The perfect crit fishing build? - just pure mechanics discussion.

[Benny89]

Since there are a lot people here who also do proper math, I would like to get some decisive conclusion of best crit fisher build.

All weapons are allowed, including Double Bladed Scimitar. I think Smite-based build will be the best, though I know that Zealot Bard/Champion Half Orc can be quite competetive too.

My candidates are Smite-based build and I assume we are using Smites only when we score a cirt to maximize our resources for the adventuring day:

All builds assume Half-Elf and EA taken at first ASI + Point Buy. So 14-16 DEX, 16 CON and 17 CHA.

1. 3 Hexblade/17 Vengeance Paladin, going (for smooth progression) 17 levels of Paladin. The leveling is 1 Hexblade (to not waste points on 15 STR which is only 1 AC and better DEX saves are imo better but you can also go for 15 STR if you want) for stronger start with SAD CHA, Hex. Using Double Bladed Scimitar and crit fish (we can grab PAM instead but we don't have room for GWM here). This is the one that has fewer slots than others but it's progression is quite smooth due to being mainly monoclass. Still has access to Darkness+Devil's Sight, 3 attacks, SAD CHA, VOE + Haste and Hex which is good way to get stable DPR in most encounters. And to Improved Divine Smite. Downside is not that many of a slots.

2. 1 Hexblade/6 Vengeance Paladin/13 Hexblade - this one is more sustainable with more short-rest slots but less "bursty" in single combat. Still a lot of ways to get advantage, we also get Shadow Of Moil, Life Drinker and Master of Hexes. Beginning is kind of the same of the build above but focusing more on more freedom with crit smites due to short-rest regen. Can burn two smites in one crit here which can skyrocket your damage. Though your number of slots to do that is more limiting in single fight. Downside is we lose haste here for boss fights.

3. 1 Hexblade/6 Vengeance Paladin/4 Hexblade/9 Vengeance Paladin. So 5/15 build. Double Smite + more middle ground between 1 and 2 build. 2 x 3rd level slots from warlock to burn on double smite-crit. Not fan overall due to neither big slots on short rest, nor a lot of them in one combat. But we still get haste here.

4. 1 Hexblade/6 Vengeance Paladin/13 Divine Soul Sorcerer. This one is the most bursty of all (most slots to burn in one combat) + sustain damage between fights with Spirit Guardians/Holy Weapon etc. However it's painfully long to level up, has no double smites to benefit from crits and you need to wait a long way before you will get Greater Invisibility/Shadow Blade as other resource of advantage than VoE.

The other build that I heard a lot about was Bard/Champion Half-Orc

So Half-Orc with Orcish Fury, 17 Zealot Barbarian (for all Brutal Criticals) and Champion. Best leveling would probably be 9 Barb/3 Champion/8 Barb. Though not as "fishy" as EA build- this one doesn't need any resources to mange. It just hits and crits.

My favourite one is 1 Hex/6 Vengeance/13 Hexblade, since I like Double smite on crit vs a boss but also I like Hexblade features and leveling it is quite smooth.

What build in your opinion would be the best crit fisher?

EDIT: Please kindly post builds that are also viable to level up from level 1-20. Not just level 20 finished builds that are impossible to play well before that.

[stoutstien]

It's hard to look past the basic samurai/sharpshooter/ elven accuracy combo. It's simple, doesn't involve multiclassing or set up rounds, comes online very quickly, and doesn't rely on special conditions.

[Yakk]

Not sure if viable, but:

Assassin 3/Paladin 2/Gloomstalker 6/Champion 3/Sorcerer 6

If you pull off surprise, open battle with 7 auto-crit smites. Caster level of 10 (so slots of a level 19-20 Paladin).

Requires 13 Str, Dex, Wis, Cha. Can attack with Str, or Dex if you want to use the 2d6 sneak attack damage.

Has 2 ASIs; can trade up to 3 caster levels for ASIs (-2 Gloom, +2 Champ, or -1 Sorc, +1 Assassin, or -1 Sorc, +1 Champion, in any order).

[Benny89]

It's hard to look past the basic samurai/sharpshooter/ elven accuracy combo. It's simple, doesn't involve multiclassing or set up rounds, comes online very quickly, and doesn't rely on special conditions.

Yes but crits are low. There is little point investing in crit fishing when your crits are just another 1d8. Too much investment for little return.

However if you can score crit and suddenly deal extra 20k8 damage in single attack- that is at least crit worth of investing into.


Not sure if viable, but:

Assassin 3/Paladin 2/Gloomstalker 6/Champion 3/Sorcerer 6

If you pull off surprise, open battle with 7 auto-crit smites. Caster level of 10 (so slots of a level 19-20 Paladin).

Requires 13 Str, Dex, Wis, Cha. Can attack with Str, or Dex if you want to use the 2d6 sneak attack damage.

Has 2 ASIs; can trade up to 3 caster levels for ASIs (-2 Gloom, +2 Champ, or -1 Sorc, +1 Assassin, or -1 Sorc, +1 Champion, in any order).

Not bad end result but almost impossible to play and level up. You skip half of ASI, leveling this takes forever and extra attack comes relly late.

It would be better to post a build that is also viable to level up from level 1 to 20. Not just level 20 build.

[stoutstien]

What exactly is 20k8 ?

[Damon_Tor]

There's something to be said for Shadowblade here. It gets you easy advantage plus a bunch of dice you can stack on top of smites.

[Benny89]

What exactly is 20k8 ?

If you mix Paladin with Hexblade you can burn two slots for smite - one for E-Smite and one for Divine Smite. So let's say you have 5th level of Warlock Slot - that is 6k8 damage. Let's say you also have couple of 3rd level slots of Paladin. That is 4k8 damage.

If you burn both in one attack (which you can do) you deal 10k8 damage. However if you burn both of them when you crit - you deal 20k8 damage.

[Kornaki]

Is that supposed to be 20d8?

[Keravath]

If you mix Paladin with Hexblade you can burn two slots for smite - one for E-Smite and one for Divine Smite. So let's say you have 5th level of Warlock Slot - that is 6k8 damage. Let's say you also have couple of 3rd level slots of Paladin. That is 4k8 damage.

If you burn both in one attack (which you can do) you deal 10k8 damage. However if you burn both of them when you crit - you deal 20k8 damage.

I think his confusion is with the "k". I think the usual term used is "d".

[T.G. Oskar]

I think his confusion is with the "k". I think the usual term used is "d".

Yeah. "XkY" has a different connotation than "XdY"; the former means "roll X dice, keep Y results". More typical of other systems that use the same dice for everything (I think 7th Sea uses that kind of rolls? Also the older editions of Shadowrun.)


The other build that I heard a lot about was Bard/Champion Half-Orc

So Half-Orc with Orcish Fury, 17 Zealot Barbarian (for all Brutal Criticals) and Champion. Best leveling would probably be 9 Barb/3 Champion/8 Barb. Though not as "fishy" as EA build- this one doesn't need any resources to mange. It just hits and crits.

That depends on your definition of "crit fishing".

The Hexblade/Paladin build aims to maximize critical damage, but does nothing to maximize critical chances, which is what Crit-fishing is meant to be. (Unless you define "crit-fishing" to be different.)

While not the most effective, a "reliable" build would be Fighter (Champion) 15/Barbarian (Zealot) 3/Paladin 2. The progression would go as follows: Fighter 3/Barbarian 3/Paladin 2/Fighter +12. In more detail:

Fighter 3 gets you immediately to Champion. Fighting Style would be Great Weapon Fighting. Get the biggest and baddest greataxe you can.
Then, Barbarian 3 to snatch Reckless Attacker, Rage and specifically Divine Fury. That way, when you Rage, you have 1d12 + 1d6 on your single hit, and between Improved Critical and Reckless Attacker, a fair chance that becomes a crit.
With Paladin 2, you have two options: either add Divine Favor for that 1d4 to damage on every hit, or use it for Smites dealing 2d6 when you land a crit. It's mostly a matter of reliability vs. going nova.
By Fighter 5 (total level 10), Fighter gets Extra Attack and its first ASI. If you can get a Strength of 15, you can use Orcish Fury to raise it to 16.
At Fighter 8th, you get your second ASI. Boost Strength to 18.
At Fighter 10th, choose whatever Fighting Style you like. Archery sounds fun, but you won't be able to benefit from Rage while at it, so consider that as a flexibility option.
At Fighter 12th, you get another ASI. Max Strength or go Great Weapon Master for either benefit. You already have advantage on all your attacks, so go out (even if they don't improve critical hits)
At Fighter 14th, you get another ASI. Max Strength if you haven't already. I would have suggested Savage Attacker, but GWF already allows you to reroll 1s and 2s, so there's that.
At Fighter 15th, you get Superior Critical, which more than maximizes your critical chances.

Now, it's not the nova damage of a Hexblade/Paladin, but it has a lot of advantages:
For one, as a Hexblade, you can only gain your crit benefits on one person at a time, unless you go Hexblade 14 for Master of Hexes. As a Barbarian/Fighter, you gain your enhanced criticals on EVERY individual you fight.

You do get a lot of damage boosters besides Divine/Eldritch Smite (i.e. Hex, Divine Favor), but you can only focus on one enemy at a time - plus, you need to spend 2 bonus actions, so you don't start to "fish" critical hits until your 3rd level, and by then, you could have already ended the battle normally. In comparison, the Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin mix has less chances of dealing mondo damage, but you only need one bonus action (to activate Rage), and you can take advantage of both Improved Critical and Reckless Attacker on the same turn you activate Rage, so you deal reliable damage immediately. You can still go Nova if you like, though - Orcish Fury and Savage Attacks get activated at unison, AND you can fire off your Smite at the same time. That's essentially 3d12 + 4d8 (19~20 + 18 = 37~38 damage; note that this doesn't account for rerolled 1s and 2s, which should actually increase the damage on every single dice) on a single strike - sure, it's not 20d8 (90 damage), but it's half that on a build that has twice as much chances of landing a crit on anybody than the Hexblade/Vengeance Paladin. And that's only comparing a few aspects: the Hexblade/Vengeance Paladin isn't adding the damage from the weapon itself, nor its Charisma modifier to damage, whereas the Barbarian/Fighter isn't adding the bonus damage from Rage (both the base damage increase + the Zealot radiant damage boost, which would be +3) OR the Strength modifier (which is most likely higher). Also, that depends if one or both builds get GWM as a feat.

However, once the Hexblade/Vengeance Paladin defeats its marked opponent, the Zealot Barb/Champion edges ahead, because it has roughly double the chance of landing a critical hit on every opponent it faces. I feel the Zealot Barb/Champion build is a better "crit-fisher" because it's actually aiming to land more critical hits than the rest, whereas the Hexblade/Vengeance Paladin is formidable for going nova, but loses steam afterwards. I'll give it, though, that the Hexblade/Vengeance Paladin deals the most damage on a crit; it just doesn't have the same chances of landing it than the Zealot Barb/Champion.

[CheddarChampion]

How about Hexblade 1/Paladin 2/Whispers Bard 10/Hexblade +4/Whispers Bard +3?
Half Elf for 13/14/13/10/10/17. Elven Accuracy, Cha +2, Resilient (Con), dealer's choice.

I think it's playable from character level 6 onwards. Less so before that, which is a point against this build.

Edit: Tenser's Transformation is a level 6 spell and thus cannot be taken with magical secrets at Bard level 10. NVM.

[Citadel97501]

Half-Elf Champion 6, Vengeance Paladin x 3, Divine Soul Sorcerer x 9, Vengeance Paladin x 1, Sorcerer x 1

Fighting Styles: Defense, & Great Weapon Fighting or Blessed Warrior if running Variant Class Features
Meta Magic: Quicken, Heightened spell, Twinned Spell or if running Variant Class Features Elemental Spell
Feats: Elven Accuracy, Great Weapon Master, Resilient: Charisma
ASI: +2 Charisma, +2 Strength
Attributes: 16, 10, 14, 10, 8, 17 (Ends with 18 strength and 20 charisma)

-I do recognize that this moves away from the basic hexblade build and makes you less SAD, however I think this is much stronger earlier on and doesn't bring as much cheese to annoy the DM that a Hexblade does. That being said, this build has much stronger spell casting progression than most other builds, while still having solid progression all the way through.

My reasoning behind dumping wisdom, is that its a bit of RP as I think embracing vengeance is unwise IE the old proverb "Before You Embark On A Journey Of Revenge, Dig Two Graves". Also I think every character must have low wisdom considering all the stupid adventuring they do instead, of using their power to rule safely...

Level 3: Continuous 19-20 critical hits...
Level 4-5: Elven Accuracy in many situations
Level 6: Extra Attack on time, Great Weapon Mastery for extra attacks and hitting harder,
Level 8: Smites, Hitting harder and more reliably with GWM, or adding ranged options.
Level 9: Vow of Emnity for even more reliable advantage for guaranteed 27% critical hits
Level 10-12: Better saves from Sorcerer makes up for not getting Paladin Auras, More spells for Smiting and buff spells.
Level 13: Quickened Booming Blade, or Heightened Hold Person for just eviseration.
Level 14-18: Basic progression and spell improvements
Level 19: Feat to cap out charisma, and give Charisma Save bonuses
Level 20: Extra Meta-magic for getting around resistances and immunities or for multiple targets for buffs.

[bid]

So Half-Orc with Orcish Fury, 17 Zealot Barbarian (for all Brutal Criticals) and Champion. Best leveling would probably be 9 Barb/3 Champion/8 Barb. Though not as "fishy" as EA build- this one doesn't need any resources to mange. It just hits and crits.
That might have the best DPR. You really want some brutal before dipping. But it's really a sustained damage build until level 12.


Crit fishing means rolling as many d20 as possible. You want advantage, extra attack, BA-attack and crit on 19 too. So yeah, hexblade 1 / vengeance 5 with PAM-spear should be your initial goal, starting from half-elf 10 14 14 10 12 16.

Then you can add champion 3 or caster 3. I believe action surge has better potential than reaching 8d8 crits. So, you'll end up hexblade 2 / vengeance 6 / champion 4 at level 12 with Cha20. Or Cha18 + PAM-spear.

Level 20 is hexblade 3 / vengeance 6 / champion 4 / whispers 7 for extra slots and 3d6 psychic blades.

[Foxydono]

Depending on what you mean with crit-fishing, it's hard to go wrong with a kobold level 20 champion fighter. You max dex, you have 4 attacks, crit in 18, have advantage through pack tactics (depending a bit on the campaign, but take magic inniate for familiar). You also have action surge x2. Obviously take sharshooter and crossbow expert.

Tldr: kobold champion, first two rounds: 9 attacks/round, advantage and 18+ to crit.

Edit: if you like cheesy one trick pony's, make it a half-elf champion fighter with EA, SS and give him 18 arrows of dragon saying and an oathbow with haste. Triple advantage, 18+ crit and 6d10+3d6 extra damage. Haven't done the calculations, but you can probably one-shot Tiamat with this setup.

[MedicinalCarrot]

For crit fishing, you want to maximize your chance to crit (expand the crit range and roll more dice) and maximize the damage dice you roll. The following is the best I've come up with:

Fighter (Champion) 3 / Rogue (Arcane Trickster) 15 / Paladin 2
Half Elf. Elven Accuracy feat. Defense and dueling fighting styles. Max Dex

Not sure the best order to take levels. I think 1 or 2 of Fighter, then 4 or 8 of Rogue for Elven Accuracy and maybe an ASI, Fighter until you hit 3 in that class, back to Rogue until it's 13, both Paladin levels, then finish up Rogue. Alternatively, you could play as a normal Arcane Trickster (with maybe a level of Fighter to start for better armor) until you hit 13, then grab Fighter and Paladin, just be sure to grab Elven Accuracy and Booming Blade along the way.

Champion gets you crits on a 19. Rogue gets you 8d6 sneak attack damage. Paladin gets you smites. Arcane Trickster gets you guaranteed advantage thanks to a mage hand that can Help as a bonus action, plus Booming Blade, more spell slots for smites, and possibly Enlarge for 1d4 per round. And Elven Accuracy has you taking the best of 3d20 to hit.

You crit 27.1% of the time
With a normal rapier, without Enlarge, you do 7 + 4d8 + 8d6 damage, not including smites. Assuming you only smite on a crit, you average:
53 damage on a normal hit
135 on the first three crits
126 on crits 4-6
117 on crits 7-10
106 on crits 11+

Enlarge bumps your normal damage by 2.5, and your crit damage by 5 (except crit 6, which drops by 4). You can regularly recast mage hand if you think a fight might break out, and action surge to enlarge round 1. Otherwise you can action surge to cast mage hand round 1 and miss out on Enlarge.

Shadow Blade could replace Enlarge, but as a bonus action you'd have to pre-cast it or miss out on advantage for a turn.

Savage Attacker can increase damage by 1.3125 on a normal hit and 2.625 on a crit. A different feat or an ASI would probaly serve you better.

Elemental Adept can add a tiny amount (.125 per hit, .25 per crit), but isn't really worth it, just mentioned for completeness.

[stoutstien]

Yeah. "XkY" has a different connotation than "XdY"; the former means "roll X dice, keep Y results". More typical of other systems that use the same dice for everything (I think 7th Sea uses that kind of rolls? Also the older editions of Shadowrun.)

yea i was reading it as selecting results and was wondering if i was missing something lol. the star trek RPG uses a XkX system as well.

[clash]

Rogue levels can be more powerful than caster levels for smite. You only decide to sneak attack after the attack hits which means you know if it's a critical hit. If you can get a very reliable chance of critting at least once a turn then only use sneak attack when you crit then you basically have unlimited smite.

[Keravath]

Champion fighter 11/Whispers bard 6/warlock 3 - elven accuracy + darkness/devils sight to generate advantage?

Crit fishing builds are ideal with the following -

- enhanced crit range (hexblade is basically only 1 target/short rest so although it is effective in that one instance, I'm not sure I really consider it crit fishing since most of the time it isn't). Usually you need at least 3 levels of champion fighter.
- extra attacks - crit fishing needs as many attack as possible in order to actually get crits. Rolling once for one possible crit a turn is less than ideal.
- extra damage - to make the crits most effective the character should be able to add extra damage (sneak attack, smites (most common option), psychic blades from whispers bard ... are examples).
- improved crit probability - You want to be rolling with advantage to have two opportunities on every attack. Elven advantage doubles down on this with close to a 30% crit chance with a 19-20 crit range but requires non-strength attacks.

half-elf - hexblade 3/paladin 6/champion fighter 3/whispers bard 8 ... it only has 3 ASIs though ... Elven Accuracy + PAM + boost cha to 20 starting with 17 cha from half-elf. Darkness+devils sight from warlock to generate advantage.

From a playing perspective it would probably go 1 hexblade/6 paladin (for the aura)/3 fighter/2 hexblade/ rest bard .. not ideal since getting all the pieces together comes online pretty late.

[Benny89]

yea i was reading it as selecting results and was wondering if i was missing something lol. the star trek RPG uses a XkX system as well.

Apologzie for confusion. Sometimes when it's late or I am tired I frogot that English uses "d" as for dice, while in my country polish-translated books uses "k" as for "kostka" which is translation of a "die" word. I usually remember to use "d" instead but sometimes it gets back to me :).



Anyway- I think getting 3 Champion levels into Paladin is too big loss of not only spell and features progression but also ASI. I think 1 dip of Hexblade is enough for 19-20 when you need it but more smites is more important imo for crit fishing.

[stoutstien]

Apologzie for confusion. Sometimes when it's late or I am tired I frogot that English uses "d" as for dice, while in my country polish-translated books uses "k" as for "kostka" which is translation of a "die" word. I usually remember to use "d" instead but sometimes it gets back to me :).



Anyway- I think getting 3 Champion levels into Paladin is too big loss of not only spell and features progression but also ASI. I think 1 dip of Hexblade is enough for 19-20 when you need it but more smites is more important imo for crit fishing.

the real question you have to ask yourself is working towards maximizing your critical hit chance and damage is actually increasing your output by any noticeable margin. Rolling lots of dice is fun but in reality the best part of critical hits is it reduces your chance of missing attacks which is a heck of a lot more useful than adding dice if you happen to land a critical when A) you need it and B) you have the resources to fuel it.
Crits just don't hit hard enough to be worth building for damage unless you add in SS/GWM. The is especially true if it needs some kind of 1st round set up. Spending one round dealing little to no damage to maybe do 50% more Damage the second round is probably not a sound plan A.

[Benny89]

the real question you have to ask yourself is working towards maximizing your critical hit chance and damage is actually increasing your output by any noticeable margin. Rolling lots of dice is fun but in reality the best part of critical hits is it reduces your chance of missing attacks which is a heck of a lot more useful than adding dice if you happen to land a critical when A) you need it and B) you have the resources to fuel it.
Crits just don't hit hard enough to be worth building for damage unless you add in SS/GWM. The is especially true if it needs some kind of 1st round set up. Spending one round dealing little to no damage to maybe do 50% more Damage the second round is probably not a sound plan A.

Ow, I know that. This is pure theorycrafting. I myself have been playing EA Vengeance Paladin/1 Hexblade I definitely don't buy whole "crit fishing with Half-Elf best ever" and I would chose Variant Human for PAM + GWM sustain damage in Tier 1-3 every time, as problem with crits (as you mentioned) is that they don't always happen when you need them.

For example I was once fighting a Ancient Blue Dragon as My 1 Hexblde/9 Vengance Paladin. Whole set up was already on- Curse + VoE + Haste from my party Sorcerer. Dragon died in 4 rounds.

Believe or not - I didn't crit even ONCE. I had really bad rolls of 1-9 and what EA did was that it made me hit at all at least... My highest roll was 18 and 17. Next fight with bunch of stupid Trolls - I was critting almost every attack but I had no more slots and I couldn't care less about crit-smiting some stupid trolls.

So this here is just playing with idea, not really trying to sell at best ever. Every time I had much more success with Vumans PAM+GWM sustain builds than crit fish builds that have to wait 12 levels to finally be fully online.

Anyway, crits can hit hard enough with smites, that is why I think smites + slots matter.

For example using 1 Hexblade/6 V.Paladin/13 Divine Soul Sorcerer using Shield + Spear, 3 attacks would have quite a lot of slots to burn on crits. The problem would be sustainable damage since we want EA here. But with Hex it's not "that" bad, it's 5d6 + 1d4 + 15 every turn, which is fine for a crit fish tank. 35 DPR. However, when we crit and burn 4d8 or 5d8 slot, it can spike with just one crit of 8d8 to 71 DPR, which is very good. Later they get access to Holy Weapon which helps a lot. Holy Weapon + PAM would give 3x (2d8 + 5) + 2d6 + 1d4 = 51,5 DPR which is fine.

But I also see the appeal of Half-Orc Zealot/Chmapion combo more. It might not have the same crit chance as EA build, however it also gets very good sustain damage at the same time thanks to GWM + Rage + PAM later. So crits here can be as strong (4d12 from great axe is 26 damage) but we also have good sustain damage and can spike it with Orcish Fury. So it's more of a middle ground between Vumans Sustain DPR builds and EA Crit fishers.

Samurais are simillar but I reall hate that Smurai FS is 3/day. I like to have more fun with core of my build than that.

[Damon_Tor]

Paladin 2 for smites
Champion fighter 3 for crit range
Divine soul Sorcerer 12 for Shadowblade and spellslots
Use Thaumaturgy for easy advantage with Shadowblade. Your attack will be booming blade, quickened and twinned for three attacks per turn.

[Benny89]

Paladin 2 for smites
Champion fighter 3 for crit range
Divine soul Sorcerer 12 for Shadowblade and spellslots
Use Thaumaturgy for easy advantage with Shadowblade. Your attack will be booming blade, quickened and twinned for three attacks per turn.

That is only two attacks vs single targets though. Twin can only hit seperate targets.

So even with EA you attack two attacks vs same target rolling 6x d20 for a crit chance. Vuman with PAM would be rolling 6x d20 too with 3 attacks per turn (or one quicken) for the same crit chance pretty much while having better DPR.

Also question- how would you level it up. I imagine you would start with Paladin 2 and then move to 8 Levels of Sorc to grab 2x ASI + 4th level spells and then 3 champ levels?

[Damon_Tor]

That is only two attacks vs single targets though. Twin can only hit seperate targets.

True.


So even with EA you attack two attacks vs same target rolling 6x d20 for a crit chance. Vuman with PAM would be rolling 6x d20 too with 3 attacks per turn (or one quicken) for the same crit chance pretty much while having better DPR.

Booming Blade brings its own damage dice to the party, and so does the Shadow Blade. This build gives up one attack for much stronger attacks. It also doesn't rely on feats at all, though Mobile is real nice and Savage Attacker is quite good combined with Shadow Blade because the weapon itself includes extra dice. It doesn't require DM gifts to deal with enemies resistant to non-magic weapons.

However, if the lack of a third attack bothers you, take either paladin or fighter to 5. You can attack as your action for 2 attacks then quicken booming blade for your third. I don't think it's worth it: the math works out fine, but when you get a crit on a regular attack instead of your booming blade it feels real bad, like you've wasted your crit. I know that's a bad argument statistically, but I'm saying it hurts my fun when it happens.


Also question- how would you level it up. I imagine you would start with Paladin 2 and then move to 8 Levels of Sorc to grab 2x ASI + 4th level spells and then 3 champ levels?

I'd get Paladin 1 for armor and HP, then sorcerer to blast/support from the back until you have the levels to do what you need to do. A Divine Soul sorcerer is a top-tier buffer/healer in the game due to twinned spell, regardless of how much Cha he's got, so you're free enable the heck out of your teammates until you've got all pieces together. And even without the martial levels, you've got the core of your gameplay, your Shadowblade, Quickened Booming Blade, and Elven Accuracy up and running by level 4. Which means you can jump in and do real nice DPS every once in a while even if you don't have the spell slots/sorcery points build up yet to run it all day.

[DarknessEternal]

Use Thaumaturgy for easy advantage with Shadowblade. Your attack will be booming blade, quickened and twinned for three attacks per turn.

No build that uses up 2 rounds casting spells and not attacking is not optimized for this.

[bid]

You only decide to sneak attack after the attack hits which means you know if it's a critical hit.
You usually have a better chance of missing than critting, and by a lot. It's never worth hoping on the second hit.

[clash]

You usually have a better chance of missing than critting, and by a lot. It's never worth hoping on the second hit.

Unless you've built a crit fishing build. With eleven anyway and improved crit and three attacks with advantage on all of them you would have 61% chance of at least one critical hit and you still would have room for 5d6 sneak attack.

[Eldariel]

You should be maximizing your average crit damage per turn far as I understand. Thus you have a lot of valid options:
- Add extra dice
- Improve crit range
- Improve crit multiplier
- Gain extra attacks
- Ease of Advantage + Elven Accuracy (a given for all of these, probably)

The math to determine, which build actually does most of that on each level is actually quite complicated due to the number of options. Intuition can probably be used to determine the few likely most capable builds for crunching though.

[bid]

Unless you've built a crit fishing build. With eleven anyway and improved crit and three attacks with advantage on all of them you would have 61% chance of at least one critical hit and you still would have room for 5d6 sneak attack.
With trivantage and improved crit, your last roll has 27% of crit but less than 2% miss.
If you hit on the previous roll, you have a guaranteed 5d6 damage.
If you hope to crit on last, you have 2% of losing that damage and 27% of doubling it up.

Yeah, that works.

[JackPhoenix]

I think his confusion is with the "k". I think the usual term used is "d".

K is used in some other languages. In mine, "dice" means "kostka", hence k instead of d in translated (or native) RPGs.

[Benny89]

2 Hexblade/18 Arcane Trickster Elf Drow would be interesting assassin.

DEX: 17 (18), CON 14, INT 14, CHA 13.

level 5- EA +1 DEX (using rapier)
Level 9- Mobile

This gives us:

1. Triple advantage so we hardly can miss a target.
2. Booming Blade for stacking
3. Shadow Blade
3. Darkness + Devil's Sight combo, Greater Invisibility, Familliar Help Action from bonus action since we have mobile so we can still strike and move away or use our cunning action.
4. Curse for 19-20 crit range vs single target.


Assuming we have Shadow Blade + Booming Blade + Sneak attack + advantage from either shadow blade or familliar at level 12 (using double bladed scimitar): 1d8 + 4d8 + 6d6 + 4 = 47,5. If we crit that's 91 damage total at level 12. With Curse on that's another +4 damage so 95 damage.

And if booming blade will go boom that's another 3d8 damage so 104,5 damage total.

It's pretty sustain since all we need is Familiar and Shadow Blade. But if we manage to find good magic weapon we always have GI, Darkness DS combo as backup, or even Haste.

[AttilatheYeon]

For adventurer's league, i'm going with Hexblade-Chain(9)/Grave(6)/Fighter(t) with Wave.

I'm going have wave, rotpk3, and staff of power/magi. I'll cast hold person/monster as a quickened spell, use grave's path to the grave, then action surge into an auto double damage crit (which should be the targets max hp in necrotic damage plus double crit damage). I can do this twice every rest.

[MedicinalCarrot]

Having done a bit more math I've found the following:
2 attacks beat 1 attack in pretty much all situations
2 attacks, 1 with Booming Blade and 1 without, beats 3 attacks without it (e.g. with Haste)
Having advantage on both attacks is better than only having it on one, even if you get extra damage on the one (e.g. with Zephyr Blade)
If attacking AC 18+, it's better to use your sneak attack on the first hit than save it for a crit. For AC 17 or less, it's better to save the sneak attack for a crit

So for my build, having Mage Hand pre-cast and using action surge for Haste round 1 is ideal. War Caster becomes much more important to keep the Haste up.

Taking hit chance into account and smiting only on a crit, it averages 100.6 damage round 1 vs AC 20. Damage after that depends on how fast you crit and go through spell slots for smiting. If you crit twice every round, will average at least 81 damage from rounds 5-10.

If you smite every hit instead of just crits, that's 124.5 avg damage round 1, 113.7 round 2, 102.8 rounds 3 and 4, and 81 rounds 5-10.

I'll try to run numbers on the other builds posted in this thread when I get a chance.

[bid]

If you smite every hit instead of just crits, that's 124.5 avg damage round 1, 113.7 round 2, 102.8 rounds 3 and 4, and 81 rounds 5-10.
There's always the obvious low slot on hit, best slot on crit.

Still, if you need to use your best slot on a mere hit to kill a mob, it's a better use than an overkilling crit coup de grâce.