Haha for sure! So fun fact: youtube has finally after 20 years added the ability to A/B test multiple thumbnails and this is the first video I'm trying it on! You've got the game quote, but half of users will see one more straightforwardly describing the build ("1/8 damage taken, infinite healing") and then after a few days I'll see which performs better and set the video to that one. It's (hopefully) a really useful tool
The only problem I have with AC tanks in BG3 (if you aren't playing some Solo challenge) is that the AI will target your squishier team members and basically ignore the tank. Which is why I sorta prefer either the Sentinel approach where you try to stop targets in way, or the Shield (spell) approach where you bait the enemy into trying to hit a target that isn't really that easy to hit with Eldritch knights, Abjuration wizards, Divination wizards. Or... The Druid tank approach, where their AC might be bad, but they have several health pools to work with.
That's a real concern, but the AI prioritizes attacking with advantage very highly, so make use of reckless attack to draw aggro - between that and good positioning, you don't need to deliberately drop your AC unless you have squishy allies with really low AC.
I can't express in words how awesome this channel is -- or, I should say, how awesome Cephalopocalypse is. The only problem is that I don't have enough time to try out all these amazing and interesting builds! But I will try! I just started my 2nd run through the game. Just hit 6th level. I need to respec all my characters with some of the builds that have been featured here recently.
@@Cephalopocalypse Not sure about others but I would definitely be interested! I think it would be interesting if the "fun" factor was also an influence. Since some builds are so strong *cough* Gloom Assassin *cough* that its almost less fun sometimes
I must say, your guides make me want to buy this game right now. Just the thought of the longbow-bard and this monstrosity in one party makes me giddy. Not sure if it actually pairs well but at least it sounds like one character to obliterate everything and one character to sustain everything... And two other characters for fun xD
My tav is currently very close to this. Barb 8/Rogue 4 to get the feat vs the defensive reaction but otherwise identical. One vital thing you missed in the equipment section is the Linebreaker Boots. +3 Wrath every time you dash makes dual wielding offense as broken as your defense. Wrath caps at +7 to melee damage and applies to all four of your attacks once you've built it up, plus an additional fifth time to your sneak attack damage.
I was already considering Karlach origin for my next run, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to play it. I kove her as 2H clobberer and as OH Monk, but this feels better for using her for main character. Thx for another great build, Ceph!
This build seemed super fun, so I tried it and it was great. Some alternatives you can try that I enjoyed include: 6 Barb, 4 Rogue, 2 Fighter for action surge and Two Weapon Fighting fighting style. 2nd Feat take Dual Wielder so you can dual wield Phalar Aluve and another weapon (Bloodthirst, Knife of the Undermountain King, Belm were a few of my favourites). Wear The Graceful Cloth for the +2 dexterity (or Nimblefinger Gloves for a Gnome Tav) so we still cap 20 dex. Ring of Regeneration and Broodmother's Revenge for an extra d6 poison damage on every attack. Speedy Lightfeet (3 Lightning Charges per dash) or Springstep Boots (3 turns Momentum per dash) synergize well with the Cunning Action: Dash/Stallion temp hp.
It's actually beneficial to keep your AC as low as possible in a build like this. The AI in BG3 favors party members with low AC. With the big health pool, halved damage, the ability to replenish temp Hp each turn, Shattered flail early/Sword of Chaos late/ring of regeneration/Periapt of Wound Closure and potions you are basically unkillable so taking hits is no big deal. No need for uncanny dodge (already unkillable) so go 8/4 for more HP and 3 feats or 7 barb/3 rogue/2 fighter for action surge/fighting style.
That's an entirely different build you're suggesting. He's trying to make a Dexterity Barbarian with Uncanny Dodge so you become unhittable while outputting excellent melee damage. Your build is a lifesteal Strength character who wants to get hit and then heal back the damage afterwards. Both are good builds but use completely different defensive strategies and weapons. Your build needs specific lifesteal weapons and his needs Finesse weapons.
It's actually beneficial to get Arcane Ward in a build like this - with the high damage reduction, no need for the lifesteal items so go sorc 1/wiz 11 ;) More seriously, the AI prioritizes attacking with advantage very highly, so make use of reckless attack to draw aggro - between that and good positioning, you don't need to deliberately drop your AC unless you have squishy allies with really low AC.
@@Cephalopocalypse This build made me think what other Options there might be. For example a other option would be to go 5/7 barbarian/rogue at level 12. 2 extra sneak attack dice, evasion vs dex save spells and effects but you loose the temp hitpoints of lvl 6 barbarian (although that option would be for level 12, before that your build is awesome and mostlikely damage heavier, then ignoring going barbarian 5 for extra attack and instead just go barbarian 3 and then more a rogue character and play it more damage reduction heavier). But i kind of think so too about the ac discussion. Unless you would play solo honor mode, where it it beneficial to have higher ac (obviously cause better to not get hit then get hit and take low amount of damage) it would be an option to take a armor like the admantine armor (as you said in your video) or you could take one of the clothings like graceful cloth or enraging Heart garb). In late game you could swap the armor for the bonespike garb and if you still want higher ac get amulet of greater health (unless contested obviously). In combination with the Amulet and bonespike garb you would have a ac that is just one lower but have the bonespike garb effect. And you could swap out the Undermountain King with the Crimson Mischief (although those suggestions only apply to act3).
For more overkill, you can give this build the Periapt of Wound Closure amulet (gotten by a merchant end of Act 1 but before the Creche) to get max healing turning a basic healing potion into +10 hp guaranteed.
Put this in with a light cleric, an abjuration wizard, and an oath of ancients paladin for a functionally invincible party. Between bless and paladin aura, no one's ever failing a saving throw, any damage that might somehow go through all the ridiculous barriers of radiating orbs, warding flare and stacking damage reductions will be easily healed back by the cleric and the paladin.
funny, was just doing a 'always give the bad/rude answer' run, so now I understand exactly how nuts that is. My party got curbstomped in that battle so I had to reload and give the safe answer.
Thanks for the guide! I was happy to see you address the Click Heels boots not working to trigger the healing as that was my first thought when you explained the build. I wonder if that will get patched and all the builds that rely on dash will suddenly be able to take advantage of those.
It is! Just be aware that it doesn't work quite the same in tabletop if you were planning to try that - the rage damage there requires you to be making a weapon attack based on strength, which they houseruled to any melee attack for BG3 including unarmed and finesse. IMO a good change and I'd let a player do it this way at my table but some DMs may be sticklers for the old rules
Great video as usual 🙂Now that you have another audio setup more of the room gets blended into the recording. Is the room pretty empty from furniture and soft materials? If so, I think you could remove any digital noise suppression active now by making some small changes to the room. You may want to try to add a thick rug, a couch, some pillows and other soft materials to absorb reverberation and a bookshelf to break up reflections.
Yo! Excellent build as always! I am trying this build right now and i have to report some bad news : the rage damage do not apply to the off hand nor the sneack attacks... (oh well...) EDIT : I made another character and this time i had the rage damage on my offhand... (not on sneack but i was expecting that), only difference is previous one used an elixir of STR this one doesn't ...
I didn't know about the warding bond trick stacking with rage. I know you want to make this build gear independent. But you could make this a strength build with the gauntlets of dexterity and make this thing even more potent. You could also do it without the gauntlets and STR elixirs too.
Ah yes, the classic rogue barb. I've always been a fan of the 8/4, comically resilient and dishing out great damage with GWM. I almost always build them to max critical chance, with The Unseen Menace, The Dead Shot and -1 crit helms. With advantage, there's a huge chance for many crits and kills to exhaust your 2 bonus actions I've been playing Trials of Tav, and spun this into a heavy armored bearbarian. I wanted to try the line on the wiki that says that bear barbarian resistances don't get blocked by heavy armor, so I got 1 fighter/3 rogue/8 barbarian, with great weapon master and heavy armor master for feats. Bear heart and aspect of the stallion. With helldusk and HAM damage reductions, and a "relatively" low AC, it was a great damage sponge. I like it much better than arcane ward tanks due to their sustain 13:45 it's not exactly "infinite free" hit points, because it won't refresh back to max unless you have lost *all* of the temporary hit points your previous dash gave you. When I use it, that's how it's behaved, so it's not super broken 27:40 Woah. That's insane. I have to try this... I'll need a cleric to soak it up
You forgot another OP item - amulet of greater health. Yes it's a late game item but the huge boost to HP means so much to this character. If you do this you can dump Con and put points WIS and INT for saves, or use a STR weapon for more options (elixir of strength would be overkill for this) Also, uncanny dodge only halves damage once a turn. So your maths to x4 your effective HP is incorrect unless you only face one enemy who can only hit once. Most of the time you quarter damage from one hit, and take half damage from the other hits, reduced further by any flat dmg reductions.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the boots that give you lightning charges every time you dash in the gear section. Do you not feel they are good for this build?
not sure if you mentioned this, but 1 level in fighter for two weapon fighting style or the gloves that give two weapon fighting would add a pile of damage to this build.
For reasons I don't want to spoil, this would make a good dark urge character. I'm currently building a Durge around their midgame ability, and the build looks like this with 2 levels of fighter and one of Goolock sprinkled in
You should do some builds for the Trials of Tav mod. I think the combat conditions in the mod create opportunities for unique builds that wouldn't necessarily work in the main game.
Is uncany dodge really that good? You said it uses reacton. Don't we only get one of those every turn? If that's the case the "there is no encouter in the game that can do 400 dmg in a turn" line doesn't really hold up. Wouldn't it be tankier to go 8-4 split and get idk, 2 extra con for hp, or some other defensive feat? Something that's allways on? Don't barbs get a passive making them immune to frightened and other char save cc effects? That sounds useful too. (Or that's just one of the subclasses?)
Only level 4 right now with this build, but I'm finding that enemies will just as often or more often attack my warlock Wyll or my fire sorcerer Tav as my dodge tank, even after reckless attacking. Makes me wonder if I'm better off not worrying about trying to have a tank like this, and just swapping to another damage toon like a gloom thief archer or the like :P
would respecing at level 5 to go strait to 5 barb then taking back rogue at 6 be better? i feel like at that level the extra attack is better than the sneak attack, esp if you don't need the skill proficiency.
What do you think of something like the duelist’s prerogative? It seems like there’s a lot of competing demand for this character’s reactions which it could help to smooth out.
Yeah, for the normal version of the build I don't think it's needed, but it's a very good option if you go Sentinel, so you can make 2 sentinel attacks or make one and still use uncanny dodge
Am I missing something or is there no way of refreshing the Aspect of the Stallion temp HP besides losing the HP from damage or long resting? Would love to be missing something as that means you can't refresh it until its all gone, including outside of combat.
when the enemies take it out, you just use a bonus action: dash and get it back. Enemies can usually take it out semi reliably in one turn, 2 at most. You're not gonna be sitting on that temp hp for long for sure out of combat you can just get an ally to slightly graze you with an alchemist's fire or smth if you want to get rid of a few letfover points for the full refresh. you can also just dash out of combat and get it preemptively, as it doesn't require rage to get you those temp hit points
@@shinkamui Lots of times I end up with 1-2 temp HP at the end of my turn and the next enemy turn, they whale on me and take bites out of permanent HP. Kinda annoying cause it seems to me most other kinds of temp HP are refreshable.
Yeah, I just tested it and it doesn't seem to stack. I know that spells you get from items sometimes work differently, so maybe the warding bond from True Love's Embrace allows it to stack with bear heart, but I'm not in act 2 to test it atm
I think this characer would be even better if it was either a half wood elf (extra movement speed, fey ancestry, dark vision) or dark gnome (superior night vision and gnome cunning, one ofthe most powerful racial defensive traits). Being incapacitated seems to be one of the worst parts with a char like this. Those choices could mitigate it. Edit: For themathic reasons think I'd play a Duergar, free enlarge person sounds like a blast and their barbarian shout when entering rage is great.
My favorite build!!!!!! I did this with the second character I made in BG3 -- by the time I got to act 2, the character was so OP that I got bored with it. ;)
