Astarion is the face of Baldur’s Gate 3, so why not give him some love in Tav’s adventuring party by using some of the best high-damage builds in the game?
Astarion, played by Neil Newborn, is a flamboyant, charismatic vampire spawn that players meet early on in Baldur’s Gate 3. For any players who want to have Astarion in their party and are looking for ways to maximize his power, there are a few different options. Though players can take the character in any of thousands of different directions, two options stick out as the best.
A hybrid rogue-ranger-fighter build can turn Astarion into a ranged death-dealing machine, while a rogue-monk stands as one of the most powerful damage builds in the entire game. Here are the best ways to handle Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3.
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Best Astarion build for lore and flavor
The best Astarion build that is thematically appropriate for the character and his lore is a mix of assassin rogue, gloomstalker ranger, and battlemaster fighter.
This build is compatible with Astarion’s story and personality but is still devastatingly powerful. The ranger-fighter-rogue combination makes Astarion a lightning-fast assassin able to sneak up on even the keenest targets and kill them before they’ve even noticed him.
Gloom stalker ranger, battlemaster fighter, and assassin rogue are a devastating combination. Combined, they can guarantee Astarion goes first in combat, makes every attack an automatic critical hit, and puts out so many attacks that only a high-level fighter can match his output. Here’s the core class split:
Assassin rogue 3, gloomstalker ranger 3, battlemaster fighter 6
- Levels 1-3: Assassin rogue
- Take 3 levels of rogue until assassin. At level 3, assassin gives the two-part Assassinate ability. Assassinate gives advantage on attack rolls against enemies that haven’t taken their turn yet, and makes any attack against a surprised target automatically count as a critical hit. This critical hit function is what this Astarion build will use to deal ridiculous damage to key targets in the first round of combat.
- Levels 4-6: Gloomstalker ranger
- Gloomstalker offers an important bonus at level 3, which is an additional attack on the first round of combat, as well at a +3 to initiative, and increased movement speed. Since Astarion will try to surprise his enemies to get free critical hits, an extra attack is an excellent way to increase his damage per round.
- Levels 7-12: Battlemaster fighter
- Battlemaster fighter is the simple and powerful base for this build’s chassis. Fighter gives lots of great abilities, but most importantly grants extra feats to be spent on things like Sharpshooter. It also grants an extra attack at level 5 and, most importantly, Action Surge at level 2. Action Surge allows Astarion to double down on his ambush round, adding two more attacks to the sequence.
- The most crucial Maneuver are the ones that add their dice to damage, and Precision Attack. He’ll be taking the Sharpshooter feat on this build every time, and Precision Attack allows him to offset the -5 to attack rolls that Sharpshooter’s passive accrues. If he has Assassin’s Advantage online, he can spend the dice on any of the maneuvers like Disarming Attack that add to the damage of the attack, as this extra dice will be multiplied by the Critical Strike function of assassin.
Ability Scores: Dexterity primary, Constitution secondary, Wisdom tertiary
Skills: Stealth and Sleight of Hand should be prioritized above all else, with Perception and some wisdom skills optional from there. Just make sure he gets Stealth and Sleight of Hand up as high as possible, as this Astarion will be the primary scout, stealth operative, and lock-picker of the party.
With this build, Astarion will want to be sneaking around most of the time before entering combat, often initiating it himself.
Astarion’s standard combo with this build should go: Cunning Action (Hide), Maneuver Attack (Sharpshooter), Maneuver Attack (Sharpshooter), Action Surge, Maneuver Attack (Sharpshooter), Maneuver Attack (Sharpshooter), Dread Ambusher (Sharpshooter).
That’s five whole attacks, ideally with a Longbow, with advantage, and possibly a Superiority Dice on top of that, each of which is a guaranteed Critical Hit. Once this build has reached Act 3, it loves to use all sorts of special arrows and ammunition to boost its damage during these crucial rounds.
Best Astarion build for damage and min-maxing
The best Astarion build for damage combines tools from the Way of the Open Hand monk and thief rogue.
This Astarion build isn’t as flavorful as the last one, but it’s hugely powerful. It revolves around using the incredible interaction between Way of the Open Hand monk, thief rogue, and the Tavern Brawler feat.
For those who don’t know, the Tavern Brawler feat gives +1 to Strength or Constitution, and when the user makes an unarmed attack or an Improvised Weapon attack, it doubles their strength modifier to both the attack and damage rolls.
This is a hugely powerful feat, as it makes attacks both more accurate and more devastating. In Baldur’s Gate 3‘s Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition-inspired system, this is such a massive efficiency increase that it completely outshines almost every other melee option in the game. The key to this is building a strength-focused Monk once he takes Tavern Brawler.
Simply put; Tavern Brawler is mathematically too good at outputting DPS when combined with the monk’s many attacks to favor any other build when min-maxing Astarion.
This is combined with thief rogue’s extra bonus action, which can be used on both the Monk’s Martial Arts and Flurry of Blows. This allows this Astarion Build to do a truly staggering amount of damage.
Elixirs of Cloud Giant’s Strength pushes Astarion damage builds further
The best Astarion damage build can be taken to the next level by ingesting Elixirs of Cloud Giant’s Strength, which sets his strength to 27. This ends up giving a +8 to attack, and another flat +8 to damage. In fact, an Elixir of Cloud Giant’s Strength Monk is one of the single highest-damage builds possible in the entire game. Players should still be maxing Astarion’s strength once they get Tavern Brawler.
Feel free to build him as a dexterity character until he gets monk 4, when he’ll be able to get Tavern Brawler. From there, respec Astarion to prioritize strength. There are several items he can pick up throughout the campaign that will boost strength, but just having a high strength score means players won’t need to spend resources for Astarion to excel.
Way of the Open Hand Monk 9/Thief Rogue 3
- Levels 1-3: Thief Rogue
- Rogue has several very tempting options for a Monk build. Firstly, it has Cunning Actions that will allow the Monk to save Ki points on Step of the Wind and similar abilities. Cunning Actions will also allow Astarion to hide as a Bonus action, something that can be extremely useful when trying to avoid detection mid-combat while saving precious Ki Points for damage.
- Levels 4-12: Way of the Open Hand Monk
- Open Hand Monk is the jet fuel that keeps this build running strong, thanks to its wide variety of Unarmed options. Most important is the ability to use Flurry of Blows, which grants two Unarmed Attacks in one Bonus Action.
Ability Scores: Dexterity primary until Tavern Brawler then swap to strength primary, constitution secondary, wisdom tertiary. Keep wisdom relatively low pre-Tavern Brawler.
This build is one of the most brutally effective melee DPS archetypes in the game. In a single round, it can unleash more attacks than any other build.
We recommend doing Ascended Astarion for this build, as his Ascension grants him an additional 2d10 necrotic damage on-hit with unarmed attacks. However, if players want Astarion to have a happy ending, like possibly romancing him, he’ll still be perfectly fine on anything short of Honour Mode. Ascended Astarion is incredibly powerful, but he’s not a good person and definitely not a good partner.
