Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understood it, you can learn any Spell you have a Spellslot for aka "any Spell you can cast". As the Multiclass-Tablot for that is pretty clear, you do not really miss out anything in terms of "High Level Spells", because as Divination Wizzard(2)/Tepest Cleric(3) you can cast/get Level 3-Spells. The only thing that "slows down Progression" is in the Abilitys - which are often not so important than the ones you gain. And, I know, too much Multiclassing, Abserd Chars, etc. This is just for the Numbers Crunch. So.... *inhales deeply and theatralicly overdramatic* ...seriously, 2 D20 prerolled for free distribution (even for Rolls done by the Enemy in LoS) are saying "Take me now and here!" more directly than any Fanfiction-Lolita could - and also access to Wizzard Spells which you can learn as you like and choose Intmod+2 from - so at least 3. This literally allows you eventually an "Auto Sucess" on Spells that have to roll to hit or that allow saving throws - and that forces the Legendarys out of them as fuck. Also, and this is a huge backbone to my Multiclass-Caster-Builds, as you take the Class you want the higher Spell from at the Time you could get it, In our former Case I would start off as Cleric for Guiding Bolt along some Heal, then Wizzard as there is nothing so great for second Level Cleric to take as well what we do not already have - because our Spellslots grow for both. Now - even when you skill only Sorcerer/Druid in eaqual Turns you get acess to the higher Cleric Spells as well automatically and can learn any spell you could cast for Wizzard - even the 9th Level Spells (although, a 9th-Level-Spellscroll is quite.....expensive.....). On the other Hand, if you choose to take Wizzard on the 17th Level onwards, you can pick the "new Spells" all from the 9th-Level if you like. At least, if I am right about this and "There is nothing in the Rules against it". So, have fun backstabbing with a Siege Weapon.
@@Rabijeel you want to reread the spell casting multi-class rules and not just look at the chart. In you example Divination Wizzard(2)/Tepest Cleric(3) you can prepare you wizard spells as a 2nd level wizard and your cleric spells as a 3rd level cleric. So you do still have 3rd level spell slots but can only use those for up-casting the spells you know. Here is the relevant part of the multi=class spell casting rules. Spells Known and Prepared. You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. If you are a ranger 4/wizard 3, for example, you know three 1st-level ranger spells based on your levels in the ranger class. As 3rd-level wizard, you know three wizard cantrips, and your spellbook contains ten wizard spells, two of which (the two you gained when you reached 3rd level as a wizard) can be 2nd-level spells. If your Intelligence is 16, you can prepare six wizard spells from your spellbook. Each spell you know and prepare is associated with one of your classes, and you use the spellcasting ability of that class when you cast the spell. Similarly, a spellcasting focus, such as a holy symbol, can be used only for the spells from the class associated with that focus.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fZPWCEeWq_U.html
Love this build. Also gotta love the wholesomeness of the occasional family. Though the angry child mob that is summoned by the mention of silvery barbs is my favorite.
I think on burst damage builds, particularly aoe focussed ones like this one, you should have a bit of a focus somewhere in the build on initiative. When playing an aoe focussed build, going first can mean more damage because you can hit more enemies before they move around, stopping them spreading out or getting in close with allies you don't want to hit. Because of that considering harengon as a race or taking the alert feat somewhere should be a consideration going forward I think.
If the DM allows, Gift of Alacrity via Fey Touched works very nicely to replace Alert. Average 4.5 bonus to Initiative AND Misty Step AND +1 Wisdom? Yes please.
@@TheMinions25 In that case for a build like this I'd also take another half feat, like resilient wisdom in this case to have two major saving throws accounted for with the same feat cost (fey touched and resilient) as alert (with a +2 wisdom)
IF you are taking the wizard levels early-ish there is no need. Personally the two levels of fighter are meh, and I would take those wizard levels instead.
Hey Colby, weird challenge/puzzle you may enjoy: design a 4 player party to do the highest DPR/highest burst. Would be cool to see how you tackle the teamwork aspects given total control
You honestly probably just make 4 cheesegrater characters right, 4 cleric druids with thorn whip and telekinesis, if everyone has spirits up and you can push an enemy out and pull them back in they are taking the spirit damage 8 times per round and 4 times during the start of their round.
I typically shy away from clerics (I don't much care for divine flavor or being in service to a god instead of in service to myself) but light clerics were always tempting. I love the spin you put on them!
As a non religious Cleric, I like the idea of those who draw their power from the world around them. Similar to druid of course, but you could be a Cleric who gets power from a concept rather than a being. Death Clerics drawing their power from Death and Life, Light Drawing from the Sun itself, Nature drawing from Nature around them. I also don't like the idea of serving a God who is controlled by the DM, so I'd personally make my diety either a concept or some sort of power, or just make then mysterious and unknown enough that while you gain power from them, they don't talk or really interact with you dont order you around or anything. My best example of this is the books by Brandon Sanderson. They all link up together, being an overarching story of a group that killed a God, and split its power into 12 shards. They then went off to other worlds where many were worshiped as the gods of those worlds, yet there are still those that instead worship a God of the Beyond, unknown and not built upon but believed the be the shadow of the original being that was killed and split. Let's you do your own think and not be ordered around while still enjoying a cleric
33:00 I really love this idea of mixing Wizard in. This character would be unique in their personal ability to use their own knowledge of magic to change a spell that's coming from a god! The narrative implications are so cool!
Ya. The 2 level dip just to say to your allies 'fine, I guess I'll keep you out of the line of fire' after the 5th fireball singes the Barbarian seems ... necessary to the build.
@@vinspad3 even better. Use it prosthelytize. "Behold! The God of light wishes to smite you down! But I have spared you, and marked you for greatness!! Follow me now, and I shall lead you to the path of enlightenment!!"
Apologies if this has already been brought up, but it should be noted that light cleric only has access to medium armor on its own. This doesn't matter for your build, which does have heavy armor proficiency because you start fighter, but your various comments about light clerics and heavy armor aren't generally true. That said, love the build as always, and keep up the good work!
came here to mention this, glad I did a search first. It hurts not having heavy armor by default, but it also helps in that you don't fall into the pit trap of dumping dex, so your initiative tends to be better.
Dawwwww when the exit commentary is sweeter than the intro commentary 🥹. Love the build! I’d think fire spirit druid would be a really neat option with light cleric. Can’t wait to see you play it!
Easily my favourite character subclass. Great to have a level 1 survival ability. Best level 2 aoe in the game by a long way and it saves you spell slots when you have so few of them especially if your party uses short rests. Fireball and spirit guardians at level 5. 2nd use of Radiance of the Dawn per short rest at level 6. Since most games I have played don’t last into high levels, Light Cleric is fantastic during my most played levels. Also it only needs good wisdom and constitution and 14 dexterity, and those are the best abilities for most saving throws needed. It also isn’t feat hungry resilient constitution, Warcaster and either straight wisdom or wisdom half feats of telekinetic and fey touched.
Aw, I thought this one for sure would have the metal intro. a holy ultimate blaster? sounds metal to me. Anyways, great video and build as always! Thanks for welcoming us character lovers home!
Heyyy I love your videos (my favorite is the Fey wanderer hands down, the flavor is *muah*) Could you make a College of Creation bard as your next Optimized DPR character? I think there are a lot of fun ways to use the features of dancing object :D
Love it! I've probably been one of those ranting on about Light Clerics. Been playing one for over a year now (Hill Dwarf), level 1 through to (currently) 12. So. Much. Fun. They are Frontline, Tank, Healer, Controller, Buffer, Debuffer, AoE, Single Target Obliteration, Multi Target spam, Melee, Spells, High AC, they can do it all. I HIGHLY recommend anyone having a play at one if given the chance, you wont regret it.
Colby, loving the vid so far, light domain is my favourite subclass for cleric :D Can I suggest a build revolving around the Double Bladed Scimitar? It's a strong item with it's own built in Polearm Master which is pretty cool
Love this build. I liked your idea on adding wizard to this for sculpt spell so much I started with a 12 in INT, then took at lvl 12 cleric Fey Touched INT and got me some Misty Step and Gift of Alacrity. I like wearing Heavy armor as well so I started with 14 Str, and kept Chain mail until I could bump STR. to 15. Thanks as always Colby this channel is awesome!
Never thought light cleric could rival an evocation wizard. I can finally cosplay in DnD as my glorious sunbro Solaire who yearns to be grossly incandescent. Thanks for another great video!
You mentioned it when you picked it up but then kind of left it out in your final analysis but getting an invisible bigby's hand is a phenomenal addition to any build.
I was in an AL epic where one of the players used divine intervention to help solve a mystery, he succeeded and the DM used it to turn our partial success into failure because of the wording of the request. So I understand your concern about the lack of specificity and variable results of Divine Intervention.
My party has a light cleric as a primary blaster. He went Kobold so he could take Firebolt as a cantrip and benefit from elemental adept a little more. It seems to work really well.
Awesome build!! Didn't expect a light cleric to be able to do this much aoe burst damage (hooray for action surge!) Cleric is so useful I am surprised you didn't mention killer spells like Silence that can completely and utterly shut down otherwise very dangerous spellcasters And the utility of having the ability to resurrect, to literally make food, and so much more Having access to your entire spell list is such a huge thing for clerics too
Hey Colby, great build! I’m super curious to see you do a build that’s based on Tenser’s Transformation. I’ve been theorycrafting an arcane trickster/bladesinger, but I’d love to see you take a crack at it. Have a great day!
Treantm0nks bIadesinger vide0 says that tensers transf0rmati0n is a dmg I0ss any way u sIice it. u sh0uId give it a gander (yes my Iapt0s keyb0ard is n0t great)
It's a great spell for a bladesinger. Yes, nothing can compare to animate objects and so forth if you just look at damage numbers, but if your fantasy is your character wielding weapons with magic, it's great. The temporary hp is also massive, considering your AC while bladesinging
I love your content! I’ve been thinking of a build that has a Echo knight fighter and warlock for multidirectional forced movement from all of the places the echo can be. I would love to see something like that on a build!
I love watching your videos.~ Though I have to make sure that I’m not too tired, or I’ll fall asleep to your relaxing voice and miss all of the important and interesting information.
How about a 1 level dip into daolock, grab crusher as well, and use spiritual weapon to push people into the spirit guradians radius? That should work Clerics just are great damage dealers in general. Spirit guardians + spiritual weapon + toll the dead/sacred flame(with the potent spellcasting feature) is just a ton of consistent dpr with barely any resources expended.
This is probably my my favourite build yet. I've avoided Light cleric mainly because I thought it got a bad rap compared to tempest cleric. No heave armor no martial weapon and a change divinity that scales poorly and uses an action. But this is amazing it makes up for all of that it's an amazing versatile Blaster and unlike a blaster wizard you don't die if someone sneezes in your Direction. One of the best part is that the race is asthma. It's so difficult not to pick variant human or custom lineage because that free feat is just so versatile but Aasimar is just such a great choice for this because it's brilliantly thematic and has fantastic synergy. Definitely roling this in my next game.
Hiya Coby, I just put this post onto the Reddit but thought I'd upload it here as well since I think you'd love the build (and name!): HIMARS ----------------------------> High(Elf) Mobility Artillery Rocket System: Ranger Hunter 11 / Fighter Samurai 3 I saw the Pack Tactics video on the Ranger Hunter and decided to have a proper look at the subclass. I feel like Volley is actually broken if used right - it costs no resources, and being able to exchange the 2/3 attacks Hunters has for no cost is very cheap, allowing one to hit anywhere from 4-16 (very huddled) enemies. As you can see, I've been making notes for some hours, and can't find anything better than this. Please let me know if there's anything I'm missing/overlooked. The best I can think of is: - Elf (not sure which type) for +2 DEX, +1 WIS - 3 levels Fighter, Archery Fighting Style and Samurai subclass for Fighting Spirit - X levels Ranger, Close Quarters Shooter Fighting Style - Sharpshooter at lvl 7 - Elven Accuracy at lvl 11 - Pick up 3rd lvl spell Flame Arrows at lvl 12 - FINALLY get Volley at lvl 14 At level 14 (3 Fighter, 11 Ranger) you would be able to shoot 2 volleys with advantage on every shot in one turn. Each shot would have "double" advantage, +4 to hit, and deal 1d8+1d6+14 (average 22 dmg) to every enemy, with an insanely high chance to hit. Let's assume your DM is nice enough to let you earn a +2 longbow by lvl 14. That's +6 to hit, double adv, and 24 dmg. Using Action Surge, you could do this twice in the first round, hitting up to 16 enemies for 48 dmg on your first turn of combat, only using 1 of 3 Fighting Spirits (and a whole bunch of arrows). This could be - hypothetically, in a world where you have every bad guy put in a giant bucket - 768 dmg on one turn, all for very little cost. You can then do the same Volley with "double" advantage for two more turns, adding on another possible Volley for 384 dmg on each round. It's insane to even talk about these numbers because it will literally never happen, but how much damage would we do to, say, 5 people in a 20ft diameter circle? That sounds much more reasonable. 24 x 5 = 120 dmg per Volley. 120 x 2 = 240 dmg for first turn. Followed by 120 dmg for the next two turns if they don't or cannot move. (Rangers can cast Spike Growth / Plant Growth, so use them! Or, have a chat about tactics with your local Mage!) That's a total of 480 dmg (96 dmg each) to 5 unlucky suckers in 3 turns... Pentakill? All of this is without upcasting Flame Arrows (god forbid). And, all of this can be done from 600ft thanks to Sharpshooter. Furthermore, if you got either the Dragon Wing Bow or Dragon Wrath Weapon, then it just gets really stupid really quick. I would love to see the maths for this but I am way too tired and need to go read a book because my eyes are starting to hurt. Thank you for listening, Your Local Min/Maxer P.S, I know Spike Growth is concentration. Drop the Flame Arrows depending on the situation as it is very beneficial to keep them together and SG might well do a lot more damage. P.P.S, If you did this up to lvl 17 I would reccommend Assassin Rogue for the last few levels just to get that disgusting critical hit, which works for every attack roll in the first Volley. (Yes, Sneak Attack would only work with the first target of Volley, but getting crits on each of these attacks would be nuts anyway.)
People really do underestimate the power of Clerics. Some of the best sustained damage for a caster, but still good burst potential with the right builds. They aren't just healers. They are Harmacists.
Nice! Im currently playing a divine soul sorcerer, with an abyssal demon and a celestial up in his head, kind of a nice congruence with your last 2 builds (Shadow master and this one)
Without going too heavily in the math here (and please, correct me if I am wrong! I don't intend this as a flex, just maybe a different understanding :D), I believe the !AVERAGE! damage gain of Elemental Adept (Fire) letting you change 1's into 2's effectively changes the possible damage range of a 3rd level Fireball from 8-48 to 16-48, thus increasing the average damage from 28 to 32. While it is niche and admittedly minimal, doubling the damage floor will definitely average out to be more than just a 1 damage on average increase as per the video. It needs a buff for sure, but I think the 1's to 2's aspect of Elemental Adept is unfairly hated on by the community, as it is essentially a super version of the age old "2d6 is always better than 1d12, so always pick greatsword/maul over greataxe" optimization aspect. Great video, as always, and I look forward to whatever your future ideas are. Hopefully my understanding of the information makes this build even MORE appealing to anyone interested in trying it at their tables!
I am a long time follower of your show, Colby, but it took this build to have me "see" de light and I subscribed into the silver tier (sun would have been gold, I suppose, but this was nog available). Glad to be a bit more part of the d4-network family. Keep going on with those very, v-e-r-y detailed charcter builds! Spot on! BTW: I am a Belgian, born and raised in the City of Bruges? I can tell you that "De Stoove" is still active! ;)
Thanks again colby for doing this build! I am looking to do a light cleric, but use the new eladrin instead for story purposes. Go summer and do the proficiency bonus fire all around you teleporting in with your spirit guardians around you. Someone comes close, teleport out-> fireball
The light clerics divine feature is really nice at those low levels when monsters rarely have a super con save and when other AoE is lacking. 2d10 is decent DMG when you first get it and I agree that while single target damage can be better, generally speaking it can also be an advantage to do 20 DMG to 3 enemies rather than doing 40 DMG to one. Especially when you got other single damage specialists. Had a glorious moment of swooshing away around 10 goblins with a fireball, something that otherwise would have posed a bit of a problem on a group with single target attackers ^^
It's funn how in 5e the best blaster is the cleric, the best archer is a human with a toy crossbow, and the wizard usually has the best AC in the party
Thank you for this 😀 I'm playing a female drow 9 lvl pure Light Domain Cleric (yeah, weird I know, but hey Eilistree have Light as a Divine Domain. 😄 ) and it is a very cool class. Just love it. 😀 As lvl 4 feat. I have chosen so far "Drow High Magic". I mean, "Detect Magic" at will and "Darkness" and "Levitate" once a day have saved my butt more than once. LVL8, I took +2 Wisdom (total 18, for the moment). Never thought of "Telekinetic" before for my progression; it is noted now. 😀
Omg I think I left a comment on your last video about me playing a homebrewed Sun Soul Monk. Named Lucy (short for Lucifer), an Aasimar born to a Dwarf and Half Elf. The Cleric and Warlock classes were taken, so Sun Soul Monk was left for me to take, so I stole the Cleric feature, and became a 1/3rd caster (with the DM's approval). Excited to roleplay her. Would post my fan art of her here if I could. I'm leaning into the shonen tropes
I got to play this build last night for a level 15 one shot, and it was, pun intended, a blast. I did the variant you mentioned by swapping out the two fighter levels for evoker wizard, and it definitely came in clutch, when our party got swarmed by wave after wave of orc war chiefs. My character may have died to the end boss lich's power word kill, but playing an airborne healing detonation death dealing servant of helm was awesome.
I'm told that on the rare occasions when a 40x20 column of damage actually lets you draw a straight line through enemies at multiple elevations without cooking your party's bladesinger in the process, Flame Strike will definitely make you feel pretty okay about yourself. As a fifth-level spell of My God Says Screw You In Particular, though -- which is what you probably want more often -- it's definitely lackluster.
This is basically my build for playing Swain from league of legends. Necrotic shroud for the ult. Light cleric reflavored as ravens and lightning. 2 fighter/5 light cleric (for spirit guardians) 13 divine soul. 10/10/16/10/16/20 pick up telekinetic feat at some point. If you want the 14th level feature of divine soul, then drop second fighter level. I like action surge but it’s not necessary, just good for using the second action to take dodge action after your full setup is going (necrotic shroud, spirit guardians). Next turn faerie fire, or twin Guiding bolt, walk into enemies, spirit guardians and necrotic shroud. Bonus action try and pull with telekinetic, or push and walk in further. Action surge and dodge. Enjoy the mayhem.
Also crazy that this beat out the Evoker when you consider the Evoker was almost killing themselves with Overchannel. That hybrid version at the end sounds dope though! Is Wildfire Druid and/or a fire based controller on your list? Thanks regardless, love the vids
Great build! What about an acid focused build with the elemental adept feat? The fact that they typically use d4s so the 1s to 2s add a little bit more per roll and almost is actually measurable.
Hey Colby, I've been tossing around this idea after playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. There is a Mythic path called Swarm-That-Walks, and the concept seems really cool. My idea to try to rebuild this was a swarmkeeper ranger with warlock levels. I've debated going Dao for a cheesegrater build, pushing enemies farther than ever before with the crusher feat. Flavor the swarm as sand and have your genie vessel be an hourglass. Ive debated the archfey warlock for just a stupid amount of fairies. I was hoping we could see your expertise in number crunching to see where this could go. Thanks bud!
Swarmkeeper works so well with all the Genie warlocks. Madrid ice Genie the Swarm is swirling snow or ice shards, or even mist if you are going more water style. The Efrit fire Genie the swarm can be swirling flames, ashes, fire flies, embers or smoke. For the lighting Genie, the swarm can be sparks or crackling electricity arching around you, or metal bits and shards if you go for the flavour of some sort of magnetic power. Personally, I'd love to get Spirit Guardians somehow as well, meaning your Warlock could just be a wee dip of Prof damage per 1 hit, if you added in Cleric
My favorite burst damage cleric is the Tempest Domain Cleric. Level 4 take the Metamagic Adept feat so at level 6 you can quicken Call Lightning, then use your action to continue the spell. At level 9 you would be a 7th level Cleric and 2nd level fighter. Quicken Call Lightning, then use Action Surge to continue the spell effect 2 more times. Using a 4th level spell slot and the channel divinity to do max damage on one roll, you would deal 8d10 + 40 damage in a 15 by 15 foot square. You can probably hit 2, maybe even 3 enemies with all that damage.
Love the videos Colby, keep up the good work! Ever think about a swashbuckler rogue/blades singer wizard combo? Seems like it could be an interesting mix.
Love this video! Movement shenanigans are freakin awesome! Id love to see an ultimate fear Pally! Conquest dragonborn pally with the dragon fear feat. Maybe a hexblade dip too?
I landed is a similar place by going from five levels of Order Domain Cleric, to a one-level dip in Divine Soul (Favored By the Gods), and a three-level dip into Celestial Warlock, Pact of the Talisman. They're built to fit a specific role in our campaign and I was surprised to find out what they could do, once I gamed out the theory-crafting. By Character Level 9, they have 26 leveled spells at-the-ready to cast, and 11 cantrips. They've only got twelve spell slots, but for a player who's good at reacting to events as they unfold & play out at the table, the character gives you a lot of options on how to react. They started out at 3rd-level DMPC for a one-shot to re-introduce 2e Dark Sun players to contemporary D&D. Then I started exploring the potential...
All these Steinhardt's ads are great, but all they do is remind me how long I have to wait to get my hands on it :< I pledged to the kickstarter so I could give all the cool physical stuff to my girlfriend for her birthday - which was today :> - before realising it was gonna release months later. I guess it's gonna be her Christmas present, lmao.
I built a similar character to this. Instead of starting Fighter, I started Phoenix sorcerer (ua). It's Mantle of flame specifies all damage rolls, so it made scorching Ray edge out Fireball against a single target. Once the Mantle of flame ended, I'd do pretty much exactly what you do here. Of note, with this I could've used old aisamar to get celestial revelation and Mantle of flame up in a single turn.
Dear mister Colby, I wanted to say that I absolutely love your videos. So informative. yet also put forth in a way that is relaxed and not pushy at all. I've been watching your videos for about three weeks now, and I keep thinking "what I'm I gonna do when I've watch all his videos?" Lol. I had a thought for a build you could try, of course I know you're probably backed up with requests. But here it is, the ultimate face. I know optimizing a face character isn't really your thing. But you've done support style builds, so i feel like this could fit into that group. The goal obviously would be to optimize the characters face skills above all else. Secondary goal would be to have some good support abilities and spells. I got this idea from you, believe it or not lol. In one of your videos (can't remember which one) you said something about a good face character. And you mentioned maybe a glamour bard and fey wanderer multi class. And this idea sound so cool to me, as well as being quite thematically fitting. The ability to add your wisdom as well as charisma to faces skills is sick. Especially if you had both stats high. But anywho, I'm rambling. Thank you for posting these videos every week. You good sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.
Have you ever made a SorLock built around Hex + Hexblade's Curse + Bestow Curse (necrotic damage) + Scorching Ray? A magical machine gun single-target burst build? Lots of set-up, but still really interesting. I designed a Warforged that did this named Ronald Raygun. My DM wouldn't let me use him...
yes! I played a bladesinger in my first campaign and am seriously considering a light cleric in the second (whenever we get to that :) ). Very strong blasting while being a cleric - what else could there possibly be? Thanks for the build ideas! multiclassing with another full spell caster is a great idea - wizard, maybe even sorcerer for the metamagic? Since we're upcasting stuff, might as well further buff the spells Couple other builds I think could be interesting maybe? I'm considering playing a phantom rogue (trying to steer away from the OP stuff like bladesingers and light clerics :D ), have been playing with some build ideas - eager to get your take on the phantom! I was thinking fishing for crits by dipping hexblade warlock.. and taking feats to trigger the super sneak attack on reactions (sentinel/martial adept/war caster to add a booming blade attack?) need to think about reliable source of advantage, or not? Also, on my bladesinger, I have been using steel wind strike coupled with greater invis/spirit shroud + elven accuracy. It is devastating. Way superior to fireball - slightly lower average damage on paper (50d6 for fireball vs 30d10 for sws) but attack rolls vs saving throw makes all the difference: it's 5 triple advantage attack rolls if concentrating on greater invis with elven accuracy (which literally will never miss) with devastating crits, cuts through high acs, damage resistances, high saves, legendary resistances, while a 5th level fireball requires favorable placement situations hampered by friendly fire, is a dex save (high level enemies have magic resistance, and high dex saves) which can (and often will) do half damage, on a highly resisted damage type and animate objects has the huge caveat of being ineffective against ennemies immune/resistant to non mag. attacks (which turned out to be most enemies as soon as my DM saw me cast animate objects and I think is a fair assumption in mid/high tier campaigns - and not always knowing whether the enemies are resistant undermines using animate objects in practice). Curious to get your thoughts on a nova build around using it - an elven bladesinger with 2 levels in fighter, casting greater invis and during the nova round, action surge for 2 steel wind strikes? could do 60d10 force damage with ~15% chance to crit... that's almost 400 of force damage, all based on attack rolls with triple advantage. At level 12. More than the light cleric and the shepherd druid, at this mid-tier level that is likely to be reached by most campaigns. Even has a bonus action to spare. Oh and you're also getting 2 misty steps for free in case you need to reposition for the second sws after decimating half the baddies with the first sws. It might plateau a bit after level 12 though since it doesn't benefit from upcasting.. But in practice, higher slots than 4/5th are few so I don't think it's a huge handicap. Or you could call it versatililty to use these other level spell slots for either more novas for identical damage, or other spells. One caveat is that we need 5 enemies in a 30 ft range (twice) for this, I think that's an okay assumption given you're usually assuming 3 enemies within a 20 ft fireball blast radius, the high mobility of the bladesinger (almost like a 40ft range + 30ft radius if we compare to fireball with 120ft range, 20ft radius) + the extra mobility from the first sws. If not, we can always make one or both sws distant spells with a metamagic adept (or spell sniper) feat which gives is 60 ft sws (and it's definitely safe to assume there will be 5 targets then - almost levels the range with fireball, but with ~10x the area since it's quadratic). Past level 12, could also take one more level of fighter and go echo knight for even more mobility on a bonus action (saves having to learn/prepare misty step, and it's not a spell which helps with casting with our action), and such a good theme between the echo and the steel wind strikes (and having mirror image up also while we're at it, obviously). I think steel wind strike is a very underrated spell.
Thank you for this build! I have been playing a Half-Elf Light Cleric for about 3 months now (just got to lvl. 5). I'm always thinking if I should multi-class, and if so, with what. I did benefit w/ a free Feat at lvl. 1, so I took Elven Accuracy. Thought it would pair nicely w/ Faerie Fire. With this video, I'm really wanting to do a 2 lvl dip into Fighter. Plus, I have a better feel on how to "maximize" my damage, if needed. : )
All i imagine in my head is Through the Fire and Flames swells in volume any time it comes around to this characters turn Also, i just started playing an Aasimar ghostslayer BH/bladesinger wizard going for the whole "send a monster to kill a monster" vibe. And i took radiant consumption for the fear factor
Hey Colby, do you mind sharing what kind of equipment you use for these videos? I love the set up and the tone you set, certainly makes you feel at home and I am glad to be here
@@DnDDeepDive I'd recommend you put a light source on yourself, because each time the video edit jumps, we can see the ambient light in the room change (I assume from a window), which drives your production quality down. Number one rule of film -- LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT!
Love your videos! Please consider a revisit to the Barbearian build - suggestion, 3 Barbearian / X Cavalier fighter, shifter, hammer/shield and dueling style.
I think you’ve read the sage advice compendium wrong… it says that things like spirit guardians only work when a target starts it’s turn in or moves itself into the area. Movement that uses a target’s reaction or movement speed in some way works for things like this, but things that are just you pushing/pulling them do not.
"Entering such an area of effect needn’t be voluntary, unless a spell says otherwise. You can, therefore, hurl a creature into the area with a spell like thunderwave. We consider that clever play, not an imbalance, so hurl away!"
Thanks for the build! Your daughter's support for the channel is awesome 😊 But what happened to Torey? Haven't been able to follow the live play lately. Why won't she participate in season two?
I played an Aasimar Life Cleric based on the Archangel Michael. In the final battle of Descent into Avernus, I used the Divine Intervention feature and asked Tyr to guide my hand and help me smite the fiend. I rolled low enough for my request to be granted. My DM gave me advantage on my next attack and a maxed out Paladin Smite. I do not remember how much damage I dealt but it was a LOT.
