The Ultimate Crit Fisher - D&D:Optimized #48
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- In this week's D&D5e build we're focused on one thing and one thing only: getting critical hits that hit as hard as possible, as often as possible. Come fishing with us!
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Character Concept:(0:00)
Level 1(7:43)
Levels 2-6:(14:39)
Levels 7-9:(31:37)
Levels 10-13:(37:39)
Levels 14-17:(48:53)
Final Thoughts:(57:47)
Math/Graph for this episode: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Sustained DPR Comparisons (3 Tabs): docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Thanks to LudicSavant for the amazing DPR calculator! forums.giantitp.com/showthrea...)
Music Credits:
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Celtic Impulse - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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Развлечения
Hey eveyrone! I thought I better pin something here because of all the comments I'm seeing on these two points:
#1: Yes, Elven Accuracy is great for increasing our Crit Chance. I have plans for doing a Crit Fisher that uses EA. I wanted to get this one in the books first for a variety of reasons, including wanting to explore a Strength-based character and wanting to take a break from EA :).
#2: College of Whispers Bard would be a great way to add some on-demand damage to a critical hit! My original plan was to go this route (despite doing something similar with my Lockadin here: ruclips.net/video/VWZxs60tXgM/видео.html ) until I remembered that you could only use Psychic Blades a number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier per long rest (or, at very late level for this character, per short rest). For us that meant one time. Of course we could sacrifice Dex or Con to get a higher Charisma, but it seemed better to pick up the support options and more total spell slots via Sorc *to me*. All that said, definitely worth considering if you want to make it work!
Is champion 15 worth it for 18-20 crit range?
@@mcullennz My damage calculations give between +20-33% damage in most cases IF you invest in addition damage dice from hunter's mark/hex/flaming enchantment and such.
I compared a non-champion fighter vs champion (warlock splash if melee). Both had elven accuracy, piercing feat, and enchanted weapon +2 +2d4 elemental damage. You must invest in ways to increase your damage dice to make any crit stuff work.
Looking forward to your dex based crit fisher. I’ve tried to make such a build successful (consistent advantage, high crit chance, and high damage on a crit), but I wasn’t able to make it really work until you get to high level, which was too late for most campaigns. I’ll be curious to see how it compares to your strength crit fisher as well. Thanks again for sharing and putting yourself out there.
@@mcullennz Would depend on a lot of things, of course. Obviously, the extra attack at level 11 and the increased crit chance are great, but assuming we're operating in a vacuum, not having advantage would be a huge blow, and you end up with 15% chance to crit at level 15 instead of where we were with 19% chance to crit at level 8. Then you have to figure out if you take Paladin levels for Smite and when? Or are the Barbarian levels more important? Etc. etc. So maybe you go Fighter to 5, then Barb to 2 or 3, then Fighter to 15, and finish off with two levels of Pally? So we get smite at level 20? Feels less good to me.
To reply to my own post, I wonder if a twin/paired build could really make this build sing. If you rely on others to give you advantage for crit fishing, you can focus your abilities more around maximizing it, which might save a few class level as well. Hummm….
I saw this title and immediately said to myself “here we go, hexblade, darkness, devil sight, elven accuracy, drow echo knight” then my whole world flipped on me. Well done sir
That doesn't work because no DM with any common sense would allow echo knight outside of a wildmount setting
I thought for sure hexadin with elven accuracy, burn the pact slots on smites
I too immediately thought "Elf or half elf with eleven accuracy."
@@ShugoAWay Echo knight is good, but not even close to as broken as things like twilight or peace domain clerics. It's only good against single targets, not groups. Why be lazy and ban a whole subclass when you can just have more than one powerful enemy per encounter and actually plan your combats strategically?
Darkness, devil sight can be a self death sentence
I am great weapon fighter, and this *gestures to pike* is my weapon. She weighs 8.16 kilograms and attacks with advantage 32 times per minute. It costs 100 gold's worth of diamond dust to use this weapon for one encounter.
Can it be outsmarted?
@@looneypersoney You can certainly try
Are you referring meet the heavy from tf2?
@@pnpgamer3934 You got it
Oh my god. Who touched Sascha?
Me, "I crit smite"
DM, "You don't need to."
Me, "You heard me."
please! its just a kobold! its already dead!!!
@@fairygoodmuller8065 if i can still see it, its not yet dead enough! *smites in spite*
Unnecessarily crit smiting a twig blight
Dm “dude it has 4 hp”
Me “ hold on let me finish the math… 47 damage”
Subtle spell would be interesting. You could be the burly barbarian standing in the corner with your arms crossed and nobody would know it was you casting spells. It’d be a good way to frame someone or just mess with people.
Subtle suggestion and if that fails intimidate
Last one shot I expended over a hour to make my Warlock/barbarian/Paladin to work just because the crit fishing mecanic is just so cool
Thank you for the berserker/champ build. Two classes that get no love but to me are archetypal of their base classes. I think of champ like vanilla ice cream. People call it bland and boring, but have you ever had very well made vanilla ice cream?? A well made and tended to classic beats lazy trends any day.
100%
I think you can make a really good champion build even without multiclassing, same with berserker but it is something that takes a lot of effort to do. My biggest issue with champion is that while the improved crit chance is really cool and the extra fighting style is straight up amazing, it just doesn't hold the attention like the battlemaster or the Eldritch Knight. Mechanicly sound and amazing but boring without anything else to really add to it. But feats that give the player more options really do stand out then for the Champion because there are less extra options for you to look at in your own class.
I've said it before and I'll say it again hunter and champion are cooler than they have any right to be.
@@keonprs5800 Been looking at Hunter lately, particularly Horde Breaker at 3rd level. That's just an extra attack. Can be part of the attack action for folks who have stuff to do with their bonus actions already, but it'd even work on the bonus action attack an Eldritch Knight can make after casting a Cantrip. Such a flexible ability, even if it is cleave/spread damage as opposed to focus fire.
@@thebitterfig9903 this could work great with war domain, clerics making three attacks per turn without being MAD(if dex based) and only losing 2 levels of spell slot progression. Great for a cleric of a god of the hunt
Edit: or a sorcerer making 3 attacks booming blade, horde break, quickened booming blade. Because why not?
This is the type of character I like to play. Pretty good sustained damage, cool burst potential, helpful support casting. Feels well-rounded.
For meta magic this character should absolutely take extended spell, extend aid before a long rest, take the rest and get the slot and sorc points back, still have 8 hrs left of aid
you can do this without extend spell. extend spell is for if you want 16 hrs of aid. remember you can cast spells before the end of the long rest as long as you aren't casting spells for an hour.
Colby:
- Has never intentinally built a critfisher.
- Favourite and most used feat is probably Elven Accuracy though. :D
Keep up the good work on the channel!
IIRC he's made a Hexblade Warlock/Oath of Vengeance Paladin build before. He didn't call it a crit fishing build specifically, but that's absolutely what it was. The gist was that it could double smite on a crit, which made its burst damage effectively some of the highest you could realistically reach in 5e, but it blew through its limited spell slots like no tomorrow. It's from the era where we didn't know if Custom Lineage could qualify for Elven Accuracy, but it still holds up with only minor changes.
@@ChunkyTheClown It was actually only a 2 level dip in Pally, and focused on burst. Ended up having more levels in Whispers Bard than anything by the end :P. It's actually the character I'm playing right now in our Live play games, but I'm considering going Sorc instead of Bard when I get there... ruclips.net/video/VWZxs60tXgM/видео.html
Idea: paying members get to send you their characters and have them assessed for how they measure up in terms of DPR and nova damage with your builds on a separate spreadsheet.
Maybe even with 2-3 of your builds on that spreadsheet just for comparison purposes.
@@cornycornsnake Just as soon as I can quit my day job :P
@@DnDDeepDive hopefully it will come soon!
Ooooh nice. I'm really curious about this and future critfish videos!
Also, yes I'm happy to watch your videos, thank you for making the videos, and thank you for making them in your signature wholesome, friendly way!
I have never play D&D before and just started to play BG3 lately, did some theory crafting and found out this video is exactly as I build in the first half. Thank you
Hey! this one's my suggestion! Thanks for making it, excited to watch :)
This is my favorite type of build to design, but not usually to play. My crit fishers are typically rogues, or smiters (paladin/warlock with invocation) so I'm eager to compare those to this barbarian!
As a french baguette eater, I always love to hear you speak my language from time to time as an introduction or a tiny exclamation !
Also I hate you for doubling the speed at which I create new characters that I will never play 💕
Great video! Never thought of using the Piercer feat, clever!
I always use a Homebrew rule where instead of gaining exhaustion you can choose to expend a hit dice instead
If Was gming that's what I would do.
I Saw homebrew that simply frenzy uses 2 instances of rage instead of 1
Just throwing out a few balancing ideas
Frenzy could give more extra attacks at later levels.
The exhaustion could require a high DC constitution saving throw.
Frenzy rage might cost an action to activate, rather than a bonus action.
Frenzy might deal 1d4-1 psychic damage to you each round of the rage, instead of exhaustion.
Frenzy might cause you to attack the nearest creature, rather than whoever you choose.
You sir. Are the hero we didn’t know we needed. 🥺
I really loved this build and really enjoyed the story behind it that you suggested, it was really interesting.
Thanks!
I was expecting a dex build with rogue assassin, hexblade and paladin.
I LOVED YOUR BUILD
Thank you for these videos, they help to distract me, recently Leukemia was detected in a loved one.
So sorry to hear it :(. Hope they pull through!
Got this open in the browser and the character sheet in Adobe, working it through. He's going to be one of my campaign's big villains--yes, I create them from scratch, and you're a big help. Thank you.
Ha ha! Apologies to your players in advance :). Glad you enjoyed!
I'm currently running a wood elf elven accuracy scout rouge that is going to multi into champion fighter for improved critical. The synergy between steady aim and elven acc is already amazing, since it is one of the least conditional ways to proc advantage and doesn't consume a resource. The skirmisher ability allows me to use steady aim consistently instead of needing cunning action of dash or disengage to kite enemies. Also, being a wood elf rogue makes the build innately high mobility, making it easy to get into a good position in fights.
Great ideas! Better than the fog cloud and blind fighting ranger multi class I was going to try.
That sounds good. You get archery foghting style for +2 on your attack role too. My idea was a mounted arcane trickster rogue with mounted combatant and elven accuracy. You would have advantage on all medium or smaller creatures which is most of the enemies you face. Booming blade for more dice to double. Owl Familiar as a back up for larger enemies.
How can you use steady aim and skirmisher as the first specifically says that your speed becomes zero and skirmisher says you can move half your speed (which is zero)? So, you use steady aim, your speed is now zero and an enemy reaches you, you move zero feet. So you can’t move away. What am I missing?
@@Petrosthewalrus your speed becomes 0 until the end of your turn. Skirmisher is a reaction you use at the end of an enemies turn.
Love your videos man! Always excited to see a new one.
As for metamagic, I might go with extend spell and subtle spell. Subtle allows for some good out of combat applications in social contexts. Extend spell lets you get some good mileage out of "leftover" spell slots at the end of the day. Extended aid right at the start of a long rest (8hrs) means you wake up w 8 hrs left of aid and full spell slots!
Bonjour from Paris. Great vid as always. We’re lacking such high quality content and creators in french!
Wow
Really interesting build-ty for sharing, Colby
Thank you - I love this build!
Again, I appreciate so much that you don't pick only A or S tier classes for your builds. This is the second Berserker optimized build I found in internet (first was Berserker-Champion crit fisher - pretty good but pales in comparison to similar build with Zealot archetype) and I like it very much. There is one aspect of a Berserker that really torments me - for flavor, this is one of my favourite fantasy character archetypes. But, the way 5e designers debilitiated this subclass with this exhaustion nonsense, really makes me angry :) Good to see that you stepped up to a challenge to redeem Berserker and make something good out of this classic fighting machine.
This is exactly how I build my characters. I don't make maximized characters, I make maximized themes.
Initial Thoughts: The only things I can think of are Champion fighter, warlock with devil's sight and seeing/fighting in the dark for advantage, and the Elven accuracy feat (my brain isn't firing on all cylinders today).
After the Video: Well, I called the fighter, but I went to the warlock well too many times! I knew we needed advantage and totally forgot about reckless attack, and I like the Paladin smite powered by the Sorcerer battery. This is great build - thanks, Colby!
Damn, my prediction was Drow Half-Elf, with Paladin, Hexblade and Rogue... but here we are...
Huh. My prediction was WAAAY wrong. I was expecting a dex build, perhaps with the piercer feat and a bow or crossbow.
Maybe an elven champion with crossbow expert, piercer, and elven accuracy? Piercer let's you reroll a damage die if necessary and adds a die on a crit. With champion fighter you can get crit on 18-20 and extra ASI for feats with fighter. Maybe use the remaining 5 levels on hexblade for darkness/devils sight and eldritch smite to help nova? You would have a 39% chance of critting if you have advantage and could do 3d10 piercing + 8d8 force + dex mod. If you have room for sharpshooter too, plus another 10. And with 15 levels of fighter, you could keep doing 3d10 + dex mod (+ sharpshooter)
So that’s the next build - Let’s Build Legolas! But I’d go Rogue for the sneak attack.
A new look at a classic build.
Pyke the Impaler and the Mistletoe Spear.
The epic tale of a spear-fishing half-orc whose spiralling fate would eventually skewer the Prince of Lies.
Alternative backstory could be that he was gamekeeper's assistant on a noble estate. Helping pike the boars etc etc.
Lowly functionary but regarded kindly by the lord of the manor and befriended by the chaplain...
i haven't seen the video yet but i already know it's gonna be awesome. I would love to see a gloom stalker build for your next video
I appreciate the vote of confidence ;) - on the to do list!
5th gloomstalker and 2 fighter and 3 rogue gives you on the first round of combat. Firstly attack anyone that hasn't taken there turn yet, you would get 6 attacks, plus a bonus action attack, all with advantage and if they are suprised then these are all crits. Add to this 2 fighting styles (fighter & Ranger), and a feat i.e. Eleven accuracy or sharpshooter are good examples and of course laters levels you could have both.
Add hexblade 1, you gain hexblade curse giving crits on 19 and prof to dmg
Really enjoy this build. I went with a dexterity-based stout halfling berserker barbarian, champion fighter, swashbuckler rogue.
Colby is the proverbial gentle cloud giant...
It'd be really interesting to see him play maybe chaotic neutral character.
I have a really hard time going anything but Lawfor or Chaotic good 😬
Liked and commented for the puns. Also kudos for making use of berserker, I love concepts that use underated subclasses!
All that's needed is to acquire the trident Wave from White Plume Mountain. Inflicting half of the target's maximum hit points on a crit is a lovely compliment to any crit-fisher build.
This was basically my original BG3 character (minus the Sorcerer levels). Paly 6/Fighter 4/Barb 2 and he basically just picked something in the room and decided that thing would die. Great build, do recommend. I was very pleased when this felt so familiar.
Every time a video comes out, it's about a conversation I had like two days before hahaha. Player wants a bugbearian for RotFM that was raised by yeti and has an Inuit/Siberian indigenous sort of vibe. Jeremy Crawford said on Twitter that pikes can't get a Bonus Action from PAM because they're, "Too unwieldy, in our eyes...". The weapon chart doesn't say how long a pike is, but it weighs 18 pounds-six times more than the spear-and has a 10 foot reach (not the same as being 10 feet long, but it's a clue). Wikipedia says a pike is 10-25 feet long, 5.5-13.2 pounds. Between being 7' tall, 320 pounds, and having both Long Limbed and Powerful Build AND a high STR, as well as how ridiculously heavy the rulebook pike is for how little reach it has, it was ruled that the bugbear could in fact use the entirety of PAM with a pike.
At my table every class gets a custom magic item at level one. For barbarians, they get the bracers of endless rage. Among other things, it makes you immune to exhaustion. I've always loved the Berserker, and I really want a player to make one at my table, so I threw that on a magic item.
Gloomstalker, dread ambushers feature "If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If that attack hits, the target takes an extra ld8 damage of the weapon's damage type." combined with the possibility that you are fighting someone in the dark using darkvision, you'd be invisible to them so have advantage on every attack. plus they'd be at disadvantage to hit you. think it would be worth a 3 (or 4 ) level dip (and they do get spell slots too)
I like the idea of giving a barbarian the ritual caster feat for those 20 ritual spells that can be used out of combat where the barbarian shouldn't be raging anyway.
I’d love to see either an update to the ranger fighter build or another ranged DPR build!
I’m actually playing a very similar build but I took no barbarian levels. I get my advantage from being a shadow sorcerer and casting darkness, which you can see through when you use sorcery points! You also get the ability to possibly stay up at 1 hp instead of 0 which is nice
"There's gotta be at least 3 of you, or 4"
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
I have a guy like this in one of the campaigns I'm in. it's not the most optimized build but he's an elf wizard and his favorite thing to do is cast greater invisibility for infinite elven accuracy advantage and then spam Jim's magic missile, getting 12-15 opportunities to crit per turn and doing 5d4 per crit +2d4 per regular missile. it also rips through concentration.
I almost forgot to get a flagon of my favorite beverage!
I see this as a samurai esc build, with the guy exchanging blows until he gets that single strike that cuts through and the enemy falls down behind him.
If you're playing with a group that gives you a free feat at level 1 you could take the half-orc feat Orcish Fury which lets you add 1d10 when you hit (once per shot rest) if you save it for when you crit, instead of adding 3d10 when you crit its now an extra 5d10!!
its only once per short rest, but an extra 5d10 is amazing.
Love this build - slightly different to mine as I have four levels of Paladin for the Oath of Conquest spell Armor of Agathys and faster ASI. I also call mine The Fisher King for the larger paladin element to it.
YES. I had some weird sneaking suspicion this was going to be a pike build for some reason. Can't wait to finish the video.
So I hate Berserker, but I still love the build. I would prefer to take barbarian up to 6 immediately for the fourth rage per day, and more importantly for the Zerker, to get their best class ability. If you're going to stick to 3 rages per day I think it's better to play with a champion base so that you can build for 3 attacks per attack action.
I like the paladin/sorcerer angle quite a bit, but I don't think there is anything wrong with finishing out with a few more barb levels and keeping it simple. Getting to the levels where the smites really start paying off isn't a given for most people so not bending the stats to accomodate for it is something to consider.
My favorite crit fisher: Elf or Half-Elf (if you can convince your DM to allow Custom Lineage Elven Accuracy, go for it; otherwise just stick to one of those) Fighter 5 Champion (Defensive Fighting Style and Elven Accuracy at 4 unless you got it via CL) / Rogue X Scout (Heavy Armor Master and Sentinel feats at some point), grapple-shove/prone your enemies while you laugh at their desperate attempts to fight you off, drag them around the battlefield with a free half-speed Disengage reaction (which dragging an enemy halves your movement, so that makes the free Disengage a 1/4 speed movement) whenever they end their turn adjacent to you while preventing them from Disengaging, and gank them into bloody puree.
Druss the Legend enters the room :)
I’m case you didn’t want to go battlerager or deal with exhaustion or want other options of similar design. You could dual wield warpicks and grab dual wielder feat at lvl 4 and then get piecer at lvl 8. Warpicks are a 1d8 piercing martial weapon. Still allows the bonus action attack via offhand weapon. Plus instead of great weapon fighting style you can grab the 2 weapon fighting style. Yes I know, this doesn’t have the +10 damage of the great weapon master feat but as I said, it can be a fun build as well and just be a little different and yet overall still very similar to the OG build in the video
I Would definitely go extended metamagic. You can double the length of your buff spells. Really good mileage.
Just throwing this out there, but you could try relying on Great Weapon Master's inconsistent bonus action attack if you don't want to play around Berserker's exhaustion and you also don't want to force yourself to abandon your Pike and Piercer feat by taking Polearm Master. I'm pretty sure the math won't support this decision because it's not guaranteed to trigger every turn and this build simply doesn't have the kinds of insane crit consistency you'd get by running Elven Accuracy, but it's not as bad as you'd think, especially in encounters with multiple weaker enemies, and that inconsistency is kinda on theme for this reckless build regardless. It just seems like a much cleaner solution than shifting the entire concept around to fit the Polearm Master mold.
If you throw in war cleric and have a decent wisdom you could get some bonus attack there as well. Also you get divine favor for a tad bit more damage.
@@dragonhearthx8369 Ehhhhh. I respect the use of a nontraditional subclass, but this build is already very MAD, requiring investment in Strength, Con, Dex, and Charisma. I really don't think it's worth it to try to scrounge up enough points to reach the 13 in Wisdom required to multiclass into Cleric, especially considering the War Priest skill requires that you have significantly more than that in order to be properly effective (hitting the bare minimum of 13 only gives you a SINGLE attack per long rest with the feature). If you're rolling for stats and get really lucky across the board, this decision may be a bit more viable, but I feel like you sacrifice way to much for not nearly enough payoff with this strategy while restricted to point buy.
Also, you can't concentrate on Divine Favor while raging.
@@ChunkyTheClown I agree it's a bit mad. And divine favor would only be used when you are not raging. Thus making damage a bit more consistent.
Damage die rerolls might be better than we usually assume. They come up 5+ times a session in my experience. I suppose an extra 10-20 damage per adventuring day isn't a ton, but it's basically free with piercer, and has a low opportunity cost with GWF because the only other option is defense, which won't save your reckless ass.
Hot take:
Second wind Thematically should counter the exhaustion from over exerting with frenzy.
But only is you can use your bonus action to 'heal' yourself when you leave the frenzy.
i went a different route with the same idea
my half-orc Gorath is a champion at level 4 with GWM, for level 6 i'll get orcish fury and at level 8 ill get crusher. i've spoken to my dm and asked him if i could eventually get a d12 bludgeon weapon and he agreed. for advantage i basically just rely on my party to use faerie fire/guiding bolt/help action or whatever. past level 8 i might dip into barbarian for reckless attack if i feel like i don't get advantage enough
Bit of a weird one because I know you're mainly classes but I'd love to see you do a grung player race optimised! It has so much potential
Why do you opt to use a pike with piercer when you could use a greataxe with orcish fury? Do you find re-rerolling your damage dice to be more optimal than having larger damage dice? If you took more fighter levels instead of sorcerer past level 14 you could stack both. Do you think that's a good idea?
You forgot the Fishing Tackle and pole, so apropos for this build!
Great video as aways!
Well, if you go whispers bard instead of sorcerer, you can use your inspiration to stack your Psychic Blades with your smites (but I gess you already did that on one of your builds xD)
That was actually my initial plan here until I remembered that you only get to # of inspiration = to your Charisma mod and with a 13 Charisma... it wasn't very sustainable. So I scrapped it :).
@@DnDDeepDive That makes sense :)
I loved so much that build and would love to fit three champion levels in it only for the crit fishing elven accuracy goodness.
Great job Colby!
Also when you get 3rd level spells, getting animate dead will allow you to have minions that'll bump your damage a bit more.
Lvl 20 one shots can be really fun! In fact, that's mostly the only way play nowadays... Nice build, by the way! I might try it out one day.
On your graph in cells B9 to E9, should the extra damage be 3d10? 1d10 from crit, 1d10 from piercer, and 1d10 from savage attacks from Orc racial? Or does the normal crit 1d10 get factored in somewhere behind the scenes?
Correct! This is more like a "here's what we do above and beyond a regular crit" number :).
I don't know if anyone knows this but Olisuba Leaf
Type: Potion Cost: 50 gp Weight: --
These dried leaves of the Olisuba tree, when steeped to make tea, can help a body recover from strenuous activity. If you drink a dose of Olisuba tea during a long rest, your exhaustion level is reduced by 2 instead of 1 at the end of that long rest.
I hope this helps.
Upvote this man, everybody
love the content as always! anything special planned for number 50?? one year anniversary is close too!
Thanks! Yeah, it's looking like episode 50, one year anniversary, and 20k subscribers are all going to happen within a few weeks of each other. We'll probably do something to celebrate but I haven't quite nailed down the details yet :).
@@DnDDeepDive team pvp! colby dancing! homelander skit! :)
I really like how your build emphasizes damage and not just crit chance. And by using subclasses that are considered lower on the totem pole I hope that DMs will be lenient with it, especially regarding exhaustion. Personally I wouldn't take berserker if you're taking GWM, just because you will get a chance for bonus action attacks often enough with your crits or when you fell an enemy.
i wouldn't take berserker either. i'd probably skip a barbarian subclass altogether.
I actually just started playing a crit fisher half orc similar to this concept a little while back, started at level 3. The way our party plays we start at level 1 with a racial feat, and for races who don’t have one from Xanathar’s we homebrew one, because we play a higher stakes game than a lot of people including fighting higher CR stuff than characters our level normally should. My DM also told me that he doesn’t like the extra attack from Frenzy being a bonus action, so he just allows it to be a part of the attack action, which in normal play is actually frickin crazy but given how we play I still make it out of some encounters by the skin of my teeth. We’re level 7 right now, I have a Barbarian 5th Fighter 2nd level split, with Orcish Fury and Great Weapon Master as feats, and next level I’ll get to my final level in Fighter for the first Champion feature increasing my crit range to 19-20, and after that once I get to 8th in Barbarian I’ll be grabbing the Slasher feat to give disadvantage on whatever I crit, making them roll neutral while I roll with advantage due to Reckless Attacks. Feels good to crit and expend my Orcish Fury die with my greataxe for 5d12+17 on some poor bastard. Very happy with how the character is coming together on the battlefield, and how I interact with the world with my Pirate background and how my DM is integrating my backstory within the world. I very much so enjoy recklessly critting. Haven’t played a barbarian in a couple years, last played a Barbarian in a 3.5e campaign and it’s been fun making one for 5e while also going for big crits since I never went for that with my 3.5e character, was moreso just general DPR. One of my favorite characters I’ve played in 5e by far.
*Edit: I made this comment around 16-18ish minutes or so, and I’m starting to see how the level splits are literally the same at 8th level around 33 minutes lmao, guess great crit fishers crit alike. Only thing is, is that I’m only going to take 3 levels into fighter because I know that this character will someday hit level 20, unless he dies before then, because our DM wants to get us to 20th level and run an epic with these character we’ve earned the levels with. And at that point I want my split to be Barbarian 17th Fighter 3rd, so that I have all 3 of my Brutal Critical die from barbarian. I had thought about taking Paladin levels for smites and so on, but I in the end decided against it. This character doesn’t have much connection to the gods, nor does ever want to rely on the divine. He’s a man lost in his rage and constantly running from his haunted past and the horrible things he had done earlier in life that he wishes he could take back, but has to live with. And so, most people look at him and see a monster, and so a monster he will act as. But when people see him not as a monster but as a person, then he can find some closure and return to those people kindness. He’s a simple man, with a simple want to live and not be a monster, but sometimes in order to survive he has to become one.
I played a lvl 20 crit fisher in a one-shot. 11 levels in Fighter (Champion) for the Improved Critical and 3rd attack, 9 levels in Barbarian (Totem) for brutally critical. Half-Orc with pike, Piercer and Great Weapon Master. The bonus action attack you get from GWM for landing a crit or killing an enemy pretty much happens every round and it really makes no sense to go Berserker.
At high levels, berserker actually gets pretty good: for a level 20 character, you can go berserker 5, champion 3, celestial patron warlock 12. Eldritch smite, Armor of Agathys, Lifedrinker, Greater Restoration to heal off your exhaustion, and a bunch of other goodies besides. It’s a blast.
Fun thing with berserker barbarian x sorcerer, if you ever get too exhausted for rage or even exhausted to the point of disadvantage on attacks, booming blade works with seeking spell “If you make an attack roll for a spell and miss, you can spend 2 sorcery points to reroll the d20, and you must use the new roll.”Because it isn’t technically ‘advantage’ it doesn’t cancel out to a flat roll RAW with the disadvantage of exhaustion. Also, depending on your DM, great weapon master (which activates “Before you make a melee attack”) could be used with booming blade which is a spell by which “you brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it”.
The drawback of booming blade, of course, is that it isn’t an attack action so you only get one attack with it. Unless, oh I don’t know, you’re too tired to rage and have your bonus action open to quickened spell another booming blade.
It’s very persnickety and a bit cheesy, but I love how well sorcerer levels compensate rage. If you get too hurt you could quickened spell blade ward to give yourself resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing!
RAW you can't GWM on Booming Blade.
One point in argument for using bard instead of sorcerer:
Whispers bard burns bardic inspiration to add psychic damage on a hit. As a combo of a smite/sneak attack style ability.
Yeah it's only once per turn. But it's a way to convert another resource into damage that doubles on a crit
This was my initial plan but the fact that we only get a # of inspirations = to our Cha mod killed it for me. Would have to seriously kill our Con or Dex to get a respectable Cha, and without it, I couldn't consider is "sustainable" even for a single encounter :/
Is there any way to modify this for more crit chances at expense of damage?
And starting with Custom Linage
For the metamagic I would take Extended Spell. That way you can cast Aid of 16 hours, that would be like casting it twice. Cast it the night before and still have enough of time for most of the adventuring day.
Great video. Love the pike seeing some use.
I was looking at cool, quirky builds and thought.... how much damage could I do from my familiar? a twinned inflict wounds deals good damage as early as level 3, but if I MC 3 sorc (divine) and 3 warlock for chain pact, I could get an invisible pseudodragon armed with dragons breath. Perhaps RAI it wouldnt still be invisible, but I love the idea of an invisible familiar swooping in and shooting dragons breath, using its reaction for me to cast twinned inflict wounds through it. I only planned this as a level 6 char, but would be curious to see where you would take it. It's just me and Mr Bitey!!!
Thanks! Will add Mr. Bitey to the list :P
watching an old video to compare with mine crit-fisher, and I must say , very different base with some similarities down the line. I use a half elf as race, go rogue 3 (assassin though not essential), wrlock hexblade 5 (hexblade curse improves crit range, "extra attack", improved pact weapon and E-smite) then Paladin for smite and one more rogue level for a feat. For the feats Elven accuracy and piercer or crossbow expert. This build is amazing infiltrator and can play as well ranged as melle, I played it on a lvl 6 one shot and it was awsome. If you have reliable advantage this crits a lot and can pile up some damage through sneack attack + smites
Love your stuff overall. Only watch occasionally. I’d watch every drop if they were half as long.
Regarding the pike being too unwieldy. They're kinda right. Real-life pikes were made for formations against cavalry and not really for swinging around. You could but also why?
Having the pike as a melee weapon for general use has always really bothered me. Any variation which would actually be wieldable in melee would essentially be a spear. A cool alternative to wielding an actual pike might be something like the weapon Lancelot uses in his duel with Arthur by the riverside in 1981's Excalibur: a spear and a hook on one end and a naked metal spike on the other. It would need to be beefed up considerably to qualify for GWM, however.
Halberds were also not supposed to be used by means of hitting with opposite side of the weapon. Generally, Polearm Master's bonus action attack feature, as described, is very unrealistic.
@@jakubkucharczyk5255 Very true. Halberds would be way too long. A poleaxe though... hmm...
you could hold it in the middle maybe
YES!!! Haven't watched it yet but YES!!!
I ended up building my last character into a crit fisher. I started with a half-orc battle master with Shield Master feat, then got a war pick made from a Black Dragon's tooth and took the Piercer feat. So standard turn was bonus action to shove prone then two attacks with ADV. On a crit I would add a maneuver for an extra 2d8, bringing the total crit damage to 6d8+6+1d4 (acid from the dragon tooth). My plan at level 9 was to dip into Hexblade warlock, but he was killed fighting a beholder. So now I'm playing your ultimate support bard.
Unfortunately you cant shield master shove prone then 2 attacks RAW. shield master requires you attack 1st (at least once) before you can bonus action shove prone. Since you were a battlemaster, you couldve just used trip attack on the 1st attack.
@@TheRobversion1 DM rule of cooled it. I told him thats what RAW was
@@zacharymichener4687 hahah. well i hope your support bard goes better.
pretty surprised with the build. i presumed the crit fisher wouldn't be a barb so you could use elven accuracy + lucky. glad to see a half-orc though. one of the more interesting races. in my own builds, i've only used it once for my auto-crit/surprise melee assassin.
the reason i'd probably want at least 14 dex is i'd want more initiative and stealth as i lean more towards burst in my build.
imo you don't really have to get a bonus action attack as long as you have good dmg boosting things to do with your bonus action (like smites, hex, etc) so it's quite easy to avoid polearm master. still i applaud your attempt here to optimize much maligned classes while not using a cookie cutter feat.
i've done a melee crit fisher without using PAM. i'll share my build here as well. feel free to share any input. level 10 spread as usual and focused on burst as well as it's more about smiting.
2 paladin, 5 hexblade, 3 rune knight
half-wood elf (drow is also a good choice)
asi: elven accuracy
fighting style: superior technique-trip attack, great weapon fighting
invocations: thirsting blade, eldritch smite, misty visions
runes: fire, cloud
tactics:
pre-combat: walk around in silent image/stealth to hopefully generate surprise or at least advantage on your 1st attack.
1st round:
bonus action: hexblade's curse
action: attack at triple advantage and trigger trip attack or fire rune. if the opponent saves for either, we sadly have to use eldritch smite to generate advantage for the subsequent attacks. if they fail, then we get to save eldritch smite for the time we crit. then extra attack at triple advantage again. if either, attacks crit use divine smite and eldritch smite/fire rune/trip attack if they are still available.
action surge: extra attack x2 again at triple advantage. use divine smite, eldritch smite, fire rune and/or trip attack if they are still available if you crit.
so on round 1, with 12 d20 rolls at 19-20 crit, one is bound to crit. most likely the bbeg will be dead so sustaining crit fishing on round 2 wouldn't be as integral. great utility out of combat as well with silent image and the rune skill bonuses.
Quicken Spell: Hold Person (or Hold Monster at higher level) allows you to paralyze the target as a bonus action, which turns all hits into crits. Against a target likely to save, Quicken: Haste gives another attack per round. Quicken: Holy Weapon adds dice. (Those are all mutually exclusive due to Concentration, so you'd have to make situational choices) With that in mind, I've been toying with a crit fisher for my next character. But that changes everything, because the Barbarian can't cast while raging. So right now I'm mostly settled on Paladin 5 / Champion Fighter 4 / Divine Soul Sorcerer 11 (leveled in that order). With Elven Accuracy (of course) at the first ASI, and high attributes being DEX/CHA, rather than STR/CON/DEX. The Fighter takes Trip Attack from the combat maneuver fighting style, so you can attempt to Trip a target that you don't otherwise have advantage on, once, on your first attack of a round, to maybe get advantage on all the other attacks that round (that would be your Action Surge round, if the Trip succeeds). Paladin Vow of Enmity gives advantage, too. Basically just having many different ways to create advantage for EA, then smiting on crits with Sorc spell slots, same as your Berserker build. Less reliable advantage than the Berserker, and not a Half-Orc, but no exhaustion, and more emphasis on Quickened spells at mid/high level when the Sorcerer kicks in. I love both builds. Such fun!
i'd replace paladin with hexblade so you can attack and cast via cha. you ose out on divine smites but you can replace that with eldritch smite and replacing champion with a more offensive subclass like rune knight for fire rune or battlemaster. losing out on vow of enmity as an advantage generator isn't bad as you said you are a sorc. you can quicken all sorts of advantage generators: fog cloud + blind fight, maximillians earthen grasp, catapult + net, grease, earth tremor, blindness, the aforemention hold, web... and i'm just limiting it to 1st and 2nd level spells here.
oh and yes auto -crit builds do better than crit fish builds.
You'd probably get more damage using a great axe and taking the half orc only feat from xgte orcish fury instead of piercer. You can apply the extra dice to a crit to double it. You'd need to be scoring more crits than what is probable for piercer to be better.
If you have a very chill DM, you could in theory use the Battlerager instead of the Berserker (An abandoned half-orc that was raised by dwarves), since the Spiked Armor deals 1d4 piercing damage, which is similiar to the Polearm feat but a little more convenient. And you woudn't need to deal with the exaustion, since you can use this bonus action attack every single combat.
I think I prefer smacking my foes around with a great axe, maul, or greatsword with my bonus action than a piddly 1D4 DMG from spiked armor.
dual wielding swashbuckler/champion fighter is a really good way of building a crit fisher that doesn't feel cheap, hell when I did it I was playing a half elf but didn't even bother with elven accuracy, just the simple bump from champion was enough to significantly show more crits on the board.
In play I started by taking two levels of rogue then went the next three in fighter to get champion then its kind of whatever order you want, I never went above 5th level with champion fighter and just invested everything else into rogue after that.
I was just thinking about this topic at work earlier.. haha
BG3 Adaption
*Critical-Half-Orc:*
The idea is to throw Stuff as soon as level 4 for ranged attacks, while also reckless crit in Close Combat as soon as level 7.
Equipment:
Returning Pike! (ACT 1, Goblindealer)
We‘re using the +2STR Drink from Act 2, and try to always have the Potion wich decreases the "need to crit" by one.
17STR, 14DEX, 16CON
Starterclass: Fighter
- LV1: Heavy Fightstyle
- LV2: Action-Search
- LV3: Champion (Crit at 19)
- LV4: Tavernbrawler (+1STR)
- LV5: Extra-Attack
Barbarian:
- LV6 (B1): Rage
- LV7 (B2): Reckless Attack
- LV8 (B3): Berserker
- LV9 (B4): Polearm-Master
Fighter:
- LV10 (F6): Third Feat
- LV11 (F7): Second Fight Style
- LV12 (F8): Fourth Feat!!!
(or you could go the last 3 Levels to Thief Rogue…)
Cory , if you’re out there - I am requesting that you give this man an Epic Dice for the shaft pun.
Lol
I have made a similar build with Half Orc Zealot Barbarian for 3 level dips, Champion fighter rest of the way with GW Fighting and Superior technique Fighting styles, Polearm Master (Glaive) and GWM, fighter being the rest. My DM made the mistake of giving my character a sword that did additional damage if my character made a 15 DC strength check. With Rage turned on, I never missed those checks. Hence Tom H Caster, the biggest close range meat grinder was born
Now that I think about it taking superior technique first to take precision attack to those sucky to average dice rolls for GWM penalty attacks. Man this build might be vanilla but it's an absolute savage
A little late (okay maybe a lot) but home brew rule for berserker here. Using ALL of your rage charges in a single adventuring day gives you 1 level of exhaustion.
I know I’m late to the party here but I’ve been taking a fresh look at the berserker and I realized that everyone reads frenzy as an “extra attack” when it’s actually a free attack. This is what makes bonus action spells so good since you can use your main action and still do something else useful. In the berserker’s case that means you can dodge and attack in the same turn, or perform any single action like dash and still attack. The exhaustion is still tough but it’s only a terrible cost when frenzy is underutilized. I’ve been playing a hide shifter berserker and I can’t tell you how godlike it feels to impose disadvantage on everyone’s attacks while still being able to attack every turn; I had 8 hp left in a fight against an owlbear, and my lv4 berserker proceeded to dodge 6 attacks from this thing and kill it with the help of a bless spell and a commoner with a crossbow who kept missing most of his shots. All that for one exhaustion is a fair trade IMO.
That's amazing i never thought about utilizing the action to do something else for Frenzy. I have a question though lets say you use your action to dash, then your Bonus action to "make a single melee weapon attack". can you use reckless attack?
reckless attack says "When you make your first attack on your turn, you can decide to attack recklessly." seems to me like this should work.
@@brian6488 yep that’s how I read it too; you could even combo a dodge with RA and get one attack with advantage while now giving no advantage to your enemies 😎
Rather than sorcerer, I believe that Whisper Bard is a better fit for this build. The Psychic Blades option will get you a "second smite" you can add onto your crits and it also gets Greater Restoration just like the divine soul sorcerer so you keep that thing you really wanted. Psychic blades is a level 3 ability that lets you burn bardic inspiration to add 2d6 psychic damage "when you hit a creature with a weapon attack". Notice this is verbatim the same as the paladin smite wording, except that it works with any weapon attack, not just melee weapons: "when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack". So all the juicy spell slots of a full caster, plus an additional 2d6 or 3d6 on each crit. After 5th level bard your inspirations come back on short rests, so you should have more of them than the number of extra spell slots you can buy with sorcery points.
he mentions the issue in the pinned comment. he has low cha. meaning the # of times he can do this per day isn't sustainable (1 per short or long rest). this was a sustained build not burst. for burst imo its a great pick or if he rearranged his stats to have more cha like +2 at least.
Blind Fighting? so that magical darkness and fog clouds can't impose disadvantage? it also kinda fits as this extra awareness that might come with the more instinctual side of the character.
I was literally working on this last night for fun. Curious to see how it compares to yours.
Edit: it was very close. I had some warlock for short rest spell tricks. I had went zealot barb for the extra dice, because dice are crit. Also, not having a cost when revived is huge. I had some ranger as well, for hunter. Horde breaker. Extra attacks when things are close mixes well with GWM bonus action attack. I also took the half orc racial feat, once per short rest you can add another weapon dice. So your weapon is a d12, use that to make it 2d12, that gets doubled then tripled by racial and brutal critical. It delayed GWM a bit, but I liked it.
I like this build a bit more honestly. Seems more fun. I love Colby's excitement, but the Zealot barb just has so much more flavor. And Warlock is way cooler than Sorcerer don't @ me.
Problem is with zealot barb is you don't get to choose when you apply you extra d6 damage
Its automatically applied on the first creature hit on your turn. So if you get a crit on your second attack or bonus action that d6 does nothing
I do like the Orcish Fury feat, fun stuff.
@@philpeters3689
"The first creature you hit," not "the first *time* you hit." Doesn't that mean you can use it against creature #1 if they're still alive on your second attack?
@@sailboat908 "first creature you hit on each of your turns". So it's restricted to the first attack that lands on your turn. Even if you hit all 2/3/4 attacks (and on different creatures) it only applies to the first attaack that lands that turn
I’m using this build in my next campaign but I’m doing an Elf for Elven Accuracy. Sacrificing 1d12 from Savage Attack is worth criting more often in my opinion!
Doesn’t work. Elven Accuracy only works for all attacks except Strength and Constitution
I've come across an incredibly strong lvl5 build, but I'm not sure how to keep it's power from dropping off at higher levels yet. It's a Kobold Artificer(Battle Smith) who rides around his Steel Defender. When not in direct sunlight, they get advantage on every attack due to pack tactics. Since it's 2 creatures acting as one, action economy is great with 2 reactions (including disadvantaging attacks), bonus action dash and attack, 40 base move speed, etc. They have Hex through being Fey Touched to pick up an extra d6 on each (non-steel defender) attack. As an Artificer wearing Half-Plate, Shield, and WarHammer they have an AC of 19 and can use Shield spell basically every round it's needed to get AC up to an untouchable 24. If your DM allows it, they can also make one acid vial every down-time day with which to use as ammo for the catapult spell (3d8 force + 2d6 acid) at no cost using Alchemy Jug. (It's also a very flavorful character with lots of out-of-combat capabilities, but that's not really what this channel cares about.) Anyways, higher levels of Artificer don't seem to pay out, and I'm not sure ATM what multi-classing will synergize well with this cyborg combat mage. Any ideas?
catapult + acid flask is RAW. a dm who disallows it is not a fun DM.
for multiclass, no build ever goes wrong with taking 2 levels of fighter for action surge and a fighting style.
higher levels of artificer has one of the most broken abilities in the game: spell storing item. imo if you are starting near level 11 or will get to play level 11+ for 50% of the campaign, i'd go straight artificer until you hit 11 before considering multiclassing. it's a very powerful burst option as (since you mentioned catapult). you could do that same catapult + acid 10x in one turn with spell storing item by level 13. that's 30d8 + 20d6 of dmg without even using your own actions yet.
i'll share my own battlesmith that i've played though its role is different from yours in some way (summoner) as you may pickup ideas. i do use my steel defender as a mount too though. i didn't bother going after spell storing item as the DM let us know we'd be ending the campaign at around level 12-13. i wouldn't have enough levels to enjoy it. here's the level 10 spread.
fighter 2, diviner 5, battlesmith 3
custom lineage: feytouched-dissonant whispers
asi: warcaster
fighting style: superior technique-ambush
infusions: enhanced defense, mind sharpener
tactics:
pre-combat: summon 1-3 tiny servants, walk around repeat casting magic stone. standing orders to pick up magic stone and fling at my enemy.
1st round:
action: cast summon undead (ghost) beside the enemy
move beside the enemy
action surge: cast dissonant whispers. enemy provokes aoo from you, steel defender and ghost.
reaction: cast blindness/hold person
ghost: aoo
steel defender: aoo
bonus action: command steel defender to attack
free action: command ghost to attack (possibly twice if cast as a 4th level spell)
free action: drop 3 magic stones
tiny servant 1-3: pick up magic stone, throw at enemy
so yeah my build does tons of attacks. lol. it just isn't me. blindness/hold provides advantage for those attacks.