Best Feats for Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3

Shadowheart is one of the companion characters that you can befriend and recruit for your Baldur’s Gate 3 party. Taking on the Cleric Class by default, Shadowheart can be a brutal Spellcaster and healer, especially if you have the right Feats equipped to further enhance her abilities. If you’re having trouble with selecting the best selection to enhance Shadowheart’s kit, then we’ve got you covered, so follow along below for everything you’ll need to know about the best Feats for Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – Best Shadowheart Feats, Explained

Shadowheart is one of the best companions you can keep in your Baldur’s Gate 3 party, due to her sheer utility with Spells and her healing capabilities, both inside and outside of battle. By default, Shadowheart is a part of the Cleric Class, which utilizes the main stats of Wisdom as the Spellcasting Modifier, followed by Constitution for improving max HP, and Dexterity for improving max AC. Keeping all of these qualities in mind, we’ve determined the best Feats for Shadowheart, to ensure you get the most value from the huge potential her character has.

Ability Improvement

Ability Improvement is a great Feat to take for any character for Class, as this lets you increase your stats. Increasing a character’s primary stats will increase the potency of the damage they deal, their Spell DCs, or their AC and HP. In the case of Shadowheart, you’d want to use Ability Increase to boost Wisdom by +2, which will bring it to a total of 18 out of the max of 20 (without requesting to change her base stats).

You can further increase this by choosing to give her Auntie Ethel’s hair (+1 Wisdom), or by taking Ability Improvement a second time at a later level, choosing to either boost WIS by +2 again or WIS +1 and CON +1, depending on if you give her Auntie Ethel’s hair or not.

Durable

Durable is a great choice to bulk up Shadowheart’s build a lot. As the Cleric of your party, it’s very likely that Shadhowheart operates as your main healer. For this reason, it’s important to keep her up near full HP at all times, to ensure she isn’t taken down in battle, leaving your party without any heals for the rest of combat.

Durable helps give Shadowheart more longevity by enabling her to regain full HP every Short Rest, which will ensure her health goes further and enable her to do more healing in combat. On top of this, she will receive a +1 to CON, which is one of her most important stats following Wisdom, responsible for boosting her max HP in total. This one is pretty much a win-win if you’re looking to play a combat-heavy route and rely on Shadowheart for maximum life and healing.

Spell Sniper

As a Spellcasting Class (Cleric), Shadowheart relies on her magic to deal the majority of her damage towards enemies. Spell Sniper is a handy addition to her kit, enabling her to not only learn an additional Cantrip but to also reduce the number needed to secure a Crit by 1 when using her Spell attacks.

Shadowheart has a variety of Cantrips that are exceptionally useful, especially in the early game. Cantirps such as Firebolt, Guidance, Poison Spray, and Sacred Flame are all very useful to fall back on when you run out of Spell Slots, so securing another choice to add to your active Spells is very handy. However, the true power comes in the reduced number needed to secure a Crit, as this will amplify Shadowheart’s damage output in the long run quite significantly.

War Caster

Many of Shadowheart’s most useful and/or high levelled Spells require Concentration to be maintained, such as Spirit Guardians, Hold Person/Hold Monster, and Blade Barrier, to name a few. War Caster helps enable Shadowheart’s strength with these types of Spells by giving her Advantage each time she makes a Saving Throw to keep the effects of the Spell in play. This pretty much means that she has double the chance of succeeding, and therefore is twice as likely to keep her Concentration spells active on the combat field.

In addition to this benefit, Shadowheart will also gain the ability to cast Shocking Grasp on a target moving out of her melee range by expending her Reaction for the turn. This can be crucial to finishing off enemies and getting some extra damage in, as every single point of health you’re able to take away adds up each turn.

Magic Initiate: Druid

As stated earlier, Shadowheart gets the most value from the utility her Spells provide for your party, as well as the potential damage a few of them can dish out. Because of this, having more Spells and Cantrips in her kit will be useful, especially because they do not use up any of her primary Spell Slots.

There are multiple choices to consider when looking at the Magic Initiate Feat, however, Magic Initiate: Druid is the best choice, as this Class also utilizes the Wisdom Spellcasting Modifier that Shadowheart’s Cleric Class revolves around. Because of this, the Druid Spells that she gains will be on par in terms of damage output and Spell DC with the rest of her Spells.

By picking up this Feat, players will be able to select 2 Cantrips and one Level 1 Spell from the Druid Spell List, which enables the addition of Shillelagh, and Thorn Whip to her damaged Cantrips. Then, the Level 1 Spell can be used to build Shadowheart’s utility even further for out-of-combat encounters or healing with Speak to Animals or Goodberry, or perhaps an extra option for combat and setting up her companions for attacks, such as Fog Cloud, Faerie Fire, or Entangle.

That’s everything you need to know about the best Feats for Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3. For more helpful guides, check out the rest of our content. We’ve got a variety of BG3 topics to help you adventure through Faerun and take down the Absolute, such as how to defeat Balthazar at Nightsong’s Prison.