Crit-fishing rogue with Crusher and Slasher?

[Greywander]

You'd need a dip into Genielock (dao) to add bludgeoning damage to your attacks, plus a way to get proficiency in either scimitars or whips (being an elf for Elven Accuracy and swapping your racial weapon proficiencies would work), but then you could apply both Crusher and Slasher to the same attack, knocking an enemy back while also slowing their speed by 10 feet. I'm not totally sure this is worth the effort, but it is interesting and I was wondering if we could do more with this. If we crit on our attack, we could also apply both of the crit effects from Crusher and Slasher. Assassins get free crits against surprised enemies, though Slasher won't help much there since it will wear off before the enemy gets their turn. We can't dip Hexblade if we're already dipping Genielock, but we could dip Champion fighter for the expanded crit range. The warlock dip can also get us Booming Blade, so that's something else we can stack on top of this.

Is this worth it, or is it too much effort for little payout? Mobile + Booming Blade is enough to allow us to move away without provoking an OA while also punishing the enemy if they move, though the knockback and reduced speed from Crusher and Slasher can also serve other purposes, such as knocking them into hazards or slowing them down even if they move out of Booming Blade. If we could crit with some consistency, this could be pretty deadly, but even with Elven Accuracy and a 19-20 crit range, that's only about... 27% crit chance. That's actually a lot better than I was thinking it would be.

We'd probably want to pair this with a rogue subclass that allows us to use a bonus action to get advantage. Steady Aim really only works for ranged attacks, since you can't move if you use it, and if we're using Crusher to knock back the enemy we'll probably need to move each round. There are other tricks we could use to get advantage, such as grappling and shoving prone, but then there's not much point in the Crusher/Slasher crit effects since shoving prone does both anyway (mostly).

I'm not really interested in Piercer because it just doesn't have an interesting or potent effect. Reroll one damage die, or add one damage die on a crit. Pretty weak when we're rolling ten or so Sneak Attack dice. It's a little extra damage, but not necessarily worth a feat.

[Lunali]

I can't see the benefit of crusher being worth the loss of half a die of sneak attack. Even combined, the effects aren't likely to benefit you significantly, most of the time you're either fast enough to run away or not fast enough even with the extra distance and speed. Also, this means you're completely giving up on the chance of an off-turn sneak attack.

[whateew]

While neat that we can now apply crusher to pretty much any attack, I don't really think the rogue benefits all that much from it. Slasher might be a neat way to supplement the rogues general harrassement of enemies, since with reduced speed they probably can't catch you after a disengage (especially if you use a whip).

[strangebloke]

I mean I just wouldn't run this as a rogue. Run a samurai or gloomstalker or some other class with easy access to advantage and a lot of attacks, then grab elven accuracy.

[HPisBS]

I mean I just wouldn't run this as a rogue. Run a samurai or gloomstalker or some other class with easy access to advantage and a lot of attacks, then grab elven accuracy.

Be a Swords Bard that spams Slashing Flourish to apply these riders to two enemies at a time instead of just one. Faerie Fire at Bard 1, then Greater Invisibility at Bard 7 for easy advantage. (And get the slot you cast Faerie Fire with back after every short rest.)

[JackPhoenix]

Be a Swords Bard that spams Slashing Flourish to apply these riders to two enemies at a time instead of just one. Faerie Fire at Bard 1, then Greater Invisibility at Bard 7 for easy advantage. (And get the slot you cast Faerie Fire with back after every short rest.)

Doesn't work. Both feats only work 1 per turn, no matter how many targets you hit, and both also require you to *hit* (or crit) the target, not to cause damage to it without making an attack (and thus be unable to crit).

[Rihno]

You can take a look at my "D6 Piercer" build. It's not exactly what you want (It was made for a friend with specific request) but maybe this will give you some good ideas. It's crit-fisher with Piercer using dual short swords and mixing Rogue with Barbarian and Fighter:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24989229&postcount=1025

[Unoriginal]

Crit-fishing is harder with a Rogue because of the few attacks the class gives. Wouldn't it work better with a Fighter?

[x3n0n]

I guess it depends what your goal is.


If this is "I think Rogue is where I want to be, and maybe I can make my somewhat-infrequent crits even more valuable", then Daolock + Crusher + Champion seems like an unreasonable amount of investment.

Sling/Crusher/Hexblade is less investment, but will only ever proc at range (since there are no finesse bludgeoning weapons), and you're still only getting at most 1 chance per round as a Rogue, which seems like mostly wasting the Curse.


Slasher looks more promising to me. Whip and scimitar are already fine Rogue weapons, and you can get proficiency for both from Hexblade or Champ.

Darkness + Devil's Sight is already in the Hexblade 3 kit for advantage and avoidance of OAs, plus scimitar for TWF to get two shots at the crit rider, plus the Slasher slowdown to keep them from catching you.

Champ gets you Blind Fighting, which may be better overall, but you still need a source of heavy obscurement for the combo.

[Rihno]

Ok, let's do it.

Rogue is not the best crit-fisher because of lack of Extra Attack. However, we can compensate on that with Two-Weapon Fighting. It's still not perfect, but better than one attack. We can also get 3rd attack from Haste, though that is very late level.

So the build for Crit-Fish Rogue:

Race: Mark of Storm Half-Elf for Fog Cloud spell
Class: 1 Fighter Champion/16 Arcane Trickster/2 Fighter: Champion
Style: Blind Fighting Style
ASI: Elven Accuracy +1 DEX, Mobile, +2 DEX, Extra Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting Style
Spells: Fog Cloud from Mark of Storm, Darkness take with Arcane Trickster.

How to use:

Cast Fog Cloud or Darkness. Run to Target, attack him once with Booming Blade, attack him second time with bonus action, use mobile to run away. You have 3x d20 to roll, 19-20 crit range, 2x Attacks.

If you have friendly Wizard/Sorc etc. in party - make him cast Haste on you and then you have 3 attacks with Elven Accuracy and 19-20 crit range to try to fish critical. Or make them cast Darkness/Fog and you can cast Haste on yourself.

That's the best I can do with Rogue.

However, If I were to build crit-fisher I would build either Hexblade or Vengeance Paladin, both with Elven Accuracy. Rogues can work, but they are not as good.

[stoutstien]

Honestly only rangers and fighters get enough attacks to make crit fishing worth the investment.l

[Rihno]

Honestly only rangers and fighters get enough attacks to make crit fishing worth the investment.l

Ekhm? Paladins? Hexblades? They are actually the best crit-fishers due to smites they can attach to crit after they see the roll.

[stoutstien]

Ekhm? Paladins? Hexblades? They are actually the best crit-fishers due to smites they can attach to crit after they see the roll.
Eh. It nice when it happens but even with expanded crit range and advantage the actual increase from criticals isn't what's pushing Numbers up. The same hex dip on a sammy fighter will crit often enough to rely on crit effects every turn.
For the OPs concept of using crusher/slasher they need to know they have a solid chance to crit to trigger both feats so replacing hex for genie and grab a big weapon and go ham. You can save the blunt damage for stacking the effects for those criticals with confidence that a crit will happen.

The hexblade/pally is a crit gambler. They love when they happen but they can't rely on them. From my experience it happens when they need it about 20% of the time. Not something to hang your hat on.

[Unoriginal]

The hexblade/pally is a crit gambler. They love when they happen but they can't rely on them. From my experience it happens when they need it about 20% of the time. Not something to hang your hat on.

This.

Would a dual-wielding Psi Warrior Fighter be the best compromise in term of crit fishing/power of each crits ratio?

[stoutstien]

This.

Would a dual-wielding Psi Warrior Fighter be the best compromise in term of crit fishing/power of each crits ratio?

Depends on psionic strike rulling. The RK and cavalier can both do decent at fishing for those big hits but lack constant ways to take advantage of them. RK are tempting once they get 2 rune charges per SR.

Now I have to go build a a Sir Critsalot cav build.

[Rihno]

Eh. It nice when it happens but even with expanded crit range and advantage the actual increase from criticals isn't what's pushing Numbers up. The same hex dip on a sammy fighter will crit often enough to rely on crit effects every turn.
For the OPs concept of using crusher/slasher they need to know they have a solid chance to crit to trigger both feats so replacing hex for genie and grab a big weapon and go ham. You can save the blunt damage for stacking the effects for those criticals with confidence that a crit will happen.

The hexblade/pally is a crit gambler. They love when they happen but they can't rely on them. From my experience it happens when they need it about 20% of the time. Not something to hang your hat on.

? What? With Elven Accuracy and 3 attacks that's almost 40% crit chance without expanded chance. With 3 attacks and 3 turns per combat that is solid crit chance. Also crit without rider on it (Smite etc.) is poop, not crit. Yeah, nice 2d6 greatsword going 4d6 greatsword.

19-20 crit range won't help you without generating advantage. And with normal advantage + 19-20 crit chance you have the same crit-chance as Elven Accuracy advantage without 19-20 crit chance.

Hexblade can have both. Paladin is easy to build for EA. Fighter needs to generate advantage first. Champion sadly sucks at it the most. Ranger is way more reliable.

The fun starts when you can add 10d8 or 12d8 on that crit. That's a crit. You need rider to make it worth.

[stoutstien]

? What? With Elven Accuracy and 3 attacks that's almost 40% crit chance without expanded chance. With 3 attacks and 3 turns per combat that is solid crit chance. Also crit without rider on it (Smite etc.) is poop, not crit. Yeah, nice 2d6 greatsword going 4d6 greatsword.

19-20 crit range won't help you without generating advantage. And with normal advantage + 19-20 crit chance you have the same crit-chance as Elven Accuracy advantage without 19-20 crit chance.

Hexblade can have both. Paladin is easy to build for EA. Fighter needs to generate advantage first. Champion sadly sucks at it the most. Ranger is way more reliable.

The fun starts when you can add 10d8 or 12d8 on that crit. That's a crit. You need rider to make it worth.

Sure they can have some impressive critical chance and numbers... Once a short rest, against a single Target, and after a round for setup. additionally, there's the hidden cost of having the spell slot saved for the critical hit. It's a very strong build and I'm not arguing otherwise but when it comes to looking to apply effects using critical hit as often as possible it's not reliable.
I can literally count on one hand the number of times where all the stars of lined up and this combination went Nova at the right time and it wasn't overkill by at least 20%. Kind of a letdown when you are looking at it once you weigh the opportunity cost of a very particular multi-class with a certain race and at least 2 feats. This build is strong but not because of the crit nova.

If somebody is literally looking to fish at least one crit every round to continually cycle The crusher and slasher riders then they need more consistency. They need advantage on tap and lots of attacks.

[Greywander]

For reference, the reason I was asking about rogue was because Genie's Wrath only applies to one attack per turn, and rogue is the only martial class that only ever gets one attack. I agree that crit fishing makes more sense on a class with more attacks (hence, more chance to crit), but this makes it more difficult to use it with Genie's Wrath.

My take away from this thread is that this doesn't make much sense for a rogue, but something similar could work for other classes, especially fighters (who get the most attacks, and thus the most chances to crit), paladins (who can add smite damage on crits for maximum damage), or barbarians (who get extra crit damage). Not that it's bad for a rogue, it's just that the investment might not be worth the payoff.

[Unoriginal]

For reference, the reason I was asking about rogue was because Genie's Wrath only applies to one attack per turn, and rogue is the only martial class that only ever gets one attack. I agree that crit fishing makes more sense on a class with more attacks (hence, more chance to crit), but this makes it more difficult to use it with Genie's Wrath.

My take away from this thread is that this doesn't make much sense for a rogue, but something similar could work for other classes, especially fighters (who get the most attacks, and thus the most chances to crit), paladins (who can add smite damage on crits for maximum damage), or barbarians (who get extra crit damage). Not that it's bad for a rogue, it's just that the investment might not be worth the payoff.

Do you have to declare you're using Genie's Wrath before you see the result of your roll? Because if not, like for Smites, it make more sense to wait to use it for either the first crit or the last attack that hits rather than just limiting you to one attack per turn.

[HPisBS]

Do you have to declare you're using Genie's Wrath before you see the result of your roll? Because if not, like for Smites, it make more sense to wait to use it for either the first crit or the last attack that hits rather than just limiting you to one attack per turn.

Slasher/Crusher/Piercer all have 2 riders. The first is "Once per turn when you hit...." The other is "When you score a crit...." So the former should be decided after seeing the roll, while the latter happens every time you crit.

(And none of them scale with crits, like Sneak Attack, etc do, so which hit you'd want to apply their first rider on is just a question of tactics, based on current positioning and so on.)

[Greywander]

Do you have to declare you're using Genie's Wrath before you see the result of your roll? Because if not, like for Smites, it make more sense to wait to use it for either the first crit or the last attack that hits rather than just limiting you to one attack per turn.
You have to hit first, so presumably by the time you decide to use it or not you already know if it's a crit. In that case, I suppose it makes sense to take all but one of your attacks first, and if you crit on any of them, then use it, but if not, then use it on your last attack. You might miss with your last attack, but that's not really any different than if you miss with your only attack as a rogue.

I'm wondering (a) if there are any weapons that deal more than one type of BPS damage on the same hit (seems unlikely), and (b) if Champion fighters are more appealing now with Crusher and/or Slasher. Without Genie's Wrath, you'd probably only pick one or the other, with Slasher being the better tanking feat, and Crusher being the better damage feat. My intuition says that Crusher would work better, because an enemy with no attacks (because they're dead) is better than an enemy attacking with disadvantage. I suppose it depends; a party with a high AC might find the disadvantage inflicted by Slasher to be useful in drastically reducing the number of enemy attacks are hitting, while an enemy with high AC might be a lot easier to bring down if you grant your party advantage. One benefit of Slasher over Crusher is that if you can get multiple crits in you can affect multiple enemies, whereas critting twice with Crusher won't give your party more attacks. Maybe it would make sense to dual-wield on such a character, using the bludgeoning weapon first and then switching to the slashing weapon after your first crit.