Baldur's Gate 3 BEST BARD MAGICAL SECRETS Tier List
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- Ranking the BEST BARD MAGICAL SECRETS on a Tier List in Baldur's Gate 3.
This was a requested video, and I want to give my thoughts on it, because you can get the magical secrets at level 6 for the Lore Bard as well as getting magical secrets at level 10 on all bards. I think that the Bard is one of the best classes in the game, and they have a lot of versatility that makes them such a powerhouse in the battlefield. There are a few different ways that you can build a bird. So some of these are good, but some of them are not the best choices. So I just wanted to give my thoughts on these as some of them do a lot of good. Baldur's Gate 3 has so many cool combinations and I am curious to hear your thoughts
Let me know what kind of tier list you would like to see next for BG3 in the comments!
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The biggest issue with cantrips or spells like Magic Missiles to me is that they're just so easily acquirable by taking even a single level in another class. One level of sorcerer and boom, you have Magic Missile and Shield and whatever your subclass feature is, now you can use your Magical Secret on something harder to acquire.
Yeah I did touch on that later in the video how I ranked some of these a bit too high. I was going for a mix of usefulness if you have it and the opportunity cost. A lot of my viewers don’t do multiclasses too so I try to keep every viewer in mind but it’s probably more like B tier.
You could take cold draconic sorcerer for armer of agathys, magic missile and shield
Hunger of Hadar is ridiculous. I use it often. Just shuts down like half the enemies for like 2+ turns. Or set it up and then Eldritch Blast repel them back in hahaha
I love hunger of hadar, acid and cold damage are two of my favorite damage types and they’re underutilized I think so getting a spell that does them both + blinds is awesome
Hunger of Hadar with one character and sleetstorm in the same area is so fun, they just slip up on the darkness and slowly die.
Plant growth is another cool option and doesn’t require concentration!
Sleet storm and Hunger is what I do with my Spore druid and Bardlock to just shut down big packs of baddies
The movement reduction + prone makes it so they can't get out if they fall even once
I was a little harsh in my last comment but I just wanted to say thank you and I’m a fan. You do so many vids that i have looked far and wide for. Thanks and keep up the good work.
Hey man it’s all good! I deal with a lot of harsh comments every day hahaha it’s all a part of being a CZcamsr. Glad you enjoy though!! If you ever have ideas let me know. I am usually planning multiple videos at a time
The last time I used Arcane lock was when rescuing the prisoners from moonrise towers, with greater invisibility, I can use minor illusion to lure the warden out of her office then lock the door so she can't get in to flip the lever and unlock the cell doors while my other party members break the walls and everyone escapes to the boat lol But I mostly agree with this list. Darkness can be pretty op with the right build tho.
Damn, never thought of that, that's a really funny way to handle the prison break, straight out of Benny Hill
Hey that is genius! I will give that a shot next playthrough, great idea!
Awesome list! I’m doing a Wyll play through and thought about making him either a Bard or Bardlock. Magical Secrets on a 12 Lore Bard Wyll sounds nice 😊
Sword bard warlock for 3 attacks if you’re not in honor mode! I love that build it’s crazy strong and you can get fireball and good crowd control. Grab band of the mystic scoundrel and arcane acuity helm and you’re set!
missing best bard magical secret: joyful compulsion to pick the asshole dialogue options against nice characters. i'm not just casting vicious mockery, i'm living it
Bard dialogue options are S+++ tier
The vicious mockery dialogue lines are amazing too
@@JasonDunna truth. Bard durge makes it SO hard to choose between dialogue options. Just an utter menace. Even without the bard specific options, I feel like being bard makes me sassier...calling Wyll a daddy's boy, calling Gale an impulsive wreck, etc. Love it.
Barrrrrrrd
HAHAHA I actually had to record the intro twice because the first time my accent came through way stronger on the word bard 😂
Sleet Storm is underrated and OP so long as it’s paired simultaneously with Hunger of Hadar. In that big fight where you’re waiting for Halsin to come back, those two alone just deal with that massive enemy force with ease.
Oh yeah amazing spell! Just better utilized from another class. Hunger of hadar is great to take as a bard though! Since both require concentration you can HoH with a bard and Sleet storm with a sorc / wizard
@@JasonDunnaagreed! It’s really funny as they try to mostly dash they’ll slip and fall and then take recurring damage from HoH. Great crowd control when you can use your tank melee fighters to deal with anything outside of it.
I have a crazy build where I imbue the bow with ice damage from the drakethroat glaive, and then use the ring that causes ice surfaces with cold damage, and then I use arrow of many targets and they get localized ice patches that keeps them in there as well! So much fun
I'd say magic missiles is A only if your party has 0 other casters who can use it. It's really nice to have it in the part, but imho the bard is not the "right" platform for it.
You will probably want your bard slot for ultra powerful crowd control and buff spells.
Misty step is S unless you get it from items and/ir play a Gith, otherwise it's A to me. At leadt until you grab illithid fly.
Yes very true, the reason I put it higher is because the lore bard doesn’t get many reliable damage dealers and they’re supposed to be a caster. The bard naturally gets amazing crowd control spells so picking magic missile for the shenanigans you can pull with it and radiating orb is decent early game for a lore bard
Fully agree with whatcha said tho
@@JasonDunna yup, I completely agree. The thing is exactly irb generation, often you want your bard with other items - also, I'm a caster fan, so often I have a bard + other caster around, at least as multiclasses. For physical dps party fans it's sure a really useful tool.
@@Tentacl I usually go sword bard 10 / Paladin or fighter 2 with cone of cold and conjure elemental, or banishing smite
Lore bard 6 I usually only take Hunger of Hadar, spirit guardians, counterspell, lightning bolt or fire ball
I much rather a sorcerer/cleric/wizard as a dedicated caster over a lore bard
@@JasonDunna IMHO the issue is how NECESSARY conterspell is, so in realiy there's just 1 more pick, and I often get Hunger of Hadar - because I usually have other character as a dedicated caster and I don't usually play warlocks.
In my current run the only bard is a 6 vengeance pally/6 DEX based lore (Astarion), frankly great both in melee and ranged while not the BEST (that would require swords bard) because my last run my MC was a bard and this time it's a sorc 11/wis 1 Gith (so nice to wear medium armor the whole game without having to dip in fighter of pally), plus being the wieldef of Phalar Aluve and leave the casters free to equip better caster weapons from act 1 like the Spellsparkler and Astral Knowledge allow you to be both the lockpicked and party face (instead of just party face) as a sorc.
I'm nearing the end of this run, and I think I'll play a Druid MC in my next one after patch 7 - while playing a nin CHA bsed MC pains me a bit, I want to min max a shapeshifter to have the best possible Slayer form, and also after so many runs it's not like I need to see what happens in EVERY CHA check success.
there are tons of ways to give misty steps to bard with Nere's boots , amulet of misty steps scrolls and misty step variants like helldusk boots. Misty step scrolls are really easy to acquire in act1/2 so I reccomend stashing up on them. especially act 2 where combat terrain will mostl not require misty step usage for fights unless you need to get out of a bad position. definetely worthwile to get though if you don't plan on using other magical secrets in the kit as much. I personally prefer not using spell slots for misty step since after a 3rd use you start wasting spell slots but that's just preference. learning to not rely on it was definetely a learning curve haha.
Wall of fire is incredible, its better on other classes but if you are a lore bard and nobody else in the party has it its def worth a slot.
It’s a nice crowd control option for sure!
I JUST STARTED A BARD PLAYTHROUGH YESTERDAY WHOOOHOOOO
You’re in for a blast!! The bard is so much fun
21:48 smite actually caps out at lvl 4 for maximum of 5d8 radiant damage so banishing smite does outdamage it. I'd say the main use is on a bardadin to abuse the crit on demand items. Do a banishing smite, do a crit on demand and use a normal smite as a reaction for a ridiculous amount of damage with a single hit. On my durge honour run this combo with GWM nyrulna and the bhaalist armor straigh up oneshotted Orin in my duel against her.
Yeah thats what I was trying to say when I said its the damage that a level 5 smite 'would' do, since it caps at level 4. Force damage on a target you froze with conjure water elemental and cone of cold, crit on hit items will one shot most targets with the double damage and crit!
@@JasonDunna now that's a fun idea. Definitely gotta figure out a few people to freeze this run to see the damage numbers.
Also notably it can be used on ranged attacks so if you are a swords bard archer it works amazing for dealing with 1 big target
Yes the ranged ability is so sick
Command: flee is really good with darkness and the eversight ring for immunity to blindness instead of killers sweetheart and if you set up darkness just before combat. Free crossbow attacks command to flee on the bonus action. It just forces most enemies to dash every turn to get to you cause they cant target you from distance lol By far one of my favourite spells 🤣 You almost never break concentration aswell if you stick inside the field cause they can't attack you very easily. The combo works best if you have good initiative to set up the flee first aswell :)
False life could be an okay one if you have the staff of cherished necromancy since it's a necromancy spell!
I found crusader's mantle to be pretty good when storming moonrise towers because of the extra allies so there are some uses for it although I barely use it the rest of the time
Yeah it can be nice there since act 2 has a lot of enemies vulnerable to radiant damage but it’s questionable if it’s worth a magical secret from the bard
I find Spirit Weapon to be exceedingly overrated. It's constantly put in S or A tiers for different tier lists, but I just can't make it work. It has abysmal movement speed, can't jump and can't dash. As soon as the enemy next to it dies, or escapes, it spends the rest of the combat chasing after enemies, without being able to reach any of them.
No but enemies often target it, meaning you don't get hit
Yeah I mostly use it as aggro bait 😂
Always use the maul for the daze which can give disadvantage on wisdom saving throws, so you can land hold person easier
For a bonus action to tank a hit and maybe daze it’s decent! I always run a cleric so I wouldn’t take it myself, but it is useful in different situations
It can do damage, take damage, , resist alot of damage, not concentrating, and lasts more then a single turn. All at the cost of a single bonus action and level 2 spell slot . You get more then your moneys worth for this spell. If it did more damage and had a more attack. It would be Extremely Op that you would be dumb not to use it ever fight.
Idk why you having problems with movement, unless your sending them against archer or Wizards the bad guys usually move closer to you. A majority of the enemies in the game are Melee fighters. Its true it might not the best idea to fight far away enemies using this spell on enemies that keep dishing out AOE damage that hits you and the weapon at the same time, but thats more a skill issue then an issue with the spell.
@@Slowpoke3x I'm not saying that I'm not using the spell, but I'm saying that it feels underwhelming when I do.
I suppose that I do use it on the ranged enemies, while my team deals with the melee ones. But I suppose that's because of my composition, which already has a strong front line.
Ohh! I've been waiting for this tier list.
After three honor mode sword bard playthroughs 10000% agree with everything in S tier. When you go pure bard or 2 pal/ 10 sword bard you have to make a big decision with what you what for the magical secrets.
I agree with your reasoning with banishing smite. But I think it belongs in C tier or at least below ice storm. You see Banishing smite takes a concentration slot a lvl 5 spell slot a action and bonus action. That bonus action could have been used to proc another smite in the offhand, also you MISS OUT ON A FLOURISH for the extra damage and effects and potentially a crit+bhaalist armor!!! You also miss out on spirit guardians or hunger of hadar because of concentration. This spell SABOTAGES the sword bard really badly.
The ONLY redeeming quality of this spell is that you can nuke a target vulnerable to force damage because of the water elemental chill + wet combo for freezing. Keep in mind its only for 1 instance of force damage. Keep in mind a water elemental will likely have a low initiative score so you probably wont fight this way.
Maybe you initiate combat against neutral npcs with the water elemental then have the cleric cover everyone in water then have the bard banishing smite that might work. I tried that against sarevok and it was honestly more trouble than its worth.
TLDR
Just pick spirit guardians OR Hunger of Hadar and any S tier spell. I prefer spirit guardians and counterspell if I am a githyanki, misty step if I am a woodelf. Slow is good just for the final boss but I dont think its worth a magical secret.
Banishing smite is a tricky spell, I rated it lower before but I really tested hard, and if you get conjure elemental to chill a target with its basic attack, you can then hit it with water to freeze it and force damage is doubled. That 5d10 force gets doubled from frozen, plus you can use killers sweetheart / illithid crit to pretty much guarantee it will take out any target, or banish them. I hate adding more concentrations to the Bard but banishing smite is silly when its set up
I may do a build on it to demonstrate, because I used to think it was the worst for a while but force damage is just real nice! Its really satisfying when you pull it off, I am a big fan of flourish smites though!
I usually run conjure elemental and cone of cold though, and run a storm sorcerer and a tempest cleric. Getting to be a pseudo paladin with level 6 spells is so fun, but being able to occasionally blast with 8d8 cold damage is nice since you're a front liner usually
@@JasonDunna
5d10 Force crits to 10d10 force and vulnerability makes it 20D10 but we have to keep in mind we have to subtract out 5d8 radiant because we are missing out on spirit guardians(lvl5) and we subtract out the slashing flourish 4d10 crit+bhaalist and we subtract out the offhand assuming dual short swords which could be anything and then another divine smite5d8
So if we add the addition damage gained by banishing smite + force vulnerability and crit
THEN
subtract the damage we miss out on
we have:
20D10
-
[
5D8 radiant/necro(assume lvl5)
4D10 piercing(slashing flourish on main)
10D8 radiant(assume lvl4)
4d6 assuming gith shortsword at 10 dex
]
which I believe works out to 16 additional damage gained from banishing smite.
This only for the additional damage and opportunity costs. I hope my math is correct.
Im also assuming we are not using the bug that double procs spirit guardians when you initiate combat.
They did the math!! That’s awesome
It’s nice because you can do it ranged too but I love me some spirit guardians
"The lore bard doesn't have many reactions"
Cutting words 😩
Stuff like conjure elemental, misty step, haste etc lose a bit of value cause you can learn them all with a 1 level wizard dip. So if you plan a wizard dip id suggest counter spell (cant be learnt from scrolls) and spells from other classes
Great point! With a wizard dip your best choice is probably hunger of hadar / spirit guardians and counter spell
Can you do a list for items found on Skeletons? As a newer player those are hard to discover, just a thought. thanks
Ooo thats an interesting one, I will plan something out
One big variable is with scrolls. Some spells are widely available through scrolls and some aren't. Misty Step is an amazing spell, but I buy or steal scrolls of it faster than I use them up. Same with Conjure Elemental.
@@travishartzler9155 yeah true that. Misty step and conjure elementals get bought every time
Just like arrow of many targets and strength pots
Main problem with scrolls is that they trigger my survival instincts "can't use, might need later".
I think than in over a thousand hours I used maybe a dozen scrolls at most because of that deep seeded response
@@sephikong8323hahahahaha yeah same with me. Did it in Elden Ring too
I think command is native to the bard spell list. My swords bard has it, but I took banishing smite and hadar
Command is native to Paladin or cleric if you’ve multiclassed but the bard doesn’t get it without magical secrets
@@JasonDunna my mistake, I did dip into paladin
@@shwimwhearz4819 all good it’s a really powerful multiclass!!
I think you confused the hit point requirement for banish with banishing smite. Banish has no hit point minimum and banishing smite does but banishing smite also does a load of damage that doubles on crit. I feel they fulfill two different roles.
@@andrewleung1975 banishing smite can only banish if they end up with under 50 hp, but it’s great force damage! It’s the equivalent of a level 5 smite if the paladin could get that. Really strong but I usually prefer taking other choices, it is cool that it’s the only unique magical secrets spell too
this is valid tier list for bardadin?
It is indeed! I usually take conjure elemental, cone of cold or banishing smite. Sometimes hunger of hadar or spirit guardians
Sanctuary i n C Tier ??? I am a bit confused I will admit as to me Sanctuary is one of the most Op and abusable spells in the game by far. much better than spirit guardians by the time you get it Imo. you only get magical ssecrets quite late in act2 assuming you cleared crêche and underdark for exp and it's best for that act so you likely will have already done the encounters that appreciate it like halsin portal or crows by that point. Considering most parties want a cleric too anyways 2 spirit guardians isn't really that worthwhile but 2 sanctuaries is busted. being able to funnel all incoming attacks AND other spells like Hold person,stunning gaze into high AC/Saving throw units or just prevent someone fromn getting targeted by said effects/ dmg to for example keep concentration. it being on a bonus action makes it also incredibly useful not to mention it doesn't require concdentration. you can cast a 4 people hold person and cast sanctuary on yourself. the ennemy cannot break con anymore and because of the way the AI works in bg3 you will never get targeted by AoE attacks through sanctuary by ennemies unless they target an ally that is close to you.definetely think it's on par with command on value but unlike command acquiring it on bard requires a level in cleric but that isn't the case for command as bardaddins (2P/10B) is a very common build that gets command for free. Sanctuary can SAVE honor runs and is extremely reliable unlike a lot of spells, its effect is strong, guaranteed and its potential downside doesn't really matter since by late game you want all your party members to start initiative so you can just cast it after everybody has attacked so no downside to it aside from one turn where it will be blocked but by that time most fights should be close to over.
I get your reasoning totally! Sanctuary is usually S tier but it’s a level 1 cleric spell. You can dip cleric or just run a cleric with it, I always do! I’d rather the lore bard gets something different. Totally agree with your reasoning though
@@JasonDunna Dipping into Cleric feels weird because you don't get that many benefits from it for a multiclass and if you get it at your last level it requires you to talk to withers and reclass because your spellcasting will be based on wisdom so you gotta reclass starting from cleric. while it is still a valid option for most bard build I'd rather get the feat on top of the extra magical secret. I think by this point also there aren't that many level 1 bard spells you'd want to cast at level 1 aside from healing word or maybe thunderwave so Sanctuary I'd say is actually good because it gives you a reason to use those whereas level 3 or above spells will be highly contested. I guess I understand the reasoning but I think according to that logic Command should also be low because you could also just multiclass into paladin(lvl 2) or Cleric for it as well. Man I cannot understate how broken double sanctuary is when you have a unit with 27 AC. I run trio parties for big fights use all my support spells and cast sanctuary on my ssquishies while the only available target dodges everything it's incredible.
@@cloudy978 the reason I have command high is because bards typically run the band of the mystic scoundrel giving them the ability to cast it as a bonus action! But yeah sanctuary is amazing I fully agree.
A single level dip in cleric is actually extremely good though, war cleric gives you heavy armor, martial weapons, create water, sanctuary and 3 bonus action attacks! Cleric is the best single level dip in the game. Two levels of tempest cleric lets you roll maximum damage on a lightning spell too which is also incredible
I am just a huge cleric fan however
@@JasonDunna I feel like you can get most of this just by playing bardadin though, you even get to use create water as an attack by throwing a water bottle instead and you get martial weapons and heavy armor from that too alongside other boons like vengeance paladin giving you advantage on everyone for ten turns on a short rest. I definetely believe both are viable and I guess unlike bardadin you do get access to level 6 spells so I can definetely see the use case but if we have that standart for sanctuary but not command which you aslo automatically get from a cleric dip I feel like it's a bit unfair. As strong as mystic scoundrerl band is ( I did my solo honor run with it) It has nothing to do with really the multiclass option you chose wether pure bard bardading bardlock bard+ War cleric (which I often like to do for archer builds) so if we do ycount in multiclasses like we do for sanctuary shouldn'T command be dropped down as well because you can get it the same way in fact both ? In cases where you count multiclassing command should be lower because you get it anyways (and from more classes) in cases where you don't multiclasss Sanctuary would be much higher IMo. I hope I could get my point accross english is not my native language and I was told I can sound aggressive in my comments which is not my point at all I promise, I still appreciated the video I just found it a bit inconsistent in how command was treated compared to sanctuary.