Which build would be the best for DPR?

[Mongobear]

My current character is a level 8 Human(Variant) Barbarian(Berserker) with the following character sheet. We rolled our stats using 5d6D2, and I got really lucky:

Str (20) 25 (Belt of Fire Giant Strength)
Dex 18
Con 20
Int 14
Wis 14
Cha 10

Attuned Items: Vicious Great Axe (Counts as Magic, adds +7 damage to critical damage)
+2 Longsword
(Cursed) Shield of Missile Attraction

Running in plain clothing (loincloth) getting a 19 AC from Unarmored defense, because stats are ungodly high.

Feats: Great Weapon Master

Now my real question. Assuming NOTHING changes besides level dependant numbers, same gear and everything for the rest of the leveling process, since my belt effectively nullifies half of the benefit from the Barbarian capstone, is it worth multi-classing out of Barbarian soonish, to get Fighter(Champion) for the Crit Range increases? And, if this option is worth it, how many Fighter levels is worth it for the best end result assuming a full 20 level build?

My current options are as follows:

Stay Barbarian 20 - I dont gain the expanded crit range, but I gain Brutal Critical along with all of the later class features, and my capstone would push me to 24 Str and Con, which I could then unattune to the BoFGS and use a different item. If I would find one.

Barbarian 17/Fighter(Champion) 3 - Just a small dip for the archetype, gives me Action Surge, Fighting Style and 19-20 crits, I lose the 24 Str/Con, but I have the belt which makes that less painful. The other Barbarian features are kinda sad to see go, but what I get makes up for it enough to be ok with.

Barbarian 9/Fighter(Champion) 11 - A huge 'dip' that ends up making me more Fighter than Barbarian. I gain 1 dice of Brutal Critical and lose out on a lot of the later Barbarian features, but in return, I get Extra Attack(3/round), 2 Fighting Styles, Action Surge, 3 ASIs/Feats, and a handful of other features.

To me, option 3 FEELS like the right direction, but at the same time, option two has its merits, and I still remain wholly a Barbarian, instead of a 50/50 split. Can someone run my character/build/gear through DPR spreadsheets or even just napkin math this and put numerical results infront of me? Also, discussion on the merits of the three builds, or even variations on them would be welcome, as I may not be seeing an option that could possibly work better for the concept I am going for.

[Zman]

Barbarian 9 Champion 11 is IMO he Way to go.. If you did it in a different order. Three attacks is huge. Two Fighting styles will be great, Mariner will boost AC by 1, GWF will give a minor boost to damage.

Unfortunately, this is t a great way to go about it, not getting a third attack till 20th is tough, and not getting an 18-20 Cirical range is a bummer. I'd prefer Barbarian2/Champion18. Or Barbarian3/Champion17.

Your best bet is just picking up Champion 3 after Barbarian 9. With Advantage and 2-3 attacks you've got a good chance for a Crit each round, and it'll be 4, 5, or 6 D12 for Crits. This is one of the few builds I'd recommend Savage Attacker. It isn't worth it if you pick GWF, but I'd go Mariner for the Fighting Style. Your 6d12 Crits will be ridiculous! And you'll have a ~50% attack per turn to Crit while Frenzying for massive damage.

[Mongobear]

I was eyeing Savage Attack just now when I hit 8 and got my 2nd ASI, but overall didnt take it just because the HP and AC from the Con boost seemed more important.

I was leaning towards the Fighter 3 dip as soon as I get Barbarian 9 and then finishing as Barbarian, since it would take so long to reap the full benefits of the Fighter 11 path.

Does Savage Attacker really not combo all that well with GWF style? They seem mutually beneficial with one-another, since my average damage would be so warped of a bell-curve, thatd Id almost always be doing way over average. I guess the total benefit in the long run might not be that noticeable.

The Mariner style would help in the long run, since it would give me even higher AC while naked, but it just feels wrong, since GWF is my entire character build. (Sidenote: Does GWF style let me reroll 1s and 2s on the extra dice from Brutal Critical?)

[Zman]

I was eyeing Savage Attack just now when I hit 8 and got my 2nd ASI, but overall didnt take it just because the HP and AC from the Con boost seemed more important.

I was leaning towards the Fighter 3 dip as soon as I get Barbarian 9 and then finishing as Barbarian, since it would take so long to reap the full benefits of the Fighter 11 path.

Does Savage Attacker really not combo all that well with GWF style? They seem mutually beneficial with one-another, since my average damage would be so warped of a bell-curve, thatd Id almost always be doing way over average. I guess the total benefit in the long run might not be that noticeable.

The Mariner style would help in the long run, since it would give me even higher AC while naked, but it just feels wrong, since GWF is my entire character build. (Sidenote: Does GWF style let me reroll 1s and 2s on the extra dice from Brutal Critical?)

Depends if you can reroll a dice twice, but either way GWF mutes Savage Attacker. Since you have ridiculous stats you can free up your ASIs for other things, since you'll be critting once every other round lol it is a viable choice for high damage. Mariner is an AC boost plus other benefits. GWF is a marginal boost for a Greataxe and is much better with a Greatsword, I'd rather take Mariner and SA and not take GWF. GWF is like .8 damage per d12, or 1.33 per 2d6.

And the Champion 3 is the better build.

[Mongobear]

Hmm, true, I don't think double rerolls are supposed to be allowed. However, having GWF and Savage Attacks wouldnt be entirely horrible, since SA is only once a round, I could use it on the worse roll or crits to get the biggest hit possible, and just run on GWF style to bump up the average damage of other attacks.


And going off of the RAW interpretation of Brutal Critical/Savage Attacks:

BC: You can roll one (or more with higher levels) weapon damage dice when determining the extra damage from a critical hit.

SA: Once per turn when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the weapon damage dice and use either total.

Since they both use the samage language, I would assume they work together and I could reroll all of the dice if I choose to.

[Zman]

Yes, they are weapon Damage dice so you could refill them all, but you have to refill all the dice, can't pick and choose unfortunately.

[Hudsonian]

I think that you will find that at lvl 20 the Barb 9/cham 11 has higher DPR, but that if you want to actually play the character between lvl 8 and lvl 20 you will be really happy to have the extra rage damage, # of rages, barb features. Champ 5 would be a complete wash for you. And tossing all of your attacks at advantage gives you a really nice crit chance with just 2 attacks. Then you don't have to worry as much about going frenzy.

If you are fully optimizing, It seems like you could go glaive/Sentinel on this build. (maybe talk to your DM about a magical greataxe that has 10ft reach, to keep your concept?)

[djreynolds]

Go 20 levels in barbarian. It will not disappoint, a lot love went into the crafting of this class. Very Conan. Indomitable, no one pushes you around.

[Mongobear]

Go 20 levels in barbarian. It will not disappoint, a lot love went into the crafting of this class. Very Conan. Indomitable, no one pushes you around.

Is Indomitable Might, and ASI, Infinite Rages/day and a partially redundant Primal Champion really worth giving up the Fighter(Champion) 3 features considering the build I am going for? Mostly looking at the synergy that I get with the expanded critical range and Action Surge, which if used correctly, will pretty much mean I can take out any target in my first turn with decent dice rolls.

Plus, I get a few small benefits, fighting style, second wind, etc, but its mainly an argument of Action Surge and Improved Critical versus Infinite Rage and Indomitable Might.

[RulesJD]

Make your strength 10 and move that 20 in STR to Dex. Why? Because Belt of Fire Giant Strength sets your STR at a certain number, regardless of its underlying value.

Only danger is anti-magic field/losing the magical item. If your DM doesn't do those things then you can pick up a bit more AC/Dex saves. Also means you get 18 Wis for an extra +2 to Wis saves, which is normally a fighter/barb weakness.

In terms of pure DPR you wont be able to beat Champion Fighter/Barb. I would say Barb (3)/Champ fighter (11)/Paladin (3)/Warlock (3).

[Hudsonian]

its mainly an argument of Action Surge and Improved Critical versus Infinite Rage and Indomitable Might.

How many times have you run out of rages?

It appears to me that at 20, your minimum non-fail score after your belt has been broken is 12.

You have a 35% chance of rolling more than a 24 on str/con saves while not raging. Most saves are 19 or less. At DC20 you have a 55% chance of success. Champion Fighter gives you at least an additional 10% chance to crit each round.

All of that said, some of your more dangerous saves are Dex, Wis.

Also, how long is it going to take to get to those features? You're at lvl 8 right? Those Champion levels are likely to be very helpful moving forward.

However, not going fighter get's you relentless rage that much faster. Lvl 14 comes a little sooner too.

I would say not to worry about Second wind, because for 3 levels of fighter, you probably won't bother with max 13hp heal in the middle of combat. You would have better luck doling out some nasty damage with that bonus action.

[Mongobear]

How many times have you run out of rages?

So Far, Ive ran out of Rages/day twice. Once at level 1, when I only had 2, and the other just the last session when we had a battle go for close to 25 total rounds and was spread out across a whole settlement. I had a few end early because of not being able to reach an enemy/getting attacked for a round.


It appears to me that at 20, your minimum non-fail score after your belt has been broken is 12.

minimum to hit? not sure what specifically the 12 is a reference to. If you are referring to my to hits at level 20. my minimum with what I have right now will be 14 if I roll a 2 on the attack.


You have a 35% chance of rolling more than a 24 on str/con saves while not raging. Most saves are 19 or less. At DC20 you have a 55% chance of success. Champion Fighter gives you at least an additional 10% chance to crit each round.

Not to mention with the way our in-party tactics have been playing out, I am almost always within our Paladin's +save bonus aura, and he is currently working on pumping his Charisma to a 20, so I almost always have a +4 or +5 to my saves.


All of that said, some of your more dangerous saves are Dex, Wis.

I have been debating taking Resilient(Wisdom) at some point. Danger Sense gives me Advantage on Dex saves if Im aware of the source, so Wis is the only one I am really in any danger of failing.


Also, how long is it going to take to get to those features? You're at lvl 8 right? Those Champion levels are likely to be very helpful moving forward.

levels have been coming more and more slowly now that we are reaching the higher level ranges, and most encounters are still including large groups of weaker foes, instead of 1-2 level appropriate creatures, id say we get a level every 3-4 sessions on average and we play every 2-3 weeks usually.

I agree that the immediate benefits of Fighter(Champion) 3 would be much more than 3 more Barbarian levels, atleast in the short term, but will it end up being a net gain overall just looking at the full 20 level build?


However, not going fighter get's you relentless rage that much faster. Lvl 14 comes a little sooner too.

Oh my... I never even read Relentless Rage. That is amazing! That ability alone might DQ my consideration of the Barb 9/Fighter 11 build.


I would say not to worry about Second wind, because for 3 levels of fighter, you probably won't bother with max 13hp heal in the middle of combat. You would have better luck doling out some nasty damage with that bonus action.

Yeah, healing for 4-13 once wont really do much, which is why i lumped it into the 'meh' class features from the level dip. I would have to be REALLY desperate for some emergency healing to use it, and even then, its probably a better idea to just BA my Frenzy attack and try to end the fight, instead of maybe healing enough hp to offset a single hit.

[djreynolds]

If there is a small chance to go to 20, then stay barbarian.

Other wise half orc champion seems reasonable just for GWS. But battlemaster has perks as well and you have the wisdom to grab war cleric, eye of Gruumsh, and he gets a bonus action attack. Bless goes very well with GWM. And you could get greater restoration spell, for fatigue issues.

[Theodoxus]

I played a similar build, only went with PAM + GWM, because I was building for pure cheese.

I had planned on going straight 20 (though the campaign was set to end around 12-13th level). But if I had a Vicious weapon, I would have been sorely tempted to go crit fishing.

I don't run numbers, so can't extrapolate the DPR difference between your ideas. But I'd hazard to guess that the +7 bonus, on top of the Rage bonus and Strength, would really shine on crits - on top of the beefy brutal critical stacking from barbarian and HOrc.

I did find the Frenzy ability in play was lackluster, especially compared to similar abilities that don't create fatigue (and going PAM was an afterthought... had I built PAM into the character from the start, Frenzy wouldn't have entered the equation. 1d4 isn't statistically significant to 1d10, all things being equal - but Exhaustion from Frenzy blows when comparing it to the BA from PAM. - But that's a rant I've covered before). While you probably can't change to Totem, I would only recommend going Berserker to someone who wasn't getting readily available BA from another source... The cleave from GWM might be rare enough to warrant it... but otherwise, the only other concept I could think of would be a viking, going S&B...

Anyway, as built and played, Relentless sounds like a priority. After that, I'd go crit fishing with Champion. If you need the extra ASIs Barb14/Fighter 6 isn't horrible...

[Hudsonian]

If there is a small chance to go to 20, then stay barbarian.

Other wise half orc champion seems reasonable just for GWS. But battlemaster has perks as well and you have the wisdom to grab war cleric, eye of Gruumsh, and he gets a bonus action attack. Bless goes very well with GWM. And you could get greater restoration spell, for fatigue issues.

Bless is a horrible spell on a barb because he can't concentrate (on a spell) while raging.

The minimum fail was a natural 2 on a str/con saving throw. +11 But if you can tactically expect a +15/16 to saves I would say that it is a no-brainer to MC. (If you have the belt.) Once you hit lvl 15 your likelihood of running out of rages goes down significantly.

Also, with that Paladin sitting there and giving you a 90% chance of living through two Relentless Con saves in a row means you got some hell of a staying power.

hitting Barb 11 then taking two levels of Fighter gives you the ability to get knocked down, but get up again with a pretty major "Awe, Hell No!". Then at fighter 3 it gives that much more punch. The availability of action surge decreases your reliance on rage for damage/damage mitigation (kill it before it hits you). I feel like 3 levels of fighter stack VERY nicely with your character while Barb 20 and barb 9/fight 11 have a couple of levels that say, "well I think I'll use that". (Fighter 5 is a complete wash)

Edit: I just realised that the title of the thread is about DPR and the answer to that question is hands down the fighter dip IF you have the belt of giant strength. as far as dipping fighter 11 or fighter 3 I would say that more number crunching than I care to do is necessary. As a note, I would say that fighter 11 really synergises more with totem than berserk. I personally like the flavor of the berserk sentinal, that feat stacks very well with berserk 14 AoO feature. Add in Crit Fishing/GWM and Pole Arm Master isn't nearly as attractive.

[djreynolds]

[QUOTE=Hudsonian;20205217]Bless is a horrible spell on a barb because he can't concentrate (on a spell) while raging.

You're not always raging, you have 2 rages a day. Bless becomes very useful then for him and his two buddies. I understand its concentration but its only 1 minute, or 10 rounds, and can be used in between uses of rage which are also 10 rounds or a minute. If a fight happens to go over 10 rounds, he may want something else to use instead of rage.

[Mongobear]

All of the tips and stuff have been nice, but I think a handful of you are missing the main point: Im only looking at maxxing out my potential DPR while trying to do as little to my character concept of a Barbarian as possible. I am really only looking at Champion Fighter as a multiclass dip because of the crit synergy with Brutal Critical and their expanded crit range, and unless there is something huge that someone can show me that I havent even seen yet from another class I dont think there is any other option that would boost my DPR like Action Surge/Imp Critical would. I would need to be shown 100% infallible proof that dipping something like Cleric or Bard or whatever would outperform Fighter.

As far as the logistics of figuring out how often class features would matter, and how often I would get to benefit from X feature in Y encounters, my DM tends to fall into the "15 minute adventuring day" crowd. We may very well be travelling and exploring for 8+ hours a day while winding our way through caves and old mining tunnels, but we tend to only have a few small random encounters and one huge important encounter a session. As in he will lump as much as possible into one big encounter at once, usually approaching 3x or 4x Deadly for our level range, for the experience award since there are 7 of us.

So, unless we get really hammered by the random encounters and I have to blow Rage or other once/rest abilities in them, I am almost always at full strength for the huge encounters, and they have only ever gone beyond my maximum Rages/day twice as I explained earlier in the discussion.

[HoarsHalberd]

You're not always raging, you have 2 rages a day. Bless becomes very useful then for him and his two buddies. I understand its concentration but its only 1 minute, or 10 rounds, and can be used in between uses of rage which are also 10 rounds or a minute. If a fight happens to go over 10 rounds, he may want something else to use instead of rage.

2 rages at level 1. Level 3 brings you 3, 6: 4 and 12 brings you 5. The problem is bless becomes markedly less useful the higher level you are, whereas the main selling point of the spell is that normally it is a great use for concentration. There is also the problem of redundancy with another barbarian class feature which combines very well with GWM. Reckless attack.

[djreynolds]

War cleric and barbarian can work nicely together, I like reckless attack, but I have been dropped because of it. I try to use my rages sparingly, not very barbarian of me.

And the extra attack of war cleric is nice for heavy weapon users. Its not a bad dip, gives him an extra attack from a bonus action. Some utility spells.