Leveling Woes, Stats versus Variety

[Remulus]

Hello to the forums, this is my first post here, so I hope I'm doing things right. I've been playing a Fighter with the Battlemaster archetype in AL for a while now, and being my first AL character, he's gone through some iterations. He started life as a grappler, then became a DPR burst warrior, and now I've settled on the niche of caster lock-down. Last night I hit level 7, so now I'm thinking about my 8th level ASI. The problem I'm having is deciding between the following:
- ASI to max Strength at 20
- great weapon master
- martial adept

Being a variant human, I have two feats already: mage slayer, and heavy armor master. I entertain the idea of another feat because GWM is just such a good feat for a greatsword wielding fighter, and martial adept gives me more uses of my maneuvers, which are my favorite feature. On the other hand, an ASI gives me 20 strength which gives me all sorts of bonuses, but most importantly a bump to my maneuver save DC (15 to 16). For me it's coming down to the question of do I want more options and uses, or do I want the resources I already have to be more effective. Alas I cannot make up my mind, and so I turn to the forums for aid.

[coolAlias]

Str 20 wouldn't be that amazing compared to what you'd gain from GWM, in my opinion, especially since you already have Str 18 - more than enough to carry you well beyond level 8 or even all the way to 20.

+1 to hit, damage, athletics checks, and maneuver DC
vs.
bonus action attack on any critical hit or any time you drop an enemy to 0, plus the option to go -5 to hit / +10 to damage on each attack you make with a heavy weapon

GWM will give you a way better damage boost than +1 to hit/damage.

Getting an extra superiority die / short rest is also nice, especially if your DM(s) allow it to scale with your BM dice rather than stay at d6.

[Waterdeep Merch]

How are you at an 18 strength? At best you could be a 17:

Starting the game, you could point buy to 15. You could then place one of your +1's into strength to get a 16. With Heavy Armor Master, you would then have a 17. Because you have two feats, you had to have spent your level 4 ASI on one of them, meaning your strength has never improved past 16 or 17.

The only exception I can see is if you gained a strength manual. If that's what happened and the math adds up to an 18, get Great Weapon Master. It does a lot for you.

Otherwise recheck your math. If you're at a 16 as it appears, take the bump to an 18. It might seem silly, but I believe the math works out in favor of an 18 strength plain over a 16 with GWM, whereas an 18 with GWM edges out a plain 20. There's definitely math floating out there that can prove/disprove this.

EDIT: Duh, you're a fighter. I feel dumb. Take GWM.

[Findulidas]

Have you considered polearm master? Resilience (wis)?

Go for polearm master, resilience (wis) and then great weapon master, perhaps some strength in between. If you have low wisdom modifier you should probably take resilience at level 8.

I would not take martial adept if you already have taken battlemaster, you are eventually going to get enough die to do what you want anyway.

[coolAlias]

Have you considered polearm master?
He mentioned he is using a greatsword, but yes, if he's willing to change weapons, that could be good.

Resilient (Wis) is also very nice to have, but its utility depends highly on the games you play in. In some, it might be completely irrelevant whereas others, you might be completely irrelevant without it.

[Remulus]

Have you considered polearm master? Resilience (wis)?

Go for polearm master, resilience (wis) and then great weapon master, perhaps some strength in between. If you have low wisdom modifier you should probably take resilience at level 8.

I would not take martial adept if you already have taken battlemaster, you are eventually going to get enough die to do what you want anyway.

I'm gonna stick with the greatsword, for the better damage and the fact that mage slayer doesn't let me do much of my specialty outside of 5 ft anyways. It might also be worth mentioning I have a +1 greatsword

As for the martial adept question, every DM I've played with has ruled that it is just another battlemaster die.

[clash]

Do you want the most options of the best option mechanically speaking? Maybe one of those will give you both.

Mechanically speaking +2 str gives +1 damage and +1 to hit which can be roughly equated to +2.5 dmg gain on every hit. At 6 combats a day even keeping them down to 3 rounds a piece on average and 2 attacks per round it will give you an average of 36 dmg gain per day or 90 dmg equivalent gain per day factoring in the to hit chance.

Battle master gives 1 maneuver which is d8 ~ 4.5 dmg per short rest. Lets say you use it to trip someone and just as an estimation say you have another melee attacker that gains advantage for him being tripped (~6.5 to hit) for roughly 9.75 dmg equivalent. That is a total of 14.25 dmg equivalent with 2 short rests it is 3 times a day for 42.75 dmg equivalent gained per day along with some utility in the form of more maneuvers.

GWM gives a few benefits. The first is ba attack on crit or downing a foe. Say you down one enemy per fight on average or 1/6 attacks gives you an extra attack. 1/20 attacks also give an extra attack for the crit. so factoring overlap about 21% of attacks will trigger an additional attack giving about at 36 attacks per day that works out to about 7 extra attacks in a day. Average 2d6 + 4 dmg makes it add 11*7 ~ 77 dmg per day. Now add GWM. Because of the typical ac of enemies GWM's -5 +10, usually gives a return on damage of about an extra 2.5 dmg equivalent per attack. 2.5 * now 43 attacks with the extra attacks from the feat gives roughly an average of 184.5 damage equivalent per day making it the best mechanically using oversimplified calculations for the purpose of being concise.

Thats the mechanics. That being said go with a good balance of what you think would be most fun and what gives you the best gain.

[Haldir]

Everyone is going to say GWM because it's a power feat, and they're right. However, I'd consider Sentinel. If you're targetting casters, it's likely his minions are going to try and stop that. With Sentinel, you stop them, freeing up your party to do lots of actions. Counters the enemies most likely strategy and allows you some battlefield control/team contribution options. Just a thought.