I’ve personally found great effectiveness using cloud of daggers maybe more than any other spell. Funnelling enemies through a passageway with multiple cloud of daggers cast on the spot is probably my current meta. Then I utilize thunder wave/ black hole to keep the enemies on the other side of the daggers once they make it through.
Another thing if found amazing success with is getting a party to strength 20 as fast as I can, which then I find 90% of enemies can be thrown off cliffs for instant kills. Throwing enemies off cliffs also only requires stealth checks where the body hits the ground and dies.
Lastly there is a fun little cheese strategy I’ve picked up that I don’t see anyone talking about. If you cancel an improvised weapon attack with an NPC before you deal damage, you can move NPC’s without angering anyone.
If there is a patrolling guard past some chasm or whatever, when they get close, jump into turn based and try a shove off the edge as they pass it. They won’t register a failed shove as an attack and will just tell you to back off. So you can keep trying till you get them. Thin out a few guards before a fight.
Might be common knowledge now, but I was playing with a friend the other day who never thought of it.
I refuse to throw someone off a cliff, they have things to sell!
I have 2 patterns, that sort of overlap, depending how the fight is going. I have my paladin and Karlach up front. I have shadowheart just a little back usually next to my “option” character (4th slot rotates out a lot based on needs, but usually Frost mage Gale)
Example, use someone to cause a giant ice slick on the enemy, right in front of my front liners. Then use shadowheart to possibly throw an Insect Plague on top. They have a heck of a time getting to me, and if they do they get to meet a paladin who’s really hard to hit (decent AC + light cleric shadowheart) and Karlach with aspect of wolf means there’s a beatdown right there. This pattern works really well for the most part, there’s always exceptions.
Any persistent AoE damage spells seem to be extremely good, especially if you can set them up in a choke point and continually shove enemies back into them. Hunger of Hadar, Wall of Fire, Cloud of Daggers, Spike Growth, etc.
Spells that reposition enemies can also take the place of shoves: Thuder Wave, Eldritch Blast with repelling invocation. You miss out on loot if you kill a boss this way, but sometimes the cheese is too delicious.
Spirit Guardians has been good to me. Sometimes I just have Shadowheart cast it and spend her action dashing through all the enemies on screen.
Would definitely recommend giving Astarion the Thief subclass for the broken bonus action economy. It meshes well with his vampire bite ability.
I respecced Shadowheart to have more strength initially, and a reroll later after finding certain gloves, and made her a tank with spirit guardian. Stays in range of other characters for more potent touch heals, can take a blow, and Spirit Guardians in the middle of a pack of a restraining CC spell, and it builds up the damage. Freedom of movement, or equipment that grants the same/similar are super useful for this strategy. That said, I have only played on the Balanced setting, so take it with a grain of salt.
Edited to add, Life domain provides juicier heals and access to heavy armor.
Wall of fire has been great to me, as well as Thunderwave. My Warlock has it, my Astarion has it, my Shadow heart can summon a Djinni with it, and then Karlach can just throw almost any size monster off a cliff with her hands.
Honestly environmental kills trivialized a couple boss fights thus far.
What happens to the loot once the boss is thrown off the cliff? My fomo is keeping me from trying it. Where does it go?
That depends on the boss. The boss at the end of Astarions quest line can be trivialized by pushing him off, then he responsible a coffin for the second “phase”. The phase is trivial so you’ll get to loot him.
Yeah I refrain from using it in many situations but in the ones where it’s favourable, e.g. landing into combat surrounded by low level mobs, a single Thunder Wave can win the fight in the first move, just have to mop up the boss and any mobs that succeeded a saving throw and still get all of the more valuable loot
