Part of Baldur’s Gate 3’s fun is picking the right build for each of your party members and unveiling their true potential during battles. Here are the top three Shadowheart builds you can work toward during your next playthrough.
Top Three Best Shadowheart Builds in Baldur’s Gate 3
The top three best Shadowheart builds are the Life Domain, War Domain, and Tempest Domain Cleric builds. While the Life Domain is your bread and butter for healing and protecting others, the War and Tempest Domains bring Shadowheart’s combat and tanking abilities to the surface, allowing you to use her on the frontline, with backline damage characters providing additional support.
The criteria I’ve picked for these three builds include general strength and utility in a party, alongside how enjoyable they are to use. After all, using thunder spells to send foes flying away or having a powerful enemy deal zero damage to you is one of the most satisfying feelings in any game. Because of this, there is plenty of flexibility in what spells you can use and swap out to match your playstyle.
Since Shadowheart starts with the Trickery Domain by default, you’ll have to visit Withers in your camp and ask him to change your class. After spending 100 gold, you’ll return to the character customization screen, where you can change her class, cantrips, subclass/domain, and abilities. I will detail the specific changes to make as we discuss each build.
That said, below are my rankings of the top three best Shadowheart builds in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Shadowheart Life Domain Cleric Build
In parties full of tanky frontline characters and backline characters who get caught out of position easily, Life Domain Shadowheart is a great go-to for providing heals and protection. She’ll gain proficiency for heavy armor, the Disciple of Light passive, and other helpful spells.
Below are the class, subclass, cantrips, and abilities you should have after visiting Withers for a respec:
- Class: Cleric
- Cantrips: Sacred Flame, Guidance, Resistance
- Subclass: Life Domain
- Abilities:
- Strength: 12
- Dexterity: 14
- Constitution: 16 (+1)
- Intelligence: 8
- Wisdom: 16 (+2)
- Charisma: 8
Since Shadowheart is a High Half-Elf, you’ll get the fire bolt cantrip automatically. This will not change regardless of your class and domain.
As for your abilities, you’ll primarily want to set wisdom as your primary with a bonus in constitution and set these as the two highest values. Wisdom improves general spellcasting ability for clerics, providing a bonus to wisdom checks, while constitution increases your hitpoints and overall survivability.
Placing extra points in dexterity is also particularly useful as it improves your initiative in battle, providing an opportunity to get early attacks or heals in before your enemies can counterattack.
Once you have your new subclass, cantrips, and ability points allocated, it’s time to prepare your skills. Below are the spells you’ll select for each level:
| Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cantrips: Sacred Flame, Guidance, Resistance Spells: Cure Wounds, Bless, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Shield of Faith, Sanctuary |
| 2 | Prepare Spells (Add): Command |
| 3 | Prepare Spells (Add): Spiritual Weapon, Warding Bond Prepare Spells (Remove): Command |
| 4 | Cantrip: Blade Ward Prepare Spells (Add): Prayer of Healing Feat: Ability Improvement – Wisdom +2 |
| 5 | Prepare Spells (Add): Mass Healing Word, Spirit Guardians |
| 6 | Prepare Spells (Add): Silence |
| 7 | Prepare Spells (Add): Freedom of Movement |
| 8 | Prepare Spells (Add): Feign Death Feat: Ability Improvement – Wisdom +1, Constitution +1 |
| 9 | Prepare Spells (Add): Insect Plague, Flame Strike |
| 10 | Cantrip: Light Prepare Spells (Add): Banishment |
| 11 | Prepare Spells (Add): Heroes’ Feast OR Planar Ally |
| 12 | Prepare Spells (Add): Heroes’ Feast OR Planar Ally Feat: Resilient – Constitution |
Of the three listed on this page, Shadowheart’s Life Domain build has the heaviest focus on increasing your party’s survivability through healing and protective spells right from the get-go and growing over time. However, you do have some potential to deal considerable damage, especially once you reach level 9 and get Insect Plague, Flame Strike, and two powerful healing spells.
Furthermore, at level 11, both Heroes’ Feast and Planar Ally are powerful abilities that can easily turn the tides of battle, and taking either one first is viable.
Shadowheart War Domain Cleric Build
Why make a tank character when Shadowheart can become the party’s entire frontline? That aside, the War Domain allows Shadowheart to take on a tank role, gaining proficiency with martial weapons and heavy armor.
Below are the class, subclass, cantrips, and abilities you should have after visiting Withers for a respec:
- Class: Cleric
- Cantrips: Blade Ward, Guidance, Resistance
- Subclass: War Domain
- Abilities:
- Strength: 16 (+1)
- Dexterity: 10
- Constitution: 15
- Intelligence: 8
- Wisdom: 16 (+2)
- Charisma: 8
Like before, we’ll set wisdom as our primary stat, with strength being our secondary one. Since we’re focusing on a more frontline melee and heavy armor build, we want to shift our focus to improving strength and constitution over dexterity. While swapping these stats around to gain increased initiative or hit points is viable with this setup, it isn’t essential compared to the Life Domain build.
Furthermore, since this build focuses on creating a tanky Shadowheart rather than a damage-focused one, I’ve swapped out Sacred Flame for Blade Ward, as she already comes with the fire bolt cantrip as an emergency damage spell. Blade Ward temporarily halves the damage you receive from bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing attacks, making it a decent buff to reduce incoming damage while the rest of your party focuses on damage output. However, if you want an extra damage option from her, switching back to Sacred Flame is fine.
Once you have everything set, it’s time to prepare your skills. Below are the spells you’ll select for each level:
| Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cantrips: Blade Ward, Guidance, Resistance Spells: Divine Favour, Shield of Faith, Guiding Bolt, Healing Word, Command, Bless |
| 2 | Prepare Spells (Add): Sanctuary |
| 3 | Prepare Spells (Add): Warding Bond |
| 4 | Cantrip: Sacred Flame OR Thaumaturgy Prepare Spells (Add): Hold Person Feat: Resilient – Constitution |
| 5 | Prepare Spells (Add): Animate Dead, Bestow Curse |
| 6 | Prepare Spells (Add): Prayer of Healing OR Mass Healing Word |
| 7 | Prepare Spells (Add): Death Ward |
| 8 | Prepare Spells (Add): Feign Death Feat: War Caster |
| 9 | Prepare Spells (Add): Guardian of Faith, Insect Plague |
| 10 | Cantrip: Light Prepare Spells (Add): Mass Cure Wounds |
| 11 | Prepare Spells (Add): Planar Ally OR Heroes’ Feast |
| 12 | Prepare Spells (Add): Planar Ally OR Heroes’ Feast Feat: Ability Improvement – Wisdom +2 |
While it is similar to the Life Domain build, there is an increased focus on Shadowheart being the center of attention and tanking damage while still healing and helping allies as needed. You’ll also improve your constitution early on to support this, with war caster giving advantage on concentration saving throws.
Shadowheart Tempest Domain Cleric Build
Tempest Domain Shadowheart is where things get interesting. With a mix of damage and tanking capabilities, you can pull off some unpredictable moves with this build’s thunder and lightning attacks, especially with the Wrath of the Storm subclass feature.
Below are the class, subclass, cantrips, and abilities you should have after visiting Withers for a respec:
- Class: Cleric
- Cantrips: Sacred Flame, Guidance, Resistance
- Subclass: Tempest Domain
- Abilities:
- Strength: 14
- Dexterity: 12
- Constitution: 16 (+1)
- Intelligence: 8
- Wisdom: 16 (+2)
- Charisma: 8
As usual, you’ll want to focus on wisdom and constitution as her main two stats, with strength and dexterity close behind. Like War Domain Shadowheart, I’ve raised her strength to 14 and dexterity to 12 to cater to a heavy armor class build, but these are easily interchangeable depending on your party.
Once you modify your stats, it’s time to prepare the rest of your abilities. Below are the spells you’ll select for each level:
| Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cantrips: Sacred Flame, Guidance, Resistance Spells: Thunderwave, Fog Cloud, Healing Word, Bless, Guiding Bolt, Command |
| 2 | Prepare Spells (Add): Create or Destroy Water |
| 3 | Prepare Spells (Add): Hold Person, Spiritual Weapon Prepare Spells (Remove): Create or Destroy Water |
| 4 | Cantrip: Blade Ward Prepare Spells (Add): Warding Bond Feat: Ability Improvement – Wisdom +2 |
| 5 | Prepare Spells (Add): Create or Destroy Water, Spirit Guardians |
| 6 | Prepare Spells (Add): Animate Dead, Mass Healing Word Prepare Spells (Remove): Hold Person |
| 7 | Prepare Spells (Add): Banishment |
| 8 | Prepare Spells (Add): Hold Person Feat: Ability Improvement – Wisdom +2 OR Alert |
| 9 | Prepare Spells (Add): Guardian of Faith |
| 10 | Cantrip: Light Prepare Spells (Add): Flame Strike |
| 11 | Prepare Spells (Add): Blade Barrier OR Heroes’ Feast |
| 12 | Prepare Spells (Add): Blade Barrier OR Heroes’ Feast Feat: War Caster OR Add Class: Wizard |
While initially starting the same as the other two builds, it quickly shifts to a damage-centered build, relying on Create Water to make enemies wet and increase your damage with your lightning magic. It still takes inspiration from Life Domain, using multiple healing and protective spells to increase your party’s survivability, but with a greater focus on crowd control and damage.
In later levels, it branches off into two choices: either stick to a pure, level 12 cleric or shift one level to the wizard class to unlock additional spell choices. Your decision here will depend heavily on your other party members and personal preference.
If you want to bring your relationship with Shadowheart to the next level, check out how to find the Night Orchid in Baldur’s Gate 3, or click the game tag below to explore our growing article list.
