spectator is an extraplanar beholderkin with four eye stalks. *Beholderkin* is a subcategory of aberrant beholders comprising a very large number of beholder-like creatures. As opposed to the Death Tyrant, Elder Orb, Hive Mother and Orbus described later, which are just variants, these are actually different species to true beholders. Beholderkin have a very wide range of appearances and abilities. Beholders are some of my favorite villians in all of D&D

Love these videos Aestus keep them coming

Loving Phalar Aluve on my Lore Bard (low strength). Seems very thematic for a Bard, as well!

Another one I like I forget the name but you get it in the Secret room in druids grove which is a Glaive that give you a thorn whip as a bonus action, which is nice for finishing off weak enemies!

Great video, very informative to new-ish players like myself.

Shriek works so well with spell sparkler + magic missile in act 1. You can find more items that add to the damage later on. Plenty of videos about it as well! Dual wielder is a great feat to get btw, almost better than wearing shields in some cases as you can dual wield a staff + phalar aluve.

The spellsparkler is actually insane in a magic missile build. Evocation wizard adds his int modifier to spell damage, so to EACH magic missile, and spellsparkler also stacks from EACH missile, plus there is a necklace for free magic missile cast and adds +1 to the amount of missiles summoned each time you cast them. It's a damn annihilation ray with a minimum of 8 damage on each missile (1d4+1+5 force and 1 lightning), also frequently procking that 1d8 lightning damage.

mystras blessing from staff of arcane blessing is a seperate buff that gets added when casting the bless spell. whats so good about this is that it doesnt get removed when concentration on bless is broken. the 1d4 to spell attack rolls will always stay on buffed targets for the full duration.

Good vid! Hope you do a 10 best for act 2 and 3

I fell in love with phalar aluve really quickly. My shadowheart is basically a spell dps and healing build, with buffing for rolls/saving throws. Giving her this sword with a half decent shield to bump her AC, she mostly "stands" around the rest of my frontliners, so being able to use Aid+Sing/Shriek+guiding bolts is absolutely amazing, very notable power increase in combat, immediately

Great guide! Subbed. Looking forward to Act 2 lists

Cheers, hope you do one for act 2 and 3 as well!

Fully agree on your list. Still using in act 3 Soulbreaker greatsword & titan string bow..:D Blood of latander is still good mostly due to its passive feature.

I've been playing as a Monk coming up to the mountain pass, and so far I haven't found anything that tops my Corellon's Grace ^^ +1 to all my Unarmed Strikes, and I get +2 to all my Saving Throws as long as I'm not wearing armour. And since I currently have Stunning Strikes, and later Ki Resonation punches, I don't even need to attack with the weapon, I can just use it as a stat stick to further buff me. Also been using the Hunting Shortbow as a nice ranged option that gives all my attacks advantage on Monstrosities, as well as Hunter's Mark for extra damage

Honorable mention. club of hill giant strength, because loot and jump distance annoyance. Coupled with offhand knife of the underdark or vice versa, and titanstring bow becomes very strong on anyone.

One other weapon that has a very good, but situational combo is the Light of Creation Halberd, which deals an extra 1d6 Lightning, but can stun you unless you use the ability from the Gloves of the Automaton, which makes you a construct and gives you advantage on all weapon attack rolls and resistance to Lightning damage. Being a construct does make you immune to conditions like Gaping Wounds and Bleed, but also means you can't be healed, which is a rather big drawback.

The 1 lightning damage from spellsparkler is currently counted as a separate hit of eldritch blast, so it also adds charisma force damage from agonizing blast. This is probably a bug.

Thank you for explaining initiative on bg3 vs D&D 5e.

Another thing to add about Mourning Frost. I noticed that the way the game handles applied vulnerability is that it overrides existing resistances and immunities for that damage type -- or at least, that's how it works with Perilous Stakes. If the Chilled condition works the same way, it has the added bonus of getting around enemies with annoying resistances

I am a big fan of running the titanstring bow on a strength character also running the Gloves of Dexterity. Especially combined with some good medium armor.

nice list! definitely slept on the shattered flail. another weapon i feel many people sleep on is the very heavy greataxe. simple weapon, it has decent damage, nothing too fancy, but the weapon action gargantuan cleave is one of my favourites: basically the normal axe cleave but deals normal weapon damage instead of half damage PLUS 1d6. i believe it also has no limitation of only three targets, unlike the normal cleave. combine that with its weapon action "prepare" to deal even more damage and this becomes an even better AoE attack. you do get off balanced from this attack, but i found it to be inconsequential on my barb run. rarely failed the strength check, and even then my char was tanky and agile enough to not really care about it. used this axe well into act 2.

One thing for Phalar Aluve, NPCs try and avoid your shriek like its the plague so you can often use it just to create breathing room. during the ambush to take a certain special character early on in Act 2 I just stood next to them with the sword shrieking and nobody approached after that

The spellsparkler works also great with arcane missiles (including the 1+ Misslie necklace) (Blue Dagon Ancestory lvl6 cha modifier also works) BUT the damage calculation is bugged. Sometimes you roll arround 12 damage bur only get 3-5

Staff of Arcane Blessing is slept on heavily. I honestly feel it's better than that flail. The thing is, the extra bonus bless it gives doesn't take concentration, and is a *massive* buff to GWM or Sharpshooter party members. That means you can either keep concentration and give your physical people 2d4 and magical people 3d4 (which is practically going to keep you at 95% hit chance *always*), or you can break concentration to do something else while still giving 1d4 or 2d4 respectively. Bless is already considered basically one of the best 1st level spells that stays relevant all throughout a playthrough. And now you're either making it 2x-3x as good depending on which character, or you can just drop concentration. Plus the staff itself comes with its own free casting of bless once per day. Legitimately a weapon that I kept on Shadowheart the entire game and never once thought that I wished they were using something else.

Thx for this!!!

I see that you have the Soulbreaker Greatsword as your first weapon here, and would like to note something: If you're REALLY lucky, you can use Command: Drop on Kith'rak Voss in order to get the Silver Sword of the Astral Plane (A weapon you normally only get at the tail end of Act 3) in Act 1.

Great vid - although having a lot of fun with the Hamarhraft as a Paladin in a current run!

For honorable mentions you should include the Returning Pike, which is a weapon that makes certain Barbarian builds extremely potent well into the late game.

I think the unseen menace deserves a mention. It's a +1 pike that attacks with advantage and has extended critical range. It's my go-to weapon ever since I found out about it

Staff of Arcane Blessing stacks with Phalar Aluve. So turn 1 if the Sorlock casts twinned haste on themselves and cleric, and cleric has dual weild feat (So you can wield both with Arcane blessing in your off hand). So you cast Mystra blessing (Level 2), and Sing. Now you get 3d4 to your spell attack rolls thanks to Phalar Aluve + Staff of Arcane blessing (Eldrich blast is going to get 95% hit chance with 18 Charisma on most if not all enemies), and 2d4 to your attack rolls (Negating GWM). If you have a Sorcadin Paladin then you can twin Level 4 Magic Weapon for +2 on yourself and another fighter. Now with all those buffs, you can just hit anything without missing even with GWM. All you need to do in this case is keep within 6 meters of the cleric to get the extra 1d4 buff. Oh and 2d4 on your Saving throws and the Paladin aura +3 from your Paladin Sorclock (16 Charsmina) on your mental saves. Is just nuts. Your party can just shrug off any effects easily. My Paladin just sat there and watched enemies do nothing to him.

Also the Staff of Arcane blessing can be extremely potent when you pair the it with the ring that gives bless on heal, mass cure wounds just turns into a gigabuff.

A fun one you can get really early for a tavern brawler monk is the Returning pike. Just use half wood elf to get the proficiency for it. There's several items in act 1 that boost throwing damage too. You can get the pike pretty cheap from the goblin camp vendor, and a ring of flinging from the vendor at druids grove. There are also some gloves that boost throwing damage, but I prefer "The sparkle hands" because the lightning charges apply to thrown weapons for some reason, so they boost both the pike when you throw it, as well as flurry of blows. I think you can get them from the mephits nearby the hags tea house. You basically just use step of the wind to get to great places to throw the pike from, then spear things with it. If anything gets close you can blast them away with flurry of blows, or stagger them so you can retreat. Though getting to 20 strength might be the best, I'm debating picking up polearm master and sentinel to spear anything that gets close to me. Since you can always use potions to get over 20 strength if you want a bit more of a boost.

I think the best (and by FAR) weapons in act 1 is the Returning pike. Two hander that can be throw and return automatically to your hand. You are hitting like A TRUCK with it. Just play with the feat that add strengh modifier to your throw, play barbarian for the sweet bonus damage and the enrage throw and enjoy.

Talking about crit builds, i just finished the game on my thief rogue vengeance paladin character with the items that can lower your crit, give garaunteed crits, and can paralyze enemies on a crit with gale having hold monster. I would attack bosses and when I crit them, they just got deleted. 4 attacks a round, also super tanky with the agile armor and aura of protection. What a monster, love them.

Shattered Flail is also pretty good with the Broodmothers's Revenge amulet you get from killing khaga in the grove, it gives 1-6 poison dmg to your weapon every time you get healed.

Don't forget with skinbuster, if you're a barbarian and enraged, it reduces damage calculated after rage resistances. I used skinburster on my barbarian through act 2 combined with the damage reduction from the adamantine scale mail and was getting hit for literally 0 on most attacks on my barbarian. It is crazy good. There are also armor pieces you can get in act 3 that give more ways to add force conduit charges on top of skinburster hits. You can make a very busted build with it.

The Phalar Aluve sneak attacks work fine if you use sneak attack as a reaction instead. Work around for anyone who wants to use it for a rogue.

I hope you also do one of these videos for Act 2 weapons, because now that I have picked them up I would be interested in your thoughts on their potential.

You can throw grease bottle or cast grease on the statue if you fail the Strength check and you can move the statue after that, so you dont get locked out.

As far as the statue with the blood, you can use a bottle of grease on the ground to turn it. And there's a bottle in the room too.

About to deal with the creche and this reminded me to not kill everyone asap😂 I did that with the goblin camp and zhent and lost out on the traders. Not doing that a third time! I've lost out on so many items 😭

I’ve really learned a lot by watching your videos thanks for making them. Think I forgot to like all of them I’ll go back and do that here soon and also bonus round you never say like comment subscribe 👏🏻🤟 Pet peeve of mine

I've only had the time to get through Act 1 so I'm not sure how far they'd take me beyond that, but two of the weapons that carried me the most so far are Dragon's Grasp and the Hunting Shortbow. Dragon's Grasp is a throwable handaxe with a fairly easy condition to get an extra 1d4 (just hit things that are burned) and pairs nicely with Eldritch Knight via weapon bond. So you have an early game ranged option for a tank build that scales off of strength rather than dex because you can cycle throw actions (whereas with most melee weapons that can be thrown you'd have to retrieve them before throwing again). The Hunting Shortbow has advantage over monstrosities which is nice, but far more importantly it lets anyone just equipping it use hunters mark - one of the biggest up sides to choosing to invest in ranger enough to get the hunter subclass because the latter half of base rangers offerings are kind of mid (though I'm still playing one to 6 because I guess I like to RP with the whole ranger knight thing being kind of neat). Hunters mark is kind of the thing you splash before any attack and even after the target is gone you can bonus action to "reapply hunters mark" which is important because the bonus action doesn't cost a spell slot. So you can add an extra bit of damage throughout an entire encounter and treat each level 1 spellslot in terms of fights per long rest. That's allot of extra damage and it's the least invested way to get the spell.

Great content! I watched your Necro/Druid combo video and have a question. How does Oathbreaker Paladins aura interact with the Necromancers minions? Does it affect Druid Infected? A lot of people say that it's bugged and only affect skeletons. Some say it flat out does not work. I wanted to try out the Pala+Necro synergy,but i'm hesitant. Should I just stay Ancients for a first playthrough? Thank you.

After a second playthrough, I think the sorrow glaive also deserves an honorable mention for a midline sentinel/priority target pursuer build, mainly because I think it's a very interesting way to build your character. It's a +1 glaive which doesn't seem very impressive at first (and tbh, the damage isn't anything to write home about, although that's easily improved via items like the helldusk gloves and drakethroat glaive). The main feature of this glaive that imo makes it pretty neat is that it gets a special class action called sorrowful lash, which is kind of like thorn whip except it does slightly less damage (1d4 + spellcasting modifier that doesn't improve with levels). This class action is classified as a cantrip, and more importantly uses a bonus action instead of an action. This means that items like the ring of arcane synergy pair excellently with this, since you can pull a target in towards you/ away from a squishier party member with your bonus action and boost your weapon damage at the same time. Pair this with spells like spirit guardians which leave a damage aura around you and slow down enemies and the sentinel feat means that you can lock down high priority targets pretty consistently. If you're using this on a gish, it also means that later in the game enemies will counterspell this, which leaves your action free to cast more powerful damage dealing or cc spells, since the cantrip doesn't compete with your action for spellcasting unlike every other cantrip and most damage/cc spells in the game (minus shenanigans with band of the mystic scoundrel).

That Soulbreaker Greatsword combined with the armour you can loot off one of the Githyanki at the end of Act 2 is a winning combination. She's never downed in combat after that. Also Astarion dual wielding the Knife of the Undermountain King with the life stealing sword you can buy in Act 2 from Dammon is just unbelievably good. He can take out high hit point targets in one turn, especially if he is in the thief subclass with the extra bonus action.

There’s actually another finesse longsword sold by the merchant in the Githyanki Crèche (Mountain pass / monastery area, Act 1.5)

i'd say the best use of titanstring bow is on a ranged dex char that is not using handcrossbows, that has dex maxed, but then drinks a potion of hill giants strength - makes it really powerful. I'd say it's best for a gloomstalker multiclassed with rogue, for stealthy auto-crits to be adding on that sneak attack dmg into crits. You can have instead of the str potion the club that is now buffed with the last patch to get great stat in str to add to the bonus of this.

You can get Blood Of Lathander without the strenght check. You just have to do the initial puzzle, where you find all the ceremonial weapons, place them on their respective alters, get the pendant, and use that to open the pedistal that Blood Of Lathander is in.

I see nobody talking about the spear Vision of the Absolute. It gives 2 turns of blindness on hit. It's actually pretty huge. I gave that to my battlemaster fighter. You get so much control and your team gets advantage for free on important targets. You can use a shield so you can jump in there and tank everything, make everyone blind by doing one tap on each enemy. It's kinda crazy. For act2 you can swap that for Blood of Lathander since almost everything is undead. But you get that spear super early in act1 and the utility it gives is awesome. I've been sleeping on that weapon for way too long.

Note that Titanstring bow doesn't display str modifier on character screen, but it is applied (you can check in combat log) However the whole point is moot since dual +1 xbows are better than any other bow sans act3 legendaries and considering that vendors refresh their stock on every level up and long rest with some due diligence you can have hand crossbows on all characters that can wield it, hell it even does more dmg on characters like gale which don't have the proficiency

It is hinted that the statue in the monastery need some greasing. If you use a grease spell on it there is no need for a strength check.

One of the best thing about Phalar Aluve on Rogue builds is that on the turn you activate Shriek you can still get sneak attack using Pommel Strike. Along with the high initiative Rogues get makes it way better than using it on a supporting Character who would waste a whole action. Also one of the few weapons that lets you create a dex based Great Weapon Master build.

@Aestus_RPG You dont have to save scam the 25dc check, all you need to do is either: cast grease or throw a bottle of grease. Wheels are greased, no need for excessive force.

On my paladin, used the titanstring bow wih 18 str. And used the gauntlets that set my dex to 18, so my damage was pretty insane with +9, i did abt 18-22 damage a shot because i had other modifiers, very strong

As soon as I found Phalar Aluve, I started a new character as a Rogue just to go get it. Oh, and I always give Karlach the Shattered Flail and Titanstring Bow. They're perfect.

Inn the Arcane tower you can find a strange stol you can destroy, to get the club of the hill giant, this in the main hand to get 19 strenght, coupled withe titan string bow on a ranged caracter for some extra dubbel dipping.

"Which applies the best status condition in the game, which is: Dead" Lol that was fucking perfect homie

12:30 spellsparkler combined with arcane missile necklace from underdark trader will setup any magic caster with arcane missile for act1 and most of act 2 where it starts to drop off .

can you describe your Gale build? It looks like Abjurer 6 for the ward, I think you went for spellsniper at wizard 4 and picked up eldritch blast with it? Cleric 1 for heavy armor, and Warlock 2, because agonizing blast can add any spellcasting modifier to damage?

You don't "need" the strength check pass. For the elevator you can just go past it by going down a path downwards, take a couple jumps, watch out for bombs and you still arrive at the monastery. As for the statues, you can just hit them repeatedly until they start turning.

In regards to the strength check for the Blood of Lathander, you can actually just attack the statue and then you can move it freely.

shout out to hunting bow from dammon for hunter's mark and feller of monsters (advantage many types of monsters) which will apply to melee weapons and spells too. I feel like lae'zel hard carries everyone's playthrough, fighter is disgustingly powerful with their extra attacks and feats

Regarding the titanstring bow, there is a club in the underdark that sets your str to 19, if you are a pure ranged character you're not using that slot anyway

Im just amazed with how long act 1 really is. If you dont take the mountain pass and risk the curse you have the entire underdark, the grymforge, and much more

Phalar Avule is great to build and bring with a Tempest Cleric and a Druid. Tempest Cleric at lv 6 has a perk that push back enemies if they suffer thunder of lightning damage caused by them. Druid can drop a Spike Growth and Create Water and the Cleric electrifies the water, and Cleric has Phalar Avule. So essentially every turn the enemies takes damage from Electrocute and get pushed back, this procs Phalar Avule and they also get pushed back, suffering damage from Spike Growth, Druid can throw a Plant Growth on top and someone can place Silence so nobody can warp out. If they try to avoid the water, Command Approach. Overly complicated and unnecessary? Yes. Fun? Doubly.

For spell sparklers can use psychic spark amulet with adds 1 more bolt to magic missles and let's you cast a level 1 magic missle for free. So as a level 1 spell already getting 4 hits so it adds up quickly

I love Phalar Aluve on my pure support bard, I never swapped it out.

Spellsparkler works with each magic missile attack as well, making wizards really good with it as well. Whole magic missile builds exist and that staff is a core component.

Shattered Flail might also synergise really well with Kagha's Headwear, which gives you 1d6, I believe, poison or acid damage to every weapon attack, as long as you have been healed prior. With the weapon's self heal, this effect would be active permanently. And as you mentioned, there are many other items that synergise with healing, and receiving their bonusses by doing something as simple as just attacking, might be pretty good.🤔 One weapon I am missing in your list, is the Returning Pike, which really raises any throwing build to the next level, as not only is it stronger than any regular throwing weapon, but also does it return to your hand after being thrown, as the name suggests. The Halfling vendor in the grove, as well as the Dwarven vendor in the Myconid colony both sell items that synergise with throwing, adding even more damage instances to each throw, making throwing one of the best damage sources available at that point. Returning weapons are rare enough, that you will probably use the pike for quite some time, before you replace it with an adequate substitute.