@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah I was actually lookin through the comments on your Arcane Archer vid and Hex through Fey Touched was brought up there. I'd imagine it'd be a bit too limited if you don't get more caster levels tho.
@@isrlydonut8686 On the contrary; I feel that if you got more caster levels Hex would be less worthwhile since it'd be competing with more powerful caster options
@@TreantmonksTemple it's a good point but the dc is based on your int so even with disadvantage it's piss easy to make the check. That's fine though because frankly grasping arrow would be good even if it broke automatically when they used their action. Excellent build all around though. I'd probably swap the ABIs for +cha and sharpshooter but other than that it's golden. Super fun to play and easy to flavor
I like this a lot, id love to see a lot more racebased builds, would be cool with a series on optimized builds based on different races, perhaps even the ones that traditionally arent used so much
There's a lot of optimised race based builds. For variant human and custom lineage😂 Jokes aside I wanna see what someone who knows what they're doing can do to optimise a half-orc barbarian, best ive come with is zealot with a 3 level detour into fighter for crits on 19s
A dragonborn undead warlock / conquest paladin is the master of fear. A dhampir ancestral barbarian / echo knight fighter is a con based super tank who forces the enemy to prioritize them, enabling the rest of the party to make risky plays In both of these racial abilities are key, dragon fear feat for the first and dhampir con based attack with bite for the second
@@JohnTCampbell1986 You can't really call a character optimized if it took more than 6 levels in barb. Even Zealot that scales reasonably well still more of a meme with 14th level immortality than something more. Barbs just don't get enough from their higher level abilities to not multiclass out and never look back
When you select warlock spells, keep in mind that you cannot simply load up on 3rd level spells just because you are 5th level. Each level-up allows you to replace one spell you know, meaning at 5th level you learn one new spell and may replace one you already know. This limits you to two third-level warlock spells at 5th level.
Not only does grasping arrow avoid Legendary Resistance, it is an excellent deterrent for creatures with Legendary Actions that allow them to move when it’s not their turn. Such a creature might not wish to use that option while “grasped”.
Add Hex for Disadvantage on Strength-Checks on top of that and it becomes really lovely. Can't get out and gets a d6 extra damage for each hit by either the Longbow or Eldritch Blast.
I was a bit surprised at how good the arrow is when I started getting more into 5e i think a lot of people read it without realizing you don't really need good INT for the effect to start messing with the enemy
I feel like the ASIs should switch around--specifically Sharpshooter at character level 11. Your charisma is 18. More than half of your damage on your turn (even if you grab sharpshooter) is coming from eldritch blast at this level. Pretty sure Charisma to 20 is higher priority. Boosts eldritch blast. Boosts your bow attacks (not as much as sharpshooter, but still a boost). Boosts your dragon fear.
I never considered Dragon Fear with the new Fizben's Dragonborn. This makes Conquest Paladins significantly better with their ability to heavily punish frightened creatures.
Idea: Single class optimizations, these could be shorts or just shorter simple videos explaining what pitfalls to avoid, what choices are absolutely optimal, etc. I feel like there must be an audience for some single class builds that break down what they're best and worst at, what to expect, etc.
Neat, I've been playing a Dragonborn Fighter in one of my groups, and was thinking of picking up the Dragon Fear feat. Also been thinking of asking the DM if I can swap to the Chromatic Dragonborn race as well. Fun to see some optimization around this.
The rest of the build aside, the combo of the bladesong attack with Eldritch Blast is really interesting; even more interesting with hand crossbow and crossbow expert. The number of attacks per round will even make Fighters jealous.
fantastic use of Dragon Fear. I so often see it recommended for Conquest Paladin, but it's kind of bad there due to the automatic damage from Aura of Conquest, when by far the best part of Dragon Fear is the lack of follow up saves if the target doesn't take damage. I keep trying to tell people that's the opposite of synergy, but people don't want to hear it.
I mean, there are multiple ways to play around that with conquest pala. If I recall correctly the aura is not as large as the fear effect, which you can use to hit enemies further away (and keep you CD for when enemies are inside your aura)
So true, terrible combo. You want Leonin with their Roar to combo with Conquest Pally, as an AoE supplement to Wrathful Smite. Though Conquest Paladin declines rapidly at higher CRs when immunity to fear is increasily common.
It true, though either way, with the higher level conquest paladins aura all of those enemies in 30' that were frightened now have a speed of zero, in addition to the psychic damage. Hard to find fault with an AoE move lock
Eh, most games don't go that high, the frighten aura is mostly for mooks & minions, most of which are vulnerable to frighten even at higher levels, and when you do bump into frighten immunity you're still a paladin (or sorcadin, or warladin) so you're not exactly hurting. It's a good build, just suffers anti-synergy w dragon fear.
Ha ha - editing a video for next week right now and I'm wishing I would've watched this first. I might have delayed my own for a couple more weeks :P. Ah well - this one's a lot of fun!
We are going to go majority wizard and not use blade song. This is indeed optimized like all of your wonderful builds but wow is it an out of the box one. Love it.
I love practically every build Chris creates. Last weeks do-it-all mage revision was epic. The summoner expert clearly delivered for the one shot with DD and D4. Not really seeing the strength of this build. Other than the “tear” part, the other strategies can be achieved from a sorlock build with a lv dip to fighter, with better Dc’s
Awesomely cool archer build!!! This is a REAL arcane archer with a nice racial perk synergie and a warlock multiclass boost on top that rounds it all up and makes it come togehter!!! I especially like the fire wall you make your ennemies flee into while shooting them down one by one!
I've been loving the direction with your new character builds. This has my janky optimizer brain going into overdrive. Now I'm trying to figure out all the ways to multiclass Arcane Archer to take advantage of grasping arrow. I absolutely overlooked it, I think because Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, Echo Knight, Rune Knight are so strong and have more obviously good features.
Still listening through this build and THIS is what I’ve been trying to build for forever.. ty! One suggestion.. hand of Hagar so you can pull target(s) within the outer range of the dragon fear
I'm using a similar red dragonborn with Undead Warlock + Conquest Paladin at lvl 14. The fear aura is fantastic with Dragon Fear as an attack action. I can still dump a smite in someone with my leftover attack.
Speaking as a DM, Silvery Barbs is great for chewing through PC’s spell slots when you have multiple combat encounters per long rest. By the time they get to a dangerous encounter they’re all out of 1st level spell slots if you’re able to scare them.
This was a really cool build especially with the Dragonborn choice I’d LOVE to see your builds with different races please do Bugbear or Genasi next! I’ve been working on my first Build video actually on this same race. It’s not the tip top most badass build ever but it’s a fighter that can mitigate damage every turn up close or at Range every single turn in combat, with multiple ways of knocking people prone and Crowd controlling enemies. He doesn’t do a lot of damage but makes up for it with effects that are near Wizard like spells, for a fighter that is lol.
The key here seems to be Fizban's Dragonborn + Dragon Fear Feat + Extra Attack. I could see this working well for a Paladin (already wants a decent Charisma) or Fighter (would become MAD but has enough ASI's to counter that). A martial or partial caster character might be less powerful than a full caster but would also gain more the spell-like fear ability (most full casters will already have access to the Cause Fear and Fear spells anyway).
I’m building a metallic dragonborn conquest Paladin for a game I have coming. No multi-classing needed. Level 7 aura reduces frightened enemies speed to 0 and deals psychic damage to them. Use the metallic breath to knock enemies prone then walk up and use any fear ability on them and they can’t get up. Shield master feat let’s you shove as a bonus action if you use the attack action. So at level 8 you can fus to dah, dragon fear, then shove anyone who’s standing and frightened.
Something about fear effects that I dont see talked about is much of the time I (as a player) dont want feared enemies running around screaming bringing even more enemies attacked by the noise or seeing fleeing comrades. Just my two cents.
Since fizban’s i’ve been thinking of builds with similar ideas I really like gloomstalker 5 here, specially with metallic dragonborn. I wouldn’t take dragon fear but instead attack multiple times + use my breath at the beginning of combats. I could see myself multiclassing it later into rune knight for extra effects using my con. (Rune knight makes a badass arcane archer btw) Another idea is doing a build similar to yours but not taking warlock and using aberrant dragonmark for con based cantrips. Just in case you rather have high concentration earlier than high int
I’ve theorycrafted a Dragonborn draconic monk / tempest cleric that uses the huge number of repeatable lightning damage (including AoE) with the lvl6 tempest cleric ability to constantly knock enemies around the battlefield.
I like the clever use of Bladesinger's "drop attack for cantrip", but it seems like you're doing a lot of scrambling to get uses for when your dragon shouts are down. Pact weapon, sharpshooter, Archery style, arcane archer. All that for one attack per turn. Have you tried the alternative of Chainlocking? Starting with Lock 3, Investment of the Chain Master means you'll be getting two familiar attacks per turn. With two attempts to render enemies unconscious (using your DC minus 5), you've solved the problem of weak early levels. The lock familiars are very squishy, granted, but if you take Flock of Familiars - now you've got options. Hey, if your DM is silly enough to give you a Gazer, it could be a real laser light show.
You can also do this build but with a Leonin. The main issue is that the Leonin roar uses con modifier, only 10 ft radius but there is no limit to the usages. Plus this is purely a racial feature instead of requiring a secondary feat. I think it works as well as this option but it's not better.
Non Friendly Fire area of effect Fear? It feels like an another slap in the face against Descending Dork Monk. It might be as good or better than Long Death who 1. Go into middle of Enemies 2. Do Scare Fart (Hour of Reaping) 3. Activate Step of the Wind to dash back to safety since Dragon Fear feat is accessable at lv 4.
Cool build, I was considering a Fighter or Paladin with some Bard levels and Dragon fear. The Bladesinger+Hexblade it's a bit too much optimized for my taste, but quite clever when combined with Grasping Arrow.
We're on the same wavelength again I see. I have been wondering about doing a build for one of the new Dragonborn that was unconventional, no Paladin nor really any melee. :)
Chris could you do a ranged paladin/ranger/x multiclass? The idea is that you dress up your paladin as a vulnerable archer (ranger in leaf based armor?) so that when the enemy is still too far away for your paladin you should them with with your bow (this should be done in a way that does a lot of damage but not too much maybe through stacking something like hail of thorns spell with bursting arrow or something else, just as long as it makes you their priority), so that they decide to rush you because most archer are terrible in melee. Paladins however love getting into melee for their smites. I understand that this would be very MAD but ability score wise it can be done, if you want to multiclass more in order to combine it with another class to make more SAD that's fine. I think the normal human (+1 to every stat) might be your best race choice here but feel free to pick something else (like half elf customized origen or a +1 to multiple stats or something else), the ranger part can be just a dip. Some of the subclass that I think think that would work well are Conquest, Fey wanderer (especially the ability modifer skill stacking for CHA skills, but the fear is nice too), Warlock (undead or hexblade for fear or making it SAD with of course the pulling invocation), Arcane archer (extra ranger shenanigans to get their attention) or Battle smith (to be SAD). I would hope to see what you can come up with. Monsters&Multiclass didn't think there was any viable combo possible. (also they left out Conquest entirely 'sad face emoji')
Hey just a small question for anyone who has played this build or for Treantmonk if he happens to see this post (months after the build came out) but would going Fighter 1 then Hexblade 2 before taking the Wizard levels smooth out the leveling experience slightly. Yes it delays the main gimmick of the build (the Dragon Fear feat) by a level but it allows you to do acceptable damage with your cantrip in the otherwise painful 5,6,7 and 8 levels of this build. You'd still be below baseline and I could be completely off, but I was contemplating on running this in a campaign and just wanted to see peoples takes on that change to the level progression.
interesting build chris. makes me want to re-look at my own arcane archer build and see if i should fit in the new dragonborn or the bladesinger. my own version of this is swords bard for mobile flourish over bladesinger and i think if i was playing campaign at level 12+ the bladesinger is the superior option.
@@TreantmonksTemple it didn't seem too difficut when you presented it though. made a whole lot of sense. eveything important to the tactics was based off cha: eldritch blast, weapon attack, dragon fear, key spells. it's perfectly fine imo to go through 6 levels of bladesinger and just pick up wizard spells that are defensive spells, utility or stuff that doesn't need int (like your magic missile pickup). personally, the only changes i'd make to your build is to weaponize the bonus action by picking up magic stone via warlock and tiny servant from wizard and have 3 tiny servants throwing 3 magic stones every turn. oh and pick up phantom steed for a mobility/cover option.
Why not make it a undead warlock 1 lvl dip instead of 5lvls hexblade? The constant fear effect is quite better than a little more damage you get using carisma since you are not using crosbow expert nor using both attacks from extra attack with the bow (same goes for picking sharpshooter). I would just dip undead and save the other 4 lvls going wizard (you are going to do more damage with high-lvl non int dependent wizard spells anyway. That way you probably deal more damage but definatly has more utility respurces in combat (more lvls in wizard and the constant fear effect) and more importantly, the build comes togheter faster and you keep the frightning flavor. Just a sujestion, keep the good work, I love your recent character concepts they always come with a little surprise making less known features shine!!
Amazing Build Chris. I m Working on a Battle Smith 14 Bladesinger 6. I choose custom lineage though Metallic Dragon Dragonborn breath weapon fits even better. Thanks
2 things: 1. Would you say Fizban's Dragonborn also really helped Conquest Paladins by proxy, since between this, Form of Dread, and the unadulterated shutdown of Conquest Paladin, you could essentially end a fight outright? 2. You missed a golden opportunity with the name by not calling it "Rip and Scare." Keep up the good work, bro!
I considered conquest paladin, but there's actually a bad interaction with dragon fear and the conquest aura - since the aura is doing damage to frightened creatures and you can't turn that part off, so you end up removing the frightened condition.
True. That being said, it's still something for those of us out here who love Conquest Paladin. Might have a negative interaction, but it's currently the strongest Racial Fear effect available, and more gives you further uses of Fear beyond spell slots and Form of Dread. I agree the nonbo it causes is probably pretty weak, but can very much shut someone down
23:45 @treantmonk you said you want to take spells through a certain class, but doesn't knowing a spell allow you to cast it with any spell slot you have? in the example of a hexadin, cast hex with your pally 1st level and revive with your warlock slots? in which case, the DC is defined by the slot, not by the spell?
Why do u go allll the way to wizard 8 instead of doing wizard 7 and fighter 4? I get it if ur going to 17 pllus but even then ur onlly gunna get to wizard 12 so???
Conquest paladin does not play nicely with dragon fear since it does a small amount of damage to frightened creatures automatically and we don't want to do that.
I like this conceptually, but it's a shame that it really just comes online properly only at level 9. For most campaigns that's near the end... And being stuck in Wizard for 6 levels without a good Int to make use of most Wizard spells is... oof. Maybe for a high level oneshot or game.
I wouldn't assume dragon fear can be used as part of an attack action---it says it works off the same resource pool but I personally didn't think it inherited the other qualifiers of regular dragon breath. I admit it doesn't specify "as an action" in the feat though... I'd still definitely check with your DM before assuming it can be used to replace an attack.
Did you run down how this might be better as an EK? Not using the BA much, get Action Surge a lot earlier and still comes online at level 9. Or is this just some wizard bias ;)
Fizban's dragonborn breath weapon can replace 1 attack *when you take the attack action* Ek battle magic gives you a bonus weapon attack *when you use your action to cast a cantrip* RAW you can't dragonbreath using the battle magic attack, cos you didn't take the attack action.
This doesn't work with EK. You need the extra attack feature from Bladesinger to do the dragon fear + EB in the same turn. We could take EK 7 to get a weapon attack when we take the attack action, but the only way to use EB with an attack action is through Bladesinger.
sage advice compendium for dispel magic says "Dispel magic has a particular purpose: to break other spells. It has no effect on a vampire’s Charm ability or any other magical effect that isn’t a spell. " -antimagic field would be a different story.
Each player rolls for how they build their stats or you roll to see how Everyone has their stats 1-2) 5d4 -2 3-4) 2d8 + 1d4 -2 5-6) 1d6 +1d8 + 1d4 7-8) 3d4 + 1d8 -1 Drop lowest 9-10) 7d3 -3 11-14) 2d6+8 15) 5, 5, 5, 16, 18, 22 6-17) 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 18-19) 10, 12, 14, 14, 16, 16 20) 10d4 drop 5 lowest High magic, no casters, no guns wild west chibithulhu themed setting - Minotaur or Centaur races only. Looking for seasoned serious players only. Must know the rules by heart. Homebrew races, classes, feats, skills and background bonuses welcome by concensus. Aaaaaaaand..... Go.
EK wouldn't really give us anything until level 7, but we would give up the synergy between grasping arrow and repelling blast which is a major component of the build.
Love Chris’ content, can’t argue with the theoretical optimization and I have been tinkering with something similar, BUT I’d hate this one on the board. It has fun mechanics, but it feels so all over the place. I’m generally fond of using multiclassing to basically create an entirely new character concept, that doesn’t need to be explained in terms of „Oh, yeah that’s when my peace cleric-warlock-barbarian decided that…“ as long as the endresult still ends up portraying a coherent class fantasy (force lance for example). Totally don’t feel this one!
Why would dragon fear replace a weapon attack? The dragonborn breath weapon explicitly gives it the option to do so but dragon fear is a completely separate ability that merely costs you a use of your breath weapon. Granted it doesn't explicitly say what this costs but isn't the default for such things an action?
What happened Treant? This is a bad build... Wasting effort optimizing EB & longbow attacks which are largely interchangeable in game play. Not to mention the contradiction between the fear effect and grasping arrow (2d6 piercing that's going to let them break free of the fear just for moving), and bad casting stat for both our wizard spells and Arcane Archer arrows... The key feat (that's broken b/c it was designed for when breath weapon was 1/SR) isn't picked up until level 6! That's halfway through the campaign! No Extra attack until level 8! So that "you can use it as one attack" isn't on line until more than halfway through the campaign and the whole build doesn't come on line until level 11 i.e. nearly at the end of the campaign? and even then you can only use it 4 times per day... and at a CR where ~40% of monsters are immune to fear...
Some of the problems you're pointing seems to be answering themselves. 1. If most late game creature are immune to fear, you can have grasping arrow on them without a drawback of giving saves agaisnt your fear, since they are not affected. Though you'll be dealing with the minions around the big creature. 2. Longbow attack and EB are interchangeable, but not many characters can do both in a single action. The point of this build is to be able to use the attack action better then most characters (and win in the action economy). 3. Frightened and Hex can both impose disadvantage against the "save" against grasping arrow, rendering it even better. 4. Yes, the build comes together later then usual, but he said at the beguinning of the video that it was a 16th level build, but tried to explain the progression for lower levels. He ressently did a higher level one-shot, maybe it's the reason why he wanted to do a higher level character? Sincerly, the high level investment is also one of my problem with the build.
not with the Tasha's publication. Also changes bladesong uses from 2/short rest, to proficiency mod uses per long rest, and lets you replace an extra attack for a cantrip.
