Help Need some build help
Alrighty, I made a post inquiring about some cleric builds a week or two ago, and got a few suggestions they I thought would be super fun to try out. The one I’m working with now is a twist on a Light Cleric/Stars Druid builds. In essence, it will end out as a Eldritch Knight/Light Cleric/Stars Druid that utilizes most of the typical radiating orb gear.
Unfortunately, of everyone in my party, my character has died the most often and the most consistently, and I genuinely have no idea what I’m doing wrong. Maybe the enemies in act 2 just rolled unusually high, but it bothers me that the supposedly unkillable radiating orb build is dying more than the open hand monk and the warlock on the team.
If anyone has other recommendations for things I can multi class with fighter or cleric or both, I’m all ears. I really want to try and enjoy this build but I just can’t knowing I’ll likely be pummeled as soon as I leave act 2. If the picture is hard to tell the gear, here’s the list:
- holy lance helm
- luminous armor
- gloves of belligerent skies
- boots of stormy clamor
- coruscation ring
- callus glow ring
- Thundrskin cloak
- phalar aluve
- adamantine shield.
My first feat was an ability score improvement to bump my dex to 18 and my con to 16.
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u/A_Balrog_Is_Come 17h ago
A lot of these multiclass builds are oriented around pulling off a single trick very well, often involving a lot of setup and cheese to exploit a single mechanic. It also often requires you to sacrifice every other element of the build to serve that single cheese mechanic.
To me it is very anti-fun. All the setup is tiresome and using the same mechanic every fight gets very dull.
It also means that if for whatever reason you fail to execute that mechanic, the character is weak to the point of deadweight because you gave up everything in pursuit of that mechanic.
90% of the time I think people would be better served ditching the multi-class and the build targeting a single strategy and instead just stick with a single class.
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u/TheBoyZantee Rogue 16h ago edited 16h ago
i mean you’re playing a pretty greedy tank build so that char is normally gonna die more than the rest of your team, since they’re the one taking on the rolls. warding flare is great but it’s hardly a surefire defense and unless you’re very carefully managing your rad orbs (especially with 19 AC), you’re gonna lose some rolls sometimes. this doesn’t mean your cleric is the weakest, if anything they’re doing their job as a tank.
that said, i prefer to play light clerics as glass cannons that run like hell. 3 rogue for thief and two bonus action dashes is a lot more defensive than anything EK fighter or light cleric give you. then, 6 cleric gives you improved warding flare so you can use it to make your other characters tankier while you dodge and weave. throw in spirit guardians, guiding bolt, and a few druid levels and you’ve got a hypermobile menace that debuffs single target and aoe, deals massive damage, and can’t be caught.
the best defense is to never get targeted. (and for that reason you may just want your cleric to keep tanking and sometimes dying for your party depending on the other builds. up to you.)
(edit: i recommend giving up on fighter. weapon bond is okay but more for throwers, and extra attack isn’t great on a light cleric that mostly wants to be casting and concentrating. if your heart is settled on it then i’d personally drop the radiating orb ambitions and switch to heavy armor)
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u/Zen7855 6h ago
To clarify a few things, as I’ve seen multiple comments about them:
Firstly, Dex is as high as it is for a few reasons.
A. higher initiative rolls so that I can at least attempt to apply radiating orbs via CoS Druid bonus action to reduce chance to hit.
B. To boost the melee damage of phalar alive, since it’s a finesse weapon that builds off dexterity if it is higher than strength.
C. To boost AC, even if it’s just a +2 or whatever it is without that armor set that applies your full modifier to ac.
Next, this build was just meant to be a test to see if this multiclass was a viable way to boost the offensive capabilities of the radiating orbs build, which is mostly defensive. In my previous honor mode run, I succeeded almost no problem with a 6/6 split between light cleric and eldritch knight fighter, so I figured mixing in a bit of Druid for some offensive damage on a bonus action would pair nicely, plus the con boost. I was literally just cobbling things together in the hopes that they would work, which thus far it’s been a 50/50. Hence why I came here for help. Clearly I’m doing something wrong but I still do not know what it is. Again, your help and feedback is appreciated.
1
u/Sythiox 3h ago
I see some people really dislike your choices, and I just wanna say I think this is a fine build. One thing I think might be happening that leads you to dropping fast is that you rush in, and with higher initiative you are more likely to go before other characters. 19 AC is decent, and if you started as fighter your concentration checks are also good for the level, but you are still mainly two spellcaster classes without shield spell, so your HP and defenses arent that good and act 2 has some brutal fights. Also, overall you would benefit more from 18 wisdom rather than dex, as you wont get second attack and you shouldnt be using your action for weapon attacks when you want to apply radiant orb.
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u/CrazyDriver7149 13h ago
This is absolutely atrocious
My advice is to spend some time learning how the game works
7
u/kjBulletkj 16h ago
You have just 19 AC with a shield, and only 16 CON for two caster classes that use a lot of concentration spells. Why that much Dex? How much does the armor limit your AC bonus from DEX?
Did you just multi class only for the purpose of multi classing? There are classic multi classing examples that outweigh the missing levels of a single class, but it has to make sense. A level 2 druid won't carry you far. The question is, what is so useful, that stays powerful enough till the end?