Golden Dice Run - Team Composition and Combat Analysis
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2024
- Outline of my Golden Dice run team composition with analysis on how to utilize it in combat.
Composition Reference Sheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Playlist: • Golden Dice Run
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:28 - Odda the Underqueen
00:11:07 - Queen Guard Karlarch
00:17:44 - Selunite Shadowheart
00:19:35 - Master of Missiles Gale
00:22:23 - Balthasar Encounter
00:27:27 - Murder Tribunal Encounter
00:32:59 - House of Grief Encounter
00:35:27 - Outro - Hry
711 damage at 34:24 😮 🥶
Noooo stop feeding my addiction I got exams to prep for. ive been super exited for this!!
When you said barbarian cleric my first thought was warding bond, god that’s such a disgustingly powerful combination
Very glad I'll be able to watch some of your uncut gameplay! I feel like theres a lot to learn from just simply watching how someone experienced plays. Keep up the good work, love the content and appreciate your hard work!
For the murder tribunal, you can just close the door behind you and the knights won’t aggro once the fight starts.
They also die afterwards
“Let it be known that scelartis died from a broken heart”
I am very sad to say that my honor mode durge run was ruined because ORIN BEAT ME IN THE DUEL BY BEING AT 1 HP and hitting me for 140 damage, on MY turn, with one 95% hit chance away from securing my spot as chosen. I wanted to reload so bad, idek what imma do anymore for my ending, probably still rule the absolute so I don’t become insane murder hobo controlled by bhaal
If you become illithid and then kill yourself you get a Withers ending where he congratulates you escaping Bhaal. You don't get an epilogue though I think.
@@georgea4124 I’m at it right now and about to become absolute fuck all that
@@kingofgrim4761bro is positively bhaalin' rn, MY MAN
24:55 thunderous smite doesnt increase in damage when you upcast, so you could have used a lvl 1 spell slot , then used a lvl 3 spell slot for you additional smite. thus saving a precious lvl 3 spell slot while maintaining damage.
The legend posts again.
Just got to act 3 with this build and I just wanted to say thank you so much for this video- I made it to take a wack at honor mode but I've also been genuinely enjoying the build past how good it is. I made it a regular dwarf and took 1 level of bard at level 2 just for roleplay reasons, but other than that I've been following it exactly and it's so good.
Thanks for the showcase! I need to try that barb build, seems really unique
Honestly above every other class I've found Paladin the hardest to build without, its not even only power, just the sheer convenience oath of ancients gives you
I was thinking about warding bond synergy with high hp barbarian today, and I coincidentally stumbled upon your video and was excited how you realised the same concept with Karlach! Good job, you have a very nice explanation of things
One thing I realised on my first (and for now only) HM run is that Hat of Fire Acuity + Scorching Ray is THE NUTS for applying debuffs, full 10 stacks from 1 cast of Scorching Ray + CC spell (because you have haste, duh) is insane
Excited to get a video on one build instead we got 4!!! Great surprise
Finally, the honour mode video made by the legend that i was waiting for
That's really cool dude. Super cool builds.
Great video!
Barb cleric is a cool concept; I used warding bond from a barb/theif thrower from Viconia's shield for my honor mode run last month. Way better than I expected.
For the reverb-orb wizard build, I love running ne'er misser with hellrider crossbow. The bonus action comes in handy when expending lightning charges to finish someone, adding one more stack of reverb etc, as well as getting a free cast of magic missile
Great video Aestus. It may not get as many views as the more algorithm-friendly tierlist content, but very informative stuff as usual. Hoping to see more build guides in the future like the Ice Knight
Played your Odda build on Minthara and dumped dexterity after equipping gloves of dexterity. Took 8-8-16-8-15-17 and took Ability Improvement Wis +1 Cha +1 instead of actor to end up with 8-18-16-8-16-18. She's not the party face so the Proficiency Bonus doubling on deception and performance checks are wasted
Very nice video man. I am going to do an honour mode run soon - thinking of a pure sorcerer Drow. Backstory being that male drows are treated poorly - but this one was born with magical powers allowing him to escape, only to be picked up by the mindflayers in the Nautaloid.
Sweet. Ive been waiting for this
I won Honor mode with a Hafling Sword bard with other classes splashed in. Slashing Flourish with the Titanstring bow is absolutely savage and carried the entire run.
I appreciate the use of gameplay :)
Video and reference sheet are amazing. Thank you. Can you provide suggest spells as part of the levelling guide?
I just started a streamed honor run and you just scooped my main support build for the party 😂 Im calling it the Cler Bear (like Care Bear lol) but I am definitely planning on making a build video for it. Warding bond + bear heart + scale mail + heavy armor master = massive damage reduction for the clerbear and the warding bond recipient and you cant be critically hit (which crits can be run enders and turn a fight so I value that perk over higher armor class every day)
I'll say that defence build works exceptionally well if you have a character or two to CC everyone else. My paladin would tank the whole fight and take little to no damage, while exploding enemies at the same time. Every other member of my party is safe to do anything they want from afar
As someone who loves no-load/ no-death runs in RPGs , not even mainly for the challenge but rather for the immersion level it adds, I like that you bring up the concept of overkill while negating defense, where the player's tempted to sacrifice most defense in favor of just doing more dmg, thus putting the run at risk if something goes wrong, which can always happen when you least expect it.
There is ofc, a breaking point where too much survival might be too much in the sense of the longer you extend the fight, you also extend the window in which you could make mistakes, even more so as the odds of you getting cocky thinking nothing can hurt you increase each turn, and then there's also the chain-reaction-of-mistakes effect where tilt takes over ... (how Ansur almost ended my HM even tho' it should've went very smoothly for my party).
In the end it, I feel it comes down recognizing when the diminishing returns on either dmg or survival start hitting (or other skill checks in this game for that matter), and you sacrifice too much in one area in order to get too little or something you could easily do without in another. To that end, I was pretty proud of my finesse fighter troubadour Swords Bard 8 / battlemaster 4, using the the superiority dice mainly on action-less buffs like precision strike & evasion to enhance flourishes, making him a highly accurate & evasive combatant, with the usual bard CC casting when needed , and the healing that came in handy in act 1 until Shart took over that duty entirely.
You can just kill the knights before you even go in. Does not affect the interaction with Sarevok (certainly not if you were going to kill him anyway)
29:40 I just did a tactician run where I closed this door behind me so the knights wouldn’t join the fight. I also started the fight after killing Valeria and directly attacking instead of from dialogue. After I won the fight I found the knights dead outside.
Franky warding bond on a barbarian is really cool tech.
Another banger.
About paladin 8 / bard 4. I usually trade max efficiency for my sense of beauty, but I never consider bard less than five just because the difference is 3 bardic inspirations per long rear becoming 16 bardic inspirations per long rest. So bard 5 is a mandatory level for my liking. And when you are at bard 5, just next level gives the second main subclass feature.
But I like your 6/6 bardladin with lore bard for main char, it's cool. Lore bard during peaceful life and a martial class in combat, what's not to love.
If you watch the run you'll see I don't really use Cutting Words enough to need it to refresh on short rest.
Unless hotdog 23 changed it you can still get the deva mace through castigated by divinity in the lower city somewhere
The run I'm on now is technically ineligible for golden dice, but I'm not counting the reload I did because I got soft locked by an elevator glitch.
Duergar nice! I am always torn between that race, halflings and deep gnomes...but I think avoiding 1s is king do halfling for me and now to enjoy the new content!
You don't need Duergar invisibility if you use Shovel instead. But Shovel can be tedious, so it's really whatever you prefer.
@@Aestus_RPG A fair point or a druid shapeshifter...and yeah, just giving a bard invisibility can do the trick as well even though it is a limited resource then. I was reminded recently how frequently 1s occur when I had at least 5 of them in an hour....love your content! You were the one who ultimately convinced that halfings are the master race!
Being a bard, i didnt have to do some of the Act 3 fights at all by talking or lying my way past things. Like i fought the murder tribunal people next to the elephant guy.
I was able to cloud of blades and wall of fire/ice all the random small fries and my strikers focused the main guy.
No clue if that was easier than the fight ahown here, but it was a different experience for sure.
Would love teirlist of perks you can get through game choices like the (spoilers ahead most people know) new eye from the bard you save in the goblin camp or the new eye from hag. The whipping one is interesting lol
What magical secrets spells did you choose for your Lore Bard?
And what would you think about 7 Paladin 5 Bard.
You lose two spell slots, Countercharm and Magical Secrets, but you also get the level 7 Paladin Aura, which in the case for Ancients, gives you a 50% resistance to spell damage.
I answer both of these questions in the linked spreadsheet which outlines the builds. It's in the description.
7/5 or 8/4 would have been better than 6/6. I realized this after the run.
you plan on doing a video explaining or briefly talking about the exp route on act 1 and 2? (act 3 gives so many exp that I think for this is one is kinda irrelevant)
No, I doubt I'll do that video. You can always watch the run to see what I did, but the truth is, I don't think about it that much. Other people will have better routes.
I would never intentionally play with karmic dice but by no means does that invalidate the run, especially since you weren’t tracking your rolls to game the system
This is s-tier, easily one of the best honor mode posts I've seen. Would you ever consider adding a thanks option for your content?
Glad you liked it! What do you mean by a thanks option?
Its basically a donate button @Aestus_RPG
@@davidwagner3710Ah, well I have a patreon, if that counts.
@@Aestus_RPG ty, found it :) And again, thanks for a hell of a post.
I think patch 6 removed deva mace and djin scimitar. I couldn't get them last run
The Sarevok fight.
If you just shut the doors, the knights never aggro and just die when Sarevok is killed.
LET'S GOOOOO FINALLY
Could we get the equipment for act one and two???
I beat honor mode first try with a pure DPS team. 12 monk as my halfling tav, 10 paladin + 2 fighter, 12 fighter, 10 sorcerer + 2 fighter. I put alert on all 4, tavern brawler on the monk, oath of ancients on the paladin because aura of warding is insanely overpowered. Wet debuff with the mage combined with frost/lightning spells and twincast haste. It shred every boss including raphael, but I was too scared to try ansur haha.
Oh and on tactician it wasn't needed, but on honor mode getting a hireling to cast longstrider + warding bond helped immensely.
Do you think it would be worth to invest two of Gale's levels into storm cleric for that nasty full lightning damage reaction?
Sure!
Thank yooou!
I tried few times or more and I finally broke it with archer bard, Shadowheart priest, Astarion fighter and Karlach throwing barb.
throwing barb is so good
@@Squaredot01Yes but archer bard is a real deal. DMG is insane.
One build that is insame is Karlach Tavernbravler Monk 7 Thiefrouge 3 Barbarian 2, plus good Itemization gives 2 times 60 to 100 dmg, plus 2 times 20 to 40 dmg plus Stun,
Have a great day:)
Shar's spear of evening on a sword bard / paladin is pretty amazing. Combine it with bhaalist armor, and it does work with the AoE (no target limit, and you get to smite reaction each person you hit) attack that you can do after using your bonus action the previous round to drag everyone to you using an upcasted command.
Oath of vengeance is a pretty OP subclass pre risky ring because you can use Vow of Enmity on yourself to gain advantage on all attack rolls. Admittedly, you do have to be okay with abusing a bug for it.
I don't think building for survivability is worthwhile when invisibility potions and such exist. Anytime you get into trouble, you can just invis pot and then run away for the vast majority of fights. In most cases, I think you give away too much offense for it to be worth building around defense. If you build for offense, then you're going to blow most encounters out of the water on turn 1 including boss encounters like the endgame boss encounters like dragons, Orin, Sarvevok, and so on. The game is easy enough, however, that you don't really need to care either way though.
Honestly, I feel like karmic dice might make the game harder. You're already going to be hitting most attacks anyway, I bet most of the benefit goes to the AI to make it hit when it shouldn't
I made a very offensive oriented team, and then i made a huge mistake in the final fight. I was sure that i will die as i've planned to skip first part of it mostly but.. i've failed so I just killed all enemies in 1.5 turn and copleted the run. Offense is much better. Just know what to do.
Very nice, interesting builds. I just lost an honor mode at the netherbrain fight because Gale wasn’t down to nuke it for me. I would love to see a detailed breakdown of the final fight if you haven’t done one already. There’s a lot of moving parts on that one
thebfight is relatively easy when you know how to prepare for it. I say kill the dragon and evereryone else first while saving good spell slots for the brain. Don't trigger the brain opening either until your whole party can enter in one turn. Also having a life cleric shadowheart is oberpowered for serious aoe heals.
You can watch how I do it in the full run recording. Basically, I cast Globe of Invulnerability twice to counteract the Magic Missile spam, and that is the secret.
@@Aestus_RPG that’s what I did outside and had no issues. Inside against the brain was where I had trouble. I should’ve looked at the mechanics a little closer
what would a good alternative to the deva mace be for odda? duelists prerogative?
Belm is good, because it gives an extra attack to Smite but still works with a shield.
Do you still get the Deva maces after patch 23? Their bags were empty when I have tried it. Same I saw with the silver sword steal in act 1.
Idk, to be honest.
You can get it by killing the Deva that spawns when you remove that curse, putting their corpse into your inventory and typing the weapons name at your inventory search bar
Any reason you didn't upcast the create water in the clips ? Cuz create water can be ... really REALLY big.
I just didn't need the extra AoE.
Damn bro our level split was the same lol my first Honor mode run I did 6 Ancients 6 Lore but I took Spirit Guardians and Counter Spell as my Magical Secrets made this character my radiating orb build and left a Cleric out of the party a Paladin with Spirit Guardians is great and with all the bonuses by late game concentration saves never failed if they add Divine Soul Sorcerer I will have to make this build again with 5 levels of Sorc or if they added Oath of the Crown you could beeline it to 9 Paladin
I really liked your Barbarian build as well very clever optimization my guy in my first playthrough last year I had a Light Cleric Shadowheart cast Warding Bond on my Abjuration Wizard and I never took damage in act 3 lol and upcasted Armour of Agathys from a one level dip in Sorcerer and dashed around the map making all the wet targets hit me and take 50 cold damage it was honestly to easy since no enemy could deal the 40+ damage it took to break through the Arcane Ward
Yeah, Paladin 6/Bard 6 with Radiating Orb gear and Spirit Guardians is one of the best late game builds I can think of.
Is there any reason behind having 6/6 for the bardadin in the video and 8/4 in the build guide?
Yes, I explain it in the video. 6/6 is what I did in my run, but 8/4 is what I recommend after the run. I think 8/4 is better for this particular composition.
My whole reason for going 2pal/10 sword bard (aside from slashing flourishes with titanstring being mad stupid) is the joy of a ranged banishing smite. Sending Raphael to the shadow realm turn one is never not satisfying
A staple for almost all my runs in terms of tankiness is a 6light cleric/6 abjuration wizard. On one person you have access to projected ward, warding flare, and warding bond, and it can also be your radiating orb user with spirit guardians, blood of latjander, radiance of the dawn etc. rock the int crown if you want more wizard spells memorized
From a purely hypothetical standpoint what class would you consider to be the goofiest and/or most fun class for the entire team to be
Wild Magic Sorc
@@Aestus_RPG thank you good sir
for the mass aoe spoiler fight, I think the most damage I ever did was black hole -> throw water -> destructive wrath lightning bolt ⚡
In the off chance you read this, i am dying to know. If/when you fail honor mode, did/would you finish the run for fun and practice or start over?
I always start over. But that's just what I prefer. It's not a virtue either way.
Did you fight Raphael or Gortash? I'd like to see those fights, I find them pretty tricky
Yep, I fought both!
Man upcasted thunderous smite when it doesn’t gain any damage dice. Is that optimal for any particular reason, or is that just a silly gameplay error?
Just a mistake.
What is the butterfly icon you have on a few characters, that you seem to press in order to move?
It's the icon for flying.
@@Aestus_RPG How can they fly? I feel like I'm missing something obvious. :)
@@danieljohnson270 It's a tadpole power you can get at the start of Act 3.
What cleric domain for Karlach?
Light Cleric for Warding Flare. All of that is ilisted in the reference sheet.
Maybe a bonehead question. Where did you get the create water spell for Gale?
Not boneheaded at all, because I am honestly at a loss to answer it. Did Gale use Create Water in the footage??
@@Aestus_RPG I'm an idiot, I enlarged the screen and it was shadowheart. Great guide man!
How come you're going 8 STR on the Bard Paladin? Especially if you're using a mace?
Strength Elixirs will bost my strength to 21, 27 late game.
@@Aestus_RPG Ahhh!
I'd like to see people do a full (no skipping all the difficult optional quests) with all party members pure 12 builds. Partly because i struggle with some of these runs...now with multi class parties it's easy (allowing reloads it's easy). I like to push every single class to it's limit on pure classrs as i think it's exceptionally more difficult.
I know it just makes life tougher but that's the point it's a pretty simple game if tou multi class and reload.
I'm surprised you used deva mace, considering your other limitations.
You can still get the deva mace
A funny way to kill Flesh is to "feed" him to Yurgir
What's wrong with karmic dice? Isn't it the same on average?
No, it isn't the same. Nothing is wrong with it, it just alters the probability and I prefer to play without it.
This is probably a noob questions but why the 16 charisma on Gale?
nevermind its for eldritch blast disregard
How do you manage 8 strength on a paladin? Aren’t pally attacks based strength?
strength elixirs
@@harrowhark_nonagesimusThe giant strength potions are broken imo. You can get so many of them easily. I had all my party members on 8 str and fed them potions and you can distribute all those points to other stats
@@Childofbhaal ahh of course. Not quite a good start early game tho right? Or are they available out the gate? Still seems OP either way!
@@travisauruss Every time you level up or long rest Auntie Eithel stocks 3 of them and they’re not that expensive. You could long rest multiple times and buy 3 each time or level up. I had a stash of them
Post a dedicated video for barb/cleric please
Not sure what to say about it that I didn't already say.
@@Aestus_RPGyeah I posted this before I saw the rest of your videos and that you dont do level by level breakdowns lol
Used to most YT videos giving level by levels
Would u ever consider doing dragons dogma 2 content
I'm not sure. I'm unfamiliar with the series. Mostly I cover games that I'm personally passionate about, but maybe I'll check it out and see if I like it.
I attempted 3 honour mode runs, 1st got 4 natural 1’s against the Githyankis to pass the conversation check to avoid a battle at level 3 and they 1 shot my whole party… (2 back to back 1 and 1 with advantage - odds of 160,000-1), second for no reason wyll attacked me after the battle outside druids grove and third korgah attacked me mid conversation with Gale for no reason in the druids grove and I got so fucking annoyed and gave up. I don’t mind bottling a battle and running but for these 3 events to happen back to back to back I just couldn’t motivate myself to start again.
If one of the 3 Mercs dies outside the grove in the opening fight there, and you accidentally click to loot them before Wyll has run inside, he can insta aggro and attack. Kahga has some dialogue choices where she will turn hostile and if you haven't uncovered her treachery with the Shadow Druids yet, picking the wrong option initiates total hostility between the Druids and everyone else.
Illithid abilities?
Nothing special. Just take whatever you think is good.
I gotta try honor mode now 😂
Do it! It's fun!
wait how is honour mode "extremely easy to cheat"? Asking for a friend
If you shut down your game with control-alt-delete you can reboot to your last save. Which means you can still save scum.
@@Aestus_RPG oh, i heard about that on reddit and some people say it works while others say it doesn’t work for them, some also said it only works if you physically shut down your pc. So i really wasn’t sure lol
@@poatrykdas it worked for me when I tested it.
I don't understand why you talk about imposing all these stricter rules to make honor mode runs feel actually honorable and more challenging and then proceed use abuse deva's mace which is a clear exploit.
Deva mace is really fun.
@@Aestus_RPG I agree but i feel like it really goes against the whole idea of "honour" mode. Anyway, I didn't mean anything bad by my comment. Props to you for finishing it in only 7 long rests, that is an incredible achivement. I just got my own golden dice yesterday and i'm looking forward to playing this amazing game some more.
@@lovredunatov3675 Dude, it's his run, his rules. If you want to cheese the living hell out of honour mode with invis, barrelmancy and all exploits imaginable, honestly go for it. You bought the game, you decide for yourself what is fun to you and how to play.
I don't get people who try to police how others play, that's genuinly so weird.
People thinking you cheated is crazy
No one accused me or anything, I just like to proactively verify.
Without reloading ? Thought you couldn't reload, unless this means without dying and continuing in disgonour mode.
Is cheating just closing the game to prevent a save? Lol
Yeah, that would be cheating.
those boss fights are way too easy bg3 isnt balanced properly
Congrats on getting your Honor mode completed, but seriously Honor mode is easy. I blazed through it on console (no mods, no cheats) and I was using a Dragonborn as my Tav... Arguably the worst possible race and it was unbelievably easy.
From watching this video it appears you added more self imposed problems for your run via build choice, rather than just play with optimized builds.
For starters, Oath of Vengeance is FAR superior to Ancients in every way. This holds true even on paper as a TTRPG. You're valuing the niche aspects of a Paladin Oath and calling it superior. Meanwhile Paladin is without question a Nova Round / Sustained DPR class. Healing means nothing when everything is dead lol. 10 rounds of at will advantage on attacks from Vow of Emnity is busted powerful. This frees up the Risky Ring for anyone using Sharpshooter or GWM. Your team comp is now doubling down on an extremely powerful item by using a single class ability. Furthermore Aura of Protection is available on all Paladin classes, so it's not something exclusive to just an Ancients Paladin. And it's only good for a 10' radius. So only your Frontline is getting the benefits of it. It's great, but does nothing for casters, throwers and range users.
You're talking about weapons being an issue, the very first "boss" fight in the game gives you a sword you'll be using until act 2-3. The Everburn blade far exceeds every other weapon until act 2 and that's only if you value the Skinburster instead. Otherwise the Everburn will last substantially until act 3.
An Oath of Vengeance Paladin with GWM and Vow of Emnity will be just an Tanky, with the exact same aura of Protection meanwhile getting free advantage on all of their attacks while mitigating all of the drawbacks of GWM.
Add in the Swords Bard, you're getting unbelievably powerful flourish abilities for damage, utility, movement and hazard abuse as well. While still having access to Song of Rest and all of the Bard spells. You're only making yourself even MORE useful in combat. Doing more, deleting more enemies from the field, and buffing your party survivability by eliminating threats consistently. Once again, Damage > Healing in every single scenario.
Act 1, 1.5, and Act 2 litteraly hand you the keys to the kingdom for the most powerful support build in the game. Orbs of Light / Reverberation conditions all perfectly allocated for a Light Cleric build. YOU DON'T NEED HEALING IF NOTHING EVER HITS YOU! lol. Seriously, I don't understand this mentality of healing, safety blankets, tanks, one Light Domain Cleric will wipe the floor with even the toughest encounters. And if Radiant damage is an issue for very particular fights, you have access to some of the best fire spells in the game. Or wet enemies for your Casters, while applying Reverberation. And Healing word, Mass Healing word, Revivify and Sanctuary any time you need it. Tempest and Light Domain are not only deleting everything on the field, they are debuffing and protecting just as well too. A threat removed (once again) trumps any and all forms of healing.
You went Barbarian Cleric... For damage reduction and warding bond. Cool. Neat idea. However if that was a Throwing Barbarian with Tavern Brawler everything would be dead or prone long before Warding Bond was even necessary. Not to mention you value healing so much, your thrower can litteraly keep everyone healed by chucking potions at them while still having access to loads of damage too. Teammate goes down? Throw a potion at them, and spend the rest of your action economy killing the enemy.
As for Casters, you could have deleted the field with a Tempest Storm Sorcerer build. Your cleric could even wet the enemies for you in you needed. Hell, even the throwing Barb could have done that too. One Lighting Bolt, Chain Lighting, Call Lighting, and half the enemies just die. End of story. Add in how unbelievably powerful Cold Spells are in the early game and they litteraly hand you Cold related gearing... Your Crowd Control and damage is once again amazing at deleting the field. Even simple Cantrips become deadly with the Wet condition.
All in all, once again I'm happy you completed your Honor Mode run. But so many content creators are acting like Honor mode is this massive undertaking and viewers watch wistfully hoping to complete it one day. When in actuality, just a touch of game mechanics knowledge and proper building you can get those Golden Dice without ever breaking a sweat. It's seriously significantly easier than people make it out to be.
But if you're using what is essentially underwhelming classes and abilities to beat honor mode, you're just adding to the difficulty nonsensically. 2/10 Swords Bard can solo Honor mode. Same for a Gloomstalker Assassin just to name a couple. So if they are powerful enough to solo the hardest challenge in the game, having them in your party only makes your odds of winning skyrocket.
Bardadin, Light Cleric, Gloomstalker, Tempest Sorcerer will crush Honor mode. Add in Throwing Barbarian, OH Monk, Eldritch Blaster Goo Warlock, Tempest Cleric, Sorcadin, etc. And you're not going to fail lol.
And if you really want to breeze through honor mode, just make a camp cleric FFS...
I think part of the reason he didn’t care for super optimized builds was because they over trivialize the game and take away some of the fun strategy aspects of a CRPG.
He mentioned in the video, and also like you said, 2 paladin/10 swords bard could wipe the floor w/ honor mode solo. But, where’s the fun in that when the game is based around making a good party that synergizes well. At that point, each one of your party members are gods that could solo the game on their own. You might as well do 4 separate solo honor mode runs for each team member bc by mid game, you’re already going to bulldoze over every encounter with a full comp of OP builds.
Don’t forget that this is a roleplaying game, so part of his decision to make some of these builds like the karlach build was to stick with the roleplaying aspect of having a guard for his queen PC. Where’s the “guard” in a queen guard that sits in the back chucking spears instead of in the frontlines lmao.
I’ve played all the OP builds you can think of in this game, but I still appreciated unique ideas like the 8 barb/4 cleric warding bond tank because I think it adds another dimension to the game rather than just steamrolling everything with builds that blow up everything in one turn.
Some of the builds you listed are so broken that they feel cheesy, and it just becomes boring after a while. At a certain point, the game begins to feel like a training dummy simulator since no encounter ever gets a hit off (or even a turn) on your team.
I think he also mentioned that he was going for as few long rests as possible but most of the builds you mentioned, like 2/10 swords bard or the tempest storm sorc basically empty out all their spell slots in a few encounters. With this reasoning, I could see why he chose to build for more sustain rather than damage.
Also, I agree that vengeance is just straight superior to ancients currently but that is due to a bug. Vow of enmity def should not be working like that when casted on yourself, hell it shouldn’t even be casted on yourself in the first place based off the description of the ability. So perhaps he didn’t know about it or want to abuse that.
Remember, games are meant to be enjoyed by the person playing. Not every game has to be played in the most optimal way because not everybody enjoys optimal builds/gameplay. Sure, there are people like you and I that enjoy super optimized, min-maxed builds, but even that gets boring eventually.
Get some help man. He's just sharing his run. Who cares what builds he used or didn't use or how? He never said or acted like it was the hardest thing ever or that what he did was some great undertaking or that the way he did it was the only way to do it. Or whatever else you're trying to accuse him of, wild amount of projection going on here. You're really angry and really condescending for no reason. Nobody is taking this as seriously as you are. You're in desperate need of some mental health counseling.