ASI vs feat for STR gloomstalker?

[Spartan_MD]

Hi we are starting a new campaign where I am playing a 5th gloom stalker/ 1st level cleric of war that is a strength based grweatsword ranger. My starting stats end up having a 16 and strength and I’m planning on mostly fighting with a great sword. Am I better off grabbing great weapon master feat at fourth level or bumping my strength to 18? Theoretically I could cast bless to soften the blow of the -5 with the feat however then I can’t cast hunters mark or use the Ranger ability that gives me an extra d4 for damage due to concentration conflict.

[strangebloke]

GWM will almost universally give you more DPR; IIRC even the BA attack is enough to justify it as a feat even if you never use the -5/+10. Of course you can't use -5/+10 all the time, but there are a lot of enemies against whom it will be practical.

Bless IMO is not the best use of your concentration.

+2 STR is the way to go if you simply want a more generalist approach. Ultimately the question is, do you value strength saves and a slight boost to athletics as well as the discrepancy in damage.

[Frogreaver]

Hi we are starting a new campaign where I am playing a 5th gloom stalker/ 1st level cleric of war that is a strength based grweatsword ranger. My starting stats end up having a 16 and strength and I’m planning on mostly fighting with a great sword. Am I better off grabbing great weapon master feat at fourth level or bumping my strength to 18? Theoretically I could cast bless to soften the blow of the -5 with the feat however then I can’t cast hunters mark or use the Ranger ability that gives me an extra d4 for damage due to concentration conflict.

How often do you think you'll be getting advantage?

Because until you are high level the +STR will usually provide as much or more DPR than GWM unless you can help your accuracy. You mentioned Bless but it's a bad spell for this as it takes your action - well it's okay when you can prebuff.

[Spartan_MD]

Don’t think I’ll be getting advantage reliably

[Segev]

What kinds of things excite you about the character when you picture your character doing things?

[Chad.e.clark]

Between the guaranteed +1 weapon and the +d4 from (a hopefully pre-cast) Bless, the -5/+10 is essentially taken care of. Bless being pre-cast is really important, though: getting that additional weapon attack on the first round of combat ftom Gloomstalker is great, especially if you happen to dip a few levels of Fighter.

Fighter 1 could nab you Superior Technique for Precision, Fighter 2 gets action surge (for a total of 6 attacks guaranteed the opening round of combat [dread ambush additional attack triggers per time the Attack Action is taken on the opening round of combat,
Action Surge lets you take the Attack Action again, so Dread Ambush triggers again. Extra Attack 2, dread ambush 3, action surge Extra Attack 5, dread ambush 6] before any potential bonus attack triggering from GWM.) Fighter 3 for Battle Master and just pump more and more Superiority Dice into Precision Attacks.

[strangebloke]

short of abusing blindfighting style or guardian of nature I'm not sure how you'd get advantage regularly of your own volition. But with an ally casting faerie fire or proning enemies it might work.

[Gignere]

short of abusing blindfighting style or guardian of nature I'm not sure how you'd get advantage regularly of your own volition. But with an ally casting faerie fire or proning enemies it might work.

If he’s playing in the under dark or mostly in a dungeon crawl, gloomstalker with proper coordination with party members can get perma advantage.

[Spartan_MD]

If I take another level of war priest, channel divinity gives me a+10

[strangebloke]

If he’s playing in the under dark or mostly in a dungeon crawl, gloomstalker with proper coordination with party members can get perma advantage.

that's what I meant by blindsight abuse.

Underdark campaigns feature a lot of enemies with blindsight so the usual "extinguish torches" gimmick doesn't really work. But blindsight does.

[Gignere]

that's what I meant by blindsight abuse.

Underdark campaigns feature a lot of enemies with blindsight so the usual "extinguish torches" gimmick doesn't really work. But blindsight does.

Not really played in an under dark campaign and I can count on the number of fingers on one hand that we had encounters with enemies with blindsight overwhelmingly most encounters featured enemies with dark vision.

I guess mainly oozes that had blindsight but they have such low AC you can GWM even with disadvantage and you’ll likely still hit unless you rolled a one.

[strangebloke]

Not really played in an under dark campaign and I can count on the number of fingers on one hand that we had encounters with enemies with blindsight overwhelmingly most encounters featured enemies with dark vision.

I guess mainly oozes that had blindsight but they have such low AC you can GWM even with disadvantage and you’ll likely still hit unless you rolled a one.

Meant darkvision, sorry. Gloomstalker gets that by default but to get advantage consistently in the underdark you need to exploit blindsight rather than darkvision.

[Hytheter]

Meant darkvision, sorry. Gloomstalker gets that by default but to get advantage consistently in the underdark you need to exploit blindsight rather than darkvision.

But a Gloom Stalker in darkness is invisible to creatures with darkvision. That's kinda their main thing. Unless there's a light source or their enemies have a special sense (such as actual blindsight) Gloom Stalkers can attack with advantage all day.

[strangebloke]

But a Gloom Stalker in darkness is invisible to creatures with darkvision. That's kinda their main thing. Unless there's a light source or their enemies have a special sense (such as actual blindsight) Gloom Stalkers can attack with advantage all day.

...I'm sleepy, I should go to sleep.