Is Piercer secretly a mounted combat feat?

[Greywander]

I was thinking about this after posting in another thread someone made about the Piercer feat. This feat is generally regarded as not that great, easily the weakest of the three (the others being Crusher and Slasher). But perhaps we've been using it wrong.

As a reminder, the first effect of this feat is that you can reroll one piercing damage die once per turn, and must use the new roll. To get the most out of this, we need to do two things. First, we want to maximize the die size, as this makes a reroll have a greater potential effect. There's a big difference in rerolling a 1 on a d6 vs. rerolling a 1 on a d12. Second, we want to maximize the number of dice rolled, as this gives us more opportunities to use the reroll.

Now, the piercing weapon with the largest damage die is the lance with a d12. So we're probably looking at a mounted combat build. To maximize the number of dice, the first thing I thought of was to go fighter for more attacks. This gives us up to four attacks per action, and up to eight attacks on our turn if we Action Surge. It's not as many dice as a rogue's Sneak Attack, but I think the larger damage die might help offset that. Still, I don't know that the effect is significant enough to make this worth it.

However, Piercer has a second effect. On a crit, we roll an extra damage die. Again, we want to maximize our die size to get the most out of this, so the lance fits perfectly here. Also, with the Mounted Combatant feat, we can have a reliable source of advantage against a lot of enemies, which increases our crit chance. We can increase our crit chance even more by taking the Champion subclass. To top this off, we can take half-orc as our race to get another damage die on a crit.

Now, I've seen analysis of crit fisher builds, and they're... not good. Crit fishing is typically more effort than it's worth. So I don't know if the end result here would actually be worth the effort. In fact, I plugged some numbers into LudicSavant's damage calculator, and it seems like a PAM build with a glaive is as good if not better, as far as damage goes. But I think this is at least not terrible. It leaves your bonus action free, it lets you use a reach weapon with a large damage die with a shield, it benefits from the Dueling style for more damage. So maybe it's not super optimal, but it's not terrible, either.

I did wonder if I could get Elven Accuracy in here somewhere. If we're half-orc, then perhaps our other half is elf, allowing us to qualify for the feat (okay, this might be reaching). But Elven Accuracy requires the attack be made with DEX or a mental stat, and lances are STR weapons. But... a one level dip into Hexblade could fix this, although it would cost us our fourth attack. Hexblade's Curse also gives an extended crit range, though not as good as the Champion's, but it might free us up to take a better subclass instead. TBH, this is probably more trouble than it's worth, even if we can convince a DM to let us take Elven Accuracy on a half-orc.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I currently have this feat with a low level Assassin (Custom Lineage). Pre-5th level I'm absolutely out-pacing the Gloomstalker and Battlemaster for damage, in part due to this feat and in part due to the more linear nature of Rogue progression.
You are correct in thinking the number of dice is a big player here, as is the size of the dice. Regarding the size of the dice, that's where my character isn't maximizing the benefit and it won't scale well.
My character obviously gets the auto-crit with surprise and I'm looking at a couple levels of Grave Cleric as well for the occasional vulnerability damage. And I'm going to use a feat to get Find Familiar to make sure of advantage (more crits) even after round 1. So far I can say Piercer has been worth it, but you need a build that leverages both parts for it to really work; what you've suggested seems to do that.

[Damon_Tor]

You could always dual wield lances as long as you've got the feat for ignoring the small property for dual wielding. You just always have to be mounted, which means you need a very beefy and replacable mount. For my money that means battlesmith artificer or beastmaster ranger (with a small-sized race).

Or just ride on the back of another PC.

But really though, a heavy crossbow is 1d10 damage, which is nearly as big, and you're going to find much more synergy with the playstyle that way.

[Gignere]

You could always dual wield lances as long as you've got the feat for ignoring the small property for dual wielding. You just always have to be mounted, which means you need a very beefy and replacable mount. For my money that means battlesmith artificer or beastmaster ranger (with a small-sized race).

Or just ride on the back of another PC.

But really though, a heavy crossbow is 1d10 damage, which is nearly as big, and you're going to find much more synergy with the playstyle that way.

Or if you’re in a campaign that allows it a musket with the gunner feat. That’s a d12 weapon.

[Witty Username]

As a general rule, it is not a good idea to make build decisions around brutal critical, which is what the crit effect of piercer is. High dice weapons do work better for the reroll effect as well so lance is not a bad idea, I personally like the idea of piercer (haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet) because I like the half-feat works decent with ranged weapons which are more my interest and I like the effect of more consistent damage.
It being the weakest of the three does not make it bad.

[Segev]

I am laughing at the mental image I now have of a half-orc assassin charging out of hiding on horseback to stab his designated target for multiple critical hits.

[da newt]

I am laughing at the mental image I now have of a half-orc assassin charging out of hiding on horseback to stab his designated target for multiple critical hits.

You forgot dual wielding lances to really add to the mental image.

[Segev]

You forgot dual wielding lances to really add to the mental image.

I did! That was a grave error on my part. Thank you for correcting it! :smallbiggrin:

[MrStabby]

I was thinking about this after posting in another thread someone made about the Piercer feat. This feat is generally regarded as not that great, easily the weakest of the three (the others being Crusher and Slasher). But perhaps we've been using it wrong.

As a reminder, the first effect of this feat is that you can reroll one piercing damage die once per turn, and must use the new roll. To get the most out of this, we need to do two things. First, we want to maximize the die size, as this makes a reroll have a greater potential effect. There's a big difference in rerolling a 1 on a d6 vs. rerolling a 1 on a d12. Second, we want to maximize the number of dice rolled, as this gives us more opportunities to use the reroll.

Now, the piercing weapon with the largest damage die is the lance with a d12. So we're probably looking at a mounted combat build. To maximize the number of dice, the first thing I thought of was to go fighter for more attacks. This gives us up to four attacks per action, and up to eight attacks on our turn if we Action Surge. It's not as many dice as a rogue's Sneak Attack, but I think the larger damage die might help offset that. Still, I don't know that the effect is significant enough to make this worth it.

However, Piercer has a second effect. On a crit, we roll an extra damage die. Again, we want to maximize our die size to get the most out of this, so the lance fits perfectly here. Also, with the Mounted Combatant feat, we can have a reliable source of advantage against a lot of enemies, which increases our crit chance. We can increase our crit chance even more by taking the Champion subclass. To top this off, we can take half-orc as our race to get another damage die on a crit.

Now, I've seen analysis of crit fisher builds, and they're... not good. Crit fishing is typically more effort than it's worth. So I don't know if the end result here would actually be worth the effort. In fact, I plugged some numbers into LudicSavant's damage calculator, and it seems like a PAM build with a glaive is as good if not better, as far as damage goes. But I think this is at least not terrible. It leaves your bonus action free, it lets you use a reach weapon with a large damage die with a shield, it benefits from the Dueling style for more damage. So maybe it's not super optimal, but it's not terrible, either.

I did wonder if I could get Elven Accuracy in here somewhere. If we're half-orc, then perhaps our other half is elf, allowing us to qualify for the feat (okay, this might be reaching). But Elven Accuracy requires the attack be made with DEX or a mental stat, and lances are STR weapons. But... a one level dip into Hexblade could fix this, although it would cost us our fourth attack. Hexblade's Curse also gives an extended crit range, though not as good as the Champion's, but it might free us up to take a better subclass instead. TBH, this is probably more trouble than it's worth, even if we can convince a DM to let us take Elven Accuracy on a half-orc.

So I don't think this is the way to go from an optimisation perspecive (from a fun perspecive its pretty awesome).

My thinking is this:

Building round this extra bit of damage is just no rewarding enough.

Building around critical hits often does involve geting reliable advantage

With advantage there are other potential weapons that would work better


I would go for sharpshooter, maybe elven accuracy, and then maybe piercer later if I were to build around it. A couple of levels or rogue on a fighter or play a goblin for some bonus action hiding would seem to be the better option.

[Zetakya]

If you really want to play around Piercer isn't a Lizardfolk Monk the best route?

[Chronos]

If you're approaching this from a perspective of "I want to use Piercer. How do I make it work?", then I agree that that's not a very effective way to go about things. But if you're starting from the premise of wanting mounted combat, and deciding what works well with it, then Piercer looks like a pretty good option.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

As a general rule, it is not a good idea to make build decisions around brutal critical, which is what the crit effect of piercer is. High dice weapons do work better for the reroll effect as well so lance is not a bad idea, I personally like the idea of piercer (haven't gotten a chance to play with it yet) because I like the half-feat works decent with ranged weapons which are more my interest and I like the effect of more consistent damage.
It being the weakest of the three does not make it bad.

I think your last point is a good one (if it is in fact the weakest, which it may not be for all applications). Particularly with the existence of Custom Lineage, being able to start with an 18 in your main stat for a SAD character + any benefit at all > pretty much every other available option. This comparative benefit is going to remain in place through most of tier 1 and 2, where a lot of play occurs.
While I could have grabbed Slasher for my Assassin and picked up a scimitar, as per my previous post, through tier 1 Piercer is one of the things putting me at the top of the heap for reliable damage, in a party with a Gloomstalker and Battlemaster.

[Kane0]

The Rogue in my party is really enjoying their Piercer feat, even if they can't use it with their Psi Knife

[PattThe]

If you really want to play around Piercer isn't a Lizardfolk Monk the best route?

Shadow path monk, with a feat for devilsight. All attacks are at advantage on good targets inside your shadow.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

One more thought about this feat being considered 'weak' that I should have thought of earlier as it applies to my current character:

It's easily the best of the 3 that you can build around having a melee character and still consistently get the benefit when you can't fight hand to hand. My current character is on a ship at the moment, so there is a lot of (very) ranged combat; the other 2 would be worthless a lot of the time, but I'm still able to use Piercer.