Baldur’s Gate 3 Builds: Cleric Class Guide (Light Domain)

in this balder's gate 3 build guide i'm going to be covering my cleric build for early access and showing you what i found to work best i'll be doing more build guides at the launch of baldur's gate 3 but for now let's take a look at how you can use a cleric effectively in the first act of the game clerics and baldr skate 3 choose their domain during character creation and for this build i'm going to be showing you my light domain setup the reason i chose light domain is that i wanted to make a cleric that could deal good damage and still have some support spells and light domain does a decent job of this however you can make this build for the most part using other domains in early access but you will miss out on a couple of really strong spells still the concept is basically the same the problem with clerics in early access is that their go-to can't trip for damage sacred flame has a terrible hit chance a large portion of the time so unlike warlocks who use eldritch blast and wizards who use something like firebolt clerics have no reliable way to deal damage with spells every round unless they use their spell slots because of this they can end up in situations where they have no spells left to cast limiting their damage output the solution to this problem is focusing on strength or dexterity in order to gain some reliable damage and hit chance when using your weapons of the three spell casting classes in early access clerics will rely much more on their weapons for damage than either warlocks or wizards for this build i chose to focus on dexterity for better armor class and to make my cleric almost exclusively ranged however you can choose strength if you wish though this will regulate you to melee and i found it to be less effective on average in early access but this may not be the case at live release in this section we'll take a look at how to set up your cleric during character creation for best results you don't have to follow this to the letter and it's likely that it will change at full launch of the game however this will hold you in good stead during early access which background you choose is not particularly important but you will have a lot of wisdom so selecting a background that affects wisdom skills is a good choice wisdom skills are animal handling insight medicine perception and survival the race i like most for this build is wood elf because it provides dexterity and wisdom while also providing the longbow proficiency if you don't have this proficiency your range damage with weapons is going to suffer a bit because you'll be regulated to a short bow but it's still doable however if you're playing a strength cleric that melees instead guldwarf is a solid choice it has extra hp and provides bonuses to and wisdom both valuable to clerics for skills again it's not super important what you pick but you'll have high dexterity and wisdom so selecting skills that fall under these abilities is ideal dexterity has acrobatics sleight of hand and stealth and have already listed what wisdom skills there are abilities needed for this build are dexterity since we're going to focus on bow combat when not casting and it also provides extra armor class and constitution for health and to help with concentration which i'll explain in the next section wisdom is also needed to make good use of your offensive spells so you want to invest heavily here your ability should look something like this strength 10 dexterity 16 constitution 14 intelligence 8 wisdom 16 chris matten this will allow you to hit for decent damage with your bow as well as connect with your spells during character creation you'll be given many spells but you'll have to choose which to prepare you can only cast your cantrips prepared spells and spells that are part of your light domain otherwise if you wish to use your other spells that are not prepared you must repair them and then long rest you gain fairy fire and burning hands for being a light domain cleric at level one so you never have to repair these can trips are essentially level zero spells you can cast at will and they don't take up spell slots so you have infinite uses while still allowing you to cast your other cleric spells sacred flame is your damage dealing can trip and it generally has terrible accuracy because it targets the dexterity of enemies not their armor class like weapon attacks or guiding bolt and enemies typically have more dexterity than armor in early access however it can be used without line of sight so this is a major plus the guidance can trip is also worth grabbing because it can be used before lock picking or dialogues to help influence the outcomes by adding one to four tier roles however please note that it has concentration and will overwrite any other spell you are concentrating on many cleric spells like bless bane fairy fire etc require concentration to keep the effect active concentration can be broken if you cast another spell that requires concentration so for example if you cast shield of faith which gives plus two armor and then you cast the guidance can trip you'll stop concentrating on shield of faith and begin concentrating on guidance losing the plus two armor since shield of faith costs a spell slot to cast you'll have effectively wasted one slot but that is not the only way concentration can be broken if you take damage while concentrating on a spell then you must make a constitution saving throw and if you fail then the effect of the spell ends should you succeed in your saving throw however then you maintain your concentration and the spell continues this is why it is important for clerics to have constitution because they have a lot of spells that require concentration and they are wasted if they are instantly broken clerics of the light domain also gain the added benefit of awarding flair which allows them once per round to impose disadvantage on an enemy attack this drastically reduces the chance they will be struck allowing them to maintain concentration a bit more easily spells you'll definitely want for this build at level 1 are a guiding bolt and healing word guiding bolt hits like a truck dealing between 4 to 24 damage if it connects and targets the enemy's armor class much like a weapon attack and just like ranged weapon attack if you're threatened in combat an enemy is too close to you your accuracy will be reduced heavily so you need to move or jump out of range to improve your hit chance this is one of the reasons this build is ranged as it's much harder to connect with guiding bolt while in melee add inflict wounds if you want strength as it does even more damage than guiding bolt and is treated like a melee attack meaning its accuracy is not penalized when enemies are nearby healing ward allows you to heal 1-4 hp plus your level as a bonus action what's really great about this spell is that it will pick up downed party members if cast on them just like any healing spell and it can do so from 18 meters away this allows you to use it and another spell in the same turn winning beyond these two spells bless is not a bad choice as it allows you to buff the attack rules of your party members as long as you maintain concentration command halt is also a strong spell but you may find you need it a bit more later on in early access than at the beginning where killing things faster is the secret to success bane can prevent your party from taking damage and since enemies need to hit you in order to break your concentration this can be a particularly good combination you'll gain burning hands and fairy fire as domain spells you can always use these burning hands is a solid conal aoe that has a rather short range so you may not use it that often since for this build you'd be ranging enemies down however if you're playing a strength cleric then you'll likely use this one fairly often fairy fire is a very strong spell that gives your party advantage on all attack rules against targets marked with it which means they get to roll their d22 times and use the higher of the two values to see if their attacks hit or miss this is a huge boost but you must maintain concentration to keep this effect active so use it wisely at level 2 you'll gain an additional level 1 spell slot allowing you to cast one more level 1 spell before you must long rest to replenish them and you increase the number of spells you can prepare from three to five allowing you more options while on the landscape and in combat you will also gain two channel divinity actions turn undead which all clerics get and one specific to your cleric subclass light domain clerics gain the radiance of the dawn action which allows them to do 2-20 plus their level and damage to all enemies within 9 meters of them once per day this is a staggering amount of damage in many cases and while it's easier to hit more targets as a melee character it still works really well when playing ranged just remember to use it when you can hit 3 or more enemies and don't be afraid to move first to get as many in range as possible at level 3 you'll gain another level 1 spell slot as well as 2 level 2 spell slots light domain clerics also gain dark vision scorching ray aid and lesser restoration as domain spells that never need to be prepared dark vision is a great way to keep your hit chance up in dark places or to make another party member have the same benefit it is semi-permanent once cast only being removed upon long rest scorching ray allows you to deal 2-12 fire damage to up to 3 targets or deal 6 to 36 fire damage to a single target it's an incredibly powerful spell it has lots of versatility and is one of the better reasons to take light domain in early access once you reach level 3 you'll also be able to cast some level 1 spells as level 2 versions using level 2 spell slot instead of level 1 spell slots this works out tremendously for this build because it allows you to cast some of the better level 1 spells as more powerful versions for instance guiding bolt when cast as a level 2 spell will deal 5 to 30 instead of 4 to 24 damage bless that level 2 will affect 4 targets instead of 3. healing word will heal you for 2 to 8 plus your level instead of 1 to 4 plus your level in short this means you can cast your favorite spells more often and to greater effect at level four you'll gain another level two spell slot bringing your total for early access up to four level one spell slots and three level two spell slots you'll also be able to prepare more spells and you'll gain an additional can trip you'll also gain a feed and here we'll select the ability improvement feed placing both points into wisdom this will give your spells a total of plus six added to their roles between your wisdom modifier plus four and your proficiency plus two making it even more likely you will hit your target you could also place the points instead into constitution for more hp and plus one to your constitution saving throws which helps with concentration as well either choice is fine for weapons you'll want to try to get a longbow as soon as you can and there is one for sale in the druid grove you'll want a short sword and studded shield in your melee slot because short swords use dexterity for their attack and damage rolls and the shield will help protect you during the enemy's turn shoot with your bow or cast a spell then swap to your short sword and shield before ending your turn for an extra two armor class for armor you'll be using medium armor and the best there is in early access is scale male plus one or geth yankee's half plate lysell's armor use either of these to hit 17 armor and 19 armor when your shield is out herbalist gloves remove poison when you heal poison friendlies which is nice once you reach the underdark broodmother's revenge is also excellent as it adds poison to your weapon whenever you're healed use healing word on yourself then poison things with your bow profit final tips you gain advantage when using guiding bolts scorching ray or attacking with your bow from elevation so make sure to get up high at the beginning of combat for improved accuracy sacred flame burning hands and radiance of the dawn do not gain any benefit from elevation so if you plan to use these on your turn then you don't need to worry about this dark vision can be cast outside of combat so if you know you're going to be fighting in a very dark area then you can pre-cast it on party members that might need it this saves you turns in combat to attack or cast other spells rather than buffing for several turns or if you just want to see better while exploring in dark places it's not a bad idea i have not added cure wounds here though it is quite a strong spell in the right hands this is mostly because it has a very short range 1.5 meters but also because it is a much better use of an action when used by a life domain cleric who adds an automatic plus 3 to its healing healing potions or food are a bonus action and can be used in instead allowing for an attack or spell in the same route however if you do decide to use it i strongly recommend only using the level 2 version to gain even more healing from a single action this will heal for 6 to 20 at level 4. stay tuned for more baldur's gate 3 content as we take a look at classes and builds and be sure to drop by our twitch channel if you have more questions about the game if you need something specific check out our baldur's gate 3 wiki which is being worked on night and day [Music] [Music] hey [Music]

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Id: m64GxXACu2o

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020