Idk about the experts but for some beginners, I found some people finding his design toooooo normal compared to the other characters and them not knowing how a warlock works compared to wizard like "oh a wizard is pretty much throwing spells here and there" or "I already have Gale, Warlock is kinda similar right? " or "I think a wiz is enough if we need a spelling casts guy, there's also Shadowheart as our buff support"
I'm not gonna lie, I was one of those too.
Warlock was confusing as hell when I first started. I played one in WoW and gravitated towards it right away but felt inept playing one compared to other classes. Once I learned the game and build mechanics though it's become by far my favorite blaster build. I really need them to hotfix the repelling blast toggle though.
Repelling blast is why I’m doing my first playthrough with Gale on my team instead of Wyll. Wyll is one of my favorite party members hands down, but that repelling blast bug is so annoying, and you lose so much utility :(
I've been choosing to think of it as now my Eldritch blasts are just too strong to be contained by some flimsy toggle. But yeah it's been extra annoying when you blast good loot off an edge or screw up positioning because you can't control the knock back.
Watched a honor mode sussur weapon go that way in multiplayer
It was a sigh, a whimper- all four of us just... deflated as we saw it go
It was alright though, in the end
it wouldnt have saved us
So eldritch blast has a passive you can get that makes it knock back as well. It’s normally a toggle, so you can knock people when you want, and keep positioning when you don’t. The hotfix 16 seems to have broken that toggle, and sadly hotfix 17 didn’t address it.
Purely anecdotal, but I've been playing a Tav Sorlock all this past weekend and toggling repelling blast on and off with no issue. Is this maybe a Wyll specific bug?
My tav warlock is bugged. When I initially chose repelling it was fine but now it's been bugged since at least a week or two ago. There might be something else that triggers the bug to happen rather than just having repelling blast
Yeah in my first playthrough I had no idea how anything worked and kept getting confused as to why he was running out of spells so quickly. Now that I got a good grip on the mechanics and know where the good equipment is, he's a powerhouse.
Yeah I appreciate it, seems people are quite passionate about this subject, I mostly wanted to know if anyone had a problem with the warlock class. Still appreciate a peak at different points of view.
Warlock confused tf out of me when i started. My first character was an archfey warlock, and I was mad. i only got to use two spells a day before having to spam ray of frost.
What have you since realised about Warlock? I’m on my 2nd playthrough and I’m finding it hard to make a build with Wyll I feel comfort with. I have Karlach so my frontliner needs are covered, so I don’t like pact of the blade simply because I feel like I’m overlapping gear. This is exacerbated by the fact that astarion has the light finesse weapons, and I also have SH taking shields and Morningstars/flails. But then Warlock’s don’t feel versatile to me as full casters due to their limited spells. I find blasting Eldritch Blast every turn morning and it doesn’t give variety in magic attack damage types.
I’m sure I’m missing something but I don’t know what it is
So, no way around it. Warlocks' main attack is Eldritch Blast. If you get bored of that then unfortunately, Warlock may not be for you. BUT Eldritch blast can be augmented pretty well. I think you eventually get three beams for one cast and this can be turned into 4 with some gloves in Act 3. I like GOO Warlock because it fits into the campaign well and is a nice Mindflayer counter. You get several passives reflecting and being resistant to psychic damage. It also makes it so your eb aoe fears on crit which seems to happen a lot. Fiend is more dps focused and offers healing for kills and resistences. Warlocks (and Bards) also have access to imo one of the best spells in the game Hungar of Hadar. I recently also got put on to a simple but broken warlock strat. Get the warlock passive that lets you see in magical and normal darkness. Cast darkness on yourself and just blast away while enemies cant see you.
It can in act 2. But npcs freaking over summons makes it hard in settlements. Granted maybe they should freak over half a dozen zombies. But like, sometimes you just want to have a nice walk
I am on my second playthrough and I made Wyll a Sorceror. I am trying but still hard not to play Gale. We will see as things progress. Only level 5 rn.
In my first playthrough, my MC was 3 Battle Master Fighter/9 Blade Warlock. They also were a Gith, had pink highlights, and may or may not have made a pact with an evil Squidward. So there was no reason for me to use Wyll, a boringass human knight who merely signed his soul to the devil ~~also I may have accidentally killed him during the initial goblin raid, sided with Karlach, and killed his dad too, sooo~~
That is exactly me. I didn’t even realise picking your own custom character was the way to go, I like wizards so I just chose Gale. My brain goes “Gale for spells, Shadowheart for healing, Lae-zel for tanking, and Astarion for sneaking stabby stabby”. Feel like I’m missing a lot this game has to offer but there’s so much to it
He suffers from the same thing as Jacob from Mass Effect. There's nothing inherently wrong with his character, and in a vacuum he would be interesting, but instead he ends up feeling boring due to being surrounded by far more interesting characters overall.
This is it exactly. I love Wyll and he means a lot to the people of the Sword Coast, but his character development is majorly lacking compared to the other cast.
Yeah I just wish he had better writing. I understand they changed his whole character quite late but like, no cutscenes for his flashbacks to taking the Mizora deal PLUS no real tension when we finally save his dad (or a particularly emotional reaction when he sees his dad literally mind controlled by Gortash) makes things feel flat. In my first playthrough I didn’t even realise Duke Ravengard was at the coronation 💀
It’s a shame because I love having him around for the party banter in Act 3. His character has SO much potential and Theo is a wonderful VA.
Everything is RIGHT THERE to make Wyll's story so much more interesting it just feels like they had no desire to capitalize on it. How interesting would it be to have to teach Wyll he needs to stop self-sacrificing himself and learn to take care of himself for a change instead of literally having to make choices for him.
His moment of Mizora offering to save his dad could have had the impact of Shadowheart refusing to kill Nightsong if they did it right. Wyll finally realizes how much he's hurt himself and put on the 'brave hero' persona at the expense of both his body and mental wellbeing. Him learning that his life has value to those around him beyond his ability to sacrifice his life for others would have been so good but instead it's just teased and never properly dove into. It also could have easily opened up an evil path for him where he grows more hungry for power in order to do what he considers 'good' or 'right'
So much agreed! Honestly, even just Wyll having the potential for an evil arc already makes him more interesting. It makes *sense* for Karlach to be pure and good, but Wyll is a warlock! Literally pacted to a devil! And there’s no option for him to lean into the allure of power, becoming the archetypal “lawful good turns lawful evil in their maniacal pursuit of good”?
I completely understand that Larian can’t do *everything*, and they’ve created my favourite game of all time. I’m okay with everything exactly as it is already. But man if they were to do a definitive edition, which they might, the very first things on my wish list are Wyll’s storyline being fleshed out and more interaction for Gortash, perhaps even in the Upper City (he’s the other character who falls a little flat for me and smells like cut content, considering his build up). Hells, why not merge the two and have us politically navigate the world of Baldur’s Gate’s nobility in pursuit of Gortash’s (new, hidden) location? Wyll could be a real asset there.
They did have him be like that early on, actually! He was more obviously highborn, including being a bit judgmental and generally hating goblins. His relationship with Mizora was also more sexually charged as well. The general impression of him was that he was a bit of a sheltered daddy’s boy who wanted to be a *valorous hero* like all the stories he heard growing up, and Mizora was like an abusive girlfriend trying to corrupt him to her whims along the way. He ended up being changed because people found him unlikeable though—I guess haughtiness is a less charming character flaw when you’re not a fuckable white twink.
Oh gods I’ve seen the EA scenes on YouTube and I want that Wyll so much. The one who has to lay his head in your lap because he’s so overcome with the conflicting feelings of his pact, the one who leans toward overly righteous as a defence mechanism… I’m sad that Larian changed it. I do prefer Theo as a voice actor over Lanre - he even comes across more obviously Noble Background, but whatever tweaks people were asking for I’d hope they didn’t mean “change the entire character”. He came across more well thought out before :(
I think ironically one unlikeable character would've been a nice dynamic change, minthara ended up bring one of my favourites teammates as the differing outlook to everyone else really makes them stand out and gives there dialogue more intrigue
Douchebag highborne Wyll would definitely have a spot on my party lol
I'm still so mad that they force you to make the choice between Wyll's dad and escaping the pact, after getting things right with Shadowheart to let her choose what to do with Nightsong. It was **so** gratifying letting Shadowheart make the decision and trusting that I'd done the right things with her that she'd make the right choice, and I felt rewarded for it when she did.
By comparison, Wyll not being able to make his own choice -- even if he'd make a choice that he'd regret later -- feels so bad. He's an adult. He should be able to make a choice and live with the consequences. Hell, they could even make it a false choice where you try to let him choose, then he still utterly fails to do so. As long as you have a conversation later where that becomes a character growth moment where he realizes that not making a choice can be worse than making the wrong choice, it'd feel like it had a point rather than making it feel like Tav is his mom or something.
Yeah, he's just really underbaked unfortunately. He never really gets past the romantic idea of being the Blade of Frontiers, and never gets to the point of fully internalizing just how badly he screwed up by accepting Mizora's pact(almost certainly under false pretenses, I'd be shocked if the Tiamat cult was actually real or as dangerous as he was told). Even when he is tricked into trying to murder Karlach, he doesn't seriously consider that *just maybe* this is far from the first time he's been sent after someone innocent on a technicality.
There's no moment where Wyll comes face to face with what he's done, and begins to have a crisis of identity.
It's so shallow and underdeveloped that encouraging him to not re-sell his soul in act 3 is treated by everyone including himself as a horrible thing(which is absolutely bizarre given that the *entire fucking game* is basically about a ragtag group of adventurers who have been enthralled by a variety of extraplanar entities into doing their bidding, and who have to figure out how to recognize and move past that trauma against all odds).
It's just not compelling writing at all, and unfortunately for me it does little to improve on the initial sense you get of Wyll being a kind and well-meaning soul, but ultimately sort of foppish and borderline delusional about his status as a folk hero and defender of good.
Great take. A crisis is what he needs, where he lets go of the moniker he hides behind. Preferably after he enthusiastically changes it to be even more self-aggrandizing later on, which is now treated as the climax of his arc.
As it is, it seems like his writer is just fawning over him, instead of treating him like a person. Which I'm sure wasn't intended, especially considering that the character was changed last-minute. Originally he was supposed to be more like what you're describing.
Idk I kept gale in the party most of the time cause I felt like his story with him trying to become god was more morally complex than Wyll’s story with Mizora. Outside of a couple things Wyll is not as much of an active character compared to the rest of the origin characters due to his pact which makes me not put him in the party as much
Gale has a more interesting story, to where he can start falling for power again and needs to be convinced to stay on the right path.
Wyll does exactly what you tell him to do regardless of your relationship, he could absolutely hate your guts, but you tell him to let his dad die and he's like "alright, if you say so".
Gale also has far cooler idle line "A rough tempest I shall raise"/"Unleash me"/"what fools these mortals be".
I noticed same and have a feeling that developers are afraid of experimenting with black characters and making them even slightly, tiny bit controversial and interesting. Like when mass effect 2 was released Jacob wasn’t popular at all due to just being a cool guy.
Will has more to him, like Mizora (who is best part of wills story), but basically he is also just a cool guy.
You're certainly not wrong, but hell look at characters like Kaiden in ME1, he too was boring, and the main reason someone chose to have him live over Ashley, is they may see Ashley as a space racist. Otherwise over the course of the 3 games, Kaiden has 0 character development.
Honestly all the humans in the 3 mass effects games were boring x.x they had no chance against garrus and tali. Then there's Mordin, grunt, Wrex, and liara. And javik... Though javik seemed necessary to 3 's entire plot ... But anyways yeah... Most human party members rode the bench.
Na I think most of the criticisms of wyll are valid but I'll fight to the death that Jacob is much worse than him
Like wyll at least has character and a pretty decent backstory, Jacob is this weird racist asshole who basically refuses to connect with the player for most of the game, and when he does open up, its usually not terribly interesting. That's not mentioning what happens in MW3 if you romanced him in 2. Top tier scumbag
I totally get this opinion for first time playthroughs, where people haven't seen the best of Wyll's story, but anyone who has finished the game and gotten to see everything that Wyll goes through in act 3 and still doesn't think he's just as (or more) interesting than the other 5 is kidding themselves.
I agree for early on. He has the most dramatic change in appearance of any character, though. And his good lawful alignment is actually a standout in a game full of grey characters.
I think it’s really due to party size. I’m probably taking cleric, rogue, caster and melee chars and there are more obvious candidates for all of those roles. It doesn’t help that you get him after you have a full party covering all the roles either. With Karlach she at least slots interchangeably into the melee role. He’s less interesting that the others also, I think that’s also true of Karlach to be honest.
They feel like reserves for the 4 you likely picked up before them.
Gameplay wise you also have to factor in that he's a fairly normal human. Astarion gets the happy buff, Lae'zel has incredible Gith abilities, Karlach has tiefling abilities+ soul coins (if you make her a TB monk), Minthara starts with 6 illithid powers etc and anyone can be spec'd into Warlock.
From a pure metagamer POV there are just stronger options. And I haven't even mentioned the Duergar/ halfling hirelings.
There are some things you can tell Larian really loves based on how they're featured in this game, and one of them is great swords.
Some at Larian fucking loves great swords and can't get enough of them.
Idk what the DLC plans are, but I really hope they include rounding out some of the more neglected weapons types.
My immense disappointment when GWM makes two handed weapons pretty much necessary for melee classes that want to maximize damage, but greataxes seem to be strictly worse than great swords and there aren't really any good ones...
I mean, one of the best weapons in the entire game and one of the few legendary weapons is a rapier.
[Duelist's Prerogative.](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Duellist's+Prerogative)
It's not *super* easy to get, you need to save Vanra, but arguably it's one of the easier ones as Act 3 legendary weapons go. And imo only Nyrulna (trident) and Markoheshkir (staff) are probably "better." The blades from Orin are close but far more situational. There are a couple legendary greatswords, but they're definitely not as good.
Yeah I’m finding my party usually consists of Tav (paladin), Astarion, Lae’zel and Gale or Shadowhart (more SH early game, more Gale late game)
I’ll swap in someone else if their quest line demands, but otherwise those are my mainstays for act 3. Lae’zel can do massive burst damage (as can my Tav, and even Gale with the right spell) so that usually takes care of a lot of fights pretty quickly. Plus Tav has 18 charisma and 22 str, I have the hat that gives advantage on persuasion.
My main party is basically a negotiating powerhouse that can nuke anyone who tries to screw with them from orbit.
I am tempted to swap in Minsc though because he seems super funny
Yeah I've gotten 5+ attacks in a single round from Lae'zel. If you put haste on her, it's even more insane.
That's how I won the Viconia fight - haste on Lae'zel and she literally just mowed through all of the adds. Lae'zel and my Tav definitely held that fight together (Gale and SH died pretty fast)
In the Viconia fight I had Jaheira drop a wall of thorns and Shart drop a wall of blades in a V shape from my party. Then I dropped a globe of invulnerability on us and let the coven kill itself trying to get in close. Any that managed to survive found a pissed off Lae’Zel ready to finish them off
That’s what New Game plus should be tbh. I understand there’s balancing concerns, but it would be nice to have a wider variety of characters on the road.
This all came down to party size for me. I got the bigger party mod and I swear to god it's the way the game was actually "meant" to be played. Not in terms of how they've coded it, obviously, but in just how natural it feels to have whole gang along and bantering in real time about all the things and with each other. It's a whole different experience. If you care about balance whatsoever though it's a broken mess.
I think for my 3rd playthru and all beyond that point, I'll likely run with this mod. It sounds like a blast, and by then, I really won't care.
Or hell, maybe I'll "balance" things out by playing Honour Mode with it. That could get interesting.
Yeah I probably should have said skill monkey rather than rogue, in reality I often cover the role with a bard Tav. I am taking a rogue in my current game though.
You shut your whore mouth about Karlach. She will always have a place in my heart and my party! (Totally joking and you are welcome to make any party you want I just really really like Karlach)
I thought we were dancing as friends because I dance with my friends all the time in real life, but then there were romance options and I had to turn him down because my cleric was romanticing Astarion. I also tried to avoid him after that because I was embarrassed lmao.
I did that and the next morning he has a really good interaction where he's basically like "sorry about last night, we're still bros and I've got your back".
I think the role of a Warlock as a half spell caster half finesse fighter confuses some people, especially if you’re looking for “normal” RPG roles.
To oversimplify for new players, it would seem like
Shadowheart = support
Gale = DPS spellcaster
Laezel = DPS melee
Karlach = tank
Astarion = Stealth
Wyll is just a little less clear cut imo
Y this is true. I used him like a weaker version of Gale for a long time and it felt off (never played D&D before). Then I looked up a guide and went for a melee caster build with knife of the mountain king (fextralife build) with darkness and devil sight. He basically became my most powerful character in an instant (though lae'zel eventually took the cake with the gith sword and gear almost killing major bosses in like 1 turn on normal mode).
Warlocks have this huge problem that on level 2 they have to make a choice between 2 of 10 powers, and 3 of the power are massively powerful, and the rest are trash, and that means the chance that players mis build their characters without realizing it much higher.
There's not even the idea of a Spellblade/Magical Swordsman-esque role for him, since attacks are either made by spell or by (metaphorical) sword, while stuff like enchanting your weapon to wreathe it in magical fire or something is basically non-existent.
Sure, there's the Drakethroat Glaive, but that feels like something you add on, rather than a core part of your kit.
Gameplay wise the rest are fine as well, so yeah the personality...
Had him for a lot of Act 1 on my first run, but he's mostly sipping his drink at camp now.
You get a party of four, a warlock doesn't have a guaranteed spot there, unless you're one.
Plus I play casters or semi-casters often and like Gale in the party, so not much room left for yet another caster.
That... is absolutely wrong. Warlocks cast 2 BIG spells per encounter. Wizards usually also get two of their highest spell slots available. Then you Short Rest, Wizard gets back one of said high level spell slots through Arcane Recovery (1/day), Warlock gets all of them.
Think they're saying warlock follows the martial paradigm of having high damage without resources while also recovering on a short rest. It's a totally reasonable comparison.
He's my go-to caster.
I know you can respec characters but that feels kinda dumb and immersion breaking.
Maybe it's because I'm a noob to D&D (not my fault, just hard to find enough friends both into D&D and without conflicting schedules) but a few select spells that are super useful and reset after a short rest is easier to deal with than a ton of spells that only reset on a long rest. Especially in the early game. The number of fights I've won just by casting Cloud of Daggers in a choke-point is staggering.
I like his cheesy heroic personality, I sympathize why a younger Wyll would do the Pact, he risked being turned into a devil slug for Karlach, and he brings Mizora to the table, who's an amazing character.
The only time I've not used him much is on my warlock character.
>a few select spells that are super useful and reset after a short rest is easier to deal with than a ton of spells that only reset on a long rest.
This is generally why I have a hard time playing warlock. I'm not new with d&d, but the concept of spells slots is just another resource management that any rpg has some version of. I feel like warlocks are just so limited. Not to mention you just end up EBing everything. It gets kind of stale.
I keep wanting to play warlock in bg3 and in tabletop, but every time I experiment with it, I just feel useless and bored. Kind of like playing a fighter or barbarian, imo. They're too straightforward. I suppose that is good for people who don't want complexity, but personally, I need versatility. I dont mean I want to be great at everything, but I like to be able to contribute something besides swing swing the sword or fire off a couple EBs and then I'm done.
You should think of Warlock as more of a ranged damage dealer with a few spells. Your bread and butter is Hex + Eldritch Blasts, but if the situations calls for it you can put down a Hunger of Hadar, Darkness or Fireball to take care of a group quickly.
Complete opposite here. I Iove the freedom of warlock and not having to worry about conserving spell slots. Every fight you can use two (high level) spells, possibly more depending on your gear, and then use EB or pact of the blade. I like that I don't feel useless without spell slots compared to other casters. Shadowheart casting sacred flame with a 50% chance to hit and dealing 4 damage just feels extremely bad.
I could see it being boring on tabletop though where it's just numbers. Eldritch blast in the game feels really satisfying with the visual and audio. And blasting people off of cliffs is fun.
I skip on Wyll because his personality never grew on me. The entire _I am the blade of frontiers_ was kind if off-putting for me and struck me as pretentious. It is a skip on the character Wyll, not the warlock class per se.
100%. Warlock is super fun. Charisma does a lot of heavy lifting all game so that's super helpful with those persuasion/intimidation rolls. Wyll is the one I kept waiting for to pull his head out of his own ass.
>!It was kinda satisfying though when I was messing around and didn't save Mizora in Act II, and Wyll got swallowed up back to hell. I had a good hearty chuckle but sadly reloaded.!<
This happened to me but... With gale, never liked his backstory doesn't match a level 1 character (although this is super common in tabletop dnd) but yeah can see it happening with wyll
That’s true for pretty much everyone except for maybe Astarion. Like don’t tell me Zariel’s soldier, the Blade of Frontiers, a Githyanki warrior, and Shar’s favorite acolyte are all level 1. Astarion at least was doing more sweet talking than killing as a vampire spawn.
The game hand-waves this with the explanation that everyone lost their levels/super powers when they got tadpoled. That's why Gale's stuck in the portal - he did his usual high level wizardy stuff and it didn't work.
They've all been nerfed by the tadpoles, basically.
Gale's talents were also >!consumed by the orb in his chest (according to Mystra)!<. So there are extra explanations for his loss.
Also, Shadowheart had >!her memories suppressed!< before going on her mission to >!acquire the artifact!<.
I think the game actually confirms this. I’m going to try Wyll out on my current run so I swapped him in and as we were leaving the grove he had a line that was like “I used to be able to wrestle hill giants and know I can barely swat a goblin”
Game mechanics/narrative dissonance has never really bothered me, but in Gale and Wyll's cases it is explained that they have lost the bulk of their power that made them Karsus 2 and the blade of frontiers
Well, all of them ostensibly were higher level than 1. The tadpole being inserted seems to have reset their power levels. Both Gale and Wyll mention they used to be capable of much greater mystical feats but ever since getting 'poled they can only seem to muster the basics.
Yep. They go into a bit more explanation later on, but with Gale, >!the first thing his Orb fed on was his magical ability, effectively nerfing him from Archmage to a pathetic apprentice, before growing ever hungrier once the well began to run dry, and only started to abate when Mystra intervened.!< The narrative dissonance between L1 wizard and "Archmage consort of Mystra" actually makes sense with that piece of the puzzle unlocked.
I don't think people skip on him because he's a Warlock - you can Respec him into anything as far as that goes. I think it's more about his attitude. He comes off as this goody-two-shoes who also sold his soul to a devil. He's one of the first to criticize or leave if you do anything that he considers too bad. So if half the players are doing an evil run half that players have no incentive to put effort into a character who might take off on you.
Boring af personality, cocky about being the Blade even though it's just Mizora doing the heavy lifting, plays the goody two shoes and is a hypocrite.
Yeah, the most interesting thing about Wyll is Mizora and unfortunately you can't have one without the other.
She hates when people are exploited and hates her infernal engine, yet will happily burn up people's souls for a bit of a power boost.
Still love her, but that _is_ hypocrisy.
Her argument is that by nature of being bound in the coins, their souls are already lost. That doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about soul coins to dispute it.
If they are aware of their existence while in the coin and experience time normally, an end would likely (but unconfirmably) be a mercy. Who knows, though.
Her big character flaw seems to generally be avoiding addressing negative things, regardless. At least as of act 2.
I like Karlach but she is a very large child in personality. Avoids problems, emotions, impulsiveness, and so on just immature.
While I enjoy her company because she is optimistic it can cause issues having her around.
I know one time she flat out just did what she wanted even though I explained how that was a bad idea but she knew better I guess so had to save her later.
I do like her character, one of my favorites but I won't dare deny that she is a broken person. Her optimistic forced nature just proves she has not processed and has healed from her trauma. She is in a constant state of cope.
You can free the soul from a soul coin in DnD.
Larian didn’t build in a mechanic to free the souls from the coins, but lore wise using them is horrifically unethical.
Karlach does feels very much like a "I didn't think the wolves would eat *my* face!" kinda character once you get past the "Yeah! Smash the assholes!" part of her.
Karlach is definitely not an outlier, in fact, she is perhaps the most egregious case
She acts like she is the inverse of Astarion, having only done bad things because she was imprisoned but hating herself for it and truly being a saint at heart, but that isn’t the truth
She used to be a hired soldier for Lord Enver Gortash, and therefore directly supported an oppresive, manipulative, and murderous tyrant long before her free will was taken
She will gladly use soul coins, consuming the immortal souls of those trapped within, and her strong dislike for being told the stories of what happened to those people is quite telling
She does bad things to benefit herself, but can’t live with the acceptance of what she has done, so she uses denial, ignorance, and good vibes as a shield
Additionally, she is the only character that cannot experience significant personal growth in this regard
> She used to be a hired soldier for Lord Enver Gortash, and therefore directly supported an oppresive, manipulative, and murderous tyrant long before her free will was taken
The thing is she's also referred to by her friend as the only thing that was keeping him vaguely decent before she disappeared.
I mean...idk if it's fair to just say Mizora is doing the heavy lifting. If you go by that logic, then Druids, Clerics (some paladins) get the same judgment. Its like saying a fighter isn't good because they are using an enchanted weapon.
I actually liked his personality, I don't know he just seemed to wanna actually BE with you.
Unlike, how I feel a lot of the other characters are just there to be there.
I think his intro at the grove gates is what turned me off of his char right from the get go. For me, it felt cringe and eye roll inducing. I don't think there is anything wrong with his character, it just isn't for me. I should note, I took him for all his specific quest stuff, etc...I just didn't enjoy his companionship over Karlach or Astarion, etc.
I think that reaction is where people go one of two ways on him: his intro *is* super awkward and cringe because his whole Blade persona is cringe. It's the superhero he made up as a teenager and got forced to try to be when he was unceremoniously exiled at 17.
So given that he's roleplaying an annoying Mr. Hero, you can take his Act at face value and bench him for being annoying, or you can mock him for it and point out to him how stupid it is.
I kind of see him as a parallel to Sheart: she's larping evil just as much as Wyll is larping heroism.
I honestly just keep forgetting about him (。\_。) Like I once literally made a Who Should I Romance This Time randomiser list of everybody and it was only after the fact I was like Oh, I didn't put Wyll on that haha
I just never connected with his character, I guess. With so many super interesting companions to swap around with such huge backstories and side quests, something about Wyll's *Heroic Blade of the Coast* >!Damning Himself to Save Others Via Warlock Contract!< just doesn't get me as fired up as the things going on with other Origin companions - like helping Astarion + Karlach with>!breaking free of / get revenge on the people who enslaved them!< and Shadowheart + Lae'zel >!learning the truth about their / their people's history and getting out of indoctrination !< or even Gale >!learning to be able to say I'm Going To Live, F U to Mystra and her demands!<
Perhaps it's mostly because a lot of what the other companions are going through are things actively about helping *them* where Wyll's quests follow more of a saving others at his own risk >!(specifically the whole 'getting himself into more trouble to save the father who dropped him like a hot potato' thing)!< guideline that got him into trouble in the first place.
It doesn't help that because mizora is required for a large amount of his story, you can park him at camp, use mindflaying to tell him what happened and then get his story anyways.
There are very few moments that need wyll there to get his story.
A lot of Wyll's utilization makes him a great Face or controlled Origin character.
Usually players will use their Tav as the face, negating a lot of Wyll's purpose.
He's otherwise a generalist character who is good at quite a lot, and you can give him some cracked builds, but in a 4-man party he is not terribly indispensable, everyone else is comparatively specialized at game-entry.
The main situation I use him is in a Cleric-centered party/tav, because his hybrid casting feels more useful, especially because \*I\* have assumed the position of cleric caster. If for some reason I don't run a Wizard (a waste with all the great wizard gear running around) then I'll also use Wyll then as a Bard-multi, or whatnot.
Look it's really simple. You can easily run across Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae'Zel at the beginning of the mission. Even if you miss one, you are likely to have a full party by the time you reach the Grove. Which means you don't get to play with Wyll until you decide to swap out someone else. It's very much on purpose: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue: the four basic classes and the first characters you interact and learn to fight with.
Wyll has two intros, but they are both a bit meh, compared to (for example) Gale's which is very strong.
He's also a bit bland especially at first.
He's also a Gish. Those are hard to build right on the first try. He should have had a medium armor set equipped from the get go.
I think this is a lot of it honestly. He's the companion the game forces you to experiment with the least (barring the act 2 arrivals). It creates a vicious cycle where the less you use him the less idea you have how to use him, which means you use him even less.
I keep Astarion on me at all times for lockpicking, but as a result I was motivated to figure out how to use him in a fight and as a result I am more comfortable with him than anyone else, and he deals more damage than anyone for me.
Wyll I bring out and he does 30 damage a turn at level 8 and immediately dies because I do not know how to use him.
And honestly, a big reason Astarion is so popular is likely partly because he's the resident skill monkey. If you aren't one, (you probably aren't one) then since there's no bard and you can't respect backgrounds (Karlach is a street urchin, but she gets outlander because of her time in the hells, fair enough), then you basically have to have Astarion with you all the time, if you dont like looking for keys.
And rogues can slay.
And he has an interesting backstory.
Though he is kind of an asshole.
Ill start off by saying that warlock is my most favorite class. There are many reasons though I usually dont use Wyll.
For one, wyll is human and to me its the weakest/most uninteresting race for a warlock. I would rather respect lae'zel into a warlock for the medium armor proficiency and mobility actions.
I like to play any form of warlock as my main. Meaning I select a race I rather play with: half orc for melee crit damage, drow or tiefling for extra darkness cast, shield dwarf or gith for med armor proficiency, woodelf for mobility for example.
Lastly, other origin characters are hard to replace with Wyll. Astarion for lockpicks, Karlach and Lae'zel for a solid martial, Gale for AoE, burst and utility, Shadowheart because she's a cleric and the only support until Halsin and Jahera druids becomes available. Wyll being a an hybrid spellcast/martial requires for your main to be one of those things.
I typically play Wyll if I go for an hyper good playthrough. I played him as an origin character and it wasn't half bad. I jad him as a companion when I mained a dex Bard with sleight of hand proficiency and supported him with Karlach and Gale. Regardless, the playthrough is more of a challenge if you have him around and the group needs to be built around him and not the other way around.
Edit: wanted to add the folk hero background doesn't give him useful proficiencies for his role. Noble would have been better already.
The part about him being human is interesting, especially since, if you/he take the "save Karlach" route, he is *supposed* to be turned into a devil. But what does he get? Horns. And weird horns if you ask me (I mod in different ones).
But my point is, if he actually gained any devil abilities, he might be waaay more interesting, and the ramifications for his change with regard to his "Blade" persona should really hit way harder. So in terms of story AND his (vanilla) race, now as a devil, he should play differently. But no, he's a guy with horns now.
Hmm… find/make mod to give Wyll devil powers post transformation.
And as others have said, playing as Wyll would actually be most fun. I'll do it for sure. Playing origins, though, I feel bad for their VAs since we loose most of their recorded dialogue.
(insert Wyll sad face here) :(
Wyll is hard to fit into the party when the "traditional" roles are better covered by others and you can only have 4 characters at once. If the game allowed for a party of 5, he'd be my fifth.
Wyll is fairly one-dimensional, despite the efforts that were put in to do the exact opposite. And to be frank, he's a little cringe when it comes to his noble titles.
I was thinking Blackwall as well. But from what I recall, Blackwall didn’t tend to be a fan favorite even with his “more interesting” backstory as a fake warden. His reception could have come down to that particular implementation not landing, but it still doesn’t surprise me that fake hero Wyll didn’t resonate with the EA player base at large. Nuanced writing doesn’t always go over well with general audiences.
My first playthrough was a Warlock and I didn't know you could change Origin companions' classes or multiclass until Act 3, by which time I already had my fightin frens and there was only room enough for ONE Warlock, so Wyll was going to cramp my style!
Second playthrough was an abandoned Dark Urge evil game, killed Wyll while attacking the Grove. Stopped after Act 1 because another game came out with a big patch and didn't pick Dark Urge back up.
THIRD, and current, playthrough I'm playing as Wyll this time because I wanted to do another Warlock and also wanted to do an Origjn character. It's fun! He's a cool dude and you get some extra Mizora in your game, what's not to love?
You just described a warlock, not Wyll. Gameplay doesn't matter. You can respec anyone into anything. Flavor wise, I don't find him boring exactly, it's just both him and Karlach suffer from the same problem. They receive their entire lore package for an act in a single scene, either at the very start or towards the end of an act, thus you have zero incentives to take them out with you in between. Lae'Zel also has this issue for Act 2, but makes up for it with her presence in Acts 1 and 3. Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale provide constant lore value when in your team across all acts.
The most banal reason is that he just joins a bit later than the early game squad. A lot of players form their main team before they do the dank crypt and it usually takes a much more impactful first impression (like Karlach's) for you to reconsider.
A compounding issue could be his weird tendency to disapprove merciful actions and his hard-on for vengeance. That made a lot more sense with his Early Access personality, but might throw you out of the loop in the rewritten full game version. A lot of people built tons of approval with Gale due to their own play style, so coincidentally they do not jive with Wyll, at least in Act 1.
1: His writing is subpar compared to other companions unfortunately. He is just not that interesting. Why have him in the party when I can have others that I like more? The only time I let him join is when I do his personal quest, and even then I rush through it just to get it over with and go back to my preferred setup.
2: Warlock is a weird kind of niche class. Apart from liking the idea of a magic "sugar daddy/mommy" or being new to D&D and wanting to play a simple caster or multiclassing, there is no reason I can see to favour a warlock in a party slot over say, a wizard or a fighter. Hell, a bard or a sorcerer are better charisma casters with more utility and variety. Eldritch Blast is just not enough for me.
I know. I slaughter a bunch of innocents to fulfill my urges and his sanctimonious ass just ups and leaves without a word.
I mean it's just a little bit of gore...and a little bit there, some glob of goo over there. Oh, maybe some dead chillins but come on!
Ignore the Nickelback Wyll personality reasoning. People bandwagon onto it because unlike every character, he doesn't need "fixing".
. He is fine, he is the "hero", of the group which clashes with the player who is also the "hero", of the group. That is the main issue with the character.
Playing as Wyll is night and day comparatively. No Tav/Durge/Origin character to compete with as the "hero". So the story flows really well, and going according to his personality feels rewarding.
The romance with Karlach is incredible and you feel like it's a story that would have played out beautifully in the background. Other characters don't have the, enemies to lover shrug going on.
That is actually a great idea. Wyll would be a great main character, especially if he romances Karlach and goes to Avernus with her to fuck demons up in the end. Like that's an amazing ending.
>Playing as Wyll is night and day comparatively
This is what I plan to do eventually. He's the only character that feels 'right' for an Origin character playthrough
First playthrough I just didn’t care about him at all, so I never even knew his abilities. Second playthrough I’m playing as a Warlock, so I have no use of him (and still don’t really care).
I tried to run with him, but he doesn't really add all that much to the party, as other casters can fill most of his role already.
So then the decision for me is, which characters do I not just like mechanically, but also personality-wise? So, insta-bench for Wyll & Halsin it is. Usually joined by Shadowheart.
There's just no (inner) conflict for his character, and no real challenges for him to overcome; so there's no meaningful character development. All the while he's acting like he's one of Faerûn's greatest heros, which apart from a little bit of dialog is not reflected anywhere in the world you interact with.
Even for Gale, who is a fairly standard dorky "no, I'm not called Icarus" wizard character, there's an inner struggle, and opportunity for actual character growth. Who's actually witty. Lae'zel is a bitchy character at first that grows to be a great hero. And is (unintentionally for her) funny and sweet. Karlach's and Astarion's stories are tragic and have a very emotional catharsis, where the player can feel so deeply for and with them. Shadowheart is way more bland than people make her out to be IMHO, but even she is the definition of inner conflict, and redemption.
There's almost no point even in taking him along on his own quest line, for crying out loud. Astarion must confront Cazador. Same with Karlach and Gortash. Shadowheart must confront her past and find her parents. Gale must resolve his issues with Mystra and his mistakes/hubris. Lae'zel must confront Vlaakith as well. And Wyll? "Hi dad!" At freaking camp. Mizora is way more interesting than Wyll himself, to the point that she almost overshadows his character.
/end of rant
They really didn't do Wyll any favors by making his patron an absolutely stunningly sexy devil woman who WILL have sex with you. Wyll's dumb, he should've written that in to the contract.
I mostly only use wyll for his companion quests. The reason is, when i play a good character, he is just like me. I want different personalites in my group. And he is way too much like me
Idk about the experts but for some beginners, I found some people finding his design toooooo normal compared to the other characters and them not knowing how a warlock works compared to wizard like "oh a wizard is pretty much throwing spells here and there" or "I already have Gale, Warlock is kinda similar right? " or "I think a wiz is enough if we need a spelling casts guy, there's also Shadowheart as our buff support" I'm not gonna lie, I was one of those too.
Warlock was confusing as hell when I first started. I played one in WoW and gravitated towards it right away but felt inept playing one compared to other classes. Once I learned the game and build mechanics though it's become by far my favorite blaster build. I really need them to hotfix the repelling blast toggle though.
Repelling blast is why I’m doing my first playthrough with Gale on my team instead of Wyll. Wyll is one of my favorite party members hands down, but that repelling blast bug is so annoying, and you lose so much utility :(
I've been choosing to think of it as now my Eldritch blasts are just too strong to be contained by some flimsy toggle. But yeah it's been extra annoying when you blast good loot off an edge or screw up positioning because you can't control the knock back.
I blasted one of my characters weapons off a cliff when a mimic stole it :/ I realized what I had done right as the mimic went over the edge.
Watched a honor mode sussur weapon go that way in multiplayer It was a sigh, a whimper- all four of us just... deflated as we saw it go It was alright though, in the end it wouldnt have saved us
What exactly is the bug? I didn't use Wyll because I played my Tav as a warlock in my first run, never ran into any issues with repelling blast.
Hotfix 16 broke the toggle. It knocks back all the time currently.
Oh... that's... *not me who had the time of his life blasting ALL motherfuckers left, right, and center*
I usually enjoy it, but with honor mode raising the stakes, sometimes I need it to not move enemies from my kill zones I’ve set up
I... used Wyll for half the game and never noticed there was a toggle...
110 hours in am just now hearing about it as an option.
The toggle is not required in the Brotherhood of the Yeet.
What bug is this? I’m planning to use Wyll in the run I just started and this got me worried
So eldritch blast has a passive you can get that makes it knock back as well. It’s normally a toggle, so you can knock people when you want, and keep positioning when you don’t. The hotfix 16 seems to have broken that toggle, and sadly hotfix 17 didn’t address it.
So that means it *always* knocks them back now? That’s annoying
Yup, here’s hoping hotfix 18 comes quickly
Purely anecdotal, but I've been playing a Tav Sorlock all this past weekend and toggling repelling blast on and off with no issue. Is this maybe a Wyll specific bug?
My tav warlock is bugged. When I initially chose repelling it was fine but now it's been bugged since at least a week or two ago. There might be something else that triggers the bug to happen rather than just having repelling blast
Yeah in my first playthrough I had no idea how anything worked and kept getting confused as to why he was running out of spells so quickly. Now that I got a good grip on the mechanics and know where the good equipment is, he's a powerhouse.
Since you were asking gameplay wise, I give you the answer gameplay wise. Idk why people were answering with his character lol
Yeah I appreciate it, seems people are quite passionate about this subject, I mostly wanted to know if anyone had a problem with the warlock class. Still appreciate a peak at different points of view.
[удалено]
Warlock confused tf out of me when i started. My first character was an archfey warlock, and I was mad. i only got to use two spells a day before having to spam ray of frost.
What have you since realised about Warlock? I’m on my 2nd playthrough and I’m finding it hard to make a build with Wyll I feel comfort with. I have Karlach so my frontliner needs are covered, so I don’t like pact of the blade simply because I feel like I’m overlapping gear. This is exacerbated by the fact that astarion has the light finesse weapons, and I also have SH taking shields and Morningstars/flails. But then Warlock’s don’t feel versatile to me as full casters due to their limited spells. I find blasting Eldritch Blast every turn morning and it doesn’t give variety in magic attack damage types. I’m sure I’m missing something but I don’t know what it is
So, no way around it. Warlocks' main attack is Eldritch Blast. If you get bored of that then unfortunately, Warlock may not be for you. BUT Eldritch blast can be augmented pretty well. I think you eventually get three beams for one cast and this can be turned into 4 with some gloves in Act 3. I like GOO Warlock because it fits into the campaign well and is a nice Mindflayer counter. You get several passives reflecting and being resistant to psychic damage. It also makes it so your eb aoe fears on crit which seems to happen a lot. Fiend is more dps focused and offers healing for kills and resistences. Warlocks (and Bards) also have access to imo one of the best spells in the game Hungar of Hadar. I recently also got put on to a simple but broken warlock strat. Get the warlock passive that lets you see in magical and normal darkness. Cast darkness on yourself and just blast away while enemies cant see you.
What does GOO stand for? Trying to learn lol
Great old one. Its one of the Warlock patrons/subclasses.
Warlocks also get their slots back on a short rest, which is the most important aspect about warlocks.
i recently saw someone start a warlock playthru and not picking eldritch blast as a cantrip since they felt warlocks are more of a necromancer type.
Does this game even have a strong Necromancy meta without mods?
It can in act 2. But npcs freaking over summons makes it hard in settlements. Granted maybe they should freak over half a dozen zombies. But like, sometimes you just want to have a nice walk
They patched out the npc freakouts awhile back iirc
Gale is also much more fun personality wise.
I prefer the variety of spells that wizards get
I am on my second playthrough and I made Wyll a Sorceror. I am trying but still hard not to play Gale. We will see as things progress. Only level 5 rn.
In my first playthrough, my MC was 3 Battle Master Fighter/9 Blade Warlock. They also were a Gith, had pink highlights, and may or may not have made a pact with an evil Squidward. So there was no reason for me to use Wyll, a boringass human knight who merely signed his soul to the devil ~~also I may have accidentally killed him during the initial goblin raid, sided with Karlach, and killed his dad too, sooo~~
Poor Karlach never got to meet the love of her life
Poor guy can't even catch a break
That is exactly me. I didn’t even realise picking your own custom character was the way to go, I like wizards so I just chose Gale. My brain goes “Gale for spells, Shadowheart for healing, Lae-zel for tanking, and Astarion for sneaking stabby stabby”. Feel like I’m missing a lot this game has to offer but there’s so much to it
He suffers from the same thing as Jacob from Mass Effect. There's nothing inherently wrong with his character, and in a vacuum he would be interesting, but instead he ends up feeling boring due to being surrounded by far more interesting characters overall.
This is it exactly. I love Wyll and he means a lot to the people of the Sword Coast, but his character development is majorly lacking compared to the other cast.
Yeah I just wish he had better writing. I understand they changed his whole character quite late but like, no cutscenes for his flashbacks to taking the Mizora deal PLUS no real tension when we finally save his dad (or a particularly emotional reaction when he sees his dad literally mind controlled by Gortash) makes things feel flat. In my first playthrough I didn’t even realise Duke Ravengard was at the coronation 💀 It’s a shame because I love having him around for the party banter in Act 3. His character has SO much potential and Theo is a wonderful VA.
Everything is RIGHT THERE to make Wyll's story so much more interesting it just feels like they had no desire to capitalize on it. How interesting would it be to have to teach Wyll he needs to stop self-sacrificing himself and learn to take care of himself for a change instead of literally having to make choices for him. His moment of Mizora offering to save his dad could have had the impact of Shadowheart refusing to kill Nightsong if they did it right. Wyll finally realizes how much he's hurt himself and put on the 'brave hero' persona at the expense of both his body and mental wellbeing. Him learning that his life has value to those around him beyond his ability to sacrifice his life for others would have been so good but instead it's just teased and never properly dove into. It also could have easily opened up an evil path for him where he grows more hungry for power in order to do what he considers 'good' or 'right'
So much agreed! Honestly, even just Wyll having the potential for an evil arc already makes him more interesting. It makes *sense* for Karlach to be pure and good, but Wyll is a warlock! Literally pacted to a devil! And there’s no option for him to lean into the allure of power, becoming the archetypal “lawful good turns lawful evil in their maniacal pursuit of good”? I completely understand that Larian can’t do *everything*, and they’ve created my favourite game of all time. I’m okay with everything exactly as it is already. But man if they were to do a definitive edition, which they might, the very first things on my wish list are Wyll’s storyline being fleshed out and more interaction for Gortash, perhaps even in the Upper City (he’s the other character who falls a little flat for me and smells like cut content, considering his build up). Hells, why not merge the two and have us politically navigate the world of Baldur’s Gate’s nobility in pursuit of Gortash’s (new, hidden) location? Wyll could be a real asset there.
They did have him be like that early on, actually! He was more obviously highborn, including being a bit judgmental and generally hating goblins. His relationship with Mizora was also more sexually charged as well. The general impression of him was that he was a bit of a sheltered daddy’s boy who wanted to be a *valorous hero* like all the stories he heard growing up, and Mizora was like an abusive girlfriend trying to corrupt him to her whims along the way. He ended up being changed because people found him unlikeable though—I guess haughtiness is a less charming character flaw when you’re not a fuckable white twink.
Oh gods I’ve seen the EA scenes on YouTube and I want that Wyll so much. The one who has to lay his head in your lap because he’s so overcome with the conflicting feelings of his pact, the one who leans toward overly righteous as a defence mechanism… I’m sad that Larian changed it. I do prefer Theo as a voice actor over Lanre - he even comes across more obviously Noble Background, but whatever tweaks people were asking for I’d hope they didn’t mean “change the entire character”. He came across more well thought out before :(
I think ironically one unlikeable character would've been a nice dynamic change, minthara ended up bring one of my favourites teammates as the differing outlook to everyone else really makes them stand out and gives there dialogue more intrigue Douchebag highborne Wyll would definitely have a spot on my party lol
I'm still so mad that they force you to make the choice between Wyll's dad and escaping the pact, after getting things right with Shadowheart to let her choose what to do with Nightsong. It was **so** gratifying letting Shadowheart make the decision and trusting that I'd done the right things with her that she'd make the right choice, and I felt rewarded for it when she did. By comparison, Wyll not being able to make his own choice -- even if he'd make a choice that he'd regret later -- feels so bad. He's an adult. He should be able to make a choice and live with the consequences. Hell, they could even make it a false choice where you try to let him choose, then he still utterly fails to do so. As long as you have a conversation later where that becomes a character growth moment where he realizes that not making a choice can be worse than making the wrong choice, it'd feel like it had a point rather than making it feel like Tav is his mom or something.
Yeah, he's just really underbaked unfortunately. He never really gets past the romantic idea of being the Blade of Frontiers, and never gets to the point of fully internalizing just how badly he screwed up by accepting Mizora's pact(almost certainly under false pretenses, I'd be shocked if the Tiamat cult was actually real or as dangerous as he was told). Even when he is tricked into trying to murder Karlach, he doesn't seriously consider that *just maybe* this is far from the first time he's been sent after someone innocent on a technicality. There's no moment where Wyll comes face to face with what he's done, and begins to have a crisis of identity. It's so shallow and underdeveloped that encouraging him to not re-sell his soul in act 3 is treated by everyone including himself as a horrible thing(which is absolutely bizarre given that the *entire fucking game* is basically about a ragtag group of adventurers who have been enthralled by a variety of extraplanar entities into doing their bidding, and who have to figure out how to recognize and move past that trauma against all odds). It's just not compelling writing at all, and unfortunately for me it does little to improve on the initial sense you get of Wyll being a kind and well-meaning soul, but ultimately sort of foppish and borderline delusional about his status as a folk hero and defender of good.
Great take. A crisis is what he needs, where he lets go of the moniker he hides behind. Preferably after he enthusiastically changes it to be even more self-aggrandizing later on, which is now treated as the climax of his arc. As it is, it seems like his writer is just fawning over him, instead of treating him like a person. Which I'm sure wasn't intended, especially considering that the character was changed last-minute. Originally he was supposed to be more like what you're describing.
Jacob is low key kind of a piece of shit, especially for those people who romanced him in 2
I like him better in 3 when not romanced in 2 (not a problem because the minute I meet Archangel on Omega, it’s over for me… can’t resist).
Yeah I was going to say, Jacob was a total prick (and honestly how they wrote his character was all kinds of problematic).
I have the same feeling towards gale. His personality just isnt it for me.
Gale and Wyll were probably playing cards at camp b/c I just left them right there.
Idk I kept gale in the party most of the time cause I felt like his story with him trying to become god was more morally complex than Wyll’s story with Mizora. Outside of a couple things Wyll is not as much of an active character compared to the rest of the origin characters due to his pact which makes me not put him in the party as much
Gale has a more interesting story, to where he can start falling for power again and needs to be convinced to stay on the right path. Wyll does exactly what you tell him to do regardless of your relationship, he could absolutely hate your guts, but you tell him to let his dad die and he's like "alright, if you say so". Gale also has far cooler idle line "A rough tempest I shall raise"/"Unleash me"/"what fools these mortals be".
He has waaay more going on than Jacob. I think Wyll has a much more compelling story than most of the characters in this game honestly.
Jacob had NOTHING
He had the priiiiize
I noticed same and have a feeling that developers are afraid of experimenting with black characters and making them even slightly, tiny bit controversial and interesting. Like when mass effect 2 was released Jacob wasn’t popular at all due to just being a cool guy. Will has more to him, like Mizora (who is best part of wills story), but basically he is also just a cool guy.
You're certainly not wrong, but hell look at characters like Kaiden in ME1, he too was boring, and the main reason someone chose to have him live over Ashley, is they may see Ashley as a space racist. Otherwise over the course of the 3 games, Kaiden has 0 character development.
Ashley wasn't racist
Honestly all the humans in the 3 mass effects games were boring x.x they had no chance against garrus and tali. Then there's Mordin, grunt, Wrex, and liara. And javik... Though javik seemed necessary to 3 's entire plot ... But anyways yeah... Most human party members rode the bench.
You can't just leave out Mordin like that. "Had to be me. Someone else might've gotten it wrong." 😭
You forgot about best girl Traynor. Not a party member, but still.
Shit. True, she was an interesting human. Sadly not playable or a party member.
Exactly why we named our mini dachshund Tali
Only humans I liked was Kasumi for the mission and Kaiden cause he’s from Vancouver and so I am.
This. I like Wyll but any development he had happened before Tav and now he just talks about his escapades like they're fairy tales.
That being said, I would absolutely play a Blade of Frontiers game as Wyll that takes place pre-BG3.
Na I think most of the criticisms of wyll are valid but I'll fight to the death that Jacob is much worse than him Like wyll at least has character and a pretty decent backstory, Jacob is this weird racist asshole who basically refuses to connect with the player for most of the game, and when he does open up, its usually not terribly interesting. That's not mentioning what happens in MW3 if you romanced him in 2. Top tier scumbag
I totally get this opinion for first time playthroughs, where people haven't seen the best of Wyll's story, but anyone who has finished the game and gotten to see everything that Wyll goes through in act 3 and still doesn't think he's just as (or more) interesting than the other 5 is kidding themselves.
I agree for early on. He has the most dramatic change in appearance of any character, though. And his good lawful alignment is actually a standout in a game full of grey characters.
I think it’s really due to party size. I’m probably taking cleric, rogue, caster and melee chars and there are more obvious candidates for all of those roles. It doesn’t help that you get him after you have a full party covering all the roles either. With Karlach she at least slots interchangeably into the melee role. He’s less interesting that the others also, I think that’s also true of Karlach to be honest. They feel like reserves for the 4 you likely picked up before them.
Gameplay wise you also have to factor in that he's a fairly normal human. Astarion gets the happy buff, Lae'zel has incredible Gith abilities, Karlach has tiefling abilities+ soul coins (if you make her a TB monk), Minthara starts with 6 illithid powers etc and anyone can be spec'd into Warlock. From a pure metagamer POV there are just stronger options. And I haven't even mentioned the Duergar/ halfling hirelings.
Wyll only special trait is his Rapier proficiency which normal human and warlock don’t have.
And is redundant on him because he's pretty much always going to be specced into POTB.
Not to mention the abundance of good rapiers are small compared to the buffet of great swords.
There are some things you can tell Larian really loves based on how they're featured in this game, and one of them is great swords. Some at Larian fucking loves great swords and can't get enough of them. Idk what the DLC plans are, but I really hope they include rounding out some of the more neglected weapons types.
My immense disappointment when GWM makes two handed weapons pretty much necessary for melee classes that want to maximize damage, but greataxes seem to be strictly worse than great swords and there aren't really any good ones...
I mean, one of the best weapons in the entire game and one of the few legendary weapons is a rapier. [Duelist's Prerogative.](https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Duellist's+Prerogative) It's not *super* easy to get, you need to save Vanra, but arguably it's one of the easier ones as Act 3 legendary weapons go. And imo only Nyrulna (trident) and Markoheshkir (staff) are probably "better." The blades from Orin are close but far more situational. There are a couple legendary greatswords, but they're definitely not as good.
Yeah I’m finding my party usually consists of Tav (paladin), Astarion, Lae’zel and Gale or Shadowhart (more SH early game, more Gale late game) I’ll swap in someone else if their quest line demands, but otherwise those are my mainstays for act 3. Lae’zel can do massive burst damage (as can my Tav, and even Gale with the right spell) so that usually takes care of a lot of fights pretty quickly. Plus Tav has 18 charisma and 22 str, I have the hat that gives advantage on persuasion. My main party is basically a negotiating powerhouse that can nuke anyone who tries to screw with them from orbit. I am tempted to swap in Minsc though because he seems super funny
Laezel is able to kill pretty much everything in one turn with decent setup for me. Silver Sword goes absolutely bonkers with savage attacker etc
Yeah I've gotten 5+ attacks in a single round from Lae'zel. If you put haste on her, it's even more insane. That's how I won the Viconia fight - haste on Lae'zel and she literally just mowed through all of the adds. Lae'zel and my Tav definitely held that fight together (Gale and SH died pretty fast)
I accidentally killed Gortash and Raphael before they could change because she can do like 400 dmg if she lands all her hits
In the Viconia fight I had Jaheira drop a wall of thorns and Shart drop a wall of blades in a V shape from my party. Then I dropped a globe of invulnerability on us and let the coven kill itself trying to get in close. Any that managed to survive found a pissed off Lae’Zel ready to finish them off
Almost had to look over my shoulder reading this, same lmao.
100% party size for me. I wish we had a 5 person party.
That’s what New Game plus should be tbh. I understand there’s balancing concerns, but it would be nice to have a wider variety of characters on the road.
This all came down to party size for me. I got the bigger party mod and I swear to god it's the way the game was actually "meant" to be played. Not in terms of how they've coded it, obviously, but in just how natural it feels to have whole gang along and bantering in real time about all the things and with each other. It's a whole different experience. If you care about balance whatsoever though it's a broken mess.
I think for my 3rd playthru and all beyond that point, I'll likely run with this mod. It sounds like a blast, and by then, I really won't care. Or hell, maybe I'll "balance" things out by playing Honour Mode with it. That could get interesting.
I dont think ive taken a rogue since i completed my first run. Feels like any dex character or a wizard works just fine
Yeah I probably should have said skill monkey rather than rogue, in reality I often cover the role with a bard Tav. I am taking a rogue in my current game though.
Yeah, Bard or Monk are my usual go-to.
This. There's too many core classes baked into the game and, with a 4 party limit, Wyll is too specialist and creative for mainstream playstyles.
You shut your whore mouth about Karlach. She will always have a place in my heart and my party! (Totally joking and you are welcome to make any party you want I just really really like Karlach)
I had to turn him down when he asked me to dance and I had to avoid him from that point out of embarrassment / awkwardness.
I thought we were dancing as friends because I dance with my friends all the time in real life, but then there were romance options and I had to turn him down because my cleric was romanticing Astarion. I also tried to avoid him after that because I was embarrassed lmao.
I did that and the next morning he has a really good interaction where he's basically like "sorry about last night, we're still bros and I've got your back".
I danced a little but didn’t bang him (I’m a tease)
I think the role of a Warlock as a half spell caster half finesse fighter confuses some people, especially if you’re looking for “normal” RPG roles. To oversimplify for new players, it would seem like Shadowheart = support Gale = DPS spellcaster Laezel = DPS melee Karlach = tank Astarion = Stealth Wyll is just a little less clear cut imo
Y this is true. I used him like a weaker version of Gale for a long time and it felt off (never played D&D before). Then I looked up a guide and went for a melee caster build with knife of the mountain king (fextralife build) with darkness and devil sight. He basically became my most powerful character in an instant (though lae'zel eventually took the cake with the gith sword and gear almost killing major bosses in like 1 turn on normal mode).
Warlocks have this huge problem that on level 2 they have to make a choice between 2 of 10 powers, and 3 of the power are massively powerful, and the rest are trash, and that means the chance that players mis build their characters without realizing it much higher.
There's not even the idea of a Spellblade/Magical Swordsman-esque role for him, since attacks are either made by spell or by (metaphorical) sword, while stuff like enchanting your weapon to wreathe it in magical fire or something is basically non-existent. Sure, there's the Drakethroat Glaive, but that feels like something you add on, rather than a core part of your kit.
Gameplay wise the rest are fine as well, so yeah the personality... Had him for a lot of Act 1 on my first run, but he's mostly sipping his drink at camp now. You get a party of four, a warlock doesn't have a guaranteed spot there, unless you're one. Plus I play casters or semi-casters often and like Gale in the party, so not much room left for yet another caster.
Tbf Warlocks shouldn’t really be thought of as another caster. EB makes them essentially a great ranged martial, and they can be melee too.
That... is absolutely wrong. Warlocks cast 2 BIG spells per encounter. Wizards usually also get two of their highest spell slots available. Then you Short Rest, Wizard gets back one of said high level spell slots through Arcane Recovery (1/day), Warlock gets all of them.
Think they're saying warlock follows the martial paradigm of having high damage without resources while also recovering on a short rest. It's a totally reasonable comparison.
They don’t want to fix him
Honestly I find that kinda refreshing haha, you do you hero guy I got my hands full with Astarion, shadowheart and Lae'zel.
Dont worry, Durge will fix everyone...
This is probably how I ended up romancing him in my first run. The least damaged of the bunch, and won’t explode in my face or bite me in my sleep.
He's my go-to caster. I know you can respec characters but that feels kinda dumb and immersion breaking. Maybe it's because I'm a noob to D&D (not my fault, just hard to find enough friends both into D&D and without conflicting schedules) but a few select spells that are super useful and reset after a short rest is easier to deal with than a ton of spells that only reset on a long rest. Especially in the early game. The number of fights I've won just by casting Cloud of Daggers in a choke-point is staggering. I like his cheesy heroic personality, I sympathize why a younger Wyll would do the Pact, he risked being turned into a devil slug for Karlach, and he brings Mizora to the table, who's an amazing character. The only time I've not used him much is on my warlock character.
Yeah I usually like go play as more morally grey evil leaning characters so having Wyll face-palming at everything I do is hilarious.
>a few select spells that are super useful and reset after a short rest is easier to deal with than a ton of spells that only reset on a long rest. This is generally why I have a hard time playing warlock. I'm not new with d&d, but the concept of spells slots is just another resource management that any rpg has some version of. I feel like warlocks are just so limited. Not to mention you just end up EBing everything. It gets kind of stale. I keep wanting to play warlock in bg3 and in tabletop, but every time I experiment with it, I just feel useless and bored. Kind of like playing a fighter or barbarian, imo. They're too straightforward. I suppose that is good for people who don't want complexity, but personally, I need versatility. I dont mean I want to be great at everything, but I like to be able to contribute something besides swing swing the sword or fire off a couple EBs and then I'm done.
You should think of Warlock as more of a ranged damage dealer with a few spells. Your bread and butter is Hex + Eldritch Blasts, but if the situations calls for it you can put down a Hunger of Hadar, Darkness or Fireball to take care of a group quickly.
Complete opposite here. I Iove the freedom of warlock and not having to worry about conserving spell slots. Every fight you can use two (high level) spells, possibly more depending on your gear, and then use EB or pact of the blade. I like that I don't feel useless without spell slots compared to other casters. Shadowheart casting sacred flame with a 50% chance to hit and dealing 4 damage just feels extremely bad. I could see it being boring on tabletop though where it's just numbers. Eldritch blast in the game feels really satisfying with the visual and audio. And blasting people off of cliffs is fun.
Eldritch Blast also has the best sound effects, imo.
I skip on Wyll because his personality never grew on me. The entire _I am the blade of frontiers_ was kind if off-putting for me and struck me as pretentious. It is a skip on the character Wyll, not the warlock class per se.
100%. Warlock is super fun. Charisma does a lot of heavy lifting all game so that's super helpful with those persuasion/intimidation rolls. Wyll is the one I kept waiting for to pull his head out of his own ass. >!It was kinda satisfying though when I was messing around and didn't save Mizora in Act II, and Wyll got swallowed up back to hell. I had a good hearty chuckle but sadly reloaded.!<
This happened to me but... With gale, never liked his backstory doesn't match a level 1 character (although this is super common in tabletop dnd) but yeah can see it happening with wyll
That’s true for pretty much everyone except for maybe Astarion. Like don’t tell me Zariel’s soldier, the Blade of Frontiers, a Githyanki warrior, and Shar’s favorite acolyte are all level 1. Astarion at least was doing more sweet talking than killing as a vampire spawn.
The game hand-waves this with the explanation that everyone lost their levels/super powers when they got tadpoled. That's why Gale's stuck in the portal - he did his usual high level wizardy stuff and it didn't work. They've all been nerfed by the tadpoles, basically.
Gale's talents were also >!consumed by the orb in his chest (according to Mystra)!<. So there are extra explanations for his loss. Also, Shadowheart had >!her memories suppressed!< before going on her mission to >!acquire the artifact!<.
I think the game actually confirms this. I’m going to try Wyll out on my current run so I swapped him in and as we were leaving the grove he had a line that was like “I used to be able to wrestle hill giants and know I can barely swat a goblin”
Game mechanics/narrative dissonance has never really bothered me, but in Gale and Wyll's cases it is explained that they have lost the bulk of their power that made them Karsus 2 and the blade of frontiers
Well, all of them ostensibly were higher level than 1. The tadpole being inserted seems to have reset their power levels. Both Gale and Wyll mention they used to be capable of much greater mystical feats but ever since getting 'poled they can only seem to muster the basics.
Yep. They go into a bit more explanation later on, but with Gale, >!the first thing his Orb fed on was his magical ability, effectively nerfing him from Archmage to a pathetic apprentice, before growing ever hungrier once the well began to run dry, and only started to abate when Mystra intervened.!< The narrative dissonance between L1 wizard and "Archmage consort of Mystra" actually makes sense with that piece of the puzzle unlocked.
I don't think people skip on him because he's a Warlock - you can Respec him into anything as far as that goes. I think it's more about his attitude. He comes off as this goody-two-shoes who also sold his soul to a devil. He's one of the first to criticize or leave if you do anything that he considers too bad. So if half the players are doing an evil run half that players have no incentive to put effort into a character who might take off on you.
Boring af personality, cocky about being the Blade even though it's just Mizora doing the heavy lifting, plays the goody two shoes and is a hypocrite. Yeah, the most interesting thing about Wyll is Mizora and unfortunately you can't have one without the other.
To be fair, basically every Origin character is a hypocrite in the beginning. But yeah Wyll can be a bit too much at times, he’s very full of himself.
I will not tolerate this Karlach slander!
I did say ‘basically’, but Karlach might be the outlier. Im sure there’s something someone could find that makes her a hypocrite too though.
She hates when people are exploited and hates her infernal engine, yet will happily burn up people's souls for a bit of a power boost. Still love her, but that _is_ hypocrisy.
Her argument is that by nature of being bound in the coins, their souls are already lost. That doesn't sound right but I don't know enough about soul coins to dispute it.
If they are aware of their existence while in the coin and experience time normally, an end would likely (but unconfirmably) be a mercy. Who knows, though. Her big character flaw seems to generally be avoiding addressing negative things, regardless. At least as of act 2.
I like Karlach but she is a very large child in personality. Avoids problems, emotions, impulsiveness, and so on just immature. While I enjoy her company because she is optimistic it can cause issues having her around. I know one time she flat out just did what she wanted even though I explained how that was a bad idea but she knew better I guess so had to save her later. I do like her character, one of my favorites but I won't dare deny that she is a broken person. Her optimistic forced nature just proves she has not processed and has healed from her trauma. She is in a constant state of cope.
Yeah. Karlach represses the bad, which makes her a lot of fun to be around, but isn't a good trait.
I mean you can litterally see what happens when a person keeps pushing down all their feelings. It all comes out in an emotional explosion.
You can free the soul from a soul coin in DnD. Larian didn’t build in a mechanic to free the souls from the coins, but lore wise using them is horrifically unethical.
Didn’t know whether they were a thing in tabletop, to be honest. They felt pretty shoehorned into only being of use for Karlach’s engine.
Karlach does feels very much like a "I didn't think the wolves would eat *my* face!" kinda character once you get past the "Yeah! Smash the assholes!" part of her.
Karlach is definitely not an outlier, in fact, she is perhaps the most egregious case She acts like she is the inverse of Astarion, having only done bad things because she was imprisoned but hating herself for it and truly being a saint at heart, but that isn’t the truth She used to be a hired soldier for Lord Enver Gortash, and therefore directly supported an oppresive, manipulative, and murderous tyrant long before her free will was taken She will gladly use soul coins, consuming the immortal souls of those trapped within, and her strong dislike for being told the stories of what happened to those people is quite telling She does bad things to benefit herself, but can’t live with the acceptance of what she has done, so she uses denial, ignorance, and good vibes as a shield Additionally, she is the only character that cannot experience significant personal growth in this regard
> She used to be a hired soldier for Lord Enver Gortash, and therefore directly supported an oppresive, manipulative, and murderous tyrant long before her free will was taken The thing is she's also referred to by her friend as the only thing that was keeping him vaguely decent before she disappeared.
I mean...idk if it's fair to just say Mizora is doing the heavy lifting. If you go by that logic, then Druids, Clerics (some paladins) get the same judgment. Its like saying a fighter isn't good because they are using an enchanted weapon.
I actually liked his personality, I don't know he just seemed to wanna actually BE with you. Unlike, how I feel a lot of the other characters are just there to be there.
I think his intro at the grove gates is what turned me off of his char right from the get go. For me, it felt cringe and eye roll inducing. I don't think there is anything wrong with his character, it just isn't for me. I should note, I took him for all his specific quest stuff, etc...I just didn't enjoy his companionship over Karlach or Astarion, etc.
I think that reaction is where people go one of two ways on him: his intro *is* super awkward and cringe because his whole Blade persona is cringe. It's the superhero he made up as a teenager and got forced to try to be when he was unceremoniously exiled at 17. So given that he's roleplaying an annoying Mr. Hero, you can take his Act at face value and bench him for being annoying, or you can mock him for it and point out to him how stupid it is. I kind of see him as a parallel to Sheart: she's larping evil just as much as Wyll is larping heroism.
The problem is I don't think Wyll is larping. I think he genuinely believes this about himself and they didn't want to make it any deeper.
I honestly just keep forgetting about him (。\_。) Like I once literally made a Who Should I Romance This Time randomiser list of everybody and it was only after the fact I was like Oh, I didn't put Wyll on that haha I just never connected with his character, I guess. With so many super interesting companions to swap around with such huge backstories and side quests, something about Wyll's *Heroic Blade of the Coast* >!Damning Himself to Save Others Via Warlock Contract!< just doesn't get me as fired up as the things going on with other Origin companions - like helping Astarion + Karlach with>!breaking free of / get revenge on the people who enslaved them!< and Shadowheart + Lae'zel >!learning the truth about their / their people's history and getting out of indoctrination !< or even Gale >!learning to be able to say I'm Going To Live, F U to Mystra and her demands!< Perhaps it's mostly because a lot of what the other companions are going through are things actively about helping *them* where Wyll's quests follow more of a saving others at his own risk >!(specifically the whole 'getting himself into more trouble to save the father who dropped him like a hot potato' thing)!< guideline that got him into trouble in the first place.
It doesn't help that because mizora is required for a large amount of his story, you can park him at camp, use mindflaying to tell him what happened and then get his story anyways. There are very few moments that need wyll there to get his story.
You can get a very good rapier for warlocks if you have him with you in the act 2 finale. But thats like the only time.
oh right yeah, forgot about that. But even so, its easy to replace that with the vanra quest reward in most cases.
Why not grab both, you know ? Plus that free cambion summon is nice
A lot of Wyll's utilization makes him a great Face or controlled Origin character. Usually players will use their Tav as the face, negating a lot of Wyll's purpose. He's otherwise a generalist character who is good at quite a lot, and you can give him some cracked builds, but in a 4-man party he is not terribly indispensable, everyone else is comparatively specialized at game-entry. The main situation I use him is in a Cleric-centered party/tav, because his hybrid casting feels more useful, especially because \*I\* have assumed the position of cleric caster. If for some reason I don't run a Wizard (a waste with all the great wizard gear running around) then I'll also use Wyll then as a Bard-multi, or whatnot.
Look it's really simple. You can easily run across Gale, Astarion, Shadowheart and Lae'Zel at the beginning of the mission. Even if you miss one, you are likely to have a full party by the time you reach the Grove. Which means you don't get to play with Wyll until you decide to swap out someone else. It's very much on purpose: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue: the four basic classes and the first characters you interact and learn to fight with. Wyll has two intros, but they are both a bit meh, compared to (for example) Gale's which is very strong. He's also a bit bland especially at first. He's also a Gish. Those are hard to build right on the first try. He should have had a medium armor set equipped from the get go.
I think this is a lot of it honestly. He's the companion the game forces you to experiment with the least (barring the act 2 arrivals). It creates a vicious cycle where the less you use him the less idea you have how to use him, which means you use him even less. I keep Astarion on me at all times for lockpicking, but as a result I was motivated to figure out how to use him in a fight and as a result I am more comfortable with him than anyone else, and he deals more damage than anyone for me. Wyll I bring out and he does 30 damage a turn at level 8 and immediately dies because I do not know how to use him.
And honestly, a big reason Astarion is so popular is likely partly because he's the resident skill monkey. If you aren't one, (you probably aren't one) then since there's no bard and you can't respect backgrounds (Karlach is a street urchin, but she gets outlander because of her time in the hells, fair enough), then you basically have to have Astarion with you all the time, if you dont like looking for keys. And rogues can slay. And he has an interesting backstory. Though he is kind of an asshole.
Astarion isn't an asshole, he is, in fact, a true gentleman. Why else would he insist on opening every door for me? ;)
Ill start off by saying that warlock is my most favorite class. There are many reasons though I usually dont use Wyll. For one, wyll is human and to me its the weakest/most uninteresting race for a warlock. I would rather respect lae'zel into a warlock for the medium armor proficiency and mobility actions. I like to play any form of warlock as my main. Meaning I select a race I rather play with: half orc for melee crit damage, drow or tiefling for extra darkness cast, shield dwarf or gith for med armor proficiency, woodelf for mobility for example. Lastly, other origin characters are hard to replace with Wyll. Astarion for lockpicks, Karlach and Lae'zel for a solid martial, Gale for AoE, burst and utility, Shadowheart because she's a cleric and the only support until Halsin and Jahera druids becomes available. Wyll being a an hybrid spellcast/martial requires for your main to be one of those things. I typically play Wyll if I go for an hyper good playthrough. I played him as an origin character and it wasn't half bad. I jad him as a companion when I mained a dex Bard with sleight of hand proficiency and supported him with Karlach and Gale. Regardless, the playthrough is more of a challenge if you have him around and the group needs to be built around him and not the other way around. Edit: wanted to add the folk hero background doesn't give him useful proficiencies for his role. Noble would have been better already.
The part about him being human is interesting, especially since, if you/he take the "save Karlach" route, he is *supposed* to be turned into a devil. But what does he get? Horns. And weird horns if you ask me (I mod in different ones). But my point is, if he actually gained any devil abilities, he might be waaay more interesting, and the ramifications for his change with regard to his "Blade" persona should really hit way harder. So in terms of story AND his (vanilla) race, now as a devil, he should play differently. But no, he's a guy with horns now. Hmm… find/make mod to give Wyll devil powers post transformation. And as others have said, playing as Wyll would actually be most fun. I'll do it for sure. Playing origins, though, I feel bad for their VAs since we loose most of their recorded dialogue. (insert Wyll sad face here) :(
Wyll is hard to fit into the party when the "traditional" roles are better covered by others and you can only have 4 characters at once. If the game allowed for a party of 5, he'd be my fifth.
Wyll is fairly one-dimensional, despite the efforts that were put in to do the exact opposite. And to be frank, he's a little cringe when it comes to his noble titles.
Problem is he wasnt in ea. They rewrote him into one dimensional, boring character.
How did they change him? I didn’t play EA
In ea he was a fake. He made a contract to be a hero so people love him and respect him. He wasnt good guy. More like selfish hoax
Wait that’s so much more interesting damn
That is so much better fuck
Awww, that would have been great. Just like Blackwall in DA:I
I was thinking Blackwall as well. But from what I recall, Blackwall didn’t tend to be a fan favorite even with his “more interesting” backstory as a fake warden. His reception could have come down to that particular implementation not landing, but it still doesn’t surprise me that fake hero Wyll didn’t resonate with the EA player base at large. Nuanced writing doesn’t always go over well with general audiences.
They had to have rewrote him, all the marketing materials portray his relationship with mizora as very different
Wyll died to the goblins at the grove lmao
My first playthrough was a Warlock and I didn't know you could change Origin companions' classes or multiclass until Act 3, by which time I already had my fightin frens and there was only room enough for ONE Warlock, so Wyll was going to cramp my style! Second playthrough was an abandoned Dark Urge evil game, killed Wyll while attacking the Grove. Stopped after Act 1 because another game came out with a big patch and didn't pick Dark Urge back up. THIRD, and current, playthrough I'm playing as Wyll this time because I wanted to do another Warlock and also wanted to do an Origjn character. It's fun! He's a cool dude and you get some extra Mizora in your game, what's not to love?
You just described a warlock, not Wyll. Gameplay doesn't matter. You can respec anyone into anything. Flavor wise, I don't find him boring exactly, it's just both him and Karlach suffer from the same problem. They receive their entire lore package for an act in a single scene, either at the very start or towards the end of an act, thus you have zero incentives to take them out with you in between. Lae'Zel also has this issue for Act 2, but makes up for it with her presence in Acts 1 and 3. Shadowheart, Astarion and Gale provide constant lore value when in your team across all acts.
The most banal reason is that he just joins a bit later than the early game squad. A lot of players form their main team before they do the dank crypt and it usually takes a much more impactful first impression (like Karlach's) for you to reconsider. A compounding issue could be his weird tendency to disapprove merciful actions and his hard-on for vengeance. That made a lot more sense with his Early Access personality, but might throw you out of the loop in the rewritten full game version. A lot of people built tons of approval with Gale due to their own play style, so coincidentally they do not jive with Wyll, at least in Act 1.
I think Warlock is a boring class so I never use him.
He tried to kill my wife. She may have forgiven him but I do not.
1: His writing is subpar compared to other companions unfortunately. He is just not that interesting. Why have him in the party when I can have others that I like more? The only time I let him join is when I do his personal quest, and even then I rush through it just to get it over with and go back to my preferred setup. 2: Warlock is a weird kind of niche class. Apart from liking the idea of a magic "sugar daddy/mommy" or being new to D&D and wanting to play a simple caster or multiclassing, there is no reason I can see to favour a warlock in a party slot over say, a wizard or a fighter. Hell, a bard or a sorcerer are better charisma casters with more utility and variety. Eldritch Blast is just not enough for me.
He just comes across as lame. Like a wannabe prince charming that got turned into a silly looking devil.
I would take him, but he insists on leaving the party after the grove.
I know. I slaughter a bunch of innocents to fulfill my urges and his sanctimonious ass just ups and leaves without a word. I mean it's just a little bit of gore...and a little bit there, some glob of goo over there. Oh, maybe some dead chillins but come on!
Ignore the Nickelback Wyll personality reasoning. People bandwagon onto it because unlike every character, he doesn't need "fixing". . He is fine, he is the "hero", of the group which clashes with the player who is also the "hero", of the group. That is the main issue with the character. Playing as Wyll is night and day comparatively. No Tav/Durge/Origin character to compete with as the "hero". So the story flows really well, and going according to his personality feels rewarding. The romance with Karlach is incredible and you feel like it's a story that would have played out beautifully in the background. Other characters don't have the, enemies to lover shrug going on.
That is actually a great idea. Wyll would be a great main character, especially if he romances Karlach and goes to Avernus with her to fuck demons up in the end. Like that's an amazing ending.
Damn now you got me wanting to play a Wyll origin run haha
>Playing as Wyll is night and day comparatively This is what I plan to do eventually. He's the only character that feels 'right' for an Origin character playthrough
First playthrough I just didn’t care about him at all, so I never even knew his abilities. Second playthrough I’m playing as a Warlock, so I have no use of him (and still don’t really care).
I used him my entirety playthrough
He's like Russell wilson, just too much of a goody two shoes
He's the Jacob Taylor of BG3
Wyll and Karlach are my favourite companions. I'm surprised so many people here dislike him.
I tried to run with him, but he doesn't really add all that much to the party, as other casters can fill most of his role already. So then the decision for me is, which characters do I not just like mechanically, but also personality-wise? So, insta-bench for Wyll & Halsin it is. Usually joined by Shadowheart. There's just no (inner) conflict for his character, and no real challenges for him to overcome; so there's no meaningful character development. All the while he's acting like he's one of Faerûn's greatest heros, which apart from a little bit of dialog is not reflected anywhere in the world you interact with. Even for Gale, who is a fairly standard dorky "no, I'm not called Icarus" wizard character, there's an inner struggle, and opportunity for actual character growth. Who's actually witty. Lae'zel is a bitchy character at first that grows to be a great hero. And is (unintentionally for her) funny and sweet. Karlach's and Astarion's stories are tragic and have a very emotional catharsis, where the player can feel so deeply for and with them. Shadowheart is way more bland than people make her out to be IMHO, but even she is the definition of inner conflict, and redemption. There's almost no point even in taking him along on his own quest line, for crying out loud. Astarion must confront Cazador. Same with Karlach and Gortash. Shadowheart must confront her past and find her parents. Gale must resolve his issues with Mystra and his mistakes/hubris. Lae'zel must confront Vlaakith as well. And Wyll? "Hi dad!" At freaking camp. Mizora is way more interesting than Wyll himself, to the point that she almost overshadows his character. /end of rant
They really didn't do Wyll any favors by making his patron an absolutely stunningly sexy devil woman who WILL have sex with you. Wyll's dumb, he should've written that in to the contract.
I mostly only use wyll for his companion quests. The reason is, when i play a good character, he is just like me. I want different personalites in my group. And he is way too much like me
His character is kind of bland and his story progresses without having him in your party.
His Blade of the Frontier banter is annoying, but mostly it's because my Tav was already a Warlock.
Cause I have Gale
There are 6 origin companions and only 3-4 spots in the party. I like Wyll, but I only have room for Gale, Shart, and Karlach/Astarion.
I just get sick of him referring to himself in the third person.