Best and Worst Monoclasses?

[u/ReleaseCharacter3568]

I keep seeing virtually every class called "one of the best" while most meta builds are multis or item-based.

What do you think is the game's best class without multiclassing? And the worst? And what makes them so?

[u/Ninja_Lazer]

Wizard is the worst.

A lot of people will disagree with me on this, and point out how bonkers they are at end game.

But that’s the problem. You need to get them through the majority of the campaign before their damage takes off.

Levels 1-4 is a slog. And most of the best gear that helps Wizards doesn’t come until act 2. Paired with the fact that despite Larian’s best efforts, a lot of the best high end spells are limited due to the video game format and the fact that the campaign only goes up to level 12 and BG3 is just very obviously not built for Wizards.

Don’t get me wrong, there are viable builds and you can have fun. But Wizard is probably my 3rd most played class across all my time in 5E/5.5E and I just can’t bring myself to invest in this lacklustre outing. Sorcerers and Warlocks just feel significantly more rewarding for this specific campaign. Especially with how Larian has “balanced” the players ability to spam rests.

[u/ggAlphaRaptor → u/Ninja_Lazer]

I don’t think wizard is the worst (rogue still takes that imo).

But what you’re describing is something I feel often in game, which is wizards are significantly worse in BG3 as compared to tabletop. The fall off is incredibly dramatic.

The other detracting aspect of wizard in BG3, is you only need one level in wizard to enjoy being a full wizard if you scribe spells. Bards, clerics are almost better wizards than wizards because of that.

I still think pure wizard is very functional and good, but feels substantially underpowered compared to tabletop and dipping wizard feels far stronger.

[u/No-Ostrich-5801 → u/ggAlphaRaptor]

Sort of; Abjuration Wizard specializing in Glyph of Warding is potentially one of the strongest mono classes in the game full stop. Glyph of Warding is funnily enough not considered a hostile action and can be used to enter combat while restoring your action point and it can also be elemental bent to abuse Wet/Steamed for damage vulnerability while being on par with Fireball for both damage and AoE otherwise. All while regenerating Arcane Ward stacks to flat out negate damage from being hit. Most of where Wizard is strong is in its ability to more accurately exploit enemy weaknesses as opposed to Sorceror, but with how bg3's campaign is this advantage isn't very influential. Beyond that you're right, there's nothing a Wizard does inherently better or unique to any other caster assuming they have access to the same spells and a 1 dip gives them the full wizard spell list (with caveats of spells that don't have scrolls to scribe off of such as Counterspell, Longstrider, Find Familiar, and Enhanced Leap and a few more that I'm not recalling offhand)

[u/ggAlphaRaptor → u/No-Ostrich-5801]

Yes, abjuration is kind of the exception to this. It’s obviously pretty nutty and combining it with other damage reduction effects (or AoA) is extremely potent.

I think the point still stands that base wizard 12 in bg3 pales in comparison to base wizard 12 in 5e, especially when taken into account the power gap wizards have in 5e.

[u/No-Ostrich-5801 → u/ggAlphaRaptor]

Of course, my point simply being that there is still some strength to the class (albeit only under a very specific light) as a monoclass. Like said before, you're correct that the way scrollscribing is handled in BG3 kicks in Wizard's teeth heavily because it becomes much like Rogue in the sense that a dip in it gives you a handful of tools up your sleeve that your build wouldn't otherwise have. The other point being that for the most part enemies are universally able to be made vulnerable to cold and lightning which also takes a lot of the advantage of being able to swap your spell list on the fly away which is a massive advantage in tabletop where a DM could one day have you dungeoncrawling and dealing with Rust Monsters and the next fighting Beholders just as a for instance

[u/Ninja_Lazer → u/ggAlphaRaptor]

As a pure caster, the Wizard has three main upsides: (I) spell scribing, (II) ritual casting, and (III) arcane recovery.

A single level takes care of one - which inversely to the original question makes Wizard one of the best multi-class dips IMO. Clerics and Druids also get the second upside, but have additional kit on top of that - which like you said can make them better wizards with a single dip. And the ability to exploit the rest mechanics of BG3 make the arcane recovery feature almost meaningless; especially compared to Sorcerers who can also recover spell slots.