Baldur's Gate 3: Cleric Build - Terror Of Tiamat

[@MortismalGaming]

As of Patch 3, this build was nerfed a bit. It still works and will still be viable and effective, but it will deal less consistent damage due to some changes to Divine Smite.

[@MrPhilippeCP]

Can you elaborate on this? I've been playing this and I can't find my thunderous smite anymore.

[@MortismalGaming]

@@MrPhilippeCP Check your paladin spell list, it probably just fell off your hot bar

[@kevingonzalez142]

What were the changes to divine smite??

[@alangrant2728]

@@kevingonzalez142 it's detailed in the patch notes. But to summarize, there was a bug that would allow you to get two divine smites in one attack and there was also a bug that let you upcast divine smite to get higher damage than should have been possible. Normally divine smite maxes at 5d8 damage regardless of how high you upcast it. Before patch 3 you could upcast to higher levels and end up with more dice being rolled. e.g. casting as a level six spell would sometimes result in 7d8 damage instead of 5d8.

[@Artrysa]

@@alangrant2728 Oh well that's not too bad. Does the video even show a double smite?

[@Cyphu]

There’s a necklace in the game that gives access to “paralyzing critical” which you can use once per long rest to paralyze a target after a critical hit. Since paralyzed targets take crit damage you could get two big hits in

[@Fluffy_Cuddle6969]

only works on humanoid

[@erikhendrickson59]

The idea of a "100% playthrough" review of this game is just nutty.

[@kyleflorence8042]

Mortym is a sick, sick man.

[@cartergunter1898]

It’s not the game world itself isn’t super large. Most of the content is pretty copy paste with super rich story to cover it up. The length is in the branching storyline. Dos2 and pwotr are both larger games that probably take the average person longer

[@darwin_shrugged]

@@kyleflorence8042 I'm half convinced he's actually not human, but an advanced AI. Would explain the machine-like dedication and output. Completely astonishing.

[@jamesbrice3267]

@@darwin_shrugged Think of him as proof that Dune's Mentats are real.

[@cardassa]

Mmm... i could really go for some roasted almonds with dark chocolate right about now.

[@marteendee6842]

Incredible work as always. Your very balanced approach and soothing radio voice make these videos both informational and a pleasure to watch/listen to. Looking forward to seeing some druid builds!

[@leeh1ful]

I played a cleric of Talos about six months ago on my last bg2 run and loved it so much this guide appeared right before my second playthrough of bg3, lightning is so hot right now

[@austintehguy]

Really hope the success this game is seeing serves to boost your channel ever high Mort - you deserve all the success for your dedication to thoughtful, thorough, and honest reviews. Doing Tiamat's work!

[@battlericky17]

Perfect timing for my break at my new job. Cant wait for the September console release for this

[@HalfinchLonomia]

This is an exceptionally detailed guide. Well done, sir 👏

[@gabrielvasconcelos71]

You could use the dex gloves from the Githyanki vendor in the Mountain pass that sets your dexterity to 18 and gives +1 attack to offset the initiative problem, should be pretty OP with this build

[@Shmern]

Holy shit that sounds disgusting. I gotta find them.

[@henkhenk4396]

wow damn read that as +1 attack roll, that's pretty disgustingly strong

[@PseudoJulianoK]

I put those in Lae'zel and now she is a beast in both melee and ranged

[@selendile030]

Gave them to my PotB light armor Wyll. Initiative and AC. Nice fit, IMO.

[@saintsword23]

Would give you another point in Con as well, which would allow +2 in Wis from the first feat and +1 from the permanent +1 buff of your choice that I won't spoil, giving you 14 Con, 20 Wis.

[@rickkybobby8118]

You know with how much freedom players have to *nearly* fully respec their character at any time, I think theres room for a purely early-game build that doesnt rely on things you cant change like race. Its whole point would be to make life easy for the first few levels until you are able to spec into a more lategame oriented build

[@saintsword23]

The inability to reselect race is killing me. I think the best choice is Wood Elf, as the extra movement, darkvision, and proficiency in perception are useful for just about any build on any class. Deep Gnome is really good too, as Superior Darkvision and advantage on all the mental checks are good on every class.

[@rickkybobby8118]

@@saintsword23 Because it only costs 100 gold to recruit a wizard hireling that can cast long rest buffs like darkvision on your whole party then sit in camp while your main group go off adventuring I really dont value normal darkvision at all. Same for movement buffs and debuffs, because longstrider is something all party members should have at all times since its a ritual. If you're making a caster I think Githyanki is by far the best race choice. Medium armour, greatsword, longsword and free proficiency in all skills of a chosen attribute that you can swap each long rest. Kinda puts all other proficiencies other races get to shame

[@saintsword23]

@@rickkybobby8118 That's a clever use of the camp. I'm thinking into the future too, where I think there will be multiplayer servers where that sort of thing may not be possible. The Wood Elf extra speed would still be useful, but ya, compared to medium armor and Ancestral Knowledge it's really not the best and I agree with you. There's cases to be made that Half-Orcs are best for melee strikers and Deep Gnomes for the sneaky builds, but you're probably right that Githyanki are the overall best choice for a character you may respec multiple times (Medium armor goes to waste with certain classes, but getting proficiency in an entire attribute's worth of skills is waaaaaaay OP). The Halfling Lucky ability is also extremely underrated - never critically failing a role is incredible. I've also had a thought that there may be a Githyanki Knowledge Cleric build that could presumably get proficiency in about every ability. You take Urchin background for stealth and sleight of hand, take 3 knowledge skills (arcana, religion, nature for instance) getting expertise on two of them, and then use your Githyanki and Channel Divinity on Wis and Cha skills. All in all you get proficiency in every skill except investigation, acrobatics, athletics, and a knowledge skill. By adding a level of ranger at some point you can add Investigation and either athletics or acrobatics (Urban Tracker does nothing because there's no background other than Urchin that wouldn't just be a duplication).

[@gabrielbjornursidae]

@@saintsword23 That's why Wrath of the Righteous is a superior game.

[@coconutologist]

Kind of sounds like you reinvented The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch into melee form. Hope the smotin' divine. Onward to 300k. All glory to the algorithm.

[@z808z]

I was looking for a Cleric build that can contribute to my team and still make use of the legendary mace. This build is perfect for it. Thanks for sharing!

[@marcie151.]

easily my favourite bg3 content creator, I trust nobody else anywhere near as much haha

[@WayFastWhitey02]

Just got to act 2 on my first playthrough with a Tempest Cleric, about to log back into the game to change to this because it looks amazing! Never thought about the obvious synergy with Paladin, thanks for the video!

[@jaywall4591]

You can get the respective giant bracers to set your STR to 23, which allows you to shift those points into DEX. Late game but it's what I'm doing! (I went 2 Paladin; 2 Tempest and 8 Storm Sorcerer for the metamagic and flying, started Sorcerer and switched your point allocation between WIS and CHA)

[@BorpoTingis1312]

Love your build guides! As a total smooth brain who so far has stumbled through the game with a cobbled together build, it's really interesting to see the potential characters have.

[@PaladinofBaldursGate]

Love this build, gonna try it in my Honour run, thank you!

[@mkstrouse]

Love your reviews and seeing the builds you use to get yourself through them 🎉

[@billc.8569]

Wow, seems like a fun class. I know you might be planning on a future video for this but would love to see as you are finishing the game multiple times, a ranking of the characters that you have played. Specifically which ones you enjoyed the most.

[@uttrik]

This is probably my favorite gish build so far. Every build I've tried either was a support caster that was mostly martial, or a character that was better off just casting spells. But with BG3's Destructive Wrath maximizing all damage dice associated with the attack that uses it, you only need one attack and two spell slots to deal superb damage to a single target. And having 10 levels in Tempest Cleric means you have good offensive spells to cast. While this build isn't the end all, be all of damage output, it is the only one so far where I can play like a gish. Thanks for the video Mort, I'd never even thought about trying Thunderous Smite with Destructive Wrath because RAW it would only maximize the 2d6.

[@unixtreme]

Min Max is my jam!

[@minmaxwax]

It’s a way of being

[@ZarviroffSerge]

There are Gloves of Dexterity, which give you just statically 18 dex. These fix initiative really well. They're also found in the Mountain pass area, sold by a trader and could be simply pick pocketed from them (along with everything else lol).

[@quietwulf]

I was just thinking of a Tempest build! Thanks man, love your content!

[@TheMing21]

I love the paladin cleric combo, I've been meaning to try it but haven't pushed myself to it yet, now this pushes me over the edge to go and try it! Great video, keep up the good work

[@richardweems4517]

I looked at the build and loved it. While I like extra attack, I see what you mean about the power of the tempest support and damage spells. Thanks for your hard work.

[@ivanbssouza]

A ranged version of this build would be Storm Sorc + Tempest Cleric ! Very nice build ! nice thematic character !

[@TheThornicator]

I love your videos. Especially your build videos... of all thr games you play. BG3 is phenomenal!

[@kagankarahan183]

Pls do more of these build videos. Make a series man. Its amazing

[@cynxtv]

Can't wait to see what other builds you'll share with us. Just started a Warlock and will use your 'Whispers' build as a template, it's just great, love it. Keep up your awesome work!

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

Thank you for another guide about a class build!!

[@_lime.]

There's a pair of gloves that boosts your dex to 18 regardless of what it already is. That would allow you to dump dex down to 8, add those points elsewhere, and still get decent initiative. They're called the Gloves of Dexterity, and are found early on in the Githyanki Creche. Conversely, for a late game pair of gloves there are the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength, which boost your strength to 23. Same idea as before, dump strength, boost other stats.

[@thubanyeob3823]

Man, you're making me want to try this on the next campaign i start. Looking forward to the rest of the build break-downs.

[@barneysoldierson54]

I'm using your warlock build for tactician, it's really good so far , I will use this build on Shadowheart , great video thanks

[@semiawesomatic6064]

I did a similar build, but pally 6 and then cleric 6, vengeance and war cleric. Only have fourth level slots but they last a lot longer, and war cleric can give you a third attack a few times a day.

[@magegod989]

A perfect weapon for this build as a blue dragonborn is a glaive called the Drakethroat Glaive. It give disadvantage on saving throws against your breath weapon (which now scales with your level as of patch 1) and it lets you cast elemental weapon once a day so you could give it lightning damage which imo plays well with tempest domains abilities.

[@conner121100]

Totally doing this for my mirrored play-through, my character in d&d was a Tiamat follower who flipped sides, he ran into a weird mirror that popped out a clone who did the opposite, so now I made my main play through as my OG paladin and this works perfectly for my next play through

[@Ingeb91]

Definitely trying this. This looks fucking awesome. The one punch man of Baldurs Gate

[@witsleep]

If you are hurting for dex in this build, there is a glove that set your DEX to 18 (merchant later half of act 1 mountainpass rosaryn monastery - I believe killing the merchant also drops it but the thread is from EA - i bought/steal off the merchant - going to mountainpass advance the story so please do everything you need to do in Map 1 before progressing there)! From watching this, I don't see you saying that the glove is a necessary equipment but you are worried about the initiative from low dex so this would be a perfect equipment for non-rogue/ranger builds.

[@TheCoulsonlax]

My favorite part of your builds is how thematic they are

[@TheCoulsonlax]

@@khal7702 agreed. that could be the alternate name for the entire Tyranny of Dragons campaign in D&D

[@kbar4462]

Great guide, i haven't explored the other domains for cleric, but sounds like this would be really fun to respec into. Doubly good since i just got Blood of Lothandar last night lol

[@nunomarkyboy]

Thank you for the amazing content.

[@aguscm4175]

As someone who was thinking of running the absolute same thematic but without multiclassing with an Eldritch Knight but gave up on it because I wanted a character with high Charisma for dialogue and decided to go Paladin instead I have to say. THANK YOU. I'll be starting as a Paladin however, hope that doesn't fuck up things.

[@Shikao87]

Oh man! I am super excited to test this build in one of my playthroughs! I knew I would like to play cleric once and Tempest was one of more interesting domains to me. Your build my bump it up quite a bit in order I wanted to play. I am stil in Act I in my first playthrough, but I have the idea to play Selune believer and see how Shadowheart will react.

[@javiernovoa8756]

Really great build, definitely gonna try it.

[@theAV8R]

I think there's a strong argument for taking Alert in lieu of 2nd ASI on account of the math on the value of going earlier. It's always a discussion of effect = (probability x consequence). Asi bumps up probability, and consequence is already high, but +5 init just might still win out. God damn you have good content man.

[@ChickenSoupMusic]

Combo’ing this with the create water spell to add vulnerability to lightning would be strong. I’d also multiclass a companion to 2 tempest cleric / 9 lightning sorc / 1 wizard (wear the 17 int helm so you get 4 wiz spell slots and you can learn up to 6th level wiz spells from scroll like chain lightning)

[@MrWystan17]

That was really great video! I would love to see some bard build in the future!

[@Redharp]

I tried it and it rocks! This is now my mainstay build for Shadowheart :) Gave her gloves of dex and now she has 4 initiative which puts her right after rogues :)

[@flaviomonteiro1414]

Never knew Clerics could be that fun!

[@JohnnyTightIips]

Love it. I've been playing as a Dragonborn Paladin of devotion for my first play through, this looks great.

[@AndreyKrichevsky]

Cool build! I literally just got the Blood of Lathander about an hour ago. Brute forcing my way through the final puzzle was a lot more fun then i expected.

[@bacchus8081]

With "brute forcing" you mean shooting down the 4 light focuses right? Is there another way? I was happy enough too get out of it alive with a very shiny mace that I didn't consider reloading to check for alternatives xD

[@AndreyKrichevsky]

@@bacchus8081 SPOILERS for people who didn't get there yet... There seems to be a slot to insert something in the mechanism. I assume if you find it, it disables the trap. And immediately after destroying the 4 lights i wondered if maybe i could instead go through the same door where the light goes. Haven't tried it yet though...

[@bacchus8081]

​@@AndreyKrichevsky That laser-thing is on the roof near the Eagles nest where you find the Ceremonial Hammer, so that's probably where you would end up. Now that I think about that...I wonder if you can break the laser before going into the Artifact Chamber? Definitly something I will check out next playthrough.

[@AndreyKrichevsky]

@@bacchus8081 I thought about breaking it in advance too. Just tested my door theory. Can totally get out through there. Though had to use haste potions and Feather Fall to make it to safety in time. Lae'zel was NOT happy...

[@AndreyKrichevsky]

@@bacchus8081 Man, i love this game! 4 completely different solutions to an optional puzzle you might not even find. At least one of them with serious ramifications for the narrative. This is how you make an RPG!

[@kkmak123]

I started the game with something like this in mind for my first playthrough from my pen and paper days, I found your build and changed a few things, I also have the gloves of dexterity, but the damage is ridiculous. I reload most boss fights and try to hold on the smites as long as possible to enjoy the mechanics :))

[@kaidorade1317]

Mort in his Cleric Build: “do you know of our Lord and Savior Tiamat?”

[@magies24]

This build is bonkers. Gonna try it for my second play through.

[@RwnEsper]

Going last can actually be great as a healing class, as long as you are aware of how that should affect your strategy. Being in a position to be reactive can save you a ton of trouble; if it helps, try to think of it as rather than 'going last', you are in position to determine the flow of all additional rounds.

[@adcaptandumvulgus4252]

Bat n board is a time-honored cleric tradition

[@wisabusiness]

This is an incredible build, Mort! I've been thinking of doing a second playthrough (Evil alignment of course) and your build has made me think about how to approach Tactician Mode!

[@SniperYanda]

I’m still on my first playthrough myself, but with how freely available respecs are and dabbling in a bit of min maxing, I think a unique way to consider builds is drastically changing them at different levels. Like a war cleric 1 + rogue or monk probably outclasses a fighter in melee combat until Character Level 5, then you could swap all levels to something to enjoy Extra Attack. Maybe Beastmaster Ranger 5, where their animal companion just got their biggest jump in strength, then a level or two later could change everything again. It’d be cool to see what you think the strongest/most useful builds at each level are!

[@Ophelia381]

There's a weapon that could be cool for this. Duellist's Prerogative. This weapon: give an extra reaction (one more wrath of the storm per turn) an extra attack as a bonus action as long as you're not dual wielding and a crit on 19 instead of 20 that stacks with other crit effects. It also has extra necrotic damage and the ability to add necrotic damage to an attack by spending a reaction.

[@theusernameicoodfind]

I want to play through it multiple times the classes are so cool

[@ates423]

I plan on doing a light temple cleric that’s a drow dark urge starting origin. But not lolthsworn and attempt to actually do a paragon run. Like a person trying to fight against all the stereotypes. Will be a fun campaign x) As for my companions I don’t know who I should bring. Minthara looks like the coolest companion so far but I guess I’ll have to reserve that for another playthrough I guess.

[@Gerdoch]

I've been stuck on a fight in act 1 (haven't had tons of time to play) where you're on a timer to save someone in a cage, and switched my level 4 half-orc to this build after watching the video. Proceeded to 1-shot the boss,l save the NPC, and laugh about how trivial it was.

[@Did_No_Wrong]

Sweet! Looks like I found my dark urge build.

[@FuchZen]

Only thing hitting harder than your crits with this build is me hitting that subscribe button! Killer content, love it!!!

[@OysteinS]

Some comments about companions, when those decisions are relevant to get the most out of a build, would be interesting. I find a divination wizard (Gale) to be my preferred way to "cheat". Anyway, great guide, thank you very much.

[@MrBoxer42]

Love your videos! Are you planning yo make build videos for each of the companions? I’m really itching to find some good builds for them

[@Oluz1975]

I was about to ask the same question, beat me to it! :)

[@MortismalGaming]

Yeah a few will be

[@jthopkins]

Ugh, I’m so jealous the Mac version of BG3 isn’t out of early access yet. This looks amazing

[@KungKokkos]

About the backgrounds, in addition to the skills and possibly as important in my book, is that it dictates what you get inspiration from. So picking folk hero then going straight evil might net you very few inspirations, for example.

[@DPS_GMs]

T is THE goddess of evil dragons

[@grey_wulf]

Heyo Mortym! Love these BG3 videos. I am currently playing a bard and it's fantastic. First time trying that class out in a DnD related crpg.

[@GoadedGoblin]

This is awesome

[@Rmason3156]

There is another good set up you can use that will offset your terrible dex quite nicely and gives you 24ac with a +3 sheild is the Gloves of Dexterity and the armour of Agility(sets your Dex to 18 giving you a +4 to your initative) and taking spells like Hold Person and Hold monster make this build completly nuts and to break that i recommend giving gale the dual weild feat and using 2 staffs that increase his spell save DC

[@kuzonfire1213]

patch 3 just nerfed this build, so bummed because i was saving this for my dark urge tactician run.......coping with my sadness through compliments so (should've done this when i saw the vid when it first dropped but) great build, liked and subscribed!

[@AristasTheMonsterHunter]

The evil folk hero, the folk villain.

[@ERHershman1]

I’d love a melee/two-weapon fighting ranger guide at some point. After many restarts, I’ve finally settled on a ranger with the Dark Urge Origin. In future videos, could you maybe talk about what party you went with, or make a short video on party composition? I’m really feeling the pinch in trying to compose well-balanced four person parties in this game.

[@franciscofracaro3648]

Super cool build idea, wp!!!

[@ericmatthews4245]

Don't forget, having someone else cast create water on the enemy to give them the wet debuff will also boost your lightning damage

[@grey_wind]

I 100% plan on doing a second or third playthrough with some kind of Storm Cleric/Sorcerer Dragonborn. Probably will change something as I build it out, but the tempest cleric is a must. Definitely some info I can steal from this.

[@gr8avocado]

Same. My thoughts are Blue Bragon Born, Blue Draconic Sorcerer and a Tempest Cleric of Talos = God of Thunder and Lightning!

[@TJ_Blazkowicz]

Min max approach could be dumping strength, take one feat for constitution proficiency (for spirit guardians) then ASI for wisdom, and then just use potions of hill giant strength

[@DrZaius3141]

The gloves that set your DEX to a straight 18 are perfect. It means you can drop it to 8 in character creation and the gloves are extremely easy and early to reach.

[@warzagg5022]

Sad that the Dead Three were cut as deity options. A run as a cleric of Bhaal especially had a lot of potential to be unique... and crazy evil.

[@yeahjustme3680]

But the dead 3 are not gods anymore, it would be weird for them to grant spells to clerics. 🤔

[@MortismalGaming]

Thats not quite true, they are still gods but they can just be killed as a punishment for defying Ao and continuing to interact with mortals.

[@yeahjustme3680]

@@MortismalGaming I stand corrected, oh mighty one. 🥺

[@Alec_cz]

I mean there's dark urge for that on Bhaal kek

[@jfg6092]

I'm currently playing a Paladin with a two-handed weapon inspired by this build and its ridiculously strong. 👍

[@Retiredmagician1]

Been waiting for this. Been wanting to respec Shadowheart

[@ImperatorMagus]

Act 3 with a certain Djinn you can get a legendary trident that does thunder damage when thrown and always comes back

[@SpamesJader]

This is sick

[@ne1up]

This just helped me dominate the Goblin camp. Kinda curious what I would lose from Cleric if I took a level in Storm Sorcerer for the flight ability.

[@FestorFreak]

This is almost identical to my character in my 4 player campaign. Blue dragonborn tempest cleric in service to Tiamat, mace and board with heavy armor, and spamming aoe spells for the most part, with a bit of support casting for our fighter , and bonking/shoving things that get close

[@Artrysa]

The Divine Smite only procs if the target survives the initial crit from Thunderous Strike. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get it to work but the problem was just that the target didn't have enough hp for the proc to be necessary.

[@braziliantvhd2768]

Good stuff, would love to see Pladin/Warlock min maxed

[@kilgoretrout5086]

I'm thinking of using this on Shadowheart on my current (1st) playthrough as I don't want to start over. Just nearing the end of Act 1 as I'm a bit of a completionist/explorer in these types of games.

[@aaronthompson2329]

Leave it to Mort to break the game in the best way. This looks like so much fun that I must try it on my next playthrough. On my current run, I am a half-orc assassin who sneaks up behind you and then nukes you with a 3x crit backstab ;)

[@geopi_]

Would love some lore friendly companion builds

[@Alberic_Str31N]

Now this is interesting. If we look at normal 5e, people have tried to optimize a single attack plenty of times, but it ends but being gimmicky. Most damage builds (like in 3.5 and PF) will gravitate towards getting as many attacks as possible. 5e is most forgiving there as while you can get a ridiculous amount of attacks in both 3.5 and PF, in 5e most combat classes only get 2, plus a bonus one with a bonus action. Some classes can get more and fighters can double theirs, but usually you make sure you have three attacks and you're good. So it is funny to see that in the confines of BG3, you consider losing extra attack for more cleric levels as optimal. In normal 5e optimization, you create a relatively campaign agnostic build, while for BG3 we can know exactly the challenges we need to overcome and the thresholds we need to meet. In BG3 it is irrelevant that a build would lose steam at 13th level, or that it cannot handle enemies not present in the game. One slight nitpick to close out, since your first ability score improvement is to bring constitution to 14 and wisdom to 18, you can just start with 16 wisdom instead of 17 and your constitution already at 14. You do not lose any wisdom bonus and you get your +2hp per level from the start.

[@danielcook8480]

Crit fishing paladin was my first build aswell except i went bard for 10 levels and its working really well . 2 levels in paladin does so much for so many builds and lets you get higher levels of divine smite much earlier than you would normally get .

[@saintsword23]

I feel the same about War Cleric. One level gets you an extra attack with a two-hander! That's nuts. I might do Fighter 11/War Cleric 1 and just get bonkers amounts of extra attacks.

[@tahmed6052]

This build is awesome dude. This is either gonna be my 3rd playthrough (I wanna do Monk for my 2nd) or I'll respec Shadowheart into this for my 2nd run.

[@scatsandwich38]

This game is so over my head but idc!! Im getting really excited to role play this game baby!! Time to venture forth…

[@Mello675]

The only thing I’d add is the illithid power that an enemy can heal but takes double damage. I forget the name but its up and to the left on the brain.

[@Jadegreif]

Sounds interesting, might be something I might look into some degree with Shadowheart, since I already switched her to Tempest

[@diegoaragao6618]

she aint liking the tadpole tho

[@bacchus8081]

@@diegoaragao6618 If you can talk Laezel into using them i'm sure Shadowheart is possible aswell. She took off on me after the whole Temple of Shar thing though.

[@absoliutlyorganic]

Was planning on doing evil drow sorcerer playthrough, but dragonborn priest of Tiamat sounds very tempting..

[@angussharington2374]

If you prefer the spell casting, try to combine your cleric with a storm sorcerer and make a guide about it for me :D