Build request: A "whirling" character.

[Rfkannen]

Lots of builds have been shared on this forum recently and I thought I might see if people can come up with a good build for a playstyle I have always wanted to try out.

I never played one, but one of my favorite ideas from dnd 4e was the whirling barbarian, a barbarian that sacrificed big weapons and single target damage for super high mobility, the ability to make a lot of attacks, and focus on mowing down lots of minions.

I have always really liked the image I got from that, a character madly dashing around the battlefield slaying tons of enemies, but 5e doesn't really have any mechanics like cleave that are good for that. I was wondering what the closest thing might be. (I am not tied to barbarian, any class will do)


Key points of this build:

high mobility
two weapon fighting
Focus on killing lots of weaker enemies rather than singular strong enemies.




Any ideas?

[Aett_Thorn]

A Barbarian/Hunter Ranger is good for this. Get the dual-wielding fighting style, and extra attack that still works with an off-hand weapon, and you get the mobility and rage damage from the Barbarian.

Go Eagle Totem if you want to be able to avoid opportunity attacks better (though the dash bonus action won’t work well with an off-hand attack, but gives you choices), or go Elk for extra walking speed.


If you are rolling for stats and roll well, a Barbarian/Monk multiclass can do this, too. It’s MAD as all get out, but it can work.

[sophontteks]

I think a straight ranger has everything you want thanks to the alternate options from tashas. Barbarians aren't great with multiple targets compared to fighters and rangers. They are good at going into a horde, but the killin is best for other team members

Ranger hunter gets an additional attack vs. hordes and eventually learns whirlwind to hit everything around them at once. The level 7 ability to give enemies disadvantage on reactions is arguably better then ignoring reactions completely. They waste their reactions on you with a low chance to hit. This opens up the battlefield for your team mates to move around.

Take mobility for the speed and more disengage. Tasha rangers also get +5 speed, and a climb/swim speed. This puts you at 45 movement. Hunters mark isn't great with dual wielding, but this opens you up for other options instead, like taking longstrider for even more movement.

Lots of options for race. Tabaxi, and wod elves get more movement. V. Human gets that sweet sweet feat.

All in all you don't hit very hard, but you do put out tons of attacks. You're so mobile you don't even need a bonus action dash. A wood elf ranger with mobility and longstrider is moving 60 feet per turn and can climb/swim just as fast.

[Talionis]

Sword Burst is a cantrip that allows for hitting every creature in 5ft of you. Lots of ways to increase cantrip damage.

[Kane0]

Ask your DM about the Hunter Ranger’s whirlwind attack, whether or not you are allowed to move during it.

Edit: if you aren’t allowed to try horizon Walker instead, they can just teleport between attacks

[ImproperJustice]

A drunken or astral monk might get you where you want with this type of combat.

With the Mobility feat, a Monk can move all over the battlefield and land multiple strikes. They are skilled in a fair number of weapons as well.

Or just a two weapon fighter using the Mobility feat could work too.

[TheCleverGuy]

Rangers eventually get access to the Steel Wind Strike spell. Teleport to up to 5 targets, making a melee spell attack against each one, which deals 6d10 force damage on a hit. If my Swords Bard ever gets high enough level for Magical Secrets, I'm definitely taking that one.

[opaopajr]

You could probably combine the best of both worlds with Ranger + Magic Initiate feat. That'd gain you Sword Burst cantrip and Longstrider 1/day. If V.Human most is online by Lvl 1.

That's Two Weapon Style, Ranger Whirlwind (Hunter archetype), Sword Burst cantrip v. swarms, and greater mobility thru Longstrider... should cover most bases without multiclassing.

[Quietus]

Feels like what you want to do with this, is maximize your per-strike damage, without any per-turn limitation. A few things come to mind :

- Dreadful Strikes (Ranger - Fey Wanderer, level 3, upgrades at level 11)
- Divine Favor (1st level spell, for Paladin or War Cleric)
- Improved Divine Strike (Paladin 11)
- Rage (Barbarian 1, scaling damage per hit)


Aside from these, you want ways to maximize your number of attacks. As noted, Horizon Walker ranger and the Ranger spell Steel Wind Strike are both very good for this. Some of these options are mutually exclusive, of course; you can't combine Rage with Divine Favor. But if you're looking to kill large numbers of small things, then you're ideally going to look for multiple attacks. To that end, I would consider Beast barbarian, with a dip into Fey Wanderer. Lean into the scaling damage per hit with Rage, add your 1d4 damage to each attack. Find a way to make a bonus action attack.

Alternatively, go the spellcaster route. Lean into Dreadful Strikes, and dip Paladin or War cleric just enough to get Divine Favor. Paladin brings the option to smite, but will inflict some nasty stat requirements - but if you go 11 Paladin, it opens the option for every attack to be made with weapon+1d4+1d8+stat damage, plus possible smite. War cleric is a smaller investment, and only wants Wis to make this happen, plus it benefits from more Wis by giving you a bonus action attack usable wis/day. You may eventually want something more reliable, but it's nothing to sneeze at in the meantime. With the Cleric option, I'd just take the one level dip to access Divine Favor, and go back to Ranger. Spend a bonus action at the start of combat, and from there on you have weapon + 2d4+stat, on every attack, as long as you're hitting different creatures. Eventually one of those d4's upgrades to d6.

You'll probably want the Mobility feat for any of these options, to avoid those nasty opportunity attacks.

[Keravath]

I'd agree with the suggestion of monk up above. I don't think any other class can match the dash around the battlefield doing damage to multiple targets using whatever comes to hand.

Depending on your DM, you could reflavour the unarmed strikes to attacks with daggers if you wanted. The only difference is piercing vs bludgeoning damage since both are d4 damage attacks. Flurry of blows gets you up to three attacks in a round in tier 1 and four attacks in tier 2 which is more than any other class. Weapon damage also scales with monk ability so ultimately it doesn't really matter what weapons you have.

Monks are also very fast and you can add the mobile feat to make them even faster AND allow them to move away from anyone they have attacked without taking an opportunity attack.

The drunken monk has a similar ability on attacks that they make with their flurry of blows that grants them disengage.

So although monk doesn't sound like barbarian, the concept of being fast with lots of smaller attacks is a pretty good description of the monk class.

[Rfkannen]

Ranger, monk, and elk barbarian all seem to be great options yall! thanks for the help!

What do you think would be an optimum build? I imagine pure monk would do pretty good, what would be a good multiclass build of ranger and barbarian?

[sophontteks]

Ranger, monk, and elk barbarian all seem to be great options yall! thanks for the help!

What do you think would be an optimum build? I imagine pure monk would do pretty good, what would be a good multiclass build of ranger and barbarian?

For what you are doing, I wouldn't multiclass. The things you want from ranger, like extra attack and whirlwind, don't come up right away. Whirlwind, for example, is exactly what you want but it's at level 11. Most campaigns don't get past level 14. There are ranger barbarian builds, but not for what you want.

[Quietus]

Ranger, monk, and elk barbarian all seem to be great options yall! thanks for the help!

What do you think would be an optimum build? I imagine pure monk would do pretty good, what would be a good multiclass build of ranger and barbarian?

If you're going to take Barbarian, then you probably don't want to take more than three levels. One gets you some rage damage, two gets you reckless attack, and three gets you beast barb as an option for some extra claw attack action (at the cost of using claws instead of weapon attacks). Ranger gets a lot of goodies at level 11, depending on your preferred subclass, and you have to consider whether you're likely to reach steel wind strike. Is it worth delaying those for Barbarian goodies? That's up to you.

[Hairfish]

The Echo Knight with a dip into Ancestral Barb from the eclectic builds thread is pretty boss at unloading on multiple targets if your wizard is out of fireballs or whatever

[Kane0]

Ranger, monk, and elk barbarian all seem to be great options yall! thanks for the help!

What do you think would be an optimum build? I imagine pure monk would do pretty good, what would be a good multiclass build of ranger and barbarian?

Ranger gets Whirlwind late at level 11 but does feature decent mobility and TWF support, just be careful of limited spell slots
Barbarian movement starts at level 3 but doesn't really get any TWF support so you will want to multiclass
Monk starts as early as level 1 using martial arts, and with Tasha's can support all sorts of weapon selections.

You can of course mix them together but there probably isn't much need to. Monk is probably your best bet for blending right from the start, and if you feel you have enough monk after a few levels you can swap over to most other martial classes depending on your stat rolls and preference (Fighter gets style and action surge, ranger gets style and hunter's mark/favored foe, barbarian gets rage, rogue gets cunning action, etc)

[Bloodcloud]

Sword bard could work suprisingly well, especially given you can pick up steel wind strike at 10.

Fighter with the mobile feat could work. You can rack up a lot of attacks, move from target to target. Hunter ranger 3 has another ability you would like in Horde breaker. Tabaxi gets you burst of speed, wood elf a small permanent speed boost, vhuman lets you start with mobile.

Ftr (battlemaster) 5 - ranger 3 to ftr 11. Maybe finish off with cleric, spirit guardian woul be a baller capstone...

[Dork_Forge]

High mobility and lots of attacks?

Variant Human (Mobile)

Barbarian Path of the Beast (Claws)

By 5th level you have 3 attacks a turn, a movement speed of 50ft and the benefits of disengage on an attack. Rage damage added to each attack and 3 Rages a day. Then there's a few options for where to take it from here:

-Fighter 2 will grab you Action Surge, 3 will give you nifty maneuvers for more per hit damage and access to Sweeping Attack for more damage like a Cleave (you can pick this up once a short rest if you take the maneuver fighting style)

-Ranger (Gloomstalker) 3 will make you a little MAD, but only in stats you want to have anyway. An extra 10ft of movement and additional attack every first turn (with bonus damage) heavily adds onto the whirling feeling, with a Fighting Style and out of combat casting along the way (take care of your own healing, cast Longstrider on yourself etc.). The Darkvision helps your poor human eyesight too.

-IMO as a DM and player the Claws from the Beast are compatable with TWF if you pick up the Dual Wielder feat. That'd bring online 4 attacks a turn, every turn that isn't a Rage activation turn with room to grow through MC'ing

[Heyboo]

Nerdarchy has a whirling dervish build.
(unable to post relevant link on account of I'm still a wittle baby, but easily google-able). (Google-able?) (Google-able.)
A variant human (dual wielder feat) Lvl 6 Path of the Zealot Barbarian/ 4 Champion Fighter/ 10 Scout Rogue.
they break down progression in a video as well.
But this was BT. (Before Tasha)