The Importance of Weaponskills | Baldur's Gate 3

okay so fextra life has dropped a few videos over the past few days and the one that grabbed my attention today was one about itemization in Baldur's Gate 3. the time stamp for when he talks about that in his video is four minutes and 10 seconds so check that out after you're done here the gist of it is that while it's fine to look for weapons with the biggest numbers it's equally important to see what skills the weapon allows you to utilize if you're proficient in those weapons the everburn blade is the highest damage weapon because it unconditionally adds a D4 of fire damage but it only provides you with the standard three skills that are on every great sorted Early Access wave will hit multiple enemies the last rate will make an enemy bleed for two turns and pommel strike will Daze an enemy for two turns that means that while this will deal a tremendous amount of damage to an enemy it has limited utility outside of just dealing big numbers I'll be making a video covering the status effects in Baldur's Gate 3 because I want to memorize their effects for myself but Palm will strike in particular is a defensive ability you can smack an enemy and hopefully Daze it once dazed the enemy can't take reactions so you can safely run away without provoking an opportunity attack but oftentimes lovers of big numbers like myself will simply use it as a bonus action attack even if a tactical Retreat might be a much better idea than the extra one to four damage you're going to get from a pommel strike after playing different flavors of the Battle Master fighter I've found it to be more than just a simple damage dealer thanks to how weapon skills work in Baldur's Gate 3 with the right weapon selections you have the potential to fill your bar with as many abilities as a spellcaster even if you don't cast spells whether you play a paladin or might be planning on rolling through the game as a war cleric your weapon choices are are going to be just as important as your prepared spell list in early access there are only a handful of weapons that give the wielder more skills than the rest of the weapons in that category the ritual dagger has the pain maiden's blessing an ability that says after a successful attack with this dagger the wielder receives a D4 bonus to attack rules and saving throws until the end of the next turn if you dual wield this and have it in your main hand this will hit first giving you the bonus on your next swing with the offhand weapon which can improve your accuracy with that offhanded attack but then it also gives you the ability blood sacrifice where you choose to take a D4 of slashing damage to gain that D4 bonus you can use this ability as a bonus action if you need the next attack to hit or at least the buff to your chance to hit on an Archer you can use this ability on your bonus action and then it'll still apply to your ranged weapon attack which can be pretty handy sorrow is a particularly nasty glaive it has the ability and snaring strike which will deal piercing damage and possibly and snare your target this will prevent their movement and deal piercing damage at the start of their turn with the pole alarm Master feet coming in the full release this can become especially nasty polar master has a few benefits but the important one here is that when an enemy enters your range of attack which is farther away thanks to the glaive's extra reach you get an opportunity attack if you choose to ensnare them they're not going anywhere and are too far away from you to do any melee damage the Sword of Justice is a great sword that lets you cast tears protection a spell that you can cast once per short risk that requires concentration this isn't a weapon skill but it's functionally the same you can use it once per short wrist and you get a short benefit from it the concentration requirement will be what turns some builds away from this weapon if they're doing something with their concentrate operation like Hunter's Mark as a melee Ranger Sky breaker is a light Hammer with the ability to use searing Smite on a successful hit the enemy needs to succeed a con safe to stop receiving damage at the start of each of their turns once again this is a spell and not a weapon skill so it takes up your concentration if you choose to use it I ignored the quarter staves because casters will use them the most but there are a few that'll be interesting for monk like Nature's snare or coralon's Grace but they still only have the standard topple weapon skill so even though the everburn blade can deal a maximum of 17 damage on its own if you care about being versatile in a battle maybe it's not the best weapon after all Faith breaker is a versatile Warhammer and its Max damage is 10 which is 58 percent less than the everburn blade but you get four weapon skills that you can use on a short rest concussive smash which will deal its normal damage and possible inflict days which will give the enemy disadvantage on wisdom safes giving your casters a chance to get an easy cast on that enemy the enemy also loses their dexterity bonus to their AC making it easier to hit high-dex enemies and then best of all the enemy can't take reactions which means they can't make an opportunity attack if you need to get away to deal with another threat or out of a problematic situation all of this lasts for two turns weakening strike deals a little less damage but they need to make a strength save or they get disadvantage on Attack rules and strength saving throws if you're facing a hard-hitting enemy disadvantage on their attack can be life-saving while you deal with them backbreaker is my favorite it deals less damage but will knock the opponent prone if they fail a strength save while prone they can't move or take actions bonus actions or reactions and they have disadvantage on strength and dexterity save attacks on the creature have Advantage if they're within three meters and they spend half their movement to get up I love using this on the big baddies giving my team a few turns to regroup or Alpha strike the enemy all of those are standard on warhammers but Faith breaker gives you one more ability absolute power will add a D6 of force damage to your normal weapon attack but on top of that it can possibly push the enemy back five meters this is shove with damage between these four abilities it's possible to control a single problematic enemy for several turns opening them up to Advantage for the rest of the team adding up to significantly more damage than the everburn blade can do by itself now here's a neat thing about this weapon since it's versatile you can dual wield the weapon as long as you have the two weapon fighting feat usually if you put a weapon in the offhand slot you don't get access to those weapon skills however if Faith breaker is in the offhand you still get access to absolute power so then you can use another weapon you like with skills that work for what build you're trying to do and then you have a backup knockback skill in case you need it I don't have footage of this for Faith breaker and I don't really want to level that up again but we can use the ritual dagger as an example we keep the blood sacrificeability no matter what weapon goes into the main hand now with all of this in mind as release Looms on the horizon it might be time to think about the weapons that work with your builds and how those weapon skills work with each other and the rest of your team Faith breaker is one of those for me on a Battle Master fighter disarming attack is a strength save so you spend a die to hit an enemy with weakening strike and if they get weak grip you hit them with disarming strike to make them drop their weapon shove them out of the way take the weapon and maybe use it on them to add insult to injury I'm really excited to find more weapons that seem innocuous but become absolutely brutal with the right build the Myriad of options available are enough to give me a severe case of decision paralysis and that's a fantastic problem to have in a game with as much replayability as Baldur's Gate 3. but what about you what's your favorite weapon to use in your favorite build let me know in the comments below and with that we're done like the video if you liked the video dislike it if you disliked it and until next time I'm space coconut and you're welcome [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Space Coconut

Views: 6,016

Keywords: baldur's gate 3, weapon, early access, everburn blade, best weapons, tier list, weaponskill, absolute power

Id: uBXAZLq-TAw

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023