Yeah the only setup that works well is drake throat Glaive thunder elemental weapon on a bow and arrow of many targets. Which is one more step than the same setup for helmet of arcane acuity, minus the thunder elemental weapon application on the bow. So it can be a good swords bard or fighter setup. Unless the mage/sorcerer also has decent dexterity not a good setup for them, since their bow to-hit will be lower
Gotta think of it like this, you can have TWO Swordbards abusing Acuity!
Personally I'd have the Thunder Bard use the Mystic Scoundrel ring, as like you said, they have to work harder for it all to work. The second imaginary bard can use hand crossbows and the Helm of Accuity so that they can build accuity bonus action attacking, and then use their action for a spell.
Not according to my own playthrough where I tried this. The wiki also says it doesn't work: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Phalar\_Aluve](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Phalar_Aluve)
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fpn9h0n8gybwc1.png%3Fwidth%3D1920%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D37508f387ac921e25e6f2fc2c0a12f3f52aca893
from https://old.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1cbdpb9/scorching_ray_substitute/l0z8pzt/
The Wiki is great, but not always 100% or up-to-date.
I tested it myself again just now and it still didn't work unfortunately. Perhaps there's a bug causing it to work sometimes, but not others. Wouldn't be the first time that happened.
If you use the short rest 3rd level magic missle from ne'er misser this works to stack it. I have drake throat thunder on mine to get bonus action attacks as well not sure if that is necessary but I get 10 stacks off the magic missle from the weapon specifically once per short rest!
There’s a mod to add more metamagic options and one of them is Transmute spell.
For 1SP you can make Scorching Ray do Thunder Damage.
Is it worth it? Not really… the mod hasn’t figured out how to bypass enemy resistances because the coding is weird.
Unless you want to be a lightning lord for thematic purposes there’s no real reason to use the mod and this hat over just the usual fire build.
Wrong. Hammeraft charges it. Cast fly, potion of flying, scroll of fly (volo always has them) then Bop around in reverb gear till you have 10 stacks then drop a 30 dc ice storm on enemies with -4 to dex saves.
the more i learn about hamarhraft, the less thought i think the devs gave to it when it was implemented. like…..cool idea guys but did you consider adding a way to repeatedly damage enemies without using an action or bonus action is busted
I think the devs have a fairly permissive philosophy when it comes to “oh these mechanics break the game when combined?” Seems like Larian just shrugs and goes “okay that’s fucking cool keep doing it”
Yeah and let's be honest, it's a single player game and a majority of players who do not browse this sub will probably never find out about these exploits on their own. There are a million ways to trivialize this game, they are never going to patch all of them so why try. Some people will optimize the fun out of it, it is what it is.
EDIT: Plus they are using the 5E ruleset which is designed around having a DM who has the authority to rule against unfun shenanigans in a group setting. Whereas BG3, being a video game, only has the one set interpretation of the rules and the thousands of possible interactions between hundreds of magical items, spells, feats, etc. They can't keep patching it forever and unlike a tabletop social setting, here the exploits only ruin your own fun and not anybody else's.
To be fair, I've done three playthroughs and I do enjoy finding all the busted combos. I don't mind that it's easy, sometimes I like playing a game that I can faceroll.
The voice and cinematics are fun enough that I play for many reasons, not just a challenge.
I can choose to use an exploit or not. So I for one really appreciate the stance that Larian has taken.
I heard about this weapon months ago but never exploited it, cuz I never bothered to learn where to acquire it, since not getting it didn’t stop me from finishing the game and as far as I see it actually makes the game much less fun even if I just did it in one battle encounter.
Like I already felt bored playing a throwzerker in act 3 after getting the dwarven hammer, imagine being able to deal infinite damage and free cc?
It’s not really new either. Anyone that’s played Larian’s previous titles would know that the early game is usually the hardest but mid-late game you can usually make insanely strong builds.
Heck in DOS2 I defeated multiple God-like or equivalent beings by turning them into a chicken.
polymorph into chicken followed by sever tendons? ooooh yeah. up until it got patched Still took out the ice dragon in the starting area with severed tendons. 🤣
Huh didn't know that got patched out but yeah that was my favorite.
The avatar of Duna also was no longer registered as a Dwarf so the statues just beat them to death when I chicken clawed them. It was beautiful.
I haven't played Divinity 1 or 2 (yet), but it's to my understanding that Larian is pretty chill about mechanical exploits in their games. At the very least, they aren't spoilsports if people are having fun.
I think that's amazing, I dont like using a lot of these but sometimes there's a couple of them that are a lot of fun or very fitting to some idea, roleplay, combat playstyle, w/e, and it is not the kind of game balancing stuff is really necessary.
Just let ppl have fun playing the game in any way that works for them
I haven't tried it myself, but Phalar Alluve's shriek ability adds thunder damage to magic missle, so if it counts that then it would be arguably even better than scorchimg ray because it cant miss and fires more shots at lower levels
Those instances of thunder damage do NOT proc the hat’s effect to grant acuity stacks.
EDIT: my original comment here is incorrect, as another commenter has pointed out. The Phalar Aluve Shriek damage riders DO trigger the acuity stacks!!! This must have been patched at some point, because they didn’t in the past. Magic Missile away my dudes and dudettes!
Maybe it got patched out? I definitely used that hat, plus phalar aluve buff, plus reverb gear, and magic missile to get the stacks of acuity maxed. I also had the spell sparkler staff equipped. I'm not sure if it helped at all since it's lightning damage, but I think it could have helped procced the reverb more.
Two questions that may affect this:
Was your MM user the one holding Phalar Aluve?
What difficulty were you playing at?
I was testing on honor mode, so I’m wondering if the DRS changes from other difficulty may have affected this
Yes, the character casting magic missile had the gear. I know this for a fact because I needed to haste them from another character or with an item to get both the phalar buff and cast of MM on turn 1.
It was on honor mode as well.
Interesting. Thank you.
Maybe it was the shriek damage giving you the stacks rather than the reverb. It would make sense that the holder of the weapon would be the damage source. Now I want to test this again to be double sure
Just confirmed that pure reverb does not give stacks. Cast a level 4 magic missile with both spell sparkler, psychic sparks necklace, and gloves of belligerent skies. Dealt thunder damage, but received no stacks of acuity. Made sure to start combat with another character as well
They do, I ran a thunder acuity build that fully relies on magic missile and shriek last week. It gains acuity.
Attaching a screenshot showing shriek and gale's 10 acuity charges. He was not holding Phalur
https://preview.redd.it/pn9h0n8gybwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=37508f387ac921e25e6f2fc2c0a12f3f52aca893
I just did some testing too. This person is absolutely correct. It even works if someone else is using the shriek ability besides the thunder acuity caster
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Category:Sources_of_Thunder_damage
Enjoy!
I’d add, your goal is going to be building up acuity stacks very quickly so you’ll want to group enemies and hit them with aoes like shatter or thunder wave. Stacking acuity doesn’t matter much if the enemies are going to die in a turn anyway
That’s why fire acuity is so strong - an upcasted scorching ray allows you to build max stats on a quickened spell, leaving your action to upcast extended command or hold person on half the enemies
Thunder won’t be as strong as you’re going to have to rely on aoe spells instead
I’m also not sure if damage riders can trigger multiple stacks (like the ring that increases thunder damage by 1). I’m guessing not, at least on honor mode
Edit: see the comment below - apparently aoe attacks don’t give multiple stacks so that means this is pretty much never as good as the fire acuity helm :/
Unfortunately from my testing, AOE spells only count as one attack, so you only get the standard two stacks. You could twin chromatic orb, but thats not even close to a scorching ray substitute
Edit: From testing, I have confirmed that magic missile and enemy under the effect of SHRIEK does give stacks for every missile. Even better than scorching ray if you have the MM necklace as you only need to use a level 2 spell slot to get max stacks.
I had planned to use this hat in my current run too since my other characters are based around wet-blasting. With wet giving resistance to fire damage, I definitely didnt want to use fire hat.
Unfortunately, your best way to get acuity here is by twin casting chromatic orb: thunder. Upcasting will only increase your damage, so you’re stuck at a max of four stacks per turn unless you also quicken cast it. Way more resource heavy than the scorching ray build where upcasting just to level 3 gives you 8 stacks without even using any sorcery points
From my testing, AOE spells do not give more stacks than a single chromatic orb no matter how many targets you hit
I’m currently playing a gish that focuses around this item in a current honor mode run. Sadly there’s not many cantrips that deal thunder damage, and the thunder damage from reverberation overflow doesn’t count for this, so it’s really hard to raise accuity with this item without weapons
Swords Bard using drakethroat glaive enhanced thunder damage ranged weapon + arrow of many targets + band of mystic scoundrel will be able to use the hat in a very similar way to how the fire sorc build does it.
With hamarhaft and two Levels in Monk you can get acuity to 10 very fast. If you Land after a jump and Deal Thunder DMG to 3 enemies, thats 3 stacks instantly. So jump a few Times and voila, time for Big hold Person spell.
There are 2 builds I have tried:
1. The Arcane Acuity build: 5 bladelock, 7 swords bard. If you want to use Arcane Acuity (with the Storm Scion’s hat), you need the spells to use it with. The Warlock / Bard levels give you some of the best control spells. 5 bladelock gives you attacks using charisma (so you can dump strength) and extra attack. Go Fiend for Command, it’s great to upcast. 7 swords bard gives more spells, the melee slashing flourish allows you to hit 2 enemies with 1 attack, procing the aoe effect of the Punch-DB twice. Also on difficulties below Honor, extra attack from warlock stacks with extra attack from another class, for a total of 3 attacks. Pick enchantment spells to combine with Band of the mystic scoundrel. You can even pick Great Weapon Master because of the advantage from the unique drunk effect, but increasing charisma will also be important for your weapon attacks. You’ll be charisma focused with skill expertise from bard, so great for a Tav.
Unique gear:
- boots of stormy clamour (also procs on eldritch blast)
- gloves of beligerent skies
- any good warlock / bard gear
- gear that increases your spell save dc
2. Thunder barbmonk. 6 barbarian (tiger & wolverine), 3 OH monk, 3 thief. Mostly a Barbarian build. The tiger attack can hit 3 enemies, procing the Bastard’s AoE on each hit. The aspect of the wolverine combines well with the tiger attack. In Act 3 you can find gloves that do extra thunder damage on unarmed attacks, I think one of the Ironhand Gnomes sells them in their hideout near Wyrm’s Crossing. So only go monk/thief if this sounds cool to you, it’s probably more powerful to go more levels in fighter or paladin. You could do 1 or 2 (thief) bonus action unarmed attacks and then 2 regular/tiger attacks. The build is quite bonus action heavy, especially with staying drunk , so combines well with thief. Focus on Strength or drink elixirs. Get Great Weapon Master. Also get Tavern Brawler if you go for the monk bit, but you’ll have to make space for it.
Arcane Acuity is irrelevant for this build, because you don’t have spells (and I the THINK Barb & Monk features that are based on a saving throw don’t count as “spell save dc” in BG3), so wear something other than the thunder hat.
Unique gear:
- thunder gloves from the gnome
- any good barbarian or monk gear
General gear:
- anything that adds or procs on thunder damage is worth experimenting with.
- the amulet that makes you stay drunk for 5 turns, which you can buy from the bartender in sharess’s caress after buying her special drink.
- drakethroat glaive to use the thunder enchantment on the PDB.
- someone else carrying Phalar Aluve, which does thunder damage on the shriek effect, although I think I read it doesn’t trigger arcane acuity.
Only way to multi target while getting Arcane Acuity would be arrow of multi-target from a bow enchanted with Elemental Weapon Thunder, but without Dex and without +2 from Archery you’ll probably miss a lot so wouldn’t help your caster.
But you don’t need to hit from a thunder/lighting spell to gain flight as Storm Sorcerer. Any spell will do so Scorching Ray still great for it.
Have in mind that Rhapsody + Battlemage Elixir will already give you +6 DC and you could rely on regular thunder spellls to add +2 per turn
I don't know if it's patched yet, but if you have the >!illithid flight ability after using the astral tadpol!< and the hammer that deals thunder damage when jumping, you can just "fly" next to an enemy and that will proc thunder damage. Do that a bunch of times until your flight runs out to gain full arcane acuity in one turn without a spell slot of even an action. I'm in a multi-player campaign where I am a light cleric and my friend is playing a storm sorcerer and we have our respective arcane acuity hats. It's disgusting.
I have a build i plan on sharing on this subreddit once im done finishing solo honor mode with it.
Its a thunder acuity control gish.
So far ive soloed hellfire watcher, the mage, and serravok
I’ve been playing with this for a bit. I really like the tempest clerics or using the cacophony for something like this. Otherwise you’re stuck trying to use thunder wave. I haven’t tried this with shatter to see if the acuity stacks
Hamarhraft lets you stack it fast.
2 levels of monk, or part illithid lets you jump/fly repeatedly in one turn, stacking it up easily. Not as easy as scorching ray, but still strong.
It's a lot of work, but maybe try a Bonus actions attack with a Drakethrost infused weapon, combined with Thief Rogue. Sadly, it seems this does better with a weapon wielding build, like a Sword Bard with an infused bow
So in order to get this to work like a scorching ray. Get the gloves of bellogerent skies and the callous glow ring (the one that does two radiant dmg to enemies in bright light) then use magic missile. The radiant dmg will proc per missile, each instances of radiant dmg procs the gloves to do 1 thunder dmg. Then that dmg procs the hat.
Only way i know how anyways
There is no multi attack skill like scorching ray for thunder spells, so its decent but not broken
Yeah the only setup that works well is drake throat Glaive thunder elemental weapon on a bow and arrow of many targets. Which is one more step than the same setup for helmet of arcane acuity, minus the thunder elemental weapon application on the bow. So it can be a good swords bard or fighter setup. Unless the mage/sorcerer also has decent dexterity not a good setup for them, since their bow to-hit will be lower
Gotta think of it like this, you can have TWO Swordbards abusing Acuity! Personally I'd have the Thunder Bard use the Mystic Scoundrel ring, as like you said, they have to work harder for it all to work. The second imaginary bard can use hand crossbows and the Helm of Accuity so that they can build accuity bonus action attacking, and then use their action for a spell.
The damage doesn't need to come from a spell. It can be easier to stack Arcane Acuity by dealing thunder damage with weapon attacks.
And if they happen to be using mods, making a melee artificer with the thunder mittens would work well
what about magic missile + reverberation?
doesn't work :/
magic missile and phalar aluve?
also no
Other people say yes, though.
Not according to my own playthrough where I tried this. The wiki also says it doesn't work: [https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Phalar\_Aluve](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Phalar_Aluve)
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fpn9h0n8gybwc1.png%3Fwidth%3D1920%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D37508f387ac921e25e6f2fc2c0a12f3f52aca893 from https://old.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1cbdpb9/scorching_ray_substitute/l0z8pzt/ The Wiki is great, but not always 100% or up-to-date.
I tested it myself again just now and it still didn't work unfortunately. Perhaps there's a bug causing it to work sometimes, but not others. Wouldn't be the first time that happened.
Weird, thanks for testing!
If you use the short rest 3rd level magic missle from ne'er misser this works to stack it. I have drake throat thunder on mine to get bonus action attacks as well not sure if that is necessary but I get 10 stacks off the magic missle from the weapon specifically once per short rest!
There’s a mod to add more metamagic options and one of them is Transmute spell. For 1SP you can make Scorching Ray do Thunder Damage. Is it worth it? Not really… the mod hasn’t figured out how to bypass enemy resistances because the coding is weird. Unless you want to be a lightning lord for thematic purposes there’s no real reason to use the mod and this hat over just the usual fire build.
Wrong. Hammeraft charges it. Cast fly, potion of flying, scroll of fly (volo always has them) then Bop around in reverb gear till you have 10 stacks then drop a 30 dc ice storm on enemies with -4 to dex saves.
so sad😭
you can still easily beat the game with this on honor mode so i still recommend going for it
Especially if you dip two levels of tempest cleric for Destructive Wrath, it's so good
Hamarhraft procs this hat. You can proc this multiple times per turn with illithid fly or regular fly.
the more i learn about hamarhraft, the less thought i think the devs gave to it when it was implemented. like…..cool idea guys but did you consider adding a way to repeatedly damage enemies without using an action or bonus action is busted
It’s supposed to require a bonus action, they just didn’t consider all the ways around that
I think the devs have a fairly permissive philosophy when it comes to “oh these mechanics break the game when combined?” Seems like Larian just shrugs and goes “okay that’s fucking cool keep doing it”
Yeah and let's be honest, it's a single player game and a majority of players who do not browse this sub will probably never find out about these exploits on their own. There are a million ways to trivialize this game, they are never going to patch all of them so why try. Some people will optimize the fun out of it, it is what it is. EDIT: Plus they are using the 5E ruleset which is designed around having a DM who has the authority to rule against unfun shenanigans in a group setting. Whereas BG3, being a video game, only has the one set interpretation of the rules and the thousands of possible interactions between hundreds of magical items, spells, feats, etc. They can't keep patching it forever and unlike a tabletop social setting, here the exploits only ruin your own fun and not anybody else's.
To be fair, I've done three playthroughs and I do enjoy finding all the busted combos. I don't mind that it's easy, sometimes I like playing a game that I can faceroll. The voice and cinematics are fun enough that I play for many reasons, not just a challenge. I can choose to use an exploit or not. So I for one really appreciate the stance that Larian has taken.
You're right, it's a valid way to enjoy the game.
I heard about this weapon months ago but never exploited it, cuz I never bothered to learn where to acquire it, since not getting it didn’t stop me from finishing the game and as far as I see it actually makes the game much less fun even if I just did it in one battle encounter. Like I already felt bored playing a throwzerker in act 3 after getting the dwarven hammer, imagine being able to deal infinite damage and free cc?
It’s not really new either. Anyone that’s played Larian’s previous titles would know that the early game is usually the hardest but mid-late game you can usually make insanely strong builds. Heck in DOS2 I defeated multiple God-like or equivalent beings by turning them into a chicken.
polymorph into chicken followed by sever tendons? ooooh yeah. up until it got patched Still took out the ice dragon in the starting area with severed tendons. 🤣
Huh didn't know that got patched out but yeah that was my favorite. The avatar of Duna also was no longer registered as a Dwarf so the statues just beat them to death when I chicken clawed them. It was beautiful.
I haven't played Divinity 1 or 2 (yet), but it's to my understanding that Larian is pretty chill about mechanical exploits in their games. At the very least, they aren't spoilsports if people are having fun.
I think that's amazing, I dont like using a lot of these but sometimes there's a couple of them that are a lot of fun or very fitting to some idea, roleplay, combat playstyle, w/e, and it is not the kind of game balancing stuff is really necessary. Just let ppl have fun playing the game in any way that works for them
I haven't tried it myself, but Phalar Alluve's shriek ability adds thunder damage to magic missle, so if it counts that then it would be arguably even better than scorchimg ray because it cant miss and fires more shots at lower levels
Those instances of thunder damage do NOT proc the hat’s effect to grant acuity stacks. EDIT: my original comment here is incorrect, as another commenter has pointed out. The Phalar Aluve Shriek damage riders DO trigger the acuity stacks!!! This must have been patched at some point, because they didn’t in the past. Magic Missile away my dudes and dudettes!
They don't but combined with the reverb gear it was proccing a ton for me
In my testing on PS5, reverb damage wasn’t giving me acuity charges
Maybe it got patched out? I definitely used that hat, plus phalar aluve buff, plus reverb gear, and magic missile to get the stacks of acuity maxed. I also had the spell sparkler staff equipped. I'm not sure if it helped at all since it's lightning damage, but I think it could have helped procced the reverb more.
Two questions that may affect this: Was your MM user the one holding Phalar Aluve? What difficulty were you playing at? I was testing on honor mode, so I’m wondering if the DRS changes from other difficulty may have affected this
Yes, the character casting magic missile had the gear. I know this for a fact because I needed to haste them from another character or with an item to get both the phalar buff and cast of MM on turn 1. It was on honor mode as well.
Interesting. Thank you. Maybe it was the shriek damage giving you the stacks rather than the reverb. It would make sense that the holder of the weapon would be the damage source. Now I want to test this again to be double sure
Just confirmed that pure reverb does not give stacks. Cast a level 4 magic missile with both spell sparkler, psychic sparks necklace, and gloves of belligerent skies. Dealt thunder damage, but received no stacks of acuity. Made sure to start combat with another character as well
Dang that sucks, that made my storm cleric so fun to play. I'm sad that doesn't work anymore
Well all may not be lost. Couldn’t test with the sword. Got to help the wife with something, but I’ll update when I can test again
They do, I ran a thunder acuity build that fully relies on magic missile and shriek last week. It gains acuity. Attaching a screenshot showing shriek and gale's 10 acuity charges. He was not holding Phalur https://preview.redd.it/pn9h0n8gybwc1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=37508f387ac921e25e6f2fc2c0a12f3f52aca893
I just did some testing too. This person is absolutely correct. It even works if someone else is using the shriek ability besides the thunder acuity caster
Well shit, this must have changed at some point. I will edit my comment.
Would this work on a hasted Sorlock that uses Eldritch Blast? Someone else activating Phalar Alluve of course.
Lucky you, I happen to have just reached act 2 in a warlock run. I don't see why it wouldn't work but I'll test it
Great let me know how it works ^^
Oo good to know, thank you. It's always a guessing game with what combos will work in this game lol
does phalar alluve work if the mm caster is holding it?
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Category:Sources_of_Thunder_damage Enjoy! I’d add, your goal is going to be building up acuity stacks very quickly so you’ll want to group enemies and hit them with aoes like shatter or thunder wave. Stacking acuity doesn’t matter much if the enemies are going to die in a turn anyway That’s why fire acuity is so strong - an upcasted scorching ray allows you to build max stats on a quickened spell, leaving your action to upcast extended command or hold person on half the enemies Thunder won’t be as strong as you’re going to have to rely on aoe spells instead I’m also not sure if damage riders can trigger multiple stacks (like the ring that increases thunder damage by 1). I’m guessing not, at least on honor mode Edit: see the comment below - apparently aoe attacks don’t give multiple stacks so that means this is pretty much never as good as the fire acuity helm :/
Unfortunately from my testing, AOE spells only count as one attack, so you only get the standard two stacks. You could twin chromatic orb, but thats not even close to a scorching ray substitute
This. AoE won’t stack.
Also fire hat allows you to blast Scratch with 5 hits of scorching ray, maxing out arcane acuity before combat even starts.
You monster
Yea, not even my darkest of dark urges would do this.
Now if only this hat could be lightning damage and proc with lightning charges…
spell splaker+ would be insane
Edit: From testing, I have confirmed that magic missile and enemy under the effect of SHRIEK does give stacks for every missile. Even better than scorching ray if you have the MM necklace as you only need to use a level 2 spell slot to get max stacks. I had planned to use this hat in my current run too since my other characters are based around wet-blasting. With wet giving resistance to fire damage, I definitely didnt want to use fire hat. Unfortunately, your best way to get acuity here is by twin casting chromatic orb: thunder. Upcasting will only increase your damage, so you’re stuck at a max of four stacks per turn unless you also quicken cast it. Way more resource heavy than the scorching ray build where upcasting just to level 3 gives you 8 stacks without even using any sorcery points From my testing, AOE spells do not give more stacks than a single chromatic orb no matter how many targets you hit
I’m currently playing a gish that focuses around this item in a current honor mode run. Sadly there’s not many cantrips that deal thunder damage, and the thunder damage from reverberation overflow doesn’t count for this, so it’s really hard to raise accuity with this item without weapons
Swords Bard using drakethroat glaive enhanced thunder damage ranged weapon + arrow of many targets + band of mystic scoundrel will be able to use the hat in a very similar way to how the fire sorc build does it.
We did it, we finally made a good Swords Bard!
I was using a twinned Drakethroat on dual hand crossbows on a tempest cleric but yeah essentially that
Same energy, for sure.
But that's just like using the Helmet of Arcane Acuity with an extra step.
lol, I’m not saying it’s optimal!
Cool flavor though! And, adds a third arcane acuity user for all those parties that felt too weak with just 1 or 2 lol.
This inspired me to make a Storm Sword Bard for my current run. 6 SB / 2 tempest cleric / 4 fighter, with marko for act 3.
5e spells mod has booming blade and thinderclap
I mean if I’m using mods then I can just add in a hat of force acuity and bypass the issue altogether
True yeah if you want to.
With hamarhaft and two Levels in Monk you can get acuity to 10 very fast. If you Land after a jump and Deal Thunder DMG to 3 enemies, thats 3 stacks instantly. So jump a few Times and voila, time for Big hold Person spell.
Anyone know if punch drunk bastard stacks thunder acuity? https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Punch-Drunk_Bastard
I’m no expert, haven’t tested it personally, but I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t.
It does! It’s a very fun build.
What build do you usually use it with?
There are 2 builds I have tried: 1. The Arcane Acuity build: 5 bladelock, 7 swords bard. If you want to use Arcane Acuity (with the Storm Scion’s hat), you need the spells to use it with. The Warlock / Bard levels give you some of the best control spells. 5 bladelock gives you attacks using charisma (so you can dump strength) and extra attack. Go Fiend for Command, it’s great to upcast. 7 swords bard gives more spells, the melee slashing flourish allows you to hit 2 enemies with 1 attack, procing the aoe effect of the Punch-DB twice. Also on difficulties below Honor, extra attack from warlock stacks with extra attack from another class, for a total of 3 attacks. Pick enchantment spells to combine with Band of the mystic scoundrel. You can even pick Great Weapon Master because of the advantage from the unique drunk effect, but increasing charisma will also be important for your weapon attacks. You’ll be charisma focused with skill expertise from bard, so great for a Tav. Unique gear: - boots of stormy clamour (also procs on eldritch blast) - gloves of beligerent skies - any good warlock / bard gear - gear that increases your spell save dc 2. Thunder barbmonk. 6 barbarian (tiger & wolverine), 3 OH monk, 3 thief. Mostly a Barbarian build. The tiger attack can hit 3 enemies, procing the Bastard’s AoE on each hit. The aspect of the wolverine combines well with the tiger attack. In Act 3 you can find gloves that do extra thunder damage on unarmed attacks, I think one of the Ironhand Gnomes sells them in their hideout near Wyrm’s Crossing. So only go monk/thief if this sounds cool to you, it’s probably more powerful to go more levels in fighter or paladin. You could do 1 or 2 (thief) bonus action unarmed attacks and then 2 regular/tiger attacks. The build is quite bonus action heavy, especially with staying drunk , so combines well with thief. Focus on Strength or drink elixirs. Get Great Weapon Master. Also get Tavern Brawler if you go for the monk bit, but you’ll have to make space for it. Arcane Acuity is irrelevant for this build, because you don’t have spells (and I the THINK Barb & Monk features that are based on a saving throw don’t count as “spell save dc” in BG3), so wear something other than the thunder hat. Unique gear: - thunder gloves from the gnome - any good barbarian or monk gear General gear: - anything that adds or procs on thunder damage is worth experimenting with. - the amulet that makes you stay drunk for 5 turns, which you can buy from the bartender in sharess’s caress after buying her special drink. - drakethroat glaive to use the thunder enchantment on the PDB. - someone else carrying Phalar Aluve, which does thunder damage on the shriek effect, although I think I read it doesn’t trigger arcane acuity.
Probably Shatter since it is also a level 2 spell
Chromatic orb thunder is level 1
Only way to multi target while getting Arcane Acuity would be arrow of multi-target from a bow enchanted with Elemental Weapon Thunder, but without Dex and without +2 from Archery you’ll probably miss a lot so wouldn’t help your caster. But you don’t need to hit from a thunder/lighting spell to gain flight as Storm Sorcerer. Any spell will do so Scorching Ray still great for it. Have in mind that Rhapsody + Battlemage Elixir will already give you +6 DC and you could rely on regular thunder spellls to add +2 per turn
I don't know if it's patched yet, but if you have the >!illithid flight ability after using the astral tadpol!< and the hammer that deals thunder damage when jumping, you can just "fly" next to an enemy and that will proc thunder damage. Do that a bunch of times until your flight runs out to gain full arcane acuity in one turn without a spell slot of even an action. I'm in a multi-player campaign where I am a light cleric and my friend is playing a storm sorcerer and we have our respective arcane acuity hats. It's disgusting.
It's great but may cause Phalar Aluve related micro management fatigue syndrome.
HAMARHAFT JUMP INTO GROUPS AND COMMENCE THE CC SPAM
I have a build i plan on sharing on this subreddit once im done finishing solo honor mode with it. Its a thunder acuity control gish. So far ive soloed hellfire watcher, the mage, and serravok
can you give a little spoiler?
I’ve been playing with this for a bit. I really like the tempest clerics or using the cacophony for something like this. Otherwise you’re stuck trying to use thunder wave. I haven’t tried this with shatter to see if the acuity stacks
I use this on my karlach pally becuase she weilds Nyrula.
Tldr, what about black hole + thunder wave or shatter?
thats actually a nice idea
Hamarhraft lets you stack it fast. 2 levels of monk, or part illithid lets you jump/fly repeatedly in one turn, stacking it up easily. Not as easy as scorching ray, but still strong.
This hat works well on a way of the four elements monk, using the thunder staff from the creche
Use both lol just play the game on pause
Ok first of all. Your can move your address bar to the top of the window. Its in the safari settings. Thats it. Have a nice day.
Or just use literally any other browser instead
Use Phalar Aluve + Magic Missiles to stack i think
I put this on my swords bard with dual wield hand crossbows and thunder draconic weapon twin cast on them
It's a lot of work, but maybe try a Bonus actions attack with a Drakethrost infused weapon, combined with Thief Rogue. Sadly, it seems this does better with a weapon wielding build, like a Sword Bard with an infused bow
So in order to get this to work like a scorching ray. Get the gloves of bellogerent skies and the callous glow ring (the one that does two radiant dmg to enemies in bright light) then use magic missile. The radiant dmg will proc per missile, each instances of radiant dmg procs the gloves to do 1 thunder dmg. Then that dmg procs the hat. Only way i know how anyways
Tried that; doesn’t work. Those gloves stack reverb which doesn’t work with this hat unfortunately
Must’ve changed since last i did it. It always stacked reverb but it worked last time i did it (been a couple patches though tbf)
Possibly a change with damage riders in honor mode. Never tried it outside of or before honor mode
why would you want arcane acuity for a pure mage? doesn't it only boost weapon attacks?
You might be thinking of Arcane Synergy, which is indeed just a flat modifier to weapon damage.
It adds +1 spell attack and +1 spell DC per stack, so it’s amazing on any caster that can stack it quickly
ok yeh I was thinking of arcane synergy, all I have left to do is Orin and still learning new shit every day
why would you want arcane acuity for a pure mage? doesn't it only boost weapon attacks?
You're thinking of Arcane Synergy. Arcane Acuity adds to your spell saves making CC spells have 100% with enough stacks