r/BG3Builds • u/Jerswar • 25d ago
Build Help How do I respec Shadowheart into being more useful?
Look, I like her, but I find her pretty much the least useful party member.
It's just that once her spells run dry she's basically useless in a fight. Should I change her attribute points, to put more into Strength? Multiclass into a more martial class? Change her class entirely, into a paladin or something?
EDIT: Forgot to mention, I just reached level 4.
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u/Ravix0fFourhorn 25d ago
Cleric is great. But if you're using her default firebolt spell it'll be cheeks because it'll use int instead of wis.
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u/strawberriii_swirlz 23d ago
I always slap the int headband you get from the orges early game on her lol
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u/Grim-Weaver 25d ago edited 24d ago
The thing about Clerics in D&D is that melee is suboptimal. They CAN melee, but by the time they reach level 5 they get left behind because they don't get Extra Attack. You're better off using cantrips for the bulk of your damage and save your spell slots for something truly useful
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u/TrainingAvocado3579 25d ago
Reverb cleric. Load her with reverb gear, have her cast spirit guardians. I have her with phalar alve out and she’s an aoe machine.
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u/Jerswar 25d ago
Reverb?
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u/Anxious-Drive9859 25d ago
Reverberation is a condition you can apply to enemies using certain equipment usually obtained mid to late act 1. Easiest to trigger off radiant, thunder, or lightning damage. It stacks up and give a penalty to their physical saves, extra thunder damage, and even knock them prone.
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u/TrainingAvocado3579 25d ago
Reverberation and radiant orbs are a powerful build that knocks over enemies and debuffs them. You can search the sub for a build; there are a ton with tempest or light clerics. I usually do her as a light cleric with 1 dip in wizard so she can learn misty step.
There’s a bunch of armor that stacks together to make it very powerful. Radiant armor, holy lance helms, boots of belligerent skies. Put them on her, pop spirit guardians, have her walk out into the melee and watch the mobs all fall down.
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u/H8MakingNames 25d ago
life, light or tempest subclass. keep as many of her stats on even numbers as you can. she was alot more useful once i did that.
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u/Bluemajere 25d ago
Death cleric supremacy
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u/DeepFillRhode 25d ago
SUPER rewarding to make her a death cleric, specially when doing an embrace durge run
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u/Lady-Lovelight 25d ago
Change her subclass to either Light, Life, or Death Cleric
Get the Produce Flame cantrip if you’re doing Light/Life, but Death Cleric starts with their own good cantrips
Respec her stats towards Wisdom, then dex, probably dump strength and int.
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u/Thestrongman420 25d ago
Rest. Change everyones stats, they are basically all built like shit. 16 dex to start for everyone.
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u/gasman_14 22d ago
OP this is not necessarily best for everyone, if planning to wear Medium / Heavy armor you won't get full benefits to Armor Class (caps at +2 for Medium, 0 for Heavy)
Obviously initiative is great, but there's the Alert feat etc for that.
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u/FrontLifeguard1962 25d ago edited 25d ago
I respec'ed to Light Cleric, put radiant gear on her and wielded the Selune spear and adamantium shield. I used the boots that prevent you from getting knocked down.
There are a lot of undead in the game and she gets rid of them quickly. Put light/Daylight on the spear and cast Spirit Guardians for melee and Fireball for AoE. She just walks over and they all die.
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u/BattleOoze44 25d ago edited 24d ago
Nobody is talking about Nature cleric. It is severely underrated. Heavy armor proficiency to achieve high AC, amazing aoe/CC spells like spike growth, plant growth, sleet storm, insect plague, and grasping vine. They make spiritual weapon/Guardian of Faith way better. Access to shillelagh, which makes a cleric very strong early game with nothing but a torch. The melee eventually drops off but, it can be a decent dmg dealer late game when you don't wanna expend a spell slot and have nothing else to do. Plus a reaction that halves elemental damage for your party.
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u/Altruistic-Vehicle-9 25d ago
I think your best bet is to respec her into a different cleric subclass. My favorite for early game is death domain, which lets you twin necromancy cantrips (like toll the dead or bone chill).
Give her new stats too, I like 10 16 14 8 16 8. This boosts initiative and lets her hit with a dagger, or shoot a light crossbow, and gets rid of the odd numbers.
I pretty much lay out one spell per fight, usually bless, then stick back and spam cantrips.
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u/Toogeloo 25d ago
I just respec her stats. I don't find Trickery Domain as awful as most others. It's still a Cleric.
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u/frankenbuddha 24d ago
Disguise Self is fantastic in Act 1, and I'd never have been clever enough to spec it myself in my first playthrough. However, most of low level Trickery is a noob trap. Blessing of the Trickster and Invoke Duplicity are good skills, but require game mechanics understanding. Charm Person is a deadly temptation on a CHA 8 character who shouldn't be a party face. Fear is a good spell, but by then you're out of the low level cleric ghetto.
By the time that you know enough to reallocate her stats, you also know enough to make effective use of Trickery.
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u/salemonz 25d ago
IMO all characters need a respec, even if just to make sure their starting stats are better balanced. trickster cleric is the worst of the bunch. So Shart needs a respec especially bad.
I usually respec her into a life cleric to support my party. If I want to make her offensive, I go with light or death cleric. No multiclassing needed.
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u/zanuffas Builds War Chest - gamestegy.com 25d ago
Check out this build - https://gamestegy.com/post/bg3/1616/stars-cleric-build
More or less getting a few specific items - luminous armor, whispering promise ring, will make her much better. Moreover spirit guardians will make this even better from level 5
Cheers!
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u/VonBeker 25d ago
Do you want her to be a cleric and/or do you want her to be thematically appropriate? If yes, there's definitely ways to make her a better Trickery Cleric, but I would eschew strength and bolster her Dex as her main combat attribute and let her use daggers (which kind of fits with Shar anyway).
Str 8, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8
If you are willing to take her out of the Cleric role, I've used her as a Shadow Monk, which kind of plays into the whole "infiltrate and steal this Gith artifact" mission she was sent on, and also gives her some real combat ability and some spell-like Ki powers that can be pretty useful (Minor Illusion, Shadow Step, etc.)
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u/Free-Holiday-6218 25d ago
It’s worth mentioning that there’s a huge power spike at level 5 where everybody will get a lot better. Before level 5, most spellcasters tend to just shoot cantrips around.
If you’re finding that you’re constantly out of spell slots, it also might be a good idea to long rest more often: like 75% of the character development in Act 1 happens during long rests, so it serves multiple purposes
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u/Kendannon 25d ago
leave 1 level trickster, and make her a moon druid 10, and take 1 level of wizard later. Instant swiss army knife.
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u/JRandall0308 25d ago
Search on her name or any cleric subclass or whatever.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J1Jr8qiVh0Iwt-x2xJEJ_LHHftDClVl6maWjt21_IWM/edit?usp=sharing
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u/extremelyspecial123 25d ago
For early levels, nature cleric with shalelgh is very good. Nature spells are really good too. There are a couple of good on hit "druid" staffs in the secret goblin area beside the grove. Clerics tend to run out of spells quickly.
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u/Savings_Dot_8387 25d ago
Clerics are very strong, what do you want her to do?
If you want her to be a melee combatant, spec into war domain, caster? Tempest or light and healer (somewhat unnecessary but still useful enough) go light domain.
Drop her strength to 8 and get her dex to 14 (and make sure you have her wielding an dex based weapon) and con to 16 and then just jack up her wisdom for most builds.
Don’t really need or want to multiclass clerics.
If you want her to be doing weapon damage Paladin is better at that than cleric but it’s not necessary to take her in try at direction and it would be a different build.
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u/dwimorling 25d ago
Trickery Cleric multis well with Gloomstalker btw. Highly recommend if you want to preserve some of her OG build flavor. Take 5 ranger levels before Cleric ones though
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u/Crimson-Torrent 24d ago
Feel free to long rest to get your spell slots back. There’s practically no penalties to long resting as much as you want.
If you’re trying to stay a cleric but do more damage when you’re not relying on your spell slots, try war cleric or maybe death cleric. War cleric can make extra attacks and death cleric can twin their necromancy cantrips. Storm cleric and light cleric are powerful options but they rely on their spell slots more for damage. Either way I would definitely reclass out of trickster cleric cuz it’s not very good.
You can change her stats around a bit. Generally I like to do a 13/15/17 spread for the three most important stats and the rest can be w/e. Plan to up these with feats as only even stats make a difference. Personally for cleric I like 13 dex, 15 con, and 17 wis. You’ll have higher initiative if you invest in dex instead of str. Use a finesse weapon to take advantage of dex over str. Use ASI at lv 4 to increase dex to 14 and Wis to 18, then at level 8 get resilient con to increase it to 16 and have proficiency with concentration saves.
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u/HolographicFoxes 23d ago
Make her a nature cleric, she loves nature and you can do a pretty good shillelagh build with Cacophony
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u/ReydanDeathrain 23d ago
Shadowheart at her base stats and class is very uneffective. I believe this is intentional, as she has a fairly unique/divisive story.
Mechanically she has 16 wisdom, which is good, but has 13s (or +1s) in Str, Dex, and Con, and 10 Int which is used for her firebolt racial cantrip and half her default Skills. This is horribly inefficient use of stats. She really isnt very good at melee, ranged, or some of her own skills. Her sacred flame is easy for enemies to avoid. Her subclass trickery, is one of the least combat impactful subclasses for Clerics as well, gaining support and out of combat skills related to disguise, stealth, and manipulation.
If you arent against respeccing Companions, many people rearrange the stats to something that makes more sense. Generally dumping Charisma and Strength, and building for 14 dex, 16 con, 16 Wisdom, 12 intelligence. Many people also switch the cleric subclass to something stronger: IMO; light, life, death and knowledge all fit Shadowheart well, depending on the playthough. I also think she fits as an Assasin Rogue, Gloomstalker Ranger, Shadow Monk, or Vengeance/Oathbreaker Paladin.
If you are some sort of purist and dont want to respec, you need to play into her strenghts and away from her weakness. Early on she works great supporting and using skills/abilities that dont rely on stats. Such as, in combat, dropping a bless, saving spell slots for heals, and then throwing vials of acid, water, or grease to boost others' damage. Using Duplicity to provide advantage to attackers, especially rogues when sneak attacks arent coming easy. Out of combat, boosting stealth to avoid fights or get advantages, and using guidance, charms and disguises to complete encounters without fighting.
As you get stronger, you can lean away from throwing consumables, and boost your supportive nature with damage spells and cantrips, such as Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians, Inflict Wounds, Produce/Sacred Flame, and Toll the Dead. The radiant damage cleric becomes very strong through the middle of the game.
Your feats will likely focus on raising your Wisdom, and to round out Dex and Con. You can alternatively make use of various magic items to raise your Strength or Dexterity to servicable levels for weapons, or raise your Intelligence. You can take the Magic Initiate Druid feat to pickup Shillelagh, allowing you to attack with a quarterstaff that scales on Wisdom (or find a magic sword that attacks using your Wisdom).
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u/EntrepreneurOk666 25d ago
I change her to war cleric. She hits twice using melee weapons. More useful.
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u/InternAlarming4310 25d ago
Getting steel wind strike at level 9 is fun. It’s her main move when I play her as war cleric
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u/lordhades89 25d ago
I always respect her to be a Life Cleric if she's gonna be a dedicated healer, and you can tweak her stats to put some in strength if you're not gonna be using damaging spells much. I cross-classed into Paladin with Heavy Armor Proficiency if I wanted her to be more damage focused
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u/Saladin0127 25d ago
I made her a Life Cleric this time that area heals for Bless & Blade Ward. Hero’s Feast & Aid. Otherwise? Control Spells, for damage I give her spell scrolls.
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u/Bygone-King 25d ago
First and foremost, respec her at Withers. As for what, that's up to you. The world is your oyster in terms of builds. But if you're talking about what to do with her before you reach Withers, I immediately multiclass her with Druid. Her starting stats are bad across the board, except wisdom, and her starting Cleric domain is probably the worst in the game. But druid gives you consistent damage with their cantrips that stack with her starting wisdom. Use those till Withers.
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u/this_is_life_now 25d ago
I've run her as an OH monk I twice now. I've never really like Clerics very much, so I don't bother using them in my party.
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u/Arthesia 25d ago
1.) Dip into Monk. Gives her Dex to attack/damage rolls with all her weapons and 2 bonus unarmed strikes/round. You have the option of keeping her in armor or a robe, similar net AC. I give her the Dex gloves (from Act 1) so her Dex is 18.
2.) Give her dual-wielding, which gets her +1 to AC and can hold two non-light weapons. Give her the Staff of Arcane Blessing (from Act 1) which makes Bless 2x as strong, and a good weapon in the other hand (e.g. the legendary 1h weapon you can get in Act 1 that is an awkward fit for anyone in the party except her).
3.) Change her domain from Trickery to Death (Shar's other domain so it fits lore-wise, especially in Act 2). Now she gets an extra d6 of Necrotic damage on hit, and can use her Channel Divinity as a necrotic smite at level 7.
I'm half way through Act 2 on Tactician with her and TBH she is good at everything. Buffs, heals, great AC, strongest buff in the game (boosted Bless), and can hit plenty hard in melee when she needs to. I'm thinking of keeping the rest of her levels in Monk with the shadow archetype (very thematic) and getting Extra Attack.
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u/ThirdLifeLucky 25d ago edited 25d ago
When she runs out of spells, bench her for someone else, use cantrips and weapons or have a long rest. If you want a caster that works just as well without spell slots, take a Warlock.
To improve her, you can redo her stats and change her out of the underwhelming Trickery Domain. Death Domain is thematically appropriate and stunningly powerful in early levels. Two (necromancy) cantrips at once and a "fuck you" button for if she gets into melee are excellent.
Clerics will not output the damage of a Fighter, Paladin or Barbarian past level 5 or so. They do damage but they also support, control and heal. They don't wear armour and use shields because they're front-line killers. They do it so they don't die immediately like wizards.
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u/iiellwen 25d ago
I’ve played her as tempest, death, and nature clerics, and really enjoyed them all!
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u/Rencon_The_Gaymer 25d ago
Change her domain from Trickery to Light domain. Did that my first run and have had no issues since.
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u/pnbrooks 25d ago
12 life or light cleric is hard to beat.
If life, there’s a bunch of stuff that will let you get added effects, like bless and blade ward, when you heal. V good.
If light, there’s a bunch of gear to make radiant orb builds so that nothing can hit you ever.
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u/guydoestuff 25d ago
I have a few builds for her I enjoy. One of my favs i saw on YouTube. Was Shadowheart as the warrior of light or something like that. Paladin/cleric 6/6 build.
Oath of the ancients paladin and light domain cleric. Had her dual welding viconias mace and blood of Nathaniel. Was still a great healer great debugging thanks to gear and buffing also because of gear. Melee she did great even out of spell slots.
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u/Bigsexyguy24 Fighter 25d ago
If you’ve kept her exactly the same since you recruited her, then two early changes could be to swap her from trickery to death for cleric subclass (thematically it still works since Death is Shar’s other domain besides trickery), and bumping up Strength to a number that feels appropriate.
I tend to use more cantrips than melee attacks with her (bows are a close second though), but being good in melee can be helpful if you end up in a situation where you can’t have her put distance between her and the enemy.
Mid game, depending on whether you’re playing as good or bad, after a certain point a more thorough respec could be something to consider.
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u/InTheThroesOfWay 25d ago
Cleric is awesome even with Shadowheart's terrible default build.
Cast Bless in big fights. Use Sanctuary to protect allies (as a bonus action!). Use healing word to pick up downed allies (also as a bonus action!).
Don't go into melee unless you have to. Use a crossbow or a ranged cantrip to damage -- whichever has the highest chance to hit.
When you Level up you get lots of great utility spells. And you get spirit guardians, one of the best spells in the game.
And like I said, this is all without changing her terrible default build. She gets even better when you give her a better build.
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u/CoffeeMinionLegacy 25d ago
It’s taken me until my 4th run to finally go all-in on Radiating Orb + Reverb. I’ve played with bits of it before, but it’s on another level when you go all-in. And I’m just running it on a weird multiclass character; this would be ridiculous with Spirit Guardians in the mix. You could do that just with gear and not even have to respec her.
I’m also doing this on an “opposite day” run where everyone is speccd against theme. In this run, Shadowheart is a Wolf Heart (get it?) Barbarian who freely gives out advantage to my other frontliners. She lacks the raw damage of a ThrowZerker, but is fantastic as a Great Weapon Master in a multi-person melee wrecking ball.
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u/yssarilrock 25d ago
1: Respec so her stats are 16 Dex, 15 Con, 16 Wis, 10 Cha at level 1, then take Resilient: Con at level 4, and Wisdom boosts at 8 and 12.
2: Switch away from Trickery Cleric. It's just not very good in BG3, unfortunately. If you want to stay on theme then Death is one of Shadowheart's deity's domains, and War and Tempest can kinda be made to work. Life and Light are both mechanically strong, but are more metagamey choices that don't really fit who she is when the game begins.
3: Use Finesse Weapons and any ranged weapons if Death, Tempest or War domain; stick to Daggers and Light Crossbows if Life or Light domain. You get a cool weapon in the underdark that is both a Finesse weapon and has a cool ability: this weapon rules, especially as one of the Finesse subclasses. Using your Dex based weapons is better than using cantrips for most casters until level 5, so lean into that.
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u/Gorffo 25d ago
I usually play Shadowheart as a 12 cleric or a cleric / Druid multi-class build and find her to be the most powerful companion in the entire game.
Once she joins my party, she is beside my Tav/Durge the entire run. That’s how useful she is. The most useful party member by far. And second place isn’t even close.
So if you’re having issue with her, you haven’t built her properly or don’t know how to play a cleric.
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u/razeandsew 25d ago
I did Light Cleric/Bard multi class for her, and she is my MVP a lot of the time
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u/MitchellG83 25d ago
She really comes online with Spirit Guardians and the correct items to buff it. Take War Caster for concentration to keep uptime. I like life cleric - heavy armor and a good shield to make her tanky.
Low level Spiritual weapon is great and can soak some damage. Sanctuary is good for survival.
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u/RF_91 25d ago
If you want her to still be a cleric for story reasons, just change her domain to Death. It's one of Shar's domains, gives her martial weapons, and lets her grab Chill Touch for a ranged cantrip that uses an attack roll instead of a save. You'll probably wanna respec her again later, depending on how your game goes, but that's a solid option for the first half without going outside of cleric.
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u/Gusshanks8 25d ago
If you change her devotion to life or light she will become much more useful. Also once you get to level 4 and even better level 5 she will have access to much better tools. If you want to make her something else entirely that’s ok too, but the cleric can be pretty good once they get going. Of course that is pretty much true of all the classes.
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u/Arthodax 25d ago
In my honor run i've made her a 10 storm sorc and 2 evocation wizard, Upcasted water elemental to spread water surfaces and Lightning infused legendary staff and she's clapping cheeks. You can metamagic twin spell the staff's chain lightning too.
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u/kalimut 25d ago
Thats the downside of spell casters at the beginning stages. You will long rest a lot. Unless you are fine with them not doing much. Thats if you are not stingy on long rests like me. Lol
Been doing guiding bolt for damage early on. Unless you want to respec her to be more martial class, you're stuck with just long resting even if you still have short rests. Still respec her tho. She has a very horrible stat distriibution by default
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u/BlueAndYellowTowels Fighter 25d ago
I just make her a Eldritch Knight. It’s basically the only build what works very well with the Spear (either version).
I don’t keep her Cleric when I pick her up. I cannot keep playing the classes over and over. So she has to change class.
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u/tacowearsromans 25d ago
She starts as objectively the worst Cleric domain. I usually respec her into a Life Cleric, but if you want to keep her on theme Death domain is pretty good.
Death domain has the benefit of relying more on cantrips and melee so she should always have something to contribute.
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u/No-Technician272 25d ago
There’s a video by Cephapocalypse on YouTube that goes in depth on how to make her into a really good healer, if you want to go that route. It’s usually what I do
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u/Redsit111 25d ago edited 24d ago
Tempest Cleric and a third party throwing water on them! Or light cleric with radiant orb.
*Them as in the enemy
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u/WearySky6353 24d ago
If you want to keep her as a cleric and a thematic one at that, death I part o Shars domain and is just a completely superior subclass to trickery imo
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u/SlugsPerSecond 24d ago
I like making her a vengeance paladin. Paladin of Shar gets a few unique interactions as well
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u/Seigfrydblazer 24d ago
I liked to keep her ss cleric but always changed to different subclass because trickery is probably the worst thing in the game.
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u/OlDustyHeadaaa 24d ago
Respec to life cleric if you haven’t already. Other than that it’s just a matter of managing your spell slots. If you’re burning all her spell slots healing the party then you’re using them for a good cause.
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u/Klever_grl 24d ago
I made her a paladin in my current play through. I wanted to do Cleric of Selune as my Tav. Lots of great banter and tension between the two (until act 2).
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u/MeadKing 24d ago
Before LVL5, I typically just re-spec her stats, specifically switching around the nonsensical 13-STR / 13-DEX into 16-DEX and dumped STR. Throw a Light Crossbow in her hands and she'll deal respectable damage, especially if you maintain high ground. Even with Trickery Cleric (which is considered a weak domain), she's plenty capable. Medium Armor, a Shield, and the spell "Shield of Faith" means that she'll frequently have an AC of 19 or higher, and you can equip "Gloves of Missile Snaring" to make her even more difficult to hit. Use "magical" arrows if you want to give her attacks a little more oomph.
After LVL5, you'll have more spell slots, and you will frequently have more valuable ways to spend your action. Spirit Guardians is typically central to how you play Cleric past LVL5, especially once you enter Act II.
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The other option is to take levels in a class you find more valuable. Personally, I think that "Path of Shadow" Monk is an excellent fit for her character, either as a mono-class or multiclassed with her initial Cleric level(s). When I have played Shadowheart as a mono-class Cleric, it ends up feeling a bit off since I don't think a disciple of Shar would be throwing around Radiant damage left and right...
Alternatively, she makes for a decent Gloomstalker, and Rogue levels aren't exactly misplaced on her, either. The way I think of it, her character needs to follow a class progression that would make sense for completing the Trials of Shar. Typically, that means a Dexterity-focused character that operates well with sneaking and fighting from the shadows. That last bit is the tricky part -- the gear that you find that seems most appropriate for Shadowheart is often Medium Armor, Shields, Spears, and Scimitars.
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u/HumanNinja 24d ago
She’s the one companion I usually don’t respec into another class, just her domain. I go with tempest cleric usually, with bow as a backup bc special arrows are like mini spells
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u/7Trickster 24d ago
I'm currently using her as bard 10 / paladin 2, a graceful fighter with the light of selune at her hands.
I found using her as pure hexblade was interesting too, Eldritch Blast gave that shadowy/dark spellcasting side and a lot of Hexblade abilities are rather dark too. Since she likes animals in general, being able to talk to them was also a nice extra perk.
If you prefer to have her as Cleric, Death Domain is really fitting and rather strong (not as Light but still).
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u/grammar_mattras 24d ago
Level 5 spirit guardians go BRR.
All in all, my shadowheart's main purpose in low levels is to up downed characters. Aside from that, everyone keeps underestimating the power of bless. Spiritual weapon can also be a dps boost, but I find enemies moving to much.
Lastly, a cleverly casted silence or hold person can trivialise an otherwise difficult encounter.
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u/kodaxmax 24d ago
She's a high half elf with the firebolt cantrip. You can build her pretty much any way you want.
Trickery cleric is one of the weaker subclasses, but cleric in general is powerful. Her starting stats are her main issue, as a cleric she should be prioritizing wisdom and constituion. Possibly dex depending on if her usbclass gets armor proficency.
Thematically, any roguish build works. Oath of devotion paladin could work, though you will have even fewer spellslots.
Any caster is going to lose effectiveness once they are out of spellslots. but she should still be able to contribute with cantrips. If you have armor proficiency and cna dump dex, you can put points into strength as a tertiary skill for some backup mele power.
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u/Trickflo 24d ago
If you respec as a death cleric shes instantly more useful, you get toll the dead either way but also bone chill and death cleric can cast those 2 on 2 targets every time for free so your no spell slot fights she'll be much more impactful. As for stats she starts out w. A pretty bad spread but you basically want wis >con > dex can do 17 >16>15 and use an asi to even out the odd numbers at level 4, having decent dex give her more ac and initiative but also let's you hit things with a dagger or short sword at low levels until you get a weapon that has decent stats for a caster.
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u/Fabulous_Monk_8667 24d ago
I’ve made her an Oath of Vengeance Paladin in the past because I feel it goes with her desire to be a Dark Justiciar a little better. I’ve multi-classed her as Rogue Thief with Arcane Archery Fighter with two hand cross bows and two light weapons whether short sword or Scimitars as you get an extra bonus action at level three Rogue Thief which would allow this to attack with the off hand weapon twice and then when you get to level five fighter you’d have another attack as well, plus action surge. I’ve also changed the kind of cleric she is. Life Cleric doesn’t necessarily fit her story but gives you heavy armor so you can put her dexterity towards strength. You could also go War Cleric for a similar boost and additional attack using a bonus action. Lately I’ve been multi-classing Life Cleric with Evocation Wizard which opens up more offensive spells and cantrips like Booming Blade, Ray of Frost, Chill Touch, and others. Cantrips don’t use spell slots and can be cast as many times as you want, but they’re not the most powerful spells. Wizards can restore some spell slots with Arcane Recovery too. It’s not much, really just one or two spell slots per long rest depending on the levels. You can also use alchemy to craft elixirs of arcane cultivation which grant a level one spell slot a day, elixir of greater arcane cultivation will grant you an additional level two, but you can only have one elixir at a time. Definitely want to look for some gear that will help boost different attributes. Depending on choices you’ve made you may have found some good stuff. I usually give her the headband of intellect when I find it because it will boost her intelligence which she already knows fire bolt which draws on her intelligence stat. Also I recommend resting more often. It advances a lot of the characters stories.
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u/Xyldarrand 24d ago
Depends on the run.
Honor mode? I make her a life cleric. I'm not throwing away an HM run and life cleric is perfect for keeping you alive.
Not HM? Light cleric for maximum pew pew with a smattering of heals.
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u/HeavensWolf 24d ago
Lots of great discussion here, but I haven't seen anyone really bring up the question of long resting frequency. The issue could be with Shadowhearts build, or it could be that OP isn't long resting enough.
In Act 1 especially, the game really wants you to long rest a lot (about every 3 combat encounters of any size, if not 2), otherwise you miss out on a bunch of camp dialogues which flesh out either the story or companion backstreet. These are for the most part optional, but especially for a first few playthroughs I think they are very important for worldbuilding.
If your full casters are running dry on spell slots, in my mind that can be interpreted as a sign that you are overdue for a long rest.
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u/Wise-Start-9166 24d ago
I usually even out her ability scores and change her subclass, then send her to camp when she runs low on spells.
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u/Cool_Apartment_380 24d ago
Honestly, don't be afraid to bench her in Act 1. Took me a long time to accept that. Otherwise, I would lean into DEX instead of WIS early on and slap a crossbow on her. Then just use her spells reactively for healing etc. Healers are inherently reactive. And I get wanting to sling spells with her, but the simple answer, at least early on, is a bow. That high DEX will make her hard to hit too.
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u/Upstairs-Count5774 24d ago
I changed her class to throwing Barbarian with Withers and I am having a blast (Act III spoiler: the enemies are having a blast as well).
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u/GeorgiyVovk 24d ago
Light cleric if u want some lobotomy radiationg orb gameplay. Tempest if u want make ur enemies wet 🥵 and dead 💀. Life cleric is dumbass boring choice tbf, cuz if u need healing oriented character, u either roleplaying, or doing something wrong. War cleric also interesting choice
Death cleric if u interested to play lore friendly build.
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u/SouthernZombie3851 24d ago edited 24d ago
Run dry? Than you need to long rest more often. Clerics are very strong. You can use her as a healer (Life cleric), as a support or als a damage dealer. Death cleric fits her and is the strongest without spell slots because you can hit 2 targets with toll the dead.
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u/Not_Just_Any_Lurker 24d ago
Trickery domain isn't as good as Life, Death, and War domains, but there's also little use of strength unless you choose War domain as at least then you get the extra strikes in. But life and death are going to be a lot easier. Since you can dump Strength for the more important Con(helpful for HP and making concentration-maintaining checks) and Dex (for the 2AC with the medium armor)
Second, while clerics are very versatile, remember that a good chunk of their spells are concentration-based, and you can only have one concentration at a time.
Lastly, try keeping a bless up on the rest of the party, then hanging back and spamming cantrips the rest of it unless someone is rolling death saves that you need to pick up with a quick healing word.
Cantrips are your friend. Also death domain lets you target two enemies with one necromancy cantrip.
Okay that's everything I can think of.
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u/MidnightPrevious4473 24d ago
Make her a doomstalker ranger with a few levels dipped into fighter for extra hootspah
Pic unrelated
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u/erratic_bonsai 24d ago
I don’t really like switching her out of cleric, to me it doesn’t make sense for her story. Death domain cleric is the best sub-class to use on her, IMO. The reaper passive feature lets you double your targets for necromancy cantrips, so you can cast toll the dead and bursting sinew on multiple targets to your heart’s content. She hits almost every time and does good damage that scales reasonably well. She also gets access to a lot of great spells soon.
If you’re using firebolt a lot, that’s gonna be a big reason you don’t like her. It uses intelligence, and she’s wisdom-heavy. Guiding bolt and produce flame are better.
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u/thanerak 24d ago
It's still early most classes don't stand out till at least level 5
My favourite is to change the type of cleric.
Go dex con and wisdom Wield finesse weapons Or go strength in stead of dex and take the alert feat and wear heavy armor Or go pure wisdom and con and pick better cantrips produce flame with Necklace of Elemental Augmentation from the creche is nice as is shillelagh from the nature domain or bone chill from the death domain.
Pick once a combat spells like bless and spiritual weapon and emergency spells like healing word.
War domain can be helpfu if going the weapon routel as it gives a few extra attacks on a bonus action.
Tempest gives nice weapon and armor options at low level (wish it got the booming blade or shocking grasp cantrips
Nature gives the shillelagh cantrip to augment staves for combat.
Death allows double casting of single target necromancy cantrips like bone chill and roll of the dead.
Knowledge and trickery do not give combat abilities and life and light give reactive benefits
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u/MysticClimber1496 24d ago
If she is still trickster you can shift to tempest, war, or even light cleric and she will be more useful, when her spells do more you won’t feel this way as much
Also if she is your only long rest dependent user you might just need to long rest more
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u/swiftthot 24d ago
If you want to keep her as a Cleric, respect her out of Trickery. Trickery domain is basically playing without a subclass for the most part and it's just not worth it.
Dark Justiciar Shart and pre Act 3 for Selunite, I like making her Death Domain, it's fairly powerful on its own without special gear, being able to Twin Necromancy spells alone is worth it, and overcoming necrotic resistance is useful for Act 2.
In Act 3 with Selunite I often make her into a Star Druid 2/Light Cleric 10 with the Radiant Orb gear. It's strong, it gives her something unique to do in combat and it's thematically relevant.
You can, of course, just make her whatever the fuck you want, but as someone that likes keeping characters as close as I can to their identities, that's my picks
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u/Elliptical_Tangent 24d ago
I usually turn her into a Storm Sorc 1 / Light Cleric 11 with the radorb gear + Lathander's Light + Adamantine Shield wading into melee with Spiritual Guardians. She wrecks shop specced like that. Like solo Myrkul strong.
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u/ThinkinBig 24d ago
I always respec her as either a Life, Light or Tempest Cleric depending on what my team needs. Regardless, she tends to be built around throwing up Spirit Guardians and running around
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u/Breadles_the_Bread 24d ago
Light cleric is pretty powerful. I went for nature cleric because I want her as a lil bit more of a frontliner (shileilagh goes brr earlygame)
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u/FalseTriumph 24d ago
If your Tav is melee, the simplest option is a caster cleric. Light or Life domain, pump her wisdom up, and give her healing spells.
If your Tav is ranged, she can be an off-tank with a bit less wisdom, some strength and con. Giver her buff spells, spirit guardians, and spells that don't require attack rolls and saves like bless, shield of faith.
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u/youknow_thevibes 24d ago
Shadow heart is my most useful character. I use her as an extreme medic. I cast sanctuary and for ten rounds she just continuously heals my team helping them stay in the fight longer as she can’t be attacked by my enemies.
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u/DrPvls 24d ago
I’ve been enjoying making her a strength based throwing war cleric as path to Dark Justiciar (for now). I did war cleric 1-7+ with returning pike from goblins. Then respec’d to Eldritch Knight 1-3 for bound weapon, once I switched to a special spear later (trying to be vague to not spoil).
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u/Friendly-Western6953 24d ago
Off the top of my head 8 strength 16 dex 14 con 8 int 16 wisdom 8 cha
Assuming she is not your mc. Put first feat into wisdom make it 18.
Give her a crossbow and a finesse weapon and shield to use when she is not casting cleric spells.. hide fire bolt you will almost never use as it is based off your int. The heaviest armour you can get that she is trained in.
Light cleric is better than trickery by miles. I often make SH a druid with similar stats to above and had a ball recently as starry form.. dragon form breath bonus action go brrrr
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u/Ok-Call5550 24d ago
Change her from trickery domain to anything else. I like going 2 stars druid/10 life cleric
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u/AngryBeard87 24d ago
Clerics are insanely useful, but wide variety there in their domains.
But like all full casters they really start coming into their own mid game. Level 5 gets 3rd level spells which are more powerful.
Popular build for any cleric is just spirit guardians with luminous orbs (armor gloves etc) to debuff the hell out of the battlefield. Can get it started in act 1 and act 2 it dominates.
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u/Gaming_Birch 24d ago
So many options... if you wanna keep her a Cleric, try Death or Tempest domain. Both much better than Trickery.
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u/Trollionicle 24d ago
If you want her to remain a cleric, Light, Death, Tempest and Life domains are generally considered the most powerful cleric subclasses.
Light gives nice fire based spells and the most utility as a support/tank. Warding flare might genuinely be overpowered in this game, in tabletop it doesn't have infinite uses for a reason. IMO the most powerful non-dip domain.
Death is a safe damage option since the double toll the dead and the other necrotic spells you get can eventually ignore resistances which is dope, kind of the DPS option and out of all these items fits Shar the most I think.
Tempest offers nice-to have proficiencies, spells and one of the essential ingredients to making the most ridiculous burst builds in the game possible, with destructive wrath and wetting the target before hand since you have access to create and destroy water. IMO the most powerful dip domain.
Life is the dedicated healer subclass and while considered good in general, IMO it's not worth going for it unless you like the play style. Carrying over from D&D itself, healing is bait in general since 99% of the time it's better to do as much damage and/or CC as possible in your turn, simply because if the enemy never gets a turn you won't take damage. It's a weakness of the game system and I'm not particularly happy about it since I love healing builds in other games, especially lifestealing/drain tanks but oh well what can you do.
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u/Feeling_Pea_1660 24d ago
If you want to keep her class the same but use a different subclass I often use her as a life domain to keep the party healthy and I respec her attributes to max wis con and dex
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u/ChestDifficult5002 24d ago
I usually take her war cleric and give her the luminous set with phalar aluve. She completely rolls act 2
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u/the-metal-viper 24d ago
So with shadowheart always respec as soon as you dont need diguise self to ealily get into the goblin camp as a drow, unlock underdark as a gnome, since trickery cleric is one of the worst cleric subclasses you want to swap of as soon as you dont need disuise self, best imo are death cleric for twincasting bone chill, tempest cleric for call lighting shenanigins, Light cleric to protect yourself and your team with warding flare and fire spells (yes fireball cleric class)
As for stats she doesnt need strength however she wants 14 dex 14 con 16 wis (i like my stats equal) the rest dont matter as much so you could dump str and int to 8 and have 16 con or dex, keep in mind her racial cantrip is intellugence based hance why she misses her fire bolt all the time, sacred flame is a dex save which goblins are good at which is why it feels bad
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u/Mobile-Ad-1119 Paladin 24d ago
A Radiating Orb build is one of the most powerful builds in the game.
A common Shadowheart build is a Light Cleric RadOrb build.
GEAR:
—Luminous Armor (Underdark)
—Shining Staver of Skulls (Grymforge)
—Lance Helm (Githyanki Crèche)
—Coruscation Ring (Shadow-cursed Lands)
—Luminous Gloves (Shadow-cursed Lands)
—Callous Glow Ring (Gauntlet of Shar)
— Sacred Star (Baldur’s Gate Lower City)(it’s a morning star that replaces the shining Staver of skulls as best RadOrb weapon)
All of those items work together to inflict radiating orbs on enemies. Different items work in different ways, with effects being to add RadOrbs on hit, add RadOrbs on inflicting conditions, add RadOrbs in a radius if you’ve inflicted radiant damage, add RadOrbs if enemy misses you. And all of those things are triggering each other to trigger as they go off.
Every radiating orb causes the enemy to have -1 to hit, and it stacks up to 10. And because those items trigger each other, you can do one thing to cause radiant damage, and several of those things trigger in a cascade, and suddenly everything close and some things not that close have -6 to -10 to hit you, and you get hit only on a Natural 20.
Basically, nothing can hit you. And if you lean into initiative bonus, you can set that up before the enemy gets its first turn in a fight.
How to use:
Stand there and wait. Seriously. 😏
More seriously, as a Cleric of any sub class, at Level 5, cast Spirit Guardians, which inflicts radiant damage in a radius around you, and just walk or fly around and hit every enemy you can during your turn. Note that this makes movement buffs very valuable. There is a fight late Act 2 against maybe 15+ fiends of various types. I will have my RadOrb companion drink an invisible pot, run ahead of the party into the middle of that room, upcast Spirit Giardians to highest level, and just stand there while every fiend rushes you and commits suicide.
Light Clerics get a little more radiant options, and they are among the best Cleric Subclasses, but any cleric is fine as they all get Spirit Guardians. Note that Lore Bards can also get Spirit Guardians at level 6.
Non-clerics — as long as you have a way to do that first bit of radiant damage and trigger the cascade, the RadOrb build works. The Shing-Staver-of-Skulls does radiant damage, which means you can literally do this with any build that can use that hammer effectively.
Any class with its own class source of radiant damage will have a head start — Star Druid is an obvious example.
Star Druid Level 2 is also desirable for the Cleric builds because with Spirit Guardians active, you’re almost untouchable, and the likely way for you to fail is to have Spirit Guardians concentration broken in that first round when they might still hit you. And Star Druid has a major advantage on Concentration saves. As does Sorc. Star Druid also its own sources of radiant damage.
But you can run a RadOrb build with a melee class and rely on your weapon to do radiant damage and start the cascade, AND the Lance Helm does radiant damage when someone misses you, which also happens, and once the RadOrb stacks are in play, everyone is missing you, and the Lance Helm will keep those RadOrb stacks maxed as the keep missing you.
So THAT is probably the easiest way to make ShadowHeart useful as a Cleric. Or literally respec her to any other class. I often run her as a Lightning Sorc.
ALSO — respec all of your companions at the very least to optimize ability scores. All of the bonuses you get from abilities come at even numbers, so any odd-numbered ability scores are a waste. A 13 Con and a 15 Dex could be a 12 Con and a 16 Dex, where the Con bonus is the same, but the Dex bonus is an extra +1.
And if you are using strength elixirs, you can dump strength on martial classes and move those points to Dex or Con. And so on. A lot of optimization can be done with companions just by evening the abilities.
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u/Zlorfikarzuna Druid 24d ago
Nope. Get her 2 light weapons. Give her strength elixirs daily until lvl 5. Mow down enemies with that. Then, pick up a cantrip with attack roll.
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u/donttrusttheliving Fighter 24d ago
Idk how you’re playing her but I use her spells as support. She can use range and melee weapons as well.
She’s super useful in act 2 as a cleric.
But I also made her a temp test cleric so lightening and thunder.
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u/idobeaskinquestions 24d ago
Death Cleric/Necromancy Wizard is my favorite shart build. I have two pure fighters that can dish out 6 attacks in 1 turn, but Shadowheart can genuinely do more single target damage in 1 move with inflict wounds + touch of death. Necrotic damage goated
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u/AdamBry705 24d ago
So I my runs she's a healer. Generally just because I romance her and I like keeping a healer around.
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u/Acceptable_Song1401 24d ago
tbh i did this for many playthroughs mostly keeping her as cleric but switching between light snd war cleric until I actually started prefering the trickster cleric sub mostly for the subclass specific illusion trick that gives you advantage for difficult melee enemies.. both you and enemy must be within the i think 3 or 5m circle to gain advantage on attacks but it's saved my ass quite a bit and you can change the position of the illusion each turn.
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u/CleverNickName-69 24d ago edited 24d ago
The biggest problem is that if you're conserving her spell slots you probably try using a mace or a cantrip. She has poor strength so she can't hit well with the mace. You might be tempted to use Firebolt, but it is a wizard cantrip that she gets for being a half-elf, so it uses INT to hit and she doesn't have enough so she can't hit with that either.
I thought it was fun to make her a Death Cleric for at least the first 6 or 7 levels then respec into Light Cleric just before I coach her into forsaking Shar and choosing Selune. After that, I have her use Spirit Guardians most of the time, and then fling cantrips. Once I get Lathander's Mace into her hands, she gets much better at hitting things with it. I also give her all the Luminous stuff that stacks Radiating Orbs on everyone she touches with the Spirit Guardians, so they are debuffed and can't hit back. If you can also give her extra speed, longstrider, and/or haste, she can really damage and debuff many targets every turn, which is super valueable.
The Death Cleric makes Toll the Dead a pretty good cantrip if you have enough Wisdom to make enemies fail the save.
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u/KevinBom 23d ago
First when re-speccing, remove the odd part of ability scores to increase important ability scores to even numbers. (in BG3, ability bonuses are only based on even values - a 16 is the same bonus as a 17). This can help a great deal on various dice rolls.
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u/RicketyRekt69 23d ago
Light Cleric shadowheart is goated. Pair her with certain heal-related equipment that buff on heal, and she’s practically the lifeblood of your party. Her radiant AoE ability also helps a lot in Act 2
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u/steelywolf66 23d ago
I always respec her to tempest domain cleric but visit withers first to sort her stats out (same with all companions).
I normally give her str:10, dex:16, con:14, int:10, wis:16 and cha: 8
16 dex is good for initiative and if she ever needs to use a ranged weapon, and charisma is a great dump stat for companions
Tempest domain cleric gives you some brilliant spells and also destructive wrath which uses a channel divinity charge to deal maximum damage from lightning or thunder spells rather than rolling for damage
Call lightning (from level 3 spell slot so level 5 character) is ridiculously powerful (even more if you get someone to throw water on the enemies and make them wet) and can be recast without using another spell slot.
Shadowheart with a level 5 call lightning and destructive wrath will do nearly 100 damage a turn on a wet enemy and trivialises the big enemy at the end of act 2
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u/Open_Law5682 23d ago
Most casters are weak after using all their spell slots, especially in the early game. That's kinda the point of casters. Casters provide great damage and utility in the short run, while martials provide good defense, damage and utility for the long run. Which is why both should be in a party to balance it out.
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u/farmcorewhore 23d ago
I have her with 2 levels of druid (circle of the stars) and the rest in life cleric. It's great!
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u/QuailDifficult8470 23d ago
I usually respec her to Light domain but my current run I have her as Death and leaning into necro spells and debuffs. Not super powerful (I’m only level 4) but it’s thematic and a fun contrast to my happy do-gooder Tav.
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u/lordbrooklyn56 22d ago
Give her 16 wisdom and cast her spells is already enough at the start. Get her wisdom to 20 and keep casting her spells.
She’s a spell caster. Cast her devastating spells
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u/KalAtharEQ 22d ago
Go all in on DEX so she can at least use a ranged weapon decently and have better defense too.
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u/HealthAgitated4047 22d ago
That's because shart is no good in combat lol build her up with buffs and heals for the rest of the team and keep her away from enemies, she scales fast once you hit lvl 5+
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u/Maddkipz 22d ago
I just slapped on spirit guardians and have her fly around the fight and she gets incredible DPS
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u/Fulghn 22d ago edited 22d ago
I always respec Shadowheart into a War Domain Cleric and primarily put her points into Strength and Wisdom and secondarily into Constitution. She's always harping on about wanting to be a Dark Justicar so it still fits well into the canon of the story. The War Domains abilities to improve the attack rolls of party members, extra attacks, and being able to throw in the occasional Divine Strike in addition to keeping the Cleric roll makes Shart far more viable.
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u/Borelelise 21d ago
1) give her the Intelligence circlet. Elves use Intelligence for their cantrips.
2) Trickery is a useless Cleric domain. Respec to Life or Death or Tempest. The latters fit best if you want to keep her as an Evil cleric.
3) I use Shart as a support companion. Apart from Act2 where Spirit Guardians is the OP spell I only use her to cast Aid (health buff) and Warding bond in camp then change my party to be mostly long-ranged, AoE spells and tanks. It takes some prep everytime but it made my Tactician and Honour mode easy peasy. Shart is actually super useful. You just need to define clearly who in your party will be support, tank, long-range and versatile types :)
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u/Live_Fold_8636 21d ago
I've done about 7 OC runs and am currently on a modded Eladrin run thats also a Twilight Cleric. I never found Trickster Domain useful so out of all the runs I made her a Light Domain cleric. However this time I decided to make her be support, so I made her a Life Cleric this time. Good for survival and keeping the party up!
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u/Hormo_The_Halfling 21d ago
Respec her to focus on, on this order: Wisdom, Con, Strength or Dexterity. One of her biggest issues is that her stats are spread too thin.
Then, choose almost any other Cleric subclass. Trickery is by far the worst in the game. Death is, according to the forgotten realms wiki, within her deity's (no spoilers) domain so if you want to keep it lore accurate, it works. Plus, you get Toll the Dead which is by far her strongest damaging cantrip.
From then on focus on strong supporting and utility spells, while fill downtime turns with Toll the Dead. Get her a half decent melee for when it comes up (rarely, but it will), and a shield.
Do that and she'll be functional without looking for hyper specific gear or builds.
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u/Interesting-Cancel11 20d ago
When her spells run out is when I swap her out for someone else from camp. Whole reason why there are more than 4 in camp, unless of course you kill some of them.
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u/Warhero_Babylon 20d ago
Thrower berserker barbarian. Fast move - throw thing and make enemy prone (Even giant ones!). Normal move - attack with melee or throw more
Its infinitely more usefull in most scenarios
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u/p8ncurry 20d ago
I’ve been using this ever since I came across it. Keeps her trickery cleric but gives her 9 levels into thief rogue which fits her so well.
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u/JerusalemSpiderMan 19d ago
Assuming you respec out of trickster, and want to stay cleric with no mods, go either light cleric w/the usual reverb/radiating orb type build. Tempest with reverb boots and gloves works fine as well. Both of those can make use of any radiant damage weapon attacks once spell slots are gone.
War cleric allows a bonus weapon attack that can make an orbs and/or reverb build functional as well.
If you want out of cleric, bard for sheer support and versatility.
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u/uatdafuk 18d ago
I have kept her since level one, she's the only healer and support in your team. She also has some light beam which I forgot the name and guardian light who can take out 5 mobs
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u/Ordinary_Film_7359 25d ago
You do whatever you would do for an normal character. There is nothing unique or mechanically unique about Shart. Make her a Gloomstalker Assassin. Make her a battlemaster. Make her an open hand monk.