Winged Feral Tiefling Samurai build - Ranged or Melee?

[Greywander]

I've been looking at fighter builds lately, and really appreciating the two extra feats. The Samurai subclass looks really solid, and I like how its specific features naturally combo with the base fighter features, e.g. Fighting Spirit + Action Surge, Strength before Death + Second Wind. Looking at a fighter guide, I saw someone rate Infernal Constitution well, and so I naturally thought to see if I could build a decent winged tiefling fighter. Since tieflings can't get a STR bonus, but can get a DEX bonus with the feral variant, that means I'm probably building a DEX fighter. What I'm having trouble deciding is whether to build for range or melee.

With point buy, I can start with a stat array of 10, 17, 15, 10, 12, 10. DEX and CON are really the only important ones in terms of build optimization, so I can move some of the other points around to fit a specific character concept as needed. Since Samurai already get WIS save proficiency, I can grab Resilient (DEX) at 4th level to get DEX up to 18. At 6th level I can boost DEX to 20, then grab Infernal Constitution at 8th level for 16 CON. This means I only need to spend one ASI as an actual ASI, and can grab a total of six feats (two of which would be Resilient and Infernal Constitution).

The remaining four feats, and the fighting style, will depend heavily on whether I decide to go longbow or rapier and shield. Obvious take the archery style for a longbow build, but I'm undecided between dueling or defense, or even protection, for a rapier+shield build. Sharpshooter and Defensive Duelist are obvious picks for each build, and Mobile would probably benefit both builds, and maybe Shield Master on the rapier build. Beyond that, I'm not really sure. Alert, maybe? Magic Initiate? Maybe just something thematic and interesting?

I'm leaning toward a melee build, since that's what I was initially looking at with a half-orc champion. Going from a STR build to a DEX build opened up the possibility for an archer build, so I wanted to consider it. Plus, with a winged tiefling, sniping enemies from outside of their range sounds really appealing, but at the same time flight cancels one of the big weaknesses of melee fighters by letting you engage in melee with flying enemies. That, and even if you are out of range, the rest of your party is not, and fighters make decent tanks (especially with 16 CON, proficiency in the big three saves, and Defensive Duelist).

[Civis Mundi]

I do love me some Fighter. It's really come a long way since earlier editions--I'd call it one of the best-designed classes now.

I think archery is the strongest pick. It probably works best with the wings, and every feat after Sharpshooter is just gravy (I'd make sure to maximize DEX after picking it up). Fighting Spirit synergizes really well with both GWM and Sharpshooter, but Sharpshooter works even better because of the Archery Fighting Style's attack bonus.

If you're leaning melee, there's no reason why you can't. In that case though, I'd definitely pick up Mobile, so that you can actually make use of your wings during combat. Along these lines, I think Eldritch Knight would be a stronger choice than Samurai for a melee version of this build. Close in with your wings, use War Magic to attack once with booming blade and once without it, then fly up and out of range with Mobile. This works even better if you're the only frontliner nearby, and the enemies lack strong ranged attacks. In that case, I think Dueling with sword and board might work best.

Even if you go melee and don't go Samurai, I still think Dueling is best. Defense is good, but can feel a little boring. GWF won't do much for you as a DEX build, and Fighting Spirit takes up your bonus action, which makes things like TWF or a polearm build less attractive as well.

[Greywander]

EKs are pretty good, it's interesting how even a little magic ends up having a multiplicative effect. When the wizard casts Shield, it's because they're desperate and trying to get out of a tight spot. When you cast Shield, you're exactly where you want to be and get to laugh at the puny monsters thinking they finally scored a hit on you. I like EKs for grappler builds, too, as you can pick up both Enlarge/Reduce and three attacks in the same class, combined with a dip into rogue for Athletics expertise makes you a fantastic grappler.

Maybe for a Samurai, some kind of elf would work better. Elven Accuracy synergizes with Fighting Spirit, and especially when you Action Surge it basically becomes one of those scenes from an anime where you run past a bunch of enemies, only for all their heads to fall off after a beat. It does make Rapid Strike a bit less appealing, though. Be a shadar-kai and your transformation into an emotionless anime edgelord protagonist is complete.

Shield Master might actually be good feat for a Samurai as well, provided you can do the shield bash before taking all your attacks (either before attacking at all, or after the first attack), since you can potentially trigger Rapid Strike every round. Obviously YMMV, since even the devs can't decide how the Shield Master bash works. Combined with Resilient (DEX), your DEX saves will also be ridiculous.

[Civis Mundi]

EKs are pretty good, it's interesting how even a little magic ends up having a multiplicative effect. When the wizard casts Shield, it's because they're desperate and trying to get out of a tight spot. When you cast Shield, you're exactly where you want to be and get to laugh at the puny monsters thinking they finally scored a hit on you. I like EKs for grappler builds, too, as you can pick up both Enlarge/Reduce and three attacks in the same class, combined with a dip into rogue for Athletics expertise makes you a fantastic grappler.

Maybe for a Samurai, some kind of elf would work better. Elven Accuracy synergizes with Fighting Spirit, and especially when you Action Surge it basically becomes one of those scenes from an anime where you run past a bunch of enemies, only for all their heads to fall off after a beat. It does make Rapid Strike a bit less appealing, though. Be a shadar-kai and your transformation into an emotionless anime edgelord protagonist is complete.

Shield Master might actually be good feat for a Samurai as well, provided you can do the shield bash before taking all your attacks (either before attacking at all, or after the first attack), since you can potentially trigger Rapid Strike every round. Obviously YMMV, since even the devs can't decide how the Shield Master bash works. Combined with Resilient (DEX), your DEX saves will also be ridiculous.

Elven Accuracy is a perfect fit for Fighting Spirit, that's for sure. The problem with Shield Master as a Samurai is you only get to use it on rounds where you don't use Fighting Spirit, and unfortuantely the advantage only lasts until the end of your current turn. Could be a good way to give yourself options when you do run out though.

And yes, Eldritch Knights are 100% my favorite Fighter subclass. I'm also a big fan of the EK-grappler, there's just so much you can do with it.

Whether you go Eldritch Knight or Samurai, an Elven subrace with some spellcasting could work wonders. I like the Pallid Elf myself.

EDIT: A quirky version of the Samurai I'd totally like to play sometime is a Half-Orc Samurai I call "the Oni." It requires use of the UA feat Fell Handed though. The feat states that, "Whenever you have advantage on a melee attack roll you make with the weapon and hit, you can knock the target prone if the lower of the two d20 rolls would also hit the target." Dual wield warhammers fluffed as kanabo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanab%C5%8D), use Fighting Spirit to give yourself advantage and go to town. But it works best when someone else is making sure to reduce the target's speed to 0, otherwise you have to replace an Advantage attack with a grapple attempt.

[Nagog]

I think the biggest deal breaker for me on this dilemma is access to feats. Mobile would be a must-have for me to go Melee in this setting, being able to kite multiple enemies with a boosted flight speed would open up the possibility of using a two-handed weapon that deals more damage than a sword & board. Making sure to be as big a thorn in your enemy's side as possible will allow you to proactively tank: Enemies being required to hold their attack to hit you on your next pass means they lose out on multiattack and the opportunity to hit your party members.
However, that does mean your ASIs are delayed by a few more levels.

For ranged, Xbow master is my personal favorite. Making 10 ranged attacks, all at advantage (combining Action Surge and Fighting Spirit in Tier 4) is a really powerful ability.

[Civis Mundi]

For ranged, Xbow master is my personal favorite. Making 10 ranged attacks, all at advantage (combining Action Surge and Fighting Spirit in Tier 4) is a really powerful ability.

Unfortunately, Fighting Spirit doesn't work well with Crossbow Master. It's a bonus action to activate Fighting Spirit, and it only lasts until the end of your current turn. This is why Samurai definitely takes a backseat to Battle Master and Eldritch Knight for me--they're too restricted in their bonus actions, and it restricts their fighting style.

[Greywander]

I feel like Fighting Spirit + Action Surge is such a potent combo that it can be worth the bonus action competition. You can't use Fighting Spirit every turn, after all, so having something else to do with your bonus action can be useful. This is where Shield Master can come in handy: shove the enemy prone to get advantage on your attacks and trigger Rapid Strike without spending your Fighting Spirit.

I'm also noticing that after 10th level, you might as well blow all your Fighting Spirit during the first challenging fight you encounter after a rest. Since you always start combat with at least one use, the only reason to save it is if you think a more difficult fight might be coming up before your next long rest. The only thing to watch out for is getting baited to burn your Fighting Spirit on a weak monster before a stronger monster joins the fight.

I am a little surprised by all the crossbow love. The extra damage from the bonus action attack seems to roughly balance out with the smaller damage die of the hand crossbow vs. the longbow. The longbow has a longer range and doesn't require a feat to use effectively. That said, the two only seem to balance out once you have all four attacks, and prior to that the crossbow would do more damage. Oh, but I suppose if you're using Sharpshooter's -5/+10 then that one extra attack ends up adding a lot more damage. Which, now that I think about it, combining the Archery style with Elven Accuracy would make Sharpshooter's -5/+10 much more powerful, wouldn't it?

Shadar-kai seems to fit this build a bit better. You get that bump to both DEX and CON, in addition to a teleport that gives you resistance to all damage for one round, and still get access to Elven Accuracy. Wing tieflings are good for a variety of builds, but Flames of Phlegethos makes them particularly suited to fire magic users or GFB spam. I generally think people overestimate the value of wings (as long as at least one PC can't fly, the party as a whole is still land-bound), but they are a great feature to have.

[LudicSavant]

I've been looking at fighter builds lately, and really appreciating the two extra feats. The Samurai subclass looks really solid, and I like how its specific features naturally combo with the base fighter features, e.g. Fighting Spirit + Action Surge, Strength before Death + Second Wind. Looking at a fighter guide, I saw someone rate Infernal Constitution well, and so I naturally thought to see if I could build a decent winged tiefling fighter. Since tieflings can't get a STR bonus, but can get a DEX bonus with the feral variant, that means I'm probably building a DEX fighter. What I'm having trouble deciding is whether to build for range or melee.

With point buy, I can start with a stat array of 10, 17, 15, 10, 12, 10. DEX and CON are really the only important ones in terms of build optimization, so I can move some of the other points around to fit a specific character concept as needed. Since Samurai already get WIS save proficiency, I can grab Resilient (DEX) at 4th level to get DEX up to 18. At 6th level I can boost DEX to 20, then grab Infernal Constitution at 8th level for 16 CON. This means I only need to spend one ASI as an actual ASI, and can grab a total of six feats (two of which would be Resilient and Infernal Constitution).

The remaining four feats, and the fighting style, will depend heavily on whether I decide to go longbow or rapier and shield. Obvious take the archery style for a longbow build, but I'm undecided between dueling or defense, or even protection, for a rapier+shield build. Sharpshooter and Defensive Duelist are obvious picks for each build, and Mobile would probably benefit both builds, and maybe Shield Master on the rapier build. Beyond that, I'm not really sure. Alert, maybe? Magic Initiate? Maybe just something thematic and interesting?

I'm leaning toward a melee build, since that's what I was initially looking at with a half-orc champion. Going from a STR build to a DEX build opened up the possibility for an archer build, so I wanted to consider it. Plus, with a winged tiefling, sniping enemies from outside of their range sounds really appealing, but at the same time flight cancels one of the big weaknesses of melee fighters by letting you engage in melee with flying enemies. That, and even if you are out of range, the rest of your party is not, and fighters make decent tanks (especially with 16 CON, proficiency in the big three saves, and Defensive Duelist).

If the question is what's mechanically better, in a Samurai's case it's pretty straightforwardly the archer (barring possible mitigating factors like some very particular party compositions).

One of the biggest disadvantages of melee is that Samurai are pretty immobile. They don't have any mobility, control, or anti-control skills of note; just that basic 30 foot walking speed. They also don't have a good backup plan for if they *don't* get into engagement range; for example, a melee Paladin who is left without a target can still use their Action on a useful buff or heal or something. Flying only helps a little bit with this; your 30 move speed still poses a problem for chasing down kiters even if it can go vertical.

One of the main advantages of melee styles is the ability to get advantage more easily, but Fighting Spirit does a *lot* to narrow this gap for archer Samurai. Another advantage of melee is that you can get more OAs and control, but Samurais generally don't have particularly good OAs or control (like an Eldritch Knight or Battle Master might). A Samurai is just good at dishing out huge amounts of raw, highly consistent damage, and they're just fine doing that at range.

[da newt]

IMO its pretty simple - the archer build is superior for DPR and avoiding damage to self, but they don't provide any tanking. Melee will allow tanking and really good DPR.

Which works better for you and your party?

[Spiritchaser]

Are you totally sold on samurai?

A winged tiefling echo knight with sentinel could be just hilarious.

And yes I have to say this: throw in three levels of ancestral guardian for ancestral protectors and... Yeah the DM would probably get pretty miffed.

[Man_Over_Game]

IMO its pretty simple - the archer build is superior for DPR and avoiding damage to self, but they don't provide any tanking. Melee will allow tanking and really good DPR.

Which works better for you and your party?

This is a pretty big important deal. You have to remember that attacks not made against you are likely attacks made against someone else. A very effective strategy of the game is having everyone run out of HP at the same time, since it means that your entire party is at 100% fighting capacity for as long as possible. Fighters are generally the ones that are better at being attacked, since they have more HP and more AC. The problem Fighters come across in this regard is taking TOO much damage and dying while the rest of the party is fairly healthy. Flying solves that problem as does Mobile. Both allow you to throttle your life to be able to take exactly how much damage you feel comfortable with before needing to be cautious. You could, for example, absorb as much damage as you want up to about ~20 HP, get to safety, and then let your party members mop up now that you have efficiently blocked a huge portion of the incoming damage.

For that reason, a melee build is better for flying characters, unless your party would benefit from you never being targeted (such as a Concentration-oriented caster).