Tips for Shadowheart
Use her big concentration spells. Bless is a very good early one. Guardian Spirits was a kick arse one in Solasta but I’m not sure it’s that good in BG3 ‘cos I think your party will often be too spread out. But it’s still very good if Shadowheart is up with your melee. She gets a lot of other options as she levels up and they are very powerful.
Respec her from trickster cleric into life cleric which is more useful in combat.
Shadowheart is a buffbot and healer who, equipped with mace and shield can also make a damn nuisance of herself blocking/engaging enemies as well. She doesn’t need to actually hit them, she can cast spells instead. She can spam guidance on your big hitters for example. This alone is enough to justify her position in the team.
But when you need that extra bit of damage she has Guiding Bolt. Not only does this do a lot of damage it also increases the damage of the next attack made on that target so it’s excellent for bursting down the tougher more dangerous opponents.
Being able to heal people is very useful, but she has other magic she can use as well that can really help. Being able to improve the stealth of your party is useful outside of combat too. I’m currently building her to be more of a tank than a typical Cleric – with items and skills and such that make her less likely to lose concentration (so her buffs stay active) and make her more survivable (so good shields and the like are a must). That way she can keep the rest of my party alive – my party currently consisting of me (a Monk), a Wizard, and a Warlock besides her. We’re fairly squishy but between my mobility and her survivability we can handle most situations pretty well.
I’m still only a few hours into the game right now so I can’t say for sure, but she’s probably going to be more useful using buffs and taking aggression from enemies than just using healing. Though some of her combat spells are actually quite good, and if her chance to hit is poor on them that seems to be a matter of build or stats.
I started off by giving her the spear from the crypt, upgrading to a spear +1 when I could. I’ve got her with the Boots of Aid and Comfort which improves her healing, and the archery gloves and a +1 longbow so she can contribute at range as well. First Feat was +1 STR, +1 WIS, which improves her to hit with melee and spells. Her ranged healing cantrip can be used instead of the ‘help’ command to revive downed characters, which can be clutch. I always try to keep Shield of Faith up on her as well, gives her a decent AC.
She’s never going to be your top DPS or main tank unless you respecc, but Cleric is a support class really and she does a good job of it.
yea she got 0 STR so unless you are using a light weapon you wont be able to hit at all and later you wont be able to hit anyway because you dont put points in dex. i respeced her into a life cleric i think it was and it gave me a cantrip to make a club or quarterstaff do fixed dmg aswell as using my wis for attack rolls. making her attacks FAR more usefull until you get more spell slots. because she really is bad at the start
She’s fine even as Trickery Domain, getting access to Fear later. Initially she has an ability that grants Advantage to attacks against nearby enemies, so I used her for that a lot to enable sneak attacks. When you hit lvl 5, she gets access to extremely potent abilities like Spirit Guardians and Bladeward and from then on you’ll just be using her as a shielded support who helps enable advantage in melee from “flanking” bonus. She can hit reasonably well with this advantage enabled so pair her with another melee and follow them.