Barbarian Math—Are Certain Feats ‘Required’ for the class?

[Thunderous Mojo]

It seems that many people feel Paladins and Barbarians derive significant value from the same three feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel.

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output?
If so, does this trinity feats have the same value for each Barbarian subclass?

The Rage ability itself requires a Bonus Action to activate, which means, (barring a Barbarian Pre-Combat Rage Activation), one use of PAM’s Bonus Action attack is not going to be available on the turn Rage is activated.

A Frenzy Barbarian, might want to use PAM’s Bonus Action attack so as to not have to activate Frenzy. Yet, a Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian has powers that use both their Bonus Actions and Reactions.

An Ancestor Barbarian, likewise, has it’s Reaction spoken for, as could a Beast-Tail Barbarian.

The Trinity of feats, that is commonly recommended that Barbarians should take, has notable action resource conflicts for many of the subclasses, it would seem.

Is this a case of group think assuming that if the feat combinations work for Paladins, then it works for Barbarians as well?

[Gignere]

It seems that many people feel Paladins and Barbarians derive significant value from the same three feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel.

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output?
If so, does this trinity feats have the same value for each Barbarian subclass?

The Rage ability itself requires a Bonus Action to activate, which means, (barring a Barbarian Pre-Combat Rage Activation), one use of PAM’s Bonus Action attack is not going to be available on the turn Rage is activated.

A Frenzy Barbarian, might want to use PAM’s Bonus Action attack so as to not have to activate Frenzy. Yet, a Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian has powers that use both their Bonus Actions and Reactions.

An Ancestor Barbarian, likewise, has it’s Reaction spoken for, as could a Beast-Tail Barbarian.

The Trinity of feats, that is commonly recommended that Barbarians should take, has notable action resource conflicts for many of the subclasses, it would seem.

Is this a case of group think assuming that if the feat combinations work for Paladins, then it works for Barbarians as well?

PAM may have some conflict with Barbarian action economy but Great Weapon Master doesn’t really. I think for Barbarians GWM is the more mandatory feat as they can get advantage on demand.

[Leon]

Nope. No feat is required for anything, given that they are optional rules by the book. And even when using them most of the feats can be useful for a character that it suits (except grappler) That you may occasionally have to make a choice between doing X with your BA over Y is a minor concern.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Nope. No feat is required for anything, given that they are optional rules by the book. And even when using them most of the feats can be useful for a character that it suits (except grappler) That you may occasionally have to make a choice between doing X with your BA over Y is a minor concern.

I’m a bit underwhelmed at the amount of ‘value added’ by this post.
(Stressing this is my personal opinion of the particular post in question)

Firstly, the prompt makes it clear we are talking about games that use feats…the most common sort of game that is talked about on this board.

Minus two Quatloos for style point violations.🃏

An ability like a Zealot’s Zealous Presence is fine. I was not bringing up abilities that occasionally conflict with the three feats above.

The abilities I was referencing were the abilities that were more “At Will” and thus are directly competing with the feats.

[Yakk]

Reckless Attack makes GWM very, very good for Barbarians.

Assuming a 65% hit rate, a 1d12+7 attack deals 9.1 damage per swing.

With reckless and GWM, it becomes 64% hit rate and 10% crit rate for 1d12+17 or 15.7 damage per swing.

Without GWM, it becomes 88% hit 10% crit for 12.5 damage per swing.

With GWM and no Reckless, it has 40% hit 5% crit and does 9.7 damage per swing.

Reckless adds 3.4 damage per swing; GWM adds another 3.2 on top of it. Meanwhile, most characters earn under 1 damage per swing from the feat.

Doubling the benefit of Reckless without increasing the cost is pretty large.

Note that +1 to your attack stat is worth about 1.3 damage per swing (from accuracy and per-tap damage). This is why GWM on a non-barbarian is only great on low-AC targets or when you have a source of advantage.

Other paths of boosting your damage output as a barbarian run into strength-requirements (elven accuracy doesn't work) and the bonus action problem (your first bonus action is tied up entering rage).

PAM is mostly about synergy with GWM. Turning that 1d4+7 off-hand attack to 1d4+17 makes it much beefier. It isn't bad without GWM, but with GWM+Reckless is it very good.

Sentinel is arguably a different path. The Barbarian is taking half damage (even if they are easy to hit); sentinel lets you make the foe go after you instead of ignoring you.

Is this "required"? I mean, spending your ASI on GWM doubles the benefit of one of your major class features without increasing the drawback.

And 1d4+17 offhand attack is +12.7 damage per round (including missing), which is larger than +6.4 from GWM on your two main attacks (it costs you a damage per swing from the smaller die).

PAM first might be an option actually, as PAM is generally a really strong feat. 1d4+7 without reckless etc is 6.3 damage per round flat out.

[LudicSavant]

Barbarian Math—Are Certain Feats ‘Required’ for the class?

The Beast Barbarian in a campaign I'm currently DMing doesn't have those feats, nor does the Ancestral Nightmare in the Eclectic Builds thread. And in both cases they derive some good benefits from not taking GWM.

So I'd say GWM/PAM/Sentinel is just a route you can take. Not required.

[Leon]

I’m a bit underwhelmed at the amount of ‘value added’ by this post.
(Stressing this is my personal opinion of the particular post in question)

Firstly, the prompt makes it clear we are talking about games that use feats…the most common sort of game that is talked about on this board.


Point still stands: NO FEAT IS REQUIRED TO PLAY ANY CLASS.

Any feat can be useful, many people on here get too hung up on the three mentioned and get bogged down by what the Minmax optimun might be. Having choices with what to do with your Bonus action is a good thing, despite some people apparently being incapable of making such choices on any given turn.

[diplomancer]

GWM works very well for Barbarians; but the one feat that is really required for Barbarians is Res (wis), though you can probably wait to level 8 to take it.

[LudicSavant]

Classes like Ancestral and Zealot get somewhat less value from GWM than, say, Bear, simply because of the value of their on-hit effects. It's still a good feat for them, just not as beneficial.

Beast can use their claws and grapple jumps and such.

Wolf Barbarians have a lot of their offensive value in granting Advantage to allies.

Some Barbarians lean quite a bit into grappling (especially the speed-boosting ones), and unless you're a Simic or something you can't beat people over the head with GWM while they're prone/grappled.

PAM competes for bonus actions and reactions. Again, useful feat, but not something I'd say every Barb should take, especially the ones with more bonus/reactions.

As for Sentinel, if I'm an Ancestral Guardian I might actually want allies to get targeted more than myself.

There are options. Reckless GWM is kinda just the most obvious strategy for getting some kind of functional output on a Barbarian, but that doesn't mean it's the only one. And its offensive benefit is offset by having a poor AC (or outright terrible when you're using Reckless too).

[strangebloke]

If you want to be a big and heavy damage dealer, its pretty hard to argue against those feats. They will give you more than most other feats or ASIs in that regard, not just by a little, but by a lot.

With that said, barbarians being "damage dealers" is something that comes down to taste. Ludic already mentioned the Ancestral Guardian, which is pretty much the most useful barbarian subclass imo. That's a class that doesn't really want to be taking massive to-hit penalties for extra damage, because the goal is not damage, its damage mitigation.

Beast Barbarians have decent damage without GWM. The claws are fine and you can get other feats. Get inspiring leader or skill expert. Even a normal TWF barbarian does pretty okay at most levels.

Finally, there's multiclassing. A druid/barbarian doesn't really need GWM or PAM much at all, neither does the barbarogue, but these are both very solid multiclasses that are greater than the sum of their parts.

In other words, no. GWM/PAM are the best damage boosting feats for the barbarian, but damage isn't everything.

[OldTrees1]

No. The devs have confirmed 5E is balanced around the assumption the PCs don't boost their primary stat or take feats. A Barbarian with 14 Str at 20th level and 0 combat feats (maybe they took skilled) is viable. Typical? No, but viable. No feat or ASI is literally required.

As for utility or ubiquity:
Those are 3 useful feats, although they are not conjoined. There are many cases where one of the feats is relevant and the other 2 are dead weight. Furthermore, there are plenty of Barbarians without any of the 3 feats (although GWM is very common for Barbarians due to the Greataxe trope)

So go make the Barbarian you want to make. Nothing is holding you back.

[Psyren]

It seems that many people feel Paladins and Barbarians derive significant value from the same three feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel.

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output?

In short - no. as Leon said, no feat is "essential," and DPR at an actual table depends on a lot of factors that theorycrafting on forums can't take into account.


In long - there are DPR calculators (LudicSavant posted in this thread and has a great one in their sig if you haven't used it yet) that you can use to truly weigh the difference between having these three vs. not having them. This is a starting point for theorycrafting their effectiveness in a whiteroom fashion, and then once you've completed that exercise you can start to layer in more complex factors like the nature of your specific campaign. For example:

- Will they help your damage in a nondescript battle vs. simply pumping Strength - most likely yes, assuming your Strength was good (16+) to begin with.
- Will they help your damage when hitting accurately is an issue (higher-than-expected AC enemies, you have low Strength, or disadvantage is common) - possibly, and not as much as you might think.
- Will they give you a better combat result than a bunch of other random feats like Chef and Skilled - definitely. If you're sure you're going for feats (i.e. the first two aren't an issue) then these are a strong option.
- Will they be the right choice for your feats in every campaign? Not necessarily. For example, if your barbarian is in a campaign with a lot of mindscrew opponents like fey or mindflayers or vampires, I would probably get a much higher "damage output" by grabbing a feat like Resilient (Wis) - because your DPR output while feared or charmed or incapacitated all over the place is zero, and gets even worse if those effects cause you to waste Rage uses because then they are actually lowering your DPR on future rounds. This is especially true if I don't have allies who can help me with this weakness like a paladin's aura. Similarly, if opponents have higher-than-expected accuracy and damage output, then I might want the greater defense a shield can provide, because every round I spend on the ground making death saves will also be a zero DPR round.

Again, some of these factors can be tested in a DPR calculator, but some can't.


If so, does this trinity feats have the same value for each Barbarian subclass?

This one is a clear no for Beast; polearms can help them (assuming they go with the bite or tail) but they can perform quite well without them.

For the rest, polearms are generally useful (but see the caveats above.)

[RogueJK]

Classes like Ancestral and Zealot get somewhat less value from GWM than, say, Bear, simply because of the value of their on-hit effects. It's still a good feat for them, just not as beneficial.

A good route for an Ancestral Barbarian is to wait to activate GWM's -5/+10 until after you've landed your Ancestral Protectors hit, since that auto-applies to your first hit on your turn.

So land your debuff first with full attack bonus, then on your 2nd attack and potentially GWM BA attack you can try to stack on the +10 damage.

[Frogreaver]

It seems that many people feel Paladins and Barbarians derive significant value from the same three feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel.

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output?
If so, does this trinity feats have the same value for each Barbarian subclass?

The Rage ability itself requires a Bonus Action to activate, which means, (barring a Barbarian Pre-Combat Rage Activation), one use of PAMÂ’s Bonus Action attack is not going to be available on the turn Rage is activated.

A Frenzy Barbarian, might want to use PAMÂ’s Bonus Action attack so as to not have to activate Frenzy. Yet, a Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian has powers that use both their Bonus Actions and Reactions.

An Ancestor Barbarian, likewise, has itÂ’s Reaction spoken for, as could a Beast-Tail Barbarian.

The Trinity of feats, that is commonly recommended that Barbarians should take, has notable action resource conflicts for many of the subclasses, it would seem.

Is this a case of group think assuming that if the feat combinations work for Paladins, then it works for Barbarians as well?

No group think. The barbarian subclasses that rely on bonus actions and reactions are obviously less good with PAM in particular and GWM to a lesser extent. What you are observing is general talk about the barbarian class vs specific talk about a particular barbarians including subclass. Since most Barbarians greatly benefit from those feats and nearly all barbarians benefit some from those feats - even if a few particular barbarians donÂ’t really benefit from them - or very little.

[Chaos Jackal]

Required? Not per se.

Due to its features, barbarian gravitates towards the weakest type of character - namely, STR melee martial - while still needing other stats, having extremely limited options for anything other than melee STR combat, the worst scaling in the game, largely horrible subclasses and ultimately middling damage and defenses.

What does that translate into? Well, for the average barbarian, ASIs are always quite the investment. Because the class goes downhill after tier 1 and there's plenty of bases to cover, even for the things often assumed to be the barbarian's schtick, doing something like boosting Str or Dex or Con, or going for some other option meant to focus more on survivability, is plenty viable, simply because, with how limited the barbarian is, any help is welcome.

Being so ASI-starved also means that traditional feat combinations, whose caveats and tradeoffs can be largely ignored on something like a fighter, actually leave more pronounced weaknesses behind. Go too hard on the damage part and you'll end up being unexpectedly squishy, owing to limited rages and the class' otherwise limited defenses combined with a dangerous playstyle. On top of that, there's the added conflict of rage and PAM, which, while not the worst thing ever, is definitely something you could do without. GWM does synergize very well with Reckless alright, but see above about defenses; go too hard on Reckless and you will get your face beaten in if the game's on the less forgiving side.

Then there's a rather funny coincidence, which was highlighted by other posters above. The best barbarian subclasses are ironically far from requiring the aforementioned feats, at least in such bulk. The Zealot's damage rider means diminishing effects for GWM and when it comes to PAM you have an extra bonus action to consider later on, though at least that part is rather insignificant due to the 1/long rest restriction said bonus action has. Beast works with its own weapons and therefore doesn't synergize with weapon feats. And Ancestral Guardian is more defensively focused on top of having a dedicated reaction, so GWM is not as important to them while PAM and/or Sentinel require some consideration before picking due to contesting the aforementioned reaction (albeit here one of the two could arguably work as a complimentary effect to Spirit Shield).

So, required? Nah. If you do want to go balls to the wall with damage and are utilizing a middle-of-the-pack or worse subclass then yeah, it would be a good idea to select these feats. But there's subclasses and playstyles that don't rely on these and arguably those subclasses and playstyles are superior for reasons beyond giving you more flexibility with your ASIs, so you're far from condemned to PAM+GWM/Sentinel.

[Skrum]

It really depends on the rest of your party. If they'd pretty optimized, then I'd say yes, a barb is going to be strongly incentivized towards one of these feats to (semi) keep up. If the party is just people playing whatever, then a stock barb will do just fine without any particular feat*

*Though I think there's a strong chance over time that the barbs falls behind. At very low levels they'll do great, but by level 7-8 there's a good chance the druid and wizard players have figured out their class and know what works. A barb, an already limited class, is going to begin to struggle to remain relevant beyond soaking hits meant for the far more dangerous casters.

[Dork_Forge]

No feats are required for the Barbarian or any other class, whilst they're a way you can do things, it's typically more a forum echochamber to keep up with some unstated, always moving damage threshold.

In reality I've never seen a Barbarian without those feats feel like they aren't contributing, likewise I've never seen a Barbarian Reckless every turn for more than one session before they learn that is not a good idea.

I think if a feat is actually required to make a class fun to play/functional, both of which are highly subjective of course, then it speaks more to a catastrophic failure in design rather than anything else. I don't think that kind of design failure really exists in 5E classes.

You put math in the title, was there a certain threshold you were considering for Barbarian damage to be 'worthwhile?'

To directly address your last question in the OP, yes that tends to be group think IMO. They're both Str-based melee-obligated classes so people apply the same things to both, despite them having very different abilities and options.

[Willie the Duck]

Heh. Shouldn't have used the word 'essential' I guess. Pretty predictable (and in no way wrong, let's be clear) results.

Yakk (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25536696&postcount=5)has the right of the math with reckless-GWM synergy. They work really well together. The rest is in the details. As others have pointed out, 2wf (beast or otherwise) work fine. Other-bonus-actions make PAM less good. Also worth mentioning that any kind of pigeon-holing is going to be advisable or inadvisable as the magic item drops your DM puts out in the game world. Dual Wielder might be the optimal feat choice because you find a trident+2 and a morningstar+3 but have only seen a +1 maul and non-magical halberd in the past 4 levels.

Choose what is right for you. The game does work without feats. If there was a must-have for barbarians, I would say it is resilient:wis more than anything. GWM has obvious synergy with reckless attack, so consider it. Sentinel has obvious benefit for any front liner (with a squishy back line party, and whose DMs don't have the enemies stick to the front line without combat effects forcing it), so consider that. PAM is a great way to get another attack per round (with obvious limitations), so consider it is you want.

Personally, the game is forgiving enough that I feel free to pick ritual caster: druid or healer or whatever I think best fits the character.

[LudicSavant]

Yakk (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25536696&postcount=5)has the right of the math with reckless-GWM synergy.

I'll add that said math is for a Barbarian with no other features or circumstances affecting their damage output. No party buffs, no magic items, no being a Zealot, not even Brutal Criticals (which makes me wonder why he's using a Greataxe, but whatever).

If you're instead looking at, say, a Zealot with a Flametongue, the math becomes very different indeed (-5/+10 becomes a significantly worse deal in such circumstances, even with Reckless).

[KirbyDerby]

In high optimization games, GWM and PAM are both required on a barbarian, as well as any melee martial, as without them you don't deal enough damage to justify being a martial. Sentinel less so, as by the time you can pick it up (level 8), many enemies will be able to get around you or have reach weapons. Of course, most people don't play high optimization games, so they're less necessary, although you should still probably pick up at least one of either PAM or GWM.


I think if a feat is actually required to make a class fun to play/functional, both of which are highly subjective of course, then it speaks more to a catastrophic failure in design rather than anything else. I don't think that kind of design failure really exists in 5E classes.


Bad news, 5e is filled with design failures, and it doesn't just stop at the classes. Never assume that something in this edition is inherently balanced, because you will be proven wrong more often than not.

[LudicSavant]

In high optimization games, GWM and PAM are both required on a barbarian, as well as any melee martial, as without them you don't deal enough damage to justify being a martial. Sentinel less so, as by the time you can pick it up (level 8), many enemies will be able to get around you or have reach weapons. Of course, most people don't play high optimization games, so they're less necessary, although you should still probably pick up at least one of either PAM or GWM.

Required is quite an overgeneralization. Especially when you say it not just for Barbarians, but for any martial.

For a simple example, Revenant Blade is like a half-feat version of PAM that trades the Reaction attack for +1 AC and +1 to your martial's primary stat (either Strength or Dexterity).

[Dork_Forge]

Bad news, 5e is filled with design failures, and it doesn't just stop at the classes. Never assume that something in this edition is inherently balanced, because you will be proven wrong more often than not.

What class, in your opinion, requires feats?

I never said that 5E was perfectly balanced, or that there was zero design failures, I said that no class was so badly designed that it required feats to function.

Whilst I appreciate the advice, I've been playing and running the game extensively since 2015 and am more than familiar with it's failings, some of those failings however, are more about people's expectations rather than dysfunctional mechanics.

[KirbyDerby]

For a simple example, Revenant Blade is like a half-feat version of PAM that trades the Reaction attack for +1 AC and +1 to your martial's primary stat (either Strength or Dexterity).

Revenant Blade doesn't work with GWM, and requires you to be an elf, so no feat at level 1. It's fine for lower optimization games, but not high ones.


What class, in your opinion, requires feats?

I never said that 5E was perfectly balanced, or that there was zero design failures, I said that no class was so badly designed that it required feats to function.

Whilst I appreciate the advice, I've been playing and running the game extensively since 2015 and am more than familiar with it's failings, some of those failings however, are more about people's expectations rather than dysfunctional mechanics.

I may have exaggerated a bit. While no class NEEDS feats to function, many do need certain feats to be viable in high optimization games. All martials need a BA attack feat and a -5/+10 feat to deal good damage. Casters also have some important feats to pick up, but they're mainly for concentration protection, and aren't as immediately necessary (you'll still want to pick them up early though).

[Dork_Forge]

I may have exaggerated a bit. While no class NEEDS feats to function, many do need certain feats to be viable in high optimization games. All martials need a BA attack feat and a -5/+10 feat to deal good damage. Casters also have some important feats to pick up, but they're mainly for concentration protection, and aren't as immediately necessary (you'll still want to pick them up early though).

I run two Tier 3 games with regular Deadly + encounters, I don't find any of those claims accurate.

[KirbyDerby]

I run two Tier 3 games with regular Deadly + encounters, I don't find any of those claims accurate.

Can you elaborate? What are the parties like? How many encounters do you run per adventuring day?

[stoutstien]

Revenant Blade doesn't work with GWM, and requires you to be an elf, so no feat at level 1. It's fine for lower optimization games, but not high ones.



I may have exaggerated a bit. While no class NEEDS feats to function, many do need certain feats to be viable in high optimization games. All martials need a BA attack feat and a -5/+10 feat to deal good damage. Casters also have some important feats to pick up, but they're mainly for concentration protection, and aren't as immediately necessary (you'll still want to pick them up early though).

If you think that all weapon users need a bonus action attack via feats then you're not really playing in tier 3. You're basically still playing tier one just with bigger numbers. That goes double for optimized tables. Damage falls off faster than anything else.

[LudicSavant]

GWM and PAM are both required on a barbarian, as well as any melee martial


Revenant Blade doesn't work with GWM, and requires you to be an elf, so no feat at level 1. It's fine for lower optimization games, but not high ones.

:smallconfused:

- Strength-based martial builds are not so dominant in high-op as you suggest, let alone exclusively so. There are dex martial builds that can kill Deadly+ threats before they even take a turn (or before a Strength-based GWMer would even come up in initiative).

- This is 2022, and VHuman hasn't been king of the hill race-wise for some time. Races such as MPMM Shadar-Kai or Mark of Shadow are currently very strong.

- GWM will actually lower your DPR if you boost damage-per-hit high enough, or are fighting a tough enough enemy. Both of these are situations you may encounter in high-op. Yes, even if you have Advantage.

[strangebloke]

Revenant Blade doesn't work with GWM, and requires you to be an elf, so no feat at level 1. It's fine for lower optimization games, but not high ones.

As ludic was saying, you're overgeneralizing. This might be a true point for barbarians who are feat starved and have an accuracy boost as their only real DPR boosting mechanic, but as a generalization for every melee martial at every table its extremely wrong. PAM and GWM are the domain of specific strength-based accuracy-boosting martials who are hyper focused on melee and don't have a secondary damage source. What is a rogue/BM who focuses on using sentinel and various BM maneuvers to get 2 sneak attacks a round going to do with GWM or PAM? Nothing! Paladins have loads of other uses for their BAs, and can deal insane damage without GWM involved at all.

Adding to this, things like Flametongues exist in real play, and a basic S&B fighter looks a lot more sexy when dealing +2d6 damage per swing. Such a fighter dropping their flametongue to switch to GWM is a fool. Heck, if they have a flaming greataxe or whatever they might still not want to use GWM, because the AC threshold where GWM becomes worth it has narrowed considerably and the DM might be fond of high-ac monsters. Finding specifically a +2 glaive is not something you can count on at every table.

Moreover, its possible to be a melee martial without being a melee hyperspecialist. An S&B BM with a flametongue, ambush, commanding presence, trip attack, inspiring leader, and ritual caster:wizard isn't inherently weaker than a PAM/GWM fighter with precision attack.

[KirbyDerby]

I think we're talking about two different levels of optimization here. When I say high optimization, I mean high. Casters are taking dips to get good armor and defensive spells, and are choosing and using the best spells in the game. To keep up, martials need to be dealing as much damage as possible, as that is their primary role in a high OP party, which they usually accomplish by taking either PAM + GWM or XBE + SS. To that end, barbarians are pretty much the only viable melee martial build in these games, since their damage with Reckless Attack + Rage leads to great damage, while most of the other classes can't meaningfully outdamage a fighter with XBE + SS (yes, that includes paladins). The S&B fighter with a flame tongue will still be able to contribute, but won't be as effective. A fighter with a +2 hand crossbow will be dealing around the same damage, can fight at range and melee equally effectively, and gets a bigger boost to damage from gaining advantage. Rogues in melee aren't going to be doing so hot, given that they have poor survivability and lackluster damage mitigation (Uncanny Dodge consumes your reaction, which is the entire point of you being in melee).

[Dr.Samurai]

To that end, barbarians are pretty much the only viable melee martial build in these games, since their damage with Reckless Attack + Rage leads to great damage, while most of the other classes can't meaningfully outdamage a fighter with XBE + SS (yes, that includes paladins).
*sees fellow barbarian enthusiast, draws greatsword*

https://y.yarn.co/660bd97e-f8e2-48d3-92d5-dfdd6f19d194_text.gif

[LudicSavant]

Can you elaborate? What are the parties like? How many encounters do you run per adventuring day?

I'm used to 6+ Deadlies a day.

The most encounters in a day I've seen in a real game is 14. With many of them being Deadly+. That game included 3 other members of this forum, actually :smallsmile:


I think we're talking about two different levels of optimization here. When I say high optimization, I mean high. Casters are taking dips to get good armor and defensive spells, and are choosing and using the best spells in the game.

Oh brother.

For reference, that party I just mentioned that had the 14 encounter day is definitely not the highest-op I've done, and the Wizard in that game was armored, tanky as heck (dipped Hexblade, had Tough, Inspiring Leader, Contingent AoA or Overchanneled FS, was using cover regularly, was cooperating efficiently with their Simulacrum, had both their and the Simulacrum's familiars feeding people potions on their action, had summons, etc etc), could nova for far more damage than anything in the game has health (with no miss chance on most of that damage), and didn't even consider single target damage their primary role. You can find a variant of the build in my sig.

The problem here is not that you're talking about a higher level of optimization than the numerous posters you're arguing with. It's that you appear to be unaware that options exist that are competitive in offense with PAM/GWM VHumans. Try an MPMM Bugbear in an alpha strike party or something. Live a little.

[Hawk7915]

Like most folks are saying, no feats are "required" by anyone.

That being said, Polearm Master is just one of the best feats in the game, and if you are going for high-optimization especially at low levels, Polearm Master builds with VHuman or Custom Lineage are just really great low-hanging fruit that make for an instantly powerful build. It's not the end-all, be-all build, and it can certainly fall off for certain subclasses or at higher levels, but it's just really strong early. Polearm Master unqiuely opens up several things all at once, for one feat:

It allows a character to "Mainhand" a 1d10 reach weapon while still getting a bonus action "offhand" attack at 1d4, blowing any other Monk or TWF build out of the water early.
Alternatively, it allows a character to "Mainhand" a d6 weapon (Spear or Staff) with a Shield in their off-hand for +2 AC and still have a BA 1d4 attack, a set-up that would otherwise require multiple feats.
That'd be incredible if that's ALL it did - but wait, there's more! This feat also allows the character to have way more opportunities to make attacks of, um, opportunity, since they now provoke when enemies enter or leave their space instead of just leave. Which, again, is very powerful with Reach weapons.


Polearm Master doesn't "require" Sentinel, but is very synergistic with it especially for those wielding Glaives or Halberds, since it further allows for more opportunity attacks and prevents enemies from ignoring your opportunity attacks by disengaging as well as prevents enemies that only have 5' reach from engaging you effectively or at all. Strong stuff.

Barbarian is a better user than most of these feats, because:

Barbarians are proficient with all these weapons and with shields by base, so no weird race or multiclassing or additional feats required to nab them. They can do it from Level 1 as a VHuman/Custom Lineage - they don't need to wait for Level 3 like a Hexblade Warlock would.
The Barbarian's rage ability adds a source of bonus damage which synergizes with making extra attacks.
It can be a little awkward since popping Rage is a bonus action, but most of the best Barbarian subclasses (Zealot, Ancestral Guardian, Totem Warrior) have no further use for their bonus action outside of popping Rage (and Totem and Zealot further have no additional uses for their Reaction, and appreciate more chances to make opportunity attacks). That means Polearm Master is a great quick way to maximize action economy for most Barbs.
Extra Attack + Rage also means a barbarian can "afford" to wait to max their ASIs a bit more, so a Barbarian can be a more powerful/interesting race and take these feats at 4 and 8 without totally falling behind on the basic math of 5E in a way that, say, a Druid or Ranger or Monk might struggle with.


That being said, again not required. And actively bad on Beast Barbarians (since they have their own weapons they grow and are better suited towards grappling or using Shield Master with their BA) or Battle Ragers, Berserkers and Storm Heralds (lol!) who do have an every-turn use of their Bonus Actions. But on the flip side, I'd say on balance that Barbarian is one of the weaker classes in 5E in the year 2022, and so yes many of them will find they are the most effective with this or with...

Great Weapon Master. This can be used in tandem with Polearm Master (assuming a Glaive or Halberd), but also used separately with a Greatsword/Maul/Greataxe. Again, Barbarians are the best user of this (this time because of Reckless Attack), can often afford it easier, and are likely to "feel" the need of it at high levels due to petering out in terms of class power after level 6 or so. And like the aforementioned feats it still isn't mandatory and is actively anti-concept with Beast Barbarian.


For the record, I'm currently DMing a campaign that's run for 2 years and just now started creeping into Tier 3 (last night was our first session at level 10). The Kensei Monk has felt like a solid contributer in every encounter with a two-handed Longsword and he hasn't taken Great Weapon Master. He was our only "Martial" for the longest time, but we just had a Dhampir Battlemaster Fighter join who wields a Glaive but doesn't have PAM/Sentinel, and one encounter in he also seemed totally fine. The casters are good, and I worry the Monk is going to start falling behind, but everyone is still having fun for now (except the Spore druid but that's a system mastery issue). And most encounters are Deadly. Helps the martials that the party has a Glamour Bard tossing out inspiration + mantle of inspiration and I've been generous with magic items though.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm implementing the Barbarian in my RED calculator, and a few data points (preliminary, of course):

A subclass-lacking barbarian wielding a greataxe
* and never raging or reckless does 0.8 RED. High point is ~level 5, then steady decline from there.
* raging 100% of the time but never reckless does 1.0 RED (same pattern, higher numbers).
* raging 100% of the time and always reckless does 1.4 RED (similar pattern, just higher numbers).

Next up will be adding in GWM with some proc rate on the extra attack.

[strangebloke]

I think we're talking about two different levels of optimization here. When I say high optimization, I mean high. Casters are taking dips to get good armor and defensive spells, and are choosing and using the best spells in the game. To keep up, martials need to be dealing as much damage as possible, as that is their primary role in a high OP party, which they usually accomplish by taking either PAM + GWM or XBE + SS. To that end, barbarians are pretty much the only viable melee martial build in these games, since their damage with Reckless Attack + Rage leads to great damage, while most of the other classes can't meaningfully outdamage a fighter with XBE + SS (yes, that includes paladins). The S&B fighter with a flame tongue will still be able to contribute, but won't be as effective. A fighter with a +2 hand crossbow will be dealing around the same damage, can fight at range and melee equally effectively, and gets a bigger boost to damage from gaining advantage. Rogues in melee aren't going to be doing so hot, given that they have poor survivability and lackluster damage mitigation (Uncanny Dodge consumes your reaction, which is the entire point of you being in melee).

Oh my sweet summer child, you've got a pretty narrow and limited idea of what is possible at high optimization levels. XBE+SS characters are simple and effective, but they are not the end-all be-all of martials. The barbarian in my party doesn't have GWM, but between items and some moon druid levels she's able to deal 6d6+7 damage three times a turn, with zealot damage on top of that. The BM/Rogue I mentioned doesn't use Uncanny dodge, instead relying on 20 AC and racial abilities that allow them to resist all damage for short bursts while exploiting surprise and initiative boosting to kill the enemy before they can even do anything. Ludic has a melee shadow monk linked in his sig that can outburst a samurai sharpshooter without using any of these so-called essential feats.

Now can these characters "keep up" with fullcasters? No. Not really. Almost as a rule, a highly optimized spellcaster will always be better than a highly optimized martial. But these characters can massively outperform a melee GWM/PAM barbarian. Barbarian is easily the worst class in the game. Can't do anything out of combat, can't do anything in combat if they can't get in melee, have only limited rages without which they're a husk of a class, have only one feature that meaningfully boosts DPR and its such a detriment to their defenses that its only safe to use sometimes while raging.

Like man, you're going to talk about melee rogues being unviable? At least they're not actively giving the enemy advantage against them while only resisting a fraction of the damage.

[Hael]

On the flametongue vs GWM point. This is not emphasized enough, but it does bring up a really important point. Namely that optimizing in DnD often is more about the psychology of the DM than it is about pure whiteroom in a bubble. A lot of people instantly go down the PAM/GWM route prematurely (especially without knowing anything about the DM or the world) and this can be a mistake. I have seen some DMs who are complete prisoners of module tables and will never deviate one iota from that route. This can be bad for the pole-arm user, as there are very few magic item pole-arms (with low probability of appearing). Meanwhile there is a tremendous over representation of 1h and 2h swords.

Others give items to balance out perceived weaknesses (hence the GWM/Pam route advantage gets neutralized by fiat). Yet others just go by the rule of cool and character concept.

In all my years, I have seen a tremendous amount of very powerful, game changing magic items essentially priced out by build choices that are done without any regard for the changing conditions of the world around them. For instance a magical radiant sword in a world full of vulnerable to radiant weapons enemies (and highly resistant to others) changes all the rules of the math game we normally play, sometime to the point where it becomes optimal to break your build.

[KirbyDerby]

Oh my sweet summer child, you've got a pretty narrow and limited idea of what is possible at high optimization levels. XBE+SS characters are simple and effective, but they are not the end-all be-all of martials. The barbarian in my party doesn't have GWM, but between items and some moon druid levels she's able to deal 6d6+7 damage three times a turn, with zealot damage on top of that. The BM/Rogue I mentioned doesn't use Uncanny dodge, instead relying on 20 AC and racial abilities that allow them to resist all damage for short bursts while exploiting surprise and initiative boosting to kill the enemy before they can even do anything. Ludic has a melee shadow monk linked in his sig that can outburst a samurai sharpshooter without using any of these so-called essential feats.

Now can these characters "keep up" with fullcasters? No. Not really. Almost as a rule, a highly optimized spellcaster will always be better than a highly optimized martial. But these characters can massively outperform a melee GWM/PAM barbarian. Barbarian is easily the worst class in the game. Can't do anything out of combat, can't do anything in combat if they can't get in melee, have only limited rages without which they're a husk of a class, have only one feature that meaningfully boosts DPR and its such a detriment to their defenses that its only safe to use sometimes while raging.

Like man, you're going to talk about melee rogues being unviable? At least they're not actively giving the enemy advantage against them while only resisting a fraction of the damage.

I do agree with you that barbarian is the worst class in the game, however I can say with complete certainty that any other class would be better off playing at range rather than in melee. Rogues should be going with XBE to ensure that they land a sneak attack, not pretending like booming blade is a good option. Shadow monks, similarly, should be playing at range via Gunner + Sharpshooter. I have no idea how you got that damage from your moon druid, but the animal forms really fall off in mid tier 2.

I'd also like to partially disagree with you on the "keeping up with fullcasters" part. Even at the absolute pinnacle of 5e optimization, there is still a viable martial: The gloomstalker ranger. This is in large part due to their spellcasting, but it's an important fact to remember.

Back on barbarians, their main problem, aside from being melee-locked, is that they run out of rages too quickly to last the full adventuring day. I also wouldn't consider them amazing in high OP games, they're just viable there. They still need to work extremely hard to stay relevant, usually by taking fighter levels. However, when they do have a rage up, they're going to be much more consistent damage dealers than the rogue who relies on a limited use racial ability and booming blade to deal less damage than a hand crossbow user.

[Dork_Forge]

Can you elaborate? What are the parties like? How many encounters do you run per adventuring day?

The number of encounters varies greatly, with traps and social bait draining resources alongside encounters. I'll give you the parties and the most recent example for each, note that each party is fat with magic items (official and 'brewed) and homebrew boons, making their power level and resource pools greater than default assumption:

Level 14 party:

Red Dragonborn Paladin 14 (Vengeance) - Items include Holy Avenger (he rolled it on a table, I couldn't say no!), Belt of Giant Strength (sets it to 23), Ring of Spell storing used for a spare Revivify and two Healing Words. Has Tough and Magic Initiate (Sorcerer with Shield). Has 4 Wizard spells of his choice and one casting to use with them (total, not each) per day

Minotaur Bearbarian 8 Swashbuckler Rogue 6 - Uses TWF, has various weapons with +x and some bonus damage, one special rage per day that increases his size and adds a little fire damage to attacks. Has regenerating temp hp every turn (+1 currently) unless he's used a nova item. Has OG Stone's Endurance and the Defensive Duelist feat, can Wildshape like a 2nd level Druid with the exception of a young purple worm. He rarely uses this.

Volo's Kobold Bard (Glamour) 11, Celesital Warlock 2, Divine Soul Sorc 1. Lute of the Bards, Luck stone, Ring of Stars, Cube of Force, etc. Metamagic Adept (Quickened and twinned), Actor. Access to Teleport once per day, a super saiyan form with temp hp and melee competence. Hands out temp hp and likes spells like Slow, Hypnotic Pattern, Mass Cure Wounds etc.

This party has a cadre of same level sidekicks that they can sometimes bring one or two of with them. They did not do so on the following example:

Tangled with Vecna in the morning whilst trying to remove the Hand of Vecna from the minotaur, later in the day they then went to deal with the Gnome mafia. This was a dungeon crawl that the retreated from, roughly:

1) A bunch of buffed bandit Gnomes with wands and a mage Gnome
2) Giant carpet of smothering
3) Modded (beefed up) Shield Guardian, more bandit Gnomes, buffed Owl bear (AC 18, higher numbers, acid breath) with some bandit gnomes using unique weapon gimmicks
4) A beholder leading a group consisting of: Grick Alpha, Gelatinous Cube, Dire Troll, Ochre Jelly, and a Basilisk

They fled from encounter 4 due to dwindling core resources and HP.

Level 10 party:

Celestial Half Elf (some random online homebrew) Stars Druid, no feats. Items: Staff of Striking, Headband of Intellect, Ring of the Ram, misc. stuff. Has some buffs to starry forms numbers, access to misty step, single person feather fall, and limited phasing through objects.

Brass Dragonborn (Fizbans) Battlemaster Fighter with Alert, Great Weapon Master. Items: Luck Greatsword (no wishes), Helm of Brilliance (hella Fireballs), Wand of Web, Tattoo that reduces damage, item of protection. Boon that gives temp hp, converts breath to radiant and increases damage.

Aasimar (Volos) Ranger Beast Master (UA version of Tashas) 5, Swashbuckler Rogue 4, Undead Warlock 1. Telepathic featRapier +2 with radiant damage, two pieces of a sett of ice items that give various ice benefits, like Ice Knife, Armor of Agathys etc. Clockwork Amulet and misc.

Variant Human Watchers Paladin 4, Divine Soul Sorcerer 4. Sentinel feat. Items: Toned down Sun blade, Wand of Wonder, Orb that gives shield and Resilient Sphere, Horn that gives temp hp and bless like effect, Spear with some lightning damage etc. boon with top up of Lay on Hands and a free 1st level smite.

Most recent thing was going through a Wizards tower with low lever trials (some minor resource expenditure) and then getting ambushed by a PC made party seeking their items. Half the evil party escaped, there was some pretty heavy resources spent, including nearly downing the Paladin. They now have to go into the rest of the day, which includes an orchestrated 'trial of strength' series of encounters whilst not at 100% and with two evil party member wildcards out there.

You don't need feats to do interesting, competitive, optimised things and do higher difficulty upper tiers.

[KirbyDerby]

The number of encounters varies greatly, with traps and social bait draining resources alongside encounters. I'll give you the parties and the most recent example for each, note that each party is fat with magic items (official and 'brewed) and homebrew boons, making their power level and resource pools greater than default assumption:

*Parties snipped*

You don't need feats to do interesting, competitive, optimised things and do higher difficulty upper tiers.

It's nice that parties like those can handle dangerous encounters, but a high OP party would be able to handle those encounters better, or be able to handle even deadlier encounters more reliably (Vengeance Paladin 14 is definitely not a high OP build, for example). That's not to say that high OP is the ideal way to play; people should play whatever type of campaign they want.

[Dork_Forge]

It's nice that parties like those can handle dangerous encounters, but a high OP party would be able to handle those encounters better, or be able to handle even deadlier encounters more reliably (Vengeance Paladin 14 is definitely not a high OP build, for example). That's not to say that high OP is the ideal way to play; people should play whatever type of campaign they want.

I really don't understand what your point is anymore then. You asserted that certain feats were necessary for 'high OP games.' I run difficult combats, the minotaur has died 8 times in this campaign. But the party has never TPK'd, and they succeed at most things regardless of the high difficulty. It doesn't matter that they aren't particularly high OP, as the DM I'm still building encounters that would befit high OP.

I never claimed that these parties are high OP, I said I run Tier 3 with higher difficulty encounters, the only representation of what you see as mandatory was GWM, which the Fighter often doesn't use and gets frustrated by because he often ends up missing, including with advantage and +1 flanking.

Of course a more optimised party would do better, but they didn't set out to make the most optimal characters possible, they set out to make characters they would enjoy and wound up in Tier 3. Despite not having what you prescribe as needed, they do just fine, which was my point.

If you actually want to talk high OP you really don't need anything you seem really attached to. There are so many levers to pull in character creation you're really pigeon-holing what 'effective' is.

[KirbyDerby]

I really don't understand what your point is anymore then. You asserted that certain feats were necessary for 'high OP games.' I run difficult combats, the minotaur has died 8 times in this campaign. But the party has never TPK'd, and they succeed at most things regardless of the high difficulty. It doesn't matter that they aren't particularly high OP, as the DM I'm still building encounters that would befit high OP.

I never claimed that these parties are high OP, I said I run Tier 3 with higher difficulty encounters, the only representation of what you see as mandatory was GWM, which the Fighter often doesn't use and gets frustrated by because he often ends up missing, including with advantage and +1 flanking.

Of course a more optimised party would do better, but they didn't set out to make the most optimal characters possible, they set out to make characters they would enjoy and wound up in Tier 3. Despite not having what you prescribe as needed, they do just fine, which was my point.

If you actually want to talk high OP you really don't need anything you seem really attached to. There are so many levers to pull in character creation you're really pigeon-holing what 'effective' is.

I guess I also don't understand your point. High OP characters would be able to take on harder campaigns than yours, so you aren't running a high OP campaign. I never claimed that GWM + PAM was necessary for melee martials to take outside of high OP campaigns.



The problem here is not that you're talking about a higher level of optimization than the numerous posters you're arguing with. It's that you appear to be unaware that options exist that are competitive in offense with PAM/GWM VHumans. Try an MPMM Bugbear in an alpha strike party or something. Live a little.

New Bugbear is a good race, but you'll still want to be taking XBE + SS to deal competitive damage. It also has a problem in tier 1 and early tier 2 due to not having both weapon feats. If your campaign starts in later tier 2, or you can handle the wait, then it does become a better option.

More generally, a lot of the builds I've seen people suggest can't really keep up with a high OP spellcaster. While I understand that the martial-caster divide is a problem, especially at higher levels of optimization, that's still no excuse. If a martial is way outclassed by a full-caster in tier 2, then it really isn't a high OP build (although it might still work in high OP games).

[Dork_Forge]

I guess I also don't understand your point. High OP characters would be able to take on harder campaigns than yours, so you aren't running a high OP campaign. I never claimed that GWM + PAM was necessary for melee martials to take outside of high OP campaigns.

What? You should really lay out what you mean by 'high OP campaign' because it just seems like you mean 'as hard as technically possible, whilst still being barely winnable' whilst you're also prescribing generic feats that wouldn't necessarily work well in that kind of game.

Here's something you actually said:


n high optimization games, GWM and PAM are both required on a barbarian, as well as any melee martial, as without them you don't deal enough damage to justify being a martial. Sentinel less so, as by the time you can pick it up (level 8), many enemies will be able to get around you or have reach weapons. Of course, most people don't play high optimization games, so they're less necessary, although you should still probably pick up at least one of either PAM or GWM.

The Paladin is easily capable of extremely high numbers, particularly since he stacks various on-hit bonuses like Hunter's Mark or Spirit Shroud and items. If he traded out his Holy Avenger for something GWM/PAM compatible like you say is so necessary his damage would likely go down in many fights, whilst he'd take a lot more damage from sacrificing his shield and the feats he actually chose.




New Bugbear is a good race, but you'll still want to be taking XBE + SS to deal competitive damage. It also has a problem in tier 1 and early tier 2 due to not having both weapon feats. If your campaign starts in later tier 2, or you can handle the wait, then it does become a better option.

More generally, a lot of the builds I've seen people suggest can't really keep up with a high OP spellcaster. While I understand that the martial-caster divide is a problem, especially at higher levels of optimization, that's still no excuse. If a martial is way outclassed by a full-caster in tier 2, then it really isn't a high OP build (although it might still work in high OP games).

Okay, you're not really demonstrating you have a grasp of what 'high OP' means outside of the stereotypical weapon feats. That may be inaccurate, but it's not what you're conveying in this thread and this is a prime example of it.

MPMM Bugbears are ridiculous 1st round characters:

A subclassless Monk Bugbear can churn out 12d6+16 = 58 at 5th level whilst still being able to skirmish effectively. If you actually add a subclass you can push that even higher.

Any old Fighter can go higher than that if they Action Surge, again not even considering subclass damage boosts. And this is a schtick that you can easily build around and enhance as you level up by raising initiative and dipping into whatever will give you more attacks, it's a very high floor with an astranomically high ceiling, and unlike a lot of things, like GWM... it's something you can make pretty reliable, especially in a party rather than in isolation.

If you do understand the potential of the new Bugbear, then what is the hypothetical 'high OP caster' that's so easily outclassing it?

[Yakmala]

It really varies depending on the Barbarian build. Barbarian is one of my most played classes, and different variations had anywhere from all three to none of those feats.

1: Bear Totem Polearm Barb? Had all three (GWM, PAM, Sentinel)

2: Beast Longtooth Shifter Barb? None of those feats.

3: Wolf Totem Barb: He was spear and shield and didn't reckless in order to maintain a high AC. He was in a party of primarily melees, so he focused on getting within 5' of as many enemies as possible and standing his ground.

4: Ranged Ancestral Guardian Barb: A rare case where the main feat was Mobile. Tag an enemy with guardians and make sure you keep your distance to frustrate the enemy and protect the party.

5: Battlerager Barb: Focused on grappling related feats.

[strangebloke]

I do agree with you that barbarian is the worst class in the game, however I can say with complete certainty that any other class would be better off playing at range rather than in melee. Rogues should be going with XBE to ensure that they land a sneak attack, not pretending like booming blade is a good option. Shadow monks, similarly, should be playing at range via Gunner + Sharpshooter. I have no idea how you got that damage from your moon druid, but the animal forms really fall off in mid tier 2.
Paladins have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of smite, which is one of the most powerful concentration disrupters in the game, and with their mounts they have the capacity to actually get in and deal damage. Similarly monks will want to run in to use stunning strike even if they're optimized for ranged play. Melee specialist monks like shadow monks can get constant advantage via blindfighting fighting style and darkness, which when combined with EA makes them a god-tier DPR character that's also incredibly tanky and disruptive to spellcasters. (also one of the best possible characters to give a flametongue too) Rogues have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of a reaction, which can double their DPR. An XBE rogue is nowhere even close in DPR to an optimized melee rogue, and yes melee rogues walk a dangerous path, but with proper optimization there are loads of ways to mitigate that risk, like playing a shadar-kai and taking the moderately armored feat to hit 19 AC with shield proficiency.

The barbarian has items that set her AC to 17 and her STR to 21, and these apply to her various forms, including the quetzalcoatlus, which has a beak attack that deals 3d6, or 6d6 on a dive. Boots of haste grant her a third attack and enormous speed, which is further boosted by longstrider. She also as a dwarf is still resistant to poison, and she has fire shield cast on herself when she really wants to get serious, and she can still have conjure animals up. Yes, you could argue that she's more druid than barbarian, but the combination of these features is incredibly potent.


I'd also like to partially disagree with you on the "keeping up with fullcasters" part. Even at the absolute pinnacle of 5e optimization, there is still a viable martial: The gloomstalker ranger. This is in large part due to their spellcasting, but it's an important fact to remember.
It seems to me like you're pulling your points from tabletop builds. You probably assume that a vhuman is better for a gloomstalker than a bugbear, and your argument would be that you need to get CBE and Sharpshooter by level 4, but couldn't tell me why having both by level 4 is THE essential breakpoint. Am I correct?


Back on barbarians, their main problem, aside from being melee-locked, is that they run out of rages too quickly to last the full adventuring day. I also wouldn't consider them amazing in high OP games, they're just viable there. They still need to work extremely hard to stay relevant, usually by taking fighter levels. However, when they do have a rage up, they're going to be much more consistent damage dealers than the rogue who relies on a limited use racial ability and booming blade to deal less damage than a hand crossbow user.
Any game where a straight classed barbarian is viable is a game where numerous other melee builds are viable.

the BM/rogue build I've mentioned deals way more damage than a CBE build.

[KirbyDerby]

Paladins have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of smite, which is one of the most powerful concentration disrupters in the game, and with their mounts they have the capacity to actually get in and deal damage. Similarly monks will want to run in to use stunning strike even if they're optimized for ranged play. Melee specialist monks like shadow monks can get constant advantage via blindfighting fighting style and darkness, which when combined with EA makes them a god-tier DPR character that's also incredibly tanky and disruptive to spellcasters. (also one of the best possible characters to give a flametongue too) Rogues have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of a reaction, which can double their DPR. An XBE rogue is nowhere even close in DPR to an optimized melee rogue, and yes melee rogues walk a dangerous path, but with proper optimization there are loads of ways to mitigate that risk, like playing a shadar-kai and taking the moderately armored feat to hit 19 AC with shield proficiency.

Smites are not a good enough incentive to be in melee. They're ok nova, but an inefficient use of your slots. Bless does far more damage over the course of a fight, especially if the other martials in the party are taking one of the -5/+10 feats. They also can't meaningfully deal more damage than a XBE + SS fighter over the full adventuring day. In addition, most of their good spells incentivize them to play at range (bless takes concentration, command is strongest when making the enemy run away, and find steed is a lot better for kiting the enemy than engaging them in melee). Also, playing in melee means their best feature, Aura of Protection, won't protect the spellcasters, who need it the most. As such, paladins work best taking a warlock 2 dip for eldritch blast and relying on that for damage.

Stunning strike would be good... if monks weren't monks. They're at best going to have +3 to wisdom for a lot of their career, meaning their save DC will be pretty low. Stunning strike also targets Con saves, a terrible save to target, and eats through ki fast. Monks also don't have very good AC, and can't take many hits due to d8 hit dice, and should avoid melee as much as possible. Stunning strike does have its uses, but they're situational, and not as good as just flat-out killing something. As for shadow monks, they are quite good, but they should be primarily concentrating on Pass Without Trace. Spending an action and ki on Darkness is not a worthwhile use of their resources.

Your melee rogue build heavily relies on getting a reaction attack to get good damage, which as far as I can tell you can only get from the enemy walking away and triggering an opportunity attack. That's far too unreliable, as the enemies can very simply just stay near you and attack you into oblivion. Even 19-20 AC isn't good enough to be in melee all the time in a high OP game, especially at higher levels. Barbarians share this problem, but partially get around this by being able to deal all their damage on their turn and killing the enemy ASAP instead of waiting to see what the enemy will do (as well as by having reach weapons). Of course, both are mostly outclassed by a hand crossbow user who can deal consistent damage at all times, but the barbarian has their niche.


The barbarian has items that set her AC to 17 and her STR to 21, and these apply to her various forms, including the quetzalcoatlus, which has a beak attack that deals 3d6, or 6d6 on a dive. Boots of haste grant her a third attack and enormous speed, which is further boosted by longstrider. She also as a dwarf is still resistant to poison, and she has fire shield cast on herself when she really wants to get serious, and she can still have conjure animals up. Yes, you could argue that she's more druid than barbarian, but the combination of these features is incredibly potent.

It would be a lot more potent to just play as a straightclassed druid and not pretend to be a martial. A shepherd druid would be able to get some pretty insane DPR out of their animals via Mighty Summoner, and wouldn't be relying on a magic item that I'm pretty sure also consumes your concentration. Haste isn't that good of a spell, and most certainly not good enough to spend a very rare magic item slot on.


It seems to me like you're pulling your points from tabletop builds. You probably assume that a vhuman is better for a gloomstalker than a bugbear, and your argument would be that you need to get CBE and Sharpshooter by level 4, but couldn't tell me why having both by level 4 is THE essential breakpoint. Am I correct?

Not correct on the latter half. It's not that level 4 is the breaking point for having both feats, but rather all the time you spend without them. In tier 1, a bugbear may be able to deal a bunch of damage round 1, but doesn't have the reliable damage that a vhuman or custom lineage with XBE has. Once they hit level 4, the bugbear can now pick up XBE for extra damage, but now they lack Sharpshooter, which not only gives you the power attack, but also allows you to fire at long ranges more effectively. Your next feat isn't until level 8 (or 6 if you're a fighter), but a lot of martial builds want to multiclass after extra attack, which pushes getting Sharpshooter until at least level 9. Once you've reached that point, you may be doing solid damage, but you've spent almost half your levels without the main combination of feats that makes martials viable in high OP.


Any game where a straight classed barbarian is viable is a game where numerous other melee builds are viable.

I never said that the barbarian is straightclassed. Barbarians really fall off after level 5-6, and will multiclass into something like Echo Knight or Battlemaster to keep up (which again incentivizes them to pick up PAM level 1 via a feat race).



If you do understand the potential of the new Bugbear, then what is the hypothetical 'high OP caster' that's so easily outclassing it?

An artificer 1/wizard X or cleric 1/wizard X is an extremely potent control caster. They have many powerful control spells at all levels (Sleep, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm for levels 1-6 alone) while also having plenty of other options for combat like Fireball or Polymorph. They have 19 AC at base, and can raise it by casting Shield, as well as high save protection due to proficiency in Con saves (the cleric version can take Resilient Con). A bugbear winning initiative can definitely nova something down, but a control caster winning initiative can trap a lot of enemies with a single spell.

[Dork_Forge]

An artificer 1/wizard X or cleric 1/wizard X is an extremely potent control caster. They have many powerful control spells at all levels (Sleep, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet Storm for levels 1-6 alone) while also having plenty of other options for combat like Fireball or Polymorph. They have 19 AC at base, and can raise it by casting Shield, as well as high save protection due to proficiency in Con saves (the cleric version can take Resilient Con). A bugbear winning initiative can definitely nova something down, but a control caster winning initiative can trap a lot of enemies with a single spell.

...That is a lovely orange you're comparing to that apple. You're not really saying anything about why a martial is not keeping up with that caster, you're just saying they do a different thing. Which, of course they do?

But what's the point of controlling an encounter if you can't actually finish it? How are you going to deal with those that can't be controlled for various reasons? It's D&D, 90% of the time you will need to kill the things you're fighting and in a conversation about do martials need certain feats, talking about an entirely different category of playstyle is moving goalposts at best. You can't compare those characters when they're not doing the same thing.

By the way your potent caster examples have their own drawbacks, namely delayed progression and low HP totals. Somehow this has become another caster=Wizard conversation.

If you actually want to present an example that compares, that would be great, but the builds competing at an entirely different, complementary, thing are not making your point.

And just on the topic of your build, no they don't have Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet storm and Fireball at levels 1-6. You get to pick two, forgoing other spells you might want like Counterspell, Dispel Magic etc. Casters, especially MC'd ones, are going to be stretched for spells. On casters that don't truly prepare their spells this can be a real problem. Martials in general have no problems, particularly in Tiers 1 and 2, being competitive, optimised ones can handle issues themselves just fine. Casters are nice to have in a party, but the game isn't make or break on if you have a fullcaster, even in higher difficulty games.

Speaking of which, you still haven't actually defined the high OP games you keep referring to.

[KirbyDerby]

...That is a lovely orange you're comparing to that apple. You're not really saying anything about why a martial is not keeping up with that caster, you're just saying they do a different thing. Which, of course they do?

But what's the point of controlling an encounter if you can't actually finish it? How are you going to deal with those that can't be controlled for various reasons? It's D&D, 90% of the time you will need to kill the things you're fighting and in a conversation about do martials need certain feats, talking about an entirely different category of playstyle is moving goalposts at best. You can't compare those characters when they're not doing the same thing.

By the way your potent caster examples have their own drawbacks, namely delayed progression and low HP totals. Somehow this has become another caster=Wizard conversation.

If you actually want to present an example that compares, that would be great, but the builds competing at an entirely different, complementary, thing are not making your point.

And just on the topic of your build, no they don't have Hypnotic Pattern, Sleet storm and Fireball at levels 1-6. You get to pick two, forgoing other spells you might want like Counterspell, Dispel Magic etc. Casters, especially MC'd ones, are going to be stretched for spells. On casters that don't truly prepare their spells this can be a real problem. Martials in general have no problems, particularly in Tiers 1 and 2, being competitive, optimised ones can handle issues themselves just fine. Casters are nice to have in a party, but the game isn't make or break on if you have a fullcaster, even in higher difficulty games.

Speaking of which, you still haven't actually defined the high OP games you keep referring to.

Combat is fundamentally about minimizing the amount of resources your party spends, HP included. To that end, killing and disabling enemies quickly is important, as otherwise they can tear through your party. Casters are great at stopping enemies with their spells, whether via control or flat-out killing them via Fireball or Conjure Animals. Martials mitigate damage primarily by killing enemies ASAP, without having to spend as many resources as the casters do. They may seem to be doing different roles on the surface, but, over the course of the entire adventuring day, they're trying to achieve the same fundamental goal. To justify their place on a party, martials have to do good damage consistenly without spending many resources, all the while avoiding putting themselves too much at risk. If a martial isn't dealing damage consistently enough over the entire adventuring day, they aren't good enough to be replacing all the spell slots that a fullcaster can spend. This absolutely can be achieved, but it limits the options for martial builds significantly.

A more directly comparable example would probably be a cleric or a druid. A lot of melee martial builds aren't going to be dealing as much damage as a cleric concentrating on Spirit Guardians, especially when facing a large group of enemies. As for single-target damage, a druid's Conjure Animals will shred a lot of encounters against a few enemies. There's ways to kill the animals, but there are also a lot of ways to protect them as well. Now, none of these will be able to last the full adventuring day, but they do have a long duration, meaning the spells will often last long enough to face another encounter. A martial will have to try to match the impact these spells have over the entire adventuring day (as well as the other spells and spell slots they have on board).

As for a party without fullcasters, that's a perfectly viable high OP party (at least before tier 3), as is a party of only fullcasters. The fullcasters may not be able to achieve the same feats as martials can without spending resources, but as a party they'll have more resources to spend overall. Many casters also have access to Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast + Repelling Blast (via being a warlock or taking a warlock dip), which, while it won't do as much damage as martials can, it will push enemies back into many of their control spells, delaying the enemies even further.

Delayed spell progression is an issue, but the massive increase in survivability is worth it, and other spellcasters in the party can pick up spells that fill in gaps in their party's toolbox. Other classes, like Cleric and Druid, can wait longer for their dip, as they already have good armor proficiencies.

As for what a high OP game is, it's a game where the party is going to need mostly high OP characters to survive. This will generally be an adventuring day with the recommended 6-8 encounters, the vast majority of which will likely be Deadly and higher difficulty.

[Chaos Jackal]

Smites are not a good enough incentive to be in melee. They're ok nova, but an inefficient use of your slots. Bless does far more damage over the course of a fight, especially if the other martials in the party are taking one of the -5/+10 feats. They also can't meaningfully deal more damage than a XBE + SS fighter over the full adventuring day. In addition, most of their good spells incentivize them to play at range (bless takes concentration, command is strongest when making the enemy run away, and find steed is a lot better for kiting the enemy than engaging them in melee). Also, playing in melee means their best feature, Aura of Protection, won't protect the spellcasters, who need it the most. As such, paladins work best taking a warlock 2 dip for eldritch blast and relying on that for damage.

[...]

Not correct on the latter half. It's not that level 4 is the breaking point for having both feats, but rather all the time you spend without them. In tier 1, a bugbear may be able to deal a bunch of damage round 1, but doesn't have the reliable damage that a vhuman or custom lineage with XBE has. Once they hit level 4, the bugbear can now pick up XBE for extra damage, but now they lack Sharpshooter, which not only gives you the power attack, but also allows you to fire at long ranges more effectively. Your next feat isn't until level 8 (or 6 if you're a fighter), but a lot of martial builds want to multiclass after extra attack, which pushes getting Sharpshooter until at least level 9. Once you've reached that point, you may be doing solid damage, but you've spent almost half your levels without the main combination of feats that makes martials viable in high OP.

Well, at least you're not denying where you're drawing your convictions from.

I suggest expanding somewhat though. Tabletop Builds is fine, but also quite inflexible due to their obsession with certain things, like multiclassing, the BA attack and -5/+10 feats or the burning need to get shield and silvery barbs on everything under the sun.

Look at the bigger picture.

A bugbear being a feat behind does mean less consistent damage, but consistent damage will matter far less if your initial nova from two back-to-back full attack routines kills priority targets. It will both reduce the length of the rest of the combat, meaning less rounds with additional BA attacks, and will also reduce the overall damage your party might end up taking, because having three rounds with three living enemies is better than having two rounds with three living enemies and one round with four living enemies.

Bless is great, but there's a lot of situations, depending on combat length, number and type of enemies and party composition where it's really not ideal. It's one of the best 1st-level spells, but it's not always applicable. A smite alone might not outdamage it, but bless doesn't just cost you a slot, it costs you an action and your concentration, circumstances that can easily mean it might be better to just make attacks instead (you expect the combat to be short, you don't have very good targets for it in your party to expect attacks from, you need to hit someone's face right now to break their concentration and/or kill them quickly or they'll be trouble, you'd rather share haste to your steed). The mount, especially the flying options from find greater steed, can really give you a lot more options about getting to melee and leveraging those smites, and see the previous paragraph about the value of nova and how consistent damage is not always the goal to shoot for, or at least not the only one.

A Zealot barbarian at lv5 swings for ~31DPR against AC15 with advantage, assuming rage, PAM and 16 Str. With GWM, they're hitting ~41 DPR instead (that does include the BA on crit, though not the BA on kill, but that difference is rather negligible for what I'll be demonstrating). 10 DPR every turn. Cool, right? Except, what if, instead of GWM, you took Lucky or Resilient: Wis? They're not DPR feats per se... but, for every round that Resilient bonus or Lucky reroll saves you from paralysis or fear or a "don't attack me" charm, it grants you 31 damage. In fact, it grants you more, because those rounds spent not attacking are also likely rounds where you'll lose your rage, wasting you a bonus action to reactivate it and reducing your damage for the entire day as your limited rage resource is depleted (or, if you don't rage again, it loses you any additional damage rage would have given over the rest of combat). Realistically, every instance that save boost comes up is probably worth a lot more than 30 damage, assuming you waste two turns and rage damage/uses and bonus actions if you don't make the save. So what? 70 damage perhaps? 80? That's 7-8 rounds of attacking with GWM instead. Two combats. For every single instance where that save effect came up.

And remember, that's assuming you always have advantage, so being suicidally Reckless or having an outside source. Without advantage, DPR for non-GWM is ~23.2 compared to ~25.6 for GWM. 2.4 extra DPR only. You'd need 20-30 rounds per instance of successful save for GWM to make up the difference to a success because of Resilient or Lucky... which is likely close to your entire allotment of combat rounds for a day. For one single instance. And then you have the possibility of fighting enemies with higher AC. For example, at AC18, non-GWM more or less breaks even with GWM with advantage and is ahead without, essentially meaning you have one feat less; at AC 20 (granted, that's quite high for enemies at lv5, but you never know), non-GWM is ahead on all damage counts before we even look at avoiding fear or charms. The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle (you won't be having advantage every attack but you also won't be making straight rolls only, you'll be facing lower ACs than 15 as well so you'll get a bigger difference there to cover potential 16-18s) but, with the above data, I highly doubt you can assert GWM is such an essential choice for lv4. At best, you'll have an existent but far from significant DPR advantage over someone with a "defensive" feat and be a lot more vulnerable in turn (bigger odds of failing debilitating saves, bigger reliance on Reckless). At worst, you're behind in both damage and endurance and that worst isn't some niche case either. And let's not get into flame tongues; this is supposed to be bog-standard.

(calculations made using LudicSavant's and AureusFulgens' DPR calculator)

High optimization isn't about ticking boxes and cookie cutter builds. It's not "well, my caster needs to have medium armor, a shield and all reaction spells in the game and my martial needs to be vhuman/custom lineage with GWM+PAM/CBE+SS." High optimization is looking beyond numbers and general assertions, recognizing the difficulties you'll be facing from case to case (not all high-op games are the same) and making choices based on the game at hand.

[kazaryu]

Paladins have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of smite, which is one of the most powerful concentration disrupters in the game, and with their mounts they have the capacity to actually get in and deal damage. Similarly monks will want to run in to use stunning strike even if they're optimized for ranged play. Melee specialist monks like shadow monks can get constant advantage via blindfighting fighting style and darkness, which when combined with EA makes them a god-tier DPR character that's also incredibly tanky and disruptive to spellcasters. (also one of the best possible characters to give a flametongue too) Rogues have a strong incentive to get into melee in the form of a reaction, which can double their DPR. An XBE rogue is nowhere even close in DPR to an optimized melee rogue, and yes melee rogues walk a dangerous path, but with proper optimization there are loads of ways to mitigate that risk, like playing a shadar-kai and taking the moderately armored feat to hit 19 AC with shield proficiency.
quick question: what is it about the shadow monk that makes them so good with a flametongue? is it just their accuracy bonus?




A more directly comparable example would probably be a cleric or a druid. A lot of melee martial builds aren't going to be dealing as much damage as a cleric concentrating on Spirit Guardians, especially when facing a large group of enemies. possibly...at the cost of a 3rd level spells slot, the clerics concentration and the fact that you're not actually killing anyone right now. i know someone else addressed this...but...well, let me put it this way. if you have 3 enemies, and you have the option to kill all 3 simultaneously 3 turns from now, or kill one per turn for the next 3 turns. often times the latter is better. because over the course of the 3 turns, it will reduce the number of turns your enemies take against you. potentailly braking your conentration, or just dealing damage. you talk about the concept of 'reducing the damage allies takes over the course of a day' and you are correct. but you don't seem to be fully applying that principle to all your arguments.

yeah, a control wizard is important. but if you have an enemy controlled...you don't need to spend more spell slots damaging them. let the at-will damage dealers clean them up. you save more resources. Thats one of the reasons that spending spell slots of instant damage is often times so inefficient. you're not going to kill all of them, so it may be better to spend the spell slot on some type of control spell, therefore immediately removing them as a threat. then let some consistent damage dealer finish them off while they can't fight back.

[diplomancer]

High optimization isn't about ticking boxes and cookie cutter builds. It's not "well, my caster needs to have medium armor, a shield and all reaction spells in the game and my martial needs to be vhuman/custom lineage with GWM+PAM/CBE+SS." High optimization is looking beyond numbers and general assertions, recognizing the difficulties you'll be facing from case to case (not all high-op games are the same) and making choices based on the game at hand.

This. I don't think I've ever played on one of those "high-optimization" tables; but whatever that means, it cannot mean "big numbers on a white room scenario"

For instance, the suggestion that a Paladin should be at range to protect the casters ignores two very important things:

1- Find Steed mobility is so good that, in most scenarios, a Paladin can move into melee range, attack whom he wants to with a Reach melee weapon, and move back to wherever he wants to. Even if the enemy has longer reach and thus gets an opportunity attack, with a Paladin's high AC (supplemented with Shield) that will probably miss.
2- Again, even considering my lack of experience in "high-optimization" games, I would find it unlikely that having all the casters clumped around the Paladin is a good idea for any truly dangerous fight; truth is, until level 18, a Paladin's Aura is mostly for himself and his Steed, maybe one other member of the group (maybe the Barbarian who was foolish enough to focus on damage only and now has abysmal Wis saves), but not for the whole group, unless you already know the enemy does not have a decent AoE attack. Casters should definitely not be clumped together, whatever else.

[Pildion]

It seems that many people feel Paladins and Barbarians derive significant value from the same three feats: Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Sentinel.

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output?
If so, does this trinity feats have the same value for each Barbarian subclass?

The Rage ability itself requires a Bonus Action to activate, which means, (barring a Barbarian Pre-Combat Rage Activation), one use of PAM’s Bonus Action attack is not going to be available on the turn Rage is activated.

A Frenzy Barbarian, might want to use PAM’s Bonus Action attack so as to not have to activate Frenzy. Yet, a Path of the Storm Herald Barbarian has powers that use both their Bonus Actions and Reactions.

An Ancestor Barbarian, likewise, has it’s Reaction spoken for, as could a Beast-Tail Barbarian.

The Trinity of feats, that is commonly recommended that Barbarians should take, has notable action resource conflicts for many of the subclasses, it would seem.

Is this a case of group think assuming that if the feat combinations work for Paladins, then it works for Barbarians as well?

Only Great Weapon Master is a real requirement for Barbarians, but that is because of Reckless Attack, you make up for the -5atk from GWM, I don't think the other two are required like GWM is.
Paladins care more about PAM, to get that bonus attack to crit fish for smites, but its definitely not required like GWM for Barbarians.

[strangebloke]

High optimization isn't about ticking boxes and cookie cutter builds. It's not "well, my caster needs to have medium armor, a shield and all reaction spells in the game and my martial needs to be vhuman/custom lineage with GWM+PAM/CBE+SS." High optimization is looking beyond numbers and general assertions, recognizing the difficulties you'll be facing from case to case (not all high-op games are the same) and making choices based on the game at hand.
right. GWM and SS are good because of normative assumptions about what AC values and damage-on-hit values a barbarian will have. At the extreme end you have the rogue, where the power attack feature of Sharpshooter massively reduces DPR because missing a sneak attack hurts so bad, but a relatively small damage rider can change the math by a lot.

If you get a flaming greataxe and are worried about relying on reckless.... I wouldn't recommend using GWM that much.

quick question: what is it about the shadow monk that makes them so good with a flametongue? is it just their accuracy bonus?
Monks are the only class in the game that actively wants to use a longsword, and they can get 3 accurate attacks around thanks to a combination of KFA and Focused aim.

This. I don't think I've ever played on one of those "high-optimization" tables; but whatever that means, it cannot mean "big numbers on a white room scenario"
"High optimization" is just a moving goalpost for most people.

As in 3.5, the "highest level of optimization" is a wizard infinitely chaining simulacrums, bodyswapping into other creatures, and similar shenanigans. It's not a reflection of how anyone actually plays. What people actually mean is - yeah, big numbers. Granted that the "white room" critique is somewhat unfair, optimizers consider things like positioning and mobility. That's why movement speed is so prized.

But at tables that prize optimzation in practice, its rare for the DM to run things without house rules. Nerfed Sharpshooter, Silvery Barbs changed to a 3rd level spell. That sort of thing. So all the discussion isn't really pursuant of anything, and people who fixate on static builds that exist in isolation of an actual game, are sure to run into problems.

[diplomancer]

Granted that the "white room" critique is somewhat unfair, optimizers consider things like positioning and mobility. That's why movement speed is so prized.



If mobility is so prized, why then was it said that Barbarians (a class with mediocre mobility) make better melee characters than Paladins (with a Steed, one of the best, if not the best, combat mobility class in the game?)

[da newt]

Is there a good way to quantify damage taken per round or damage mitigated? DPR output is fairly easy to calculate (offense), but can you do the same for the survivability side of the equation (defense)?

What sort of numerical difference is there defensively between a reckless PAM barbarian w/ 16 AC (unarmored) and a shield and staff not reckless PAM barbarian w/ 19 AC (1/2 plate)?

In my opinion, too much emphasis is put on damage output, and not enough on survivability (and accuracy), but that is a belief vice a fact based on calculations.

I prefer to PAM shield and staff w/ a dip for dueling FS for the extra +2 per hit and better tanking. AG is a great option for extra party damage mitigation, Zealot for a nice damage boost, Bear totem for more HP resistance, etc ...

As for Sentinel, in my game experience it never lives up to it's potential as it comes into play so infrequently i'd never choose it over rescon or lucky or even an ASI. It's awesome when it works but once every 5 encounters or so just doesn't justify it for me.

[strangebloke]

If mobility is so prized, why then was it said that Barbarians (a class with mediocre mobility) make better melee characters than Paladins (with a Steed, one of the best, if not the best, combat mobility class in the game?)
Kirby is taking the position that the barbarian is the only class that stays in melee at "high optimization" because other classes, when optimized, will not be in melee. I believe he would agree that paladins are better than barbarians when in melee (and better overall) but are even better when playing at range.

which I disagree with, but its also kind of an academic point. When people say "high optimization campaign" they mean a game where everyone's playing a powerful character, not a game where everyone randomly picked a class and are trying to push it to the limits.


Is there a good way to quantify damage taken per round or damage mitigated? DPR output is fairly easy to calculate (offense), but can you do the same for the survivability side of the equation (defense)?

What sort of numerical difference is there defensively between a reckless PAM barbarian w/ 16 AC (unarmored) and a shield and staff not reckless PAM barbarian w/ 19 AC (1/2 plate)?
Really depends.

Something like a Starspawn mangler will drop the reckless barbarian in seconds because of the extra damage they get on advantage, and the proportion of their damage that is psychic. Hobgoblins have really high damage and low attack so they benefit a lot here too. But you also have things like say an earth elemental which has middling damage but high offense.

The more mathematically complete answer is that a creature with a 50% chance to hit normally is best positioned to leverage advantage. So for the 16 AC barbarian, that's something with a +5 attack mod. With advantage against AC 16, they will deal 75% of their damage potential. The same creature without advantage against AC 19 will only deal 35% of their damage potential, or less than half what they dealt otherwise.

of course, if the creature has such a high mod (say +12) that they basically can't miss regardless, this calclulus shifts a lot. Such a creature will have a 70% hit chance against AC 19, and against AC 16 with advantage this changes to 98% hit chance for a an increase of a third in damage.

Overall though, the 19 AC guy is taking something like half to 2/3 damage. Reckless attack is not a trivial drawback.

As for Sentinel, in my game experience it never lives up to it's potential as it comes into play so infrequently i'd never choose it over rescon or lucky or even an ASI. It's awesome when it works but once every 5 encounters or so just doesn't justify it for me.
Sentinel has more than one line and they're both very useful. My melee ranger was able to proc the reaction attack something like 3/4 the time

[x3n0n]

As for Sentinel, in my game experience it never lives up to it's potential as it comes into play so infrequently i'd never choose it over rescon or lucky or even an ASI. It's awesome when it works but once every 5 encounters or so just doesn't justify it for me.

Sentinel's "reliable" value is wrapped up in the reaction attack and the "move=0 on opportunity attack". To increase its value, we need to make those more likely and/or more rewarding when they do happen.

I've seen two good ways to improve the "move=0" clause:

PAM with a reach weapon: the first enemy who comes within 10 feet of you is at risk for getting "frozen" in place for the turn
Echo Knight: with Manifest Echo, the first enemy who tries to leave the echo is at risk for getting "frozen"

More frequent triggering of Sentinel's reaction attack:

mirror image: if your DM agrees that your "illusionary duplicates" will trigger the attack
you have a frontline teammate that is frequently attacked (say, you are Raging or HAM and/or they have the Interception fighting style)

More value on Sentinel's reaction attack: things that increase the value of off-turn attacks, like Sneak Attack or Stunning Strike or (pick your favorite on-attack rider that applies off turn)

So if you include at least one piece of build synergy, it gets a lot better. Some ideas:

LudicSavant's "Ancestral Avenger" (Echo Knight/Ancestral Barb) certainly gets value from it: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24673886&postcount=511
strangebloke's "Veteran" (Battle Master/Rogue) gets some as well: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25419696&postcount=1411
PAM+Sentinel on a Battle Master (for Precision Attack on the OA) or Barbarian seems good, making a 25' wide zone that stops the first incoming melee thug
If mirror image works, an Arcane Trickster on the front line (probably with shield proficiency from Moderately Armored or multiclassing) can get a lot of Sneak Attacks that way

[Willie the Duck]

I think we're talking about two different levels of optimization here. When I say high optimization, I mean high.
Okay, so this was were the thread went off the rails. Making claims like this just invites people to expect you to (demonstrably) live up to the measure of 'better at this than they are.' Even assuming that is true (a reckless claim to put forth to people one doesn't really know well), it's really hard to prove that.


"High optimization" is just a moving goalpost for most people.

As in 3.5, the "highest level of optimization" is a wizard infinitely chaining simulacrums, bodyswapping into other creatures, and similar shenanigans. It's not a reflection of how anyone actually plays. What people actually mean is - yeah, big numbers. Granted that the "white room" critique is somewhat unfair, optimizers consider things like positioning and mobility. That's why movement speed is so prized.

But at tables that prize optimzation in practice, its rare for the DM to run things without house rules. Nerfed Sharpshooter, Silvery Barbs changed to a 3rd level spell. That sort of thing. So all the discussion isn't really pursuant of anything, and people who fixate on static builds that exist in isolation of an actual game, are sure to run into problems.

Would that be the difference between 'TO' and 'OP'?

[diplomancer]

Sentinel's "reliable" value is wrapped up in the reaction attack and the "move=0 on opportunity attack". To increase its value, we need to make those more likely and/or more rewarding when they do happen.

I've seen two good ways to improve the "move=0" clause:

PAM with a reach weapon: the first enemy who comes within 10 feet of you is at risk for getting "frozen" in place for the turn
Echo Knight: with Manifest Echo, the first enemy who tries to leave the echo is at risk for getting "frozen"

More frequent triggering of Sentinel's reaction attack:

mirror image: if your DM agrees that your "illusionary duplicates" will trigger the attack
you have a frontline teammate that is frequently attacked (say, you are Raging or HAM and/or they have the Interception fighting style)

More value on Sentinel's reaction attack: things that increase the value of off-turn attacks, like Sneak Attack or Stunning Strike or (pick your favorite on-attack rider that applies off turn)

So if you include at least one piece of build synergy, it gets a lot better. Some ideas:

LudicSavant's "Ancestral Avenger" (Echo Knight/Ancestral Barb) certainly gets value from it: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24673886&postcount=511
strangebloke's "Veteran" (Battle Master/Rogue) gets some as well: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25419696&postcount=1411
PAM+Sentinel on a Battle Master (for Precision Attack on the OA) or Barbarian seems good, making a 25' wide zone that stops the first incoming melee thug
If mirror image works, an Arcane Trickster on the front line (probably with shield proficiency from Moderately Armored or multiclassing) can get a lot of Sneak Attacks that way


Mirror image can't work without houseruling; the images explicitly appear on your space and move with you (thus remaining on your space).

[x3n0n]

Mirror image can't work without houseruling; the images explicitly appear on your space and move with you (thus remaining on your space).

Others have spilled ink. Their argument: Sentinel just says "When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against a target other than you (and that target doesn't have this feat)", and their interpretation is that the duplicate is a target that is not you and that the duplicate does not have the feat.

I don't see how the fact that the duplicates share your space interferes with that.

(That said, I find it contrary to my reading of the flavor/intent of Sentinel and would not be enthusiastic to rule it that way at my table.)

[da newt]

Sentinel's "reliable" value is wrapped up in the reaction attack and the "move=0 on opportunity attack". To increase its value, we need to make those more likely and/or more rewarding when they do happen.

I've seen two good ways to improve the "move=0" clause:

PAM with a reach weapon: the first enemy who comes within 10 feet of you is at risk for getting "frozen" in place for the turn
Echo Knight: with Manifest Echo, the first enemy who tries to leave the echo is at risk for getting "frozen"

More frequent triggering of Sentinel's reaction attack:

mirror image: if your DM agrees that your "illusionary duplicates" will trigger the attack
you have a frontline teammate that is frequently attacked (say, you are Raging or HAM and/or they have the Interception fighting style)

More value on Sentinel's reaction attack: things that increase the value of off-turn attacks, like Sneak Attack or Stunning Strike or (pick your favorite on-attack rider that applies off turn)

So if you include at least one piece of build synergy, it gets a lot better. Some ideas:

LudicSavant's "Ancestral Avenger" (Echo Knight/Ancestral Barb) certainly gets value from it: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24673886&postcount=511
strangebloke's "Veteran" (Battle Master/Rogue) gets some as well: https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25419696&postcount=1411
PAM+Sentinel on a Battle Master (for Precision Attack on the OA) or Barbarian seems good, making a 25' wide zone that stops the first incoming melee thug
If mirror image works, an Arcane Trickster on the front line (probably with shield proficiency from Moderately Armored or multiclassing) can get a lot of Sneak Attacks that way


I agree with all of the above - good points/well made - but also:
IF you already have PAM the frequency that you get an OPATT that you otherwise wouldn't is less frequent (~ halved)
IF you miss with your OPATT the movement 0 (and damage) are moot
IF you wield a reach weapon and the badguy has reach or a ranged attack the movement 0 bullet is (mostly) moot
IF you don't wield a reach weapon the movement 0 bullet is (mostly) moot
It only stops one badguy for one round

Admittedly, I haven't seen a pair of melee tanks (with PAM etc) utilize Sentinel to it's full potential in actual play.

[diplomancer]

Others have spilled ink. Their argument: Sentinel just says "When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against a target other than you (and that target doesn't have this feat)", and their interpretation is that the duplicate is a target that is not you and that the duplicate does not have the feat.

I don't see how the fact that the duplicates share your space interferes with that.

(That said, I find it contrary to my reading of the flavor/intent of Sentinel and would not be enthusiastic to rule it that way at my table.)

Oh, I was just thinking of triggering the opportunity attack if they move away from the image. But yeah, I don't think the images count as creatures, so they can't be proper targets. Furthermore, they ARE targeting you, even if they miss you and attack an image instead.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm implementing the Barbarian in my RED calculator, and a few data points (preliminary, of course):

A subclass-lacking barbarian wielding a greataxe
* and never raging or reckless does 0.8 RED. High point is ~level 5, then steady decline from there.
* raging 100% of the time but never reckless does 1.0 RED (same pattern, higher numbers).
* raging 100% of the time and always reckless does 1.4 RED (similar pattern, just higher numbers).

Next up will be adding in GWM with some proc rate on the extra attack.
Looking forward to seeing 2.5 RED :smallcool:

Right? Right??

[LudicSavant]

(calculations made using LudicSavant's and AureusFulgens' DPR calculator)

High optimization isn't about ticking boxes and cookie cutter builds. It's not "well, my caster needs to have medium armor, a shield and all reaction spells in the game and my martial needs to be vhuman/custom lineage with GWM+PAM/CBE+SS." High optimization is looking beyond numbers and general assertions, recognizing the difficulties you'll be facing from case to case (not all high-op games are the same) and making choices based on the game at hand.

Precisely. Optimization is about recognizing and adapting to your situation.


right. GWM and SS are good because of normative assumptions about what AC values and damage-on-hit values a barbarian will have. At the extreme end you have the rogue, where the power attack feature of Sharpshooter massively reduces DPR because missing a sneak attack hurts so bad, but a relatively small damage rider can change the math by a lot.

If you get a flaming greataxe and are worried about relying on reckless.... I wouldn't recommend using GWM that much.

Monks are the only class in the game that actively wants to use a longsword, and they can get 3 accurate attacks around thanks to a combination of KFA and Focused aim.

"High optimization" is just a moving goalpost for most people.

As in 3.5, the "highest level of optimization" is a wizard infinitely chaining simulacrums, bodyswapping into other creatures, and similar shenanigans. It's not a reflection of how anyone actually plays. What people actually mean is - yeah, big numbers. Granted that the "white room" critique is somewhat unfair, optimizers consider things like positioning and mobility. That's why movement speed is so prized.

But at tables that prize optimzation in practice, its rare for the DM to run things without house rules. Nerfed Sharpshooter, Silvery Barbs changed to a 3rd level spell. That sort of thing. So all the discussion isn't really pursuant of anything, and people who fixate on static builds that exist in isolation of an actual game, are sure to run into problems.



Would that be the difference between 'TO' and 'OP'?

Basically. Like Strangebloke alludes to, the real “absolute pinnacle of optimization” includes silliness like infinite simulacrum loops, breaking the concentration limit with glyph stacks, extreme and stackable forms of minionmancy, body-hopping shenanigans to take advantage of Monster Manual abilities that should never have been player-accessible, teleporting enemies an unlimited distance with no save while you chill on another plane, other forms of remote play (e.g. defeating your targets without even being at the dungeon), and more.

None of which you should ever play at a real table.

This is why you won’t see experienced optimizers talking too much about “the best thing evar” but instead optimizing within constraints (for practical op) or pursuing a thought experiment (for theoretical op).

[PhoenixPhyre]

Looking forward to seeing 2.5 RED :smallcool:

Right? Right??

GWM with a 0% proc rate (because I'm too lazy to have programmed it yet) but always reckless and raging ends up at ~1.8 RED. It's just a secular shift on the distribution, basically adding 0.4-ish RED (the relevant non GWM touchpoint is ~1.4 RED) to all data points. Which is roughly the same kind of shift that adding reckless 100% of the time to raging 100% of the time does (1.0 RED -> 1.4 RED).

I expect that a 10% proc rate will kick it up about 0.1 RED.

https://admiralbenbo.org/images/barbarian_tentative.png

[Gignere]

Oh, I was just thinking of triggering the opportunity attack if they move away from the image. But yeah, I don't think the images count as creatures, so they can't be proper targets. Furthermore, they ARE targeting you, even if they miss you and attack an image instead.

You can target stuff in game that aren’t creatures, unless you rule your players can’t bash down a door or attack an illusion (major image). The way I interpret sentinel is that it allows you to take advantage of a momentarily lapse because your opponent is hitting someone or something else. Your image based on the RAW of Mirror Image is definitely being targeted.

So in the case where a creature decides to attack an object or an illusion of an object or creature and you happen to have sentinel I would rule that sentinel would trigger therefore Mirror Image should trigger as well.

[Dr.Samurai]

GWM with a 0% proc rate (because I'm too lazy to have programmed it yet) but always reckless and raging ends up at ~1.8 RED. It's just a secular shift on the distribution, basically adding 0.4-ish RED (the relevant non GWM touchpoint is ~1.4 RED) to all data points. Which is roughly the same kind of shift that adding reckless 100% of the time to raging 100% of the time does (1.0 RED -> 1.4 RED).

I expect that a 10% proc rate will kick it up about 0.1 RED.

https://admiralbenbo.org/images/barbarian_tentative.png
PP, I really like RED as a benchmark, thank you for providing this. You are doing god's work lol.

Looks like I wasn't far off with the 2.5 for barb with GWM. Trails off pretty quick as the barbarian doesn't get much else after Extra Attack.

Any idea what it would look like with just Reckless Attack, no rage, for a resourceless comparison to RED?

I saw your comment in the RED thread about how the 4 RED for a part of 4 might be broken down among strikers and non-strikers and it's really interesting. Seems like a useful tool to evaluate where your party is at. It's not exactly clear to me how to calculate RED though, like what to include and not to include, etc. Though the math has never been intuitive to me...

[Willie the Duck]

Would it be easy to put a few comparators discussed upthread on that chart, such as a 2wf beast barbarian, or one with a flaming greatsword?

[PhoenixPhyre]

PP, I really like RED as a benchmark, thank you for providing this. You are doing god's work lol.

Looks like I wasn't far off with the 2.5 for barb with GWM. Trails off pretty quick as the barbarian doesn't get much else after Extra Attack.

Any idea what it would look like with just Reckless Attack, no rage, for a resourceless comparison to RED?

I saw your comment in the RED thread about how the 4 RED for a part of 4 might be broken down among strikers and non-strikers and it's really interesting. Seems like a useful tool to evaluate where your party is at. It's not exactly clear to me how to calculate RED though, like what to include and not to include, etc. Though the math has never been intuitive to me...

Reckless only is 1.16 RED against bosses.

Give it a couple minutes for the host's cache to clear and you can check for yourself. Just pushed the new barbarian changes.

As for calculating it, the actual metric is simple.
* Rogue, with +3 dex at level 1 and increasing it at 4 and 8
* shortbow
* no advantage, ally always adjacent (so 100% sneak attack, flat accuracy).

Or...you can choose the "custom data" preset option and stick in a list of raw DPR numbers, one for each level you want calculated. It'll graph those and calculate vs RED and give you the average. If you give it less than 20, it'll start from the first and stop when it runs out. If you want to calculate only at specified levels, make all the other entries null. So like
* [1, null, null, null, 52, null, null, null, null, null, 111, null, null, null, null, null, 1000, null, null, null, 1000000] would give numbers at levels 1, 5, 11, 17, and 20
* [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] would give numbers at levels 1-5.

And you can graph those adjacent to any other preset. Only limitation is that you can't graph more than one custom data at a time. It won't accuracy adjust either, so make sure you're calculating them with the same CR references (from the DMG's table) as you have selected or it'll skew things slightly.


Would it be easy to put a few comparators discussed upthread on that chart, such as a 2wf beast barbarian, or one with a flaming greatsword?

Flaming greatsword is fairly easy. 2wf beast...that'd take work because I don't understand its optimal attack routine as well, so I'd have to study how to translate it.

Edit: site is https://admiralbenbo.org/red-calculator/calculator.html

[LudicSavant]

Is there a good way to quantify damage taken per round or damage mitigated? DPR output is fairly easy to calculate (offense), but can you do the same for the survivability side of the equation (defense)?

You can basically only quantify it for specific scenarios. So to get a good practical idea, you basically have to look at matchup spreads and the like.

Note that DPR is actually the same way. For instance; -5/+10 may be a significant boon in one matchup, but unhelpful in another.


What sort of numerical difference is there defensively between a reckless PAM barbarian w/ 16 AC (unarmored) and a shield and staff not reckless PAM barbarian w/ 19 AC (1/2 plate)?

Good question. The answer is... quite a lot! As (most) in this thread have been saying, it's definitely not free if the monsters are fighting back.

Let's take a look at a few examples; low accuracy mooks, a meh accuracy creature with a good basic attack, and a more accurate, low-end Deadly creature.

For perspective, a 16 Con PAM/GWM Vhuman Zealot will have 55 HP at level 5.

(You can check the calculations done via the calculator in my sig, created by myself and mathematician AureusFulgens (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?582779-Comprehensive-DPR-Calculator-(v2-0!)#post25205545). They account for accuracy, crit chance, the works).

Against an Enchanter Wizard (CR 5):
Arcane Burst
vs 19 AC Shield Man: 25.9 DPR
vs GWM Reckless Joe: 51.5 DPR (199% damage taken)

In other words, Reckless Joe has a high chance of being one-shotted by such a foe, even with Rage. And a lower-end Deadly encounter would include two of them.

Against a Bandit mook swarm:
Ranged attack:
vs Shield Man: 1.6 DPR (per bandit)
vs Reckless Joe 3.95875 (per bandit) (247% damage taken)
Rage of course can prevent a little more than half of this, but Reckless Joe is taking well over double damage to begin with.

A CR 5 encounter for 4 characters is 20 bandits.
A low-end Deadly encounter is 44 bandits. Shield Man will survive this with Rage.

Reckless Joe, on the other hand, is instant hamburger despite Rage. And I don't just mean they're at 0HP, I mean they're going to need a Revivify, followed by a fat 55 hp of healing resources to get them back up to good shape for the next encounter. Suffice to say, you probably don't want to have low AC and Advantage to be hit against a mook swarm.

Against a Summer Eladrin (CR10)
Here we have a single Deadly monster.

It has 19 AC (22 with Parry, 24-29 ranged AC taking advantage of tree cover), a 50 foot move speed, a 30 foot bonus action teleport, and will be found bounding through the trees firing ranged attacks. It has Magic Resistance, good saves, and likes to end its considerable movement out of LOS.

Simply being near said Eladrin will passively cause Reckless Joe (who had to ignore any and all mental defenses to afford being a VHuman GWM/PAM) to become Frightened, with a 70% chance of failing the save. And if you spend even one turn not being able to attack it (and it attacking someone more important than you), you lose Rage.

If you dumped mobility despite being a melee character (such as by spending your race and feats on GWM/PAM) it's going to be an issue to fight this enemy at all. If you do get to it, the AC (and parry, and possible disadvantage) means that GWM is inefficient.

As for the Summer Eladrin's damage, they've got...
Reckless Joe: 27.2 physical DPR + 18.1 fire DPR (total 45.3) (167% damage taken)
Shield Man: 16.3 physical DPR + 10.8 fire DPR (total 27.1)
Only the physical damage can be halved by Rage.

__________________________________________________ ____

More generally:

Groups of weak foes have their damage scale very dramatically with AC / Advantage, so much so that Resistance won't be enough to de-squishify you. Note for other classes: The opposite is also true; boosting AC and inflicting Disadvantage can reduce their DPR to virtually zero (such that you can actually take hundreds of mook attacks and be fine).

Deadly foes have a better chance to have ways around Rage either partially or completely (meaning it compensates less for Reckless). They are also more likely to have higher AC or other defenses that impede hit chance (making -5/+10 less efficient than just comparing it to a 15 AC training dummy).

And as we've seen, even some Medium foes can burst down a Reckless, low AC Barbarian right through Rage.

[Amechra]

A Barbarian with 14 Str at 20th level and 0 combat feats (maybe they took skilled) is viable.

I kinda doubt that this is true... but that's only because Barbarians get +4 Strength as part of their capstone. And I kinda doubt that the game was built with a 10 Str Barbarian in mind.

(inb4 pedants: Dexbarians don't count, because the framing of the original post heavily implies that Strength is your main offensive stat.)

[kazaryu]

Monks are the only class in the game that actively wants to use a longsword, and they can get 3 accurate attacks around thanks to a combination of KFA and Focused aim.


i mean, i disagree that they're the only class that wants to use a longsword. Most S&B builds can use a longsword just fine. yes, im aware that PAM+staff/shield is a thing. i just don't think its the only way to viably play S&B.

but thanks for the explanation on Monk...i've all but dismissed Tasha's optional features at this point...i've yet to spot one that I actually would allow at my table. Not because they're so strong, but because the vast majority of them seem to erode class identity.

[LudicSavant]

i mean, i disagree that they're the only class that wants to use a longsword. Most S&B builds can use a longsword just fine. yes, im aware that PAM+staff/shield is a thing. i just don't think its the only way to viably play S&B.

Yeah. S&B characters can indeed use a longsword just fine, but probably don't specifically care much that it's a Longsword (with Versatile) as opposed to, say, a Rapier, or any other d8 weapon.

Though that may have been what SB meant by "actively" wanting a longsword.

[kazaryu]

Yeah. S&B characters can indeed use a longsword just fine, but probably don't specifically care much that it's a Longsword (with Versatile) as opposed to, say, a Rapier, or any other d8 weapon.

Though that may have been what SB meant by "actively" wanting a longsword.

fair point

[strangebloke]

More generally:

Groups of weak foes have their damage scale very dramatically with AC / Advantage, so much so that Resistance won't be enough to de-squishify you. Note for other classes: The opposite is also true; boosting AC and inflicting Disadvantage can reduce their DPR to virtually zero (such that you can actually take hundreds of mook attacks and be fine).

Deadly foes have a better chance to have ways around Rage either partially or completely (meaning it compensates less for Reckless). They are also more likely to have higher AC or other defenses that impede hit chance (making -5/+10 less efficient than just comparing it to a 15 AC training dummy).

And as we've seen, even some Medium foes can burst down a Reckless, low AC Barbarian right through Rage.
The most simple way to express this mathematically, is that the largest bonus to damage from advantage in absolute terms is going to come from a creature that would otherwise have a 50/50 hit chance, while the largest proportional damage increase is going to come from creatures with only 5% hit chance.

So, for a practical example consider a creature like a hobgoblin with a +3 attack mod and 12.5 damage per hit. They can only hit the 19 AC barbarian 25% of the time normally, with advantage that goes up to 43%. That's an increase from ~3.13 damage to ~5.4 a little less than double relatively speaking, and 2.3 in absolute terms. If they are attacking a 16 AC barbarian normally their hit chance is 40%. With advantage, that hit chance goes up to 64%. That's 5 damage to 8, or an increase of 3 damage per hit. smaller proportional increase, larger in absolute terms

what this means is that a low AC barbarian gets absolutely shredded medium minion. For contrast a basic bard with only light armor has AC 15 and gets hit 45% of the time for 5.6 damage, which is much less than the barbarian, and means that without rage they'll tank more hits overall.

And with rage you're still going to end up way behind a forge cleric or wizard with Shield.

For the most extreme example I'm aware of, there's the starspawn mangler, which attacks 6 times with a +7 mod and gets bonus psychic damage when it has advantage. Reckless Joe gets hit 84%*(2d6)*6+84%*(1d8+4)*6=56.7 in one turn even if he was raging. The SS mangler is CR 5, but at that level one of them is going to slaughter the tank in 1 round. Comparatively, something like an EK with defense style and Shield, will only a 10% chance of getting hit and takes on average, six damage.

I kinda doubt that this is true... but that's only because Barbarians get +4 Strength as part of their capstone. And I kinda doubt that the game was built with a 10 Str Barbarian in mind.

(inb4 pedants: Dexbarians don't count, because the framing of the original post heavily implies that Strength is your main offensive stat.)
ACKTUALLY 14 STR is optimal, because you can pick up a belt of Storm Giant's strength.

i mean, i disagree that they're the only class that wants to use a longsword. Most S&B builds can use a longsword just fine. yes, im aware that PAM+staff/shield is a thing. i just don't think its the only way to viably play S&B.

but thanks for the explanation on Monk...i've all but dismissed Tasha's optional features at this point...i've yet to spot one that I actually would allow at my table. Not because they're so strong, but because the vast majority of them seem to erode class identity.

S&B builds use a longsword because they have to if they want a shield, but its a down grade. Longswords are very simply one of the best monk weapons (if you can get proficiency) and monks get more attacks with them until 11th level, and they're more accurate at a baseline.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't think they're necessary. They're helpful but I've made barbarians that do just fine without any of them. Honestly of the three, I've only ever taken GWM on a barbarian.

[Psyren]

Treantmonk (boo! hiss!) did a couple of videos on optimizing the longsword - the first of these goes through several racial, feat, class and subclass build options, while the latter has him crunch numbers on a few before ultimately landing on a Swords Hexbard. While it's not the greatest damage in the world it gets the job done, and of course brings a lot to the table in other ways.

[strangebloke]

Treantmonk (boo! hiss!) did a couple of videos on optimizing the longsword - the first of these goes through several racial, feat, class and subclass build options, while the latter has him crunch numbers on a few before ultimately landing on a Swords Hexbard. While it's not the greatest damage in the world it gets the job done, and of course brings a lot to the table in other ways.

bit of a digression but I should have clarified: the monk is the martial that wants longswords best. Hexblades and the like can do way more with them.

[OldTrees1]

I kinda doubt that this is true... but that's only because Barbarians get +4 Strength as part of their capstone. And I kinda doubt that the game was built with a 10 Str Barbarian in mind.

(inb4 pedants: Dexbarians don't count, because the framing of the original post heavily implies that Strength is your main offensive stat.)

... You are right. Sorry the capstone would increase it from 14 Str to 18 Str. Your nitpick is correct and was enjoyable to read.

A Barbarian 19 with 14 Strength? Yes
A Barbarian 20 with 18 Strength? Yes
A Barbarian 19 / Rogue 1 with 14 Strength? Still viable although I hope you are using that Expertise.

[Dork_Forge]

Combat is fundamentally about minimizing the amount of resources your party spends, HP included.

Combat is fundamentally about killing the other side (or forcing a retreat etc.) before they do that, or worse, to you. Minimizing resources spent during that is not a fundamental part of it, nor is it relevant to all tables and characters.


To that end, killing and disabling enemies quickly is important, as otherwise they can tear through your party. Casters are great at stopping enemies with their spells, whether via control or flat-out killing them via Fireball or Conjure Animals.

So, in these 'high OP' games you play, Fireball is actually reliably killing things? Likewise with Conjure animals? And what, do you get to choose those animals too?

I think this is the first raising of your table experiences, or wherever you're influenced as I get the feeling a Yter or blog was mentioned earlier, is raising it's head. We're all influenced of course, but we don't all go around making absolutist statements.


Martials mitigate damage primarily by killing enemies ASAP, without having to spend as many resources as the casters do. They may seem to be doing different roles on the surface, but, over the course of the entire adventuring day, they're trying to achieve the same fundamental goal. To justify their place on a party, martials have to do good damage consistenly without spending many resources, all the while avoiding putting themselves too much at risk. If a martial isn't dealing damage consistently enough over the entire adventuring day, they aren't good enough to be replacing all the spell slots that a fullcaster can spend. This absolutely can be achieved, but it limits the options for martial builds significantly.


Oookay so this completely ignores tank characters altogether (both definitions), as well as martial control options. It also completely dismisses the different recharge rates for resources. Why does a Battlemaster care about being super conservative? Or a Monk? They'll recharge on a short rest and are designed to use their resources in a nonstingy way. Likewise the risk aspect, many martials have ways to reduce damage, self heal, larger Hit Dice etc. They don't need to insulate themselves in the same way that casters do.

The limits on options for martial builds just seems like a very artificial construct of this way of thinking.

This speaks volumes to a large part of your mentality, martials = beatsticks and if they don't do that 'well enough' then they're not worth being there compared to another caster.

Oh, and 'control' and 'damage dealer' are literally different roles to fulfill, no on the surface, they're literally different and can be found in most classes.




A more directly comparable example would probably be a cleric or a druid. A lot of melee martial builds aren't going to be dealing as much damage as a cleric concentrating on Spirit Guardians, especially when facing a large group of enemies.

...Based on what, sorry? And what happened to the whole minimal risk thing, your go to example is an aura spell? Spirit Guardians is a good spell, but it's not peak damage dealing and really requires larger number of enemies and ideally two encounters really close to each other to approach how you're selling it.


As for single-target damage, a druid's Conjure Animals will shred a lot of encounters against a few enemies. There's ways to kill the animals, but there are also a lot of ways to protect them as well. Now, none of these will be able to last the full adventuring day, but they do have a long duration, meaning the spells will often last long enough to face another encounter. A martial will have to try to match the impact these spells have over the entire adventuring day (as well as the other spells and spell slots they have on board).

Providing that the Druid doesn't get hit and lose concentration, right? And that they and the animals both go before the monsters so you can actually leverage them properly? And that the monsters don't have nonmagical resistance/immunity? I know that isn't a thing for the Shepherd Druid, that's a single subclass.

The notion that Conjure Animals and similar just trivializes encounters has never rang true in my experiences, besides it being thoroughly annoying in actual play, things have to line up in certain ways for it to actually matter that much.


As for a party without fullcasters, that's a perfectly viable high OP party (at least before tier 3), as is a party of only fullcasters. The fullcasters may not be able to achieve the same feats as martials can without spending resources, but as a party they'll have more resources to spend overall. Many casters also have access to Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast + Repelling Blast (via being a warlock or taking a warlock dip), which, while it won't do as much damage as martials can, it will push enemies back into many of their control spells, delaying the enemies even further.

A party without fullcasters isn't viable in high OP in Tier 3 and beyond... why?

And what? Your default is that many casters will have access to EB+AB? That... is a particular style of play but that is not anywhere near 'normal' in my experience for anything that isn't a Charisma caster. So you're saying it's not uncommon for a Wizard, Cleric, Druid to have that? Is dipping Warlock really that pervasive in your experience?


Delayed spell progression is an issue, but the massive increase in survivability is worth it, and other spellcasters in the party can pick up spells that fill in gaps in their party's toolbox. Other classes, like Cleric and Druid, can wait longer for their dip, as they already have good armor proficiencies.

This seems like a huge double standard, that delay will result in times where the caster doesn't have the big spell they're meant to according to you. If that was a martial they wouldn't be pulling their weight and should be a caster, but it's okay for a caster to not pull their weight all the time because the other party members will pick up the slack?


As for what a high OP game is, it's a game where the party is going to need mostly high OP characters to survive. This will generally be an adventuring day with the recommended 6-8 encounters, the vast majority of which will likely be Deadly and higher difficulty.

This shows a misunderstanding of the recommended encounters. It's only 6-8 encounters is they're easy-medium. The game does not expect you to go through 6-8 deadly and above encounters per long rest, that doesn't mean parties can't, but that isn't what the game expects.

What's a high OP party to you? As in actual specific builds

What's a high OP day to you? Again, preferably specifics

I'm just not convinced based on what you've said so far that your perception of 'high OP' characters matches 'high OP' games

[PallyBass]

Are these three feats ‘essential’ for Barbarian damage output? No they are not essential for damage output, the different barbarian subclasses facilitate different play styles (but all favor melee combat). You can do decent damage with dual wielding, and some subclasses have bonus action attack abilities or fight with claws.

But if you are using a subclass with no bonus action abilities and that uses martial weapons then PAM+GWF is the biggest boost to the potential damage you can do with a barbarian on max Strength, and the core barbarian abilities complement these feats nicely.

Base/core barbarians only get 2 melee attacks, but make up for it with extra damage from Rage and bonus critical hit dice. They also have the ability to Reckless Attack giving advantage on Strength based melee attacks.

Sentinel does not increase damage output, it is a "tank" feat to keep enemies stuck with you. Though it combines well with PAM for that effect.

Polearm Master is a good boost to barbarian DPR because the bonus action attack and the reaction attack benefits from the Rage damage bonus.

Great Weapon master is great since Reckless Attack advantage rolls can help offset the -5 to hit penalty and increases the chances for a critical hit. It also synergizes with Polearm Master in that you can use it with the bonus action attack, giving that 1d4+Str damage roll a big +10 boost.

Dual wielding benefits from the Rage bonus to damage but cannot qualify for the great Weapon Masters damage bonus so it can't do as much damage. Also would need fighting style for ability mod to damage on offhand attack.