Alright, today I wanna talk radiant damage in BG3. Heard people raving about how it melts enemies, especially with all those juicy vulnerabilities. Sounded awesome, so I figured, “Why not try it myself?” Spoiler: it was messy at first, but holy crap, it works.
What I Thought Was Gonna Happen
Honestly, I thought it was just slap Radiant damage gear on Shadowheart, right? Point her at bad guys, cast some holy light stuff, boom, easy win. Look at those tooltips! “Radiant Orb this!” “Reverberation that!” Sounds powerful, simple. How wrong I was. Like, seriously embarrassingly wrong.
The First Big Cluster
Loaded up an Act 1 save near those annoying goblin camp fights. Decked out Shadowheart: gave her the Luminous Armour (the one that glows when you heal?), stuck on the Luminous Gloves, and the Callous Glow Ring. Feeling pretty smug. First fight: whack ’em with Spirit Guardians. Boom! Little orbs of light pop up everywhere! Cool!
- Problem One: Half my party got stuck standing in shadows or behind cover. That Callous Glow Ring? Useless if enemies aren’t glowing or in light. Felt stupid.
- Problem Two: Keeping concentration on Spirit Guardians while Shadowheart gets whacked? Yeah, no. Some random goblin with a stick would bonk her, concentration gone, orbs disappear. Infuriating.
- Problem Three: The Orbs? Good. But where’s the burn? It felt more like an annoying tickle than holy fire raining down. Disappointment city.
Trying to Fix My Mess
So, regrouped. Needed to make things hurt. Went digging through my junk… er, inventory.
- Holy Lance Helm: Found this ugly bucket. “Deal Radiant damage when you take Radiant damage?” Weird. Put it on Karlach.
- Boots of Striding: “Don’t get pushed around if concentrating.” Oh! Slapped those on Shadowheart.
- The Blood of Lathander Mace: That thing blinds fiends & undead? Grabbed it.
Tried again. Same goblin camp, different alley.
- Had Shadowheart cast Sacred Flame on a target standing near others? Why? Because the Glowing Shield from Luminous Armour splashed some Radiant damage around the target too. Bam! Little orbs appear on multiple guys.
- Now those guys are glowing? Karlach charges in, gets hit a bit? The Holy Lance Helm triggers? Unexpected radiant damage zapped back at the attacker. Nice surprise!
- Used Spirit Guardians again? Boots helped Shadowheart stay put mostly. Orbs building up on multiple enemies? Slowed ’em right down.
This time? Different story. Goblins were stacking orbs, getting pushed around by Reverberation procs from all the radiant hits, some falling over? Others just couldn’t hit a damn thing because their accuracy was trash with all the debuffs. Now we’re cooking!
The “Burn” Part – It Ain’t Fire, It’s Suffering
Realized something. The “burn” isn’t giant health chunks vanishing like fireball. Nah. It’s death by a thousand cuts plus constant annoying debuffs.
- Orbs stack? Minus 1 to attack rolls per orb. Get 3 or 4 orbs on someone? Suddenly everyone’s whiffing attacks. HUGE.
- Reverberation (from other gear like the Gloves later) stacks too? Lowers Saving Throws and makes them prone sometimes? Crippling.
- If they ARE vulnerable (like lots of Act 2 baddies)? THEN you see actual fat damage numbers from Sacred Flame or Guiding Bolt.
What Actually Works (For Me)
After faceplanting a few times? This combo felt sweet:
- Shadowheart: Luminous Armour + Gloves, Callous Glow Ring, Boots of Striding, Blood of Lathander. Concentrate on Spirit Guardians. Cast Sacred Flame/Guiding Bolt on glowing/vulnerable targets.
- Karlach (or another frontliner): Holy Lance Helm. Gets in there, takes hits, zaps back Radiant damage automatically. Maybe something else that adds Radiant on hit later.
- Positioning: Seriously. Pull enemies INTO light. Throw light sources if you gotta. That Callous Glow Ring NEEDS it.
- Focus Fire: Don’t spread damage thin early. Debuff a few key targets hard with orb stacks so they can’t hurt you, THEN blow them up.
Bottom Line
Turns out Radiant builds aren’t a lazy “I win” button. Took me a couple embarrassing fights to figure out the synergies and how those debuffs actually win battles. It’s not flashy fire damage? It’s control. It’s making enemies useless while they slowly (or sometimes quickly) crumble. When it clicks? Man, watching a group just fall apart because they can’t hit anything? That’s the “burn”. Feels good. Just gotta set it up right. Play smart, not just holy.