Which Defensive Spells do you use?

[Bam_Boozler]

It always feels like I'm wasting a characters turn by having to cast defensive spells at the begging of fights? Granted my character is only level 4 atm.
So I was wondering which defensive spells do you pre-cast before a fight and during a fight.
How often do you short rest & long rest?
Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

[Ivas]

In ordinary fights only mage armor and armor of agathys(?). Oh, and shield

in boss fights or especially hard ones: Mirror image, blink, blur

[yuzhonglu]

Shield. Obviously. Free make the enemy miss spell on reaction.

[ACS36]

It's generally a waste of actions t o cast defensive buffs during combat. Cast them before combat.

The way the game is designed, you're heavily encouraged to act first, with high combat potency. AT most you should only be casting things like web, or grease too slow down enemies. Other than that you should be focused on mostly doing damage during your turns, or healing.

Lots of players are abusing haste potions and spell to wipe out enemies. Defensive buffs just aren't worth while with the pacing of combat in this game and how strong some of the enemies can be.

[Grimmsch]

Shield.

I rest quite a lot as my main is a Sorcerer. There is sufficient food.

[Xenomorph Kitty]

Depends on the situation of the fight entirely tbh.

If you get swarmed with adds then crowd control spells or things like blur, or mirror image to lessen the chance you'll get hit are a nice option.

But then again so is just frontloading damage with aoe spells or abilities. Reality is, there are multiple ways to solve most encounters and get through them. Just depends on the situation at hand and what you're actually up against.

[zero]

you use defense?

a good offense is the best defense in D&D ill be honest.

though stuff thats reactionary, like shield, or free to use, like the ones you get on items sometimes are all i really use defensive wise

[Hobocop]

Mage Armor.

Longstrider also has defensive benefits, lasts until Long Rest and is a ritual in this game, so no spell slot is lost. You can also precast Jump before engaging in combat in the same way.

I'd also say Aid, but that also heals and activates several items that provide benefits to healed targets, so I like to save it for that in combat.

[Gingermonkey]

Shield. Now in act 2, i used Shield of Faith on my tank a lot, cause that brought him up to 26ac, making him much harder to actually hit. I've also found myself actually using invisibility fairly often to get my casters out of a tight spot.

[Xiwang]

Originally posted by Bam_Boozler:

...

the best defensive spell and strategy is being a cleric, summon your spiritual weapon, summon the protector spirits i cant remember well the name and cast sanctuary in yourself and damage everything just by standing near it while your flying sword kills people and you are there sit near your enemy with the peace that nobody can target you.

or get a rogue and play the batman arkham series inside the game.

[Mantower]

Concentration is way too easy to break and therefore invalidates a ton of builds. 4 offensive characters are a far more effective party than 2 offensive, 1 support, 1 defensive.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Start as a class that gets armor proficiency, and then multi-class into a caster if you want to play as an armored caster. Then if you want to go into wizard, the shield spell is the best defensive spell the wizard gets.

[Sephiroth]

Ya BG3 system makes buffing spells suck. You cast a haste spell on you.. then the turns are going to waste... before the battle even starts... so if you try to cast multiple things on your characters.. they are wasting before the battle as well..

then like you say.. during battle it feels like a BIG WASTE OF YOUR ACTION. Which it is most of the time.

This is what a design flaw is.

Another really bad thing about buffing in BG3... is that if you caste haste on 1 character then you want to give another character haste.. the 1st one immediately ends... and then they suffer the negative affect. VERY STUPID AND BAD DESIGN AGAIN.

Designer of BG3 are making some really noob mistakes. They are making casters really UNDER POWERED COMPARED TO SIMPLY PICKING MELEE AND RANGED FIGHTERS.

Spells are limited... yet they are also bad like in the example shown.
again
Spells are limited in use... and so when used they need to be impactful and powerful. A level 3 haste spell in this game is really too weak in its current state. Only affects 1 character... and you cant even cast it multiple times to use on more than one person. (unless you have twin spell).

Again its a waste of your characters action to use it during battle.. a huge problem.

May be a good buff to haste would be to make it NOT COST AN ACTION AT ALL.

ITS REALLY IN A BAD STATE

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by Xiwang:

Originally posted by Bam_Boozler:

...

the best defensive spell and strategy is being a cleric, summon your spiritual weapon, summon the protector spirits i cant remember well the name and cast sanctuary in yourself and damage everything just by standing near it while your flying sword kills people and you are there sit near your enemy with the peace that nobody can target you.

or get a rogue and play the batman arkham series inside the game.

Ya that spell should be reworked or removed.

[Zaris]

There's not much room anyway:
- cleric: bless with unique staff from underdark to push hit chance bonus to 10-40% for melee and spells -> fighters can use great weapon master +10 dmg feat without losing to much hit chance
- mage: haste / dual haste (sorc) on your single target damage dealer (fighter classes gets 4-6 attacks buffed and doing 30-35 dmg/hit)

I'm currently running on tactician / lvl12 with fighter, barb, sorc and cleric and most annoying enemies are dead in 1-2 rounds already even when they have 300hp.