BG3 - SHADOWHEART Cleric TANK Build: 36 AC, FULL RESISTS & AUTO HEAL BUFFS + AoEs - TACTICIAN READY

Learn how to build SHADOWHEART and even the MAIN CHARACTER as amazing CLERIC TANKS on TACTICIAN.
You'll have up to 36 AC and a way of forcing enemy attacks to roll at DISADVANTAGE!
Together with great BUFFS automatically applied on HEALS & even AoEs too.
Timestamps down below:

Chapters
00:00 Shadowheart TANK Overview
01:27 Best TANK Cleric Domain/Subclass
02:52 Holy AoEs + Fire Spells!
04:39 Character Creation: Stats
06:22 Level 1-2 Spells & Skills
07:43 Level 3 & FULL RESISTANCE Spell!
09:18 Level 4-6
10:35 Level 7-9
11:45 Level 10-12
12:56 Shadowheart Tank GEAR
17:27 Weapons & Shields

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[zangatsubankai]

Written Guide
1. Light Domain, 10/16(+2)/15/8/16(+1)/8
2. Healing, Protection, Bless, Shield of Faith
3. Aid (Upcast when possible), Warding Bond
4. Any Cantrip, Resiliant Feat,
5. Spirit Guardians, Mass Healing Word, Revivify
6. Spells
7. Death Ward
8. Ability Improvement Dex
9. Mass Cure Wounds, Upcast
10. Divine Intervention (glitch to get 2 legendary weapons
11. Hero's Feast, Planar Ally
12. Ability Improvement Dex/Lucky (if dex already maxed)
Weapon: Defender's Flail/Devotee Mace/Blood of Lethander, Any ranged weapon
Shield: Walking Fortress (+2 shields early like Safeguard early)
Helmet: Balduran (Wapira's Crown early)
Armor: Enchanted Medium armor (early)/Medium Armor without AC penalty
Cloak: Protection (early) or Displacement
Amulet: Greater Health (late)/Regeneration
Ring: Ring of Protection (combine with Whispering Promise or Coruscation Ring)
Bracers: Wonderous/Reviving Hands/Hellrider's/Luminous Gloves
Boots: Evasive Shoes/Aid and Comfort(early)

[GoodRNG]

who else spending an hour redoing their whole party after binging this man's videos?? for real good stuff. 50 hours in and finally felt roadblocked enough to look up some guides, so happy i found this channel and i'm so stoked to hop back in with my newly spec'd party

[CriticCrd]

Yay! The companion builds have started! Lore accurate too! (Technically). Great job!

[icarus-wings]

FUN FACT: in the House of Hope you can have Hope use the Cleric’s Divine Intervention spell to create the Legendary Mace. While it’s a bound weapon, you can “Throw” it on the ground for Shadowheart to pick up and use. So then the question becomes: what should Shadowheart choose for her use of Divine Intervention? Well, the answer is *also the Legendary Mace*. Grab the Dual Wielder feat and boom: double legendaries.

[PowerhouseKlaus]

This is the only channel I trust for information on these games. I found your stuff during Elden Ring and you've helped me on every game since!

[kamicaze]

You can also use amulet of the harpers, that gives you the spell shield as a reaction for 5 more AC till next turn

[O-D-X]

I plan to use this on my Selune cleric, who is determined to show Shadowheart the error of her ways. While I know that at this point in the lore, Selune has no light domain in her portfolio, Selune did give part of her power and essence to create the sun in the beginning of times. It is what drove Shar to madness and made her turn on her twin sister.

[TeriiTeri]

Niiiice, glad to see you're making build guides here on BG3 now like you did with WOTR! :)

[Rex-qxko]

this is a very handy guide. i’m constantly contemplating companion builds and i like how you also provided early game alternatives for gear. i still tend to make my light cleric an offensive caster, but i want to learn how to use her more as a tank

[themarshmallow]

There's a Longbow that becomes available in Act 3 called "Hellrider Longbow". +3 to Initiative, Advantage on Perception Checks, and once per turn hits with weapons inflict Faerie Fire.

[EverIost]

You made the best builds and guides for WOTR - wish you a massive influx of BGIII hype crew that makes your massive efforts worth it. Youre starting of strong already... im inches away of restarting with the fungus druid... cause on meeting those in the Underdark i was blown away by their concept, realisation and asethetics :D

[craiglien]

Love your videos! I took some notes and will paste them here in case anyone wants them. They are ugly and you will definitely want to watch the video at least once.

Domain: light

Wis=16, Dex=16 (17 with act 1 gift if main), Con=15 (for 16 with resilient feat), STR=10

Skills don't matter much

Cantrips: Blade Ward (prebuff), Guidance, Sacred Flame
Spells: Healing Word, Shield of Faith, Bless, Protection

Prepare: aid, Warding Bond (hireling or inactive member cheese)

Feat resilient or war caster

Spirit Guardians, Mass healing Word, Reanimate

Death Ward

ASI Dex

Mass cure wounds and up-cast others

Divine Intervention Weapon

Heroes Feast, Planar Ally

ASI Dex or lucky

Wapira's Crown then Helm of Balduran

Cloak of protection, Cloak of displacement

Act 2 Yaun-ti Scale then Armour of Agility

Hell riders Pride, Wondrous gloves, Reviving Hands (Luminous Gloves)

Boots of Aid and Comfort, Evasive Shoes

Amulet of Regeneration then Greater Health Amulet

Ring of Protection, The whispering promise rings both act 1

Defenders Flail, Devotee's Mace, Blood of Lathander,

+2 shield then Viconia's Walking Fortress

Darkfire shortbow

[Jester]

I'd definitely say cloak of displacement over cloak of protection at that point. Typically I'm in the school of "the higher your AC is, the more every additional point of it helps, " but you have managed to get to the point of diminishing returns here. At 33, the vast majority of enemies are going to need to roll a nat 20 to land a hit. I'm not sure if any enemies in the game even have a +14 to hit you on a 19. Haven't bothered to look at the late game boss attack modifiers. So really, that plus 1 to AC does absolutely nothing for you. You got from a 1 in 20 chance to get hit to staying at that 1 in 20. With the cloak of displacement though, every attack will be made with disadvantage. So you go from a 1 in 20 chance of being hit, to a 1 in 400 chance of being hit. Granted, light cleric has this sort of built in with their unlimited reaction ability, and the odds of *two* attacks managing to roll double nat 20s on you in a single round is absolutely abysmal. But, certainly opens the build up to other cleric subclasses.

[MysteryFaceX]

The greatest trick of the Trickery domain is taking up the Trickery domain.

[egementanik]

Perfect build guide. I tried this and can say it is amazing. For rpg purposes I switched to light cleric after she got a change of "heart" in act. And felt real good about it: This build was the actual reward from Selune to say the least. Thank you for your thorough work.

[CbCCCCn]

Excellent breakdown as always (love your WotR videos in particular). Regarding ability scores, there is a point at the very end of Shadowheart's personal quest that is easy to miss: a large mirror you can interact with just past the final dialog location in the dungeon. You are given the option to surrender something to the mirror in exchange for something else, which in most cases lets you take a -2 to one ability score to receive a +2 (with cap of 24) to another. However, if you read the Tharchiate Codex which can be found in Sorcerous Sundries then you can choose to surrender that knowledge instead, which is just 20 Temp HP after a long rest. This would allow you to get 22 dexterity in this build without sacrificing anything you covered in the video. Only the character who read the book can choose to surrender that knowledge!

Again, great stuff, love to see it, and I look forward to learning more from you. I hope my bit of info helps your future builds!

[ryanjansen]

This is exactly what I been wanting to do with shadowheart! Thank you for you're guide ❤

[w.miles]

cRPG Bro glad to see you posting on BG3! You basically taught me how to play WOTR. Looking forward to seeing your take on this game. Going to give light cleric a hard look after this guide!

[SaG]

I ran her as a Life-cleric in my first play-through and now followed your guide using Light in my second campaign. She's currently at level 8 IIRC and while her ability to soak up damage and dish it out via spells is already quite amazing, her healing abilities leave a bit to be desired when compared to a Life-cleric build. She has plenty of healing spells and I kitted her out with everything I found so far that will boost healing and/or grant auto-buffs on heal, but she just can't heal as many HP per round as a Life-cleric would. But I don't think I'll be switching her back, because Warding Flare and Radiance of the Dawn are truly amazing.
In some encounters, it's enough to have her walk into the middle of an enemy crowd and fire off Radiance to annihilate most critters and also kill or seriously weaken tougher opponents. I also love Fairy Fire to buff my party's attack rolls for cheap. On that note and without getting too deep into spoilers: Anything that involves "light" and/or radiant damage is going to make Act II (and some important parts of Act III) a *lot* less scary.
I still haven't figured out how to use the Staff of Arcane Blessing effectively, but that thing is another great early-game addition to her build. IIRC it gives you an additional bless effect for spellcasters with higher bonus than a regular bless (2d4 instead of 1d4). I was thinking of making my Sorcerer Tav a dual wielder so he could be running around with two staves, but I thought that was a bit too cheesy. Both my Tav and Gale have other staves they need to use to make their builds work currently (fire / lightning), so I can't use the staff on them. So I usually try and use the staff's Bless-function just before combat starts, switch Shadowheart back to her regular weapon (Blood of Lathander in my case) and then initiate combat/turn-based mode.

[vinicin]

i knew deep in my heart it was only a matter of time until you bless us with bg3 builds. glad I wasn't wrong. cheers meu mano