Baldur's Gate 3 Cantrip Tier List

it's finally time for the cat trip tier list I will be doing a tier list of spells of other levels as as time goes on I'm going to start with Camp trips there are 22 of them I got five tiers top one being STL critical hit bottom being deter or critical Miss if you don't agree with one of my tier list positions then let me know but please do me the honor the consideration of telling me why I am wrong one thing to keep in mind is the opportunity cost of picking a can trip because most classes don't get access to very many of them sure Sorcerers start with four but some such as warlocks only start with two it might only get an extra two cant trips and you can't switch them out once you've picked a cat trip they're permanently yours you cannot swap them for a different Camp trip Wizards can write cantrips into their spell book so they can add more and more but yet generally once you pick a scan trip that's it you're stuck with it so I'm going to start with acid Splash it is available to Sorcerers with it's Eldridge Knights and Arcane tricksters anytime I mention wizard they will also be available to High Elves and high half elves at character creation so what does acid Splash do well you get the throw and a bubble of acid that damages each creature it hits so you can see the area of effect and importantly well one thing importantly to note is it does affect your allies as well so if I put it down here it would affect Allison who is a sorcerer in in my playthrough here my absurd urge here and the two Fleming fists so perhaps what you want to do obviously I'm risking this a bit Shield let's move away and then we can cast acid Splash aiming it just so it hits the two enemies it will only do damage if the enemies fail saving for us here they're both dip so dexterity saving through to avoid the damage now at lower levels the enemies have quite a good dexterity saving through but it doesn't go up massively as we level up so I do find this gets more and more useful the damage is relatively low it's 1d6 at level one and this goes for all can't trips at level five if they are a damaging can't trip there's an extra dive damage so at level five this would do two D6 and finally at level 10 an extra diet of damage gets added so this is now 3d6 I do find as I leveled up as the splash gets a tiny bit more useful and one great thing it can do is really good at opening up crates obviously outside of combat you don't need to worry about using uh sorcery points or anything I've used it to open crates and backpacks and it doesn't affect what's inside let's look at that 25 gold it can really really help so I'm going to put it in beat Here Again part of it is opportunity cost by picking acid Splash I'm not picking potentially one of the better cat trips and it does affect your allies so it's quite difficult to sometimes position yourself correctly and importantly it's in the conjuration School of magic it's not an evocation spell so even evocation Wizards will harm their allies but it is the only area of effect damaging cantrip so it deserves its place I'm quite happy to take acid Splash next up and I am going through these in alphabetical order is blade Ward it's an abduration cat trip it takes an action to cast and for two turns the current turn and then the next term you take only half the damage from bludgeoning piercing and slashing attacks that sounds cool because it kind of is but the problem is it uses an action in combat so when I cast this I then can't go and do any of the amazing other things I could do and that's its main downside it uses an action so I'm not hurting the enemies I'm not putting them to sleep I'm not controlling them I'm not doing anything else and the way to win fights is to get your enemies down to zero hit points not let them do damage to you for more turns it does potentially have some use for Sorcerers so if they've got extended spell because then it lasts for four turns if you use extended spell instead of hit so I took five damage instead of 10. that's kind of cool but obviously I've I've forced this situation to happen it wouldn't necessarily happen I've got to say bladeboard is available to bards clerics Sorcerers Wizards warlocks Outreach Knights and Arcane tricksters in fact what I said about High Elves and high half elves if a cantrip is available to wizards that's also available to Eldridge Knights and Arcane tricksters anyway I'm putting this into seeds here the effect is cool but the fact it uses an action in combat for most classes is just not good enough I can't be using my action take half damage for this turn the next turn I want to use my action to take enemies out whether that's through control or just get outright killing them that's what I really want to be doing most of the time if you really can't reach an enemy and you don't want to dash to get closer sure blade water's okay if you can cast it ahead of time ahead of a battle perhaps you can have blade board for one two or one round it's kind of okay it has uses but again opportunity cost I'd rather pick most of the time one of these other cantrips next next up is bone chill used to be called Chill Touch I think they changed the name because Chill Touch was very misleading as a country name so what does it do so I'm at level 10 right so it does 3d8 at level one it's 1d8 damage 1d8 necrotic damage it requires an attack roll generally that's a good thing because we can get height bonuses and Advantage much more easily than we can for saving throws and if he hits an enemy it prevents them from healing until our next turn and an undead received disadvantage on attack rolls the preventing healing is almost essential for some battles really really useful it only targets a single enemy not more than one then our bone Shield so it'll tell us that they can't we can hit points and if it's Undead this advantage on attack rolls the necrotic damage is resisted by a fair few enemies especially towards the middle middle and end of the game so in terms of it being damaging it's it's okay the d8 isn't the worst it's not the best it's kind of your average amount of damage for a cantrip I'm gonna stick this in a tier if there weren't so many enemies resistant to necrotic damage I might put it up at s but you've also got to bear in mind as I said before for blade Ward from casting this I'm not casting anything else so you really want to make sure you want to use it but there are some fights uh where it's just really really good such as the lava Elemental prevents it from regenerating anything that's got regeneration bone chill will stop it absolutely amazing and when it comes to damage since this is the second cat trip we've got that has damage but at level one your level one spell slots are probably better used to do damage because for example here they do 3d6 damage here with dissonant Whispers burning hands there's three D6 fire damage in an area that's great as you get to the higher levels though your cantrips do as much if not more damage than your level one spells so you can rely on the cantrips to do some damage but they're never going to be the most damaging there will be high level Spells at like two three four and above that will do much more damage than cat trips but remember cam trips are here to stop you from using spell slots and Bone chill is available to Sorcerers warlocks Wizards at character creation at level 2 circle of the sports Druid get bone chill and bards can learn this from their magical Secrets which all bards get at level 10 and College of Law bars gets an extra one at level six also it's any time I mention magical secrets in the future it will follow that exact pattern the next [ __ ] trip in the list is Dancing Lights dancing light is available to bars Sorcerers and wizards and drow getter a character creation also I've actually got it here on Helton because there is an item khmera's locket which is a reward for serving Arabella in The Druids growth this lets you cast Dancing Lights so what can you do it's got a 60 foot range once per turn you can cast it and you can illuminate a 30-foot radius and it requires concentration it's an action to cast obviously I'm outside I don't really need it here the point is of okay cool of class dancing lights I now can't go and use chain lightning or cool lightning for some reason my character here is not having a good time maybe he's using blink too many times so the opportunity cost is very high if you want to create light there is a different spell that I would a different can trip even that I would recommend over this if you can cast this ahead of combat maybe but also the concentration really just uh yes does it end for me I'm not happy with Dancing Lights particularly my first critical Miss I feel like I'd be wasting a counter it by picking Dancing Lights I'd rather choose a light to be honest and the concentration requirement just makes it just really not worth it especially when we get to higher levels even once we have haste what am I going to do concentrate on haste or Dancing Lights it's going to be haste like 99 of the time and since it doesn't do damage it doesn't get any sort of upgrade as we level up so yeah sadly detailed so far quite the spread next up is Eldridge blast this is available to warlocks at character creation bards can get it for Magical secrets and of course I haven't mentioned it so far but there are Feet's magic initiate Feats that let you learn two countries in the spell from particular from a particular class so you pick wallet for this what does it do well there's one d10 force damage I'll get to this bit in a second and instead of the damage going up at levels 5 and 10 you get an extra Beam at levels five and ten by the time we're level 10 we get three beams which I could focus on on all three on a single person or split it up between two people or even three people now thankfully it's Force damage one of the least resistive types many containers and doors and things are actually vulnerable to force damage so this isn't just useful in combat it's used for outside of compact and where's this agonizing blast well when out just blast can be enhanced by class features in this case we'll look invocations so not only can we make it do extra damage which is equal to our Charisma modifier we can make it knock people back as I saw and as you would have seen when these guys got attacked is the most damaging we can Target three different enemies if we wish which is very useful compared to just attacking a single Target it's an attack roll so we can get Advantage easily or High Ground lots of objects have vulnerability towards it it's just absolutely great to have inside and outside of combat Firebolt is next available to wizards and Sorcerers and bards can learn it from their magical secrets so what does it do it does 1d10 fire damage at level one and it goes up in damage at levels five and ten it uses an attack roll so targets the armor class there's a half decent amount of damage equal to Eldritch blast before we have any modifiers or enhancements to Eldritch plus it does fire damage now that is resisted by some enemies in the game in fact some enemies are probably immune even but just like Aldridge blasts it does have utility outside of combat obviously this door isn't locked but there are some locked doors that will be vulnerable to fire damage there are things that can be set alike using Fireball it actually has utility outside of combat and as a consequence being equal highest damaging I know we can't enhance it like we do can I'll just blast and being able to be used outside of combat having utility outside of combat I don't see any reason not to give this an S tick critical hit friends some of you might have some right what does friends do get an advantage on Christmas X against a non-hostile creature it requires concentration lasts for 10 turns and in higher difficulty modes tactician targets might accuse you of enchanting them so click on it you can have friends it does require concentration so if you're already concentrating on another spell that you want to have going outside of combat don't cast this and then all of a sudden I get two dice to roll awesome I wouldn't have done it without friends there we are so where does this go it depends on your your difficulty level a little bit but yeah right up to the top right into s tier and friends is available to bards Sorcerers warlocks and Wizards next up is guidance what does it do it gives a 1d4 bonus to Ability checks again it requires concentration requires an action in combat I wouldn't usually cast it in combat lasts for 10 turns this is available to Barts Sorcerers warlocks and wizards so when I click on it plus 1d4 the really good thing about this is it can be applied to any ability check and will also apply to passive checks around and about the map and look at that without guidance I would not have passed that it doesn't guarantee you to pass every single skill check certainly increases it by good amounts and it goes up to estia the only real downside is it requires concentration a bit like with friends and if you are concentrating on something outside of combat don't cast guidance without thinking about it first you don't get any warning that you're about to break the concentration of another spell the next cat trip is light and light is available to bards clerics Sorcerers and wizards what does it do it's an evocation can't trip Infuse an object with an aura of light may only affect one target at a time so if I cast it on myself it will make my weapon exude light until long rest if I swap my weapon the light goes away what you can do quick tip here put your armor on the floor faster on your armor put your armor on then you can walk around switching between your weapons doesn't matter which one you've got and you're all lit up you can cast this ahead of combat it doesn't require concentration I'm going to stick this in Aid here because lots of races do have dark vision which is the main use of having light also eventually quite a lot of weapons that have light as part of the weapon like they give off light and they do seem to be a fair number of light sources but are still a top pick I'm always happy to have light it's good to cast on someone they kind of just forget about it not need it put it on someone like Lazelle give it on a minute put it on her melee weapon put it on her armor and then you don't need to worry about dark vision mini Chan is the next cat trip I'm going to look at so you create image hand that can manipulate and interact with objects once per short rest I only lost 10 turns inside of combat I wouldn't use this because it requires an action to cast it made chance can attack but for one damage they can shove they haven't got a great chance to shove the best thing they can really do is throw items so you can throw healing potions at anyone and everyone you can throw items at levers to make them work so it's one way of activating a lever from afar it's kind of a K in combat it will attract some attention if it's the only thing that can be targeted but enemies the AI the AI change after a patch I've forgot what patch now maybe one or two where they target summons less than these two they can fly around also but at the end of the day it's really not that great the opportunity cost is too high I'd much rather have some of these other cantrip Stan magehand I've easily survived without it it can't do anything like pickpocketing and it can't open doors by itself it can move items around so it's kind of half useful but it's just not all that is cracked up to be and magehand is available to bards Sorcerers warlocks Wizards and gift Yankee and Mephistopheles tieflings also get a version of it at character creation minor illusion is next what does it do it creates an illusion that compels nearby creatures to investigate and you can remain hidden while casting the spell and also silenced so let's use it outside of combat first let's stick one over here and what you'll notice is everyone kind of turns towards it and running together and then if you're really really mean wait until as many people have crowded around go to turn based mode and if you have a bunch of enemies here you could then lob or whatever you want a chain lightning ice storm that's really good at grouping up enemies it's also really good for distracting enemies outside of combat perhaps you're finding one particular vendor difficult to pick pickpocket from so you can cast this get them to turn them in a particular direction or someone else in a particular direction and then you can hit pocket a vendor more easily perhaps and then let's look at it during combat if I cast it during combat it will make enemies turn towards it which I don't know might be useful if you've got the same turn as somebody else perhaps but during combat it's not that great because again as with the some of these other cat trips we've used an action to make this happen I'm a bit torn to be putting it between A and B tier in the end I'm going to put it into BT because it isn't as useful in combat I know combat isn't the whole game but some of these at the top here are useful both in and outside of combat although obviously friends isn't guidance actually helps with shoving but if it made the enemies walk towards it during combat perhaps I'd give it a higher tier but it just turns them around which is a bit sad sad interesting next we have poison spray poison spray is a short range attacking cat trip which requires the target to make a constitution saving through it is available to Druids Ultras warlocks Wizards and nature domain clerics because they get to pick a druid can't trip so you have to pick a Target within 10 feet so you do have to get quite close up and personal to an enemy now I have got my absurd character here who's won in every level so their stats are very low so a spell safe DC4 this isn't very good now there's a high chance that fist the scoria will actually pass they're saving through or not however I'd say on someone who's actually a dedicated spellcaster such as historian or Helsing in my playthrough here the chances would be significantly higher at lower levels enemies actually have a fairly decent chance to pass the saving through with the right items we can increase our spell save DC to quite high amounts 21 22 without trying too hard which point it becomes okay it's not amazing the one one thing it's got going for it is that it is the highest damage in cantrip is one D12 and by the time you get to level Tennis 3D 12 which is kind of nice but it's also a poison and that's a very heavily resisted damage type so you're never going to get a huge amount out of it I'm almost tempted to put it into critical Miss because the Constitution's saving throw of enemies is generally quite high and maybe we can only get some use out of it once we've got plenty of magic items that can increase our spell save do you see next in our list is produce flame which is only available to clerics Druids and asmodeus tieflings at level one so it's kind of got two parts to it so you can you produce a flame in your hand and it sheds light in the 30-foot radius which lasts until long rest so I'm going to get a star in here to cast it but outside we don't need this extra light we can't really tell the difference but if you're somewhere dark you can and then on the turn we cast it I'm just going to move out of melee range we get the option to hurl the flame it just requires an attack Pro the range is 30 feet a bit disappointing if it hits it has 3D damage I was just quite unlucky with my um damage there so it's fire damage which is quite well resisted it's a 1d8 it's averaging in damage it does have some use out of combat I suppose you do you can't have light but you only have light while you've got it out and you haven't thrown it I'm gonna put a beat here because it does it's okay the damage it's not amazing the range is quite small whereas compared to like Fireball bone chill uh Eldridge blast they've all got a 60 foot range let's produce flame is only 30 which can be a bit frustrating and it's only a single Target it doesn't have any extra effects on the damage but it can produce light for us so it's kind of a two-in-one which is kind of cool not many cantrips get to do that Ray of frost is next so it's another damaging cat trip with an attack roll which does 3D or 1d8 core damage at level one then goes up by 1d8 level five and ten and if it hits it reduces the target's movement speed by 10 feet which is really really useful this is available to Sorcerers Wizards and law bars using their magical secrets and also as shown here if it hits a surface of water or blood it will freeze that surface that might go against you that might go for you this is a very good cantrip I'm struggling between a and critical hit for me kind of a bit like bone chill it does an average amount of damage but it's got a cool secondary effect or kind of two secondary effects here reducing movement speed by 10 feet is really good especially if you're not from prone at the same time in this particular situation I'm actually very close to the enemy anyway and they've got a weapon with extra reach kind of a sign that the reduced 10 feet of movement speed won't always be useful but I have used it many many times on an enemy and then they've had to dash which is amazing because then they don't attack us well at least most of the time they won't attack us so I could understand if people do and would put it up in essing critical hit resistance this is available to clerics and Druids only it's quite a rare cat trip it requires concentration and makes a Target add 1d4 to their saving throws so it's kind of like half of bliss unfortunately during combat is usually just not the best thing to be casting because now I can't use my action to I would say attack right I've talked about opportunity cost before in combat opportunity cost of this is too high maybe if there was absolutely nothing else to do perhaps I would cast it where it does sometimes come in useful as outside of combat there are some saving throws in some dialogue dialogue options and it's great just to be able to cast resistance I think it's a solid beat here the main downside is the opportunity cost of in combat is not going to be that useful and it requires concentration and it means you can't take another cat trip it's a good flame right what is sacred flame it's a can't trip that requires the target to make a dexterity saving throw it does 1d8 radiant damage look at that 99 I'll get to where that is in a second at lower levels sacred flame isn't very good because as I mentioned with poison spray your spell save DC just isn't really very high but as you level up you get more ability score improvements you get more items that improve your spell safe DC actually the chances that chances of it working start increasing quite a lot also this starter here is prone which meant they have disadvantage on that dexterity saving through in the early game this is maybe a BLC tier later in the game I'd say it's aob one thing it's got going for it is that it's the only cat trip that does radiant damage and there are some items that can benefit radiant damage so later in the game is a earlier in the game at C so I'm gonna average that out at B because you will spend a fair bit of time in the early game where you're not going to get as much use out of it it's available to clerics and bards through their magical Secrets now laylee is next something quite unique about it is it requires a bonus action rather than an action what it does is if you are wielding a Starfall Club it will deal 1v8 plus your wisdom modifier of damage assuming that you use wisdom as your modifier and considering that only Druids and Niche domain clerics can get it you're very likely going to be using your wisdom modifier yes so now this staff here there's 1d8 plus plus four damage it's a plus two weapon which is why it says plus six in total there so I can try and use it so the thing is it kind of I say it has a problem but it doesn't scale with level which makes sense the way to get more use out of this country is actually to have more attacks so I've actually respect housing to be a druid fighter multi-class so we should find that on his turn he'll get several attacks with this weapon but the damage isn't great it's okay one two three there we are and from the action of the first initial attack I doubt most people are going to do this I doubt most people are going to multi multi-class a druid or nature domain cleric with a class that gives extra attack if this scaled was level let's say the 2d8 plus wisdom modifier of damage then it would be the go-to spell go-to cantrip for multi-classing because then you can multiply the extra damage with the extra attacks but that's not how it works right ordroids or nature domain lyrics at the low levels it's great because it has a decent chance to hit and makes sure damage magical which helps overcome resistance but by the time you get to high levels yep it's not that great you've got other cam trips that can do more damage you thought spells that can do more damage you can ask spells that control the battlefield better so it's another one of these cat trips that kind of changes as you go through the game early on it's definitely like eightier easily but by the time we're in act three it's kind of seats here so I'm gonna stick it in the middle again for me for the high levels it just doesn't do enough poor dreads and nature domain clerics who get one attack per turn so overall I'm gonna stick it a beat here shocking grasp another attack Royal cantrip that does 1v8 this time lightning damage if it hits then the target cannot use reactions and the spell has advantage on creatures with metal armor this is mostly very good she's my wisdom so I've got Advantage because the Fleming fist here is wearing armor in fact I want to try and use it on someone who won't dive when I hit them with it assuming I do oh counter spelled right I do have a scroll of shock and grasp at least right let's try that again perfect it hit now fist noodleman noodle man doesn't have reactions I can walk away no problem and something I didn't say about a rare Frost another reason maybe it should be asked here is if you can make enemies wet which will double the damage of rare Frost and shock and grasp I'm gonna put this in s t I'm kind of kind of hesitant between A and S but the extra effect taking away reaction is is strong and the fact we can get Advantage with it with some enemies and we can double the damage I do think it's slightly better than rare Frost that I wouldn't disagree too much if someone else said they want to put it in Asia of course I forgot to say that shocking grasp can be learned by Sorcerers Wizards and will be given to you if you pick the War cast defeat oh my turkey is only available to clerics and zarya tieflings at level one what does it do it's very simple you get advantage on intimidation and performance checks for 10 turns you do not need concentration so it means it can stack with something like guidance there we are former turkey from the same character guidance we've got them both and now let's just do this shape a performance check you can use this inside the skill check dialogues and my performance was successful I did have Advantage because of Thor maturgy I think this is an easy a tier the only real downside the reason it's not any higher I should really say is it only affects two skill checks it doesn't affect any more but it's great because it doesn't require concentration so you can stack it with other things go on whip next getting there nearly at the end Thorn whip requires an attack roll there's one D6 damage at level 1 and goes up by D6 at levels five and ten it is available to Druids Niche domain clerics and warlocks who pick packs of the Dome and what does it do well apart from hitting if you do hit so let's try this again on whip if it hits pulls the target towards you but not very far sadly so it's kind of a cool effect thinking about being here to be honest it's a pretty cool effect but you need to be within quite a short range and there will be times where you can pull people down from a pie or pull them onto some sort of Hazard which is good but the short range and low damage I do think lets it down and if the target is huge or larger they can't actually be pulled so you're not going to be able to pull everyone and everything so I think it does have limitations but I I like the idea of it that's for sure next step is true strike I suppose I have to talk about it it was available to Bard Sorcerers warlocks Wizards and Rangers who pick the Mage breaker option at level one for favorite enemy what does it do you use an action requires a concentration gain an advantage on your next attack roll sounds cool but the opportunity cost is massive it takes an action and your concentration Advantage gives you two roles for your attack rule why not just attack twice rather than using an action now and an action next turn to do an attack with Advantage why not just attack twice I've found what is probably one of the only ways that it can be used and it's not like the worst thing in the world so I'm in a situation where Shadow heart here is an Arcane trickster so she has sneak attack and I suppose I could use sneak attack against fist Miller I've tried to create a situation where it wouldn't make sense but let's let's just say I want to attack I don't know fist cross here so I could attack but I wouldn't to get my sneak attack what we can do I suppose cost through strike and have it counterspelled right I'll have to come back to that I'm back here I've pretty much lost my reason to use true strike I suppose a little bit too far okay let's try and hurt fist Clover so I can cast true strike and now I have advantage on this attack I can and should get a sneak attack on it there we are I mean maybe maybe that's one use for True strike overall the opportunity cost is just too high apart from that one kind of unique case you're not going to get any use out of it Rogues can mostly just hide with a bonus action anyway to get Advantage maybe in this instance it would have been a bit harder but there's still space down here to hide and it probably had better things to do with my action it's just awful uh concentration means you can't concentrate on any other spell it's just for a single attack that you get Advantage for it uses your action most classes are not going to get any use out of it whatsoever opportunity cost is too too high and lastly we have vicious mockery this is available to bards and warlocks if they pick pack to the tone what does it do the enemy has to make a wisdom saving throw and if they fail they take 1d4 psychic damage which goes up but levels five and ten and they have disadvantage on the next attack Rule and you get to hear lots of wonderful lines yo chances failed again all right vicious mockery so if they fail the enemy fails the wisdom saving throw to take some damage disadvantage on the next attack for all oh this guy isn't the best person to be casting this I'm glad that worked so what we did six damage 3d4 damage psychic damage psychic damage is pretty good and then his fist will have disadvantage on his next attack role it's going to be the one after this there we are critical Miss but then stopped having disadvantage after that so in the early levels this is another one that's kind of split in my opinion between the early and late higher levels at early levels is very high I think like a tier giving disadvantage for a single attack roll is very good because lots of enemies only have one attack rule but as we get to higher and higher levels they start having two or three attacks and only having disadvantage on one of them isn't that good and the damage is the the damage is very low it's 1d4 the damage doesn't really help that much I'm going to leave it a beat here again kind of depending on what level you're at early levels very high later levels kind of lower but let me know what you think thank you very much for watching and thank you to all the members of my channel it really helps me going and hopefully I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: Casual Veteran Gamer

Views: 225,533

Keywords: baldur's gate 3, bg3, baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, baldur's gate 3 tierlist, tierlist baldur's gate 3, tierlist baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate 3 tierlist

Id: usvhDy-Ca_M

Length: 32min 42sec (1962 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 25 2023