Immortal Ice Assassin Wizard Build In Baldur's Gate 3 (Honour Mode Full 1-12 Min-Maxed Guide)

[Music] Gail is the poster boy for wizards in Boulders Gate 3 and he's the most popular character to play as as An Origin character so Wizards are cool right we can safely conclude that no people just like Gil apparently because simultaneously Wizards are the least popular of the three main CER damaged focused classes I guess ain't nobody going to be a knit all nerdy wizard when you can just blow things up or blast down enemies like a machine gun right [Music] wrong the wizard is the perfect class to be an immortal Frost assassin that can tank literally everything while Mass murdering entire armies in one go and all by themselves nuke the world back into the ice ages but it's not just about dishing out cold damage that is just one element of the coolness of today's video Subzero himself is is afraid of what gaale and wizards can become in Boulders G 3 namely Immortal but what discipline do we need to learn to even make something as powerful as this and what happens if today's build ends up in the wrong hands those are two questions that we will answer today abjuration is the answer to the first question what does that even mean though abjuration sounds overly pretentious but abjuration in the context of this game is merely a fancy word to say no one can touch me abjuration is playing with shields and pretty much negating everything the enemy does it is probably the worst wizard type to fight against because just imagine everything you ever do as the enemy is ignored and you can literally never die is there something more annoying to fight against let's be honest no and what is more powerful than just straight up becoming Immortal for this build we get nine levels in Wizard but we also dip two levels into war warlock as well as a level into Tempest cleric with these dips and multic clans distribution our abjuration Frost wizard will have the best power relative to each phase of the game in my humble opinion all the leveling details however will follow in a bit first we need to talk about how does this build actually work from a combat strategy perspective how do you become immortal and why do frost based spells work so well as a wizard when I said that this build makes you immortal I wasn't lying abjuration Wizard's main mechanic is their AR Ward it's the Beautiful Blue Shield that appears every time you take damage or charge it and when managed properly it can completely negate all incoming damage as you see here your Arcane Ward blocks damage equal to its charges and then loses one charge every time you get hit these charges however can go up to twice the level of your wizard level so with them you can already easily negate up to like 20 and more damage from a source you fuel your Arcane wart by casting abjuration spells each time you cast an abjuration spell you add charge charges equal to its spell slot level to your overall number of Arcane War charges thankfully a lot of abjuration spells in the game are really good and when using an optimized selection that we'll also go over in this video you can have a fully charged Arcane wart most of the time so your defense will be really good but the immortality truly starts kicking in when you stack them with spells like blade wart which you can get as soon as level one by the way or concentration spells like Stone skin of which both have the damage of the most common typ types of attacks in the game combine your Arcane Wars charges and set spells and you basically will never get hit anymore because it's going to be really hard for any enemy to inflict so much damage that it will result into a net positive that exceeds both of your Arcane Ward and blade wart or stone skin combined making this build an absolute amazing pick for the new honor mode which is the highest difficulty in the game currently as you may or may not know where survivability is incredibly important and this build is not just defensively A S Plus tier pick for any mode really but also offensively and the reason for that is because abjuration is indirectly tied to really high damage output as well this Pathway to high damage output and frost Insanity starts with the armor of agius a very important tool for any abjuration wizard out there because first of all it fuels your Arcane wart since it is an abjuration spell second of all it gives you a bunch of extra HP that needs to be fully depleted before your armor of agius falls off and since we have our wart and blade wart or Stones skin it will pretty much never fall off which then in turn means his armor will give us insane damage output as every time we get hit with it it deals 25 damage back when up gasted which will become a lot higher with a bunch of modifiers that are Incorporated in this build that means that we can just completely wipe out enemies on their turn just by them hitting us keep in mind there are many enemies in the game that attack multiple times in a single turn basically just giving themselves a quick death with our armor of agius up with armor of agius on which which is then protected by our defenses we can infinitely keep killing off enemies just by simply existing on their turn but also moving on our turn making this one of the few builds where you actually want to trigger opportunity attacks as it means you just moving around is already enough to kill off your enemies and that is an important combat strategy for this build make sure to move as much as possible and Trigger as many opportunity attacks as you can handle indicated with the red arrows to quickly kill off hearts of enemies as you see it works really well and this a really F powerful and unique way to play like this early on Armor of agathys already provides really good value as your enemies will naturally also have lower HP values but as you progress you can keep getting higher levels of armor of agst Applied which means it will become more and more deadly the damage of armor of agus is classified as gold damage hence why if we optimize for this Spell's damage output we naturally also optimize for a bunch of other gold damage based spells in the game one instance of doing so is through they create water water spell you may know that if you make your enemies wet you accordingly will deal double damage with any source of cold damage and create water is a very flexible spell that you can either infinitely cast without extending a spell slot so you can always keep using it or you can upcast it and then use a spell slot but in turn also make a huge number of enemies wet at the same time and as a wise old man once said Son it is a great idea to make things wet before you blast them hard just like it's a great to like the video and subscribe to me if you haven't done so yet also check my patreon out if you want to support the channel you can also find free guides there for all my builds yes yes amazing this practically always having a tool to apply vulnerability to call damage to our enemies is absolutely insane for this build it spikes our damage altitude out of control and you want to use it as much as possible hence why I also made sure it's pretty much always applied in this video it gives great energy to also run Frost spells in this build which I will go over as we level but let's quickly mention the three big ones in my opinion which are going to be cone of cold ice storm and the glyph of warding cone of cold is a great high level Frost spell in the game and it can deal absolutely insane damage it is like a frost shotgun that you want to use for closer range encounters when you want to shoot in front of you and as you see it does the job very well it's a great clearing tool cff of warning on the other hand is unlock the moment you unlock level three spell slots and it's really good as well because it has a cold variation which synergizes with the rest of our build obviously and these have a nice AOE radius so you can use them to quickly get rid of enemies as well but that's not the main selling point what is particularly nice about Glyph of warning however is that it's an abjuration spell an abjuration spell that deals our Elemental damage of choice which is huge because while killing off enemies you also simultaneously build up charges for your Arcane Ward so it's two birds one stone type of situation then finally iorm has an insane radius pairing it very well with an upcast that create water it quickly can get rid of a bunch of enemies in one turn essentially and cause a bunch of environmental damage inducing fullon climate change on its own making it another amazing Frost tool for if the battlefield requires it with you now already getting a glimpse of what's to come let's just immediately dive into the leveling as already mentioned we start off with two levels in Warlock the first level we take the earlier mentioned blade Ward which you want to upkeep as much as possible to make sure our armor of agus doesn't fall off and we can use it offensively especially in those early levels and then for the other canri we take eldrid blast now this is definitely not a eldrich blast Focus build at all no no no don't worry about that but ELD blast is still one of the best if not the best C in the game just due to its sheer utility and power for something that doesn't even consume a spell slot for spells then we immediately grab that armor of agius and the Very Mill second you click on that Spell section you get the spell like an underfat hyena and I've already set everything needed to be set about this amazing spell so definitely don't forget about it and we take hex for that additional damage early on as well now concentration spells like hex are really good for this build actually because concentration spells make you more likely to get hit as the AI tends to prioritize concentrating enemies which is a great bonus as it means we get more procs of our armor of agus so you frequently want to have concentration spells applied for subclass the only good option here is going to be the great old one as it gives us frightening passively every now and then the f is completely useless since it's temporary HP doesn't stack with the temporary HP from armor of agus and Arc fake gives us an ability that requires an action and we will always have better things to do for Action so not optimal either abilities intelligence is the keyword here it's our main spell casting ability as a wizard so we get it at 17 we then also get 14 dexterity for ini itive which is really nice for this build the earlier our turn the better for in Constitution for those early levels where we still might not have enough defenses to completely negate potentially concentration breaking hits from the enemies and it gives us extra HP which is nice 12 wisdom for the saving throws and it allows us to get two spells from cleric which is huge you will see why in a second regarding your race it really doesn't matter but if you don't use Gail for this build I would either suggest a Wood Elf or a wood half elf for that extra movement or a silver or white dragon born as gives you cold resistance right from the get-go which is nice for those situations where you want to cast eyce spells on enemies close to you where you will also get hit and also these Dragon borns in particular get frost breath which is some nice extra power in those first levels as this attack doesn't require a spell slot and you can combo with with create water early on for a very powerful AOE combo we then get level two Warlock and here we can get another useful spell namely hellish rebuke which synergizes with the retaliatory idea behind armor of agius except with this we can hit enemies back in the distance for our reaction slot in case say those besty Rangers attack us it is a nice addition the main point of the second warlock level however is a certain invocation that we get but we can pick two invocations the first one is going to be repelling blast to make our eldrich blast a tool of masochism because we can accordingly now use it to push enemies off cliffs and into chasms for those insta kill can be very handy on honor mode however the invocation of importance here is going to be armor of Shadows it's going to function as our insurance for having maximum Arcane charges and thus a fully charged Arcane Ward for any battle the armor of Shadows gives us a free Mage Armor cast without expending a spell slot and Mage Armor is an abjuration spell as well win-win situation it means we can infinitely keep spamming Mage Armor with this invocation and quickly fill up our Arcane charges you have to switch between an armor piece and a piece that isn't classified as armor to make sure you can recast Mage Armor however if you do through your inventory slot it can be a bit tedious so what I like to do here to make it as fast and smooth as possible is to put two gear pieces on your pot bar the one we actually wear and any random piece that you can find that is classified as an armor piece then after casting Mage Armor quickly swap between our gear pieces while accordingly keep using Mage Armor every time it becomes available again to quickly build up our Arcane charges having a full charged Arcane W for every encounter or just whenever we need is so nice as just a bunch of extra sustain especially early and mid game when you don't have those higher level spell slots unlocked yet for getting like four to five Arcane charges in one go the tempus domain is the only cleric subass that truly synergizes with our build and it's just generally an absolutely amazing dip for this build mostly due to Wrath of the storm the main subclass feature which again synergizes with armor of agathys as it's a reaction to melee attacks that then deals lightning or thunder damage and as you know we will constantly apply crate water to get that wet debuff on our enemies for double the damage and guess what lightning gets the exact same benefits as gold damage with create water so it has double damage right there as well making Wrath of the storm synergize in two ways and it also covers Us reaction wise for melee attacks while hellish rebuke covers Us reaction wise for ranged attacks giving us options aside from this great ability we also get two spells for free Thunder Wave which is really good for those early levels as an AOE spell with CC and also fog Cloud fog cloud is really good actually to deny Rangers from attacking you just cast it on yourself to basically become invisible to them and Rangers can be quite pesky because you can't proc opportunity decks on them with armor of agus so especially early on this is a really nice way to counter them one of the main points however for taking tambus cleric is getting create water in a way that's also like beneficial to the build in this case with the subass features and as I explained earlier create water is going to be fundamental for creating many powerful combos for this build however the cleric dip also gives us the ability to get Sanctuary you know how busted this spell is and it's an absur spell as well so it gives us charges and we need to take it you can use it as a breeder when things seem to go south so enemies can't hit you anymore and while resting just guess as many things as possible to prep you for when you enter combat again thanks stuff like blade Ward Stone skin haste great water Shields armor of agst all the good stuff that buff you essentially to make sure when you go back into combat you can start wrecking everything again however sanuy also has a nice additional effect of making enemies gather around you it's like minor illusion or the meow of a wild- shaped cat in that sense and accordingly you can combo that with our spells to just insta nuke a bunch of wet enemies then we finally also get three canps with the Tempest cleric dip these are just a nice extra I would highly suggest to get guidance for the great bonus to our ability check staty for certain Charisma checks if you get into those scenarios and produce flame for the light in dark spaces and additional source of damage If Ever Needed after getting cleric we can now start getting all our levels in Wizard for the Puritans Among Us that strictly want to adhere to unilateral wizard level Investments and don't want to settle with what one might perceive as class blood mingling level one to three are some of the quickest levels to level through so now we can fully focus on getting all our Wizards levels and in this case the dips truly make the build as powerful as possible trust me with level one wizard you already get a bunch of useful spells and cantrips and here I'm going to start out with Ray of frost a can trip that becomes a nuclear missile with this build now I didn't include Ray of frost in the earlier Parts where I mentioned what I considered the main spells why well it is a can strip and not a spell yes we take semantics very seriously here but for a can trip it will deal amazing damage in this setup with wetness and our gear you can pretty much blast enemies for these type of numbers from a distance and honestly that is just ridiculous damage for a c trip that will never ever use a single spell slot and you can infinitely just keep casting really good make sure to use as your bread and butter especially when you want to preserve spell slots whether you're in the early mid or late game it doesn't even matter because it levels which your leveling and it keeps getting better and better also remember raay Frost has that CC ingrained reducing enemies movement making it even better for other canps I recommend shocking grasps just for the Synergy with wetness and for the very situational use cases where we don't want to trigger opportunity attacks then bone shield for when we want to deny enemies healing themselves or their allies and do a bit of damage for spells first of all directly get shields for that increase in armor class on a reaction can be very good in those early levels especially when your armor of agus is not upcast yet and versus Rangers to make sure you don't get hit from a distance and it's an abjuration spell so we can now even get Arcane War charges through our reactions which is really nice then ice knife this is going to be in addition to Ray of frost your main early game ice spells I would use ice knife over Ray of frost for when enemies are grouped together because still has that AE component and thus can hit a bunch of enemies in close proximity at the same time and it's a 1 d10 plus a potential of 2d6 extra damage for a maximum of 22 damage which is nothing to scoff at for a level one spell you also want to take chromatic orb this is just another really good level one spell and it has that ice variation that leaves ice on the ground which can cause prone which is a really good satus effect for basically making your entire party more likely to hit your enemies long strier then absolutely mandatory inclusion if you don't have anyone in your party yet that can cast it exra movement is just too good especially on this build because it means we can proc more armor of agus as well with that magic missiles for the guaranteed damage when we need it and then fine familiar for a bunch of useful summons really good for a level one spell actually and these summons have nice effects like damage over time or even blinding enemies which is an amazing cc to inflict upon your enemies especially to those pesy casters now while we progress I will just go over what I recommend to learn instead of what to prepare that is just going to be up to you and how you want to approach different combat scenarios because that is also a benefit of going Wizards you can always prepare different spells and wizards can also scribe Scrolls that you find to even learn more spells but I will focus on what you can learn through the leveling interface right here level five is when we actually get our Arcane Ward and become an abjuration wizard till this point however you will have good defenses with armor of agathys that is then Amplified through things like blade wart or free Mage armors and shield but this basically the point where your defense will start going on an upwards trajectory to ultimately just straight up reach immortality as I've made sure to tell you at the start of the video spell wise we get two more spells here I actually do like expeditious Retreat because it basically gives us free dashes and thus can help us out with getting as many armor of agus Brocks as possible for your other spell I would recommend something like Dash's hideous laughter which is a really good CC spell it can completely St lock certain enemies from the fight at level six we reach level three wizard which means we get some level two spells here finally my recommendation absolutely get Misty step first of all the ability to just teleport wherever you want on a bonus action will always have a use whether it's defensively to escape a bunch of enemies or to go aggressively all out catching fleeing enemies for example it combos very well with our eye spells for those zes type of plays teleport into their face then do a nice fatality to blow them up into Smither with the power of [Music] ice for your other spell I highly recommend cloud of daggar has nothing to do with our build steam but really good either way especially early on just a bunch of damage inflicted upon your enemies for potentially up to 10 turns yeah what is there not to like at level seven we get minor illusion for our can trip to get that sweet get all enemies in one spot combo going for the remainder of your level two spells there's not much that synergize with what we're going for here so instead we're just going to grab some of the best level two spells out there in a general sense hold person for cc and guaranteed crits and flaming spere because it's a massive ball of fire that can tank deal good damage and just straight up carry certain combat scenarios you also get a feat at level seven by the way because our wizard has now reached level four and we get dual wielder here absolutely get it's very good I'm not going to explain why yet you'll see that when we get to gear at level eight we have unlock level three spells which are very very good for an abjuration wizer first of all we now get our Glyph of warding you know that deadly spell I talked about earlier that can AE murder of a bunch of enemies while simultaneously building up Arcane War charges yes it is here it is finally time to grab it and Christmas might have just been over at the point for when this video is released but it has already returned because we can get counter spell now as well counter spell is an absolutely amazing spell for this build it's a reaction that will just add three charges right from the get go and with it we get to deny all Annoying enemy spells as much as we want get it and then right away at level 9 we get another Banger haste which will give us the opportunity to use two actions every single turn and with our Arcane W fully charged using the armor of Shadows infinite W charge generating machine or just using observation spells in general it will mostly never fall off either with armor of agus on because to break concentration spells you actually need to hit the target and getting two actions per turn well that means a lot of utility or damage whatever you're feeling really good spell other spell to take is whatever you want really I'm grabbing remove curse it is a very situational spell like for when you want to get rid of your mirror of lost debuff for example but it's an abjuration spell too and the time that remove curse is seen as a completely useless spell is over or or maybe not level 10 we unlock those juicy level four spells and you know what that means ice storm time we finally have it for those beautiful bombing the world back into the Ice Age Blaze and we get fire Shield at level 10 as well finally this is one of the final pieces to amplify armor of aus as much as possible with fire Shield you can use the fire Shield chill version to inflict even more coal damage back to whatever hits us and thus obviously this Shield directly synergize with armor of agius one onone it is basically just another armor of agus on top of your armor of agus best thing is that it even applies for a whopping 10 turns even though it is not a concentration spell beautiful spell get it use as much as possible and you will be a happy person level 11 we can now get stone skin now whether you like to apply stone skin and use for your concentration spells or re apply blade wart every turn or two is up to you I prefer to use haste for my concentration spell because overall you will get more actions so your damage output gets even better but it comes with a trade-off that you cannot forget about blade wart every two turns or so for your other spell I would just take something like blind for some extra damage because most of the other level four spells are concentration spells as well and we just simply don't have room for those with this build for your feet I would take an ability Improvement here and get two more points in intelligence if you want to buff your Wizard's intelligence as much as possible then you want to consider using atile buff to get it to 20 intelligence and then at the mirror loss you can get it to 22 level 12 we have now unlocked those level five spells and we get two bangers here first of all our Frost shotgun the already mentioned cone of gold and for our other spell it's going to be an easy Choice conjure Elemental these Elementals are very good actually and there's even a water one amongst them which also deals SK damage so synergize with our build perfectly and in addition to these C damage based attacks this summon can also heal you and your entire party and having a sumon next to you is just a nice addition to the build really it's something we don't have yet at level 10 you do get a new subass feature with all wizard sub glasses for abjuration wizards it's improved abjuration which basically gives your W some charges every time you use a short rest however we skipped level 10 wizard as we already have a much better way to charge our war through the second level in warlock which gave us the ability to always have a fully charged Arcane Ward and at any time we wish so that is actually improved AB ER ation outside of leveling we also need to talk about our gear because it's going to take the build truly to the next level as there are more items in the game that actually synergize with both abjuration and CT based damage than you might think first of all we start with our weapons as you may remember we took the Dual wielder feet at level seven this allowed us to wield two staves and we go for one in each hand basically for all game long you can get the morning Frost staff very early on in your playthrough we're talking act one in the under dark after doing a quest so you want to to get that as soon as possible it is one of our main weapons why because one it will enhance our cold damage output and as you know that is our thing with this build and two it gives us the ability to inflict Shield upon our enemies just with casting Frost spells Shield means we can make our enemies vulnerable to cold damage so it basically has the same functionality as create water but now with our staff we can just automatically get that debuff on our enemies going potentially so for example if you use Ray of frost it can procet and then if you use Ray of frost again it will deal double the damage without even need to make your enemies wet very very good since we get the dual wielder feed so early you want to pair the morning Frost staff with the spell sparkler for this build the spell sparkler is just really good for this build since we have so many instances of dealing damage in this build in various ways so it builds up lightning charges very quickly and then in turn every time you reach five lightning charges you will basically dish out a lightning based attack that can do some nice extra damage and this liting attack in turn synergizes with our consistent application of wetness on our enemies so that damage will then in turn be consistently doubled making the synergies off the chge the spell sparkler is also obtained in Act One however I would switch out the spell sparkler come act three and replace it with the Marco hes gear so act one and two you use the spell sparkler with the morning Frost then in act three you still use the morning Frost but now in combination with the Marco Hesh gear and both combos are going to be deadly mark my words the Marco Hesh gear however doesn't really need an introduction it is probably the best staff in the game it gives you extra damage spell safe DC and with Arcane battery you can cast a spell for free so you can use a free level five spell with it for example like a fully upcast it armor of agus but in this case what makes it truly amazing for this build is the spell you get with it Gesa favor with Gesa favor you can then in turn cast Frost of dark winter which you just cast after every long rest and it stays uplight all the way till your next long rest so that is already really nice it is a permanent buff essentially in that sense and frost of dark winter does a bunch of things it gives you resistance to cool damage so it's now much easier to stand in your spells for for example if that's needed your gold spells will also deal additional gold damage equal to your proficiency bonus which is going to be quite significant in act3 and when we deal spell damage it inflicts one turn of and crossed with frost upon the target which can ultimately completely freeze your targets but I will go over that mechanic in a second with this spell you also get a free cast of both ice storm and cone of gold which I consider some of the main spells for this build as you know which is another huge bonus so all in all there's probably not a single gear piece that has more Synergy with this build than the Marco hes gear so the moment you enter X3 rush to get it like your life depends on it to complement the idea of building up frost on our enemies to ultimately completely freeze them we also get the Winter's clutches for our gloves which will add frost build up to enemies every time we deal cold damage so all the time really and then we also get the cold brim head which also applies frost on our enemies every time we inflict a condition upon them for example like wetness or make them prone or reduce their movement there are so many instances with this build where we apply conditions on our enemies with our gloves hat and staff we will build up Frost so quickly and when we reach seven charges the enemy will have to do a constitution saving throw every time and if they fail they become Frozen and Frozen is pretty much like a complete stun that denies the enemy of doing literally anything and this is a really good status effect obviously it gives you a lot of momentum but it's not just crowd control the ice encapsulation can be broken with thunder for double the damage which we have in our kit in a powerful form through the glyph of warning that can also fully be up gasted for maximum damage if you wish to do so and making enemies like this Frozen ghost really quickly with our gear set up but if you need a shortcut can also use the chill effect from our morning Frost and then just apply wetness that in itself will also freeze the target either way you have great options here and it all ties to together really to finish off the build we get the flesh melter cloak for our cloak slot which synergize amazingly with our armor of otus as we will now retaliate with even more damage when we get hit and the same goes for our chest piece which does exactly the same thing and dishes out even more damage when retaliating but it also reduces all incoming damage at the same time this piece is pretty much a win-win situation for this build then we get the boots of our Arcane ball string which in its Essence will raise our damage output as well using Dash is a great option with this build to proc armor of agius as much as possible so the effect of our boots will also frequently be active and for our amulet we get the necklace of Elemental augmentation this will enhance Ray of frost and make it an amazing damage dealing cantrip especially because our intelligence is high and we have double the damage going all the time Rings we get the callous glow ring which is simply just more damage and the snowb burst ring which is actually very nice it will rid the battlefield with ice which will torture enemies as it takes half their movement away and will also make them fall flat on their face all the time the latter effect is also known as prone in the game which is an amazing status effect like mentioned earlier that will amplify our damage output while denying the enemy many useful things for our bow we get the hell right or long bow aside from the useful perception check advantage that it gives us it also gives us quite some nice initiative so with our bow our turn will be quite early on in the combat cycle consistently especially with our investment in dexterity which is obviously going to be really nice with this build you really have multiple strategies in approaching your enemies from procing armor of agus as much as possible to annihilate enemies to a more blast oriented play style where you can absolutely nuke enemies from a distance or up close or to killing off enemies using very efficient action economy but what is great is that combining the various elements of the build leads to a very fast-paced and secure clears of enemy hordes as you can kill off enemies on both our turn as well as it's their turn and all of that makes us a really fun build to play and all of that is backed by A system that makes you just simply Immortal and thus gives you absolutely mindboggling defenses and sustain out of this world making it a perfect fit for the hardest mode honor mode what is best about the build and the various choices we made on the journey to create and finalize this build is that ultimately all elements connect to each other and that is an elementary example of how true Synergy functions in its Essence when every detail of a build ties together and the ties between set elements can be displayed as a vicious cycle and accordingly the build is powerful beyond belief then that can only mean one thing we have a winner right here but let's not get ahead of ourselves as a game that facilitates such gameplay Loops in the first place is obviously the true winner [Music]

Channel: Nizar GG

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Id: 3Mhyn5oAkP0

Length: 31min 40sec (1900 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2024