Errata: You can't cast Shadowblade as a Bonus action and use your reaction on the same turn to cast Absorb Elements. The simple solution is to cast Shadow Blade on Round 1 and make attacks, saving Blade Song for Round 2. A little dicier for defense/concentration, but gets into better damage more quickly.
Why cant you do that? Reactions are outside of rounds so you can indeed cast a leveled Spell and a second as your reaction. Same as Fireball, enemy Counterspell, your Counterspell in your round.
@@desolate0199 because Fireball is an action, not a bonus action. If you cast a spell with a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast is a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
@@Vergilius314 ah okay, thank you. But this is so weird. I imagine that this got implemented for action economy within your turn. But RAW makes reaction spells more restricted that way.
Bladesinger Nova 2.0. One thing I really like about how many bladesingers you've built is that it demonstrates how to tune a build to fit different goals. Can't wait for Bladesinginger 56.0 in DnD 10e.
You go ahead and cast Tensor's Colby, you have no reason to be ashamed. My bladesinger won't and at least one of our wizards will be capable of casting spells.
I just started playing as a Bladesinger few weeks ago. While our group was out shopping in a town at a blacksmith I summoned my Shadowblade and asked the Blacksmith how much he would give for it. He was willing to pay me 25g for it… when we entered combat later in that session the DM realised why I did that. And said “Well played, I let you cast Booming Blade and Green Flame with your Shadowblade from now on…” since we putt price on the Shadowblade in that campaign 😂
I have officially been sold on Bladesinger. Wizard has always been my favorite class, but gishes are so cool! Bladesinger is the perfect sort of character. I'll never not click on one of your Bladesinger videos. When you said you were returning to your old ways, I immediately thought, "Custom Lineage," and was instantly proven wrong. Gotta love elven accuracy!
Yes but the spell book isn’t a sword, so what you do is ink the spell onto a sword and then use a dimensional space to put that sword in your spellbook. Big brain plays
@@Smol_EriI mean, technically speaking your spellbook can be in various forms. Who's yo say yours isn't a bag full of stuff you wrote them on in the spur of the moment?
@@piranhaplantX Back then I was half the DM I am now, So these days i've actually just made runesmiths in my game, that allow wizards to carve their spellbook into a sword and just use that as a spellbook. Have a wizard with an adamantine rapier that's also their spellbook and the player loves it. I will have to pass on the bag of stuff written on them idea to my players, one of them will probably see insperation in that and use it and as a DM I am always excited to enable cool stuff like that.
@@Smol_Eri i played with a guy who’s spell book was a pack of cards as his backstory was “cheap traveling magician turned actual wizard”. Super cool idea
@@thoughts2743 I love when players have ideas like that. One of my players wanted to basically be "genshin impact the wizard" so i allowed them to have a foci that was just a gem in an intricate container to be their "vision" even ended up using it in a storyline about gods and demons. They loved it. I wonder if i should ever tell them I've never played genshin impact and just looked up a 5 minute lore vid XD
MOM Kobold could get Green-Flame Blade as a Charisma-based cantrip, which would reduce the damage taken from this trick. Plus, you could be like, "Roar, I dragon! Eat fire-ow-ow! Roar!!!"
@@k0pstl939 They can cast Dancing Lights as a Charisma-based cantrip, not Green-Flame Blade. A High Elf can choose any cantrip off the Wizard spell list, but will cast it as an Intelligence-based spell, which would result in more damage taken by the character and really isn't much different than casting it as a Bladesinger. Realistically, Elven Accuracy is probably just too good to pass up, but it's cool to find a synergy where being bad at a cantrip is useful, especially when it's a race trait that's usually pretty weak.
If your charisma modifier is -1 does that mean a charisma-based green-flame blade would do 0 damage before level 5? I believe you have to actually take damage to use absorb elements. This does seem really useful past level 5 though, since its 1d8-1 at level 5, or a 12.5% chance to flub, and 2d8-1 at level 11, which means you always take damage (yay?)
You my good sir, are my absolute favorite D&D content creator. Between your love of Bladesingers, all things Gish, a voice that puts me to sleep after work (that's a good thing), and a totally normal and healthy obsession with Tensers Transformation (Which is the best spell in the game. I don't care what anyone says), its almost as though we were cut from the same cloth. I tip my hat to you my friend, keep up the awesome work.
Tenser's Transformation is definitely my favorite Gish spell but I think it's so silly how it grants you heavy armor proficiency since it would take the duration of the spell to don the armor. You can't wear the armor and then cast the spell because you can't cast spells while wearing armor you are not proficient in. Amazing spell and being able to whip out a shield is super helpful. I just find that really silly. But if you ever have a magic suit of plate armor that you can don in an action and it follows you around, it's definitely handy then.
I'd love a "cuttingroom floor" episode where you go through some of the concepts you tried to build around that never made it into a video, and what issues you encountered trying to make them work, perhaps why they got cut in the first place.
I'm planning a ( Flame) Bladesinger,.. but hardly a typical one. Rather she'll be a Shadar-Kai in the Shadow Snake tradition of Bladesinging ( the Shadar-Kai school) . The only potential issue is that the SS uses the spiked chain. Please correct me if I'm wrong but TMK there's no 5e official ruling on the SC and since it's not a heavy weapon and you can only use one end of it at a time, the spiked chain should qualify as a Bladesinger weapon, with DM approval. Thoughts welcome!
I wonder, why dont you use the art work as a thumbnail? its really good work. Also, Thanks for this! i have been wanting to play a bladesinger for so long.
I wonder how Randall would feel about that. I think it makes sense to only want his art associated with the "ad" portion for him, but I don't think it would hurt his brand or anything. Might just require more work from Colby and the gang to adapt it to a thumbnail.
@d4: D&D Deep Dive No shade towards you in particular, but it's really disappointing when content creators are forced to dilute their content to appeal to the algorithm gods. At the end of the day, quality comes from diversity, and it stinks when the feed is flooded with generic thumbnails to farm the maximum engagement. I will say, I do enjoy the thumbnails that you make minor edits to; little effects that are relevant to the concept you're building. Anyway, love your content!
@@tdarassp I will say, it might be a tad overblown to call not being able to put custom art in the thumbnail diluting content. It's kinda sad, especially since the art is cool, but the content (the video) is near entirely unaffected by it.
@Devin Short I was admittedly speaking in more general terms. As they said, statistics indicate a higher click rate on certain aspects of a thumbnail. This is why you often see so many thumbnails with a wacky facial expression, bit bright letters and a ridiculous/unnecessary arrow. And while the thumbnail can seem insignificant, most YTers and content creators in general are well aware of how to follow very strict guidelines to maximize clicks and engagement. That's where the diluting comes from
“There’s no song today” How a singular man destroyed my entire week. I mean, why else would I watch an hour video without the super rewarding song at the end?!
My Chronurgy Wizard died last session on level 4 and I want to play Bladesigner as my second character because I want to play Wizard. So you are right on time 👍🏻
in regards to "is tenser's transformation good?" that's actually two different questions. the Colby version of the question is: "is this the best option for what i'm trying to accomplish?" in which case, yeah it might just be. the Chris version of the question is: "is this the best thing i could be doing for the same resource cost?" in which case the answer is probably not. the secret third question is: "is this the most fun and flavorful thing i could be doing?" and that answer varies wildly from person to person, but is realistically the most important
Build almost exactly this build over a year ago as recurring villain. To this day it's my group's most favourite boss fight. What's interesting, I came up with almost exactly the same time playing element explaining the fire theme. He opened up a fight with "I will baptise you by fire" They were very scared
My personal ruling for my table is that the first weapon you choose to attack with is the primary weapon, and your bonus action attack must use the second weapon, whether you attacked with your second weapon or not as part of the attack action. So, for this build, if you attack first with the shortsword so you can cantrip-cast, your bonus action attack must be with the shadow blade; so, it still works with the build
lol this is great, I was just building a brand new Bladesinger as a back up characer using your 2.0 guide. I was going to make her a half-elf because our DM gives us set stats to allocate as we want and a free level 1 feat.
A party member who happens to take Twilight Cleric can give you Temp HP, allowing you to proc Absorb Elements that way without worry for your actual HP. Do with this info what you will.
I spent a while looking at the Absorb Elements spell for a while and on a Bladesinger it almost feels like a reactionary defensive arcane smite and I like it. This also give me ideas for my Sun Elf I want to build
Having played a straight Bladesinger until 12th lvl, I think the main argument against Shadow Blade is that it uses your concentration and prevents you from casting other awesome concentration spells. Yes, it's worth casting when your highest level spell slots are 2nd lvl, sometimes still when 3rd lvl. After that I really didn't bother preparing it any more.
Finally, a way for me to blow up myself along with my enemies after I've run out of fireballs! Jokes aside, I love this character concept. Thanks for the build!
i got the approval from my dm to use Green Flame Blade with Shadow Blade when my backstory was about finding the blade of a special sword. The sword was broken and I just had the hilt, so when i cast Shadow Blade the shadowy thingy come from the hilt, the hilt is worth 1 gold piece so i can use the cantrips^^ cheesy? a bit but I think its fine :)
I'm glad we've come back to revisit the Bladesinger, because of the noted issues the old builds have, and also because bladesingers are great. The Absorb Elements interaction is cute and fun but I don't think the marginal increase in action economy can ever make a spell slot worth 1d6 damage/slot level, especially since sometimes you would be making an attack of opportunity anyway, plus the value of threatening to cast Counterspell.
Worth noting that acid splash works same as gfb, if you weren’t going bladesinger then evocation works great, your cantrip deals half damage on successful save, dex saves aren’t usually too hard to succeed just would minimize the damage you take while doing extra damage. Or just rogue for evasion, which could make for an extremely awesome build, defensive and offensive and utility. I may honestly do this with my artificer, decent damage bump and rogue is always fun to dip into
I LOVE Tensors Transformation. I don't care if a little suboptimal vs other options like Animate Object. It is awesome and powerful. Fits this build and theme 100%
I don't think I'd ever upcast Absorb Elements. Absorb at level 1. Mirror image or blur at level 2 slot. 3rd level to go crazy with AOE spells. Fun build, Colby!
28:17 Yes, you will also need to make concentration checks if you're concentrating on a spell every time, which bladesinging will help with. Resilient constitution can make your minimum concentration check to be over 10 so should be no worries after that.
This build is absolutely perfect for a Rakdos Cultist in a Ravnica game! It’s got flashy performance, fire, shadows, and plenty of pain to both ourselves and others! Instead of doing damage to yourself to purify, you do it for the sheer love of chaos, spectacle, and violence! I’d probably try to make room for a better CHA score, though.
In my homebrews - other than shadowblade being twinnable if you have two free hands - the description ends in "a shadowblade is worth 1gp, but they're usually not for sale
So it has come full circle! XD I love bladesingers so much, thank you for this, as Bladesinger definitely needed an update since last time. PS: LOVE your FemShep poster!
For shadowblade bladetrips my DM & i agreed value is subjective and that it was likely *someone* could be convinced that my glowing lightsabre is worth at least 1 sp :3
I’ve been watching your videos since the PAMlock and I have to say, I’m really proud of you and your growth since then. You feel a lot more relaxed, your quality in videos has improved significantly, and I can’t wait to see how your channel grows from here. Much love 🖤
This is often overlooked but if you take 1 point in genie warlock, and use glyph of warding on the inside of the genie bottle. you can trigger multiple concentrations spells that last until the effect ends. So in my version of this build I use 1 lvl genie warlock and I cast Shadowblade Upcasted as a Glype inside the bottle. Allowing me to basically have a 1 use Lightsaber. Since doing it this way doesn't require concentration you get to stack it with Tensor's Transformation etc. As for why it works, its the same reason that you can glype of warding a chest on a "boat" and not lose the effect. The inside of the Genie bottle doesn't move. Yet is always within x distance of you. Just like the chest on a boat. Food for thought. In my build I also use this to use crusher feet, combined with Eldritch Blast, To launch people into the air, causing fall damage, or to blast em into lava or other dangerous terrain.
Been waiting for this. All my builds lately feature some use of Green Flame / Absorb elements “overclocking” with temp hitpoints , shapeshifting or regen to offset it. My favorite is the truly absurd scribes wizard dhampir combo. 🧛♂️
@@ArcanoSilverwind How many spells you can convert to piercing damage via Scribes levels and bake into the bite attack, basically - and then the ludicrous bonuses to your skill checks / attack rolls that result on the following round. It's still only proficiency bonus times per long rest, but man, those moments make you feel like a bloodsucking god. XD Warning: some DMs would find a way to disqualify it. But IMO d4 videos are best consumed by folks who play at a lenient and / or combo friendly table. Scribes is head & shoulders above other classes in terms of wording on spells that are arguably in the player's favor. (relative to a bunch of class powers, where the bonus dice are technically "extra" / not part of the attack and thus RAW disqualified for the bite.) I think back in this comment I was talking about using Green Flame, then Absorb Elements to convert the resistance & later outgoing damage to piercing - which is definitely DM's discretion. It depends on which mentions of a "damage type" your table will allow you to apply the Scribes conversion powers to. Mine was shocked & pleased by the combo and wanted to see how far it could go. By a stricter reading, it gets progressively more niche. But FWIW I did just play this combo up to 13th level with a DM who is a professional systems designer - and the whole green flame cantrip / absorb elements thing was not even close to the most interesting thing that the build enabled. TBH it's only a tangentially relevant comment on this build, since Colby was leaning into the Bladesinger / cantrip version of Extra Attack. I was just excited.
I thought about the offensive part of absorb elements too. Funny enough, the wildfire druids enhanced bond an the artillerist artificers arcane firearm would let you add dice to green flame blade and absorb elements, since absorb elements RAW includes a damage roll. So a Wildfire druid would be able to add additional 2d8 + xd6 for absorb elements with a similar strategy and access to green flame blade. Alo I can not wait to see a pathfinder build for an eldtrich archer, once you got familiar enough with the system.
I had an absolute monster Eladrin swords bard, hexblade, paladin that, with the concession of my DM, could use blade flourishes on blade cantrips. I could summer fey step in, targeting myself to take the fire damage to proc AA, then booming blade, blade flourish, smite, and Absorb Elements. It was glorious.
The main use for Song of Defense in my experience is to help maintain concentration on an important spell in case of massive damage that can't be reduced or avoided otherwise. Bring the damage from that instance down to 21, and the Concentration Check DC is 10.
Thanks for the excellent build Colby! Your ideas have been so instrumental to helping me not only build effective characters, but also keep with strong theming that makes RP as fun as combat.
Hey Colby, i didn't realize you were in 4k! That explains why you're lighting was so bright and epic! Also, TT for the win! Totally a great way to flavor a power rangers/superhero/salior moon transformation to a character! Hold on, let me take 6 seconds to get into my superhero suit. Mage armor, blade song, AS, TT😂
Pro tip: as per the spell, you can "drop" the shadow blade and it instantly returns to your hand at the end of your turn (or something like that). There is no discernable downside to dropping the shadow blade from my reading of the spell (which, admittedly, I do not have in front of me)
I'm having great success with a similar build, my go to nova is bladesong -> greater invisibility -> action surge -> steel wind strike. With elven accuracy this gets pretty nuts so long as you have targets. Highly recommend greater invisibility on elven accuracy bladesingers.
This video is an absolute masterpiece. The build itself, the solid arguments, the realistic expectations, the cheeky use of the old intro music LOVE IT 🥳👌
I love bladesingerand I think that 6 bladesinger with 3 gloomstalker ranger using summon fey for their darkness is a fun idea when using crossbow expert and sharpshooter is a fun combo.
Shadow blade costs 100gp to be written into your wizard spell book. As a DM I allow it to work with booming blade or green flame blade just for that fact.
In defense of Tenser’s Transformation (and as a partial counter-point to Treantmonk’s criticisms of it): as a DM, I consider it required to make high level adventures hard enough to make the players ration their shield spells, or run out quite quickly. His argument that “I’d rather be able to throw shield than have 50 temp hp” only works when you have low level spell slots to burn. Additionally, wizards in 5e struggle to be effective against Big Boss Monsters that they can’t control or debuff effectively. Having a good damage option is useful for those fights. I ran for a Scribes wizard who took Tenser’s Transformation without telling anyone, and in a huge climactic battle, when he was (almost) out of spell slots and cornered by a big bad, threw Tenser’s and went toe-to-toe with it with his Staff of Power for 3 rounds, until someone could help him. It was awesome and everyone at the table loved it.
A really cool idea for a bladesinger. Play a Thri-kreen, use tiny hands for drual wielding then main hands to cast spell (no need for warcaster and auto studded leather AC)
For my Bladesinger, I almost always consider the Eldritch Adept feat with Armor of Shadows a worthwhile investment. Edit: My workaround for the Shadow Blade/SCAGtrips conundrum: Obviously, you create a scroll of Shadow Blade, then cast it from the scroll. The scroll definitely has a value above 1 SP.
I guess I'm better late than never. I'm here for Bladesinger 3.0! Speaking of 3.0, all I can think of is the Rule of Three, and all the ways in which it applies here. Until next Tuesday!
Hey Colby, long time watcher, 1st time commenter Not to add to your ever growing list, but I built something ridiculous, and I need to this particular community about it. Rules for duplicate spell effects say that only the highest level effect is active. So if you have a level 1 Bless and a level 2 Bless, only the level 2 takes effect. If it gets dispelled, the lvl 1 takes over. .......This applies to Armor of Agathys as well.... So to keep it brief, my Wild Magic Sorcerer (equipped with a Feywild Shard and a Staff of Power) put himself in the bubble form of Wall of Force, spam cast Armor of Agathys (transmuting the damage type each time, thus activating the Shard). Every time I got hit, they took damage, and if it crossed a threshold, my DM ruled that they took the dmg from the lesser spell as well. I call this bombastic atrocity "Poor Man's Prismatic Armor" To anyone that reads this whole thing, bless you for indulging a min/maxer's ramblings
This is amazing! And perfect for me, my main character at the moment is a bladesinger who is overly self-critical, severely lacking in self-preservation instinct, and one level away from that sweet sweet level 6. This is perfect, I will definitely have to take notes 😂
I absolutely love these build videos. This channel has quickly become one of my favorite corners of the internet. A pedantic detail worth considering: does a weapon attack made as part of a cantrip count for two weapon fighting? It could be interpreted that when using shadow blade and extra attack, you have not attacked with your shortsword. You've cast a cantrip with your shortsword as a material component and attacked with your shadow blade, meaning you could only attack with your shortsword as a bonus action per two-weapon fighting. At my table, I'd accept your interpretation, but it could be worth discussing with the DM before using this particular tactic.
POV: You’re haven’t watched a vid in some months and came back with a new office and better graphics and you’re glad that you still supported the channel
You bring an interesting idea to mind, the Fade Away feat requires damage dealt, so you could use green flame blade to guarantee invisibility for a turn per short rest, this could lead to a gnome rogue that disappears in a plume of flame, just to backstab you.
Colby and Science. All about could'a, not about should'a. Seriously, though, fun build! Love using Absorb Elements offensively. You're like the Jackie Chan of theory crafters for 5e.
OMG Colby, my bladesinger in the weekly game I play just took a lvl 7 dip into fighter. She uses a Rapier in one hand, and took dueling as her fighting style. She is going to at least lvl 3 to get Echo Knights which will be flavoured as shades. We play flanking gives advantage at our table, and have come to the decision that an echo provides flanking. So my bladesinger uses her concentration spell on Haste, and makes 4 blade attacks each turn (cantrip, blade, haste blade, unleash incarnate) all at advantage (triple roll due to elven accuracy) due to flanking with her echo... she is going to DPS the shit out of anyone hahahah The hard part for me is deciding whether i go back to wizard after the three levels or push through to level 6 fighter and sacrifice higher level spells in order to gain additional ASI hahah
Love the Bladesinger build! I'd like to see some oddball stuff that doesn't necessarily make it onto the charts for sustained or burst damage, but contributes in some other meaningful way. Or maybe some kind of thematic character that normally wouldn't put up good numbers. I'll be honest though, it doesn't really matter what the build is, because it's cool just to see your breakdowns and ideas come to life. Thanks for all the cool videos Colby.
Thanks Colby. I love pretty much all of your builds, but above all, I love your bladesinger builds, and above even all of those, I love this one ! The idea of turning your GFB dmg on yourself is something I'd never thought of, it's bonkers, and I love it so much. BUT ... while you've built this one for Nova dmg, and so hence report on it's nova scores, I really REALLY wish you had also reported it's sustained DPR numbers. B/c even tho you kept saying how good they were, and it's a bladesinger, so they're going to be good, every time you did a damage report I just really wanted to know how good the sustained DPR was too ! Not sure if you could just add the numbers in a comment or something, but I'd love to see them ! Anyway, awesome work as always 🙂
Started playing my first bladesinger recently. Gotta be honest I'm mainly sticking with control spells and having melee attacks as a fallback but I still love these builds, exploring what's technically possible, even if it's not always the best option
So I'm a lvl2 Artificer with Tough and magic initiate. I'm going one more to get Armour Guardian. Then 2 Daolock, and 6 Bladesinger. I know it won't be "optimized" but the tanking and enemy movement really sounds fun. Grasp of Hader, then Thunder gauntlets.
Wall of force is 100% my favorite spell. But not just because it’s super strong. I was playing a clockwork soul sorcerer in a campaign and me and my barbarian had a move that we called the playpen. Basically I would trap one enemy in a wall of force with him and him alone and they were just work out their differences
I built a bladesinger who I named Ronnie James, the Neon Knight (a tribute to the late and great Ronnie James Dio). He is a Paladin 2, Bladesinger 6 (currently) and is a blast to play. Admittedly, I rolled pretty well on stats, and managed to start with 13/16/14/16/8/13 (after racials with variant human). I think this is one of the most MAD builds I've ever built, but it works, barely. I started with paladin, and just played as a smiting two weapon fighting machine for the first 7 levels or so, and the wait for extra attack until level 8 didn't matter much (the off hand attacks being able to smite means that they can hit harder than a normal main hand attack would anyway). At 8th level I finally got extra attack and the build is fun as hell. I play him as a heavy metal singer, use mage armor to summon neon ethereal armor, use the light spell on his sword to give off rainbow light, and he has a gem of brightness to give off EVEN MORE rainbow light. The light is honestly anti-synergy with Shadow Blade, but who cares I'M THE NEON KNIGHT.
I know I've mentioned the idea before but because I still like it and it's half way relevant I'm going to suggest my current favorite GISH build concept, that being a Lore Bard/Tempest Cleric build around the spell lighting arrow and role playing as a herald of Zeus. The spell can be taken via lore bards magical secrets and on a full caster actually scales into some rather nice AOE nova damage and tempest cleric can not just ramp that a lot but also works perfectly with the Zeus aesthetic/theme. For even better nova, fighter action surge would let you on one turn bonus action lightning arrow, next turn attack triggering the spell then cast lightning arrow before action surging for another lightning arrow powered attack...
I’m playing a Githyanki (the OG gish) Bladesinger 2.0 now, and am lvl 5. Very excited because my character concept and leveling plan is exactly what you laid out! So nice to hear I wasn’t being dumb by planning to go tighter. I have a party member who likes to cast firewall, and my DM won’t let me dive through it with Absorb Elements and deal the extra damage on the same turn. RAW says “on your next turn”. I’m so sad she won’t let me do it! But it’s okay. I just have to wait an extra round.
Errata: You can't cast Shadowblade as a Bonus action and use your reaction on the same turn to cast Absorb Elements. The simple solution is to cast Shadow Blade on Round 1 and make attacks, saving Blade Song for Round 2. A little dicier for defense/concentration, but gets into better damage more quickly.
Why cant you do that? Reactions are outside of rounds so you can indeed cast a leveled Spell and a second as your reaction. Same as Fireball, enemy Counterspell, your Counterspell in your round.
@@desolate0199 because Fireball is an action, not a bonus action. If you cast a spell with a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast is a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
@@Vergilius314 ah okay, thank you. But this is so weird. I imagine that this got implemented for action economy within your turn. But RAW makes reaction spells more restricted that way.
@@desolate0199 yeah, because it's unusual to be casting a reaction within your turn, so they didn't make the rule with that in mind.
@@desolate0199 I y tt9yt😊😮
Me: "I'm excited for new and interesting class concepts/combinations"
Also me: "WOOOOT, BLADESINGER AGAIN, LETS GOOOO!"
To be fair, a lot of minmaxers avoid multiclassed bladesingers so he's not wrong. Lol
At this point I want a party of bladesingers, each representing a different build from this series 😂
We might need a few different parties to use all of them, even as purely Bladesingers.
An all bladesinger party!? Actually one of the few subclasses that might allow for enough diversity of builds.
those poor, poor BBEGs...
I'd like to see a party of bladesingers of different flavors made by different people.
They can't defeat the A-men
Bladesinger Nova 2.0. One thing I really like about how many bladesingers you've built is that it demonstrates how to tune a build to fit different goals. Can't wait for Bladesinginger 56.0 in DnD 10e.
I imagine this guy shouting, "Flame, Cleanse Me!" and "Flame, Grant Me Strength!" like a lunatic from Elden Ring every time he attacks.
I'm stealing this.
Sword make me awesome
I imagined it as a form of "wild magic"
You go ahead and cast Tensor's Colby, you have no reason to be ashamed. My bladesinger won't and at least one of our wizards will be capable of casting spells.
Ha ha! Im just glad you watched so you could see me laughing at myself 😉
Would be a really cool campaign idea for you two as the only players both playing bladesingers.
O
That would be awesome. ❤
I can see Tenser's Transformation as a Contingency: "If a melee attack actually damages me."
Bladesinger 3.0 (The Flamesinger): D&D #130
Level 1:(see above) [wizard 1 & race]
Level 2:(see above) [wizard 2 & subclass]
Level 3:(@21:07) [wizard 3]
Level 4:(@24:58) [wizard 4 & ASI]
Level 5:(@25:57) [wizard 5]
Level 6:(@28:23) [wizard 6]
Level 7:(see above) [fighter 1 & fighting-style]
Level 8:(@38:14) [fighter 2]
Level 9:(@38:42) [fighter 3 & subclass]
Level 10:(see above) [wizard 7]
Level 11{though Colby says 7}:(@) [wizard 8 & ASI]
Level 12:(@44:19) [wizard 9]
Level 13:(@46:28) [wizard 10]
Level 14:(see above) [wizard 11]
Level 15:(@51:31) [wizard 12 & ASI]
Level 16:(@51:55) [wizard 13]
Level 17:(@52:22) [wizard 14]
you're so helpful !!!!! thank you
I just started playing as a Bladesinger few weeks ago. While our group was out shopping in a town at a blacksmith I summoned my Shadowblade and asked the Blacksmith how much he would give for it. He was willing to pay me 25g for it… when we entered combat later in that session the DM realised why I did that. And said “Well played, I let you cast Booming Blade and Green Flame with your Shadowblade from now on…” since we putt price on the Shadowblade in that campaign 😂
ha ha nice!
Already looking forward to 4.0
You know it's coming
After 3 is 3.5 before you get to 4.0
This means he started pathfinder too soon!
I'm holding out for Bladesinger 3.14.
Looks like it’s coming this week
I have officially been sold on Bladesinger. Wizard has always been my favorite class, but gishes are so cool! Bladesinger is the perfect sort of character. I'll never not click on one of your Bladesinger videos. When you said you were returning to your old ways, I immediately thought, "Custom Lineage," and was instantly proven wrong. Gotta love elven accuracy!
i see bladesinger, i click like
This
I see Colby, I click like
One of us, one of us
This is the Way.
The ink used to pen the Shadow Blade spell into your Spellbook definitely costs more than a silver piece, so GFB and BB should def work with it. 😅
Yes but the spell book isn’t a sword, so what you do is ink the spell onto a sword and then use a dimensional space to put that sword in your spellbook. Big brain plays
@@Smol_EriI mean, technically speaking your spellbook can be in various forms. Who's yo say yours isn't a bag full of stuff you wrote them on in the spur of the moment?
@@piranhaplantX Back then I was half the DM I am now, So these days i've actually just made runesmiths in my game, that allow wizards to carve their spellbook into a sword and just use that as a spellbook. Have a wizard with an adamantine rapier that's also their spellbook and the player loves it.
I will have to pass on the bag of stuff written on them idea to my players, one of them will probably see insperation in that and use it and as a DM I am always excited to enable cool stuff like that.
@@Smol_Eri i played with a guy who’s spell book was a pack of cards as his backstory was “cheap traveling magician turned actual wizard”. Super cool idea
@@thoughts2743 I love when players have ideas like that. One of my players wanted to basically be "genshin impact the wizard" so i allowed them to have a foci that was just a gem in an intricate container to be their "vision" even ended up using it in a storyline about gods and demons. They loved it. I wonder if i should ever tell them I've never played genshin impact and just looked up a 5 minute lore vid XD
MOM Kobold could get Green-Flame Blade as a Charisma-based cantrip, which would reduce the damage taken from this trick. Plus, you could be like,
"Roar, I dragon! Eat fire-ow-ow! Roar!!!"
I think drow could too?
@@k0pstl939 They can cast Dancing Lights as a Charisma-based cantrip, not Green-Flame Blade. A High Elf can choose any cantrip off the Wizard spell list, but will cast it as an Intelligence-based spell, which would result in more damage taken by the character and really isn't much different than casting it as a Bladesinger.
Realistically, Elven Accuracy is probably just too good to pass up, but it's cool to find a synergy where being bad at a cantrip is useful, especially when it's a race trait that's usually pretty weak.
If your charisma modifier is -1 does that mean a charisma-based green-flame blade would do 0 damage before level 5? I believe you have to actually take damage to use absorb elements. This does seem really useful past level 5 though, since its 1d8-1 at level 5, or a 12.5% chance to flub, and 2d8-1 at level 11, which means you always take damage (yay?)
You my good sir, are my absolute favorite D&D content creator.
Between your love of Bladesingers, all things Gish, a voice that puts me to sleep after work (that's a good thing), and a totally normal and healthy obsession with Tensers Transformation (Which is the best spell in the game. I don't care what anyone says), its almost as though we were cut from the same cloth.
I tip my hat to you my friend, keep up the awesome work.
Tenser's Transformation is definitely my favorite Gish spell but I think it's so silly how it grants you heavy armor proficiency since it would take the duration of the spell to don the armor. You can't wear the armor and then cast the spell because you can't cast spells while wearing armor you are not proficient in. Amazing spell and being able to whip out a shield is super helpful. I just find that really silly. But if you ever have a magic suit of plate armor that you can don in an action and it follows you around, it's definitely handy then.
@@sci7zo Artificer Armorer dip?
I'd love a "cuttingroom floor" episode where you go through some of the concepts you tried to build around that never made it into a video, and what issues you encountered trying to make them work, perhaps why they got cut in the first place.
Yes!!! Let's go! I'm only 20 seconds in, "If I were to play in a Bladesinger in a dnd campaign today, this is how I would play it." ~Colby
I'm planning a ( Flame) Bladesinger,.. but hardly a typical one. Rather she'll be a Shadar-Kai in the Shadow Snake tradition of Bladesinging ( the Shadar-Kai school) . The only potential issue is that the SS uses the spiked chain. Please correct me if I'm wrong but TMK there's no 5e official ruling on the SC and since it's not a heavy weapon and you can only use one end of it at a time, the spiked chain should qualify as a Bladesinger weapon, with DM approval. Thoughts welcome!
I wonder, why dont you use the art work as a thumbnail? its really good work. Also, Thanks for this! i have been wanting to play a bladesinger for so long.
I wonder how Randall would feel about that. I think it makes sense to only want his art associated with the "ad" portion for him, but I don't think it would hurt his brand or anything. Might just require more work from Colby and the gang to adapt it to a thumbnail.
Might have to try it one day. Studies seem to indicate that people click on faces more than other stuff. I wish UA-cam allowed for A/B testing :(
@d4: D&D Deep Dive No shade towards you in particular, but it's really disappointing when content creators are forced to dilute their content to appeal to the algorithm gods.
At the end of the day, quality comes from diversity, and it stinks when the feed is flooded with generic thumbnails to farm the maximum engagement.
I will say, I do enjoy the thumbnails that you make minor edits to; little effects that are relevant to the concept you're building. Anyway, love your content!
@@tdarassp I will say, it might be a tad overblown to call not being able to put custom art in the thumbnail diluting content. It's kinda sad, especially since the art is cool, but the content (the video) is near entirely unaffected by it.
@Devin Short I was admittedly speaking in more general terms. As they said, statistics indicate a higher click rate on certain aspects of a thumbnail. This is why you often see so many thumbnails with a wacky facial expression, bit bright letters and a ridiculous/unnecessary arrow.
And while the thumbnail can seem insignificant, most YTers and content creators in general are well aware of how to follow very strict guidelines to maximize clicks and engagement. That's where the diluting comes from
TGIT! Thanks Colby! So excited for this episode. You've pushed your love of the bladesinger on me!
“There’s no song today”
How a singular man destroyed my entire week.
I mean, why else would I watch an hour video without the super rewarding song at the end?!
I promise to try and never let it happen again
My Chronurgy Wizard died last session on level 4 and I want to play Bladesigner as my second character because I want to play Wizard. So you are right on time 👍🏻
in regards to "is tenser's transformation good?" that's actually two different questions. the Colby version of the question is: "is this the best option for what i'm trying to accomplish?" in which case, yeah it might just be. the Chris version of the question is: "is this the best thing i could be doing for the same resource cost?" in which case the answer is probably not. the secret third question is: "is this the most fun and flavorful thing i could be doing?" and that answer varies wildly from person to person, but is realistically the most important
Build almost exactly this build over a year ago as recurring villain. To this day it's my group's most favourite boss fight.
What's interesting, I came up with almost exactly the same time playing element explaining the fire theme. He opened up a fight with "I will baptise you by fire"
They were very scared
You're the kindest human I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Much love, and keep up the great work!
Yay! Bladesinger’s are so much fun- love your D&D builds Colby. Thank you!
My personal ruling for my table is that the first weapon you choose to attack with is the primary weapon, and your bonus action attack must use the second weapon, whether you attacked with your second weapon or not as part of the attack action. So, for this build, if you attack first with the shortsword so you can cantrip-cast, your bonus action attack must be with the shadow blade; so, it still works with the build
lol this is great, I was just building a brand new Bladesinger as a back up characer using your 2.0 guide. I was going to make her a half-elf because our DM gives us set stats to allocate as we want and a free level 1 feat.
I literally pulled this up to look up 2.0 after a year or so and you uploaded a new one an hour ago. Crazy timing dude.
A party member who happens to take Twilight Cleric can give you Temp HP, allowing you to proc Absorb Elements that way without worry for your actual HP. Do with this info what you will.
Excellent idea
Also, the aura is dim light so it's synergistic with Shadow Blade!
I spent a while looking at the Absorb Elements spell for a while and on a Bladesinger it almost feels like a reactionary defensive arcane smite and I like it. This also give me ideas for my Sun Elf I want to build
One of my favorite characters to play is your artificer/blade singer. That one perfectly fit my preferred play style
Having played a straight Bladesinger until 12th lvl, I think the main argument against Shadow Blade is that it uses your concentration and prevents you from casting other awesome concentration spells. Yes, it's worth casting when your highest level spell slots are 2nd lvl, sometimes still when 3rd lvl. After that I really didn't bother preparing it any more.
Thats why i love the tal'dorei homebrewed dual concentration feat. Let's you play with and prep more spells you normally wouldn't due to optimization.
Playing a dhampir soul knife bladesinger, and there's no regrets. Favorite rogue-ish character I've played so far.
Can you give me the build please? That sounds so much fun
Can you give us the Build?
Finally, a way for me to blow up myself along with my enemies after I've run out of fireballs!
Jokes aside, I love this character concept. Thanks for the build!
i got the approval from my dm to use Green Flame Blade with Shadow Blade when my backstory was about finding the blade of a special sword. The sword was broken and I just had the hilt, so when i cast Shadow Blade the shadowy thingy come from the hilt, the hilt is worth 1 gold piece so i can use the cantrips^^
cheesy? a bit but I think its fine :)
I'm glad we've come back to revisit the Bladesinger, because of the noted issues the old builds have, and also because bladesingers are great. The Absorb Elements interaction is cute and fun but I don't think the marginal increase in action economy can ever make a spell slot worth 1d6 damage/slot level, especially since sometimes you would be making an attack of opportunity anyway, plus the value of threatening to cast Counterspell.
Worth noting that acid splash works same as gfb, if you weren’t going bladesinger then evocation works great, your cantrip deals half damage on successful save, dex saves aren’t usually too hard to succeed just would minimize the damage you take while doing extra damage. Or just rogue for evasion, which could make for an extremely awesome build, defensive and offensive and utility. I may honestly do this with my artificer, decent damage bump and rogue is always fun to dip into
28:48 for me, the best extra-attack cantrip is Bladeward, basically doubling our hp from any physical attack
I LOVE Tensors Transformation. I don't care if a little suboptimal vs other options like Animate Object. It is awesome and powerful. Fits this build and theme 100%
I don't think I'd ever upcast Absorb Elements. Absorb at level 1. Mirror image or blur at level 2 slot. 3rd level to go crazy with AOE spells. Fun build, Colby!
Love the Google Docs spreadsheet that you include! Figuring out all the math is a Deep Dive for sure - 🤓 Appreciate all the content!
28:17 Yes, you will also need to make concentration checks if you're concentrating on a spell every time, which bladesinging will help with. Resilient constitution can make your minimum concentration check to be over 10 so should be no worries after that.
This build is absolutely perfect for a Rakdos Cultist in a Ravnica game! It’s got flashy performance, fire, shadows, and plenty of pain to both ourselves and others! Instead of doing damage to yourself to purify, you do it for the sheer love of chaos, spectacle, and violence! I’d probably try to make room for a better CHA score, though.
In my homebrews - other than shadowblade being twinnable if you have two free hands - the description ends in "a shadowblade is worth 1gp, but they're usually not for sale
So it has come full circle! XD I love bladesingers so much, thank you for this, as Bladesinger definitely needed an update since last time.
PS: LOVE your FemShep poster!
For shadowblade bladetrips my DM & i agreed value is subjective and that it was likely *someone* could be convinced that my glowing lightsabre is worth at least 1 sp :3
Wooo! Here we go again! 🎉❤ glad to be home. I’m currently playing a spirit shroud short swords Bladesinger :)
I’ve been watching your videos since the PAMlock and I have to say, I’m really proud of you and your growth since then. You feel a lot more relaxed, your quality in videos has improved significantly, and I can’t wait to see how your channel grows from here. Much love 🖤
AHHHHHH 3.0!! I haven't even watched the video yet but I'm dying to see it!! Great job my brother in Bladesinging!
This is often overlooked but if you take 1 point in genie warlock, and use glyph of warding on the inside of the genie bottle. you can trigger multiple concentrations spells that last until the effect ends. So in my version of this build I use 1 lvl genie warlock and I cast Shadowblade Upcasted as a Glype inside the bottle. Allowing me to basically have a 1 use Lightsaber. Since doing it this way doesn't require concentration you get to stack it with Tensor's Transformation etc. As for why it works, its the same reason that you can glype of warding a chest on a "boat" and not lose the effect. The inside of the Genie bottle doesn't move. Yet is always within x distance of you. Just like the chest on a boat. Food for thought. In my build I also use this to use crusher feet, combined with Eldritch Blast, To launch people into the air, causing fall damage, or to blast em into lava or other dangerous terrain.
Fun spell combos for Bladesinger... 1) Ashardalon's Stride and Steel Wind Strike. 2) Contingency: Greater Invisibility and Steel Wind Strike.
YES FINALLY! Bladesinger 2.0 got me into the subclass, and it has absolutely been my favourite in all my years. Thank you so much for this video!
Been waiting for this. All my builds lately feature some use of Green Flame / Absorb elements “overclocking” with temp hitpoints , shapeshifting or regen to offset it. My favorite is the truly absurd scribes wizard dhampir combo. 🧛♂️
What's absurd about it?
@@ArcanoSilverwind How many spells you can convert to piercing damage via Scribes levels and bake into the bite attack, basically - and then the ludicrous bonuses to your skill checks / attack rolls that result on the following round. It's still only proficiency bonus times per long rest, but man, those moments make you feel like a bloodsucking god. XD
Warning: some DMs would find a way to disqualify it. But IMO d4 videos are best consumed by folks who play at a lenient and / or combo friendly table. Scribes is head & shoulders above other classes in terms of wording on spells that are arguably in the player's favor. (relative to a bunch of class powers, where the bonus dice are technically "extra" / not part of the attack and thus RAW disqualified for the bite.)
I think back in this comment I was talking about using Green Flame, then Absorb Elements to convert the resistance & later outgoing damage to piercing - which is definitely DM's discretion. It depends on which mentions of a "damage type" your table will allow you to apply the Scribes conversion powers to. Mine was shocked & pleased by the combo and wanted to see how far it could go. By a stricter reading, it gets progressively more niche.
But FWIW I did just play this combo up to 13th level with a DM who is a professional systems designer - and the whole green flame cantrip / absorb elements thing was not even close to the most interesting thing that the build enabled.
TBH it's only a tangentially relevant comment on this build, since Colby was leaning into the Bladesinger / cantrip version of Extra Attack. I was just excited.
Dang, I thought the shadow blade was going to be your darkest bladesinger build 😂
A Magus build AND a Bladesinger build back to back? Colby you're spoiling us!
I thought about the offensive part of absorb elements too. Funny enough, the wildfire druids enhanced bond an the artillerist artificers arcane firearm would let you add dice to green flame blade and absorb elements, since absorb elements RAW includes a damage roll. So a Wildfire druid would be able to add additional 2d8 + xd6 for absorb elements with a similar strategy and access to green flame blade.
Alo I can not wait to see a pathfinder build for an eldtrich archer, once you got familiar enough with the system.
I had an absolute monster Eladrin swords bard, hexblade, paladin that, with the concession of my DM, could use blade flourishes on blade cantrips. I could summer fey step in, targeting myself to take the fire damage to proc AA, then booming blade, blade flourish, smite, and Absorb Elements. It was glorious.
The main use for Song of Defense in my experience is to help maintain concentration on an important spell in case of massive damage that can't be reduced or avoided otherwise. Bring the damage from that instance down to 21, and the Concentration Check DC is 10.
Shadar Kai make kickass bladesingers - 3 free misty steps a day is to die for!
Thanks for the excellent build Colby! Your ideas have been so instrumental to helping me not only build effective characters, but also keep with strong theming that makes RP as fun as combat.
Hey Colby, i didn't realize you were in 4k! That explains why you're lighting was so bright and epic!
Also, TT for the win! Totally a great way to flavor a power rangers/superhero/salior moon transformation to a character!
Hold on, let me take 6 seconds to get into my superhero suit. Mage armor, blade song, AS, TT😂
Pro tip: as per the spell, you can "drop" the shadow blade and it instantly returns to your hand at the end of your turn (or something like that). There is no discernable downside to dropping the shadow blade from my reading of the spell (which, admittedly, I do not have in front of me)
It's a bonus action to summon it back :)
@@DnDDeepDive well, crabnuggets! I guess you got the PRO pro tip..
I'm having great success with a similar build, my go to nova is bladesong -> greater invisibility -> action surge -> steel wind strike. With elven accuracy this gets pretty nuts so long as you have targets. Highly recommend greater invisibility on elven accuracy bladesingers.
This video is an absolute masterpiece. The build itself, the solid arguments, the realistic expectations, the cheeky use of the old intro music
LOVE IT 🥳👌
Cheers!
This was a great idea, nice job Coby, also Pseudo Flame Smite.
IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! I have waited so long for this!
Well done for your Colby Award 😄
I love bladesingerand I think that 6 bladesinger with 3 gloomstalker ranger using summon fey for their darkness is a fun idea when using crossbow expert and sharpshooter is a fun combo.
Shadow blade costs 100gp to be written into your wizard spell book. As a DM I allow it to work with booming blade or green flame blade just for that fact.
Colby, U Sir, Are A
Bladesinger GOD !!!
In defense of Tenser’s Transformation (and as a partial counter-point to Treantmonk’s criticisms of it): as a DM, I consider it required to make high level adventures hard enough to make the players ration their shield spells, or run out quite quickly. His argument that “I’d rather be able to throw shield than have 50 temp hp” only works when you have low level spell slots to burn. Additionally, wizards in 5e struggle to be effective against Big Boss Monsters that they can’t control or debuff effectively. Having a good damage option is useful for those fights. I ran for a Scribes wizard who took Tenser’s Transformation without telling anyone, and in a huge climactic battle, when he was (almost) out of spell slots and cornered by a big bad, threw Tenser’s and went toe-to-toe with it with his Staff of Power for 3 rounds, until someone could help him. It was awesome and everyone at the table loved it.
yesss. i am about to play in a campaign next week and I am making a bladesinger. thank you for this.
A really cool idea for a bladesinger. Play a Thri-kreen, use tiny hands for drual wielding then main hands to cast spell (no need for warcaster and auto studded leather AC)
Old opening music is back! THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC!
For my Bladesinger, I almost always consider the Eldritch Adept feat with Armor of Shadows a worthwhile investment.
Edit: My workaround for the Shadow Blade/SCAGtrips conundrum: Obviously, you create a scroll of Shadow Blade, then cast it from the scroll. The scroll definitely has a value above 1 SP.
I guess I'm better late than never. I'm here for Bladesinger 3.0! Speaking of 3.0, all I can think of is the Rule of Three, and all the ways in which it applies here.
Until next Tuesday!
I think the 4k quality shows! Your sound is great also. Love the new space!
Good job, that's a creative build, thank you! Oh and definitely do get the DScribe flavor text inscribed. They are always good. But this one rocks 🤘
I'm gonna make my first bladesinger with this guide THANK YOU SO MUCH
Video quality looked great!!! Alignment for Art on the wall was spot on! Thanks as always!
Hey Colby, long time watcher, 1st time commenter
Not to add to your ever growing list, but I built something ridiculous, and I need to this particular community about it.
Rules for duplicate spell effects say that only the highest level effect is active. So if you have a level 1 Bless and a level 2 Bless, only the level 2 takes effect. If it gets dispelled, the lvl 1 takes over.
.......This applies to Armor of Agathys as well....
So to keep it brief, my Wild Magic Sorcerer (equipped with a Feywild Shard and a Staff of Power) put himself in the bubble form of Wall of Force, spam cast Armor of Agathys (transmuting the damage type each time, thus activating the Shard). Every time I got hit, they took damage, and if it crossed a threshold, my DM ruled that they took the dmg from the lesser spell as well.
I call this bombastic atrocity "Poor Man's Prismatic Armor"
To anyone that reads this whole thing, bless you for indulging a min/maxer's ramblings
This is amazing! And perfect for me, my main character at the moment is a bladesinger who is overly self-critical, severely lacking in self-preservation instinct, and one level away from that sweet sweet level 6. This is perfect, I will definitely have to take notes 😂
I absolutely love these build videos. This channel has quickly become one of my favorite corners of the internet.
A pedantic detail worth considering: does a weapon attack made as part of a cantrip count for two weapon fighting? It could be interpreted that when using shadow blade and extra attack, you have not attacked with your shortsword. You've cast a cantrip with your shortsword as a material component and attacked with your shadow blade, meaning you could only attack with your shortsword as a bonus action per two-weapon fighting. At my table, I'd accept your interpretation, but it could be worth discussing with the DM before using this particular tactic.
This build gets really nutty but man it sounds silly! Wonderful build again Kolby!
POV: You’re haven’t watched a vid in some months and came back with a new office and better graphics and you’re glad that you still supported the channel
You bring an interesting idea to mind, the Fade Away feat requires damage dealt, so you could use green flame blade to guarantee invisibility for a turn per short rest, this could lead to a gnome rogue that disappears in a plume of flame, just to backstab you.
Colby and Science. All about could'a, not about should'a. Seriously, though, fun build! Love using Absorb Elements offensively. You're like the Jackie Chan of theory crafters for 5e.
OMG Colby, my bladesinger in the weekly game I play just took a lvl 7 dip into fighter. She uses a Rapier in one hand, and took dueling as her fighting style. She is going to at least lvl 3 to get Echo Knights which will be flavoured as shades. We play flanking gives advantage at our table, and have come to the decision that an echo provides flanking. So my bladesinger uses her concentration spell on Haste, and makes 4 blade attacks each turn (cantrip, blade, haste blade, unleash incarnate) all at advantage (triple roll due to elven accuracy) due to flanking with her echo... she is going to DPS the shit out of anyone hahahah
The hard part for me is deciding whether i go back to wizard after the three levels or push through to level 6 fighter and sacrifice higher level spells in order to gain additional ASI hahah
Love the Bladesinger build! I'd like to see some oddball stuff that doesn't necessarily make it onto the charts for sustained or burst damage, but contributes in some other meaningful way. Or maybe some kind of thematic character that normally wouldn't put up good numbers. I'll be honest though, it doesn't really matter what the build is, because it's cool just to see your breakdowns and ideas come to life. Thanks for all the cool videos Colby.
Thanks Colby. I love pretty much all of your builds, but above all, I love your bladesinger builds, and above even all of those, I love this one ! The idea of turning your GFB dmg on yourself is something I'd never thought of, it's bonkers, and I love it so much.
BUT ... while you've built this one for Nova dmg, and so hence report on it's nova scores, I really REALLY wish you had also reported it's sustained DPR numbers. B/c even tho you kept saying how good they were, and it's a bladesinger, so they're going to be good, every time you did a damage report I just really wanted to know how good the sustained DPR was too !
Not sure if you could just add the numbers in a comment or something, but I'd love to see them !
Anyway, awesome work as always 🙂
Started playing my first bladesinger recently.
Gotta be honest I'm mainly sticking with control spells and having melee attacks as a fallback but I still love these builds, exploring what's technically possible, even if it's not always the best option
So I'm a lvl2 Artificer with Tough and magic initiate. I'm going one more to get Armour Guardian. Then 2 Daolock, and 6 Bladesinger. I know it won't be "optimized" but the tanking and enemy movement really sounds fun.
Grasp of Hader, then Thunder gauntlets.
Wall of force is 100% my favorite spell. But not just because it’s super strong. I was playing a clockwork soul sorcerer in a campaign and me and my barbarian had a move that we called the playpen. Basically I would trap one enemy in a wall of force with him and him alone and they were just work out their differences
I built a bladesinger who I named Ronnie James, the Neon Knight (a tribute to the late and great Ronnie James Dio).
He is a Paladin 2, Bladesinger 6 (currently) and is a blast to play. Admittedly, I rolled pretty well on stats, and managed to start with 13/16/14/16/8/13 (after racials with variant human). I think this is one of the most MAD builds I've ever built, but it works, barely.
I started with paladin, and just played as a smiting two weapon fighting machine for the first 7 levels or so, and the wait for extra attack until level 8 didn't matter much (the off hand attacks being able to smite means that they can hit harder than a normal main hand attack would anyway). At 8th level I finally got extra attack and the build is fun as hell.
I play him as a heavy metal singer, use mage armor to summon neon ethereal armor, use the light spell on his sword to give off rainbow light, and he has a gem of brightness to give off EVEN MORE rainbow light. The light is honestly anti-synergy with Shadow Blade, but who cares I'M THE NEON KNIGHT.
I know I've mentioned the idea before but because I still like it and it's half way relevant I'm going to suggest my current favorite GISH build concept, that being a Lore Bard/Tempest Cleric build around the spell lighting arrow and role playing as a herald of Zeus. The spell can be taken via lore bards magical secrets and on a full caster actually scales into some rather nice AOE nova damage and tempest cleric can not just ramp that a lot but also works perfectly with the Zeus aesthetic/theme. For even better nova, fighter action surge would let you on one turn bonus action lightning arrow, next turn attack triggering the spell then cast lightning arrow before action surging for another lightning arrow powered attack...
Colby, we need more merch on your Etsy store. It's too hot where I live for sweatshirts. How about a t-shirt or tank top?
The video quality is great Colby 👍🙂 and thanks for the video !
Roving gangs of bladesingers from DesMoines, Iowa… always a potential hazard!
I’m playing a Githyanki (the OG gish) Bladesinger 2.0 now, and am lvl 5. Very excited because my character concept and leveling plan is exactly what you laid out! So nice to hear I wasn’t being dumb by planning to go tighter.
I have a party member who likes to cast firewall, and my DM won’t let me dive through it with Absorb Elements and deal the extra damage on the same turn. RAW says “on your next turn”. I’m so sad she won’t let me do it! But it’s okay. I just have to wait an extra round.
Going to Garycon this weekend and excited to try something like this out