Corrections: Thanks to viewers who noticed a couple math errors that change some numbers slightly: Base Barbarian: Level 5 is about 1.5 higher (did not increase GWM until 6th) and level 20 is about 1.5 lower (did not reduce chance to Graze with increased chance to hit) This impacts Zealot and Berkserker by the same amounts. Level 17, 18 Berserker damage is a couple points higher (66.4 not 63.7) as I added the wrong totals together.
One other slight boost at 5 comes from the chance of a critical hit going up from 10% to 19% due to the having that extra attack that could crit. That raises the chance of GWM triggering from 7% to 14%.
In the last video it went unnoticed but I wanted to point out you cannot Shillelagh with a quarterstaff and shield in hand unless you can use the quarterstaff as a focus (ranger/druid), otherwise you cannot provide the material component. Hope you notice this!
For a suggestion for color blind friendly charts: you should be able to click on the dots in the legend and change them to other basic shapes like triangles and squares. It might also give you the option to change the lines to dashes too. That could help contrast the different lines.
Been seeing so many widely different opinions about the same features online, so always gives me so much confidence to see Treantmonk always bringing the receipts. 🎉
Indeed, though still very much an assumption and opinion filled presentation the reasoning is presented. Without that reasoning its hard to judge who's assumptions and experience of playing the game seems most representative to your own experience.
The right answer isn't what you or I think, it's not even what WotC or Crawford think......it's what our Treantmonk thinks. I do think for myself, and I think Chris is always right. Hahaha, cheers all.
I'm also colorblind and: the arrows helped a lot!!! I think i always was able to get the information through context, but it always took some extra time to process. Another way to help: trying to ensure the colors displayed vary in other parameters not only in hue. If they are distinct enough if you put the image in a grayscale filter, more colorblinded people will be able to parse the information quickly.
@@TreantmonksTemple Could you remove the other lines temporarily, thus leaving the one to followed? Only has to be for a few seconds I would reckon (not myself colourblind, seems like it would help though).
Maybe the best solution was to share those content in some other way so we could download and fiddle, maybe the numbers in a txt would be sufficient, maybe a google docs shared stuff
As a thematic damage comparison, like Sword and Shield across different classes, it would be nice to compare Dual Wielders across different classes. Keep the great work 👏
Absolutely. I love the concept of comparisons by combat role. I want to see it with archers, unarmed attackers, single-target spell casting, perhaps gishes. It could be an entire series.
@@tantalus_complex Great idea, it will make it easy for newcomers to know what to expect when they try out their favorite fantasy, and for DMs to have a better time knowing what possible parties can do for balacing encounters.
I really appreciate the time and meticulous approach you are taking here to your DPR videos. It floored me when you said you added arrows for that colorblind commenter. You are the GOAT. D&D really is for everyone!
To further help color blind people (and potentially even people who aren't colorblind) you could look into using different shapes for different data points. That way lines are distinguishable by both color and shape used.
I think I was that colorblind guy haha. The fact that you listened to a request and made the change so fast is just another reason why you're my favorite RU-vid Guy. Love ya!
Great video as always, Chris. I'm really glad you spoke about how staying in the fight (conscious / condition free) and being able to get into range are huge factors in how much damage you actually do, but don't show on the math. Not only does it not show in terms of DPR, it really has a big impact on your enjoyment as a player. Its pretty frustrating to be doing nothing but rolling Saves on your turn or trying to get into range.
Being able to get to an enemy is one of the advantages that *Barbarians, Monks,* and *Rogues* often have over *Fighters* and *Paladins* _(except subclasses with _*_Misty Step,_*_ but 2nd-level spell slots are a limited resource, while increased _*_Speed_*_ and/or _*_Bonus Action Dash_*_ is not)._
When you calculate the Warlock baseline it would be great to see the ranged eldritch blast build and the blade-lock build. Then in future builds you can show the melee/ranged discrepancy!
Thank you so much, the arrows are perfect! One thing I love about barbs is how they have more synergy with cleave (of course not for single target like this video) so it feels like those hard to forge weapons now are in the hands of the warrior from the city and not the one from the wilderness!
As I was hearing about the zealot or berserker extra damage not being triggered by the great weapon master bonus action attack, it occurred to me that technically, you can kill an enemy by missing once or twice using Graze. I don't think it is worth or even possible to add it to the math, just a detail i considered interesting. Great video, I always love your detailed analysis
I tried both Graze and Cleave, and I like Cleave on the barbarian better, because Reckless means we'll be missing much less often, especially once we get Boon of Combat Prowess for the Brutal Strike and Primal Champion. There's almost no reason to ever take Graze on a Barbarian. Also PAM will increase the damage even more. I tried both a Greataxe build and a Halberd build, and the Halberd build's DPR was higher.
This is very helpful for homebrewing subclasses, since we get to know just what kind of impact a (presumably) balanced subclass should provide to a given class.
We did a lvl 20 one shot last week and I played a barely optimized Berserker with GWM. I outdamaged the rest of the party by a long shot. Raging +2greataxe with 24 STR gave out a 1d12 +19 dmg by attack. And this is without considering +4d6 on the first attack from Berserker and extra dmg from brutal strike. I had a blast!
Hey man, I love your videos! All this math calculations are so pleasing to see, and I love how you started caring about accessibility, highlighting what line on the graph you are referring to. Such a great job! Thank you Cris!
I think that pole arm master is actually an amazing feat on a Barbarian. Gaining cleave from halberd and pole arm master at level 4 gives you up to four attacks per combat round (AT LEVEL 4). Also, if you are using a Pike you gain that 10 ft push on the bonus action attack as well, very good combat control. You need your bonus action to start your rage, but that is about it, most other turns your BA is free for the pole arm attack.
You know what else helps with saves and is amazing if you start Fighter, Barbarian or even Sorcerer? -- Be a Gnome. (esp with a decent dex). -- Great saves and AC from Lvl 1 on !
Advantage on all mental saves is good, but it’s better on a build that has a decent chance of success already. If you roll a DC 19 save twice on a -1, you go from 5% chance of success to 9.95%; which is of course better, but Mage Slayer is certainly more reliable in this case.
@@pheralanpathfinder4897 Why rogue? In terms of defense i'd rate deflect attacks over uncanny dodge and both have evasion. At 7th level when both get evasion, assuming we've capped dexterity, deflect attacks reduces damage by an average of 17.5 damage; you'd need to be hit for 35+ damage for uncanny dodge to surpass that. Uncanny dodge does get points for more damage types reduced but at tier 3 deflect energy comes into play and makes that point moot on top of continuing to scale while uncanny dodge does not. Then in tier 4 rogues get 2 more saving throw profs while monks get prof in every saving throw. Dont get me wrong i love rogue to death; but i feel defensively it doesn't compare to the monk.
@caosisaac I have a rogue in my campaign, he's level 9, and because they can hide every turn, and it is a min DC 22 search action to find him, my 1 intelligence animated hands have been struggling Whereas our monk was being pummeled by all the non-physical damage, and any time the rogue is caught out, they can halve the damage of any attack, not just physical ones From levels 5-12 it makes a big difference being able to hide and stuff Also, the new truesight sense negates the hide action, pretty funny
@@nyanbrox5418 this does make sense, monk defenses really start to kick in at tier 3, all of their level 11 to 18 features are massive defensive boosts. Whereas more monsters showing up truesight, tremorsense, blindsight, etc make the rogue's stealth less powerful. At higher levels the monk will be getting temp hp for 1 fp, deflecting any damage type, having resistance to almost every type for 3 fp, proficiency in all saves and the ability to reroll them, the ability to remove charmed, frightened, poisoned. Stunning strike is also a defensive feature when you think about how it stops the enemy from hurting you at all Is your monk player using patient defense regularly?
Worth noting for comparison purposes given the "Fighter out damages Barbarians at level 11+" thing, but the Berserker Barbarian here out damages the Shillelagh Champion build from the last video at every level from 11 to 18, and falls only very slightly behind at 19-20. So Berserker is legit competitive as one of the highest possible damage options at every level of play.
Makes you wonder what a fighter really brings to the table then if the barbarian is also more tanky with resistances and deals more damage than the fighter. I have yet to really build out characters with the new rules to see how they compare beyond just damage as a metric.
@@kervanos9448 I think the fighter brings more tactical fighting options and survivability against Magic. 1) Indomitable 2) Tactical Master 3) Second Wind (healing, movement and skill bonus) 4) Options from subclasses (Battle Master and EK especially) 5) More feats=more options
@@kervanos9448 Barbarian is tankier in the sense of HP and Resistance vs. weapon damage, but they need to be using Reckless Attack for that damage, so the Fighter's AC is miles better in practice, the Fighter also has much better saves from 9th level on, is more versatile out of combat stuff (the Barbarian actually has some decent stuff but it's very focused on a few skills, Fighters can add a d10 to any Skill Check), and more in the way of tactical options via the ability to swap out Weapon Masteries a lot more. Plus better Burst Damage on rounds when they use Action Surge (the DPR counts using that every 4 rounds IIRC, but it still means the Fighter can do more in one round if that's what you really need). So, in short, I think the Fighter probably does better than a Berserker Barbarian at everything other than Damage, HP, and a very specific subset of skills. That's even more true of, like, Eldritch Knights and Battlemasters. It's not a super large advantage in any of those areas, but then neither is the Berserker's damage advantage.
If you're using Google Spreadsheets, other option is to have combination of various lines (dotted, dashed, full) with various point shapes (circle, diamond, triangle). Perhaps lines could be for groups (martial, half-caster, caster) and points for classes. Should work with legend. Probably would get messy at some point, but so do colors.
Please do this! As the number of lines on these graphs go up, they become basically unreadable--guessing that's true even if you're not colorblind like I am.
Warlock EB still makes the most sense to use as a base line (possibly whatever we get out barb today if we don't count subclasses). EB or a barb swinging a weapon (minus subclasses, feats, invocations, or anything that requires a player to make a choice about something) makes the most sense to do as they are the most consistent with a natural increase. I feel smite/extra atk x3/x4, and hunters mark give to big a jump for power, and I personally feel other spells are as consistent across damage and growth.
i think it’s interesting that barbarian does so much more damage in tier 2 and so much less in tier 3, but arguably that’s when having a no-holds-barred “push someone 15 feet” feature is really good when you have insanely high damage spells to push them through. Barbarian is a control tank
Chris, this is a great series so far, keep up the great work! When finished with the series you could average each class at each level for an overall average baseline
It's really cool seeing you work through numbers for a new(ish) edition - I first started following you after 5e had been out for a while and presumed you were just this expert on the rules, but I've never seen you work through the process of building that expertise. Really cool!
one of the big advantages to taking polearm master on barbarian is that you can use your bonus action attack as your brutal strike. You remove the risk of missing your GWM enhanced attacks while also making the damage of the polearm worth the bonus action.
Wouldn't Graze have anti-synergy with Reckless Attack. Cleave, while giving you fewer chances to proc, will add things like Rage and GWM damage. Plus a World Tree Barbarian can take better advantage of enemy positions with its greater reach and teleport at later levels.
These damage videos are about single target damage so a Mastery like Cleave would go outside of the purpose of the videos. Plus there isn’t really a metric to determine how often Cleave would be used since it’s entirely depending on number and placement of enemies. The damage would basically add nothing to the calculation if Chris decided the chance of Cleave working is like once every 10 rounds
For color blind options and graphs: If you simply plop your numbers into Excel (or a similar tool) you don't have to use it to calculate anything, but the built in graph creator has an option where you can select the shape of each data point. That you can have Barbarian as Square, Fighter as Triangle, ... which does not rely on colour at all.
Savage attacker and great weapon fighting style are "feel good" features. They may not make sense mathematically but there's a hell of a feel good factor the odd time you turn snake eyes into boxcars.
Great Weapon Fighting sadly doesn't do that anymore. Now it only turns a 1 or 2 into a 3. Greatsword and Maul are the only weapons where this really helps, so it has become a niche feat.
I like the boon of combat prowess to ensure brutal strike is hitting, that said I was building a bugbear PoG barb so there’s no need for overcoming enemy resistance to B/P/S damage
It's really cool to see you chart this all out and do the math for us to see how it all works out, but what is becoming clear is how important it is to get more attacks from reactions even more than ever. Also, Graze seems to be the obvious choice for damage i.e. there is no choice.
Great job! I actually think this makes sense iconically to me as the barbarian should be the highest dmg but vulnerable to taking lots of dmg vs other classes, and berserker amplifies this. I am definitely liking the overall balance between classes though!
Great video Chris! But shouldn't Graze damage have the Barbarian's rage damage add to it? Rules as written: "When you make an attack using Strength-with either a weapon or an Unarmed Strike-and deal damage to the target, you gain a bonus to the damage that increases as you gain levels as a Barbarian, as shown in the Rage Damage column of the Barbarian Features table." As I read this, rage damage is not conditioned on you hitting the target. Simple dealing damage should trigger the bonus rage damage.
We need to look at the Graze property which states: "If your attack roll with this weapon misses a creature, you can deal damage to that creature equal to the ability modifier you used to make the attack roll. This damage is the same type dealt by the weapon, and the damage can be increased only by increasing the ability modifier." The last sentence prevents adding any bonus damage from Rage (or other similar mechanics).
love seeing the graphs but when comparing the subclass builds I would also like to see the damage of the other subclasses that you built (since the overall average doesn't tell the whole story like which tiers of play each is shining in). thanks for all the hard work putting these calculations together!
Wow! The change for colorblindness is incredibly kind. I wasn’t all that bothered, I promise! I just thought it was funny as the series goes on with more lines how I can’t quite tell which one we’re looking at. You’re absolutely the best.
In the 3 to 9 range, I think Zealot is far superior to Berserker. The heal is much more than a ribbon, since you can roll as many or as few d12s as you want for the healing. Meaning that, in addition to the substantial damage you get at level three, you also get an average of a 26 HP heal as a bonus action, which massively increases your effective HP. Assuming the average Barb takes tough and starts with a 16 in Con, a Barbarian at level 3 is going to have 41 health. 26 is over half of 41. So while the damage you get is slightly lower with Zealot, your effective HP pool increases by 63%, while only being 2.5 average damage behind the Berserker. At level 6, your heal will be an average of 32.5. The average Barbarian should have 77 HP at level 6. That is on average 42% more effective HP, while only being .5 average damage behind the berserker. Berserker scales much better, but most play doesn’t reach those higher levels, and on the 3-9 range, while Zealot deals slightly less damage, it is much harder to kill.
I like the design for the 4 subclasses, 2 of them pretty much focus on dealing damage, and the other 2 focus on battlefield control and alittle more variety in combat at the expense of doing less damage than the other 2. I tend to lean more into the meat wall battlefield control aspects, but doing just a ton of damage is fun too. Barbarian is looking great in 2024
I'm not an accessibility expert, nor am I colour blind, but I do work with maps and have experience trying to make multiple symbols visible at the same time. I have a couple of tips if you want to make your graphs more legible - try changing the point symbols from one line to the next (circles, triangles, squares, etc), or try changing the line type (solid, dashed, dotted, etc).
Cleave is surely the best weapon mastery for Barbarians? You can gain advantage so easily through Reckless Attack, and this means the likelihood of your first attack with your weapon goes up (which produces another attack). On other classes which often need to do something extra to get advantage, I can see Cleave being inferior. But it seems perfect for Barbarians.
Loving the vids. I had wondered how good a dual wielding barbarian is with the new rules. I found the weapon mysteries pretty frustrating on light weapons outside of nick as reckless attack makes vex pointless. Would be interesting to see the numbers on it.
*Club* for *Slow* is the only *Light* weapon other than those with *Vex* or *Nick.* Club and Scimitar sounds fun with the *Dual Wielder* and *Fighting Initiate* feats _(from _*_Tasha's Cauldron of Everything_*_ to pick up the _*_Two-Weapon Fighting_*_ style)._ Bonus points if the DM lets you spam *Shillelagh* before combat breaks out _(from _*_Magic Initiate Druid_*_ Origin feat with Guidance and Goodberry/Jump/Longstrider)._
This doesn't paint the whole picture, but I've got some numbers. Things of note: 1. I used Path of the Giant. 2. I took a Fighter dip. Two Weapon fighting for the Dual Wielder and Thrown Weapon Fighting for GWM. 3. GWM uses Mighty Impel whenever they don't crit, and DW never uses it. 4. I assumed no Brutal Strike. B6/F1: GWM- 45.4 GWM no BA- 42.8 DW- 46.5 DW no BA- 36.6 B14/F1 GWM- 65.4 GWM no BA- 58.1 DW- 65.0 DW no BA- 50.7
@NotYourAverageNothing so if BA is used at every opportunity then it can compete with two-handed barb, but the floor on the damage is much lower. Fascinating stuff. Appreciate you crunching some numbers on it.
@@neilm838 Yeah, GWM is better in most ways, imo. Better weapon masteries and less BA reliant, and I also forgot to mention DW has to pick up a weapon off the ground each round, or have a collection of backups. That doesn't mean two weapons is bad though. "DW no BA" is still pretty dang good damage if you compare it to Treantmonk's numbers (mind the Fighter dip though), and if you think about it that's essentially a build with no feats. Path of the Giant provides so much damage on its own that you can essentially be up a feat compared to other subclasses that do damage.
Dual Wielding as a Berserker with a Nick weapon in the off hand (no need for a Vex weapon as we have Reckless Attack) allows us to attack 4 times per turn, after the first turn, starting at level 5, 3 times before that, this would do even more damage than a greatsword using Berserker and allows us to take Mage Slayer at level 4 so we don't have to worry about failing mental saves nearly as much, although, I think Dual Wielding is an even bigger bump for Zealots as it lets them weaponize their bonus action with the Dual Wielder feat at level 4, giving them the same number of attacks as the Berserker, and, thus, mostly bridges the damage gap, while maintaining the increased utility of the Zealot. I said it when you did your class overview of the Barbarian, I said it when I got my PHB and read through the Barbarian, and I will say it again here: I have never before been so excited to play a martial class as I am now with the new Barbarian and Monk. They have ALWAYS had my favor flavor, being a mixed martial artist (BJJ, Muay Thai, Judo) and history buff (Viking era Europe being my favorite time period).
I was wondering what a two weapon using Barbarian, with Nick and the Dual Wielder Feat would look like. Giving up Great Weapon Master damage, but reliably getting +2 attacks a round might be a fair trade off with the Rage damage bonus.
@@eraz0rhead I was thinking Light Hammers, for Nick and Thrown. Really, you just need Nick, but having Thrown gives you a ranged option (Double throw!). If you don't mind weapon swapping, I suppose the other option would be double Scimitars for melee with Light Hammers or Daggers for Ranged, giving you a little more damage in close. But it's just a d6 compared to a d4, so you're not losing much damage with just sticking to Hammers. Plus, you can play an angry Carpenter, which is, ya know, just great roleplay fodder. XD
@@flandarz1 it is a pity that the two axes that I see in my mind are not mechanically the better option 😞 But yes, a couple of light hammers or axe and hammer sound like fun
@eraz0rhead I agree, because I woulda loved a "viking" Berserker or Worldtree Barbarian using double handaxes. You could maybe do it with Berserker, but Worldtree likes having their Bonus Action free, and without Nick you're losing half your damage potential whenever you teleport.
This doesn't paint the whole picture, but I've got some numbers. Things of note: 1. I used Path of the Giant. 2. I took a Fighter dip. Two Weapon fighting for the Dual Wielder and Thrown Weapon Fighting for GWM. 3. GWM uses Mighty Impel whenever they don't crit, and DW never uses it. 4. I assumed no Brutal Strike. B6/F1: GWM- 45.4 GWM no BA- 42.8 DW- 46.5 DW no BA- 36.6 B14/F1 GWM- 65.4 GWM no BA- 58.1 DW- 65.0 DW no BA- 50.7
I think the general advice for colour blindness is to make your image black and wite and see if you can still distinguish all the lines clearly. Adding different shapes also helps like other commenters pointed out. Not saying Chris has to do this, just general advice for anyone reading this from someone who cares an unreasonable amount about graphs
Chris, you don't seem to be making light weapon builds. I didn't see one for the fighter or the barbarian, and even the rogue you seemed to bend over backwards to avoid using light weapons. With 4 attacks at level 5+ using a nick weapon and the Dual Wielder feat, it seems to me like it should be competitive now. Am I just wrong, does it still suck?
glad you're looking at sword and board damage next. Shields and weapon masteries look extra juicy with 2024. I'm planning an EK fighter with shield and trident, since trident has topple and thrown.
I know Cracking the Cryptic will try to use only 2 colors when they solve puzzles and tend to use Blue and Orange. You can temporarily remove lines to help and possibly change the pips on the line for the charts with more lines for easier reference.
"Its not all about damage" Is such an good thing to say. I feel that so many builds are just made to function in a white room lab, and not in an actual real life table.
The Dungeon Dudes said something about 5.24 that I would think resonates with all of the young grasshoppers in Treantmonks Dojo. (Not a quote but the message is the same) This is the first time a DM can hand a player a handbook and genuinely be ok with whatever choices they make in class/subclass (optimal or not). No more trying to explain why mechanically the choice they made is secretly shite in comparison to their fellow adventurers, no more “oh you wanna do a ranger? Just give a fighter a bow instead.”, no more “ oh if you’re gonna play this you almost need to take this feat or else you’re basically crippling the class.” No more “MONK BAD (unless your in a party of that’s only them I guess)” Sure shield didn’t get touched like we all thought but in its place the Martials that would dip or go with an Initiate feat to get shield have so many reactions and other options that this problem spell is just another option that’s more useful to a caster. 5.24 (some obviously needed errata aside) is looking great. That’s why I love this channel, sure builds are the name of the game here, but health of the game and the 🎵F.U.N. 🎶 of it all is what’s most important. Colville taught me that and Chris walks the same path. Chris if you end up reading this , keep up the amazing work.
I respect your intent with the longsword for sword and board, but sadly rapier would give you access to vex over sap. So if the goal is damage output calculations for characters other than barbarian, I think the rapier pulls ahead... However I do like that the longsword with sap makes you a more defensive damage dealer, feeds into the party tank/controller role more. Thank you for the interesting video! Can't wait to see how some other iconic builds compare in later vids.
Yo TM, I'm not colorblind, but build graphs for some who are. Most spreadsheet programs (Excel, Sheets, etc.) have features where you can use different "symbols" for each data value in a line graph, as well as different colors. Symbols like o, x, -, _, et cetera which further differentiate what data series the line is showing. I'd recommend you use these in your damage comparisons to make each class / build show up better in your graphs. Enjoy your work!
Another thing you could do is to graph each of your "enhanced" builds against each other from each class. Seeing the shadow monk vs the berserker, etc, in a graph would be great.
I've been waiting for this video because I'm working on a build idea for a Wild Heart Barbarian, and it's interesting to see that it ended up being on par with a subclass-less barbarian in terms of damage. But I think the benefits of Wild Heart are still very good and seem fun to have, especially the resistance to all but 4 damage types. I would like to see if a dual-wielding Barbarian is viable at all and how it would compare on these graphs though, because dual wielding just sounds fun!
I think that Brutal Strike might be a solid reason to pick up the Charger feat since Charger would occur each time you land the Brutal Strike and push them 15ft (unless you are in a small room or the like of course) and then get the half speed movement straight towards them.
I would like to propose the use of 2 different damage baselines, a melee baseline, and a ranged baseline. I don't really think its fair to compare them with each other.
One thing to note for fighter levels below 11th level, these numbers only apply if you don't assume any chance of adv. But fighters can pretty easily grab a weapon with topple, aiding their action surge as well. So yes, by default, fighters deal less- but if you do have a source of advantage, well, its a bit closer
I have definitely enjoyed this particular series you’re doing, however, seeing the difference between the berserker and the zealot versus the other fighter bills you chose makes me really really want you to do an Eldridge night build using Polar Master great weapon, Master magic and Sentinel to get as many attacks of opportunity as you can with the extra damage from those cans and use booming blade to possibly get some extra damage in there also by hitting them with it and then knocking them away with a push ability I personally am that I believe that level 10 if everything goes off like it should it would be doing about 54.3 DPR give or take a few numbers I don’t remember the exact math, and I didn’t personally do the math. I am blind so my friend did it for me so it would be kind of cool to have you do it the video so I can hear someone talk about it again lol. Thanks for the videos, but yeah, maybe do some more build with the other classes I think the battle master, the Eldridge Knight, and the psychic night or Warrior whatever he’s called would do way more damage than a champion so I would like to see those three build some point, maybe if the end of all these you could do a video that takes all of the best DPR subclasses and shows all the math on a chart Not having you do them all at the same time on screen but just show him that be kind of cool.
I think the Barb sword and board will do fine. But I think the new meta sword and board will be a Ranger, specifically a Beastmaster WIS built using Shillelagh. The weapon damage from Shillelagh scales, and that will help at lower and mid levels. The weaponized BA of the pet adds significantly. At 11 though, the pet will become the primary source of damage, without using any spells at all. The Ranger spell list is not useless here either.
Thanks for a great series. I am curious: Did you ever do this class-by-class comparison for the original Warlock Baseline against its 2014 peers? Based on the 2014 builds from this series, it seems like the Warlock Baseline might have been an under-performer in 2014 as well. Even though these videos are all about 2024, I'd be interested in a chart that shows the 2014 WB against the prototypical build for each 2014 class. Edit: Just got to the part of the video where you explain you aren't doing 2014 builds going forward. Fair enough. Thanks for the great content.
I haven't dug too deeply into the math, but I suspect that dual-wielding handaxes is the highest-damage and best defensive option for at least the first two levels, if not until extra attack comes online.
I’d recommend changing the points to different shapes (star, triangle, square, pentagon, etc) if you can to help colorblind people identify the different lines.
I've been saying it since the play test the rogue seems to me to be the perfect baseline based on your parameters. It deals ok damage with a fair degree of versatility. More over you can even quantity that versatility against damage, you can reduce the damage from rogue to use various control options. Sacrificing a sneak attack die for a small benefit vs sacrificing more die for more impactful effects
For baseline, maybe after you finish all classes we take the minimum damage from all base classes to form a new baseline. And if we want more defined tiers we can average the points at each tier and use that value for all levels in that tier.
Does that graph account for the action casting time and the loss of spell slots over the adventuring day, though? Because if it’s drawn straight from the video last month, I don’t think the numbers in that video accounted for those drawbacks. To say nothing of the risks of relying on concentration spells in melee.
If we're just looking at Tiers 1 and 2, Zealots have a great deal more durability than Berserkers while doing about the same amount of damage. Warrior of the Gods adds some healing, but the biggest difference will be from not having to use Reckless Attack as much. While reliable advantage is always good, teams will be generating it for the Barbarian way more than ever before. Berserkers still need to be Reckless if they want to pop. The level 6 features are comparable enough that it's hard to pick Zerker in a typical level 1-10 campaign.
An interesting idea that a few people pointed out. I’m not sure if there was a sage’s advice as I always assumed it was once per turn, so I never looked(checking the document there was not) An idiomatic english reading of “the first target you hit” indicates whatever it is also applies outside of your first attack(as it doesn’t say first time, nor first targetting, nor “from your first attack”, etc., just the first target(i.e the creature that you hit for the first time)). Such a reading would also imply frenzy and divine fury don’t only apply once, giving a big chunk of dpr from it if you don’t switch targets. That is obviously a very controversial statement though so this isn’t a suggestion that you should have gone with it, just funny thought.
I opened it earlier, but I couldn't find any comments yet. It's so awkward without other comments to respond to, What do I say, what other topics should I talk about and so on.
Thats why I wanted brutal strike to be an upgrade not a side grade. Brutal strike used when using rickless attack doesnt add d10 . but it has that option at level 9 . You CAN add a d10 damage OR push or slow. at level 11 another option that you CAN roll a 3rd d20 for advantage . giving a barbarian the only source of "elven accuracy:-esk for STR And at level 20 you can use 2 options so get that 3d20 advantage and 1d10 damage if all you care is damage
Like you said though, barbarian’s level 11 feature is a damage boost that isn’t quite a damage boost. A barbarian who survives another round is one who can keep attacking.
An interesting thing to add to your display would be to re-render all the graphs with damage _as a percentage of equal CR monster HP_ (as the 2024 MM isn't yet out and the DMG rules for creating monsters have always been nonsense, it's possible something has changed, but best-fit for 2014 is something like (CR+1)*15 though with significant noise)
