#but i prefer bg3 combat | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bunabi · 2 months ago

Note

You don't have to respond to this, I just don't have anyone irl who likes DA as much as me, but as a big fan of Origins I keep hoping for the next game to scratch an itch for me and with each game I get further and further from what I'm looking for. The in depth character backgrounds (that had real impact on the game!), the combat (it turns out I lothe RTS unless it's DAO but for some reason I love DAO's combat so much), and the impact of your choices are all things that seem to diminish with each game. I also agree with your frustration at not being able to be mean, I'm usually a goodie two shoes in games but my favorite Warden was one I made pragmatic and comfortable with authority to a dangerous degree because the brutal choices in Awakening result in the best outcomes for Ferelden. Plus even if you prefer the kind choices, you can't make choices unless you're given them. Luckily there's BG3 and Avowed coming out but it still feels like such a loss every time a new DA is released.

I wanna respond because you raise good points. 😔👍🏿

I feel the same way. I'm ride-or-die for Thedas as a world — the lore is easy to jump into and the amount of half-truths makes speculation really fun — but the games have strayed further and further from my personal tastes.

No DA entry is the same in its approach or execution, so I think having mixed opinions is completely natural.

Compared to Mass Effect which sticks to it's formula pretty closely from ME1 to Andromeda, DA is constantly changing. I think it could have benefited from more consistency. I understand why that wasn't always possible.

You're allowed to be disappointed or wistful or critical without it being construed as like...giving ammunition to bozos or tearing the developers down.

If we can't discuss those things what are we supposed to do? Sit in a circle pretending those features never mattered lol? That I never liked having more roleplay freedom, never liked companion relationships having more tension, never cared about tactics? No I don't think I will.

And I say this while fully accepting DAV for what it is. Even if I wasn't blessed with a code from EA I had every intention of playing it myself. I bought the art book. I've done two zines this year and contributed to two more. My career revolves around making art directly inspired by Inquisition's. Haven't read all the comics & books but I'm as 'hardcore' as it gets.

Me, of all people, being called a fake fan for wanting blood magic or not feeling the character model proportions shows how emotionally charged and unhinged things have gotten

All that to say: I think the best way to be a fan of anything is to acknowledge the good and the bad and let others do the same. So long as those conversations are in good faith there's nothing to lose and everything to gain fr.

#long post #sorry I have Essay Fingers and its incurable #Lisa of TLC said it first and said it best #be me—do what I believe in and be myself—and I suggest everyone do the same thing

68 notes · View notes

paragonraptors · 7 months ago

Text

YEHAW DA:V REVEAL THOUGHTS BELOW!!

Overall: Feeling so excited for this game. I'm climbing up the walls. I can't believe that was 20 minutes, it felt like 10. Need this in my hands yesterday.

What I liked:

-Holy fuck wow wow wow the hair looks like nothing I've seen in a video game before.

-Combat seems very different but also a natural progression of gameplay past. Real-time turn-based was always a little on the clunkier side, and while it never really bothered me, moving towards something more ME-style was expected. Very excited about being able to aim a bow. Would like to know what difficulty they were showcasing bc I'm considering jumping right into a Nightmare run.

-Now that I've been soulsborne-pilled the prospect of a parry mechanic has me buzzing.

-I feel like people are gonna dunk on the "stiffer" animation, but I prefer it so much more than the BG3/HZD constant wobbling. It'll make the key performances stand out instead of mostly jangling keys in front of a baby and letting the big moments get lost in the sauce. (Not that the aformentioned games didn't have good animation, just. If your characters don't need to move their whole body to convey dialogue I'd prefer if they didn't.)

-The sublety in the facial animations is CRAZY.

-The roleplay dialogue seems really reactive!! And the cuts to inject the unique dialogues feels smooth. I'm sure there will still be moments where it's easy to tell, but still cool. Seems like they're gonna be paying more attention to your personality type like DA2 too.

-So excited about Harding and Neve as companions and can't wait to meet everyone else.

-Neve's staff/wand makes me excited to see what kinds of focus options we'll get as a mage AAAA.

-God the costumes have so much swag. One of my hottest of many BG3 takes was that the costumes were overall flavorless. (Really hoping they didn't change the Grey Warden uniforms though that would really disappoint me.)

-Cinematography looks fantastic. Lots of well set up shots.

-NGL I felt something when Solas showed up. Wasn't expecting that. And while not perfect, I liked his interaction with Varric. Their relationship from Inquisition really slips under the radar if you're not bothering to look.

-Varric has never gotten over the trauma of what happened with Anders and it breaks my heart in a good way. God you could see it in his eyes!! [chef's kiss]

-However, I definitely have to kill Solas now for what transpired in this preview.

What I'm iffy about:

-The voice peformances feel a bit stilted. Not really what I'm used to from Bioware and I feel like it's important when the animations are more subdued. Hopefully this feeling will change when I get more of the game.

-The dialogue also felt a bit dumbed down. "Solas is doing his ritual!" "Yes. Solas' ritual. The ritual that we have to stop." Again, hopefully this is symptomatic of a tutorial level/trying to onboard newbies quickly and not the whole game lol. While I prefer this to dialogue that tries to sound smarter than it is, I'm really hoping we see an overall improvement from Inquisition.

-Sort of wish they went with the Andromeda dialogue system instead of bringing back Inquisition's, but I do like that it seems all dialogue options are getting tonal indicators again and they're not as easily conflated with morality. (Though I imagine people will STILL interpret it that way.)

-A little confused about them introducting Minrathous' panopticon shit and then immediately swerving into Solas' ritual. Would have liked some breathing room on that kind of worldbuilding.

- While I'm generally open minded about the change, I Do Not Love not being able to switch to playing companions. Might turn around on this if your ability to issue them commands opens up the closer you are to them/the more you grow into a leadership role. I do like that it seems you will eventually be able to command when they use abilities a la OG Mass Effect bc that was my biggest beef with the Andromeda gameplay, esp on Nightmare/Insanity difficulty.

-Not crazy about the new Pride demon design where are their leggies.

-Not really a Criticism, but they are definitely setting up for Varric to die and while I get it, narratively, I'm NOT HAPPY. Dragon Age has been almost allergic to scripted deaths so it's also gonna feel like being dunked in an ice bath. EVIL STUFF. IN DENIAL.

#dragon age #dragon age spoilers #had to come back to add some things i forgot

132 notes · View notes

notomys-mordax-blog · 7 days ago

Text

I've let my thoughts marinate for a while after finishing up Dragon Age Veilguard. In the spirit of contributing to a fandom that I love, I'm going to be shouting my general thoughts about the game into the void instead of having the decency to keep them in my head.

TLDR: it's complicated. Better than expected, but still pretty flawed.

Things I liked:

I was initially pretty meh on the toonier direction they took the character art in. It felt like ... knock-off overwatch. However the style really grew on me as I played the game and I found that the character models were really expressive in a fun way.

The environment design was really colorful and fun! One of my biggest critiques of DA:O was how ... brown and ugly the game was. While I think it was probably the right artistic choice to remove the hilariously over the top post-combat blood splatter effects, I do miss it. This game had some really interesting visual design.

Watching Solas's worst memories like episodes of Real Housewives with the crew.

The combat was also more fun than expected. I definitely prefer tactical combat in games, and don't generally enjoy action games, but I had fun with it and felt like it struck (for me) the right balance between difficulty and frustration.

There were some really interesting and subtle things in some of the writing (especially when combined with character expressions). There were little characterization details that I thought were really well done (for example: the fact that Lucanis was obviously the most rattled at weisshaupt) . The prison of regret was a high point in the series.

I really liked a lot of the big lore reveals.

It was fun seeing some of the environments that we've only heard about. in the previous games.

I actually really enjoyed how direct Taash's gender adventure was. There was no room for "well actually, they aren't non-binary, they are this unique fantasy term that isn't actually queer". I also enjoyed how it acted as a vehicle for the other gnc characters in the story to have their moments. Bonus points for also having non-binary characters doing something other than gender with their lives.

The game was functional, complete and ran well on launch! I had to put down BG3 for like two months because it was unplayably buggy when I picked it up, and the ending of DA:I really doesn't have any impact without Tresspasser, which came out much later.

Things I didn't like:

The writing was very uneven and pretty awkward at times. The number of times the phrases "Gods, Rituals and Artifacts" were uttered by different characters, often without any further explanation, really made me itchy. It was really weird to me why the characters kept calling the Evanuris Gods (especially with a non-elven Rook). I also wanted to grab Neve by the shoulders and shake her whenever she talked about the venatori doing a ritual. WHAT KIND OF RITUAL? GIVE ME SOME JUICY LORE TIDBITS BEFORE I CHEW MY ARM OFF.

The venatori and the antaam were straight out of Saturday cartoon villains. Their motivation also made absolutely no sense from a world-building point of view (maybe if they leaned more into the fact that the elven gods were also the Tevinter old gods ...?). This whole conflict really felt ... underbaked.

I can respect the game design choice to want the player to be completely heroic, and frankly -- given that most people don't pick the "evil" path, it makes sense to devote more effort in creating permutations of the good path ... but I do feel like they really could have pushed the themes of "as a leader, sometimes you won't have any good choices" a little bit harder (idk -- I think it would have been interesting if instead of the blight dragon, you would have to chose whether or not you'd ally yourself with the venatori and leave Treviso to the Antaam or vice versa).

DA:I does a good job convincing me that Inky is creating complicated alliances between different powerful factions. DA:V falls flat in this regard. I think they were aiming for the different factions to feel small and scrappy, but with the exception of the Shadow Dragons (and maybe the Lords) ... the Wardens, the Mourn Watch, and the Crows are major political forces ... which feel weirdly small.

All of the companions were pretty ... unobjectionable and straightforward heroes. As someone who personally loved the dynamic between Anders and Fenris in DA:2, I was pretty disappointed by the lack of inter-party conflict. Serious cultural conflicts between characters such as Emmrich and Tassh were resolved .... without much fuss. I didn't feel like any of the conversations about the fact that Lucanis kills people for money had any teeth.

In that vein, I felt like the worldbuilding was also pretty defanged. Topics of racism and religious oppression were very prominent in earlier games. I think it's pretty obvious why having an oppressed racial minorities gods being the main villain would be a bad look. Heck, I can also understand and respect these themes being less fun for the writers to explore in the hellhole that is 2025, but I think this could have been handled in a more elegant way. Instead it felt weird and hand-wavy.

The crows really must've hired a PR team after that whole incident with Zev. My headcanons really had to do some heavy lifting.

We finally get to see Minrathous, the biggest magical city in Thedas ... and the area we explore is just a generic fantasy fishing town? We see the cool floating canons in the intro sequence! Give us more of those.

The game was inconsistent about incorporating bits of Rook's origins into the dialog. For example, the seer in Rivain explaining their relationship with spirits felt really weird with a Lord of Fortune Rook. Another (minor) example, Mourn Watch Rook eats the fish, it would have been neat to have the option for him to be vegetarian (given that this is common in Nevarra).

Romance is my favorite part of dragon age, and I felt like all of the romances were very ... paint by numbers.

Dreadwolf would have been a much better name.

Some of the comments from people involved in the game (specifically the AMA -- but also the whole "this is the most romantic dragon age game ever") had a weird vibe.

Where are Solas's agents? What happened to them?!

We were not betrayed by any of our apostate companions, 0/10 this is an important aspect of any dragon age game.

Rook felt like the boss that nobody wanted to invite to do anything fun. The companions seemed like they had a lot of dynamic with each other, but they never really directly spoke with Rook. It was weird how you couldn't talk to them. You had to awkwardly listen in on their conversations. Pretty much all of the companions have more chemistry with each other than Rook.

I have more thoughts about specific characters and plot points that I may share later, but I needed to expunge this from my mind like an exorcism.

#datv #datv critical #veilguard critical #dragon age #veilguard spoilers #datv spoilers

29 notes · View notes

divorcedwife · 2 months ago

Note

Did you prefer Baldur's Gate 3 or DATV?

oh, bg3 for sure 😔 for me, not even a close contest unfortunately! there are some things i enjoyed more in datv, the final boss is a big one, and i certainly have issues with some of the writing in bg3 (and even more issues with the way larian kept updating it to make it worse - why would let the fandom direct the game, why)! but the writing of most of the companions in datv made me straight up think maybe i was too harsh on bg3. at least characters there argue for real a couple times ; at least they have some flaws ; at least bg3 feels like it was written for adults! and bg3 also has a storyline for the player if they pick dark urge, whereas rook in datv gets very few chances to express an interior life, and makes corny jokes and heartfelt comments unprompted all the time

i want to say that while my expectations were low, i really did want to like it, and did not come in ready to be a bitter hater. i dont hate datv and i will probably play it again once or twice, cause the ending made me want to re-play it with more awareness, i liked the combat, and i think it will be improved on replay by not feeling the pressure to give everyone a fair shot and just skipping some people. cause some of the dialogue was like physically painful 🥲

#i try not to talk about characters i disliked cause i dont want to hurt people who like them but ohhhh i suffered #anon #answered

28 notes · View notes

wyllzel · 11 months ago

Text

🔗 Link to Google Doc.

This is how I built Wyll in my Origin Wyll playthrough. This keeps Wyll in his canon Warlock class, while also ensuring he’s handy with his trusty rapier.

The vibe of this Warlock is a spellcaster (Eldritch Blast, AOE, and Enchantment spells) with good melee action. (Very gishy! 👽) The goal is to build up both Arcane Synergy and Arcane Acuity.

Leveling up is fairly flexible, so the focus for this guide is on gear interaction. Key pieces of gear include the Ring of Arcane Synergy (Act 1), Helmet of Arcane Acuity (Act 2), and Band of the Mystic Scoundrel (Act 3).

Overall, this is a fairly standard Fiend Bladelock build, and is not so much an “end all, be all” as it is a basic (but strategic!) approach.

(Fair warning: Possible spoilers ahead!)

Leveling

Please note that this guide is really just my personal preference! I recommend fully reading through the Wiki page on BG3’s Warlock so you get a good idea of what this class can do. In this guide, I’ve added a star (⭐) next to each of the class features or spells that I especially like.

To start with, this is my Wyll’s base stats:

Since Pact of the Blade Warlock’s “Bind Pact Weapon” feature scales weapon Attack Rolls and Damage Rolls off your spellcasting modifier, I recommend heavily prioritizing Charisma. The Warlock class becomes very SAD (Single Ability Dependent) with Charisma which is very convenient.

I prioritized Dexterity after Charisma because your Dexterity modifier affects your Initiative – and the higher your Initiative, the easier it is to get a leg up in combat. Additionally, your Dexterity modifier is added to your AC (when wearing Robes or Light Armor, which this build will be utilizing).

The next prioritized stat is Constitution, which is good for maintaining Concentration spells as well as boosting your total HP.

Level 1

One Level 1 Warlock Spell slot

Select:

Subclass: The Fiend

Two Cantrips: ELDRITCH BLAST 💥, Minor Illusion ⭐

Two Warlock spells (Level 1): Hellish Rebuke, Command

The Fiend subclass gives you:

Dark One’s Blessing (Temporary bonus HP when you kill a hostile creature)

Access to the Spells: Burning Hands, Command

Eldritch Blast genuinely solves any and all problems. (Force Damage is especially good in BG3, where 99% of your enemies do not have Force Resistance.) And Minor Illusion is a really good utility spell – especially if you’re into barrelmancy and need a safe and reliable method to cluster enemies.

The added HP from Dark One’s Blessing is really good, especially in earlier levels (Act 1) when your party is extremely squishy.

Level 2

Two Level 1 Warlock Spell slots

Select:

Eldritch Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast ⭐

One Warlock Spell (Level 1): Armour of Agathys

Replace a Spell: N/A

Level 3

Improved Warlock Spell Slots: Warlock Spells are now Level 2

Select:

Pact Boon: Pact of the Blade

One Warlock Spell (Level 2): Cloud of Daggers

Replace a Spell: Armour of Agathys → Hold Person

Level 4

Select:

Feat: Ability Improvement (ASI) = +1 CHA, +1 DEX ⭐

One Cantrip: Mage Hand

One Warlock Spell (Level 2): Shatter

Replace a Spell: N/A

Level 5

Deepened Pact: Pact of the Blade → Gain an Extra Attack with your weapon ⭐

Scaling Cantrips (ie., Eldritch Blast fires an additional beam) ⭐

Improved Warlock Spell Slots: Warlock Spells are now Level 3

Select:

One Eldritch Invocation: Devil’s Sight ⭐

One Warlock Spell (Level 3): Hunger of Hadar ⭐

Replace a Spell: Hellish Rebuke → Counterspell

The Fiend subclass gives you:

Access to the Spells: Fireball, Stinking Cloud

Level 6

Select:

One Warlock Spell (Level 3): Fireball

Replace a Spell: N/A

The Fiend subclass gives you:

Dark One’s Own Luck: Add +1d10 to an Ability Check once per Short Rest

Level 7

Improved Warlock Spell Slots: Warlock Spells are now Level 4

Select:

One Warlock Spell (Level 4): Banishment

Replace a Spell: Cloud of Daggers → Wall of Fire

Eldritch Invocation: Armour of Shadows ⭐

Armor of Shadows is excellent if you’re wearing robes. Because you’ll probably be wearing the Potent Robe at this point (early Act 2), this Invocation is particularly useful.

Level 8

Select:

Feat: ASI +2 to Charisma

One Warlock Spell (Level 4): Fear

Replace a Spell: N/A

Alternative Feats:

You may want to consider Alert to get the jump on enemies, especially when playing in Honor Mode.

War Caster is a good idea if you plan to lean heavily on Concentration Spells such as Hunger of Hadar or Wall of Fire.

Another good Feat for Concentration Spells is Resilient, which you’d take for Constitution. However, your initial Ability Score numbers would probably look different than how I have mine set up!

Spell Sniper is fun if you plan to lean heavily on Attack Roll spells – like Eldritch Blasts!

Level 9

Improved Warlock Spell Slots: Warlock Spells are now Level 5

Select:

One Warlock Spell (Level 5): Hold Monster ⭐

Replace a Spell: N/A

Eldritch Invocation: Life Drinker ⭐

Hold Monster is extremely useful in Act 3, where a lot of the major bosses you face (Orin in her Slayer form, Raphael, etc.) are Monsters.

Level 10

Scaling Cantrips (ie., Eldritch Blast fires an additional beam) ⭐

Select:

One Warlock Spell (Level 5): Flame Strike

Replace a Spell: N/A

The Fiend subclass gives you:

Fiendish Resilience: Once per Short Rest, choose a Damage Type to become Resistant to

Level 11

Gain an additional Warlock Spell slot (for a total of 3 Warlock Spell slots)

Select:

One Warlock Spell (Level 5): Cone of Cold

Mystic Arcanum: Eyebite

Any of the Mystic Arcanum spells are good, though! I just find that Arcane Gate, Circle of Death, and Flesh to Stone are only useful situationally. Create Undead is good for summons-focused teams.

Level 12

Select:

Feat: ASI +2 to Dexterity, or see Level 8.

One Warlock Spell (Level 5): Blight

Replace a Spell: N/A

Eldritch Invocation: One With Shadows

Final Composition

By Level 12, Wyll can have the following notable qualities:

Three Level 5 Warlock Spell slots

One Level 6 Warlock Spell that can be used once per Long Rest

Three Damage die on Damaging Warlock cantrips – AKA three bolts of Eldritch Blast for 3d10+5 Damage (the +5 applies to each Blast bolt)

An Extra Attack (Weapon) from Pact of the Blade

Spells List and Invocations

Note: Scaling Cantrips (Level 5, Level 10) is based on your overall caster level rather than your Warlock level. As such, if you multiclass Wyll with a class like Bard or Paladin, he’ll still get the fully scaled three bolts per Eldritch Blast at Level 10.

Gear

The goal of this gear selection is to maximize the effectiveness of Wyll’s spells – particularly Enchantment spells. With the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel, Enchantment spells can be cast as a Bonus Action. Without this Band, Wyll generally won't be doing much with his Bonus Action as a Warlock – so let's fix that!

To align with his backstory, Wyll should be a formidable swordsman as well as spellcaster. As such, the weaponry in this build enhances his spellcasting, and ensures that his spellcasting enhances his sword fighting as well. (Synergizing!!!)

Headwear: Helmet of Arcane Acuity

Battle Acuity: Whenever you deal damage with a weapon attack, you gain Arcane Acuity (+1 to Spell Attack Rolls and Spell Save DC) for 2 turns.

+1 to Dexterity Saving Throws

Armor: Elegant Studded Leather

14 AC + Dexterity Modifier (18 AC)

+2 to Initiative Rolls

Can cast Shield once per Short Rest

Alternatively, you can use the Potent Robe and cast Armour of Shadows to bump your AC. However, you cannot wear the Helmet of Arcane Acuity if you do so (the helmet qualifies as Light Armor, meaning it cannot be used simultaneously with Armour of Shadows). If you’d like to use the Potent Robe instead, an alternative headwear is the Diadem of Arcane Synergy.

However, I wouldn't recommend the Potent Robe for a Fiend Warlock once you get the Elegant Studded Leather or an equivalent Light Armor. This is because the Potent Robe's added temporary HP (equal to your Warlock's Charisma Modifier) overrides the Dark One's Blessing, which will grant your Warlock temporary HP equal to your Warlock's Charisma Modifier plus your Warlock's Level.

Cloak: Cloak of the Weave

Arcane Enchantment: Gain a +1 bonus to Spell Save DC and Spell Attack Rolls.

Absorb Elements: Absorb elemental damage once per Short Rest. Take half damage from the next elemental attack targeting you, and deal an additional 1d6 of that element type on your next attack.

Alternatively, if you expect Wyll to regularly be in melee range, I’d recommend the Cloak of Protection (defensive, +1 to AC) or Thunderskin Cloak (offensive, pairs well with the Spineshudder Amulet).

The Nymph Cloak pairs well with the Band of the Mystic Scoundrel.

Handwear: Daredevil Gloves

+1 to Spell Attack Rolls

Daredevil Proximity: Can make Ranged Spell Attack Rolls as Melee Spell Attack Rolls

For boosting the effectiveness of Eldritch Blasting! Alternatively, the Gloves of Battlemage’s Power would be perfect for this build, but apparently they’re currently bugged (as of Feb. 20, 2024, Hotfix #18).

The Spellmight Gloves, Quickspell Gloves, Gemini Gloves, and Helldusk Gloves are also interesting options.

Footwear: Helldusk Boots

Ignores Difficult Terrain

Cannot be forcibly moved by spells or actions

Use a reaction to succeed on a Saving Throw

Hellcrawler: Teleport to an area and deal 2d8 Fire Damage upon landing in a 3m/10ft zone

Utilizing infernal gear is very synergetic with Wyll’s story. However, these boots are good for characters who want to move into melee range. Alternative teleportation boots include the Disintegrating Night Walkers or the Spaceshunt Boots.

Additionally, the Boots of Stormy Clamour pair well with the Spineshudder Amulet.

Amulet: Spineshudder Amulet

Inflict Reverberation when you deal Damage with a Ranged Spell Attack

Eldritch Blasts are Ranged Spell Attacks. :)

Ring A: Ring of Arcane Synergy

Synergetic Cantrip: When you deal damage with a Cantrip, you gain Arcane Synergy for 2 turns

When you have Arcane Synergy, your Weapon Attacks deal additional damage equal to your Spell Casting Ability Modifier. This makes a lot of sense since Wyll’s highest stat should be Charisma (aka his Spell Casting Ability Modifier), and because Wyll will probably be Eldritch Blasting (Cantrip) a lot.

Ring B: Band of the Mystic Scoundrel

Illusion Quickening: After hitting a creature with a Weapon Attack, you can cast Illusion or Enchantment spells as a Bonus Action

This item is why this build prioritizes Enchantment spells! Otherwise, the only thing Wyll can really do with his Bonus Action in combat is chug a potion (or teleport), haha.

Melee Main Hand: Infernal Rapier

High Spellcasting: +1 to Spell Save DC

Planar Ally: Cambion (Summon a Cambion as an ally)

However, being able to Bind Pact Weapon via Pact of the Blade means Wyll can wield any weapon in the game! So this slot is very flexible depending on the encounter. I favor the Infernal Rapier for the +1 to Spell Save DC and the RP value.

Melee Off Hand: Viconia’s Walking Fortress

Rebuke of the Mighty: When a foe hits you with a melee attack, you can use a Reaction to deal 2-8 Force damage and possibly knock them Prone

Spellguard: You have Advantage on Saving Throws against spells; Spell Attack Rolls against you have Disadvantage

Swires’ Sledboard is also interesting for potential Force damage. Ketheric’s Shield is good for casters in general (+1 Spell Save DC and +1 to Spell Attack Rolls), although I usually have this shield on my party’s Wizard (Gale).

Ranged Main Hand: Darkfire Shortbow

Grants Resistance to both Fire and Cold Damage

Can cast Haste as a Level 3 spell once per Long Rest

This weapon slot is less important since Wyll will be Eldritch Blasting if he needs to make a single-target Ranged Attack. The only reason he might be using a Ranged Weapon is if he’s Silenced.

As such, it’s nice to just benefit from this bow’s passives. With Fiendish Resilience, Wyll can potentially have four Resistances at once in (very late) Act 2 – Fire and Cold from the Darkfire Shortbow, Necrotic from Selûne’s Blessing, and another from Fiendish Resilience.

Additionally, an emergency Haste is great to have on the backburner.

The Bow of Awareness is another such bow that grants a useful passive (+1 to Initiative).

Ranged Off Hand: N/A

Number Crunching

If you’ve followed the above gearing, you should have 20 AC on Wyll. Hooray!

The following table should give you an idea of how Wyll performs on the battlefield as a result of his gear synergy.

Because this Warlock build has a lot of flexibility in what it can do (#gishy 👽), it’s hard to say how much damage Wyll can regularly dole out. However, in an ideal world, Wyll can take the following actions to get the most out of his gear:

Combat Round #1

Cast Eldritch Blast on three separate enemies, inflicting Reverberation on each and gaining Arcane Synergy.

Combat Round #2

Land a Weapon Attack (which uses Arcane Synergy) on an enemy, gaining Arcane Acuity.

Use Bonus Action to cast Hold Person or Hold Monster.

Land a Weapon Attack (which uses Arcane Synergy) on the held enemy; this Attack is automatically a Critical Hit.

Conclusion

Of course, this is just one way to class Wyll (or a general Warlock)! I prioritized thematic gearing over pure Damage output, so there are definitely ways to get this build even more powerful. For example, Wyll would probably be ethically opposed to using the Bhaalist Armor even though it would greatly enhance his rapier attacks.

As an aside, there’s a funny bug with Warlock’s Pact of the Blade Extra Attack – in Explorer, Balanced, and Tactician, this Extra Attack adds to (instead of overlaps with) any Extra Attack you get from another class.

So instead of having an Attack and Extra Attack like most other martial classes, the Lockadin gets an Attack, an Extra Attack, and an extra Extra Attack, for three Attacks total, LOL. (This bug is unfortunately resolved in Honor Mode.) Subsequently, the Pact of the Blade is a great multiclass with martial classes, but especially a Paladin (5 Warlock / 7 Paladin). 😁

Additionally, a lot of this gear is also excellent on a College of Swords Bard (another Charisma-based gish type). To that end, it may not be a good idea to have both a Bard and Warlock on the same team, as they’ll be fighting for the gear listed here.

Thanks for reading, and hope this gave you some ideas for your Warlock builds! :)

#chelle.txt #ch.build #wyll ravengard #hooray!!!!!!!#oops i need to sleep LOL

80 notes · View notes