Is Barbarian more frontloaded than we think?

[Yakk]

Yes, Barbarian is crazy front-loaded. Often Barb 7 is the end.

At 3 swings/round that is 0.3 crits/round. Getting 4 crits/short rest is pretty easy (13 rounds of fighting on average), so the BM dice can deal 8d8 damage. 36 damage. Nice.

Precision attack isn't as bad as it seems. While you don't miss often, you don't have to use it unless you miss. And if your swings are 1d6+7 damage (10.5), if you miss by 1 that is 10.5 per die, by 2 it is 9.2 per die.

Riposte is also good, for the same reason.

You'll miss by 1 or 2 reasonably often. And when you do, Precision is better than saving your BM dice for a crit. Which makes it more likely that the 13 rounds.

TWF style is 5~ damage per off-hand swing. Over 13 rounds with 75% hit chance that is 49 damage. Nice.

Champion 3 ups your crit chance to 19% from 10%. Over 13 rounds that is 12.3 damage. Meh. Champion really is lackluster.

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Once you have Fighter 3 or 4 you can just ... stop.

Barbarian 5/Fighter 4. At that point see if there are any other classes you can MC into. I assume you have 14 dex?

Gloomstalker 3 gives you Dread Ambusher, which gives you a crazy alpha strike.

Bearbarian 5/BM 4/Gloom 4 is L 13.

Now, as you are TWF, you are reasonably using finess weapons. And you have advantage.

Go Rogue at that point.

Bearbarian 5/BM 4/Gloom 4/Swashbuckler 7

You get expertise, archtype feature, cunning action, uncanny dodge, and evasion. And a total of 4 ASIs, and 4d6 sneak attack damage you can easily use every round.

From Swashbuckler you get to land SA even if you don't bother with reckless, and you can move past foes you attack for a whirling slaughter.

Your expertise can be Athletics (making you a grappling monster) and Stealth and ... any 2 others.

With a 75% hit chance and 10% crit chance, you get 0.3 crits/round. You don't use SA if your first attack merely hits, and the first hit after that; giving you a 21% crit 96% SA hit rate.

With a pair of +2 short swords this is 10.5 * .85 + 27 * .75 + .3 * 9 + 1.17 * 14 = 48.255 DPR you can keep up for 13 combat rounds (a bit higher and a bit less time actually as you can do Riposte/Precision) per short rest.

On your first turn, you can rage action surge for 6 attacks instead of the standard 3. This doesn't quite double your damage, because you still get only 1 SA, and the ready attack trick doesn't work with reckless attack well.