BG3 Honor Mode Class Tier List - Updated for Patches 5 and 6

[@Skyblade12]

Sorry, if you think Monks just run around and punch you haven’t discovered how to use their movement yet. Making Jump no longer on a Bonus Action means they get almost unlimited jumps. They don’t run around and punch, they jump around and punch. Totally different.

[@Bruno-lr9lm]

Such an overwhelming change that makes the class more interesting….

[@LeafBlade3436]

​@@Bruno-lr9lm monk is one of the funniest class to play. Grabbing a projectile and yanking it back to your attacker then go in and fucking attack him uo to 5 time Im sorry but thats so fun

[@nothisispatrick6528]

Monks just run around and do a bunch of damage And that’s exactly why I love them

[@davidharris3391]

Yes. Baddies dying faster is a good thing. And, I love being able to short rest to recover Ki vs. long resting to recover Smite spell slots. Every party needs at least 1 dedicated damage dealer, so I have no problem RP-wise with having a Monk.

[@nintandao64]

Yep. And simplicity doesn't mean less useful Their sustained high average damage due to almost never missing, constantly knocking shit prone is honestly busted considering how many times you hit per turn. BG3/DND are game where RNG is ur worst enemy, and you can reliably expect a monk's turn to not work against you. You bring it for one job, and every turn it delivers on that one job and then some

[@yihadistxdl951]

"all monks do is run around and punch people" "dude i was already going to play monk you dont have to sell it to me"

[@garyco766]

@@nintandao64 And monk is a class that doesn't necessarily need to kill. You can knock down a target, knock down a different target, move, stun a target, and stun another target. You haven't lost any damage, but now you've set up your GWM fighter to go wreck shit, attacking at advantage and triggering bonus attack on kill. Very nasty combo. Or, you just let your spellcaster cleanup all the weakened targets with an AOE, whatever.

[@YouTubeChillZone]

Unless you get stun and stand still, wasting turns.

[@SlimJimApproves]

Necromancy Wizard is a beast late game, and I'd even argue is low S-tier at least. The staff you get from the mummy lord imposes Disadvantage on saves against your Necro spells, and also allows you to cast Necro spells for free when you get a killing blow. Combine that with something like Cloudkill, which your Undead minions are immune to, and you just throw the cloud around while your minions run in and smack anything that stays. Also Divination should be S-tier, imo. Being able to force a failed save on an enemy or several can just autowin encounters. Edit: Didn't realize it was for Honor Mode I'm an idiot. I haven't tested Necro wizard on HM, but on normal and tactician it still shreds.

[@graysaltine6035]

Going wizard after obtaining the staff is a must (it doesn't have to be Necromancer, you should still go Div or Evo unless you are heavily relying on summons.) Apart from anything else, there are several locations with ~20 1hp rat enemies in Act3, which after a simple Circle of Death for 1 spell slot will pay you back with 20 spell slots for spamming Blights and replacing summons. It's great for a few sequences where you can't long rest (and one of the rat nests is in the sewers right before the final boss climb).

[@wunderfuls]

I wish rogues got some more love, they really need a way to do a extra attack if you’re going pure mono class, this really hinders you especially in solo honour mode.

[@benross9174]

They have the reliable talent expertise in Stealth thing where you can be borderline invisibie if you play it right. And multiclassing. Otherwise yeah it is pretty lacking

[@Aestus_RPG]

If Larian introduced some strong items that synergize with the Rogue kit it could help a lot.

[@r_bear]

Rogues are indispensable for multiclassing. You can attack like 8 times, no haste, all critical hits, on a first turn with 5/4/3 gloomstalker/assassin/fighter. You get your extra frenzied throw of flurry of blows from just 3 thief. But alone, they really just aren't as good!

[@N1ghthavvk]

@@Aestus_RPG Apart from the Shadow Blade, one could also use the Ne'er Misser to do Force Damage with the Sneak Attack die. That Force Damage can be doubled with the Frozen condition (applied by party member using that build). Added unto that with the +1d6 Force Damage Sneak Attack die, and it should work out pretty well. There's also a possible multiclass build with 3 (or 4) levels in Druid for Flame Blade, to get Fire Damage Sneak Attack die, on top of the 3d6 damage from that.

[@singincowboy]

​​@@Aestus_RPGI mean, gloves of balanced hands and the risky ring are all they really need to be in contention, with gear they can get pretty disgusting with crits. Orin's weapons can give a thief rogue 3 attacks as well as a riposte that stacks a second sneak attack into the mix. 4 feats gets you Savage Attacker, as well as 2 ASIs and any other feat you want, perhaps skilled, since you already have 6 skills, 4 expertise and with reliable talent!

[@cainampi]

I love hearing the thought process, and think a lot of people don't mind the long video with the thoroughness and the ability to jump to the part that they are most interested in. The section breakdown is very well done, making it easy to come back later and rehear your thoughts about a specific class.

[@gurugamingkiwi]

Agree!

[@Childofbhaal]

My Honor mode run was with a Hafling Bard. I ended up being soooo happy with that decision. The Hafling racial is amazing for honor mode. Eliminating any bad RNG is huge. I never rolled a single crit failure on a skill check the entire game. Plus as a Bard you have high charisma. Made passing all the skill checks a breeze

[@davidharris3391]

Yes, this. Halfling Bard made key ability checks like Ethel's Hair and Necromancy of Thay much, much easier.

[@handofsorrow23]

they have the best passives, too bad they don't look sexy :D

[@realdaggerman105]

@@handofsorrow23Dragonborn aesthetic sweep

[@renaldoawes2210]

Halfling lore bard 10 divination wizard 2 is pretty cracked for just never getting bad dice rolls lmao

[@jameskelsea6048]

Same here. Also a murder machine if you go 2 Spore Druid / 2 Fighter / 8 Swords Bard sharpshooter. Using dual handbows so he can do damage with his actions (slashing flourish for 2 attacks), his bonus action, and his reaction from the spores. All with extra damage from sharpshooter and symbiotic entity. The advantage on stealth is great if you use a spell caster to cast greater invis on him. I also run Astarion with him as a shadow monk who concentrates on pass without trace - allows my TAV to stay invisible most of the time. If you run the arcane acuity helmet, he is a great spell caster for control spells like confusion or hold person. Can spec out of the druid if want more higher level spells late game.

[@timothybrahm9001]

Interesting update. In defense of Rangers and Rogues, if you’re trying to reduce your long rests to either one back to back series in act 1 or none at all, classes like Rangers and Rogues, who have mostly abilities that don’t require using any resources, are much more appealing. I recently completed an honor mode run with zero long rests using your old rules (I did use spell scrolls and alchemy) with four Gloomstalker/Assassins. Not many classes can do that, so Gloomstalkers are S tier for the particular way I play. No spell scrolls would dramatically change that. I might personally ban arcane acuity at some point to see how that affects team comps.

[@timothybrahm9001]

Warlocks are similar in theory, though I haven’t put it into practice yet. You could plausibly do a full no long rest run with a short rest heavy party. With lots of bard dips for song of rest, those Warlock slots go much farther than a Sorcerer or a Wizard.

[@Sage2000]

Question, How do you refresh short rest without long rests?

[@timothybrahm9001]

Bard 2 feature, song of rest.

[@Sage2000]

@@timothybrahm9001 thank you. But Just gives 1 extra short rest, right?

[@yeasstt]

@@Sage2000 1 per party member. So 23 total, assuming you aren't playing a non-durge origin. You can also use potions of angelic slumber/reprieve for rests. Then you get an additional 23 potential long rests through channel divinity. 2 more through restoration pods in Act 3.

[@BlasterSarge]

I think moon druid wild shaping as a bonus action is underrated here. Being able to wild shape the same round you put up a concentration spell nets you an entire additional round of attacks compared to any other subclass of druid, where either you don't put up a concentration spell at all (thereby ignoring half your kit) or have to wait until turn 3 before you get to attack as a wild shape (at which point most combats are decided). It seems like a substantial action economy boost.

[@LAaronB10]

I generally don't wildshape at all as a non-moon druid, after like Act 1. Wasting a full turn just wildshaping does not feel worth it imo.

[@TheSniped117]

​@LAaronB10 Yeah but with Moon druid it is a bonus action. The Elementals are genuinely good. You can also just wildshape before combat even begins and not lose a round at all. The ability to Teleport in melee then go to town is pretty good. Definitely not top tier but definitely pretty tanky.

[@LAaronB10]

@ped117 Yeah, wldshape is pretty great for a moon druid. But my comment was specifically about non-moon druids.

[@MajesticFerret]

@@LAaronB10 You shouldn't be Wild Shaping in combat, you should Wild Shape outside of combat and then just remain in Wild Shape form. Overall, I'm ok with Druids being ranked low because Larian screwed this class over pretty bad for Honour mode. Tavern Brawler is still bugged and doesn't add to their dmg rolls, plus they lose their triple attack stacking with Haste and Elixer of Bloodlust, which is a huge dmg output nerf to their Shape forms at the highest level. As for the other forms, Land is also mostly trash as its biggest selling point was being a Druid that can use Haste, but given the triple attacking no longer stacks with Haste, it will take FOUR TURNS before you break even Hasting yourself in combat vs. just attacking without Haste. And Spore WAS one of the best subclasses in the game what with Armour of the Sporekeeper being absolutely bonkers, but Larian just nerfed that to the floor, so it's a lot less fun and OP being a Spore Druid now. Before, I think there's very strong arguments for Spore Druid being S-Tier worthy. Limitless access to AoE Hastes and being able to double summon dmg every single combat encounter was beyond broken.

[@LAaronB10]

@@MajesticFerret Wildshaping before combats seems even worse, because you can't even set up a big concentration spell. imo, a moon druid should be wildshaping turn 1 (after setting up a concentration spell) and spore/land druids should not wildshape basically at all after act 1.

[@CarltonGauss]

Open hand monks also get psychic and radiant damage as part of the class, so proccing radiant orb or mental fatigue is trivial.

[@pecky10]

I was thinking this when he was saying that Monks aren't good CC. My monk was able to completely shutdown Raphael and Ansur on my most recent playthrough, by either stunning them, or stacking Mental fatigue and letting my spellcasters lock them down, while also doing an absolute insane amount of damage. Add their damage ignoring physical resistances and I can't imagein an honor mode run without a Monk.

[@CarltonGauss]

​@@pecky10I don't know - I think I agree with the video regarding stunning strike. It's useful occasionally, but Flurry is so good that stunning strike is a waste of Ki most of the time.

[@markopusic8258]

​@@CarltonGaussTo me, stunning strike gets better and better as you level up because ki points become a non issue. The flurry of blows effects are really powerful of course but knocking an ennemy prone won't stop it from taking its turn (unless it dies of course), stunning strike will. Basically I see no downside to using both unless you're stacking ki resonance on multiple ennemies to do Le Big Unavoidable Damage.

[@CarltonGauss]

@@markopusic8258 well, you should never have more than 8 monk levels, so you can run out of ki points just from Flurry after 3-4 turns. In fights with 1 very strong enemy, that's OK, but vs big groups (viconia fight, for example), it's usually better to just save the points for damage. It's not the Flurry effects that are strong - it's just the damage from hitting twice.

[@johnk620]

Beast-master Ranger is S tier at end game, at lvl 11 the raven casts darkness whenever it lands. You can cover an entire battlefield in darkness, blind every enemy, and make your team invincible 1 turn. Use the Helldusk helmet to see in the dark and have a warlock for teammate.The raven doesnt take opportunity attacks, can pick up downed teammates, does okay damage and can infinitely summon 2 more weaker ravens.

[@vietquynguyen]

Also, it has dash as an action and bonus action so you can hopscotch fly to your team to protect them with darkness and to the enemy to force them to move.

[@DaSaint79]

Wasn’t the AI nerfed? Mobs will walk into darkness to swing on you. Mobs will throw made into cloud or AOE.

[@vietquynguyen]

@@DaSaint79 yes, but it kinda works better now. You wanted to fight under darkness anyway, and the old AI would just stand there and do nothing. Also, they can't target into the darkness, so they won't be able to throw aoe directly into it.

[@Williamwilliam1531]

Ah I see the logic now - anyone can generalize from more restrictive to less restrictive, but it’s much harder the other way around, therefore assuming more restrictions allows the most inclusion. That totally makes perfect sense! Thank you! And love your vids btw, I have a folder dedicated to screenshots of your finished lists. Keep up the good work!

[@taywebb9407]

I do enjoy that you took your time with this one and really explained your picks and reasoning, long videos are absolutely fine when they are well done like this. If you don't take the time to explain yourself, you'll always get ppl running to the comments just getting you to clear up something you already explained but they missed.

[@comandantegorrion7271]

Wild magic barbarian isn’t particularly good, but I have found one party composition in which it has a useful support niche, specifically a party that includes a sorcerer. So the fact that wild magic barbarians can, by the end of act 2, recharge a single first, second, and third level spell slot per day, means that they can functionally recharge most, if not all of a sorcerer’s sorcery points, and when that effect is also combined with the necklaces and other magic items that can be used to recharge spell slots, meaning that the sorcerer doesn’t have to burn as many points to get back spell slots, you can actually get a lot more spells and metamagic uses on a sorcerer per day than it might seem given just the regular spell slot and sorcery point numbers. Moreover, the +1d4 to rolls once per day, which also stacks with guidance and other similar spells, is nice to have. I will admit some of the rage effects are debilitatingly bad, especially if you have more melee combatants than just the Barbarian, and even the good ones aren’t particularly great.

[@labmouse42]

One thing that I think is really undervalued for warlock builds are the number of high level spells they can throw out between each long rest. Let's compare them to a sorcerer or wizard. Starting at 11th level, the warlock gets 3 spells per short rest cast as a 5th level spell. This means the warlock will get 9 fifth level spells per long rest (starting with 3, then two short rests). If there is a bard in the party, and there probably will be -- the warlock will get 12 such spells. In comparison the wizard will have 1 sixth level spell, 2 fifth, 3 fourth, and 3 third level spells. This is a total of 9 spells of various levels. The wizard will have arcane recovery, but that's only an extra spell total. If you are looking for a class to just throw out as many cone of cold spells as possible, warlock's deliver more hits per long rest. I think the reason a lot of people miss this is because they use those 5th level spell slots for hex.

[@Paulkotsu]

you can long rest at any point. camp supplies are abundant/infinite

[@labmouse42]

@@Paulkotsu doesn’t that take potions and consumes? Sure you can farm them off merchants but that’s very time consuming.

[@kurtcobane1762]

​@@labmouse42not that time consuming my friend its incredibly easy to reset a merchants inventory

[@milozillaboy]

@@Paulkotsu For this tier list, we only have 5 long rests per act

[@bonjouritsready]

@@labmouse42there’s so much food in the game, so much. And there are spots in each act that have hordes in one spot (Waukeens Rest, Moonrise, Wyrms Rock). It’s pretty easy to fuel your long rests, even with 80 units needed on honour mode.

[@Oroberus]

Cleric is the bloody easiest S-Tier for Honor Mode, no matter ifo n Tav or anybody else, especially Life domain Grab a Heavy Armor, Grab a shield and Lathanders Blood and then choose your gloves and boots around bonusses based on Radiant Damage Procs and just run Spirit Guardians. Especially if combined with a Warlock that throws Hunger Of Hadar this is easy mode for 99% of fights Another very broken thing are Druids which are specifically build regarding shape shifting ... Owlbear Body Slam all the time *g*

[@hectorso1722]

Love the tierlist and your content! I'd love to see some of your honour mode runs. Or specific strong builds. Your reasoning and knowledge of the game is what makes this channel stand out

[@Aestus_RPG]

Thanks! I will post my golden dice run, its just soooo boring to edit.

[@jeremygardner5987]

@@Aestus_RPGdon’t edit it! We want to see the hours and hours of menu stress.

[@Aestus_RPG]

@@jeremygardner5987 I'll leave that in! I'm just editing out when I alt tab to spreadsheets (I only have one monitor) or go AFK to make coffee, etc.

[@r_bear]

Shadow Monk with Shar's Spear of Night and someone with the special anti-blindness ring from Act 2-which lets the wearer fire ranged attacks, spells, and cantrips into and out of Darkness-can get pretty busted, especially with 3 (or 4, for feat) Thief for the extra bonus attack. Consider a GWM build with this: you're basically always attacking with advantage, you're getting permanent damage boost from being obscured, your enemies are blinded while you're immune, you're getting permanent advantage on every saving throw, you have unlimited casts of Darkness, you have one AoE attack (does your full standard attack damage to an unlimited number of enemies in a 3m radius) that generates a small 3-turn Darkness per short rest, you're almost always getting a kill or a crit so one of your bonus actions is a full extra attack... and then you have (say) a sorcerer blasting into or out of Darkness with Scorching Ray, Eldritch Blast, and so on. And! You can teleport around the battle field and get auto advantage once you land. This is a niche use but it can be very valuable contextually, and is actually quite useful out of battle-you can skip a lot of tedious or annoying stuff by having your shadow monk just teleport basically anywhere indoors where they have anything approaching line of sight.

[@Hwachaaah]

i've really been wanting a shadow monk build, this is fantastic! thank you!

[@user-vf4oh1pd9t]

Swords Bard with 2 levels of Paladin using this setup is pretty much the best build in the game I've found, other than blasting sorcerors that are allowed multiple turns of setup there is nothing that compares to this damage output, this safely. On top of that, Bards are just top tier party faces. I went with Half-Orc since you crit a lot and want to crit big, plus the extra safety net is nice. I paired with a Shadow Monk that chugged strength elixers the whole game and basically was just a teleporting Open Hand TB monk. Took 2 levels of Warlock for Devils Sight. 10 Sorc/2 Warlock (for both Devils Sight and Agonizing Blast) self explanatory dual hand xbow Ranger (with the ring) that mostly just set up a lot of darkness with both spells and arrows and very late game with the raven. Unfortunately there is no way to lets summons fight this well within darkness, that would really be do-it-all.

[@r_bear]

@@Hwachaaah enjoy! It can also work for solo builds, at least I think it can in theory-if you get Surprise on enemies, you can do your damage, let them have their skipped round, Shadow Step out of their vision and into darkness, then use Cloak of Shadows to turn invisible for free with no concentration required. Combat will end, and you can repeat. I've been using Diadem of Arcane Synergy to add my wisdom modifier to all weapon strikes, but there are definitely optimizations to be made here. I've been running 8/4 monk/thief for the extra bonus action, but for solo I'm gonna try 8/4 monk/assassin.

[@ProfessorCLion]

The biggest downfall of this build is that shadowheart won't break free from shar

[@user-vf4oh1pd9t]

@@ProfessorCLion Yeah it really is a pretty sad arc. Durge gets to decide it for himself at least while Shadowheart is basically groomed into it and needs a difficult persuasion check to get her to not do what she does here.

[@jaceg810]

My favorite thing to do is to give the wizard the "when you deal damage with a spell, apply 2 radiant orb" item, and then turn after turn, battle after battle, shower the enemy in magic missiles, second level at the start, for a guaranteed -8 to hit. Then regain those spellslots with the wizards recovery, repeat. It is brilliant to see some bosses just stand there, trying their hardest with 14 stacks of radiant orb

[@michaelkim9993]

Monk stan here. I completely agree with your points on the low variability, but I really enjoyed the RP of a Githyanki monk. Especially considering the Emperor/Orpheus dynamic.

[@landonwilliams610]

Stunning strike can prevent combat from even starting if the stun procs on the opening strike before combat begins. You can get like 4 free hits in before the stun wears off which can just end almost any non boss mob. A tad niche but incredibly useful when you need it.

[@thatoneguy9816]

niche how?

[@landonwilliams610]

@thatoneguy9816 if there are other enemies around you that can see you do it then it won't work. But it can work if there are enemies around which don't have you in their line of sight.

[@thatoneguy9816]

@@landonwilliams610 Doesn’t sound niche at all

[@asleepinthewoods3178]

great list! Still need to get all the way through - based S rank wild magic. My wild magic sorcerer obliterated honor, and dragged me juuust over the threshold on a lot of critical skill checks with bend luck....

[@tiradegrandmarshal]

Fighters are hurt the most by Honour Mode Haste and Bloodlust nerfs, by far. Other martials can at least still make the one attack from Haste/Bloodlust worthwhile (Paladin smiting on the attack, Hunter Ranger can still use Volley/Whirlwind with that, Tiger Barbarian ditto with the at-will Cleave).

[@kiemugen9830]

honor mode has no honor, nerfing fighters saying "its like in deeandeee" but then NOT nerfing mages who can still cast spells with haste action...

[@sunbleachedangel]

​@@kiemugen9830yeah, lame

[@spencerb891]

Battle master is still S tier even in honor mode. You can still get 6-7 attacks with no other buffs which is enough to kill almost any enemy in the game in one turn. If you don’t kill them you leave them completely crippled with debuffs

[@philipphachenberg4799]

1:00 „im restricting myself by not crafting and not using scrolls in combat“ vs me who for the most part didn’t even know you could craft and didn’t use scrolls because I might need them later

[@TyCurtin]

Would be interesting to see a part 2 of this video where you add in common multiclass builds to the list. Oh, and a party comp tier list!

[@aliciadalbey1201]

I don’t see how Eldritch knight before it’s last subclass feature even stands close to battle master. Especially if you’re prioritizing short rests where battle masters get everything back

[@20storiesunder]

Right?

[@AlwaysGrowing0]

Eldritch Knights get useful utility cantrips. Eldritch Knights get Longstrider and Featherfall for rituals freeing of spell selections on other classes. Beyond that, the Shield spell is op for survivability.

[@chipskylark5500]

in case anyone got confused and came to the comments, he mixes up light/life cleric subclass names at the start of the cleric subclass section. listen carefully. light was the first and highest ranked, not life.

[@yeasstt]

Something I think you should've mentioned is that the Tempest Cleric's ability to knock back enemies with lightning damage also applies to electrified water, if they were the person who electrified it. So a tempest cleric can wear the boots that electrify water, then upcast create water on themselves to create the strongest terrain in the game. They pretty much fill an entire room with persistent repelling blasts

[@sunbleachedangel]

That sounds hilarious, dont forget the ring that makes you resist lightning damage and immune to electrocution

[@yeasstt]

@@sunbleachedangel it's even funnier when you get to act 3. Illithid powers gives everyone flight, meaning your whole party can just fly over the terrain while the enemies still have to deal with it

[@HammerspaceCreature]

That's an insane cheese, I love it. I usually respec Shadowheart's godawful build to a different variety of cleric on most characters and when I saw that the knockback triggered on ANY source of damage I knew there would be some ridiculous way to knock people around. My best idea was to take enough levels in Monk to do the Hamarhaft + Step of the Wind cheese now with knockback on every jump, which is also very funny but a much larger investment for a meme strategy.

[@sammyidobelieveiammy]

I loved this video! thanks for always being so thorough with your explanations. I know it’s a bit outside your normal content, but I’d love to see your rankings or opinions of companions in the game. either based off their base setups, team comps of them, or their personalities (or a mixture of them)! keep up the good work!

[@celestialowl8865]

I'd really struggle to put arcane trickster after thief for pure classing. Thief gets that bonus action to spend on getting stealth attacks, but arcane trickster gets them completely free with invis mage hand standing near enemies and still has a bonus action for anything else youd like while also getting plenty of very good utility spells like disguise self for shapeshifter ring (which somehow assassin gets 6 levels later), invisibility (that thief gets 2 levels later), tashas laughter, blade ward, misty step, knock, hold person, shocking grasp (surprisingly useful on rogue for the free disengage), minor illusion, charm/friends for a face. In multiclass consideration it also bumps your esl, so for a wizard taking this is akin to only taking a two level dip, making it a surprisingly synergisric pairing for an offensive transmuter (your hand can drink your potions like speed for double throws and hillgiant without breaking stealth, you give transmuter medicine and slight of hand expertise for materials, disguise self shapeshifter for medicine and slight of hand checks, wizard gives you fog and cloud of daggers for potion shenanigans).. and for pure classes you also get the only actually good level 9 feature. You can also focus on picking up utility spells to avoid going MAD (or just pick up int circlet). Invis mage hand, on top of 100% stealth attacks also has garuntees surprise rounds (though getting shovel for this keeps your hand for stealth attacks or its 100% invis shove/potion setups). I think thief is an excellent multiclass, but as a solo class you go 12 levels for a bonus action and invis

[@AClassyLlama]

you should definitely do a full honour mode playthrough, I think it would do well on your channel especially with how knowledgeable and tactical you are

[@Aestus_RPG]

I'm working on it. Just editing the footage. Its taking a while.

[@finx6579]

@@Aestus_RPG For sure I'd love watching you play challenge runs! (Maybe Lonewolf Honour, etc.) Wo

[@Mallwan]

For Warlock: Attacking with the invisible familiar surprises the the normal enemies all the time. It feels so OP having a full first turn before the opponent.

[@Aestus_RPG]

Yes, that was the point I made about Sorcs being able to get Shovel. Its a very important strategy for the entire game.

[@DaSaint79]

@@Aestus_RPGshovel pretty much sealed my honour mode race choice, halfling. Would have gone Duarger for invis cantrip but don’t need to with shovel. Surprise round is so important to combat.

[@Aestus_RPG]

@@DaSaint79 Exactly. Shovel is actually better at getting surprised rounds than a Duerger Tav. If you attack neutral npcs, they will initiate dialogue before attacking you, and because of the dialogue they won't be surprised. However, they can't initiate dialogue with Shovel.

[@noah9942.]

Having done a few honor mode runs, I feel like you way over value certain things, like globe or invulnerability. Yes, it's strong. But it's rarely needed

[@ProbeAway]

I haven’t played around with a lot of these sublclasses (and even a few classes) yet but, from what I do know, this seems pretty reasonable to me. One thing worth mentioning with moon Druid is that they can wild shape on a bonus action. That’s actually pretty important from an action economy perspective because it’s the difference between being able to make 3 attacks in shapeshifted form on the first turn of combat vs having to wait a round (on those occasions you aren’t already wild shaped at least). There’s also primal strike that overcomes resistance to non-magical attacks (and lunar mend, but… eh). Not sure if these are enough to bump it ahead of the other subclasses but they definitely give a big advantage when wildshaping. On the flip side, moon druids suffer from the fact you can’t use active Illithid powers while shapeshifted, which hurts. I think even raging barbarians can use them.

[@andrewheavenridge7955]

A new and optimized tier list from Aestus? What a treat

[@andrewxavier01]

Currently in an honor mode run trying to get those golden dice. THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!

[@TantheMan1995]

Well, it’s true monks just run around the battlefield punching things to death, have you considered just how fun that is I had a blast doing a monk Playthru, and honestly punching Rafael, and ansur to death was extremely satisfying

[@Aestus_RPG]

Fun is different from person to person. If you have fun punching everything, more power to you! Have a blast!

[@TantheMan1995]

I feel you Aestus Great video though bro always appreciate your content. Have learned a lot about this game because of you.

[@CreativeExcusesGaming]

For the record, i think its your ruleset that makes arcane trickster bad, at least in the late game. If you allow your arcane trickster to do what it would excel at in this game which is, at level 9, stealing high level scrolls and spamming them from sneak, it would be incredible and one of the best casters in the game. With stealth expertise, reliable talent, and greater invisibilty on it, you can have both 20 dex and 20 intelligence with the as many chain lightnings, cones of cold, fireballs, lightning bolts, etc. as you want. And you can do all of those without breaking greater invisibility for 3-5 turns, and while imposing disadvantage on all of those saving throws against your spells. Arcane trickster is severely hindered in its effectiveness by your balance changes (and is a very underestimated class in this game). Even just allowing it do what it wants and steal like one scroll per short rest as an arcane kleptomaniac would be a fun rp, and would make it very strong in act 3.

[@leoerus]

I learned a lot from your ideas and i enjoyed the standards you used.

[@Trethan3266]

This is perfect timing, was just about to make an honor mode run These tier lists are so helpful

[@johnk620]

Rogue is op. You can easily pickpocket every merchant for all their scrolls. Hidden rogue spells - scroll of chain lightning, scroll of haste, scroll of fireball, etc.

[@Aestus_RPG]

Its a good strategy! So good I banned it in my runs.

[@astrix1238]

Fun combo for rogue. grab killers sweet heart ring, the amulet of branding and slayer arrows and titan string bow with strength pot. Brand the weak will make any target venerable to piercing, then brace to roll damage with advantage lob a slayer arrow and get the %100 hit and crit from sweet heart ring. With this combo you deal 6 times damage (including sneak attack) almost one shot the boss in the house of healing with this.

[@gamerstuff3458]

Hey, new-ish subscriber here. You have a lot of opinions I disagree with but it’s great hearing another opinion. Thanks for the effort you put into your videos. Keep up the great work.

[@Aestus_RPG]

You should disagree with many of my opinions, because many of my opinions are undoubtedly wrong. The problem is I don't know which ones are wrong yet!

[@davidwagner3710]

What makes ranger strong for my runs is the circlet of hunting. Adding 1d4 to all attack rolls makes them extremely reliable at landing sharp shooter/ GWM attacks. Act 3 often it can hit at 90%+

[@davidharris3391]

The circlet is *good* for Sharpshooter, but better is Risky Ring or getting Advantage in other ways, like Blind. The summoned Raven with Aid is amazing. Bless, Phar Aluve, etc. also help with hit chance. This frees up your headslot for a +1 Crit headpiece.

[@OakandIV]

Re: Arcane Trickster There is a quality of life argument to be made for three levels of arcane trickster as part of a multi class. Mage Hand is a really good cantrip once you learn how to use it, and the arcane trickster is the only class that can have a mage hand as a familiar for all practical purposes. Every other caster summons that hand just before combat, but the arcane trickster just casts it in the morning. Which means that for every combat in the day, there will be a floating hand throwing bombs at the enemy and potions at the party when you need them. It’s almost a fifth party member, buffing or healing you and causing consistent damage to the enemy, as long as you remember to keep feeding it potions and bombs. You can do that with any arcane caster, of course, but it adds one more step to your pre-fight preparations.

[@celestialowl8865]

Your hand can also drink any elixer and potion, hillgiant/speed feels a lot better when your hand can benefit all day. It can also weild weapons and amulets (but it wont drop them on death so id avoid that for the most part, though cracked fireball staff is fun)

[@RtsFps1]

Wholeness of body needs to be a class feature to help the other two subclasses.

[@aintfalco7968]

you pronounce light cleric and life cleric exactly the same

[@jackywaiiplo2476]

When you are comparing Monk with other fighters control ability I have to mention that one of the reason Battle Master is better is they have the option to do ranged attack. Granded dash of the wind helps a lot on this but this leaves them vulnerable for oppotunity attacks, and Monk is a "glass" Cannon when fighters are a lot tougher.

[@gameplayerone3917]

A full class Way of Four Elements is underrated imo. In Act 1, with the Spell Sparkler, the class works surprisingly well with Lightning Charges. In Act 2, if you get the Hat of Storm Scion's Power, you can easily stack arcane acuity with Gong of the Summit (Shatter). By dual wielding the Sparkler and the Mourning Frost, you can reliably inflict Chilled on many enemies with Blade of Rime (ice Knife). Any create water spell, or anything else that can inflict wet, on a Chilled target, will Freeze them, no saving throw, giving them vulnerability to bludgeoning, thunder (better Shatters), and force damage (for stronger eldritch blasts). In Act 3, I honestly haven't made it this far with this build specifically. In theory, with the Cold Snap, every single attack that misses you gives the attacker chilled, no saving throw, meaning you can then Freeze them by inflicting wet from any source. If you go the extra mile and get the Trident of Waves, you can inflict wet on any target you hit. Since I never got that far, idk if you have to hit them with that weapon specifically. That's the basic gist and yeah, it's a little convoluted but, was a ton of fun for me, and totally viable.

[@Aestus_RPG]

That is a great argument for why Mourning Frost is so good, but Four Elements Monks are not the best class to utilize Mourning Frost. Eldritch Knights are the best Mourning Frost class in my opinion

[@gameplayerone3917]

@@Aestus_RPG I haven't tried Eldritch Knight at all yet, maybe I'll give it a go soon!

[@katelundberg2029]

I had a way of the four monks thiefstarion for a few segments and what I found the best from it personally was Fangs of the Fire Snake. It's only really good at single target damage but with thief for more bonus action attacks which monk is great at you can turn 1 ki point into 1d10+5d4 potential extra fire damage with flurry of blows. Without thief or another multiclass to benefit more from the damage buff than monk's can it is weaker though and the spells are generally not good for damage besides that one but it's certainly pretty good and does synergize possibly the best with the damage rider meta of BG3(though moreso off of monk being good at making many attacks not 4 elements specifically, it just helps with it)

[@chilldude012]

⁠​⁠@@Aestus_RPGcould you share how you would build an EK with Mourning Frost?

[@Aestus_RPG]

@@chilldude012 I'll be making a build video for it, but the sparks notes version is you equip Mourning Frost + Boots of Stormy Clamour and fish for Chilled condition with War Magic in the mid game. After level 11, equip Winter's Clutches + Coldbrim Hat and instead stack Encrusted with Frost. The combination of Reverberation with Eldritch Strike means you can actually freeze fairly often. Frozen is an extremely deadly condition.

[@icetide9411]

Monks actually have a good reason to use stunning strike. When you have enough ki for your flurries, you can use it to make your flurries have advantage! (That's generally it though)

[@JustSayRance]

Repeatedly skipping a certain dragon's or devil's turn helped me out big-time

[@awaisashai4374]

Monk is far and away the best class in the game. Nothing compares to stunning strike on open hand monk with tavern brawler and potion of giant strength

[@Aestus_RPG]

There are many better classes.

[@Bruno-lr9lm]

Hmmm… I’ve played one until level 6 and gave it up. Waaaaaay too much one dimensional, you’re OP as soon as TB opens up and you don’t feel any sense of progression because you literally F*** up everything from start to finish. Take a fire draconic sorlock, by level 7 with hat of fire acuity you can be one of the most powerful strikers in the game rivalizing the monk with scorching ray, control an entire battlefield with command, pulverize a small clustered group with a fireball or just buff your martials by twin casting haste via spell slot or a scroll and be a buffer. Add to that you can also deal with being a party face. Monk does incredible damage but it gets boring as all hell, although I don’t mind having a companion be a TB monk but can’t stand it as my main for how boring and plain it is. For me personally, but if what you like is smash shit and nothing more then yeah, go monk.

[@danieljones4667]

Something I rarely see it talked about but you can actually combo Freecast with Arcane Recovery for wizards and get back both level 5 slots. Extremely handy.

[@cantrell2991]

I was genuinely surprised by how excited I was to see the thumbnail for this video, I barely get excited for anything anymore and this really made me happy to see!

[@Aestus_RPG]

Sorry I didn't release it sooner. I had an earlier version fully recorded over a week ago, but then Larian announced Patch 6, and I postponed it for the new patch. I didn't want the new patch to instantly invalidate the rankings.

[@cantrell2991]

No worries man, I think we all got distracted by Patch 6!

[@dcmag2020]

One thing that’s easy to miss for Beastmaster Ranger! The final version of the raven companion creates a darkness area when it flies, and since flying is just part of movement, you can dash (as a bonus action) and just fart a trail of darkness over a whole postage code.

[@exantiuse497]

I personally think wizard should be S, along with the sorcerer. Sorc is better as your main character's class because of charisma but wiz is generally a better class imo. That is unless I take both ;-) These are my reasons: 1. The limited spell selection of sorc really hurts. I can play around it but I always feel wanting for more spells (utility spells like longstrider, different damage types for different encounters etc) 2. As mentioned in the video, the special spells are great. Also the quasit summon may not be available to sorc (it depends on the subclass) 3. The subclass abilities are very useful. Arcane ward especially is an obscenely overpowered ability in bg3, you can negate hundreds of points of damage in a day with it Metamagic is great and sorc is still the king of going nova with twinned/quickened spells but that is such a resource heavy strategy that for me at least wizard's upsides are better. Although with the change in the latest patch (your avatar character is the only one making diaogue checks) charisma characters have gained a lot of value so maybe I'll change my mind in the future.

[@Aestus_RPG]

This is a valid opinion.

[@KhoiBoa]

Why you need have 200 spells? You not even using any of it. Sorc uses literally like 5 spells over n over

[@common_undead]

Hard agree. I prefer wizards over sorcs exactly for this reason. I also like the RP of wizards more than sorcs.

[@Bruno-lr9lm]

Weird, I find 50% of the spells totally useless, which makes me feel like wizard isn’t that useful. Sorc can meta magic scrolls which is a life saver when leveling and keeps you from burning spell slots over minor encounter in early game. Late game they can just set up their own combos. And if you decide to multiclass just one level of warlock you get the best CC spell in the game: command. Which you can abuse starting at level 7 with the hat of fire acuity. You become an amazing striker, controller and buffer depending on the needs. I find meta magic way more useful than learning I don’t know how many not so great spells.

[@SarahExpereinceRequiem]

Monks have big dpr (and reliable DPR like if they rolled 1s on all their damage dice they still do 190ish damage without extra actions) They have crowd control (reduce the size of the crowd) They have damage mitigation (killing an enemy is mitigating future damage) Being serious for a moment you can use flurry of blows (push) to do bug damage and still boss people around.

[@TekoraX]

Let's goooo new Aestus content

[@itsthatoneguy_93]

Rogue in c tier is wild because assassin rogue is where you utilize the sneak attack to proc big damage on whatever target you choose to initiate combat whilst surprising all enemies first turn to get a free turn of full damage, that feels like a very valuable asset. I know some enemies can’t be caught off guard but I haven’t made it all the way through yet but I’m level 11 in act 3 and that’s been few between for me personally. (First time player on just standard difficulty, not easy but not hard)

[@aldoushuxley5953]

I think Berserker deserves to be higher. Berserker throw builds with a thief dip probably still deal the highest damage in the game, and if not are at least in the top 5 highest damage builds (and do not rely on elixirs, unlike monks), and have decent control too. Enraged throw is a guaranteed prone, without a saving throw, and whilst prone is not the strongest condition, that means you can instantly force spellcasters to drop concentration, and keep enemies at range

[@r_bear]

Yeah, multiclassing changes things significantly. E.g. rogue on its own kinda sucks, but it's probably the most incredible multiclass add because 3 levels of thief for an extra bonus action is INSANE for all (esp TB) monks and (5/4/3) throwers. 5/4/3 TB thiefzerker thrower with crit gear, Nyrulna, and (say) callous glow ring + luminous armor (4 orbs per throw main target, 2 orbs in massive AoE around main target, 4 throws per turn) is completely broken. You're doing like 160 damage per round, mass AoE debuffing enemies to have -8 to -10 to their attack rolls, get two "no more Concentration for you" throws per round like you say, and you do this all from a completely safe distance. But it's all in the combo, not in any one class!

[@Aestus_RPG]

I think Thief + Beserker is a great build, but my ranking was for single class Berserker only.

[@tacotuesday2949]

A no save prone also means bosses (who can be afflicted with prone condition) can't use their legendary actions. Very useful in honor mode.

[@TheJinnobi]

So I found out that since Druid is considered a "caster" class, subclassing 6 into Druid of Spores and 6 into Necromancer Wizard gives you absurd summoning ability. You not only get to upcast your Animate Dead to still get your 4 Ghouls, you can also get: 5 Ghouls from Danse Macabre 4 Zombies from the fungal zombie class feature 1 Deva from the Wizard scroll (Sorcerous Sundries) 1 Mummy 1 Myrmidon Elemental 1 Wizard familiar (correct me if I'm wrong) Dryad + the Dryad's summon You can also cast Animate Dead rank 6 for free (Staff of Cherished Necromancy), Use Ring of the Crypt Lord / Staff of Cherished Necromancy to cast Mummy for free, and use the Spellcrux Amulet / Staff of Spell Power / Markoheshkir for 3 more level 6 spellcasts -- and this isn't counting any psionic powers from using the ithilid powers. That covers your Deva and Myrm + you still have at least one level 6 spell after all that. Plus as many level 6 necro spells as you have charges on SoCN. With the spore druid cloak you can lay down a cloud of haste that will give all your summons 2 attacks per turn, and you still keep the added damage from your proficiency bonus. It's insane.

[@Verienn]

Now I want to make a solo "one man army" honor run

[@TheJinnobi]

​@@Verienn Here's a tip if you're genuinely interested: Since Druid is a full caster, and Wizard is a full caster, you can upcast Animate Dead to get Ghouls -- just like regular, full Necromancers. You'll still get all your summons, you'll still get all yours spell slots and all your Wizard spells (thanks to scrolls). Plus you get the special, class-action fungal zombies that Druid of the Spores gets. Now you DO lose out on ONE feat doing 6 Druid of the Spores / 6 Necromancer Wizard -- you also lose out on the latter Necromancer subclass ability which cuts Necrotic damage in half, and makes your HP unable to be lowered. You also miss out on the latter Druid of the Spores special power. However, what you lose doesn't really compare to what you gain: not only do you get another 4 zombies (which, while not nearly as strong as 4 ghouls, still act as meat shields, still get buffed by Necro Wizard's proficiency bonus, and still contrubute to stuff like flanking) but you get an amazing, amazing power that escapes most people: In Act III, you will get a special Druid of the Spores light chest armor. It transforms the Necrotic AoE that surrounds your Druid of the Spores with 3 new abilities: baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Armour+of+the+Sporekeeper Notice one of those is Haste cloud. Yes, you can Haste yourself and all your summons and your party as well. Without concentration. Giving all your summons and yourself and your party Haste WITHOUT CONCENTRATION makes this bar none the strongest Necromancy / Summons build armor in the game. And since you're still a level 12 caster with the 6/6 split due to both classes being full caster, and Wizards learning their spells from scrolls.... You essentially have a level 12 Necro Wizard with the most essential, synergistic benefits of Druid of the Spores gives. Have fun dominating.

[@mulisha9305]

Seems like you didn't give enough credit to Monks CC ability. They're easily S tier and in contention for best overall when all is considered. Lvl 4-6 could be argued as the biggest powerspike of any build. TB feat(4) into extra attack WITH stunning strike(5) then Ki-empowered strikes(6) to top it off. Three attacks at lvl 6. One being Topple which is basically our Tavs legendary action and youll have two by level 9. Beguilling Rebuke on Rapheal? GL doing it on the floor where you cant react. Legendary resistance? Bait it out stunning strike and have a solid chance of landing a stun anyways.. which if you do land. Fights over. Super straight foward multi-class with Rogue. Also synergy with ANY party comp. Monk gear is tailored to their class specifically. Wont have to worry about competing with your Fighter/Sorc/Bard for gear since why would they need unarmed attack buffs? Gotta give the best class in the game more love :)

[@williamreely3455]

I'm glad someone else had the same thoughts during the House of Grief fight, but I'll do you one better: Extended Spell Globe of Invulnerability at the top of the stairs. The enemy AI freaks the hell out and funnels straight into any traps or ground hazards you set up. Simply knock back or shove away enemies that reach the globe.

[@OakandIV]

Great breakdown, and a reminder that I really need to try giving my Sorcerer a couple of Warlock levels. Is the nerf to dual casting chain lightning on all levels or only honor mode? Re: Summons - the only way I’ve found to make them fun is to throw speed potions at them. On paper they look useful, and the top tier summons have some nice tricks, but they never seem to do serious damage. Mostly they’re on the field as meat shields and (in the case of the best of them) free extra casts of lower level spells.

[@Aestus_RPG]

I'm not sure if the Chain Lightning change is only honor mode or not.

[@TheArmyKnifeNut]

100% agree about clerics. Shadowheart was MVP in House of Hope because of the magical hot tub. Other characters had summons and everyone ended up with +37 HP from Aid VI and Herro's Feast (more than doubling the HP of some weaker summons), mage armor (if applicable) and longstrider from Gale, etc... it was insane controlling/managing 4 party members, Hope, 7 controllable summons, and 4 uncontrollable summons, but it was only viable because of a cleric.

[@violetbliss4399]

The game feels a lot better to play when you limit it some honestly, on repeat runs. That way the class features actually need to be used sometimes, over eg barrelmancy or scrolls. Can be fun but just not my thing. So an interesting watch from having a similiar perspective (I long rest more but basically only for narrative/companion reasons, as I like 'rping' the run as well :D). I think the one OP thing I didn't naturally restrict is pickpocketing, but if you already limit scrolls I feel like that's pretty decent still.

[@Aestus_RPG]

I technically long rest more times, but only for lore reasons. Once I finally long rest just rest 4ish times in a row to trigger camp events, then count it as one long rest for the purposes of the run.

[@sunbleachedangel]

Im on my first HM attempt, act 3 rn, hopefully rp wont be my doom lmao

[@bluegum6438]

The amount of scrolls you're drowned in is a little excessive, you could complete the game with only scavenged scrolls I'm sure. Most of your income in the game comes from selling scrolls, lol. I never use them either.

[@MidKnightOTC]

i made shadowheart a life domain cleric just so that i could have trickery all to myself! Definitely the best spell list of any caster in the game, made an oath of conquest esque paladin using trickery domain ❤

[@DukeRupert]

It's here boys 🎉

[@andreysolopov9586]

Moon Druid = Water Myrmidon summon + Air Myrmidon form. A group with 3 summoned water myrmidons spamming AOE healing in combination with characters with effective basic attacks can clear Act 3 without long rests.

[@Verienn]

Earth myrmidon is brutal too, permanently prone enemies

[@KodyackCasual]

ok, your whole discourse on a monk being a bad controller was, frankly, ill concieved. I don't mean for that to sound rude, but the first thing you compared it to was a full caster. The second was a 1/3rd caster which is, despite being ok at controlling, terrible at everything else they could be doing as a battlemaster. Open hand monk has more variety than a BM fighter, with more attempts/attacks, and with more resources to do it, while moving faster and having higher accuracy due to TB. I disagree with a lot of points on your tierlist because you place things based on your own personal playstyle and restrictions, not on the mechanics of the game itself- which makes it a useless tier list for people who aren't you, generally speaking, but the monk thing was a bit beyond that even. I am sure I'll have other disagreements here and there, but this one needed to be said. Edit: Paladins offer the highest damage in a single hit on a critical hit fish build, as well as full armor and weapon prof, and spell utility. I'll be honest, it feels like your personal opinions and personal preference on playstyle affect your placements and ideas of what a class is. Just because you don't like the way it plays or how other people use it- in a more efficient manner- that doesn't mean that it's wrong. Also twin haste still works wonders. I missed that you were talking about just the martial half of this at first, but haste on casters is actually better in BG3.

[@Aestus_RPG]

I don't think you understand what you are talking about.

[@KodyackCasual]

A well thought out and detailed reply. I understand.

[@Aestus_RPG]

@@KodyackCasual I have hours of carefully thought out a presented video content. I don't think that's a problem I have.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

Bards are insane in BG3. I typically play either bard for a charisma based versitile caster, or Wizard to either make a summon comp or ignore anything that isn't a spell. Occasionally I Warlock or Paladin for a party face that either lets me play every role ("tank", support, striker, controller) with the power and versatility of Paladin or which lets me play as a witch without the sad drawbacks of tabletopp's warlock, which bg3 fixed with buffs and magic items that grant spells.

[@codybeck371]

You lost me at "smites dont add that much damage" .... like wtf are you talking about 😂

[@namduong4293]

He is rigth. He said smites don't add that much damage comparing to other martials. All martials damage comparisons shows even a 2pal/10bard does less damage comparing to other martials such as battlemaster or titanstring bow archer. The only argument is that he overestimating a monk, but even then, monks, fighters, archers all use way less resources than paladin.

[@codybeck371]

@namduong4293 Oh no, they cost a resource.... that you can refresh basically unlimitedly.... like wtf are yall on about

[@aniervg166]

@@codybeck371 you're clueless bro

[@codybeck371]

@@aniervg166 lmao sure 😂

[@lcf152]

​@namduong4293 Smite is a damage rider source though. That means you get to apply all your damage riders to the smite part of the damage again. I would bet you could get paladin damage to really take off with the right gear and party comp.

[@poatrykdas]

impressive, very nice, now let’s see your best team comps for honour mode

[@stonwall9065]

New to the channel, new to Honor mode. Listening to your restrictions you play with, and I like your style. I’ll listen to this

[@ForeverAbroad]

gloomstalker ranger + 4 lvls of rogue for assassin subclass. You get guaranteed crits, and even if you are spotted... which is unlikely, play as halfling, you can basically stay in stealth indefinitely with grater invisibility and be bassically invulnerable and usually get 10-20 attacks in before combat triggers. and even if it triggers, you get so many attacks that also guaranteed to crit.

[@jeffbriem]

The support abilities of a Paladin are most useful in the beginning of a fight when you’re grouped together or when your melee guys are hanging up on a big bad, as staying within 10 ft othwerwise can be tough. I think the balance between protection and the ability to pour damage on quickly against a boss makes them the best tav class because it lets the rest of your party builds be more flexible.

[@wanglord9591]

I think the best defense I can give for rogues is that they can manipulate a battlefield better than most other builds because of their great stealth potential. I think a rigged battlefield is every bit as powerful as just about any build. Thinking about them as purely a martial class is reductive and overlooks the many benefits that the class gives you, but it would be nice if the sneak attack hit a bit harder. Still, great video and a lot of thoughts to stew over. Keep up the good work!

[@maxgrizende7635]

The Monk Way of Shadow, are the best Mage Killer and other spellcaster's killer with spell "silence" . They can aprouch them in stealth mode and launch silence. They can hit and hide using "flurry of blows" and "cloak of shadows", unless the enemy can see invisible, you can kill everyone without problem. They can use teleport at will ¨shadow step". They can be a secondary thief. For me they are betwen A to S rank

[@rupeeheartian6606]

Overall, really interesting to hear thoughts on this subject. If I may offer one interesting niche I found for Monk: Stunning Strike and Open Hand’s Resonating Strike are available as unarmed attacks for your main action even if you have a weapon, allowing you to gain weapon buffs and still use entirely unarmed attacks with flurry of blows and stuns, alongside outright denying enemy attacks and gaining advantage. When used in tandem with Open Hand’s ki recovery move, your ki economy is never really in danger of running out in the average fight even if you spam ki moves in this manner. In my most recent playthrough, I specc’ed a monk with a single level dip in fighter to set them up with heavy armour, a shield, and the spear you get from the djinni in act 3- all the perks of unarmoured defense and movement with a whole extra set of traits at my disposal! Definitely not optimal, but for the amount of benefits it racks up into one package, I felt it was worth mentioning. Even if pure classing, it’s feasible to drop the shield for an extra weapon, and use helldusk to achieve roughly the same effect, possibly with better results given the strength of many weapon passives.

[@MrKibitt]

On the rogue: it's meant to be a skills focused class, like how it is in 5th edition. Bard is better at supporting the skills of other people, but rogue is the character you are meant to be focusing your Guidance, Inspiration, and Enhance Ability effects on. Arcane trickster has a fair bit of powerful features. The hand is quickly brushed over while people talk about how good spellcasters are, and yet the best spellcaster setups often want a well-timed and placed patch of water. Arcane trickster's mage hand is invisible, and is rarely pulled into combat so it can move over to anywhere a jug is dropped and throw it down DURING THE CASTER'S TURN to guarantee you do that double damage + electrify or freeze. You can also throw potions of haste or healing, or keep the hand invisible and move it next to targets to qualify them for sneak attack. Hearing "it basically gives you nothing" is definitely very far from the truth haha. Oh, and for whatever reason, every time you can replace a spell with arcane trickster, it lets you pick from the full spell list, so you're not nearly as restricted as it seems at first.

[@HammerspaceCreature]

Assuming the wording is still accurate to the way the ability functions (by no means a guarantee I know), Oathbreaker Paladin's Aura of Hate doesn't actually affect any of the undead you can summon. It only triggers on melee weapon attacks and none of the summonable undead have melee weapons. Regardless of how it's supposed to work in tabletop 5e, It only affects the Cambion from planar ally which to put it bluntly is not good.

[@jaredrichardson78]

I think Warlocks are more like an archer than a caster. A re-flavored archer with a few tricks

[@SirBagamints]

Been rocking a Paladin/Bard. Jack of all trades and the saving throw aura can really make life easier, especially since I am doing a Durge honor mode run.

[@FenrirStrife1]

I think part of the argument that 'oh monks are not secondary controllers because you want to use Ki on FoB not SS' falls apart when you take into consideration that for many of the more important fights (especially early game) prone is incredibly useful to prevent Legendary Actions so FoB:Topple feels like a control ability even if it strictly doesnt prevent the next action. Even more than that, slamming a load of FoB into an enemy doesnt prevent you also SS'ing them with one action and then popping Wholeness of body for another load of FoB and most of your Ki back while still giving instant single priority target control which is something Swords Bard can struggle with especially turn one with no adds.

[@ufukborucu5877]

Monk Way of the 4 Elements is actually very good for a control based tank character. Specking into Dex and Wis, you can easily get very high AC (I started Act 3 and I'm sitting at AC 23). And with Ki points refreshing on short rest, the Monk can cast a lot of control skills before he needs to long rest, With Improved Elemental Casting you can cast Clench of the North Wind (Hold Person) on two targets simultaneously (though it's currently bugged and you can only cast it on one). I usually hold with my monk and mow down with my Fighter. If Hold Person lasts until the next round because for some reason the enemy survived, then the Monk can dish out high damage, as well. If the enemy is not humanoid, the Monk still has Stunning Strike in his repertoire. Water Whip and Fist of Unbroken Air are two spells that can be used to great effect to control the battlefield and have some decent damage as well. These important control spells can also not be counter-spelled or silenced. Finally, the Monk base class passives make the Monk very reliable, which is what you want from your controller. I actually am carrying the Resonance Stone with my Monk, so when I get close to enemies to control them, they even have disadvantage on their role. And if my monk get's controlled, his passives take care of it.

[@herpydero]

I know limited long rests is a central part of the Aestus ruleset, and I had an idea to implement it in a way that maybe isn’t as arbitrary. Have you considered something along the lines of limiting long rests through camp supplies? Like maybe you can only use camp supply packs as your camp supplies when long resting. I haven’t attempted this in a run yet, but it potentially serves as a solution to the long rest issue rather than just sussing out 5 rests per act and sticking to it by memory. It’s a little more materially trackable. I don’t know how balanced this approach would be, though

[@ilikeweirdfish7106]

I play very differently to you and you are certainly better than me but for my honor mode run my MVP were my moon druid and my berserker barbarian. The druid being able to summon the wood nymph and a myrmidon and then turn into an owl bear that can knock down enemies, make enemies flee, and fly make them incredible at controlling for me while my spellcasters and barbarian throw down damage from afar. The berserker (throwing) barbarian (which I multi to thief rogue and fighter later on) can put down tons of damage from afar and is hard to kill so is a great insurance character that still more then pulls its weight.

[@pipmeyer3889]

I believe Oathbeeaker is what makes Paladins the best striker. Aura of Hate with Diadem of Arcane Synergy means you effectively always have double Charisma modifier to your melee damage. Using either Gloves of Hill Giant Strength or Amulet of Greater Health will allow you to maximize your Charisma without sacrificing STR or CON. You can easily burst down major threats by dealing almost 100 damage per critical

[@soulmata]

Two rules I use you might like that let scrolls be useful: Characters can only have 3 belt items (items requiring an action to use) available in combat at any time, and scrolls can only be used by characters that have that spell on their spell list (i.e. how it actually is)

[@angrymuffinlol]

I love the flavor of a sorcerer with their powers being innate but I love that wizards can actually use summon spells. Summoners are so fun to play.

[@ab-uo6rd]

I think why monks are good controlers or control sups is because their accuracy is so high. You can bait out the opponents +10 saving throw boni so quickly with exhausting so little resources to enable your team controling them afterwards.

[@shawnalee9494]

Thanks for the video! :) Very informative. Personally I would think necromancy would be S tier but I'm biased. :P I think it stands above the others for me because of how valuable it is from a resource standpoint and the raw power it provides. I always play a necromancy wizard on harder difficulties because once they can summon, they become extremely powerful from a resource standpoint. At level 12 I was running around with...10 undead minions, I think? The paralysis from 5-9 ghoul attacks per turn outside of your own turns is pretty bonkers, and their attack bonus is pretty high. (Also the AI of the game tends to avoid hitting the skeleton archers, which makes them very very high value since they do 15-20 damage each per turn - even if they hit once every second turn, one fourth level spell is dealing 30-40 damage every turn for...well, they usually survived for at least half a long rest/a few combats. I think I had all four skeleton archers survive for the entire Raphael fight! (also the lack of piercing resistance helps...)

[@Aestus_RPG]

Thanks for your thoughts! I will be testing Necromancer again soon, so maybe I will agree with you on reevaluation.

[@ReclusiveDev]

I think moon druid is a little underrated. summon water myrm and ice mephits then turning into a water myrmadon means you can do your attack that applies chilled 3x but then the mephits and summoned elemental both get their damage doubled too for that triple icicle attack, ice breath, or even deathburst as a last resort. Stack that on top of the fact that you can concentrate on a spell before you wildshape and it's the highest itemless single target dpr in the game but most of that damage is aoe. It also enables cold sorcerer or lightening, otilukes sphere or cone of cold from the chilled debuf and the aoe heal wet condition. chilling with the hiemal strike and then aoe heal also freezes enemies and the wildshape is 90hp extra so moon druid tanks, heal supports, does high single and aoe dps, and controls pretty well and it doesnt rely on items at all. My favorite classes are not druid but it slaps hard

[@stoiccrane4259]

lvl 3 Thief / rest lvls Shar Cleric Shadow Heart with dual hand crossbows is by far one of the most ridiculous unknown builds an origin char can have thematically. She's insanely good as a dual shooter that can hide or sanctuary out of damage while protecting other chars.

[@Johuad]

warlock is absolutely not a full caster. "full caster" is determined by spell slots, which warlock gets very few of.

[@Aestus_RPG]

Did I say its a full caster?

[@nature337]

I think the powerspikes of druids line up really well with the most difficult parts of the game, which seems to be levels 3-4; goblin camp, maybe early gith patrol, duegars/Nere, gnolls, paladins etc. Spike growth is imo the best second level spell in the game because it trivializes so many of the above fights, and spider wildshape's infinite concentration free web makes druids by far the strongest controllers pre level 5. If you need a striker, dual handed spore druids are one of the better ones before two attacks.

[@tonyrame7548]

tip, dont do goblin camp leaders until level 5, otherwise you could cheese with the smoke barrel bombs to kill the main hobgoblin without much of a fight if not level 5, i would go to underdark to level to 5 first if not cheesing. there is a bunch of smoke barrels from the side room you fight the 1st goblin leader alone in so that one sets up the main fight.

[@noahhelsee1340]

caveat: i have not played on Honour Mode, but Circle of the Moon w/ Halsin killed for me in Act 3. the Myrmidons are awesome (3 attacks + special effects). in 5e Circle of the Moon Druid is basically invincible at level 20.

[@ArteriusSaren]

Drow , 2 The great old one warlock with 6 sorcerer and 4 rogue is all you need for great warlock. Darkness is a cheap version of globe of invulnerability and you be able to get your crits on 15 and above. Literally, breeze through honor mode frightening Raphael, and like 80% of the bosses with ease and on top of that they all are prone after 2 beams.

[@Aestus_RPG]

I ban Darkness/Fog Cloud hiding strategies in my runs. I've been hearing that Patch 6 actually fixed the AI so that they will now attack you in Darkness cloud either by walking in to attack melee or by firing AoE spells at the edges of it. I hope this is true, because exploiting AI like that isn't good for the health of the game.

[@ArteriusSaren]

Never used it either, while never put any restrictions upon myself, but people can use it in dire consequences.

[@zarddin]

Battle Master is the best Fighter as he is the best striker Fighter. You add extra damage to your attacks and you can disarm an enemy or knock them prone etc. And your resources are per short rest so you can go for alpha strike with manoeuvres + action surge every short rest.

[@antipixelhd2149]

First time for me looking at a tierlist after completing my honor mode run. Interesting that Rouge is so far down, me and my friend had Astarion (assassin) always opening combat and getting a free sneak attack at the start + a potential crit afterwards if they are surprised. We ended up easily completing it on our first try but to be fair his sorcerer was carrying the late game xD

[@qrondis680]

My Durge is going to be a Barb/Crit build w/o Champion. The team is going to have Hold and Poison support: - Barb w/ Tiger, Tiger, and Wolverine, GOOlock, and War Cleric - 4 Elements Monk with Chrome Orb and Poison Immunity - Beastmaster with a Wolf Companion and Spider Familiar, along with Lacerate - A Twin-casting Warlock with Chrome Orb I can't wait to finish my Tactician run and get to this group

[@brendanmuller7301]

I LOVE these tier list videos of yours and i usually dislike tier lists. Great channel in general honestly

[@Aestus_RPG]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@Nathan-bk7dt]

An oathbreaker paladin with the diadem of arcane synergy can add charisma modifier twice to damage. You can also get the buff from the Sharran sanctuary to get a really high charisma until long rest (aura of protection + high charisma makes getting this fairly easy). aura of hate does apply to enemy fiends and undead, but I find with protection from evil and good + heavy armour you basically never get hit in act 2. In act 3 with Balduran's Giant slayer you can do 2d6 +3 + 2 * str + 2 * cha + 10 + other bonuses on every hit, without using any resources (maybe not actually efficient, but I do think its funny). I am currently playing an honour mode run where I'm only sending my tav into combat, and leaving the other 3 members of my party in camp (casting, warding bond, protection from evil and good, upcast magic weapon, shield of faith, etc), act 2 felt completely trivial aside from the final boss, almost nothing hit me, I made pretty much every saving throw (although I did get the silver sword of the astral plane in act 1), and I never really felt the need to use smite as I was doing more than enough damage without it, and barley taking any. I had intended for this run to be more of a challenge than my first run, but it feels far easier. I have been respecing and using consumables, but mostly acts 2 and 3 just feel far to easy.