I still use variant human for most of my builds. The 16 to main stat and 16 constitution is really hard for me to give up, even if I know custom lineage would be better damage.
Absolutely agree with the Caster-Martial argument, spells like bless, hold person, haste, blessed weapon, hold monster and many others deal WAY more damage than any spell at similar levels if you have a good martial to cast them on, and no casters on their own or martials on their own could ever achieve similar levels of damage, very simbiotic relationship
@@applecrow8 Bane may not work every time, but it reduces saving throws. The way I see it, Bless is a spell for boosting damage, while Bane is a spell for improving control. The issue with Bane is that initial saving throw can throw a wrench in your plans, but reducing a d4 from saving throws is amazing for pretty much everything except for straight damage.
For some perspective on the amount of damage you deal with this character at high level, here are some creatures that you could feasibly Kill outright on your first turn in combat: Purple Worm, Adult Dragon (any flavor), Iron Golem, Solar, Roc, Storm Giant.
For the last two levels, why not take another level or ranger and another level of fighter? Then we can get *two* additional ASIs that can be spent on feats, like the lucky feat which can help us turn some misses into hits and will even help our defense, or increase our constitution in order to make more attacks via our unleash incarnation feature *and* increase our defense at the same time, or even both!
@@JoeHero40k armorer artificer uses lightning launcher, tempest cleric allows you to channel divinity to max damage, rogue allows for sneak attack. My two favorite for this would be soul knife for concentration free invisibility to get into combat hopefully with surprise or at the very least have advantage on your first attack. Though with sharpshooter feat and 300 ft range on lightning launcher you’d probably be able to get surprise simply due to them not even being aware of you. Phantom allows you to pass through objects. So you’d be able to go underground or stay in a wall and ambush whomever you’re trying kill. It’s a first round of combat burst/nova damage build that basically you get 60 damage guaranteed flat if you hit, but 120 if you crit. It’s not crazy damage, but it’s fun. I prefer the new dragon monk mixed with tempest cleric for lightning kicks and thunderbolt strike. So you’re kicking people around and moving them as much as you like. Concentrate on spirit shroud so that you’re doing decent damage and now the dragon monk isn’t so bad.
The favored foe/rage concentration thing is yet more proof of how unhelpful 5e's "natural language" thing is. By your reading, and by most folks normal reading of the rules involved, it could have worked. RAI basically involves treating your concentration as a universal slot that only one thing can occupy and rage disallows use of, but it's never written that way. I like 5e a lot, but that doesn't mean it isn't hella frustrating at times. Too often the rules would have benefitted from even a small glossary defining some explicit game terms. "As if concentrating on a spell" is bullshit.
It's a good thing Wizards gave a statement saying that Jeremy Crawford's tweets are NOT official rulings and don't have to be followed. His initials may be JC but he's certainly not the Jesus of D&D.
If anything, I blame them for changing Favored Foe to use concentration. It was fine the way it was, but the community got so up in arms that it got nerfed into the dirt. And even the idea that you could stack it and HM didn't make sense as we've seen marking abilities not work that way even before we got here. But basically I'm just an old man yelling at a cloud. XD
Weird, from the way the rules are currently written I inferred that a creature can only concentrate on one thing at a time, regardless of what that thing is, and that rage makes you unable to concentrate on anything. Personally I find it incomprehensible that people would read it any other way just because "technically" rage just specifies spells - ignoring the fact that when it was written the only thing characters had to concentrate on were spells.
@@LupineShadowOmega The UA favored foe made it essentially a requirement for every monk to MC into Ranger. That extra 1d4 on 4 attacks no concentration, no BA, was just too perfect a fit. That said, I think they went a little too far the other way. It should either require concentration (thus not stack with Hunter's Mark) OR be extra damage only 1/turn.
@@richardwhaler8717 "If you are able to cast spells, you cannot cast them or concentrate on them while raging" taken literally means exactly what it says. Nothing more. I know what the rules and the intent are, but I still think my argument is obvious that the game could have used a bit more accuracy and precision in its rules.
This was fun! I really enjoyed it! I always love your builds. The other day I was reading through one of your threads on an old Pathfinder forum where you were defending optimization. You said that, not only is optimization compatible with role-playing, But sometimes it's necessary in order to play a particular character concept without becoming ineffective. Of course you said the same thing on this channel too, but it was different to read you responding directly to people who disagree. In my experience, this is not how most of us create characters, though I wish it was. Usually I will find a cool ability, feat, or combination and then work from there. I end up "discovering" my character through the process. I have played some really fun characters that way. But I like yours way better. I have a suggestion. I would love to see you explore that method more. You could take a particular concept and then show a couple of builds for it. You could maybe include a "you might be tempted to build it this way but here's why you shouldn't" example. This is kind of what you already did with your Mage Hunter videos. How would you feel about more of that type of analysis?
Worth noting if you are focusing purely on damage, Battlemaster with precision attack, and maybe some of the reaction attack maneuvers like riposte, will deal more damage over a course of a day. One precision attack is going to bring about as much damage as one unleash incarnation, and with a single short rest you'll get 10 of them in a day (instead of 2 per day). Slightly less single round burst, I suppose? (Of course, you would miss out on a lot of busted Echo Knight utility, so Echo Knight probably makes a better character). I will say that I'm not enthusiastic about the spore druid pick, though, cause if you lose the temp HP (and we're talking 8 temp HP), the ability ends and you lose the d6 necrotic damage. Maybe that's no different than losing concentration on something like hunter's mark, but if it makes your AC worse, I'm underwhelmed. I would just take Barb to level 3 and grab Zealot. Little bit of extra damage every time you rage, and one more rage per long rest.
Could maybe use the fighter combat style for Superior Technique for riposte (could great weapon at the start and swap it later to take great weapon fighting as the ranger one.... blindsense can probably be dealt with with magic items). That last ASI could give Martial Adept for 2 ripostes per short rest. And some other maneuvers that won't get used because riposte is more helpful... maybe just social or utility ones....
The busted Echo knight utility does out weigh the battlemaster maneuvers. Having the ability to be so mobile and effectively be in two places at once is just too strong. Its so strong that every martial class should dip 3 levels for echo knight. The battlemaster is my favorite fighter class. Echo knight reeks of Cheese.
@@sharkforce8147 An echo knight can use that same feat slot to boost damage when the Battlemaster is using it to catch up on utility and mobility (finding phantom steed isn't a given either), so a BM is only better at damage if it gives up on mobility. The Echo is easily one of the most powerful abilities in the game and better enables a melee build than anything the BM has. Mobility is king.
I always think these kind of characters even less extreme ones are undervalued by many. I get control feels more clever and can be more fun for people heck even me as I generally play mages. But stacking bodies is the ultimate control.
Aren't Jeremy Crawford's twitter responses essentially just, how he would rule it at his table? The rage plus non-spell concentration is not the worst call I've seen from him, but it's definitely in the "not supported by the printed text" category (and not alone there, either!)
you're right that what Jeremy Crawford says on twitter shouldn't be rule of law. that being said I think he's right here and I would rule the same way. in the text for favoured foe it says "as if you were concentrating on a spell" being in a rage means you can't cast spells and can't concentrate on them. concentrating on favoured foe is the same as if it were a spell. it was written that way so it wouldn't cost spell slots to use, and that people wouldn't have to pick hunters mark every time look at it from a flavour standpoint. if you're a raging barbarian you aren't concentrating on fighting a favoured foe. you're red in the eyes and hitting anything that moves. you don't have time for anything that even resembles a spell
I generally consider his tweets the intention of the rule, which generally speaking I try to follow. In this case, honestly it's pretty small stakes, FF isn't adding much, but it was a pain to have to go back and edit all the damage calculations!
@@jackbuggeln4870 From a flavor standpoint, wouldn't being in a rage synergize well with a favored enemy? Wouldn't it even be appropriate to consider a favored enemy the _cause_ and focus of going into a rage? Look at how often a "blind rage" is portrayed as a single-minded focus on a target in media rather than lashing out at anything within arms reach. D&D certainly doesn't enforce the latter instance by making the barbarian roll a d100 to determine a target for each round.
@@TreantmonksTemple So would you require a 25gp consumed component for casting Protection from Evil and Good? He said both ways within ~15 minutes of each other. Or do you flip a coin to decide?
Personally, I disagree with the druid here, the ability gives temp hp equal to 4 per druid level so 8 and if you lose em if the ability turns off, taking 8 damage at lvl 20 is going to happen always and very easily, and it takes a full action to set up wich you can't do on first round cuz you'd lose out on gloomstalker damage. Personally, even tough this is a damage build I'd take barbarian to 3 and take bear totem totem as to not explode at higher levels, remember if you go down you ain't dealing damage. The last level could just be in barb for more hp a feat or improvement, or hex blade for hex blade curse, if you can set it up that's 6 more damage per attack and that's insane
I concur. Hitting Fey Wanderer 3 would add a d4 per round per target of psychic damage without touching action economy, Zealot 3 would give +1d6+1 per turn for two minutes a day, plus they give a sliver more health.
I was thinking the exact same for the Spores temp hp. Going further in barbarian seems to make sense... an extra rage and an extra ASI for more Con so more Echo Knight Attacks seems more valuable than Symbiotic Entity unless you can guarantee that you will get to attack before you get hit AND that you have time to pre use Symbiotic Entity before the fight. If you wanted more damage regardless of defensive ability you could go for Zealot over Bear Totem though... though Ancestors wouldn't be terrible either. Alternatively you could up your ranger and fighter levels and have 2 ASI's if that's worth it to you....
Agree that the druid ability is not likely to carry over into round two. Bear totem plus tough feat would definitely make Whoopi harder to put down after then jump you for 11 attacks. That or Zealot to let your party revive you for free after you go down haha. Hexblade Warlock is not viable with this build due to CHA requirement.
@@Spectrulus Three minutes per day.... you'd have a third rage at level 3. Fey Wanderer is out because it's already a Gloom Stalker for the extra attacks and if nova damage is being looked at over steady damage then it would lose out.
For a 1-level dip to add some extra attack beef (although it does also cost you an extra feat), I like to weild a piercing or slashing weapon, take Genie Warlock, pick Dao, and take both Crusher AND whichever of Piercer/Slasher applies. It's not improving every attack, but it is potentially significant to have both feats trigger on at least one of them per turn. As well, it gives me this lovely flavour idea where you made your weapon out of unusually heavy material and that's why it crushes as well as doing whatever else it does.
Ive got an interesting character who went Echoknight 18 and Barbarian 2. He uses feats for a majority of his ASIs to have two fighting styles Archery, Thrown Weapon Fighter. He also took Slasher, Sharpshooter and Thrown Arms Master (from Crit Role) and I was allowed to take the UA feat Fell Handed because he fights with hand axes. In addition to this he had an artificer enchant his hand axes to make them Returning Weapons (and give em a +1 as well, gotta have magic weapons of course) while his eventual damage output does not equal yours I think I’ve come up with something a bit unique. I have a barbarian who can kite. He reckless attacks through his echos,can attack at range and yet still be the agro draw with his echo, has incredible mobility because of echos and when he does take a hit can soak the most common forms of damage and deals some pretty darn good damage without putting himself in melee range to do it. It been damned fun to play especially when he hit level 20 and got his second echo.
And now imagine that cleric is a peace cleric that manages to get their emboldening bond going before they cast bless….or your eloquence bard dishes out unfailing an infectious inspiration for an extra d12 to hit. Or both.
You said near the 24 minutes mark that the first turn bonus action is taken by raging. But to be able to nova like you show in the video and use unleash incarnation, you need to have an eccho out. That means the first turn of combat, you need to use your bonus action to manifest your eccho. The video is great as always, I'm just nitpicking. Nice to see war cleric find a spot in a build even if it's only 2 levels at the end.
@@joseluizps95 exactly. As you should already have the echo active, you don’t need to use a BA to manifest it. Granted, sometimes you won’t already have it out so you then will have to spend a turn manifesting, but since there’s no time limit on echos you should have them up all the time anyway. It’d be like a warlock walking around without their pact weapons or familiars ready, it just doesn’t make sense except from the rare situation of trying to be incognito and sneaking somewhere.
@@joseluizps95 100% right. It's weird to summon and/or move the eccho all the time outside of combat (it must be taxing for the character), but it's possible to always have it by your side. I stand corrected :)
So, I completely remove the concentration requirement on favored foe, and I give them another 2nd level ability which is effectively a ranged version of divine smite which does the weapons damage type. The ability is called natures wrath, and what it does is when you hit an opponent with a melee or ranged weapon attack you can spend a spell slot to deal an additional 2d6 damage of the weapons damage type increasing by 1d6 per level maxing out at 5d6 damage. This gives the ranger the boost it desires to be competitive in terms of damage, and the lower damage dice along with the lack of magical damage balances out its ability to be used at range. Additionally, this means the ranger has a much higher burst damage when compared to its original damage output which was more reliant on consistent damage being completely outdone by the fighter.
If I recall correctly, JC discussed GWF(class ability) and a lot of his thinking was (appropriately) based on “we don’t want tons of rerolling”. Consistent with that idea, I house ruled GWF as follows. For every damage die rolled on a GWF-attack, there is a minimum damage as follows: d4 = min 2; d6 = min 3; d8 = min 4; d10 = min 4; d12 = min 5 If the player chooses to use GWF on a legitimate hit/target: Every die, regardless of source counts. Neither the player nor any allies can use any other ability to affect the damage rolls. No rerolling. Technically, this is a slight disadvantage in terms of “average damage” BUT it is a significant benefit in that it ensures a “big hit” doesn’t just happen to roll awful damage. If a melee combatant crits with a flaming greatsword and tosses in a couple more dice from some ability…they might be rolling 12d6 and still get…well, 12 would be pretty rare, obviously…but 20-25? It happens, and it just isn’t fun. What you really want, as a fighter choosing GWF, is some control and consistent damage. You’re forgoing a shield, you’re likely crit-fishing to some extent. Using a “minimum per die” rule eliminates re-rolling and gives the player a “safety net” of minimum 36 damage on a 12d6 “big hit”. If you look at the probability, it is possible to crit-fish a point or two of damage over the rules-as-written. But, in my experience that ends up being 30 vs 32. Getting a straight crit with any weapon and it is either the same or slightly disadvantageous. But, if you play it out…it works great. There are no re-rolls. The melee combatant that is really investing in “big hit” nova smack downs can still potentially role straight max damage, and is assured of getting a damage minimum better than a combatant-dabble. But, on average, they don’t do more damage round-to-round. I’ve been asked about allowing it for other weapons-groups…but, I think GWF exists (and analogous fighting styles with other weapons don’t) specifically to give Conan-style fighters something extra. A finesse-weapon fighter is probably more mobile and maybe higher AC. An archer isn’t in the front rank and taking damage. The tank/beatdown is the character that exposes themselves to the most immediate and punishing consequences in any combat…and in 3 rounds (considering target AC) they usually connect with 2-6 hits. If those dice don’t roll well, that enemy isn’t reduced to 0 hp and will usually respond by attacking the obvious threat…which is the tank. I told them that the point of the GWF fighting style was to provide control and consistent outcomes to a fighter that was inherently constrained in choices regarding mobility and tactical placement. If you’re willing to lumber forward into immediate melee contact and, in general, stay there…then you have a few moments to make sure, if you do connect, you get a decent blow. A GWF isn’t usually running away, so they can focus a bit more on follow-through. The point is, the players of the combatant characters preferred “dice minimum” to “re-roll” *knowing that it was usually slightly disadvantageous* especially in early levels when there are less smite abilities and other damage riders. It was much easier to roll a handful of dice without saying “sword, flame-blade, smite, hex” and constantly worrying about which dice were legal to reroll. It’s fast and simple. This was so much the case that, of course, everyone was asking for a version that complemented a different build; rogues, archers, spell-snipers, etc.
Straight damage builds tend to get the opposite attention that the god-wizard get despite the fact that they arguably have more weaknesses. If you are playing with people who get easily upset when they sense "min-maxing" then avoid stuff like this. You also are more likely to "outshine" another player as a lot of unoptimized characters think damage is their focus too.
Hot take: straight damage builds are generically better than god-wizard builds in late T3 and T4, mainly because monsters start getting a lot of 'screw you, your spell isn't working, better hope your DM didn't ban Wall of Force' abilities and also because monster hit points don't scale as sharply from CR10 to 20+ as they do from CR2 to 10. I say generically better, because the good wizard subclasses (Illusionist, Chronurgist, Loremaster, etc.) have ways to get around that, especially if you allow magical items. But when I played Adventurer's League I found out my cheesed-out Hexvoker worked better in higher tiers than my Bladesinger or Illusionist did.
@@Duranous. God-wizards aren't good at providing passive defense, though. They can only provide meaningful active defense by casting spells that block the enemy team from acting. Which is why I brought up Wall of Force -- you still have options at that level, but they're lopsided options that circumvent the saving throw system like that spell, Major Image with a permissive DM, upcast Fly, Anti-Magic Field, Dark Star, etc. And yeah, those are RAW options, but if your group is going to get pissy about you being able to drop the hammer with 200+ damage in late T3/T4, they're going to get even more pissy about you completely owning the opposition with Dark Star + Continual Flame torches.
@@maltheopia I just don't know what you are talking about, I use the god-wizard as an example. The point I'm making is that sacrificing defense at every turn for offense doesn't actually make a very optimized character. Chris has said as much himself in his video about how dpr is not a good metric. If you are disabled or dead you deal zero damage. If you can hinder the enemy from dealing damage to your team that is the same as defense.
At lvl 4 on this build when you pick up GWM the target ac for when to use it is 16 without and 17 with advantage. Lvl 5 it goes up to 17 without advantage and 18 with advantage because of the proficiency increase.
Toss in the Paladin throwing up Crusader's Mantle and somebody else can Animate Objects for fun. 🤣 Bonus points for ten silver pieces so they're silvered and magical, averaging 90 additional damage per round with this combo, split up to 10 ways. Side note, not sure why Favored Foe is so strongly suggested if you're not taking 6+ Ranger levels (where the die scales), and just need burst. It's 1-2 d4s per turn, since you only get the damage once per turn - it definitely doesn't stack with Extra Attack.
OBJECTION! Unleash Incarnation specifies that the additional attacks are made "from the echo's position". This requires an echo and summoning one requires a bonus action. You can either unleash incarnation OR rage on turn one, not both.
@@valentinrafael9201 Yes it does. In order to use Unleash Incarnation you need to have an Echo present. That means you have to use Manifest Echo, and Manifest Echo *does* require your Bonus Action.
Super late, but another point in favor of Hunter's Mark is that later on you're upcasting with higher spell slots. If you hit 3rd level slots, you can concentrate for 8 hours allowing you to cast it earlier in the day and still be able to use another Bonus Action ability like the GWM ability or a spell like Healing Word, Sanctuary, or if you keep going Cleric levels at the end - Spiritual Weapon. Now you've got 1d6 on every weapon attack and 1d8 + 2 on the Bonus attack (if you don't crit). I think Circle of Spores is a good idea still if you're able to get it ahead of time, though all the spellcasting late game seems to make the Barbarian levels useless.
Cool build-thanks for showing what is possible. Would prob grab war cleric at 1st for wis saves and more power in early game. Appreciate your vids, Chris
I'd be really interested to know how you would build a full leveled Echo Knight. Multiclassing is cool and all, but I'm always curious to know how the class compares by itself.
My personal fav all damage build has been Fighter Paladin and Barbarian multiclass. Champion Zealot and Vengeance all to make a lovely crit fish smiter who doesnt mind making the cleric go take care of someone else. Just bring me back to life is my motto
One little thing I noticed... You can't wear heavy armor if you want to rage. It says so in the PHB, you could even read it in your video. But overall nice vid
Amazing build, change the race to the new Bugbear from MotM and you're first round is crazy! To ensure you go first I might switch out Great Weapon Fighting with Superior Technique and take Ambush, just to add a 1d6 to each Initiative roll.
Tracking data we realized that UA xbow user revised ranger was probably the most broken single class build of 5e. After we finished a campaign, we banned it. Luckily nowadays we have Tasha's ranger, which keeps been among top damage dealers and it's in our opinion more fun.
Hey Chris. I’m kinda of a newbie so sorry if I missed something important. At higher levels, are we still using rage? If so, does that negate every concentration spell including the ranger and cleric spells? Once we rage we’re committing to no magic, right?
Treant - A number of people have commented that you are allowing to many uses of Unleash in the first round. Only one per Attack Action. Not per attack. So, 1 vs 2. Also, some have argued that Action Surge does or doesn't double the number of Unleashes that can be used.
It's one per attack action, not one per attack, but if you take 2 attack actions, then you can use it once for each of those actions, or at least that's how I read it.
Some of the BM maneouvres work really well with the archery fighting style, i'd probably go with that subclass over echo knight since the unleash incarnation ability doesn't work at range
@@TreantmonksTemple I like the 5 gloomstalker, 3 assassin, 3 battlemaster build for a ranged damage dealer. Assassin gets trashed a lot but in this niche build its mainly there to add advantage on round 1 which is likely due to Dex + wis to initiative. I take gloomstalker 5 rather than fighter for pass without trace in a campain but for a lvl 20 1 shot i would likely swap that to 11 battlemaster 3 gloom, rest assassin.
If you rage on round one, doesn't that invalidate hunters mark and zephyr for the rest of the fight? Or is this to supplement multiple combats with only two rages?
This kind of build is precisely why I disagreed with champion’s position in your last video Yes echo still performs better, but extra crits here would be very decent (not just for increasing basic damage output, but to proc GWM and crusher before your barb lvls) Cool build, the kind I’m learning to enjoy more and more as I’m building my newest character
@@bags. you can’t control them, but once you’re hitting 3x a turn with advantage at double crit rate that becomes less of an issue The build works differently yes, I wouldn’t take GWM as soon as Chris took, probably invest a few more lvls into ensuring my crits before investing into their payback But yes, you can’t increase your number of attacks as much as this video’s build, which in turn makes it harder to crit on demand
There is something I don’t understand … how can this build use the “Symbiotic Entity” feature during the 1st turn and pair it with Gloom Staker’s “Dread Ambusher” if it requires you to spend an action to give up wildshape to activate spores? I think I’m missing something. Can someone explain this please?
I really like it, on a campaign I think it would be better a third lvl in Barbarian getting Path of the Totem Warrior Bear for the resistances instead of the druid levels. However I understand the extra spellcasting levels are also useful for upscaling spells.
... Yeah, but the best thing about Spirit Guardians really isn't the damage that it does; it's the debuff it gives to your enemies' movement. But sure, if your party contains a fighter like this AND a Soradin/Hexadin AND a Zealot barbarian/battle master fighter multiclass or similar damage-enhancing subclasses, Bless is a great damage enhancer. Just remember that as a cleric with Spirit Guardians up, standing on the edge of, say, a Spike Growth spell, you reduce your enemies' movement to ONE SQUARE PER TURN as they attempt to approach you, saving throw or no saving throw. That kicks ass at any level. ;)
On the first round of combat don't you have to use your bonus action to create your Echo so that you can use Unleash Incarnation? I don't think you can Rage on the first round
do you actually need barbarian to get advantage ? Gloomstamler your considered invisible while in darkness, meaning you have advantage. And that way you can concentrate on favored foe
i don’t understand how Zephyr Strike works for this build, the extra movement/OA dodge is mostly negated by Echo Knight’s teleports and advantage has been taken care of by Barbarian levels. So you’re left with the occasional 1d8 damage at the cost of a bonus action on a build that is pretty bonus action-heavy. What am i missing here?
instead of Druid, I'd take Ranger 4 and fighter 12 for Tough to help stay standing, and Martial Adept for a couple of Battle maneuvers. Or if not wanting tough maybe mobile for the additional movement or just one feat and take ranger up more for more spell slots
With your Monk ranking coming up, I think you should revisit the Ranged Kensei. I think Focused Aim, Ki Empowered Strike, and the ability to pick up the Archery Fighting style via a feat have really made it viable. While you cap at 3 attacks per turn, the accuracy you can achieve before even getting advantage is insane. In my calculations it kept up with Ranged Fighters, except maybe levels 1-3, exactly level 11, and exactly 20. It really picks up once you hit level 6 and get deft strike and it's decent at conserving Ki (spending 1-2 per round). And you can kind of dump wisdom with this build, though you might want enough to be able to maybe multiclass War Cleric or Fighter or Gloom Stalker.
One thing I see with Kensei ranged damage calculations, especially comparing to other ranged builds, is sharpen the blade is used with the assumption of no magic weapons, and I don't think that's going to give accurate information since at 11th level I think it's pretty likely you're rocking a decent magic weapon by that point.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah. In my experience a lot of times bow users get Bracers of Archery and Magic Quivers or magic ammo over +1/2/3 longbows but… it’s an unknown. Best to ignore it. Like it’s a cool thing if you have a secondary weapon (e.g., melee weapon) or find a bow with a great magic property but no bonus. The latter happened to me, and it was almost broken because the bow wasn’t balanced around ever getting +1/2/3 bonus… but for comparisons I’d ignore the feature, because once you have a +2 bow it’s not really worth the bonus action and ki. Calculating focused aim damage was rough though. I actually had to do a ton of math on the optimal way to spend ki to maximize damage and ki empowered strikes while sustaining over 8-12 rounds. I can dig up my spreadsheets and let you know what I found. It was surprisingly good. Not A-tier or B-tier by your standards but I think it could cut C-tier. Great damage, eventually great saves, and a few good monk tricks for a tight jam. But it lacked the spells of a Ranger or the burst damage of a Battlemaster archer.
Why not take Barbarian 3 and grab Zealot? You might lose out a *little* on damage but not THAT much, and what you get out of it is arguably better, in the *ultimate* defensive option: Being able to die, and be brought back with little to no reprocussions, allowing you to really go all out. Plus, the 1d6+2 from Divine Fury is statistically guarenteed, as it will *always* apply to the first hit you connect; and it can be Radiant, which in addition to being one of the rarest resisted damage types (and I always like to say, even rarer then you'd think when you consider most parties would never be realistically fighting celestials), can be extra effective against many kinds of undead or fiends, shutting down regeneration and other such things.
So, im going through a very similar build, but i have found the list of magical mauls from WotC, and most places i play is sorely lacking. As such, i went with greatsword and slasher instead of maul and crusher. Tons of cool magic swords. Not many mauls.
My only critique is druid at the end. 1 more level of fighter would have been another feat or ASI, and there are a bunch of good options all over the place. beyond that, I don't feel like the druid stuff is reliable. I think you could justify it by liking to have wildshape for utility, but its kind of a meh option imho. 1 more level in fighter + 1 more in cleric or ranger or barbarian - I think that's probably where I'd end up.
Conjure animals shepard druid, plus fey touched too use dissonant whispers to have all your animals do opportunity attacks on something= tons of damage.
I would generally expect conjure animals (8 creatures) to do anywhere from 30-50 points of damage on their turn, so you can double that if you can give them all opportunity attacks. Creature placement can be a challenge sometimes though.
@@TreantmonksTemple placement is definitely an obstacle, flying animals like flying snakes will probably work best as they can take up the squares above and below, but picking fliers is not always an option 👍
@@TreantmonksTemple yup lol. My current dm on roll 20 is allowing me to pick what ever as long as I do the work of creating the tokens myself, but I mix up what I summon just because I know it's technically should be random what I get. I won't be summoning broken option like pixies when I get conjure woodland creatures though lol.
You know, I never really thought about that until you bring it up. Presumably an enemy can still see your echo, though technically it's not your echo that's attacking, you're attacking, only through the echo's location, so I think you would still benefit.
The invisibility when in darkness is permanent though. And extra saving theow proficiencies are always welcome. Plus rerolling a failed attack is nice too. Overall i think it's a good sublcsss in all rounds of combat. But that first round definitely is where it shines
@@crunchevo8974 that's not really the case. Read it again. "Invisible to those who rely of darkvision to see." So it's not as strong as everyone thinks it is. So you have to be in darkness AND the creature has to be using darkvision to see in said area. I would argue that if the creature, like a bat, uses sound to "see" that you will not be invisible. Also in order for you to get this effect all the time while in a cave the rest of the party has to fight in darkness which is not fair to others. (Forcing the party to play YOUR WAY)
Could you go into more detail into how you calculated Divine Strike into your Burst Damage? I couldn't find much info online, and I'm working on a build that uses a similar ability.
Very cool. I also track data and I do something in terms of party synergies: If an attack would miss and hit because of an action of another PC, I record the damage as 50% for each of them. For example, rogue would miss without advantage, but open hand monk left the foe prone, 50% of the damage goes to each PC. Same for bless, portent, war God's blessing, etc. You may consider this. It might actually help to convince some players to be more supportive too. On the other hand, having data being tracked might stimulate players to compete among themselves. So far it was not an issue as our players are not prone to it and I only share data multiple sessions later, except for the DMs who can have access to it whenever they want.
So you're telling me this build doesn't get extra attack until level 10!? Like, it's a fun concept, but I can't imagine playing this build would be fun, especially if you never even get to the higher levels. I mean, I guess it would work if your dm only runs 1-2 fights a day.
All this multiclassing seems like a huge effort. How does this build compare to a straight 20 level fighter build instead? I guess it's also worth mentioning that this glass cannon strategy doesn't hold up if there's a lot of combats between long rests.
Lol, you must be new here. While he didn’t mention it here, he doesn’t make builds that don’t sustain and this is waaaaay better than a straight class at doing damage.
Can you do a build that excels at combining mobility with control/damage to strike at more vulnerable backline targets or enemies in tough environments? The Monk is often cited as effective at that and I want to see how else you'd address this capability.
Slight modifications. Swap custom lineage for centaur. Dispose of the drop into druid, and cleric,and put those into getting barb 6. If you want movement throughout both totems as elk. 40 ft base, doubled without rage with barb 6. Add another 30 after zephyr strike. Add another 10 ft for 1st rd with dread ambusher. 120 ft movement first turn, and 95 after if you rage. Add in mobile feat in place of one of an asi increase, use a polearm, and a passing swing so no opportunity attacks, and have another 10 ft range. There is no back line for this char.. lol End up barb 6, ranger 3, fighter 11.
Can a full spell caster (with 9th level spell slots) get more burst dpr than this character in any way, in particular single target dpr? What about daily dpr?
"Generic Race became the strongest race."
Variant Human: "First time?"
I honestly like regular human for some mad builds
@@arrowodd7695 It's crazy good at it.
I still use variant human for most of my builds. The 16 to main stat and 16 constitution is really hard for me to give up, even if I know custom lineage would be better damage.
@@imjustwolf 14 CON is fine for most builds
Vhuman paladins are still better though, since 16 in both CHA and STR is basically needed.
@@dudor5126 14 CON is fine. I just like really tanky builds so the higher HP is nice to me.
Thaumaturgy for the pre-ass-kicking thunder is the most important part of the build
You need the Ka-boom.
I’m picturing an old school wrestling theme song playing as it happens.
Cause stone cold said so.
@@binolombardi Didn't Triple H theme song start with a thunder?
@@TreantmonksTemple you do need heavenly trumpets to play the "AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!" melody before you melt faces.
If I was a cleric with 3 of these characters in my party, I’d be reflecting on my life choices.
Indeed you should rethink your life choice, peace would have been a much better choice in this situation than life ;)
Cleric, "OK, let's coordinate...." Rest of the Party "RAAARH RAGE! ME HIT THINGS!" Cleric, "Lord, why do you keep testing me?"
@@TreantmonksTemple Whoopi strikes me as the type who does sociopathic laughter while raging.
@@TreantmonksTemple 😂😂😂
@@fadeleaf845 this is assuming you do the wuss defense version ree lmao
Absolutely agree with the Caster-Martial argument, spells like bless, hold person, haste, blessed weapon, hold monster and many others deal WAY more damage than any spell at similar levels if you have a good martial to cast them on, and no casters on their own or martials on their own could ever achieve similar levels of damage, very simbiotic relationship
Druid deals more damage than all of these
@@wayward41 Wait what? Other than moon druid at low levels druid aren't good damage dealers
I'm fascinated at how often people choose Bane over Bless. Bless is guaranteed to work every time.
I've always said the Fighter is the premier magic weapons user, it's also a great target for these damage/accuracy buffing spells.
@@applecrow8 Bane may not work every time, but it reduces saving throws. The way I see it, Bless is a spell for boosting damage, while Bane is a spell for improving control. The issue with Bane is that initial saving throw can throw a wrench in your plans, but reducing a d4 from saving throws is amazing for pretty much everything except for straight damage.
very good point about mixed partys in the end
you're killing me with these character names
they knock the wind out of me every time
For some perspective on the amount of damage you deal with this character at high level, here are some creatures that you could feasibly Kill outright on your first turn in combat: Purple Worm, Adult Dragon (any flavor), Iron Golem, Solar, Roc, Storm Giant.
A *Solar* ???????
Imagine just fighting the champion of Torm and demolishing them in 6 seconds
For the last two levels, why not take another level or ranger and another level of fighter? Then we can get *two* additional ASIs that can be spent on feats, like the lucky feat which can help us turn some misses into hits and will even help our defense, or increase our constitution in order to make more attacks via our unleash incarnation feature *and* increase our defense at the same time, or even both!
That's what I'm planning to do if I decide to use that build. I'm not a huge fan of druids so I avoid using the class.
Yeah, in retrospect I would probably not bother with the druid levels.
@@TreantmonksTemple could you do a video on 5 armorer artificer/2 tempest cleric/ 13 soul knife or phantom rogue build?
@@Trial88 what is that build trying to accomplish. You have me curious.
@@JoeHero40k armorer artificer uses lightning launcher, tempest cleric allows you to channel divinity to max damage, rogue allows for sneak attack. My two favorite for this would be soul knife for concentration free invisibility to get into combat hopefully with surprise or at the very least have advantage on your first attack. Though with sharpshooter feat and 300 ft range on lightning launcher you’d probably be able to get surprise simply due to them not even being aware of you. Phantom allows you to pass through objects. So you’d be able to go underground or stay in a wall and ambush whomever you’re trying kill. It’s a first round of combat burst/nova damage build that basically you get 60 damage guaranteed flat if you hit, but 120 if you crit. It’s not crazy damage, but it’s fun. I prefer the new dragon monk mixed with tempest cleric for lightning kicks and thunderbolt strike. So you’re kicking people around and moving them as much as you like. Concentrate on spirit shroud so that you’re doing decent damage and now the dragon monk isn’t so bad.
I’d love to see how all of your custom character builds fit onto the tier list you’ve been making
That would be hard, because these are specific builds, while the ranking is based on potential.
The favored foe/rage concentration thing is yet more proof of how unhelpful 5e's "natural language" thing is. By your reading, and by most folks normal reading of the rules involved, it could have worked. RAI basically involves treating your concentration as a universal slot that only one thing can occupy and rage disallows use of, but it's never written that way. I like 5e a lot, but that doesn't mean it isn't hella frustrating at times. Too often the rules would have benefitted from even a small glossary defining some explicit game terms. "As if concentrating on a spell" is bullshit.
It's a good thing Wizards gave a statement saying that Jeremy Crawford's tweets are NOT official rulings and don't have to be followed. His initials may be JC but he's certainly not the Jesus of D&D.
If anything, I blame them for changing Favored Foe to use concentration. It was fine the way it was, but the community got so up in arms that it got nerfed into the dirt. And even the idea that you could stack it and HM didn't make sense as we've seen marking abilities not work that way even before we got here. But basically I'm just an old man yelling at a cloud. XD
Weird, from the way the rules are currently written I inferred that a creature can only concentrate on one thing at a time, regardless of what that thing is, and that rage makes you unable to concentrate on anything. Personally I find it incomprehensible that people would read it any other way just because "technically" rage just specifies spells - ignoring the fact that when it was written the only thing characters had to concentrate on were spells.
@@LupineShadowOmega The UA favored foe made it essentially a requirement for every monk to MC into Ranger. That extra 1d4 on 4 attacks no concentration, no BA, was just too perfect a fit.
That said, I think they went a little too far the other way. It should either require concentration (thus not stack with Hunter's Mark) OR be extra damage only 1/turn.
@@richardwhaler8717 "If you are able to cast spells, you cannot cast them or concentrate on them while raging" taken literally means exactly what it says. Nothing more. I know what the rules and the intent are, but I still think my argument is obvious that the game could have used a bit more accuracy and precision in its rules.
This was fun! I really enjoyed it! I always love your builds.
The other day I was reading through one of your threads on an old Pathfinder forum where you were defending optimization. You said that, not only is optimization compatible with role-playing, But sometimes it's necessary in order to play a particular character concept without becoming ineffective. Of course you said the same thing on this channel too, but it was different to read you responding directly to people who disagree.
In my experience, this is not how most of us create characters, though I wish it was. Usually I will find a cool ability, feat, or combination and then work from there. I end up "discovering" my character through the process. I have played some really fun characters that way. But I like yours way better.
I have a suggestion. I would love to see you explore that method more. You could take a particular concept and then show a couple of builds for it. You could maybe include a "you might be tempted to build it this way but here's why you shouldn't" example. This is kind of what you already did with your Mage Hunter videos. How would you feel about more of that type of analysis?
If I come up with a good way to angle it to fit nicely in a video, then I would be up for that.
I'm liking this content... but I do know Treantmonk is doing it to push out doing a subclass ranking for his "favorite" class.
I’m glad you gave martial characters some love and acknowledged the important role they play in a party.
Worth noting if you are focusing purely on damage, Battlemaster with precision attack, and maybe some of the reaction attack maneuvers like riposte, will deal more damage over a course of a day. One precision attack is going to bring about as much damage as one unleash incarnation, and with a single short rest you'll get 10 of them in a day (instead of 2 per day). Slightly less single round burst, I suppose? (Of course, you would miss out on a lot of busted Echo Knight utility, so Echo Knight probably makes a better character).
I will say that I'm not enthusiastic about the spore druid pick, though, cause if you lose the temp HP (and we're talking 8 temp HP), the ability ends and you lose the d6 necrotic damage. Maybe that's no different than losing concentration on something like hunter's mark, but if it makes your AC worse, I'm underwhelmed. I would just take Barb to level 3 and grab Zealot. Little bit of extra damage every time you rage, and one more rage per long rest.
Could maybe use the fighter combat style for Superior Technique for riposte (could great weapon at the start and swap it later to take great weapon fighting as the ranger one.... blindsense can probably be dealt with with magic items). That last ASI could give Martial Adept for 2 ripostes per short rest. And some other maneuvers that won't get used because riposte is more helpful... maybe just social or utility ones....
The busted Echo knight utility does out weigh the battlemaster maneuvers. Having the ability to be so mobile and effectively be in two places at once is just too strong. Its so strong that every martial class should dip 3 levels for echo knight. The battlemaster is my favorite fighter class. Echo knight reeks of Cheese.
@@sharkforce8147 i can see the merit to these suggestions.
@@sharkforce8147 An echo knight can use that same feat slot to boost damage when the Battlemaster is using it to catch up on utility and mobility (finding phantom steed isn't a given either), so a BM is only better at damage if it gives up on mobility. The Echo is easily one of the most powerful abilities in the game and better enables a melee build than anything the BM has. Mobility is king.
I always think these kind of characters even less extreme ones are undervalued by many. I get control feels more clever and can be more fun for people heck even me as I generally play mages. But stacking bodies is the ultimate control.
Aren't Jeremy Crawford's twitter responses essentially just, how he would rule it at his table? The rage plus non-spell concentration is not the worst call I've seen from him, but it's definitely in the "not supported by the printed text" category (and not alone there, either!)
you're right that what Jeremy Crawford says on twitter shouldn't be rule of law. that being said I think he's right here and I would rule the same way. in the text for favoured foe it says "as if you were concentrating on a spell"
being in a rage means you can't cast spells and can't concentrate on them. concentrating on favoured foe is the same as if it were a spell. it was written that way so it wouldn't cost spell slots to use, and that people wouldn't have to pick hunters mark every time
look at it from a flavour standpoint. if you're a raging barbarian you aren't concentrating on fighting a favoured foe. you're red in the eyes and hitting anything that moves. you don't have time for anything that even resembles a spell
I generally consider his tweets the intention of the rule, which generally speaking I try to follow. In this case, honestly it's pretty small stakes, FF isn't adding much, but it was a pain to have to go back and edit all the damage calculations!
@@jackbuggeln4870 From a flavor standpoint, wouldn't being in a rage synergize well with a favored enemy? Wouldn't it even be appropriate to consider a favored enemy the _cause_ and focus of going into a rage? Look at how often a "blind rage" is portrayed as a single-minded focus on a target in media rather than lashing out at anything within arms reach. D&D certainly doesn't enforce the latter instance by making the barbarian roll a d100 to determine a target for each round.
@@TreantmonksTemple So would you require a 25gp consumed component for casting Protection from Evil and Good?
He said both ways within ~15 minutes of each other.
Or do you flip a coin to decide?
Personally, I disagree with the druid here, the ability gives temp hp equal to 4 per druid level so 8 and if you lose em if the ability turns off, taking 8 damage at lvl 20 is going to happen always and very easily, and it takes a full action to set up wich you can't do on first round cuz you'd lose out on gloomstalker damage.
Personally, even tough this is a damage build I'd take barbarian to 3 and take bear totem totem as to not explode at higher levels, remember if you go down you ain't dealing damage.
The last level could just be in barb for more hp a feat or improvement, or hex blade for hex blade curse, if you can set it up that's 6 more damage per attack and that's insane
I concur. Hitting Fey Wanderer 3 would add a d4 per round per target of psychic damage without touching action economy, Zealot 3 would give +1d6+1 per turn for two minutes a day, plus they give a sliver more health.
I was thinking the exact same for the Spores temp hp. Going further in barbarian seems to make sense... an extra rage and an extra ASI for more Con so more Echo Knight Attacks seems more valuable than Symbiotic Entity unless you can guarantee that you will get to attack before you get hit AND that you have time to pre use Symbiotic Entity before the fight. If you wanted more damage regardless of defensive ability you could go for Zealot over Bear Totem though... though Ancestors wouldn't be terrible either. Alternatively you could up your ranger and fighter levels and have 2 ASI's if that's worth it to you....
Agree that the druid ability is not likely to carry over into round two. Bear totem plus tough feat would definitely make Whoopi harder to put down after then jump you for 11 attacks. That or Zealot to let your party revive you for free after you go down haha. Hexblade Warlock is not viable with this build due to CHA requirement.
@@Spectrulus Three minutes per day.... you'd have a third rage at level 3. Fey Wanderer is out because it's already a Gloom Stalker for the extra attacks and if nova damage is being looked at over steady damage then it would lose out.
@@Vyke348 I totes forgot Gloom Stalker, because it's so forgettable for me. Still yeah. More barbarian is the way I would take it.
Drink everytime he says damage
Can I get level 4 and take 'Resilient: Constitution' first?
This is perfect for a villian henchman you want to drop the party's barbarian before they have had a turn.
Id be interested in seeing a comparison between this build and other nova builds, like a sorcadin or hexbow
For a 1-level dip to add some extra attack beef (although it does also cost you an extra feat), I like to weild a piercing or slashing weapon, take Genie Warlock, pick Dao, and take both Crusher AND whichever of Piercer/Slasher applies. It's not improving every attack, but it is potentially significant to have both feats trigger on at least one of them per turn. As well, it gives me this lovely flavour idea where you made your weapon out of unusually heavy material and that's why it crushes as well as doing whatever else it does.
Just FYI, Gloomstalker ability frequently gives you an opportunity to prep before battles. You frequently can get surprise as well.
it turns out that a good balanced party with bless is still the best! ty for the outro
I never noticed that dread ambusher granted an extra hit per attack action... very cool synergy with action surge. Thanks for pointing that out!
Ive got an interesting character who went Echoknight 18 and Barbarian 2. He uses feats for a majority of his ASIs to have two fighting styles Archery, Thrown Weapon Fighter. He also took Slasher, Sharpshooter and Thrown Arms Master (from Crit Role) and I was allowed to take the UA feat Fell Handed because he fights with hand axes.
In addition to this he had an artificer enchant his hand axes to make them Returning Weapons (and give em a +1 as well, gotta have magic weapons of course) while his eventual damage output does not equal yours I think I’ve come up with something a bit unique. I have a barbarian who can kite. He reckless attacks through his echos,can attack at range and yet still be the agro draw with his echo, has incredible mobility because of echos and when he does take a hit can soak the most common forms of damage and deals some pretty darn good damage without putting himself in melee range to do it. It been damned fun to play especially when he hit level 20 and got his second echo.
And now imagine that cleric is a peace cleric that manages to get their emboldening bond going before they cast bless….or your eloquence bard dishes out unfailing an infectious inspiration for an extra d12 to hit. Or both.
You said near the 24 minutes mark that the first turn bonus action is taken by raging. But to be able to nova like you show in the video and use unleash incarnation, you need to have an eccho out. That means the first turn of combat, you need to use your bonus action to manifest your eccho.
The video is great as always, I'm just nitpicking. Nice to see war cleric find a spot in a build even if it's only 2 levels at the end.
there's no time limit on the echo, so there's no reason not to have it out at all times
@@joseluizps95 exactly. As you should already have the echo active, you don’t need to use a BA to manifest it. Granted, sometimes you won’t already have it out so you then will have to spend a turn manifesting, but since there’s no time limit on echos you should have them up all the time anyway. It’d be like a warlock walking around without their pact weapons or familiars ready, it just doesn’t make sense except from the rare situation of trying to be incognito and sneaking somewhere.
@@joseluizps95 100% right. It's weird to summon and/or move the eccho all the time outside of combat (it must be taxing for the character), but it's possible to always have it by your side. I stand corrected :)
Custom Lineage is the best race; what a shock. Totally wasn't what everyone was predicting and worried about.
So, I completely remove the concentration requirement on favored foe, and I give them another 2nd level ability which is effectively a ranged version of divine smite which does the weapons damage type. The ability is called natures wrath, and what it does is when you hit an opponent with a melee or ranged weapon attack you can spend a spell slot to deal an additional 2d6 damage of the weapons damage type increasing by 1d6 per level maxing out at 5d6 damage. This gives the ranger the boost it desires to be competitive in terms of damage, and the lower damage dice along with the lack of magical damage balances out its ability to be used at range. Additionally, this means the ranger has a much higher burst damage when compared to its original damage output which was more reliant on consistent damage being completely outdone by the fighter.
If I recall correctly, JC discussed GWF(class ability) and a lot of his thinking was (appropriately) based on “we don’t want tons of rerolling”. Consistent with that idea, I house ruled GWF as follows. For every damage die rolled on a GWF-attack, there is a minimum damage as follows:
d4 = min 2; d6 = min 3; d8 = min 4; d10 = min 4; d12 = min 5
If the player chooses to use GWF on a legitimate hit/target:
Every die, regardless of source counts.
Neither the player nor any allies can use any other ability to affect the damage rolls. No rerolling.
Technically, this is a slight disadvantage in terms of “average damage” BUT it is a significant benefit in that it ensures a “big hit” doesn’t just happen to roll awful damage. If a melee combatant crits with a flaming greatsword and tosses in a couple more dice from some ability…they might be rolling 12d6 and still get…well, 12 would be pretty rare, obviously…but 20-25? It happens, and it just isn’t fun.
What you really want, as a fighter choosing GWF, is some control and consistent damage. You’re forgoing a shield, you’re likely crit-fishing to some extent. Using a “minimum per die” rule eliminates re-rolling and gives the player a “safety net” of minimum 36 damage on a 12d6 “big hit”. If you look at the probability, it is possible to crit-fish a point or two of damage over the rules-as-written. But, in my experience that ends up being 30 vs 32. Getting a straight crit with any weapon and it is either the same or slightly disadvantageous.
But, if you play it out…it works great. There are no re-rolls. The melee combatant that is really investing in “big hit” nova smack downs can still potentially role straight max damage, and is assured of getting a damage minimum better than a combatant-dabble.
But, on average, they don’t do more damage round-to-round.
I’ve been asked about allowing it for other weapons-groups…but, I think GWF exists (and analogous fighting styles with other weapons don’t) specifically to give Conan-style fighters something extra. A finesse-weapon fighter is probably more mobile and maybe higher AC. An archer isn’t in the front rank and taking damage. The tank/beatdown is the character that exposes themselves to the most immediate and punishing consequences in any combat…and in 3 rounds (considering target AC) they usually connect with 2-6 hits. If those dice don’t roll well, that enemy isn’t reduced to 0 hp and will usually respond by attacking the obvious threat…which is the tank.
I told them that the point of the GWF fighting style was to provide control and consistent outcomes to a fighter that was inherently constrained in choices regarding mobility and tactical placement. If you’re willing to lumber forward into immediate melee contact and, in general, stay there…then you have a few moments to make sure, if you do connect, you get a decent blow. A GWF isn’t usually running away, so they can focus a bit more on follow-through.
The point is, the players of the combatant characters preferred “dice minimum” to “re-roll” *knowing that it was usually slightly disadvantageous* especially in early levels when there are less smite abilities and other damage riders. It was much easier to roll a handful of dice without saying “sword, flame-blade, smite, hex” and constantly worrying about which dice were legal to reroll. It’s fast and simple. This was so much the case that, of course, everyone was asking for a version that complemented a different build; rogues, archers, spell-snipers, etc.
Straight damage builds tend to get the opposite attention that the god-wizard get despite the fact that they arguably have more weaknesses. If you are playing with people who get easily upset when they sense "min-maxing" then avoid stuff like this. You also are more likely to "outshine" another player as a lot of unoptimized characters think damage is their focus too.
Hot take: straight damage builds are generically better than god-wizard builds in late T3 and T4, mainly because monsters start getting a lot of 'screw you, your spell isn't working, better hope your DM didn't ban Wall of Force' abilities and also because monster hit points don't scale as sharply from CR10 to 20+ as they do from CR2 to 10.
I say generically better, because the good wizard subclasses (Illusionist, Chronurgist, Loremaster, etc.) have ways to get around that, especially if you allow magical items. But when I played Adventurer's League I found out my cheesed-out Hexvoker worked better in higher tiers than my Bladesinger or Illusionist did.
@@Duranous. God-wizards aren't good at providing passive defense, though. They can only provide meaningful active defense by casting spells that block the enemy team from acting. Which is why I brought up Wall of Force -- you still have options at that level, but they're lopsided options that circumvent the saving throw system like that spell, Major Image with a permissive DM, upcast Fly, Anti-Magic Field, Dark Star, etc.
And yeah, those are RAW options, but if your group is going to get pissy about you being able to drop the hammer with 200+ damage in late T3/T4, they're going to get even more pissy about you completely owning the opposition with Dark Star + Continual Flame torches.
@@maltheopia I just don't know what you are talking about, I use the god-wizard as an example. The point I'm making is that sacrificing defense at every turn for offense doesn't actually make a very optimized character. Chris has said as much himself in his video about how dpr is not a good metric. If you are disabled or dead you deal zero damage. If you can hinder the enemy from dealing damage to your team that is the same as defense.
If you really wanted damage for levels 1-4, go High Elf, and get booming blade, you can take Crusher afterward.
At lvl 4 on this build when you pick up GWM the target ac for when to use it is 16 without and 17 with advantage. Lvl 5 it goes up to 17 without advantage and 18 with advantage because of the proficiency increase.
If you go with a 20 constitution, you get 5 Unleash Incarnations...with 3 Barb and 11 Echo you have 3 attacks...
Toss in the Paladin throwing up Crusader's Mantle and somebody else can Animate Objects for fun. 🤣
Bonus points for ten silver pieces so they're silvered and magical, averaging 90 additional damage per round with this combo, split up to 10 ways.
Side note, not sure why Favored Foe is so strongly suggested if you're not taking 6+ Ranger levels (where the die scales), and just need burst. It's 1-2 d4s per turn, since you only get the damage once per turn - it definitely doesn't stack with Extra Attack.
OBJECTION!
Unleash Incarnation specifies that the additional attacks are made "from the echo's position". This requires an echo and summoning one requires a bonus action. You can either unleash incarnation OR rage on turn one, not both.
Unleah incarnation is something you do when you attack. Nothing to do with your bonus action.
@@valentinrafael9201 Yes it does. In order to use Unleash Incarnation you need to have an Echo present. That means you have to use Manifest Echo, and Manifest Echo *does* require your Bonus Action.
Insane damage has a control aspect all of its own... there aren't too many enemy actions coming from the dead.
Super late, but another point in favor of Hunter's Mark is that later on you're upcasting with higher spell slots. If you hit 3rd level slots, you can concentrate for 8 hours allowing you to cast it earlier in the day and still be able to use another Bonus Action ability like the GWM ability or a spell like Healing Word, Sanctuary, or if you keep going Cleric levels at the end - Spiritual Weapon.
Now you've got 1d6 on every weapon attack and 1d8 + 2 on the Bonus attack (if you don't crit).
I think Circle of Spores is a good idea still if you're able to get it ahead of time, though all the spellcasting late game seems to make the Barbarian levels useless.
I bet it's a Monk
I was really expecting a gloomstalker rogue with an action surge dip. Or some crazy smite build…
you would concentrate on it as if concentrating on a spell, which you cant do while raging
makes sense
Cool build-thanks for showing what is possible.
Would prob grab war cleric at 1st for wis saves and more power in early game. Appreciate your vids, Chris
I like this, but do like to have a back up to damage
That ending is so true. What good is battlefield control if you still can't win the fight?
I'd be really interested to know how you would build a full leveled Echo Knight. Multiclassing is cool and all, but I'm always curious to know how the class compares by itself.
My personal fav all damage build has been Fighter Paladin and Barbarian multiclass. Champion Zealot and Vengeance all to make a lovely crit fish smiter who doesnt mind making the cleric go take care of someone else. Just bring me back to life is my motto
This was all just a ruse to make a War Cleric build.
An ally with Haste would be epic for this build.
This build + Haste (from ally) and Bless (from ally) is obscene.
For sure, martials + spellcasters is a fantastic combo.
One little thing I noticed... You can't wear heavy armor if you want to rage. It says so in the PHB, you could even read it in your video.
But overall nice vid
Amazing build, change the race to the new Bugbear from MotM and you're first round is crazy! To ensure you go first I might switch out Great Weapon Fighting with Superior Technique and take Ambush, just to add a 1d6 to each Initiative roll.
Tracking data we realized that UA xbow user revised ranger was probably the most broken single class build of 5e. After we finished a campaign, we banned it. Luckily nowadays we have Tasha's ranger, which keeps been among top damage dealers and it's in our opinion more fun.
Hey Chris. I’m kinda of a newbie so sorry if I missed something important. At higher levels, are we still using rage? If so, does that negate every concentration spell including the ranger and cleric spells? Once we rage we’re committing to no magic, right?
yes if you rage you're not concentrating on spells. You need to decide if rage or spellcasting will be better for each encounter
@@joseluizps95 Thanks. I figured as much just wanted to check. This build stacks up a lot of options to choose from.
Alternate title: echo knight dip is op
Treant - A number of people have commented that you are allowing to many uses of Unleash in the first round. Only one per Attack Action. Not per attack. So, 1 vs 2. Also, some have argued that Action Surge does or doesn't double the number of Unleashes that can be used.
It's one per attack action, not one per attack, but if you take 2 attack actions, then you can use it once for each of those actions, or at least that's how I read it.
I really like this build I don't know when I never get to play it but I like the fact that you can go sharpshooter instead almost just as easy
I would go something other than echo with Sharp Shooter, since unleash incarnation requires a melee attack.
Some of the BM maneouvres work really well with the archery fighting style, i'd probably go with that subclass over echo knight since the unleash incarnation ability doesn't work at range
@@TreantmonksTemple I like the 5 gloomstalker, 3 assassin, 3 battlemaster build for a ranged damage dealer. Assassin gets trashed a lot but in this niche build its mainly there to add advantage on round 1 which is likely due to Dex + wis to initiative. I take gloomstalker 5 rather than fighter for pass without trace in a campain but for a lvl 20 1 shot i would likely swap that to 11 battlemaster 3 gloom, rest assassin.
If you rage on round one, doesn't that invalidate hunters mark and zephyr for the rest of the fight? Or is this to supplement multiple combats with only two rages?
This kind of build is precisely why I disagreed with champion’s position in your last video
Yes echo still performs better, but extra crits here would be very decent (not just for increasing basic damage output, but to proc GWM and crusher before your barb lvls)
Cool build, the kind I’m learning to enjoy more and more as I’m building my newest character
The main problem is you can't control the crits.
@@bags. you can’t control them, but once you’re hitting 3x a turn with advantage at double crit rate that becomes less of an issue
The build works differently yes, I wouldn’t take GWM as soon as Chris took, probably invest a few more lvls into ensuring my crits before investing into their payback
But yes, you can’t increase your number of attacks as much as this video’s build, which in turn makes it harder to crit on demand
There is something I don’t understand … how can this build use the “Symbiotic Entity” feature during the 1st turn and pair it with Gloom Staker’s “Dread Ambusher” if it requires you to spend an action to give up wildshape to activate spores? I think I’m missing something. Can someone explain this please?
I really like it, on a campaign I think it would be better a third lvl in Barbarian getting Path of the Totem Warrior Bear for the resistances instead of the druid levels. However I understand the extra spellcasting levels are also useful for upscaling spells.
... Yeah, but the best thing about Spirit Guardians really isn't the damage that it does; it's the debuff it gives to your enemies' movement. But sure, if your party contains a fighter like this AND a Soradin/Hexadin AND a Zealot barbarian/battle master fighter multiclass or similar damage-enhancing subclasses, Bless is a great damage enhancer. Just remember that as a cleric with Spirit Guardians up, standing on the edge of, say, a Spike Growth spell, you reduce your enemies' movement to ONE SQUARE PER TURN as they attempt to approach you, saving throw or no saving throw. That kicks ass at any level. ;)
On the first round of combat don't you have to use your bonus action to create your Echo so that you can use Unleash Incarnation? I don't think you can Rage on the first round
This question may have already been asked......if raging, does that conflict w/ your echo?
Have you done the bugbear gloom stalker echo knight build
So the damage calculations at the end are without hunter's mark right? Since you can't use while raging
do you actually need barbarian to get advantage ? Gloomstamler your considered invisible while in darkness, meaning you have advantage. And that way you can concentrate on favored foe
You're not always going to be in darkness though. Meaning you're only strong when you're not lit up is just too big a price to pay i think lol
i don’t understand how Zephyr Strike works for this build, the extra movement/OA dodge is mostly negated by Echo Knight’s teleports and advantage has been taken care of by Barbarian levels.
So you’re left with the occasional 1d8 damage at the cost of a bonus action on a build that is pretty bonus action-heavy.
What am i missing here?
instead of Druid, I'd take Ranger 4 and fighter 12 for Tough to help stay standing, and Martial Adept for a couple of Battle maneuvers. Or if not wanting tough maybe mobile for the additional movement or just one feat and take ranger up more for more spell slots
Yeah, if you were to actually play this build, you would be better easing off my sole focus on damage.
So I assuming even though you took two levels of Barbarian it was almost exclusively for the Reckless attack and almost never Raging, correct?
I think so!!
it's a trade of between hunter and raging since you only get two rages a day.
Is there a reason you didn’t add smite to this character? Lots of attacks means lots of smites which means lots of damage?
My build.
Custom lineage. Polearm/gwm/sentinel.
5 fighter. Echo or battle.
3 gloomstalker.
Profit. Cause I haven't seen past level 5 in years.
This character really wants to find an amulet of health.
And an upcast Aid spell, and a Twilight Cleric.
The amulet isn’t just providing more HP, it also increases AC and Unleashed Incarnations.
With your Monk ranking coming up, I think you should revisit the Ranged Kensei. I think Focused Aim, Ki Empowered Strike, and the ability to pick up the Archery Fighting style via a feat have really made it viable. While you cap at 3 attacks per turn, the accuracy you can achieve before even getting advantage is insane. In my calculations it kept up with Ranged Fighters, except maybe levels 1-3, exactly level 11, and exactly 20.
It really picks up once you hit level 6 and get deft strike and it's decent at conserving Ki (spending 1-2 per round). And you can kind of dump wisdom with this build, though you might want enough to be able to maybe multiclass War Cleric or Fighter or Gloom Stalker.
One thing I see with Kensei ranged damage calculations, especially comparing to other ranged builds, is sharpen the blade is used with the assumption of no magic weapons, and I don't think that's going to give accurate information since at 11th level I think it's pretty likely you're rocking a decent magic weapon by that point.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah. In my experience a lot of times bow users get Bracers of Archery and Magic Quivers or magic ammo over +1/2/3 longbows but… it’s an unknown. Best to ignore it.
Like it’s a cool thing if you have a secondary weapon (e.g., melee weapon) or find a bow with a great magic property but no bonus. The latter happened to me, and it was almost broken because the bow wasn’t balanced around ever getting +1/2/3 bonus… but for comparisons I’d ignore the feature, because once you have a +2 bow it’s not really worth the bonus action and ki.
Calculating focused aim damage was rough though. I actually had to do a ton of math on the optimal way to spend ki to maximize damage and ki empowered strikes while sustaining over 8-12 rounds. I can dig up my spreadsheets and let you know what I found.
It was surprisingly good. Not A-tier or B-tier by your standards but I think it could cut C-tier. Great damage, eventually great saves, and a few good monk tricks for a tight jam.
But it lacked the spells of a Ranger or the burst damage of a Battlemaster archer.
I hate Echo Knight.
Left video at the mention of this subclass
Wait a minute...multiclassing into classes that offer you different fighting styles will give you additional fighting styles?
Why not take Barbarian 3 and grab Zealot? You might lose out a *little* on damage but not THAT much, and what you get out of it is arguably better, in the *ultimate* defensive option: Being able to die, and be brought back with little to no reprocussions, allowing you to really go all out. Plus, the 1d6+2 from Divine Fury is statistically guarenteed, as it will *always* apply to the first hit you connect; and it can be Radiant, which in addition to being one of the rarest resisted damage types (and I always like to say, even rarer then you'd think when you consider most parties would never be realistically fighting celestials), can be extra effective against many kinds of undead or fiends, shutting down regeneration and other such things.
When I play a control mage or a Bard there is nothing more reliable than having a guy who hits things hard and often.
So, im going through a very similar build, but i have found the list of magical mauls from WotC, and most places i play is sorely lacking. As such, i went with greatsword and slasher instead of maul and crusher. Tons of cool magic swords. Not many mauls.
Gonna crown Whoopie Yass Queen of the realm
My only critique is druid at the end. 1 more level of fighter would have been another feat or ASI, and there are a bunch of good options all over the place. beyond that, I don't feel like the druid stuff is reliable. I think you could justify it by liking to have wildshape for utility, but its kind of a meh option imho. 1 more level in fighter + 1 more in cleric or ranger or barbarian - I think that's probably where I'd end up.
Conjure animals shepard druid, plus fey touched too use dissonant whispers to have all your animals do opportunity attacks on something= tons of damage.
I would generally expect conjure animals (8 creatures) to do anywhere from 30-50 points of damage on their turn, so you can double that if you can give them all opportunity attacks. Creature placement can be a challenge sometimes though.
@@TreantmonksTemple placement is definitely an obstacle, flying animals like flying snakes will probably work best as they can take up the squares above and below, but picking fliers is not always an option 👍
@@theeye8276 Picking anything is never an option since the DM does the picking. If you get the DM pizza though, you can get the flying snakes.
@@TreantmonksTemple yup lol. My current dm on roll 20 is allowing me to pick what ever as long as I do the work of creating the tokens myself, but I mix up what I summon just because I know it's technically should be random what I get. I won't be summoning broken option like pixies when I get conjure woodland creatures though lol.
Hey Treantmonk, love the video. How would umbral sight interact with echo Knight? Also the same with blind fighting?
You know, I never really thought about that until you bring it up. Presumably an enemy can still see your echo, though technically it's not your echo that's attacking, you're attacking, only through the echo's location, so I think you would still benefit.
@@TreantmonksTemple yeah that makes sense. Thanks for the reply!
How to do more nova damage 2 levels sooner: -5 levels Fighter, +1 level Ranger, +2 levels Paladin. Race: basic human. 1st level 16 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 9 Int, 13 Wis, 13 Cha. Str ASI instead of Resilient, no Crusher.
This also opens up a 1 level Divine Soul sorcerer dip as another method for converting misses into hits.
i would make this character a bugbear and take the alert feat
I never cared for gloom stalker. Because that subclass doesn't give you anything after turn 1.
The invisibility when in darkness is permanent though. And extra saving theow proficiencies are always welcome. Plus rerolling a failed attack is nice too. Overall i think it's a good sublcsss in all rounds of combat. But that first round definitely is where it shines
@@crunchevo8974 that's not really the case. Read it again. "Invisible to those who rely of darkvision to see." So it's not as strong as everyone thinks it is. So you have to be in darkness AND the creature has to be using darkvision to see in said area.
I would argue that if the creature, like a bat, uses sound to "see" that you will not be invisible.
Also in order for you to get this effect all the time while in a cave the rest of the party has to fight in darkness which is not fair to others. (Forcing the party to play YOUR WAY)
Instead of adding druid 1 would take fighter to 12 and ranger for 4 for the 2 asi's.
Could you go into more detail into how you calculated Divine Strike into your Burst Damage? I couldn't find much info online, and I'm working on a build that uses a similar ability.
Very cool. I also track data and I do something in terms of party synergies:
If an attack would miss and hit because of an action of another PC, I record the damage as 50% for each of them.
For example, rogue would miss without advantage, but open hand monk left the foe prone, 50% of the damage goes to each PC.
Same for bless, portent, war God's blessing, etc.
You may consider this. It might actually help to convince some players to be more supportive too. On the other hand, having data being tracked might stimulate players to compete among themselves. So far it was not an issue as our players are not prone to it and I only share data multiple sessions later, except for the DMs who can have access to it whenever they want.
Wouldn't peacea cleric for the initiative be better?
I really wish that you would provide Adventurer's League options for your builds. Many of them use content that is unavailable to AL players.
Thats not a bad video series: party optimization.
You should do one of these for ranged martials
So you're telling me this build doesn't get extra attack until level 10!? Like, it's a fun concept, but I can't imagine playing this build would be fun, especially if you never even get to the higher levels. I mean, I guess it would work if your dm only runs 1-2 fights a day.
It gets extra attack at level 5
Not sure Unleash Incarnation works as you think. Like the War Priest feature, I believe it can only be used once per turn, so only one extra attack.
It works just like dread ambusher just up to con mod a day.
When you use the attack action is the only prerequisite to trigger it. So you can unleash on the initial attack and again on the action surge attack.
Wait hold up, can you get two different fighting styles? I thought you could only have one.
Do fighter's and hunter's extra attacks stack together?
No
All this multiclassing seems like a huge effort. How does this build compare to a straight 20 level fighter build instead? I guess it's also worth mentioning that this glass cannon strategy doesn't hold up if there's a lot of combats between long rests.
Lol, you must be new here. While he didn’t mention it here, he doesn’t make builds that don’t sustain and this is waaaaay better than a straight class at doing damage.
Can you do a build that excels at combining mobility with control/damage to strike at more vulnerable backline targets or enemies in tough environments? The Monk is often cited as effective at that and I want to see how else you'd address this capability.
Slight modifications. Swap custom lineage for centaur. Dispose of the drop into druid, and cleric,and put those into getting barb 6. If you want movement throughout both totems as elk. 40 ft base, doubled without rage with barb 6. Add another 30 after zephyr strike. Add another 10 ft for 1st rd with dread ambusher. 120 ft movement first turn, and 95 after if you rage. Add in mobile feat in place of one of an asi increase, use a polearm, and a passing swing so no opportunity attacks, and have another 10 ft range. There is no back line for this char.. lol
End up barb 6, ranger 3, fighter 11.
How would this be affected if a wizard cast haste on this build? How helpful and how much of a boost would this give?
One attack more a round
Bless would be more beneficial but one more attack is fun lol.
i would have liked to get an idea of the Blood Hunter version
Can a full spell caster (with 9th level spell slots) get more burst dpr than this character in any way, in particular single target dpr? What about daily dpr?