Shadowheart is the most-respecced Baldur's Gate 3 companion and it's not even close: everyone knew to make her a Life or Death Domain Cleric, which Larian says "checks out"

When Baldur's Gate 3 left Early Access two years ago – oh no, has it really been that long? – it felt like everyone took one look at Shadowheart, read her default Trickery Domain Cleric skill set, put weird shadowy stuff on the scale opposite giga-healing, marched her right over to Withers for a respec and said, "Oops, you're a healer now." But it turns out this was more than just a feeling: developer Larian says Shadowheart has been the most-respecced companion, and the healing-focused Life Domain is one of her top picks.

In a big new batch of Baldur's Gate 3 data, Larian digs into some mod statistics, rare achievements, and a smattering of player decisions. I'm most intrigued by the top three most-respecced companions, with Gale being the third most-changed at 684,454 respecs across tracked campaigns. Wyll is in second place at 1,417,506 respecs, and first place goes to Shadowheart by quite some distance at 4,890,005 respecs.

I'd wager this enormous respec gap is partly a function of how popular Shadowheart is – god only has one favorite princess, after all – as well as her inordinately niche starting class. The Trickery Domain isn't bad for Clerics, to be fair. It's a utility subclass that can be used for some fascinating stealth and crowd control stuff, among other things. But I'd argue it doesn't match the Cleric fantasy most people will probably think of, and it definitely lacks the immediate, obvious impact and value of other Cleric subclasses, which brings us to Shadowheart's top respecs.

Larian says Shadowheart "was almost equally as often respecced into either the Death Domain or Life Domain Cleric subclass," adding, "that checks out."

I'm more than a little surprised by the popularity of Death Domain Cleric, honestly. That said, it suits Shadowheart thematically, and it feels good at low levels thanks to multi-target cantrips, so I can kind of see where this is coming from.

I know it's a little vanilla, but Life Domain is where it's at for Shadowheart, as far as I'm concerned. The subclass gets access to some incredible spells, and a good healer is also strong at low levels – and stays strong throughout the entire game assuming you're regularly taking damage or suffering status effects, which you probably are. It's also just the Fireball theory in action. Press Fireball, everything dies. Build Life Domain Shadowheart, nobody dies. Beautiful.

Speaking of Fireball, Larian says Gale was most often respecced into a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, while Wyll became a Hexblade Warlock in most campaigns.

We got a look beyond the top three companions as well: Karlach fans loved Oath of Vengeance Paladin, Lae'zel lovers went for Oath of the Crown Paladin, and Astarion appreciators also pushed for Hexblade Warlock. I would have expected more Fighter representation between Lae'zel and Karlach, and slightly lower-ranked respec choices may bear that out, but my Paladin heart is pleased.

Baldur's Gate 3 lead says the D&D RPG is "what allowed us to do our next crazy thing," assuring Larian Studios is "working hard to ensure you'll have plenty of fun" with its new game.