Blade Singer sharpshooters

[Dalebert]

Are they viable?

You can start with a 17 Dex and take even accuracy at 4th. Sharpshooter at 8th after you have 2 attacks; there with haste, or greater invisibility to get super advantage. 12 you can take xbow expert to get yet another attack. Meanwhile you're a full Caster.

I got disappointed with BSers in actual play but could this redeem them?

EDIT: occurs to me SS won't be as useful while BSing because your limited to one attack with a hand xBow. Can't use a longbow while BSing.

[Vorpalchicken]

Also unless you are a drow or you multiclass you will not have proficiency in hand crossbows.

[Dalebert]

Also unless you are a drow or you multiclass you will not have proficiency in hand crossbows.

This... Is a point I hadn't considered. Drow might work though, our a slight dip in rogue or fighter.

[dejarnjc]

If I were playing a mid-level bladesinger, I'd build them around shadowblade.

[Trustypeaches]

Isn't this the whole idea behind Wizard dips on Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters?

[Snowbluff]

Isn't this the whole idea behind Wizard dips on Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters?

I always figured the former was for action surge and armor (and I wouldn't take it to thrid but wahtever), and the latter for cunning action and better skills?

[Vexacia]

Works on paper, terrible in practice. You need to start Fighter 1 for weapon proficiency + archery style (which delays the entire build by 1 level - you already were getting Extra Attack a level late at 6, now you're getting it at level 7), and you need two entire feats that you can't afford (SS+CBM) when you're already desperately hungry for both Dexterity and Intelligence ASIs. Worse yet, Bladesingers are restricted to Elf-only, so you can't make up for the feat taxes by going Variant Human. And all of that feat expenditure goes to waste when you use your action to cast a spell, which you're going to be doing a lot considering you're a Wizard.

If you want a ranged attack with your Bladesinger, just cast a cantrip instead. The damage won't be as high, but you don't need 2 feats to make your cantrips good.

If you want to primarily do ranged martial attacks, don't play a Bladesinger. Play a class that's not a Wizard.

edit: and to make matters even worse, Song of Victory only applies to melee weapon attacks, not ranged.

[Dalebert]

I think what potentially makes this viable is elven accuracy and the buffs of a wizard plus getting 2 attacks without a deep dip, and the dip can really wait anyway. It's viable for a while.

4th: Sharpshooter. You only have a 17 dex and one attack (like everyone else) but you can use your owl familiar to get advantage to help with landing it. For now it's with a longbow. Not viable with bladesinging but for that you can use Booming Blade in melee to still be useful. The point of going BS is mainly for the 2 attacks. Your int is 16 and that's fine for a long time. You're mainly built around buffs to help with sharpshooter and the extra utility is icing. If you can get your hands on a Headband of Intellect, you can even build down to a 13 int before tier 2 (in A.L.).
5th: Now you have Haste for another attack. When you BS and go into melee, you can attack with your hasted action, do an offhand attack, and then ready an action to Booming Blade on another turn. Your AC is fairly obscene.
6th: Now you have two attacks with your longbow and a third with Haste. Might need help to get advantage on 2nd and 3rd tho.
7th: You can greater invisibility to get elven accuracy a lot with your two longbow shots.
8th: Elven accuracy. Now you have an 18 dex and roll 3 d20 to land those sharpshooter attacks when you have adv.
9th: Here is where I think you consider a 1 (fighter) or 2 level dip (ranger or rogue ) for fighting style, sneak attack, or hunter's mark.


If you want a ranged attack with your Bladesinger, just cast a cantrip instead. The damage won't be as high, but you don't need 2 feats to make your cantrips good.

It definitely won't. It will be pretty mediocre actually.


If I were playing a mid-level bladesinger, I'd build them around shadowblade.

It's a nice spell to have in your arsenal to be sure, particularly combined with elven accuracy, but where is the boost to dmg coming from to justify building around it? It's an extra 9 dmg per round vs. a rapier. Sharpshooter is another 20-30 dmg per round and eventually 30-40 with xbow expert and/or Haste.

Okay, now that I'm typing it out, I do have to acknowledge the reduction to dmg from not hitting as often with SS. It might be worth looking into. A small ranger dip might work nicely also--just enough for Hunter's Mark and TWF style, which also works nicely for a SS build with archery style.

[Vexacia]

I think what potentially makes this viable is elven accuracy
now we're up to 3 feats on our feat tax list.


and the buffs of a wizard plus getting 2 attacks without a deep dip, and the dip can really wait anyway. It's viable for a while.

4th: Sharpshooter. You only have a 17 dex and one attack (like everyone else) but you can use your owl familiar to get advantage to help with landing it. For now it's with a longbow. Not viable with bladesinging but for that you can use Booming Blade in melee to still be useful. The point of going BS is mainly for the 2 attacks. Your int is 16 and that's fine for a long time. You're mainly built around buffs to help with sharpshooter and the extra utility is icing. If you can get your hands on a Headband of Intellect, you can even build down to a 13 int before tier 2 (in A.L.).
5th: Now you have Haste for another attack. When you BS and go into melee, you can attack with your hasted action, do an offhand attack, and then ready an action to Booming Blade on another turn. Your AC is fairly obscene.
6th: Now you have two attacks with your longbow and a third with Haste. Might need help to get advantage on 2nd and 3rd tho.
7th: You can greater invisibility to get elven accuracy a lot with your two longbow shots.
8th: Elven accuracy. Now you have an 18 dex and roll 3 d20 to land those sharpshooter attacks when you have adv.
9th: Here is where I think you consider a 1 (fighter) or 2 level dip (ranger or rogue ) for fighting style, sneak attack, or hunter's mark.

jesus christ, dude, just play a martial character. if what you want to do is wield a longbow and deal ranged damage, you'll be significantly more contributory to your team's success if you play a class that has structural support for wielding a longbow and dealing ranged damage, like a fighter or a rogue or a ranger.

if you're actually casting spells in significant quantity like you should in order to be a useful wizard rather than be a ghetto martial character, you're blowing an absolute ton of feats on something that provides you very little benefit. if you're mostly taking advantage of all your martial feats to shoot a ton of shots with your bow, you'd be so much better off playing a real martial class!


It definitely won't. It will be pretty mediocre actually.

you wanna replace your cantrips with martial damage? man up and go stab something with your rapier (or your shadowblade if you want to be fancy). total feat cost for this to be viable: 0 (it's literally what the subclass was designed to do). total feat cost for this to be super comfortable: 1 (Mobile, which helps you ALL THE TIME even when you're not attacking).


A small ranger dip might work nicely also--just enough for Hunter's Mark and TWF style, which also works nicely for a SS build with archery style.

HUNTER'S MARK ON A WIZARD?! you are entirely off your rocker, dude.

[Vogie]

Bladesinger's litany of requirements make it not particularly great at being a non-magical ranged damage dealer. It kind of makes sense, as they already have absurd amount of ranged damage... because they're wizards.

If you wanted to do something similar, I'd use an EK fighter with a two level dip in War Wizard

[dejarnjc]

It's a nice spell to have in your arsenal to be sure, particularly combined with elven accuracy, but where is the boost to dmg coming from to justify building around it? It's an extra 9 dmg per round vs. a rapier. Sharpshooter is another 20-30 dmg per round and eventually 30-40 with xbow expert and/or Haste.

Okay, now that I'm typing it out, I do have to acknowledge the reduction to dmg from not hitting as often with SS. It might be worth looking into. A small ranger dip might work nicely also--just enough for Hunter's Mark and TWF style, which also works nicely for a SS build with archery style.

Well sharpshooter can only be an extra 20 damage per round for a blade singer maximum and it can technically work with Sharpshooter anyway (20/60 ft range on the shadowblade) but honestly it probably doesn't work out too well in practice due to action economy. The advantage from dimlight/darkness is nice though.

Assuming level 7
Round 1: Bonus Action: Shadowblade at max level, Action: Attack once (3d8+15) = 28.5
Round 2: Bonus Action: Blade Song, Action: Cast fireball for (8d6) = 28 damage AoE
Round 3: Action: Throw Shadowblade twice with sharpshooter ([3d8+15]*2) = 57, Bonus Action: Summon back blade to enable the two throws.
Round 4: Bonus Action: Summon back blade, Action: Throw sword once for (3d8+15) = 28.5 or cast a spell or attack melee twice

142 mixed damage to one target over 4 rounds

This is compared to just normal melee attacking each round which would be ([3d8+5]*2) = 37 and more likely to hit.
148 psychic damage to one target over 4 rounds

And compared to Drow with a hand-crossbow and sharpshooter which would be ([1d6+15]*2) = 37 and less likely to hit.

And compared to a Draw with a hand-crossbow and sharpshooter and crossbow expert which would be ([1d6+12]*3) = 55. But at the cost of 2 feats which a bladesinger can't get before level 8 anyway so assuming pointbuy DEX would be a +3 tops

[Dalebert]

The extra damage part of sharpshooter doesn't work with thrown weapons, e.g. Shadow Blade.

[Laughingdagger]

Also unless you are a drow or you multiclass you will not have proficiency in hand crossbows.

Wrong, High elves in PHB, and Valenar elves and others get access to a free martial weapon proficiency of their choice.

[dejarnjc]

The extra damage part of sharpshooter doesn't work with thrown weapons, e.g. Shadow Blade.

Ah yes. I house ruled away that silly oversight ages ago and forgot.

[Laughingdagger]

The extra damage part of sharpshooter doesn't work with thrown weapons, e.g. Shadow Blade.

it's purely applicable to ranged weapons so thrown works

[dejarnjc]

Wrong, High elves in PHB, and Valenar elves and others get access to a free martial weapon proficiency of their choice.

Not any elves in the PHB.

[dejarnjc]

it's purely applicable to ranged weapons so thrown works

Some people like to say that because most thrown weapons are not listed under the ranged weapon table on pg. 149 that they're not applicable for Sharpshooter.

Also shadow blade does specify that it's a simple melee weapon.

[Willie the Duck]

Some people like to say that because most thrown weapons are not listed under the ranged weapon table on pg. 149 that they're not applicable for Sharpshooter.

Also shadow blade does specify that it's a simple melee weapon.

There's enough room to legitimately argue it. I would never trust a new DM to allow it.

[NaughtyTiger]

3rd bullet on sharpshooter
"Before you make an attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage."

Thrown weapons
"If a weapon has the thrown property, you can throw the weapon to make a ranged Attack. "

Throwing a weapon lets you make a ranged Attack, but doesn't turn the melee weapon into a ranged weapon.
WotC clarified that the intent of the rule: throwing a weapon does not make it into a ranged weapon.

[dejarnjc]

WotC clarified that the intent of the rule: throwing a weapon does not make it into a ranged weapon.

Yup that's why I houseruled it away. I also let daggers have the ammunition property and other things as well. Throwing builds are cool.

[Vorpalchicken]

Wrong, High elves in PHB, and Valenar elves and others get access to a free martial weapon proficiency of their choice.
Wrong.
Hmmm maybe two wrongs can make a right.

[Dalebert]

I'm sold. Or rather unsold. I might look into a shadow blade build. That spell does seem great for BSers.

[Derpldorf]

An alternative to trying to wedge a ranged weapon into the build using multiple feats, you could just take the Spell Sniper feat and take the Eldritch Blast cantrip for what is basically a heavy crossbow with a range of 240, ignores half and three quarters cover and has a number of "attack" gain rate equivalent to a Fighter. It also doubles the range of any spell that requires an attack roll, and lets all your other ranged spells ignore cover too. All for one single feat.

[dejarnjc]

An alternative to trying to wedge a ranged weapon into the build using multiple feats, you could just take the Spell Sniper feat and take the Eldritch Blast cantrip for what is basically a heavy crossbow with a range of 240, ignores half and three quarters cover and has a number of "attack" gain rate equivalent to a Fighter. It also doubles the range of any spell that requires an attack roll, and lets all your other ranged spells ignore cover too. All for one single feat.

Not getting your ability score bonus added to your damage will significantly lessen your impact in battle. Bladesingers are meant for melee. At level 14 they can get a whopping +10 to every hit. IF they're using shadow blade at a 5th level slot they get 4d8+10 = 28 per hit. With Eldritch blast it'd be 3d10 = 16.5.

Even at level 11 a bladesinger could be doing 4d8+5 = 23 per hit instead of eldritch blast 3d10 = 16.5. Also worth noting that a firebolt would also be 3d10 and not require a feat.
And with shadowblade they're more likely to hit as well.

Of course there is a resource cost but a bladesinger is a wizard and should be casting spells. Additionally with their ridiculous AC they should be frontline or at least skirmishing alongside an ally. And don't discount Song of Defense either.

[Derpldorf]

Not getting your ability score bonus added to your damage will significantly lessen your impact in battle. Bladesingers are meant for melee. At level 14 they can get a whopping +10 to every hit. IF they're using shadow blade at a 5th level slot they get 4d8+10 = 28 per hit. With Eldritch blast it'd be 3d10 = 16.5.

Even at level 11 a bladesinger could be doing 4d8+5 = 23 per hit instead of eldritch blast 3d10 = 16.5. Also worth noting that a firebolt would also be 3d10 and not require a feat.
And with shadowblade they're more likely to hit as well.

Of course there is a resource cost but a bladesinger is a wizard and should be casting spells. Additionally with their ridiculous AC they should be frontline or at least skirmishing alongside an ally. And don't discount Song of Defense either.

Yes, and how does having an way to deal damage at range when needed without wasting a spell slot equate to "significantly lessening your impact in battle" exactly? It doesn't, in fact the feat opens a lot of avenues for options in battle. How does anything I've said negate or conflict with anything you've said? It doesn't, we aren't even talking about the same thing.

Also force damage trumps fire damage in most cases, a lot of things are resistant or flat immune to fire while not a lot is resistant or immune to force.

[dejarnjc]

Yes, and how does having an way to deal damage at range when needed without wasting a spell slot equate to "significantly lessening your impact in battle" exactly? It doesn't, in fact the feat opens a lot of avenues for options in battle. How does anything I've said negate or conflict with anything you've said? It doesn't, we aren't even talking about the same thing.

Also force damage trumps fire damage in most cases, a lot of things are resistant or flat immune to fire while not a lot is resistant or immune to force.

I just don't think spellsniper is worth it on bladesingers. Generally it's better to just get the ASI to DEX or INT.

[Derpldorf]

That's your own opinion, not a fact, but your free to have it.

Personally, grabbing a solid ranged cantrip, doubling the range of all spells, making ranged spells more accurate and letting SCAG melee cantrips be usable with a whip is worth the cost of a single ASI in my opinion.

[Misterwhisper]

I just don't think spellsniper is worth it on bladesingers. Generally it's better to just get the ASI to DEX or INT.

There is also the fact that eldritch blast would still use charisma to hit which the wizard is not going to have very high more than likely.

You are still a full wizard, just cast a spell from the wizard list.

Also it does not double the range of all spells, only ones with an attack roll.

[Vexacia]

I'm sold. Or rather unsold. I might look into a shadow blade build. That spell does seem great for BSers.

shadow blade is very good indeed.


I just don't think spellsniper is worth it on bladesingers. Generally it's better to just get the ASI to DEX or INT.
you would be completely correct.


Yes, and how does having an way to deal damage at range when needed without wasting a spell slot equate to "significantly lessening your impact in battle" exactly? It doesn't, in fact the feat opens a lot of avenues for options in battle. How does anything I've said negate or conflict with anything you've said? It doesn't, we aren't even talking about the same thing.

Also force damage trumps fire damage in most cases, a lot of things are resistant or flat immune to fire while not a lot is resistant or immune to force.

wizard already gets a 120ft 1d10 cantrip, a 120ft 1d8 cantrip, and a few other 60ft cantrips of varying damage values from 1d12 to 1d8 to 1d6, all in a variety of different damage types. more importantly, wizard cantrips key off intelligence. eldritch blast keys off charisma. bladesingers are ability score starved and should basically always hard dump charisma unless you rolled god stats. there's no real gameplay situation where a 1d8 with a relative attack roll bonus of +4/+5/+6 (18int vs 10cha / 18int vs 8cha / 20int vs 8cha) from ability score is somehow worse than a 1d10 without that bonus. ASI +2 INT instead of wasting your feat on this absolute garbage.

not to mention +2 INT helps your spell save DC and gives you an additional wizard spell preparation.

and in response to your other post's point, wasting a feat to booming blade with a whip is a joke. you get extra attack at level 6, just hit them twice instead of blowing a feat to melee cantrip them.

[Citan]

Are they viable?

You can start with a 17 Dex and take even accuracy at 4th. Sharpshooter at 8th after you have 2 attacks; there with haste, or greater invisibility to get super advantage. 12 you can take xbow expert to get yet another attack. Meanwhile you're a full Caster.

I got disappointed with BSers in actual play but could this redeem them?

EDIT: occurs to me SS won't be as useful while BSing because your limited to one attack with a hand xBow. Can't use a longbow while BSing.
Hi! :)

Works on paper, terrible in practice. You need to start Fighter 1 for weapon proficiency + archery style (which delays the entire build by 1 level - you already were getting Extra Attack a level late at 6, now you're getting it at level 7), and you need two entire feats that you can't afford (SS+CBM) when you're already desperately hungry for both Dexterity and Intelligence ASIs. Worse yet, Bladesingers are restricted to Elf-only, so you can't make up for the feat taxes by going Variant Human. And all of that feat expenditure goes to waste when you use your action to cast a spell, which you're going to be doing a lot considering you're a Wizard.

If you want a ranged attack with your Bladesinger, just cast a cantrip instead. The damage won't be as high, but you don't need 2 feats to make your cantrips good.

If you want to primarily do ranged martial attacks, don't play a Bladesinger. Play a class that's not a Wizard.

edit: and to make matters even worse, Song of Victory only applies to melee weapon attacks, not ranged.
I'll have to more or less agree with Vexacia on this one.
He's painting it much blacker that it really is. Apart from the level 14 that works only in melee, everything you say is indeed true, you can deal pretty good damage with all you say.
The investment is just not really worth it for a Bladesinger unless you really dedicate yourself to a specific Haste OR Darkness playstyle.

However, 2-3-5 levels of Bladesinger for Bladesong and some buff spells would certainly be really useful on any class that can make viable optimal CE-based builds in the first place.

But as far as playing a "gish fullcaster that can be effective at range", it's much simpler to pick Valor or Swords Bard, or to some extent Hexblade Warlock or Whispers Bard. First get Swift Quiver, middle get the "darkness advantage" you like early on plus Elemental Weapon as an alternative, latter get 'magic Sneak Attack' that works as well as the original with the Haste spell.

That does not mean that using a hand crossbow as a pure Bladesinger is a bad idea though (if you can get proficiency one way or another)! It's certainly a useful tactic especially at low level.
Just not worth investing feats into it *if you want to make an optimal character*.
It is, however, certainly good enough to build your concept around if you fancy it though: you certainly won't be "bad", especially if you stack an upcast Magic Weapon onto it and/or dip Fighter for Archery to offset the accuracy loss. It's just that you are renouncing to some other feats that could be as or more useful in a wider variety of situations. :)



It's a nice spell to have in your arsenal to be sure, particularly combined with elven accuracy, but where is the boost to dmg coming from to justify building around it? It's an extra 9 dmg per round vs. a rapier. Sharpshooter is another 20-30 dmg per round and eventually 30-40 with xbow expert and/or Haste.

Except you can upcast it! And as a Bladesinger, you sure do have enough slots to upcast it at least as a 3rd level spell every encounter, as well as a 5th level spell for the biggest fights.
And it's on *every* weapon attack made with Attack action, *without* the accuracy loss.
Of course accuracy loss is pretty much bearable with advantage + Elven Accuracy... But Shadow Blade is a benefit that requires 0 investment and synergizes mostly with Bladesinger (you could use bonus action on other things than extra weapon attack), and I think that's the main point that Vexacia wanted to stress and makes him (and to a lesser extent me) say building up a Sharshooter/CE Bladesinger is not worth all the trouble. :)



and in response to your other post's point, wasting a feat to booming blade with a whip is a joke. you get extra attack at level 6, just hit them twice instead of blowing a feat to melee cantrip them.
To say it in a less harsh way and echo to another of your post, "it would be overall much better to get Mobile feat than Spell Sniper".
Works on any kind of melee attack, so compatible with everything: Extra Attack, Booming Blade, and any buff stacked upon. And it's equally reliable since you don't need to hit, so you get exactly the same effect as "I hit you and back, you have to move for a chance to get me".
And it's actually MUCH better at higher level because many more enemies happen to have a 10 feet, or even sometimes 15 feet reach.