how to get the highest melee damage per turn without GWM?

[samcifer]

So I've been speculating on how to get higher melee damage on a pc without going the Great Weapon Master feat angle for the -5/+10 on each hit. Restrictions are 2 classes max going from lvl. 5 to lvl. 10 during a 5e campaign and only getting +1 only weapons.

Best I can think of is 5 lvls Gloomstalker + 3+ Battlemaster. Are there better options (or just ones you like better)?

[icedraikon]

One of my favorite recent builds is a Shadar-Kai Warlock with a double-bladed scimitar for a bonus action attack and spirit shroud. Shadar-Kai gives good sustain with BA teleport with resist all prof/LR. Build comes online @ lvl4 with the Revenant Blade addition to make the DBS a dex weapon.
Stats:
Str: 8
Dex: 15 (+2)
Con: 15
Int: 8
Wis: 8
Cha: 15 (+1)


Combat is just R1: BA Spirit Shroud and Action attack. R1 beats baseline+ dpr (Hex+Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast).

ASI Progression:
4th: Revenant Blade (Dex 17->18)
8th: +2 Dex or Res: Con if you are worried about protecting Spirit Shroud
12th: +2 Dex or Res: Con if you are worried about protecting Spirit Shroud

Invocations:
5th: Improved Pact Weapon, Thirsting Blade, your choice of Agonizing Blast, Fiendish Vigor, or Armor of Shadows (If using Improved Pact Weapon, can create a longbow and roughly match baseline+ damage with Hex + Longbow, so Agonizing Blast not necessary)
7th: Eldritch Mind (Concentration protection for Spirit Shroud)
9th: Armor of Shadows is recommended here (If you took +2Dex at 8th, you would have 19AC here (13+5 from Dex+1 from Revenant Blade)

At 12th you'd get Lifedrinker and continue on as normal picking up anything extra like Eldritch Smite and whatnot.

So how does the damage stack up:
R1: Beating Baseline+ (Hex+EB+AB), not beating Elite (Fighter + Archery FS + Hand Crossbow + XBE + SS)
R2+: Beating Baseline+ and Elite, at some points approaching Elite+ (Elite with advantage). Does NOT beat the likes of a PAM/GWM Zealot Barb reckless attacking

The above is based on the assumption that you are fighting monsters with expected AC values at their lvls (15-17 for lvls 5-10). Obviously the higher the AC, the better this build performs since it is +1 over regular builds with Improved Pact Weapon and +4-5 over Archery builds, and +5-6 over GWM builds.


Edit: You could also perform similarly with an auto upcast summon instead of Spirit Shroud, which gives you the option to pre-cast (with 1hr on summon vs 1m on spirit shroud) and have another body on the field to take hits, however the summon's to-hit will be lower than expected due to the lower Charisma.

[strangebloke]

And I'm assuming you're disallowing direct damage spells (no magic missile nuke in 'melee' for example) and summons?

Realistically the answer over the course of a day is probably going to be some sort of hexadin. They can burst a lot whenever needed. Something like Paladin 6 / Hex 1 / Echo 3 pretty much gives you loads of chances to smite / curse / unleash and it just adds up to raw murder over the course of the day regardless of the weapon used.

There are lots of other insane combos like Bugbear Assassin Gloomstalker. Or Bugbear Gloomtalker Echo Knight. Both of these can conditionally deal massive damage, but first-turn builds and melee don't necessarily play nicely together.

The latter does sometimes get insane though. Echo knight and bugbear *both* give you an extra attack when you take an attack action, and action surge means you get to take two attacks. And umbral sight means you might have advantage. So 8 attacks for 4d6+dex with advantage. Pretty good!

BM is arguably a bit more consistent than echo knight because it can generate advantage for itself with trip attack and turn misses to hits with precision attack. But echo knight definitely has bigger peaks.

[Mongobear]

Elven Accuracy + Polearm Mastery

Hexblade

Darkness + Devil's Sight

Near permanent advantage, rolling 3x dice per swing, all the usual bonuses other BladeLocks offer. If you crit, you get to blow your other slot on an Eldritch Smite for up to 10d8 bonus damage (19-20 crit range if they're Hexblade Cursed as well).

[samcifer]

Another build I've considered is bloodhunter 5+ with barbarian 2+. A little less damage, but more survivability and higher chances to crit.

There's also bloodhunter 5+ (5+ for the extra d6 of weapon damage without consentration) and either warlock or ranger for Hex or Hunter's Mark for an additional d6 of damage. Dual wielding shortswords would be 3d6 + Dex if you can set up your bh damage boost beforehand. Ranger might be better than warlock for this, however.

[Frogreaver]

Battlemaster 5 + Genie Warlock X

Bread and Butter is Shadowblade or Spiritshroud. Use a longsword and shield with dueling style. Use battlemaster for reaction attacks and precision attack. Take elven accuracy at some point as shadowblade in the right circumstances can wreck with the elven accuracy advantage. Also you can have an invisible imp familiar for more chances at advantage as you don't really need blade pact (high charisma isn't required).

At level 14 you can do 4d8+7 x2 and 5d8+7 as a reaction (from battlemaster manuevers) and an additional 5 damage per turn with genie warlock all with extremely high accuracy in many encounters.

87 DPR vs 60% chance to hit on turns you can reaction attack and have advantage (crits included). If you don't have advantage, it's still 55 DPR @60% chance to hit.

And the build scales damage extremely well up to level 14.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Most recently I was amazed by the flexibility the new Dragonlance feats have, specially the ones from the Mages of the High Sorcery.

A Ranger who selects Initiate of High Sorcery (Lunitari) and later Adept of Red Robes feat at level 4, can get access to Shadow Blade spell and take advantage of being a martial half-caster without many uses for his slots. Get Dueling, a shield to boost AC and go to town.

[Gignere]

Elf phantom rogue with elven accuracy and some way to get booming blade. After level 9 DPR should be far in excess of GWM.

[tieren]

I'm currently enjoying a Bladesinger with one level in fighter and 3 levels in monk:

Bladesinger level 6 gives you a special extra attack that allows you to use a blade cantrip in lieu of one of your attacks and still weapon attack with the other, martial arts for a bonus action attack, occasionally 2 with flurry of blows. Can cast haste but usually use spirit shroud to add another d8 to each attack, so on a regular basis can do 1d8 (rapier) +2d8 (booming blade) + 1d8 (extra rapier attack) + 1d4 (martial arts) + 3d8 (spirit shroud); so my normal dpr attack routine is doing 1d4 + 7d8 + 12 {3x(Dex mod [4])} if all hit.

Next I'l grab action surge. I originally started in fighter for the proficiency in Con saves and a fighting style (I chose blind fighting for thematic reason but you could go dueling for more damage.)

Thematically I am a shadow monk and will fight in darkness a lot for constant advantage on my attacks and disadvantage on attacks targeting me.

[da newt]

Gloomstalker Xbow expert / SS with a hand Xbow (custom lineage or Vhuman) is pretty great w/ +2 to hit from FS, and ADV if it's dark or Zypher Strike - you can gun-foo like Keanu, and MC for more spell slots or action surge or sneak att or ...