The ONE SHOT LIGHTNING LORD - BG3 Honour Mode Build Guide

hello my friends and welcome back to another balers Gate 3 build guide hope you're all doing well today I'm going to be covering one of the most broken combos in the game the onot lightning Lord this build is in fact so powerful that honestly I wouldn't recommend playing the game through with it because it will simply One-Shot pretty much every enemy in the game and so you'll actually lose out on a lot of the fun and challenge of the game if you play this build all the way through but it's so cool and so powerful that I definitely wanted to cover it I'm using Gail as the example character cuz this is at core a wizard build and he's the wizard of the party so let's do that and he also already has some of the spells that we want access to for this build to work uh let's just jump right into it and start building the onot lightning Lord so this build is based around a spell that is honestly outside of this context a pretty bad spell and that spell is witch bolt witch bolt is pretty inefficient damage but it has two things that are go going for it in the context of this build one it's lightning damage which will become very important later two actually three things going for it two it's an attack roll which means that it which it doesn't in fact tell you in this uh tool tip but because it's an attack roll that means that it can critically hit and three it scales very well with upcasting it's only 1 D12 damage at level one but if you upcast it it can an extra D12 of damage every level you upcast it so a level six witch bolt is doing 6 D12 putting it pretty close to on par with level six spells like chain lightning in terms of damage but since it's an attack roll it can critically hit all right let's start building the character we've we're going to start by taking a level of Sorcerer And The leveling order for this build is actually going to be pretty important uh the build will not come online until level four so you're probably going to want to play something else until fourth level but starting at level four the core combo of the build comes online and you should be able to start one-shotting pretty much every enemy that you see the reason we take sorcerer first is that Sorcerers have Constitution save proficiency and since you will be concentrating on spells frequently with this build that's very important secondly there's a kind of esoteric Corner case that requires us to take the levels in this order which I'll talk about when we take our third level for our stat spread we are going to go with a pretty weird looking one so bear with me for a moment here we are not actually going to Max Charisma we're going to Max intelligence because this build is going to use the fact that Wizards can learn spells of any level in order to uh with even only one level of wizard from Scrolls in order to learn their highle spells and we're going to take 16 Constitution as almost all of my builds do 12 wisdom and 14 Charisma uh I recommend for this build that you rely on the gloves of dexterity for your dexterity although you may wish to put a couple points in decks um early on before you get the gloves of dexterity but this build is going to want to wear those in order to maximize your initiative and so on later on for our subass because this is a lightening build we are of course taking storm sorcery and for our spell selection we are going to take to work on taking spell spells with sorcerer that don't require saving throws or attack roles so sorcerer is going to provide our utility spells so for example we can take shield and um enhance leap or expeditious retreat at level one something along those lines as long as you aren't taking spells that require a save or an attack rooll you'll be fine because we're maxing intelligence over Charisma for ourant trip selection same rule applies you just don't want one that require an attack roll or a saving throw so take utility can trips like minor illusion Mage hand friends and let's say true strike just to annoy everyone your skills don't matter although if you are a human like Gail you can get access to stealth which will allow you to gain advantage on your witch bolt attack roles that can be very useful um starting every combat in stealth is definitely helpful for this build at level two we're going to Branch out and we're going to take cleric and the cleric domain that we're going to take is Tempest domain so you actually don't want to select fog cloud with your sorcerer levels because you'll get that anyways from your cleric domain um this also gives you access to Heavy Armor which makes you pretty defensible even without high dexterity although you'll get high dexterity later on from the gloves of dexterity for our deity I mean it's scale so we should probably say mistra right but it doesn't matter otherwise and for our cleric can Trips Again you're looking for utility can trips like guidance resistance and light stuff like that rather than ones that allow for saving throws because our wisdom is low for your prepared spells the important one is to have prepared is create or destroy water and you can start to see where the core combo of this build is coming in when an enemy is wet every fanfiction writer's dream they take double damage from lightning spells that means that we are able to double the damage of our witch bolts whenever we cast create or destroy water on an enemy as a sorcerer we're going to get access to quick and spell meaning that we can cast this as a bonus action before firing off our lightning spells and doubling the damage of our lightning spells incredibly powerful already but it only gets better for our second prepared spell you can take something like healing word um just always useful to have finally at level three we are going to Branch out into our third level and take a level in wizard Wizards learn spells from Scrolls and they base what spells they can learn off of their total cter level not their total live uh wizard level their total liver level I don't know why I stumbled over that um with a level in Wizard at level three we can now learn second level spells so this will allow us to uh learn and prepare high level spells throughout this build mostly this won't matter because this build is going to be casting witch bolt at pretty much with all of its spell slots uh which bolt and and create water but the wizard spells all give you access to good utility spells as well as the higher level lightning spells which have some use cases as well for our spell selection of course we need to make sure that we learn which bolt um although it looks like my Gail already knows it but you'll want to select it here here and then you're going to want to take any spells that you need access to like magic Missile like uh Grease the the ones that give the opponents an option to save against them are very useful to be able to take from your wizard levels um I it does look like Gail has already learned witch Bolt from a scroll which is why it isn't showing up in this menu but you should select it at this level for your other spells it doesn't matter so much um obviously some of this will be based on what you've found Scrolls for but of course we're going to want to make sure that we have access to Shield though we do have that from our sorcerer levels as well at level four we take our second level in cleric and the reason that we want to take wizard last so I should mention this as well is that when you cast a spell from a scroll or item um the save d C or attack rle for that spell is based on the casting stat of the last new class you took if that doesn't make any sense don't worry it it just doesn't make any sense um that's how things just how things work in Boulder's Gate so by taking wizard third we set our casting stat for items to intelligence meaning that when we later are using a very important item to this build uh we will cast off of intelligence for that item rather than than wisdom or Charisma and so we're raising intelligence as much as possible that's why we also take witch bolt with our wizard levels rather than our cleric or sorcerer levels so that the hit roll from from that is based off of our intelligence all right second level cleric we get access to destructive wrath this lets you use your channel Divinity whenever you deal lightning damage to deal maximum damage and of course when the enemy is Wet This deals double maximum damage Dage since we're rolling d12's maximum damage is 12 per level of our witch bolt and then you double that so already that is going to be even at level three that's going to be just 48 damage right off the bat because you're rolling 2 D12 with a level two or at level four you're rolling two D12 with a level two spell slot and then doubling it because of the Enemy being wet so that is going to be um 48 damage using Channel Divinity or uh 96 damage if you roll a critical hit or can guarantee a critical hit using for example hold person from an ally already you can see where the amount of damage that this build does starts to get out of hand but it only again gets better from here at this level we're going to go back into sorcerer because we want to gain more sorcery points sorcery points are going to be pretty important for this build later on in particular when we get uh uh level two sorcerer we now have access to Twin spell and with our um which we can't yet twin a level three witch bolt because we're only a level two sorcerer but a level two twined witch bolt remember each of these is dealing 48 damage well that's 96 damage or with double Critical Hits that's going to be what's that 92 damage from a single spell slot and that's with a level two spell and as we level it up up it's going to we're going to be able to Twin higher and higher leveled Slots of witch bolt for incredibly high damage output we also take distant spell just cuz it's the best of these other meta Magics for our second spell we're going uh for our spell selection here again just take U focus on taking utility spells anything that you don't have access to that you think you might need of course we might take something like disguise self this build because you get decent Charisma actually does make a decent party face so it's totally reasonable to take that at level three sorcerer we now get access to Quicken spell allowing us to do everything in one turn so now you can cast a quickened create water to get the enemy wet before uh in the same turn as you then fire off a twin witch bolt um once you have enough sorcery points to be able to do that that's going to allow you to do your whole combo in a single turn basically one-shotting any enemy that's on the field for our spell selection again you probably want to take something like Misty step just utility spells are very important to have now we go sorcerer for the whole rest of the way we take a feat and take the ability Pro Improvement to boost our intelligence that makes our hit rolls with our uh witch bolts even better and for our spell selection again just take utility spells like Darkness knock something like that this will be somewhat based on what scroll you found for Wizard cuz of course you can still learn all of these spells from Scrolls as a wizard for your cantrip selection uh because this is a sorcerer canant trip we don't need shocking grasp shocking grasp even though it's lightning themed is not that important for this build um but it is it is kind of nice just for uh for melee actions um but because it's based on your charisma you probably want to get that from Wizard if you're going to take it so we'll just take blade Ward here level five sorcerer gets you access to counter spell and haste so you can replace something else that you learned with one of those these are both highly useful utility spells so definitely recommend having access to them um and haste can also give you a fun combo where you haste yourself you quick and haste on yourself and then have two actions you can't use haste in the same turn that you are using witch bolt because witch bolt is also concentration so don't make that mistake it will knock you out of haste and you'll stun yourself but you can use haste and then fire off a lightning bolt in the same turn potions of speed are also very useful for this build for a reason I'll show you later on at sorcerer level six you also get the um heart of the storm ability which does some additional damage every time you cast one of a light a lightning spell which you're going to do frequently and gain resistance to lightning and thunder damage which is quite useful at certain points in the game uh we can just continue to take utility spells like protection from energy or flight again we're mostly leveling sorcerer at this point just to gain access to more sorcery points because it makes our combos more consistent consistent um because twinning witch bolt is so core to this build you need as many sorcery points as you can get to make that work very well here again utility spells same story we can take something like greater invisibility level up again and we get to add our intelligence once more max maxing out our to hit roll with witch bolt and we'll take let's say I don't know Stone skin something like that dimension door at this point you should have access to pretty much every spell in the game because you've been learning them as a wizard so what you're taking as your sorcerer spells don't matter as much just take them any spell that you know you're always going to want access to that doesn't have a save DC and finally at sorcerer level five you can take um something like wall of stone that's very useful in some encounters and and just very nice to have and we max out at nine sorcery points so let's talk about the core combo of this build and items so the reason that we want to take wizard last is that we get access to marah Hesh here which you can find in act three and when equipped this will allow you to cast chain lightning the level six lightning spell once per short rest once once you have set it to uh once you have set its ability to lightning um having done that let me let me uh set that up which is kind of annoying to do actually need to go to Common add this to custom here and then once we attune this to lightning you gain additional damage lightning damage equal to your proficiency bonus already very nice because that's going to increase our uh damage very slightly but every little bit counts especially when we're doubling or occasionally quadrupling it um and we get access to lightning bolt and chain lightning oh we cast bolt of Doom that's really funny cuz this counts as a as a lightning ability so we are when we cast chain lightning we um or when we cast this we trigger our storm sorcerer power that's actually really funny um but anyways we get access to chain lightning or lightning bolt from marah Hesh here giving us additional cast of these lightning spells chain lightning we can maximize with our Channel Divinity action and do a whole bunch of additional damage so let's take a look at the core combo of the build and then I'll talk a little bit more about what else you can do with it so if we enter turnbas mode what I'm going to do is drink a potion of speed as a bonus action or actually we we would want to do that ahead of time um so I'm going to drink a potion of speed and then we'll enter turn base mode then we're going to cast quickened create water so we're going to Quicken create water on let's say these two and then we still have two actions left so we're going to cast twin witch bolt uh which I have to prepare there we go all right come on witch bolt which we will twin notice that these both have the wet condition these characters both have the wet condition and then we can activate destructive r that's 152 damage or 150 damage to each of them I actually don't know why it did different damage that's kind of funny um oh cuz lel's got armor equipped that reduces incoming damage by two but you can see that that did just 150 flat damage because we maximized the damage and doubled it because they're they're wet um and we could do even better than that if we had rolled a critical hit or if we had increased uh the damage or if we had guaranteed a critical hit in some way because this is an attack Ro we can use something like the luck of the far Realms elth power or hold person or hold monster from an ally to guarantee a critical hit turning that 150 damage into 300 that's going to one-hot pretty much everything in the game but uh we also still have a second action so if anything happens to survive you can reactivate witch bolt on whatever is targeted for additional damage now the reactivated witch bolt is not going to be as high of a level but it's still going to be a bunch of additional damage cuz it it doesn't maintain the um level at which you cast witch bolt for reasons I don't entirely understand but um nevertheless it's still going to be an additional pile of damage or we could have used a lightning bolt or chain lightning in addition to that for even more damage so anything that survives the initial burst of 300 damage of which I think there's like two or three enemies in the game that can do that at all uh you can then deal you can then pile on at minimum 100 or so more damage um we're doubling a chain Lightning Spell so on average cuz you're not going to be able to maximize it a second time because you've already used your channel Divinity but oh God the noises are getting are really getting to me there um you are going to maximize chain lightning and or have chain lightning not maximized but that's still an additional 45 average damage from 108 damage doubled to 90 damage uh meaning and then it will split to many enemies as well so you're going to be dealing something like 400 or 500 damage to two enemies in a single round of combat basically there's nothing that can survive that so this build will one shot every single enemy in the game unless they are immune or resistant to lightning damage if they're just resistant then you can cancel out that resistance by making them wet which makes them vulnerable so then they take full damage they don't take the double damage but they do take full damage from it um and you are going to be able to one-hot pretty much anything that's not completely immune to lightning damage there's a couple combos that you can use with allies as well that make this even better for example the water meridon form from a druid Ally or from a condra Elemental spell can cast uh the healing Mist so that's an easy way to apply wet we already have one way to do it with a quickened create water but it definitely will allow you to do so as well and of course remember that during even in addition to this combo you're also just a fully featured wizard with access to Quicken and twin spell so you can do all of the things that Norm Wizards can do while also having access to the incredible power of this one shot combo as for itemization the only really important thing is the gloves of dexterity marah hesar of course does lots of extra damage you're going to want potions of speed to allow you to reactivate witch bolt or cast a second spell if there's a in the rare event that there's a fight where 300 initial burst damage is not enough um then the potions of speed let you do that additionally um and anything that increases your to hit roll or spell save DC is very useful as well so things that increase your your bonus to attack roles and spell save DCS like this robe of the weave are very powerful as well um other than that winning initiative is always good so items that increase your initiative but for the most part this build is actually pretty gear independent also remember that you do have access to Heavy Armor and shields because you're a tempest cleric so you can wear any armor or uh clothing in the game whatever has the best utility at that point for you all right my friends I think that's pretty much all there is to it this build is really just an incredible way to one-hot every enemy in the game um with 300 initial burst damage from a critical hit you are going to kill everything and you get to do it all while being a fully functional wizard I hope that you enjoyed this video and as always if you have do please uh take the time to you know leave a comment like the video and of course you can subscribe to my channel for more of this and other strategy game content cheers my friends I'll catch you next time

Channel: Cephalopocalypse

Views: 125,652

Keywords: Etarran, Cephalopocalypse, Baldur's Gate 3, Larian, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Build, Guide, Strategy, Tactics, Tutorial

Id: g4fpAhtm5xo

Length: 23min 5sec (1385 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2023