hello my friends and welcome back to another balers Gate 3 character building guide hope you're all doing well today we're covering something that I've wanted to cover for a while we're just going through a top 10 list or in this case top 11 list of builds for Honor mode I'm going to be doing a basic overview of what I think the 11 best builds in balers Gate 3 are for winning in honor mode um we'll go over the strengths and weaknesses of each of them what draws you to play them what broken mechanics they have access to that make them some of the most powerful builds in the game I will not be doing full build guides for each of them but I have done full build guides for each of them and will link those videos in the description so that if you want to do a deeper dive into any of these characters you can go check out my full build to that character I think this will be a really useful resource if you're just looking to find some builds that will be extremely powerful and uh good core to build a party around all of these builds are absolutely strong enough to carry a party through honor mode so you can combine them with characters that are a little more flavorful or less optimized or ones that you just think are really fun in order to still have a really excellent shot at winning um because these builds are so strong there are tens of thousands of builds in Boulders Gate 3 so the top 11 are really the very very best of the best because uh there are just so many builds so if you don't see your favorite build on here don't worry it is almost certainly still excellent this is just my pick for the 11 best builds in balers Gate 3 now as you know the important thing about jokes is that they're always funni as the third time you tell them so this video comes out of people really liking my optimized character build videos so I thought if I do a video that teaches you which characters are the most optimized in Boulders Gate 3 then oh no I've messed up I keep doing this all right well I guess we just have to forge ahead so what does best even mean um obviously this is an extremely subjective term so when I say what are the 11 best builds in Boulders Gate 3 what are we actually talking about do we mean highest damage do we mean most hit points do we mean fastest move speed do we mean prettiest any of those could reasonably be defined as best so we need a working definition if we're talking about what the actual actual strongest builds are I'm going with a very simple criteria for this video by by best build I just mean the easiest build to win with the I think that uh that is the most useful criteria to judge an honor mode build by not like how much damage does it do on a perfect turn or anything like that but just will it win the game the highest percentage of the time if you are especially if it's your first run through honor mode or you're relatively new newer to strategy games and haven't memorized all the encounters or anything we just want the most powerful builds that will get you through the game I think there are three important criteria to consider when we're looking at how easy it is to win uh the game with a build first up power obviously damage does matter so raw the raw power of the build how much damage it does how good it is at controlling enemies how tanky it is how high is its armor class how good are its saving throws all of those things are incredibly important when we're looking at how strong a build is secondly resiliency what this means is how good is this build at recovering from Bad situations incredibly bad die rolles poor RNG bugs cuz this is still a game where bugs happen relatively frequently and sometimes can put you in bad combat situations as a result play mistakes um having had a couple beers before you sit down to play any of those things can put you in a bad situation and so a strong build that's easy to win honor mode with will be resilient to that kind of setback and finally easy easiest to play um what I mean by easiest to play in this sense is both uh how easy is it to avoid making play mistakes how complicated are the decisions that you have to make and also how smooth is the actual gameplay through honor mode can you make the story choices you want or are you required to make specific ones to get certain items um can you choose uh specific uh different party members with it or do you need a do you need certain types of party members in order to support the build that kind of thing so basically the smoothest run through honor mode I think is also important because this is still a game you want to be able to have fun with it so a build that lets you do that I think is going to be better in in my opinion than ones that don't all right I can now hear the sound of thousands of YouTube commenters sharpening their pitchforks because the intro has taken longer than a microwave burrito so in the interest of saving my own life let's get right into the top 11 builds for balers Gate 3 in number 11 I have placed the loadin loadin is a mixture of Paladin and warlock that uses warlock spells which Refresh on a short rest to get extremely high damage smites much more often than another Paladin build will in this way you get both the best things from Warlock and the best things from Paladin and combining these two characters gives you a character that is extremely powerful and also extremely versatile I've put the way that I suggest building the characters here at the top so this is sort of the most common build but then there's also some alternate level splits that I've included with several of these builds the main strengths of the lock it in are the incredible burst damage that you get being able to spend highlevel warlock spell slots on smites because you can spend up to uh fourth or fifth level warlock spell slots on spites increases your burst damage massively you also get incredible control because you are Charisma based on all of your stats both your attacks and your charisma and your spells use your charisma so you get to be a character that both uh has maxed out attribute points for their melee attacks and also maxed out attribute points for their control spells most notably command but also things like um evard's black tentacles can really help your party lock down enemies and the Paladin and warlock together get access to a whole bunch of the best control spells in the game if you also go for a great old one Warlock you get a lot of free fears because this character gets to use critical hits to its Advantage you will often be attacking with Advantage thanks to abusing darkness that means you'll get a lot of critical hits that means a lot of fears at a very high save DC because it's based off your charisma which is maxed out you can see there's a lot of internal Synergy with this build which is why I think it's so powerful um you also get an excellent ranged attack because you just get a a fully powered up eldrich blast so you get to also just be a great ranged attacker when you can't close to melee or don't have a relevant control spell so this character is extremely versatile in that it does some of the highest burst damage in the game in melee uh has an excellent ranged attack and has some of the best control spells in the game and those all operate off of a single attribute so you don't have to use any items or anything in order to make them um extremely powerful you also get access to Paladin abilities depending on your level split that can include the highle Paladin that increase your saving throws or just give you the Paladin abilities from the Paladin Oaths which are pretty powerful in and of themselves uh getting the permanent Advantage from oath of Vengeance or the healing from oath of the Ancients can be really excellent uh getting the extra damage from uh the extra damage based on Charisma from oathbreaker Paladin all of those are really excellent options for the loaden that will power up your character significantly I also have a special mention for Hunger of Hadar here just because it's a game-winning spell it it's relevant throughout the entire game so getting access to it quite early as this character does and having uh being able to just Spam it out is very powerful you do pay for this character strengths in some uh ways mostly that it is primarily a Melee character which is definitely a downside for an honor mode character it means that your positioning requirements are harder it means you're more likely to be in the line of fire of enemies um so generally speaking it's easier to play with ranged characters than with melee characters so that's a a minor downside for sure and it has a relatively slow early game development path because you need to hit third level warlock for pack to the blade in order to actually attack with your charisma and you need to hit at least fifth level warlock in order to get extra attack and you need to hit at least level two Paladin in order to get smites so it's not really until level seven that this character fully comes online you're still very powerful up until that point but um you nevertheless are a little bit slower than a lot of these other builds which I have put a lot of effort into emphasizing being very strong in the early game because that's the hardest point of the game and the point where your honor mode runs are most likely to fail finally it is still pretty rest dependent while you get to Smite based on your warlock short rest spells rather than uh a normal Paladin's long rest spells so you're significantly less rest dependent than just a class Paladin or a pal Paladin sorcerer or Paladin Bard multiclass you still do require those short rests in order to get your highle smites and your spells back and you will often want to Long rest to get your paladin spell slots back as well so you are still somewhat rest dependent um you will run through short rests relatively quickly and that will cause you to Long rest more often of course there are ways to mitigate this by refreshing your spell slots but that is definitely a real downside of the character fin I've listed just all the really broken stuff that every character gets access to these wouldn't be the most powerful builds in the game if they didn't all break the game in some way and so here is some broken stuff that this build gets to do you get to abuse darkness which is one of the most powerful effects in the game giving you advantage on all your attacks your enemy disadvantage on all their attacks and completely shutting down ranged enemies with no saving throw you get to abuse Arcane Acuity where you hit an enemy and then uh Stack Up Arcane acuity and then potentially use bonus actions to increase your safety c's for really high level commands uh because you can use your warlock spell slots on command you can often take out five enemies without uh take out five enemies with a high level command allow that they can't possibly resist because of your Arcane Acuity stacking and you get to stack Charisma because uh Charisma is just the attribute that you can get highest in the game uh so builds that are based off of Charisma are very good I actually also failed to put in the strengths that you get good dialogue skills um another important thing about this character so that's the lock it in let's go on to character number 10 in number 10 I have placed the moon Druid Moon Druid is I think the most powerful of the three Druids because of its ability to bonus action wild shape which makes it significantly more resilient giving you a lot more effective hit points and also lets it use the very powerful play pattern of casting one of druid's incredible concentration spells and then wild shaping and then subsequently just beating the crap out of enemies in a fight the great thing about a moon Druid is that it is the best early game character in the game in my opinion um from levels one to three Mund Druid is going to make your playthrough smoother than just about any other character between spider form and game-winning spells like Spike growth uh you will be able to just carry pretty much any party through the early game and so having access to this character makes the hardest part of the game an awful lot easier Moon Druids are also very tanky because they get multiple hit point bars both since the enemy needs to reduce their wildshape form to zero and then also their humanoid form to zero to kill them um and they have access to a bunch of fight winning spells especially in the early game things like Spike growth but also plant growth um and then later on things like wall of thorns can just instantly win fights on their own uh if you aren't using Camp casting they also get Heroes feast in the end game so all throughout the game they have uh great spell progression and access to just completely fight winning spells um they are also Druids also get the best summons in the game and summons are very powerful adding more bodies to your team is incredibly useful of course because just having more units on the field is incredibly good in and of itself and moon Druids get the best summons in the game because they will be able to apply to bring the mermad on summons they'll be able to bring the Woodland being summons and those are the two best summon spells in the game Each of which is a game-winning spell on its own they also need no specific items and in fact can't even really use specific items so they will never conflict with the rest of your party in terms of item access and they only require a single attribute they just need wisdom in order to function uh because all of your other attributes you just get from your wild shape form so you don't particularly need to increase your attributes or do anything wacky in order order to maximize the power of your character finally they have great Mobility because the wild shape forms especially early game ones like the spider um come with excellent Mobility so you will be able to go wherever you want to in fights which is always very useful the downsides of Mund Druid are that they usually require a setup turn at the beginning of combat where you are going to um cast a spell with your main action and then enter wild shape with your bonus action or enter wild shape with your bonus action and start attacking which means you either losing some power because you're not casting one of your highle spells or you are um not attacking on your first turn of combat so you have sort of a slightly less effective opening turn not that those turns aren't still very strong those are still very good turns but in some fights you will find that your Druid um has spent their first turn setting up and then the fight is over by the time they get around to their second turn and so they don't actually make any of their attacks uh and also while you're in Wild shaped form you can often lose concentration on spells if your positioning isn't perfect so you do have to be very careful about that or invest resources into taking a feat like uh Constitution resilient or warcaster in order to present prevent that they also have relatively low burst damage for a damage focused character and especially for a melee damage focused character because when you're in melee form you're going to be doing melee damage um but you mitigate that by by mostly being a control and casting character that just also gets really good sustained damage so the low burst damage is definitely a downside but isn't uh would isn't as crippling as it would be for other melee characters broken options that Moon Druids get to abuse include the tavern brawler feet which just doubles your strength uh to hit which means you just never miss your attacks when you're in Wild shape form at time of recording they don't on honor mode get their strength to hit twice uh strength to damage twice in Wild shape forms only their strength to their Attack rules gets doubled with Tavern brawler but that's the important part so it's still just incredibly powerful to not miss your attacks especially because it some of the wild shapes especially the late game wild shapes like the Earth madon have incredible damage output and they also get to abuse the wet condition both by being really good at applying it and also by having a lot of lightning and cold damage in their Arsenal that they can double with the wet condition which is just incredibly powerful and can help you One-Shot enemies very very easily altogether the moon Druid is just um a phenomenal addition to any party especially parties with more late game oriented builds or builds that with like squishy casters and stuff like that that might need a little bit of help to get through the early game because it is just so powerful in the early game and it makes your honor mode runs so much smoother in position number nine I have placed the Assassin Archer this is I think the strongest way to build this character the gloomstalker Rogue the gloomstalker ranger Assassin Rogue character but there are some other builds other variants of assassin based archers will also fit neatly into this category but this is my recommended build using gloomstalker Ranger and Assassin Rogue gets you so many attacks because you get an additional you get an attack when you enter combat and then you get an additional attack on the first round of combat because Assassin Rogue refreshes your action and an addition attack on the first round of combat because of gloomstalker Ranger all of that together means that you are attacking just way more times than other characters on the first turn of combat and all of those attacks are automatic Critical Hits because of the Assassin Archer feature that means that your burst damage on this character is second to none and you can improve it even further by getting action sered from fighter Battle Master Maneuvers to increase your damage even more um or Champion criticals if you want to go for a more critical Focus build but the math generally supports using battl Master Maneuvers uh and to just get a character that pretty much one turn kills any enemy in the entire game making six or eight attacks that automatically critical hit that multiply your uh that multiply your base damage add your Sharpshooter damage um hit very frequently because they're usually made with advantage and you get archery fighting style and so on obviously is incredibly powerful and so the strengths of this character I think should be mostly pretty obvious VI what you're here for is burst damage you do so much damage in the opening round of combat that almost nothing can survive and if you can take out one or two or three enemies in the first turn of combat that's a lot fewer enemies for the rest of your party to fight especially if those enemies are the strongest enemies in the fight which often they will be automatic Critical Hits not only is tons of damage but also lets you trigger critical hit effects and you just get way more attacks than other characters which lets you trigger on hit effect as well um you but there are actually a bunch of parts of this character aside from the burst damage a lot of strength of this character aside from just the burst damage that make it even stronger because there are some it's strong in some very unintuitive ways as well for example this character is incredibly tanky it will have very high Armor class because it it's a dexterity based armor with medium armor you can use a shield in addition to your in addition to your bow if you want to um and so you can have the highest Armor class in the game you get some damage resistances from Ranger you can um and just so this character actually ends up surprisingly tanky for a dexterity character and you also get great hit point progression because you have nine levels of 10 of a d10 hit die from your Ranger levels and fighter dice so this character gets a lot of hit points High Armor class um and a bunch of other stuff that just helps it be defensive and because it's an Archer you will almost never get hit so this character is incredible R survivable you also get great utility spells and Mobility because of your Rogue or utility skills and spells uh because of your Ranger and Rogue levels and great Mobility because of your Rogue levels giving you bonus action dashes and hides um so all of that together makes this character just a very smooth playthrough as well uh because you can pick locks with it you can make it your party face if you want because it's also totally single attribute dependent um needing only High dexterity and because it also needs Feats it often won't actually need to invest points into dexterity so this character is going to end up uh just having a lot of attribute points you can make it your party face you can make it uh have 20 strength for no reason you can do all kinds of cool stuff with the attributes sprad on this character finally you get some of the best initiative in the game because you get the Gloom soccer Ranger initiative bonus you're a dexterity based character you can fit alert into the build pretty easily so you'll pretty much win initiative which is of course excellent the weaknesses of this character are basically that it's got a relatively slow early game um not incredibly slow but because you want to hit uh Ranger 5 and Rogue three before you get extra attack and critical hits you have a few levels before you come into your full potential as a character um so maybe you're going to play it as a monoc class Ranger for the first five levels or take like one Rogue level and then five Ranger levels um so you don't get the full benefits of this build until later on in the build but of course it's still a solid build throughout the early game um and also because it wants the Sharpshooter feet and only gets two feet as you level up you basically need the gloves of dexterity in order to maximize your dexterity playing this character with 18 base of uh dexterity is fine so you could do the you could play it just as a sharpshooter character with a plus two dexterity or use Ethel's hair or whatever but the easiest way to play this character is with the gloves of dexterity which lets you get another feet like alert so you always win initiative and that kind of thing so it has one item requirement and a relatively slow start in the early game but in exchange for that you get some of the highest burst damage and best sustained damage in the game broken stuff you can abuse stealth archery with greater invisibility uh and that just instantly wins the game basically because enemies won't react to your presence at all um and of course just being able to One-Shot every enemy in the encounter before it's starts is what makes this character so powerful weighing in at number eight we have the fire sorcerer so this uses draconic sorcerer and its ability to apply its Charisma to damage of its Associated element alongside the spell scorching Ray which attacks many many times per spell cast to apply its Charisma to its spell damage um multiple times per turn with a six-level scorching Ray which fires seven beams you get to apply your charisma seven times to your damage so the higher your charisma the higher your damage that means that this character does some of the highest burst damage in the game especially because you're a sorcerer so you can cast a scorching Ray and then twin another scorching Ray to apply your charisma even more times in a single turn there are very few enemies in the game that can survive this burst damage um and so the fire sorcerer is just one of the best characters in the game at just killing an enemy Stone dead you of course also get all of the other benefits of a sorcerer you get so you get amazing burst damage from this character but you also get all the other benefits of a sorcerer like incredible control you get some of the best control spells in the game and you can concentrate on them pretty reliably because you're a sorcerer so you have con safe proficiency you can Quicken one and then still cast a fire um Ray or anything along those lines and you can twin control spells as well for even more control and you can twin buff spells such as for example haste in order to BU your party especially in fights where the enemy is immune to fire damage or you just don't want to spend highle spell slots on killing stuff you always have amazing backup op options because you're a sorcerer you get the best action economy in the entire game be able to take up to like five turns in a single turn if you do a quick and spell and then a hasted quick and uh twin spell and then a hasted twin spell and then a Quicken spell um you can cast five spells in a single turn and just completely obliterate encounters by just unloading your entire Arsenal in a single turn and you're also for that reason the best at using items and Scrolls because you can Quicken the Spells cast off of them and uh again I didn't mention this here but one of the best in the game at using ithd powers for the same reason because you can use your spells and elied powers in the same turn um you can not that you can Quicken elied Powers but you can use them alongside other spells as well you also get access to the Charisma skills cuz you're a sorcerer which is a great thing for a party have access to and all of the other sorcerer uh goodies as well but the main thing is that you just do so much upfront damage and are so good at one-shotting enemies with your high Charisma based burst damage that very little is going to survive if you have the spell slots to unleash on them the downsides of this character do include those spell slots because you need six or fifth level spells to maximize your charisma damage um this character is relatively rest dependent you're going to want to refresh your spell slots frequently um so this character is going to cause your party to rest more often in order to refresh its high damage combos not that this character can't contribute when it doesn't have highle spell slots but in order to use your your extremely high damage in a given combat you're going to need highle spell slots available and you're relatively squishy because you need to be a highle sorcerer Sorcerers get the lowest hit points in the game and you'll often be in robes so you probably won't have great armor class um so this character does have put give you uh some risk to your party if you misposition it or are taken by surprise in some way enemies can get the drop on you the sorcerer does get access to aside from just the Brokenness of the way that draconic sorcerer's Charisma is added to damage you also get to use aronis oil to strip fire resistance off of enemies or even give fire vulnerability to non-fire resistant enemies through the convoluted process of applying water to them hitting them with arsonist's oil and then waiting for the water to expire but that can cause um enemies to become weak to fire doubling all your fire damage you also get some of the easiest uh stacks of Arcane Acuity in the entire game which makes your spells hit extremely reliably um and then also your control spells work 100% of the time and similar to the lock it in everything's based on Charisma which is one of the best stats in the game to base things on because you can boost your charisma higher than any other that in the game and since you're applying your charisma seven times in a turn having high Charisma means that you can absolutely Crush encounters because of how high it's possible to get your charisma altogether this is the character to take if you just want to kill things stoned dead because it will just set the entire world on fire it's so good at killing things that it will um obliterate most boss encounters on its own in the very first turn and absolutely make any honor mode run a Bree coming in at number seven I have placed clerics yep uh just cleric cleric as a class is just that good uh in particular here I'm thinking of light clerics Tempest clerics or nature clerics of those light is probably the strongest for Honor mode runs because of warden flare just being an extremely powerful ability but any of those three cleric variants if taken for 12 levels will be an excellent addition to any party clerics have some of the best Spell access utility spells in the entire game and access to a bunch of the easiest access to a bunch of broken mechanics that other uh characters have a slightly harder time using or need to warp their items in order to use clerics just get to use them by default they also just make your run so much smoother with access to the incredible utility spells that clerics get things like guidance and whatever are just uh really good for your party um Aid and heroes feast and so on are always very very powerful for a party obviously you can cast those from a camp Caster but if you're not using Camp casting then a cleric bringing those is really good as well clerics have amazing control um especially the three types of clerics that I mentioned they are very very hard to kill because of their uh medium or heavy armor and Shields and if they're in medium armor of the three clerics I mentioned they also have wng flare to defend themselves they get to abuse the buff on heal items using uh like Mass cure wounds in order to apply blade Ward and bless to your entire party and they also just get bless as a spell which just makes your early game so much easier um the strengths of cleric are basically that they can fill any role in your party incredibly well um and they can fill all the roles in your party incredibly well with the exception of not having great access to skills especially conversation skills or outof combat utility like lockpicking but in terms of combat roles your cleric can fill any role and do it uh tremendously effectively while bringing a whole bunch of extra power to to the table they get some really great item support so it lets you use some of the most powerful items in the game more easily clerics they're just awesome the weaknesses of clerics are of course that they are rest dependent because they're spellcasters so without spells they don't do anything and they have relatively poor skill access um as I just discussed um especially the the three most powerful cleric subclasses don't get great access to skills and so you are going to not be as easily able to um it will somewhat constrain the other party members that you take in that you will need to fill out the conversation skills and uh lockpicking utility stealth and so on um elsewhere in your party if that's something that you want access to you can somewhat mitigate this by the way by taking uh a race that has access to perception as a skill because then if your cleric starts with perception then they're actually bringing a very important skill to your party and since they'll have high wisdom um they get to do that clerics also of course uh a an unlisted strength here is that clerics get to take alert at level four it doesn't hurt them at all to do that and so you will just get to patch the only other weakness of the class at level four by taking the bonus initiative which means that you'll just always win initiative clerics also give you access to some of the most broken mechanics in the game the stacking mechanics because using Spirit Guardians they can apply Radiant orbs and reverberation and max out those Stacks instantly on enemies um preventing bosses from attacking maxed radiant orbs basically completely shuts down a boss and there's uh no saving throw against applying those and then reverberation can knock over entire encounters so it is very very easy for your cleric to just single-handedly shut down every enemy in the entire game thanks to the broken item access that they just make so incredibly easy for their versatility power utility and just overall strength in a party I think that cleric uh even though it isn't like the fanciest build is just take 12 levels of cleric 12 levels of cleric is pretty darn good coming in at number six just shy of reaching the top five but obviously still an insanely powerful build we have the lightning Lord this build uses two levels of wizard uh usually for divination wizard two levels of cleric for tempest cleric and eight levels of sorcerer um in order to cast maximized witch bolts or chromatic orbs on enemies to do enormous amounts of damage in a single turn because you have sorcerer levels you can quick and create water to double the damage and then you can use Tempest cleric to maximize the damage of your lightning damage which means that with a six level witch bolt um and a create water spell this character can do a guaranteed 300 damage to any enemy with a single spell cast more if you can get an ally to apply the the create water so that you don't have to spend your bonus action quickening it on an enemy you can also twin your spells um so you can use marah Hesh gar incredibly well for twin chain lightning and you can twin chromatic orbs on multiple enemies for even more damage output so you basically get to one-hot either the most threatening or the two most threatening enemies in just about every encounter on the first turn of combat 300 damage is so much guaranteed damage that there are very few enemies in the game that can survive it and thanks to divination wizard giving you portent dice you'll uh be able to know in advance um you you'll be able to guarantee hitting the enemies if you happen to roll low and miss an attack and so with and you can also increase this even further with critical hits using luck of the far Realms or the killer sweetheart ring um guaranteed Critical Hits on your uh using luck of the far realms for guaranteed Critical Hits to do even more damage which then gets doubled and maximized and so on the sheer amount of burst damage that this character does is nonsensically high and is enough if you spend spend resources on it to just completely onot any enemy in the game there's actually very few enemies that just have enough base Health to survive this at all um and the ones that do of course you will still have done more than half of their health most of the time uh and the ability to burst down the most dangerous enemies in the game doesn't really need any more praise from me obviously killing every enemy in one shot is pretty good you also get all the utility of these classes you're an eighth level sorcerer so you get all of the sorcery utility spells as well as dialogue skills if you want them you get defensive options like shield and counter spell um and you get to um and you get uh con con save so you'll maintain concentration and you get all the utility of being a cleric and all the utility of having every wizard spell at your disposal because of the way wizard scribe spells you just get to learn every spell in the game so you have great damage great utility great control you have access to twinned haste um so you can just similar to the fire sorcerer you can cast up to five spells in a turn um and if you get your ally to apply wet for your combo you can combo down multiple enemies in the opening turn of combat or just cast a bunch of powerful control spells if that's what's called for in that combat all of those options make this character incredibly powerful because of the sheer amount of damage and utility that it provides weaknesses of the character you are relatively squishy you do get heavy armor access so you're not as squishy as and shield uh proficiency you're not as squishy as some other casters but still relatively squishy and rest dependent because you need to use your highle spell slots for the combo I will say that one misconception about this kind of build and the fire sorcerer build is that they are more rest dependent than other casters but that's actually not true um in a fight where you spend a six level spell slot to instantly kill the most powerful enemy in that combat any other Caster would have probably spent a spent as many or more spell slots in order to win that combat so you are actually more sustainable over the course of the day with these One-Shot combo characters than other characters are um but still you need those spell slots in order to fight so you are rest dependent and you have a relatively slow early game because this build really wants to be at least level four before it comes online um and before you reach the break points where your damage starts one-shotting people is somewhere around like level seven when you get access to fourth level spell slots uh so this character does have a relatively slow early game but of course you're still just a cleric sourcer or a wizard so you can play just normally in the early game using clouds of daggers and Magic missiles and stuff to get you through the early game but the real combo doesn't come online until a little bit later there this uh broken stuff column looks relatively thin because there's really only one mechanic that we're abusing here but this character is the best in the game at abusing it and that's the wet mechanic doubling the sheer uh am amount of damage that we do means that the damage increase we're getting from wet is absolutely absurd so this character just completely obliterates enemies using this broken mechanic which is one of the best things that you can be doing in balers Gate 3 and here we are entering our top five weighing in at number five we have the abjuration wizard abjuration wizard uses armor of agathys um combined with stacking Arcane Ward to have extremely high temporary hit points and extremely high damage reduction and effectively be Invincible the way that Arcane Ward Works in Boulders Gate 3 means that it reduces the amount of damage that is incoming towards your character enormously and is very easy to replenish just by casting more ABD duration spells in combat and so if combats go long this character can tank literally thousands of damage without ever taking a scratch um the strengths of this character are simple it is Invincible uh it is almost impossible for this character to die in a normal combat of Baler Gate 3 you have to like go AFK and pass the turn many many times once you have your combo set up um for an enemy to actually be able to kill you uh you will never lose concentration on spells because it's very rare that you'll actually take any damage at all from enemies um once you've especially once you've provide uh appli damage reduction like blade Ward or warding bond to your character you get great control spells as well as that because you are still just a fully functional wizard you're an 11th level wizard so you have access to some of the best control spells in the game and just great Spell access in general um but mostly the reason that this character is so good is just that you are a wizard doing normal wizard things but you're completely unkillable and that is just an incredible thing to be a wizard is a really powerful thing for a character to be but Wizards do have inherent drawbacks not abjuration Wizards there are no drawbacks to this characters uh one other fun thing about this character is that enemies will often ignore you um and just completely ignore your character so you can just waddle into the middle of enemies with impunity uh and you get incredibly consistent damage because um you can get enemies wet in some way to double cold damage that they take and then provoke opportunity attacks by moving next to them and then moving away they'll hit you dealing zero damage because of your Arcane Ward and then they take 60 return damage from the armor of agathys that you get from being a white draconic sorcerer all of those together are uh just make this character incredibly consistent damage incredibly consistent control um very very very hard to lose the game with and that is something that I value pretty highly so abjuration wizard comes in at number five weaknesses of this character you are relatively rest dependent if enemies do hit you a lot then you need to cast spells to refresh your Arcane Ward so you'll then need to rest to gain those spell slots back and the other downside is that enemies will ignore you um you are a tank so you would prefer if enemies attacked you but it's actually somewhat difficult to get them to focus on this character some easier ways to do that are to give them advantage on attacks with things like the risky ring or mostly by just provoking opportunity attacks on purpose uh it to both eat enemy reactions and to make to increase your damage the broken stuff that this character is doing is the wet condition because wet is just very good you're just going to double your cold damage output with your armor of agathys for just a guaranteed 60 damage whenever enemies hit you uh which they're going to do very frequently and Arcane Ward which is the whole thing that this spell is that this build is based around is just an incredibly broken mechanic so abusing it is one of the absolute most powerful things that you can do in an honor mode run um if you are looking for a caster you have found that your casters are dying don't worry this one never will so this is the perfect caster for you coming in at number four we have the Berserker Barbarian thrower this build uses Berserker Barbarian and its ability to throw weapons as a bonus action combined with Thief Rogue and its ability to make more bonus actions to enter a berserk rage and then throw an awful lot of weapons every turn you can add fighter in for even more attacks which is extremely power powerful as well as eldrich Knight's ability to bond a weapon if there's a weapon that you want to throw that doesn't normally have the returning property this lets you do some of the most consistent and Powerful damage in the entire game because of Tavern brawler being so broken Throne weapons get to use Tavern brawler and Throne weapons get to be ranged so you get to apply Tavern brawler at range which is really awesome um and that means that your attacks basically never miss you get an awful lot of attacks every turn because you're making your attacks with making fully featured and in fact even more powerful than normal attacks with your two bonus actions um and then you also get action surge once per fight to do even more attacks so you're getting tons of attacks your attacks never miss they do more damage than just about any other Marshall character in the game um and your bonus action attacks give you a free prone every single turn or two uh in once you have Thief Rogue and can make multiple attacks per turn in later rounds of combat which can disrupt enemy spellcasters give advantage to subsequent attacks from the rest of your party um and just overall be an incredibly powerful tool for having adding in some control to this already incredibly damaging character you also of course you're a barbarian you enter a barbarian rage you're a fighter you've got uh fighter abilities you can be in medium armor and whatever um and so you get to be pretty tanky overall uh especially for a ranged attacker and you get great util utility skills because you're a rogue so you get access to um lockpicking or other utility skills you can even have this character play as your party face if you want and just start with a rogue level so this character can be built in a lot of ways that actually bring a lot of utility to your party you also get the bonus action dashes and hides from Rogue which makes you quite mobile not that you really need to be because you are a ranged character that never misses so you don't really need to move that often but um the sheer amount of damage that this character outputs just makes it ridiculous the weaknesses of this character there are some um the strengths are just so strong that they overcome all of these weaknesses in my opinion but there are some actual weaknesses to this character uh one is that you do require a setup turn because you have to enter rage so in the early game that's going to cost you uh your your bonus action um and you won't be able to make an automatic prone attack on the first turn of combat because you will have spent your bonus action raging instead of throwing with your Berserker Barbarian throw in later turns that's just going to cost you one throw because the Rogue bonus action will give you a second one but you do have a setup turn where you do less damage than the rest of the combat and it's always better to frontload your damage if possible so set even a slight setup turn definitely does make this character a little bit harder to play sometimes and you get uh delayed access to alert because you have to take Tavern brawler at level four so this character won't be able to get alert until at earliest level eight uh usually level 9 um which means that you will often lose initiative with this character if you don't invest heavily into initiative items or elixir of vigilance and so on which is sometimes difficult to do because this character also really wants to use strength Elixir that's what makes this level split uh viable because otherwise you would need to take Barbarian 8 Rogue 4 in order to actually hit 20 strength uh so this this build really does want to use strength Elixir you can build it without them but it is a weaker version of the build if you aren't drinking an elixir of Hill giant strength every day broken St stuff is pretty obvious for this character you get Tavern brawler which is just an incredibly broken feat makes your attacks hit uh 100% at the time basically makes them do way more damage than any other character's attacks in the game do and these are fully featured weapon attacks so they're also just doing all the damage and effects of your weapons um you get to throw weapons which is just powerful in and of itself in Boulders gate cuz it applies all the effects of the weapon uh but at range so you get to do just more damage than most characters um and you get strength Elixir uh which are broken because they let you get dozens of attribute points and two Feats for free if you just drink an elixir of strength every day that's an incredibly broken thing and some of the best builds in the game are built around maximizing the power of the strength Elixir that if you drink them every day the other thing that I should mention about this character is that while this is a slight spoiler there is a bug currently with the final boss where when you target them with a thrown weapon it often won't hit and then will disappear and that's a real downside to the thrower uh builds because you turn into a Melee character for the last battle in the game um but if you know about that going in in in advance you can play around the bug and hopefully they'll fix that eventually coming in at number three and I expect this one's going to surprise some people because I bet this was a lot of people's pick for number one uh we have the Open Hand monk honestly the the difference between these top five characters is so thin that you could reorder these and I'd be happy with pretty much any order but I think that the open-hand monk does have one downside that lets the next two builds Edge it out very slightly but that is just uh that pales in comparison to just how broken this build Is Us uh levels of Monk and Thief Rogue and with open hand monk specifically you get two additional bonus actions in a round which you can ED for flurries of BL Flurry of Blows which lets you by default make eight attacks in a turn using a monk n Rogue three build or 10 attacks in a turn using a fighter build and all of those attacks will Almost Never Miss because you get to abuse Tavern brawler all of those attacks will do massive damage because you get to abuse Tavern brawler and open hand monk gets damag steroids um and there's items that give you even more damage steroids so this character the amount of damage this character can do in a single turn becomes just ridiculous it's extremely consistent and extremely powerful and you get so many free um crowd control effect from open-hand monk that you will very often just not ever learn what a boss does even if it happens to live for a turn through your damage you get to knock enemies prone or um push them back for free multiple times per turn you get to stun enemies multiple times per turn for basically for free obviously both of those cost a key point but that's hardly a resource and you're incredibly mobile so this character does some of the highest burst damage in the game some of the highest sustained damage in the game um never misses its attacks and just does uh does so much for a party honestly there's like not that much to say about the strengths of this character because it just has so many strengths when it comes to dishing out damage it's uh the best Melee character in the game by far um just crushes encounters all on its own only enemies who are immune to stun of which there are very very few in the game are uh or if you roll badly uh or enemies roll really well on their stun saves uh are you ever going to actually have to play the game when you're playing an open-hand monk um so most of the time you're just going to completely obliterate the uh every encounter that this character enters there are some downsides to this character it's melee which isn't as big a downside for this character CU you're a rogue so you have the extra Dash and you have uh great mobility and jump distance and so on you can almost always get into range of enemies and then leave range if you need to but being melee is still a downside it makes your positioning a little bit harder um and it is relatively squishy for a Melee character monks get relatively low AC cuz they can't wear armor and get relatively low hit points uh because they just lower hit points so you can have this character go down with focused attention from an enemy um that is certainly possible if an enemy happens to live through your turns it's not something that happens often but it does happen and that's what makes this character just a little bit harder to play than the next two in the list um and then also you get uh you have to delay alert because you're taking Tavern brawler at level four so you won't get alert until minimum level 8 um and probably not until Level 9 when you can have monk 5 and Rogue four or something along those lines uh so you are going to lose initiative sometimes something that does put this character a little bit behind most of the other characters in the list that get to take alert very early and win initiative 100% of the time uh and you are very multi-attribute dependent which makes you item dependent and in particular makes you strength Elixir dependent monks can be played without using strength Elixir but it's basically mandat you need uh four of the six attributes to be as high as possible and so getting all of those stats from strength Elixir is basically mandatory to make this build work uh to its optimal effect you can still make a very strong monk without abusing Elixir but for the most part um the Open Hand monk build especially like the 93 build or the 642 build just have to take um just have to drink an Elixir every day broken stuff from this build obviously Tavern brawler obviously strength Elixir and also stunning strike especially is implemented in balder's Gate where it uses your strength or dexterity for its save DC so the safety seers is even higher than it is in tabletop but stunning strikes already just a completely broken mechanic just um the ability to stun an enemy on a relatively High safet DC without spending an action on it at all cuz you you just have to hit them which you want to do anyways so it's entirely action economy free to roll stunning strike is just a broken mechanic that exists in Dungeons and Dragons and this character gets to abuse it to Perfection if you just want to completely wipe the floor with every encounter may I recommend open hand monks and coming in at number two just shy of reaching the first spot but still obviously an incredibly powerful build we have the eldrich Knight thrower now you're probably noticing a pattern over the last three builds and that is that they all center around abusing Tavern brawler that's cuz that's just a broken feat the best builds in the game Focus around abusing this feat because it's so powerful if you can maximize its ability the eldr KN thrower uses uh 11 levels of fighter and one level of War cleric or possibly 12 levels of Fighter um to just make as many Throne weapon attacks in the opening round of combat as you can you can throw any weapon cuz you're the Elder any thr any weapon with the throne property CU you're the Elder Knight so you can do a weapon bond which gives you a little bit more access to different items but uh mostly the idea here is just that in the opening round of combat you make seven attacks once you are max level because you get to throw three times with your main action throw three times with your action Surge and then throw one more time with your cleric bonus action of course you can increase this further with bloodlust Elixir or haste or whatever that means that you have basically the highest first turn burst damage in the game at maximum level and it's really good all the way through the obvious question to ask here is why do I value the eldrich Knight thrower over the Berserker thrower and that burst damage is the answer the Berserker thrower in the first turn of combat can make five attacks and the eldrich Knight thrower in the first turn of combat can make seven attacks so it's just more likely to end the encounter before it begins on honor mode especially in the late game bursting down enemies in the first turn of combat is mostly all that matters just killing them before they get to act and the eldrich KN thrower is basically the best character in the game at doing that you operate from range so and you never miss your attacks so with seven attacks that do some of the highest per attack damage in the game because you're using Tavern Boller um probably have a cloud giant Elixir for tons of damage and get to add all the damage bonuses from your weapon and your gear and so on because these are all weapon attacks since they're thrown weapons uh you just do uh the most damage of just about any character in the game incredibly reliably and Incredibly sustainably your War cleric charges will go away and eventually you'll run out of action surges of course but uh three attacks with the Elder Knight thrower every subsequent turn of combat is still incredibly powerful um and more than enough to get through most combats so the strengths of this character are sustained damage as well as incredible burst damage um and you are also one of the hardest characters in the entire game to kill being an eldrich Knight means that you will have access to Heavy Armor and the shield spell so you can easily be in the mid3 in terms of armor class so if you're not confident in your positioning this character is perfect because it will it's very very hard for it to die um and so that's what I think gives it the very slight Edge over the uh the Open Hand monk um is just that if you you know accidentally hit space bar and end your turn or something uh the eldrich Knight thrower won't die and it there's a possibility that the monk will in that sort of uh circumstance where something goes terribly wrong uh so this character I think is just so good at getting through honor mode um and so safe to play and so reliable kills enemies so easily that it is my number two pick for Honor mode you also get a couple utility spells that's worth mentioning you get to have long Strider and enhanced leap from your fighter which is not a zero um and like the Berserker Barbarian this one does suffer from the final boss bug so just be aware of that going in we've talked about the broken stuff already but you get to abuse Elixir unlike the Berserker this uh the eldr Knight doesn't have to uh you can still max out your strength get alert and Tavern brawler with just the three Feats that you get access to cuz fighter gets an extra feet at level six um and you don't delay access to alert that much CU you still get it at level six so it's just a smoother level progression but obviously both of those builds are incredible and that will bring us to our first place position my pick for the best character to play through honor mode with and that is of course the swords bar Archer swords bars with when using ranged attacks get to use slashing flourishes to just double all of their ranged attacks and so when you are doing twice as many attacks as any other character um you are going to easily win the game swords barred archers get to abuse some of the most broken mechanics in the game as well as just having an incredibly powerful kit at their disposal they have utility skills they have utility spells they have control spells they have amazing sustained damage because they're archers they have amazing burst damage because they get to burn their Inspirations to do tons of extra damage um if you take a fight or two split then you can do even more attacks in the opening round of combat uh you get to make more attacks than anybody else basically uh so you are also just the best user for any Buffs that increase your damage output and just basically get to be better casters than the casters and better Fighters than the fighters the the fact of the matter is that there's not that much to discuss about swords barred archers strengths because name a strength in the game and they are better at that than characters that are specked specifically into doing that thing better archers than archers better casters than casters better melee Fighters than melee Fighters uh even if you're specked into archery um the list honestly just goes on and you can do pretty much anything because slashing flourish just letting you make multiple attacks the band of the Mystic scoundrel and the Helm of Arcane Acuity letting you land spells uh with 100% guaranteed efficiency as a bonus action the fact that you are a a full level Bard so you get access to all of Bard's skill access access to all of Bard's Spell access uh means that there is just nothing that this character cannot do and it will solo the game basically um with even the slightest amount of Party Support of course you it's also a totally viable play character to play if you do want to actually solo the game um the swords bar Archer just does everything your positioning mostly doesn't matter CU you're an Archer and you have incredibly powerful Spell access and you get access to all the best spells in the game because of magical secrets that you get at level 10 um overall this character just does way too much all wrapped into a single package and all of the things it does are individually better than characters that are specifically specked into trying to do those things there are some weaknesses to the swords bar Archer most notably it is squishy you're still a Bard you've taken all of your your levels um in Bard but you do get a lot of good defensive options despite being a Bard um especially if you dip one level into like sorcerer or uh wizard because then you can pick up Shield as well and you're going to be in medium armor you're going to be a dexterity character you will be able to wear a shield if you want so you'll have great AC so while you have lower hit points um than most other characters especially characters that are sort of Marshall by default you still are going to be relatively hard to kill and the other weakness is that you do want the Sharpshooter feet uh and so in order to you will probably need the gloves of dexterity you can take Sharpshooter and then just plus two decks or Sharpshooter plus two decks and Ethel's hair to reach 20 dexterity um but for the most part you are going to need at least one item in order to make up your attribute deficit um and especially if you don't want to spend a second feat on boosting your dexterity and instead get something like alert which of course is incredibly powerful for this character as well um this character does delay access to alert a little bit I guess I didn't put that in the weaknesses but you're a dexterity character so that matters a lot less for you than it does for other characters um and you get to abuse broken stuff like Arcane Acuity and band of the Mystic scoundrel with the Helm of Arcane Acuity you can stack your your Arcane Acuity instantly by using ING flourishes with your attacks or by using an arrow of many targets um and then with your bonus action you can cast an enchantment spell um like hypnotic pattern just to wipe out any enemies in the encounter Who Remain with save DCS that are infinitely high so that enemies can never pass them after your first turn of combat where you will always win initiative there will never be any enemies who left who can act when you're playing the swords barred Archer you can either get command from magical Secret at level 10 or take one level of warlock for command either way works just fine um because it'll still keep you with uh with it uh Charisma as your casting stat um and this character just does everything all in a single package there is basically no downside to playing it and all upsides uh being a swords bar is broken and it is the best character in the game My Number One build for Honor mode all right my friends I hope that you've enjoyed this look at the top 11 builds for honor mode for balers Gate 3 you might be wondering why 11 and the answer is just uh I couldn't narrow it down honestly I felt like not mentioning any one of these builds would be doing people a disservice when they were looking for strong builds um and there's obviously tons and tons of builds that I didn't mention that are still incredible if one of your favorite builds didn't make the list definitely let me know in the comments obviously the top like 500 builds or so for Honor mode are all amazing um and which different people's list are going to reflect their play style or different things that they value maybe you don't care about passing dialogue checks as much as I do or maybe you don't care about uh not long resting uh all the time as much as I do um or maybe you care way more about those things and so what you value in a build might be a little bit different but I think that these builds will be an amazing primer if you are just looking for a good starting point to build strong powerful parties around they get to abuse some of the most bro broken mechanics in Boulder's Gate as always if you have enjoyed the video uh leave a like that helps me out a ton with the algorithm and leave a comment let me know what you think and you can subscribe to my channel for more of this and other strategy game content cheers my friends I'll catch you next time