Why does Shadowheart miss, miss, miss?

[Noquid]

I don't even bother casting an aggressive spell with her unless it's over 70% chance to hit and even then she almost always misses. 20 Wisdom, miss even lower level enemies all the time. You feel like you won the lottery if she hits. Would a player-created cleric be the same?

[jonnin]

what are you casting? Her idiot cantrip (sacred flame?) is easily resisted, and her racial one is based off int, which she lacks. Ive had good luck using the create flame one, and even better luck redoing her to dex and using an xbow until higher levels. After higher levels you mostly cast aoes like glyph, or respec her to light and bomb stuff that way, etc.

[StarScepter]

I gave her Lathander's Blood (mace) and it improved her. To get the mace you have to do the Rosymorn Temple. It gives her Radiant damage on hit, and gives her Radiant spell attack. Seems odd doesn't it?! ... that she should get these abilities as a Shar Priest?? Well, if you continue on with her in your party you can, eventually, Turn her from Shar. That tells me she's not fully convinced to becoming a Sharran priestess. The key is to KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT, when she has to make dialog choices that the PC is given an option to speak. Let HER make the morale decisions.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Withers can respec anyone - use it.

[victorvnv]

It’s just that she only has one atack so when she misses you notice it a lot more than when Astarion who has 3 attacks with 1 handed crossbows at lvl 3 misses one of his.

[Kittybass]

I respec her, change her from the default build and she'll be much better.

[guard65]

I hope it is not because you have her wielding a two-Handed axe without proficiency using a strength of 9?

[jonnin]

Originally posted by victorvnv:

It’s just that she only has one atack so when she misses you notice it a lot more than when Astarion who has 3 attacks with 1 handed crossbows at lvl 3 misses one of his.

a respec to buff her strength (if going for TB feat use odd value like 15) and 1 level of monk gives here 2-3 attacks per round (3 uses a resource, so only a few per rest, there is an item to get some back). Its enough, for what little melee you need out of her. Be sure to get tavern brawler as a feat if you want her to be extra good at it. As you close in on max level, cleric 15/monk 5 lets her stay in the melee game as much as needed.

Lathlander is of the dawn (among other stuff) and the light stuff from the legendary mace is his religion, not hers. That she can use it without being burned is unusual.

[Swamp Fox]

Originally posted by Kittybass:

I respec her, change her from the default build and she'll be much better.

I normally change her to a Life cleric and Healing paladin. Mix 16 wisdom 16 charisma.

[frowningmirror]

Sacred flame is resisted by things with dex, it's not often it actually misses, because it can hit things without height disadvantage. The racial firebolt is best used to just light objects on fire, rather than hurt people with her average intelligence score.

Best thing to do is respec her asap if you want to use her effectively. Every origin character is setup pretty poorly imo

Sacred flame can do a ton of damage for a cantrip if you are a higher level light or knowledge domain cleric btw, plenty of enemies vulnerable to radiant that are worth the risk of it being resisted. Unfortunately there is not a lot of things that gives the opponents dexterity saves disadvantage aside from bestow curse (things like hex only affect checks not saves).

[victorvnv]

Originally posted by jonnin:

Originally posted by victorvnv:

It’s just that she only has one atack so when she misses you notice it a lot more than when Astarion who has 3 attacks with 1 handed crossbows at lvl 3 misses one of his.

a respec to buff her strength (if going for TB feat use odd value like 15) and 1 level of monk gives here 2-3 attacks per round (3 uses a resource, so only a few per rest, there is an item to get some back). Its enough, for what little melee you need out of her. Be sure to get tavern brawler as a feat if you want her to be extra good at it. As you close in on max level, cleric 15/monk 5 lets her stay in the melee game as much as needed.

Lathlander is of the dawn (among other stuff) and the light stuff from the legendary mace is his religion, not hers. That she can use it without being burned is unusual.

I don’t need her for atacking at the beginning of the game, she is there exclusively to cast bless on the rest of the characters then use Sanctuary on herself to not get hit and cast occasional heal

[Boss]

In short, 'cause she's trash.

In long:

Her default stat distribution is pretty bad and unfocused. Her basic offensive cantrip (Sacred Flame) is a DC spell, not an attack roll, and DC's have 15% less chance to hit across the board. (AC starts at 10, and matching AC is a hit. DC starts at 8, and is resisted when matching it.

Her Firebolt is based off of INT, and she's an idiot (but in non-subjective terms, she has a +0 on INT).

Both her STR and DEX have a measly +1, so whether you use a mace or a dagger, it's gonna be pretty bad.

Add to that just a tiny bit of bad luck, and the fact she'll only ever make 1 attack a turn, it's gonna feel like she fails every single attack.

[Mike Garrison]

She turns into a melee death machine when she gets access to spiritual guardians. She doesn't have to successfully attack anything, really. All she has to do is walk up next to it. Also, her extra attack per round comes from casting spirit weapon.

[Ironwu]

Originally posted by Noquid:

I don't even bother casting an aggressive spell with her unless it's over 70% chance to hit and even then she almost always misses. 20 Wisdom, miss even lower level enemies all the time. You feel like you won the lottery if she hits. Would a player-created cleric be the same?

You need to respec and gear her properly. Then, you have to select what you are casting carefully. Examine your targets to see where their resistances and Ability strengths are.

Remember, a lot of her spells are spells that allow for saving throws. So that has to be dealt with as well.

[Noquid]

Wow, thanks all. I don't think I've ever respec'ed her and I just assumed since she was a cleric (Wisdom) then her spells would be based on Wisdom. Never looked, doh! I guess I'll have to dig more into how to make her better. Right now she has the Spiritual Guardians and Lathander's Mace, also the holy spear that I'm not using atm. I gave Lae'zel a break and brought Gale along to the Sorcerer's Sundries (?) for the Karsas book and sure enough Orin kidnapped Lae'zel... Thanks again.

[Ironwu]

Originally posted by Noquid:

Wow, thanks all. I don't think I've ever respec'ed her and I just assumed since she was a cleric (Wisdom) then her spells would be based on Wisdom. Never looked, doh! I guess I'll have to dig more into how to make her better. Right now she has the Spiritual Guardians and Lathander's Mace, also the holy spear that I'm not using atm. I gave Lae'zel a break and brought Gale along to the Sorcerer's Sundries (?) for the Karsas book and sure enough Orin kidnapped Lae'zel... Thanks again.

I was in the same boat as you, wondering what the heck was going on. Turns out the default build for Shadowheart is pure garbage. I would recommend reading up on a few builds that are targeted for her. I use a Life build as I really want the buffs and the specific abilities Life build gives.

One thing is REALLY important. Do NOT depend on your Cleric (or whomever fills this role) for Heals. The Healing spells in BG3 are astoundingly weak and will take away from the Cleric's main jobs: Buffing, Debuffing, and Damage. Outfit your party with Healing Potions, the best you can buy or make, and have party members heal themselves when needed. Drinking a potion is a Bonus Action, where casting a healing spell will cost your Cleric their action.

Good Luck :)