Class: 7 Wildheart Barbarian / 5 Pact of the Blade Warlock (Warlock subclass doesn't matter)
This is a series of boss fight videos featuring solo Tiger Barbarian. Other videos for this build:
- Yurgir: • Video
- Viconia: • Video
- Ansur: • Video
- Cazador: • Video
- Dame Aylin: • Video
- Orin: • Video
In case you're wondering how to surprise Raphael in this fight, you just need to be invisible when you trigger the conversation (either through potion, scrolls or spells). Hope is actually invisible here, but there's a visual glitch.
Anyway, about the build: the core idea is to exploit synergy between three things:
- Wildheart Barbarian's level 3 Tiger Heart's Tiger's Bloodlust: a cleave attack that bleeds enemies (bg3.wiki/wiki/Tiger%27s_Blood...)
- Wildheart Barbarian's level 6 Wolverine aspect: grants a passive that maims the target you attack if they are bleeding
- Reverberation: a condition that makes a target prone when they receive 5 or more stacks of reverberation
If a target is prone (from reverberation) and maimed (from wolverine passive) they will automatically forfeit their turn, because being prone requires them to spend half of their movement speed to stand up, but being maimed means their movement speed has been reduced to zero, and so they will not be able to perform any action on their turn. In other words, this is a really powerful disable, and works just like a stun.
One last feature to make this build even better: Great Weapon Master feat. Tiger's Bloodlust benefits from the feat's +10 damage.
The 5 levels of Pact of the Blade Warlock is to get another extra attack, i.e. this build has 3 attacks per action. Extra attacks from different martial classes don't typically stack, but for some reason Pact of the Blade Warlock's extra attack does stack with other martial classes' (in this case Barbarian's). Note that this 'bug' is fixed in Honour mode, and so you'd only get 2 attacks per action in that mode, see: bg3.wiki/wiki/Guide:Undocumen...
Technically we only need 6 levels of Barbarian + 5 levels of Warlock for the full combo to work, so the last level is up to you. I took another level of Barbarian since it gives +3 initiative.
In terms of abilities, aim to max charisma (for damage, since Warlock's bind weapon makes our weapon use charisma for attack and damage roll) and dexterity (for AC and initiative). Other abilities don't matter too much.
Equipment:
Head: bg3.wiki/wiki/Diadem_of_Arcan... (key item; with it we get additional damage from charisma modifier)
Cape: bg3.wiki/wiki/Cloak_of_Protec... (optional; I take this for more AC)
Body: bg3.wiki/wiki/Bhaalist_Armour (key item; this is what makes our late game damage shine, as it doubles our damage by making enemies vulnerable to piercing attacks)
Gloves: bg3.wiki/wiki/Gloves_of_Belli... (key item; triggers reverberation with our weapon (explained below))
Boots: bg3.wiki/wiki/Boots_of_Stormy... (key item; triggers reverberation with status-inflicting passives like Ability Drain)
Melee Weapon: bg3.wiki/wiki/Nyrulna (key item; this is the best piercing weapon in the game for us because: (1) it synergises with Bhaalist's Armour; and (2) it has built-in thunder damage and so triggers reverberation stacks with the gloves)
bg3.wiki/wiki/The_Dead_Shot (optional; any good bow would work)
Amulet: bg3.wiki/wiki/Amulet_of_Great... (optional; gives a ton of health and we can dump constitution)
Ring 1: bg3.wiki/wiki/Callous_Glow_Ring (optional; more damage)
Ring 2: bg3.wiki/wiki/Caustic_Band (optional; more damage)