Discover the best Helmets in Baldur’s Gate 3, equipping your class with the top seven early and end-game choices. Let’s explore the strongest and optimal options for each class.
In Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3), helmets play a vital role as protective gear for adventurers, serving as a crucial component of a character’s equipment. Helmets provide both defensive advantages and strategic benefits. These headgear options come in various types, ranging from Heavy Armor protective to intricately designed magical artifacts such as circles.
Armour helmets are designed to bolster a character’s resilience in combat by enhancing their Armor Class (AC) and offering resistance against critical hits and status effects. Furthermore, certain helmets can possess unique magical properties, such as immunity to specific conditions or granting additional abilities. Players should choose helmets that align with their character’s class and role within the party, optimizing their defenses and ensuring they can weather the challenges that await them in the treacherous world of BG3. Let’s take a look at the best options for each class and the seven best helmets in the game.
What is the Best Helmet in Baldur’s Gate 3?
The Baldurian Helmet is considered the best helmet in Baldur’s Gate 3 due to its array of potent benefits, such as granting immunity to being stunned and critically hit, facilitating automatic self-healing, and boosting Armor Class (AC) and Saving Throws by 1. These advantages make it extremely resilient against crowd control effects, ensuring minimal turn-skipping. The helmet is particularly advantageous for a Cleric support build.
The Best Helmets for each proficient class in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Barbarian: Bonespike Helmet
- Bard: Birthright
- Cleric: Helm of Balduran
- Druid: Wapira’s Crown
- Fighter: Helm of Balduran
- Monk: Fistbreaker Helm
- Paladin: Birthright
- Ranger: Circlet of Hunting
- Rogue: Dark Justiciar Helmet
- Sorcerer: Pyroquickness Hat
- Warlock: Birthright
- Wizard: Hood of the Weave
7 Wapira’s Crown
Wapira’s Crown features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Cleric, Bard, Druid
- Armour Type: Clothing
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Location: Reward from Zevlor for saving Tieflings during Save the Refugees Quest, Act 1
The first helmet up is from Act 1, Wapira’s Crown. This is ideal for a support-based build or any character that heals frequently. It requires no armor proficiency and comes with Crowing Glory. When healing another, the wearer regains 1d6 Hit Points. This bonus can add a lot of survivability in the early game.
The best spell to pair this with is Healing Word in the early game. This does an area-based heal within 18m, and this helmet will stack the healing effect with temporary hit points. Since Healing Word is a bonus action, healers can combine Cure Wound for another heal bringing not only their party to much higher health but one individual character. You have to help save the Tiefling Refugees though in the story, but it’s worth it if you make that choice.
6 Warped Headband of Intellect
Warped Headband of Intellect features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Wizard
- Armour Type: Clothing
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Location: Dropped by Lump the Enlightened in the Blighted Village (X:13, Y:366), Act 1
Next up is the Warped Headband of Intellect, designed for the Wizard class in mind: the Wizard. The Wizard and two subclass-specific builds, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters, use Intelligence as their spellcasting ability. This takes you to 17, which is useful because you can change your ability score around via the camp and Withers NPC. You can get more Dexterity to help with Armour Class (AC) or more Constitution to help with overall hit points and survival.
When you reach level 4 as a Wizard, you get to pick a feat. The goal here would be to reach 18 Intelligence and another even number ability with +2 ability improvements. The reason is that only on even numbers do your attack rolls increase. So, having 16 Intelligence is the same as having 17 for the purpose of this experiment. You can respect and set up your character’s ability score to have two odd numbers, then at level 4, take ability improvement +1 and 1 to those to get the even numbers. This will help out with survivability and damage very early, especially with a Wizard or Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters subclasses.
5 Dark Justiciar Helmet
Dark Justiciar Helmet features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Rogue
- Armour Type: Medium Armour
- Rarity: Very Rare
- Location: Found inside a Gilded Chest in the Gauntlet of Shar ( X: -822 Y: -753 ). Act 2
Next up is an Act 2 helmet, Dark Justiciar Helmet. This is somewhat an odd choice that you have to work around because it requires medium armour proficiency, yet the bonuses are for critical damage while being obscure. The Rogue class revolves entirely around stealth and obscurity, and the bonus of a lower critical hit needed by 1 is a massive damage boost to the class.
Dwarf and Githyanki get medium armour proficiency, but an effective way is to get the Moderately Armoured feat as a Rogue. This will give you a +1 to Dexterity, so in character creator, you want a 17 Dexterity score if possible. Then, at level 4, you can select this, reach an even number of 18 and gain access to medium armour and shields. Admittedly, it is a bit of work to make this helm work with the class, but the Rogue lives on critical hits, and in Act 2, the damage will be a significant upgrade from your current helm.
4 Circlet of Hunting
Circlet of Hunting features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Ranger
- Armour Type: Clothing
- Rarity: Very Rare
- Location: Sold by Araj Oblodra on the main floor of Moonrise Towers, Act 2
The next helmet up is the Circlet of Hunting sold from the trader Araj Oblodra in Moonrise Towers of Act 2. This Circlet is designed for a Ranger who uses Hunter’s Mark. Hunter’s Mark is a bonus action-based spell that requires concentration and allows you to deal an additional 1d6 Physical damage with weapon attacks. It’s the weapon damage version of the Warlock’s Hex skill.
With the Circlet of Hunting on Hunter’s Mark on a target, you get an additional 1d4 Attack Roll against the marked creature. This will make you much more likely to hit the target and deal consistent damage. This is very important if you’re using the feat Sharpshooter, which gives a +10 to damage at the expense of -5 to attack roll. That feat allows for big damage but lowers your chance to hit. I recommend on my Ranger to get this feat right away, and if you can grab this Circlet of Hunting in early Act 2, it can reduce the disadvantage of one of the best feats in the game.
3 Bonespike Helmet
Bonespike Helmet features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Barbarian
- Armour Type: Clothing
- Rarity: Very Rare
- Location: Sold by Voiceless Penitent Bareki in Lower City Sewers, Act 3
Moving onto Act 3, we arrive at our first suggestion: Bonespike Helmet. This is a great helm for a Barbarian because it doesn’t require armour proficiency and gives a bonus to entering Rage a new attack. Rage is the core mechanic of the Barbarian, costing a bonus action, and is usually done on turn one. As you charge in, you can activate Rage with 3m and deal an extra bit of Psychic damage if the target fails a Wisdom saving throw.
The other component of this helmet is the Menacing Attack. This is a Battle Master Fighter skill, which can Frighten enemies. The Frighten status effect causes the target to not be able to move. Using this ability won’t lower your damage, but give you immobilization on pesky targets with high mobility. Lastly, you get +2 to intimidation. While not a combat-related perk, having a Half-Orc with proficiency in intimidation plus this bonus, gives you a lot of flexibility in dialogue. That’s, of course, if you prefer the rampaging Barbarian playstyle.
2 Birthright
Birthright features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Paladin, Warlock, Sorcerer, Bard
- Armour Type: Clothing
- Rarity: Very Rare
- Location: Sold by Image of Lorroakan in Sorcerous Sundries, Act 3
Next up, we reach an extremely powerful helmet, Birthright. This gives a simple bonus, +2 Charisma up to 22. You can max your Charisma to 20 via the ability improvement feat throughout the leveling process. Charisma is used for spellcasting by Bards, Paladins, Warlocks and Sorcerers. I personally feel the best use of this helm is the Paladin.
Contrary to the Fighter and Barbarian, the Paladin needs to focus on attaining high ability scores in two offensive stats instead of just one. Your weapon attacks become more potent with higher Strength, while your spells like Smite become more effective with increased Charisma. This places you in a quandary, as you must decide which of these attributes to prioritize. However, wearing the Gloves of Hill Giant Strength can give you +23 Strength. You combine these gloves and use two ability score improvements to push your Charisma to 20. Equip the Birthright helm, and now you have a Paladin with 23 Strength and 22 Charisma.
This combination gives you insane burst potential, especially at later levels with Extra Attack and spell level 3 Smite. This setup will require some optimization, but classes that use Charisma can also benefit from using it to push beyond the limits of ability score improvement to help with spellcasting.
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1 Helm of Balduran
Helm of Balduran features in Baldur’s Gate 3:
- Recommended for Class: Cleric
- Armour Type: Medium Armour
- Rarity: Legendary
- Location: Found on an altar (X: 636, Y: -964) next to Ansur in the Wyrmway, Act 3
The Helm of Balduran is the best helmet in Baldur’s Gate 3 because it offers several powerful and beneficial effects. You cannot be stunned, critically hit, heal yourself automatically, and increase your Armor Class (AC) and Saving Throws by 1. This helmet makes it extraordinarily hard to disable or crowd control, which, in turn, allows you to almost never get a turn skipped. This helm requires medium armour proficiency and fits a Cleric support build well.
One of the issues with the Cleric class is the lack of Dexterity and Initiative. This means you go much later in the round during combat. Often times your Cleric is lagging behind, which leads to getting crowd-controlled. You get stunned, someone forces you to drop your weapon, etc., and then you lose one or more turns due to CC. This helmet single-handedly solves the biggest issue, which is preventing you from taking your turn.
This helmet does not prevent the Surprised status effects, which can happen when attacked from stealth or in story dialogue situations. You can get the Alert feat, which gives a whooping +5 Initiative bonus and Surprise immunity. While not your typical Cleric feat, you combine Alert with the Helm of Balduran, and almost nothing in the game prevents you from taking a turn.
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