As a DM I will definitely occasionally catch my Barbarian in a Stun, Para, or Incapacitation. So for moments like that versus monsters and enemies with good CC it's very valuable. Sure you still get stunned, but at least you still have some damage resistance and you keep your bonus action when you're back in
I recently made a barbarian that had slasher and a whip. With a single attack, after 9th level, they can reduce in enemy speed by 35 ft with a single hit. Then, if you have shield Master feat, you can also knock them prone right after. Then, on their turn, they will have no movement to get up from prone. For the following rounds as you just keep reducing their movement to zero and they'll never be able to get up.
@@strawbellebelle do you think that no DM wants to play with Casters who use Wall of Force? This is much less powerful than that. Don't forget that he needs to land everything for it to work. If you only want casters to have control options you can keep playing 2014, that's fine.
@@strawbellebellethis is easily broken free from with teleports and the like. Or stunning the barb which they tend to be weak too, etc.. this is just the newest version of old grapple cheese.
One big thing about persistent rage that was washed over: incapacitation alone doesn’t end your rage; only being unconscious does. Plus you no longer need to use a bonus action to sustain it. The big thing here is that rage continues even if you get controlled and can’t take actions (such as with a hold person spell), and you’ll retain your damage reduction and all other defensive benefits of your rage.
One benefit of persistent rage is that with your bonus action free outside of combat you can use it for something else. Like the World Tree Barbarian wouldn't be able to use their teleport out of combat if they needed to use their bonus action to continue maintaining their rage (so at 14th lvl you can't use it out of combat without ending your rage, but at 15th and later you can use it all the time). It also just opens up a lot of other neat features too, like a Wild Heart barb could use Eagle to dash as both action & bonus action for a lot of movement when needed and normally that would end the rage, but with Persistent Rage they'll keep it going (granted that's a niche use case, but its still nice)
Yea that's true, you can enter it outside of combat and it's potentially a bit better than before for when you want to use your BA and Action to not attack.
One thing i think should be noted is these types of effects should likely get an improved CPR with the changes to how spells work triggering at the end of an enemies turn, and when entering these effects are incredibly potent at ensuring the reliability of allies. Also quality selection on the shelves behind you.
@@insertname5371 you mean reducing enemy movement speed is more likely to play well with the new ones? that's true. I will probably be editing CPR at some point with the new rules, but too much to work on right now haha. Glad to see someone else has similar taste in books haha!
Your Brutal Strike calculations seemed off, so I checked the spreadsheet, and it seems your parameters are incorrect. You use an attack bonus of 8 - presumably 18 Str + 4 proficiency bonus at level 9. This is fine. Your dice damage with Brutal Strike is 12 - presumably 6.5 from the 1d12 weapon + 5.5 from the 1d10 Brutal Strike dice. This is fine. Your dice damage without Brutal Strike is 7.5. This should be 6.5 from the 1d12 weapon. Your flat damage for both columns is 6. The descriptive text says this should be 7 - 4 from 18 Str + 3 from Rage. Correcting for these, rather than No Brutal Strike starting to pull ahead at AC 16, they should be essentially tied at AC 17 (12 vs 11.97), and No Brutal Strike only starts to pull ahead at AC 18 (11.05 vs 11.4). The difference only becomes large enough for me to really even consider not using Brutal Strike for its secondary effects at AC 20 (9.15 vs 10.05).
Whoa, impressive find. I have made an updated version in the spreadsheet next to the original. The numbers aren't really that different, but slightly changed. Thanks!
Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14XDEsRPBnSahPNvBm5OpAqGJT5x3Ko6LuE_mtECJaD4/edit?usp=sharing Weapon Masteries 101: ua-cam.com/video/sVeen_1nqbw/v-deo.html Control Per Round video: ua-cam.com/video/_sRxkYY6x90/v-deo.html Combat Space (% damage of deadly encounter): ua-cam.com/video/h-h7fKcnVCI/v-deo.html
@@DndUnoptimized yea for sure! Just a light jab :p Loved the video either way! Would love to see you add subclass on top of this. Even without cleave, the new berserker’s DPR is huge!
Topple isn't good for the Barbarian in isolation, but it can be good to set up your friends to also have Advantage against the fallen foe. That's probably not usually better than the alternatives, but it can be with the right party composition.
For sure! If you have people to profit off topple then you can definitely do that. Get your TWF Valor Bard with Conjure Minor Elementals some advantage!
Thanks for the video, I look forward to one about the paladin, I keep reading about how many players are unahppy with the smite changes and I'm interesed in seeing if the class was actually nerfed and by how much. I thought that some of the design changes for 2024 were intended to reduce the burst damage of most classes in order to make easier for DMs to plan encounters. I'm all for it: same/higher dpr on average, but lower maximum potential (examples: the once per round GWM/ Smite/ Hex, nerf to the Gloomstalker's Dread ambusher, even Sneak Attack was limited to once per round in the playtest) means no longer risking the wild swings that a player could bring by going full nova. My problem is that it's hard to measure dpr when the player has to choose when to smite and with which slot during the whole adventuring day. I remember Treantmonk's video on playtest 6 where to calculate the new paladin's dpr he decided to only using smite on a crit and always with a 2nd lv slot (his build was at lv 13, so 3rd and 4th slots were available). In the end it was below the other classes, but still above baseline. It felt to me like he generalized too much. I though about it and I think that we could use some different metrics, and now I am very interested in how classes old and new compare on these dpr scales: -"Nova potential" 1 round with all resources available (fresh from a long rest) -"all out encounter" 4 rounds with all resources available (fresh from a long rest) -"avearge encounter w/short rest" 2-4 turns with 1/n_th of long rest resources availabe (fresh from short rest, with n encounters expected between long rests). -"avearge encounter w/o short rest" same as above but without short rest. -"minimum + short rest" only using the resources that you can get back on a SR. -"minimum" no resources used. "Nova potential" is just the most damage the build can do in a single turn, the players can't sustain it for long, but DMs have to make sure their BBEG is still alive and can run away after this round if they ever want to have a recourring villain. I feel like this would measure how busted the 2014 paladin was compared to everyone else: Here we would have a triple smite on attack + extra attack + Polearm master bonus attack with their higest slots. "All out encounter" would be where we can see setup and long duration spells shine, if you're a DM that runs oneshots or short adventuring days this is what you need to use to balance your fights. Probably lower than 4*(Nova), but by how much depends on how many resources the build has to consume to keep it up. Here a paladin would keep smiting on every attack until out of slots, starting from the biggest. "Average encouner" is a way to show if a build can still contribute all the way until the next long rest. So our paladin will smite a limited number of times, probably with smaller slots, depeinding on n. This metric would tell us how big the martial-caster divide is in the "intended" way to play. Considering how most spellcaster are long rest dependent while martial are short rest focused. I always read how the reccomended number n is 6-8 and have never heard of anyone actually reaching that many. How big does n actually need to be for casters to be brough down to the same level of martials? "Minimum" is there the bottom baseline for the build, once you expend all your resources this is how much dpr you'll be doing. I expect most builds to flatten out to this level after a few rounds of combat, at least at low level when resources are more scarce. Comparing this to the other metrics could show how short or long rest dependent a character is. I expect paladins to have a high delta, while rogues, being resourceless, probably have the same dpr on almost every metric.
Thanks! I'll be interested in doing the ranger and paladin analysis since they are so controversial. I kind of like the smite changes honestly, but I know a ton of people hate them, so maybe I'll see why when I get down to the nitty gritties. Those metrics would certainly be interesting. I don't know what I have the time to go through all of them unfortunately, but I'll keep it in my back pocket to think about!
Hi, awesome video! You gained a new subscriber. When you do the ranger, or in a future ranger build video, could you include a Str build too? Obviously the two weapon fighting dex ranger is the go to option because of the sinergy with hunter's mark, but i think a halberd "semi-tank" hunter ranger with though or alert, cleave, GWM and Sentinel (or PAM) could be super viable, considering their "break the horde" feature and their "anti multiattack" defensive feature at lvl 7. The only problem is the bonus action clog but i think the extra control is worth it.
Welcome aboard! For this series I will probably be doing the base classes first, so no Hunter, but I'll put this idea in the backlog for builds. Or I can look into it when I do Ranger subclasses. Thanks for the idea!
I noticed some minor errors in the vid but one important error was Sundering Blow + Advantage is not possible. When you use Brutal Strike, you're giving up "any" Advantage on your turn that you might gain not just Advantage from Recklass Attack. You cannot gain Advantage from another source either, such as Flanking or them being Prone or Stunned. And that is a loss of Advantage on all attacks that turn.
"you can forgo any Advantage on ONE Strength-based attack roll of your choice on your turn" Seems pretty clear to me you give up advantage on one attack, so you keep advantage on other attacks
Thanks for this. I have done the damage thing for a few martial builds and most do get becalmed around 12 level which might bother me more if I ever played above 12 level. I expect the Combat Mastery Epic Boon will give more damage then the one you picked (assuming you are not facing resistant enemies). It means for one thing that your Brutal Strike always hits mitigating the downside. The Berserker does add a lot of damage and not much else while the other barbarians are stronger in other ways which seems like a good design principle. I'm off go & watch your other guides now.
I did the analysis for the epic boon they suggested for barbarians, but maybe I should list some other options that might be good for next time. I'm sure a lot of other ones might work out better! Yes, pretty much every martial slows down their damage gains after 11, which is unfortunate because then multiclassing becomes so much more appealing. Hope you enjoy the other videos! Thanks for watching
Great stuff! I've never been interested in Barbarian (except Path of the Giant maybe), but this looks like it could provide many more meaningful choice and tactics in play! Love the CPR putting some things into context.
19:25 at 11th lvl I expect to have +4 prof. (9th lvl) And +3 Con (2nd best barb stat), so it would be +7, not mentioning someone could take +2 CON instead of Tough feat
Really good video. My only comment is on comparing damage for 2024 vs 2014. I feel that a player would be much more likely to take polearm master in 2014 over slasher (even for new players its a common suggestion online) and it synergises with GWM, which it no longer does in 2024. Appreciate its less control, but martials weren't known for control before. I dont know the math, but if we use the lower cleave % i would imagine this closes the damage gap. The bonus action GWM attack chance seems slightly high too, at my table the barbarian is usually gitting big things and the casters fireball the groups of weaker enemies.
Thanks! I feel PAM is even more likely in 2024 actually, especially with halberd since you can cleave so much more. Why does GWM not synergize with PAM now? It still gives Prof bonus per attack on your turn, so you get that with the haft attack too. I did Greataxe for the "stereotypical" barbarian, and I took slasher because of odd Str score which PAM wouldn't increase in 2014. I think players are pretty likely to try to max Str. Maybe my extra attacks from cleave are too high, but its the same for 2014 and 2024, so that shouldn't make a difference at least.
@@DndUnoptimized GWM doesn't synergise now because it's during the attack action that the bonus is applied, which means it doesn't apply to the bonus action strike. Some good points though, thanks for the reply. I'll have to crack out a damage calculator and see how it all shakes out.
I’m interested to know if all the classes increase their damage output over their 2014 version. When you are done it would be good to know the kind of damage increases for a party of 4-5 with a mix of classes with to compare against any HP increases the monsters in the MM end up getting (if any) The claim is the monsters will better match their CRs but it might be that rather than increasing HP the monsters damage output or resilience is increased instead. A few monster comparisons would be good to see in the new year. PS - Thank you for your suggestion on keeping the option of using different weapon mastery properties without the absurdity of weapon juggling. With a few caveats I think it will work. I intend to give it a try anyway.
Yea that will definitely be something I will be looking at once the new MM comes out! Depending on what things they add to monsters it might get difficult to correctly gauge their buffs, but hopefully I can find a good way to do it! Thanks for watching, you are one of my oldest viewers.
22:34 this is where you are just incorrect imo, high level barbarians have *plenty* of ways to spend their rage for additional effects either in or out of combat by level 15 Berserker 14, Bonus action: spend 1 rage; 30ft emanation fear, 1 minute Wild heart 14, Power of the wilds, Falcon, out of combat, 40ft fly speed with bonus action dashes for 10 minutes, with 5 rages you could fly for 50-60 minutes then have everything back when you start combat, and you no longer need to spend that bonus action to maintain rage, so you could dash out of combat for effectively a 80ft fly speed World Tree 14, Travel along the tree: gives you bonus action teleports each turn so long as rage is up, but if you have to spend a bonus action to maintain rage each turn, so you have an out of combat 60ft teleport per turn, similar to flying regarding it's utility, and teleporting no longer ends your rage by not attacking Zealot 14, this feature is a little scuffed but you can use all of your rages in 1 combat keeping your allies from dying as a reaction you expend a rage to save them one rage per day, So you see, literally every single barbarian subclass in the phb gets big upgrade at level 15, because at level 14 their subclass lets them do something else in or out of combat by spamming rage, and remember you can't use both a bonus action to maintain rage, *and* a bonus action granted by your subclass, in the same turn, so those features up until level 15 only worked in combat where you can attack or grapple enemies to maintain it while using a different bonus action Also, as mentioned elsewhere, persistent rage also means getting stunned, put to sleep, paralysed, petrified, hurled through hell, etc, no longer ends your rage
@@DndUnoptimized yep, you mentioned that some subclasses have a bit of use for rages, the enphasis should be literally all subclasses from now on will get a 14th level feature that makes extra rages a really great feature in or out of combat
I'm looking fwd to this series, it's a good idea. (I think your barb build will be utterly shut down by Wis and Cha saves -- unless maybe you're planning on a gnome?) I also think you should comment on the mechanical relevance of the class in the 2024 meta. (e.g. Barbaians are no longer a relevant class to play because reckless attack is less important, rage remains limited, The need for decent dex + Str both is awkward. -- at this point both fighters and Paladins are much better classes.)
Yes that's a good point. I often provide the probability that you'll fail a wisdom save. That could be an interesting one to add into the video. Thanks! As for the current meta for the game, it's an interesting idea. I don't know that I want to dive too deep into that territory. Hopefully people can see what a class offers and decide if they would like to play it.
Took a look at your spread sheets, because I can't see how you actually did the calculations, I do not know every assumption you made, though I did notice the flat dpr of both 2024 and 2014 at level 9 is higher than level 10 and 11, is this a typo perhaps? Cause I find it very strange looking at final graph for barbarian 2014 to have a massive dpr spike at lvl 9. Also, I understand why you chose great axe, but maybe wizards balanced it against PAM. In this case, graze, additional rage damage, and new GWM scaling will make the new barbarian scale a bit more linearly at higher levels.
Thanks for taking the time to peruse the spreadsheet. I'm sure I could do a lot to make it easier to read and understand. I'd appreciate any feedback. You have a great question. It's all because of to hit chance being based on average monster AC. If you follow normal progression, you have a 65% chance to hit at almost every level, but there are some that actually end up as 70%, so the actual output ends up with a weird bump there. Some people use 65% regardless of hit bonus. Maybe I should change the ACs at those levels slightly to make it 65% under all normal circumstances and prevent weird bumps.
It's a good point I should have mentioned in the video. I showed that table in the video about how likely you are to get back up and make the save, but I didn't add it into survivability because I wasn't sure the best way to do it considering it was so variable. I think if I did it as a percentage of how likely you were to survive for an additional round, then I could add that in, it would make sense.
@@justink4051 nice! I'll try to do some calculations of it perhaps and see if I can come up with something that makes sense and I might add a note updating it. Thanks for sharing your playtest experience!
@@DndUnoptimized my favorite version of this is actually a took silvery barbs and managed to convince my DM to let me use fey touched to grab vortex warp. It was a blast
@@DndUnoptimized I'm about to get the chance to play a build called the dark rider that's an Oathbreaker Paladin with a 1 lvl order domain dip so that when the paladin casts spells on themselves my find steed can make a reaction attack, I really hope I get to cast shield and have my mount kill my attacker lol. Sadly this won't work in the 2024 book :(. However I think it would work with the beast master ranger, food for thought
Awesome Video! But I find using Cleave consistently will be... well, it's not very consistent. If your DM is always grouping enemies together, yeah Cleave will boost damage alot, but if you are facing solo monsters more often, or spread out enemies. Cleave does nothing. I appreciate the damage comparison, but I don't see it being super accurate. If you have focused on somthing like TwoWeapon Fighting /Single target damage it would be alot more accurate.
Given the amount of forced movement you can pull off as a barbarian, it seems pretty likely you'll get to cleave regularly, but you are right, it is going to be table dependent. TWF will be better against single targets, but I just went with the "Stereotypical" Barbarian, which if you are going to do broad strokes of the class I think you have to do. This is in no way an optimized build, but is meant to give some rough idea. What do you think the stereotypical Fighter is? I'm trying to decide that for the next video. Sword and board?
@DndUnoptimized unfortunately I feel like GWM and PAM 2014 feats have made the "stereotype" for most fighters be heavy pole Weapon users. Or Crossbow/Long Bow if it's ranged build. I really like the idea of Sword and the board being the typical fighter archetype. And I think it would be a very cool comparison, I think you can do good damage now with Sword and Board with Weapon Mastery and Feats like Sheild Master. It's a lot more work, but you could compare multiple builds. Typical ranged build and a typical melee build. Either way, I look forward to checking out what you put out next!
@@DndUnoptimizedI think sword and board might be better for the paladin. The stereotypical knight in shining armor. Pole arm is probably better for fighter and that was the meta for 2014 rules, so it makes a good comparison.
i feel like, after the serie is done, you could do a vid that compares Fighter Monk Barb and Pali in 2024. Maybe even Ranger... but i do not like it lol which could give us an idea about how they stand to eachother, damage wise at least
Yea I definitely plan on doing some general comparison between all martials and then the martial vs casters too. It'll probably take me a while to get there though haha
19:27 i dont think this graph takes into account the fact youre still raging, which will give you some resistance to damage from the monsters, making their damage less likely to kill you. This is especially prominent if youre something like the wildheart barbarian, who chose the bear totem after a long rest, giving resistance to almost all damage the enemies would do
@@mrinfinity5557 so actually you made me double check my math and I realized I was doing immunity to BPS for this table instead of resistance! So the damage you take will actually be more than what is shown there in the table. Whoops. Thanks for that. Unfortunately I think it's the opposite of what you were going for.
Topple benefits barbarians by giving them the option to take less damage. Topple is a defensive mastery on barbarians. This is especially important for combats where you are not raging. A barbarian cannot rage every combat in a day if there's even 3 combats. Any more and they're only raging on half of them. Giving all of your enemies advantage, especially when there are many, is not always a good idea. Making your first attack topple, can stand in for reckless attacks when you aren't raging and want to take less damage.
@@DndUnoptimized not just the speed. I'm saying you can more comfortably turn off reckless attacks to save yourself some Hit Points if you use the topple mastery to stand in for your advantage
I see, you mean topple first then the rest of your attacks will be at advantage so you can turn off reckless attack? That's a possible strategy, if you seriously can't rage and need to be conservative about HP. With the new rage rules, I think you'll have rage pretty much every fight, but it's definitely campaign dependent.
@@DndUnoptimized fair, it's 2014 rn that's keeping me wary of spending rage. I always run out by the dungeons completion, and there's always more combats than rages in a dungeon so far. I guess keeping a rage going could help with this
Can you do multi-attack with brutal strike? I thought you could do brutal strike twice per action, giving you 2d12+2d10+mods on each attack If you can only brutal strike once per round, that heavily nerfs the damage. An extra d10 once per round is mediocre, especially compared to something like paladin's improved divine smite which is an extra d8 on every attack.
The way I read the rules, it seems like only one brutal strike on your turn. And yes, it doesn't really boost your damage output, it's almost entirely control, but with the damage boost to make it feel better. It's close to divine smite in many ways, but feels more in line with Barbarian flavour. Smites are certainly better for damage, and the other smite spells will have decent control too, but Barbarians can do it all day every turn, and that's pretty significant. I'll have to dive into Paladins to see how I feel about their new smites, but so far, I don't hate it honestly. I know a lot of people do. Edit: I misread your post, you are taking about their level 11 feature to add damage to each attack. Yes, that one is better for damage to be sure!
@@DndUnoptimized no, thats actually a misunderstanding about thinking you misunderstood me. I thought you could add the extra damage (1d10) to every attack from a barbarian, like from extra attack. But you would only get the one manuever from those two attacks. So with something like great weapon master and a +2 great axe at level 9, you would do 1d12+1d10+5+4+3+2. (Strength mod, gwm, rage, weapon enchantment, in that order) And you would do that damage twice, including the 1d10 from brutal strike. If you only do the 1d10 once a turn, wouldn't it be better to attack recklessly for the first attack, then do a brutal strike for the extra attack, so you have advantage on at least one of your two attacks?
I see, because reckless attack has to start from the first attack on the turn? It will still work to Brutal Strike first because you are still reckless attacking, you just aren't gaining any benefit from it for that one attack. Is what what you mean?
@@DndUnoptimized now i think im having a misunderstanding. I thought when you did brutal strike, you forgo advantage for your other attacks. Which would have been changed because all attacks have advantage, your first and second and opportunity attacks. Honestly that does actually make me wonder if you changed the graph due to reckless attack. I feel like between levels 5-8, barbarian should have gotten a different line than 2014 barbarian, since both attacks from your attack action should have advantage. But to clarify: previously, i thought you could do brutal strike more than once when you did the attack option. Youd ard the bonus damage from brutal strike to both attacks. I just thought that you could only do one manuever or effect from it. Second thing to clarify, i thought that it you did brutal strike, all other attacks would lose Advantage from reckless attack through the round, so i thought attacking with reckless attack first would be optimal since you still have one instance of advantage. It seems i may have been wrong with that.
This is quite the convoluted back and forth. You can Brutal Strike once on your turn, you must be reckless attacking, BUT you give up the advantage on the ONE attack you get from brutal strike. Other attacks are unaffected and still have advantage and are not brutal strikes.
I think you have a mistake on 26:37. You deal extra damage on a critical hit equal to the ability score(not mod) increased by this feat. So on lvl 19 once you crit you deal extra 21 damage
I think I said that exact thing a couple seconds back. Its just that our crit chance is low, so adding 21 damage on the crits doesn't actually increase our DPR by that much.
I really think the weapon swap mechanics need an errata. There is no way that swapping between weapons should speed up the rate that you attack. It’s so gimmicky. Personally I will not be allowing this abuse of the poorly written rules at my table and am going to push for limitations at my game store league.
I'm not a fan of it as an idea, but I do really like the fun it brings and cool stuff martials can now do with it. It does seem like it is intended by the game designers, but of course you can run your table however works for you. I might just let martials use whatever mastery on whatever weapon so they can get the control and options they want without it being all swappy swap. (With limitations, like vex and Nick have to be light weapons, cleave/graze have to be heavy, stuff like that)
Brutal critical could've been devastating if you got a 19-20 crit at 9th lvl, 18-19-20 13th lvl and at 17th lvl make normal hits or miss become critical once per rage or so, or rerolling 1 attack per turn
Very true. I think it's because it's not under your control. In 2014 if you force someone to make a save, you are hoping that the enemy attacks you AND deals damage so you can stay in rage. Now, the circumstances to maintain it are under your control.
You mean rage perception and stealth you don't like, but intimidation and the other skills you think fit? I think perception and stealth are iconic predator skills, so it makes sense to me.
@@DndUnoptimizedYes, but I can't really see how xould anyone use strength to stealrh. Maybe I could see getting expert in those skills for the duration, or getting some flat bonus
Danger sense is pretty good if you take a 2 level barb dip on a shield master fighter If you want to play a full full tank, using a reaction to nullify damage from a dex save seems pretty nice, and using rage to reduce everything that is non-magical is great Also fighters get a great 10th level feature for making saves But, if you just went barbarian, you can absolutely go shield and sword for both sap and a shield, personally I think shields are alot more viable in general due to shield master
Yea shield master is pretty good, but the reaction still isn't that great in my mind unless you have a really good dex save. I'll have to run the numbers though to see for sure. Fighters are fantastic at saves now! I love that feature now.
@@DndUnoptimized with resilient dexterity and advantage on the save from danger sense, you will do pretty well Fighters don't need resilient dexterity because their 10th level feature just lets them auto succeed a save I think straight valor bards could be good with shield master as they often use shields anyway and have dex save proficiency
@nyanbrox5418 yea for sure if you pick up resilient Dex then shield master will be great on the Barbarian! That is dedicating a lot of feats to defense at that point, but it could be worth it.
I really like the improvements to Rage and Stealth. Nice analysis
Thanks! Yea I like that they have out of combat utility now
Actually there is an extra little nugget on persistent rage and it is that you wont lose your rage if stunned or paralyzed.
@@ricardocucalon5349 very true! Nice catch
As a DM I will definitely occasionally catch my Barbarian in a Stun, Para, or Incapacitation. So for moments like that versus monsters and enemies with good CC it's very valuable. Sure you still get stunned, but at least you still have some damage resistance and you keep your bonus action when you're back in
Yesss, looking forward to Class vids. I would love videos covering all the subclasses as well. Your analysis of this game is always top notch. Cheers.
Thanks! Always appreciate it! Subclasses will be a while coming, but I'm excited to get to them too.
I like your analysis and delivery style. Will look for more of your videos, thanks.
Thank you! Hope the other ones are to your taste
Great video! I really like your approach to comparing 2014 and 2024! Keep it coming!!!! 🤩
this channel deserves more views
Nice informative video.
Thank you UA-cam suggestions!
Subscribed my man ❤
Thanks and welcome aboard!
Just found your channel. Good info, good vid.
@@Blaidd101 thanks! I appreciate the kindness
I recently made a barbarian that had slasher and a whip. With a single attack, after 9th level, they can reduce in enemy speed by 35 ft with a single hit. Then, if you have shield Master feat, you can also knock them prone right after. Then, on their turn, they will have no movement to get up from prone. For the following rounds as you just keep reducing their movement to zero and they'll never be able to get up.
Oh man. That sounds killer! I love it, that's the kind of control I want to see!
chain whip barbarian incoming, kratos style
@@strawbellebelle That's interesting, because I play in seven different games. And I mesh well with every DM and every player that I play with.
@@strawbellebelle do you think that no DM wants to play with Casters who use Wall of Force? This is much less powerful than that. Don't forget that he needs to land everything for it to work.
If you only want casters to have control options you can keep playing 2014, that's fine.
@@strawbellebellethis is easily broken free from with teleports and the like. Or stunning the barb which they tend to be weak too, etc.. this is just the newest version of old grapple cheese.
One big thing about persistent rage that was washed over: incapacitation alone doesn’t end your rage; only being unconscious does. Plus you no longer need to use a bonus action to sustain it.
The big thing here is that rage continues even if you get controlled and can’t take actions (such as with a hold person spell), and you’ll retain your damage reduction and all other defensive benefits of your rage.
That's a great point! Still keep some resistance when controlled like that, and save yourself from another rage use and bonus action when you get out.
One benefit of persistent rage is that with your bonus action free outside of combat you can use it for something else. Like the World Tree Barbarian wouldn't be able to use their teleport out of combat if they needed to use their bonus action to continue maintaining their rage (so at 14th lvl you can't use it out of combat without ending your rage, but at 15th and later you can use it all the time). It also just opens up a lot of other neat features too, like a Wild Heart barb could use Eagle to dash as both action & bonus action for a lot of movement when needed and normally that would end the rage, but with Persistent Rage they'll keep it going (granted that's a niche use case, but its still nice)
Yea that's true, you can enter it outside of combat and it's potentially a bit better than before for when you want to use your BA and Action to not attack.
One thing i think should be noted is these types of effects should likely get an improved CPR with the changes to how spells work triggering at the end of an enemies turn, and when entering these effects are incredibly potent at ensuring the reliability of allies.
Also quality selection on the shelves behind you.
@@insertname5371 you mean reducing enemy movement speed is more likely to play well with the new ones? that's true. I will probably be editing CPR at some point with the new rules, but too much to work on right now haha.
Glad to see someone else has similar taste in books haha!
Your Brutal Strike calculations seemed off, so I checked the spreadsheet, and it seems your parameters are incorrect.
You use an attack bonus of 8 - presumably 18 Str + 4 proficiency bonus at level 9. This is fine.
Your dice damage with Brutal Strike is 12 - presumably 6.5 from the 1d12 weapon + 5.5 from the 1d10 Brutal Strike dice. This is fine.
Your dice damage without Brutal Strike is 7.5. This should be 6.5 from the 1d12 weapon.
Your flat damage for both columns is 6. The descriptive text says this should be 7 - 4 from 18 Str + 3 from Rage.
Correcting for these, rather than No Brutal Strike starting to pull ahead at AC 16, they should be essentially tied at AC 17 (12 vs 11.97), and No Brutal Strike only starts to pull ahead at AC 18 (11.05 vs 11.4).
The difference only becomes large enough for me to really even consider not using Brutal Strike for its secondary effects at AC 20 (9.15 vs 10.05).
Whoa, impressive find. I have made an updated version in the spreadsheet next to the original. The numbers aren't really that different, but slightly changed.
Thanks!
Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14XDEsRPBnSahPNvBm5OpAqGJT5x3Ko6LuE_mtECJaD4/edit?usp=sharing
Weapon Masteries 101: ua-cam.com/video/sVeen_1nqbw/v-deo.html
Control Per Round video: ua-cam.com/video/_sRxkYY6x90/v-deo.html
Combat Space (% damage of deadly encounter): ua-cam.com/video/h-h7fKcnVCI/v-deo.html
“I was always annoyed about bards being scarier than barbarians”
Well continue to be so because Expertise and Inspiration go brrrrrrr xD
Haha bards are definitely still really good, but barbarians can actually hold their own now
@@DndUnoptimized yea for sure! Just a light jab :p
Loved the video either way! Would love to see you add subclass on top of this. Even without cleave, the new berserker’s DPR is huge!
Topple isn't good for the Barbarian in isolation, but it can be good to set up your friends to also have Advantage against the fallen foe. That's probably not usually better than the alternatives, but it can be with the right party composition.
For sure! If you have people to profit off topple then you can definitely do that. Get your TWF Valor Bard with Conjure Minor Elementals some advantage!
considering you can swap out masteries super easy, I think barbarians will have so much versatility no matter what
Very true!
Thanks for the video, I look forward to one about the paladin, I keep reading about how many players are unahppy with the smite changes and I'm interesed in seeing if the class was actually nerfed and by how much.
I thought that some of the design changes for 2024 were intended to reduce the burst damage of most classes in order to make easier for DMs to plan encounters. I'm all for it: same/higher dpr on average, but lower maximum potential (examples: the once per round GWM/ Smite/ Hex, nerf to the Gloomstalker's Dread ambusher, even Sneak Attack was limited to once per round in the playtest) means no longer risking the wild swings that a player could bring by going full nova.
My problem is that it's hard to measure dpr when the player has to choose when to smite and with which slot during the whole adventuring day.
I remember Treantmonk's video on playtest 6 where to calculate the new paladin's dpr he decided to only using smite on a crit and always with a 2nd lv slot (his build was at lv 13, so 3rd and 4th slots were available). In the end it was below the other classes, but still above baseline.
It felt to me like he generalized too much.
I though about it and I think that we could use some different metrics, and now I am very interested in how classes old and new compare on these dpr scales:
-"Nova potential" 1 round with all resources available (fresh from a long rest)
-"all out encounter" 4 rounds with all resources available (fresh from a long rest)
-"avearge encounter w/short rest" 2-4 turns with 1/n_th of long rest resources availabe (fresh from short rest, with n encounters expected between long rests).
-"avearge encounter w/o short rest" same as above but without short rest.
-"minimum + short rest" only using the resources that you can get back on a SR.
-"minimum" no resources used.
"Nova potential" is just the most damage the build can do in a single turn, the players can't sustain it for long, but DMs have to make sure their BBEG is still alive and can run away after this round if they ever want to have a recourring villain.
I feel like this would measure how busted the 2014 paladin was compared to everyone else: Here we would have a triple smite on attack + extra attack + Polearm master bonus attack with their higest slots.
"All out encounter" would be where we can see setup and long duration spells shine, if you're a DM that runs oneshots or short adventuring days this is what you need to use to balance your fights. Probably lower than 4*(Nova), but by how much depends on how many resources the build has to consume to keep it up. Here a paladin would keep smiting on every attack until out of slots, starting from the biggest.
"Average encouner" is a way to show if a build can still contribute all the way until the next long rest. So our paladin will smite a limited number of times, probably with smaller slots, depeinding on n. This metric would tell us how big the martial-caster divide is in the "intended" way to play. Considering how most spellcaster are long rest dependent while martial are short rest focused. I always read how the reccomended number n is 6-8 and have never heard of anyone actually reaching that many.
How big does n actually need to be for casters to be brough down to the same level of martials?
"Minimum" is there the bottom baseline for the build, once you expend all your resources this is how much dpr you'll be doing. I expect most builds to flatten out to this level after a few rounds of combat, at least at low level when resources are more scarce.
Comparing this to the other metrics could show how short or long rest dependent a character is. I expect paladins to have a high delta, while rogues, being resourceless, probably have the same dpr on almost every metric.
Thanks! I'll be interested in doing the ranger and paladin analysis since they are so controversial.
I kind of like the smite changes honestly, but I know a ton of people hate them, so maybe I'll see why when I get down to the nitty gritties.
Those metrics would certainly be interesting. I don't know what I have the time to go through all of them unfortunately, but I'll keep it in my back pocket to think about!
Hi, awesome video! You gained a new subscriber. When you do the ranger, or in a future ranger build video, could you include a Str build too? Obviously the two weapon fighting dex ranger is the go to option because of the sinergy with hunter's mark, but i think a halberd "semi-tank" hunter ranger with though or alert, cleave, GWM and Sentinel (or PAM) could be super viable, considering their "break the horde" feature and their "anti multiattack" defensive feature at lvl 7. The only problem is the bonus action clog but i think the extra control is worth it.
Welcome aboard!
For this series I will probably be doing the base classes first, so no Hunter, but I'll put this idea in the backlog for builds. Or I can look into it when I do Ranger subclasses. Thanks for the idea!
@@DndUnoptimized ty so much
I noticed some minor errors in the vid but one important error was Sundering Blow + Advantage is not possible. When you use Brutal Strike, you're giving up "any" Advantage on your turn that you might gain not just Advantage from Recklass Attack. You cannot gain Advantage from another source either, such as Flanking or them being Prone or Stunned. And that is a loss of Advantage on all attacks that turn.
"you can forgo any Advantage on ONE Strength-based attack roll of your choice on your turn"
Seems pretty clear to me you give up advantage on one attack, so you keep advantage on other attacks
@@DndUnoptimized Yes but NOT on the Brutal Strike attack. That's the attack that does not gain Advantage.
Thanks for this. I have done the damage thing for a few martial builds and most do get becalmed around 12 level which might bother me more if I ever played above 12 level. I expect the Combat Mastery Epic Boon will give more damage then the one you picked (assuming you are not facing resistant enemies). It means for one thing that your Brutal Strike always hits mitigating the downside. The Berserker does add a lot of damage and not much else while the other barbarians are stronger in other ways which seems like a good design principle. I'm off go & watch your other guides now.
I did the analysis for the epic boon they suggested for barbarians, but maybe I should list some other options that might be good for next time. I'm sure a lot of other ones might work out better!
Yes, pretty much every martial slows down their damage gains after 11, which is unfortunate because then multiclassing becomes so much more appealing.
Hope you enjoy the other videos! Thanks for watching
Great stuff! I've never been interested in Barbarian (except Path of the Giant maybe), but this looks like it could provide many more meaningful choice and tactics in play! Love the CPR putting some things into context.
Yea I'm actually interested in playing a straight barbarian for the first time!
19:25 at 11th lvl I expect to have +4 prof. (9th lvl) And +3 Con (2nd best barb stat), so it would be +7, not mentioning someone could take +2 CON instead of Tough feat
Minor correction:
Taking damage no longer sustains your rage.
I guess I didn't say that in the video. Thanks
Really good video. My only comment is on comparing damage for 2024 vs 2014. I feel that a player would be much more likely to take polearm master in 2014 over slasher (even for new players its a common suggestion online) and it synergises with GWM, which it no longer does in 2024. Appreciate its less control, but martials weren't known for control before. I dont know the math, but if we use the lower cleave % i would imagine this closes the damage gap. The bonus action GWM attack chance seems slightly high too, at my table the barbarian is usually gitting big things and the casters fireball the groups of weaker enemies.
Thanks!
I feel PAM is even more likely in 2024 actually, especially with halberd since you can cleave so much more. Why does GWM not synergize with PAM now? It still gives Prof bonus per attack on your turn, so you get that with the haft attack too.
I did Greataxe for the "stereotypical" barbarian, and I took slasher because of odd Str score which PAM wouldn't increase in 2014. I think players are pretty likely to try to max Str.
Maybe my extra attacks from cleave are too high, but its the same for 2014 and 2024, so that shouldn't make a difference at least.
@@DndUnoptimized GWM doesn't synergise now because it's during the attack action that the bonus is applied, which means it doesn't apply to the bonus action strike. Some good points though, thanks for the reply. I'll have to crack out a damage calculator and see how it all shakes out.
Oh shoot! How did I miss that. Thanks for pointing it out. Luckily we didn't use PAM this build haha.
I’m interested to know if all the classes increase their damage output over their 2014 version. When you are done it would be good to know the kind of damage increases for a party of 4-5 with a mix of classes with to compare against any HP increases the monsters in the MM end up getting (if any)
The claim is the monsters will better match their CRs but it might be that rather than increasing HP the monsters damage output or resilience is increased instead. A few monster comparisons would be good to see in the new year.
PS - Thank you for your suggestion on keeping the option of using different weapon mastery properties without the absurdity of weapon juggling. With a few caveats I think it will work. I intend to give it a try anyway.
Yea that will definitely be something I will be looking at once the new MM comes out! Depending on what things they add to monsters it might get difficult to correctly gauge their buffs, but hopefully I can find a good way to do it!
Thanks for watching, you are one of my oldest viewers.
22:34 this is where you are just incorrect imo, high level barbarians have *plenty* of ways to spend their rage for additional effects either in or out of combat by level 15
Berserker 14, Bonus action: spend 1 rage; 30ft emanation fear, 1 minute
Wild heart 14, Power of the wilds, Falcon, out of combat, 40ft fly speed with bonus action dashes for 10 minutes, with 5 rages you could fly for 50-60 minutes then have everything back when you start combat, and you no longer need to spend that bonus action to maintain rage, so you could dash out of combat for effectively a 80ft fly speed
World Tree 14, Travel along the tree: gives you bonus action teleports each turn so long as rage is up, but if you have to spend a bonus action to maintain rage each turn, so you have an out of combat 60ft teleport per turn, similar to flying regarding it's utility, and teleporting no longer ends your rage by not attacking
Zealot 14, this feature is a little scuffed but you can use all of your rages in 1 combat keeping your allies from dying as a reaction you expend a rage to save them one rage per day,
So you see, literally every single barbarian subclass in the phb gets big upgrade at level 15, because at level 14 their subclass lets them do something else in or out of combat by spamming rage, and remember you can't use both a bonus action to maintain rage, *and* a bonus action granted by your subclass, in the same turn, so those features up until level 15 only worked in combat where you can attack or grapple enemies to maintain it while using a different bonus action
Also, as mentioned elsewhere, persistent rage also means getting stunned, put to sleep, paralysed, petrified, hurled through hell, etc, no longer ends your rage
Yea, I mention that there are uses in the subclass, but perhaps I underrated their use. These are good points.
@@DndUnoptimized yep, you mentioned that some subclasses have a bit of use for rages, the enphasis should be literally all subclasses from now on will get a 14th level feature that makes extra rages a really great feature in or out of combat
I'm looking fwd to this series, it's a good idea. (I think your barb build will be utterly shut down by Wis and Cha saves -- unless maybe you're planning on a gnome?)
I also think you should comment on the mechanical relevance of the class in the 2024 meta. (e.g. Barbaians are no longer a relevant class to play because reckless attack is less important, rage remains limited, The need for decent dex + Str both is awkward. -- at this point both fighters and Paladins are much better classes.)
Yes that's a good point. I often provide the probability that you'll fail a wisdom save. That could be an interesting one to add into the video. Thanks!
As for the current meta for the game, it's an interesting idea. I don't know that I want to dive too deep into that territory. Hopefully people can see what a class offers and decide if they would like to play it.
Took a look at your spread sheets, because I can't see how you actually did the calculations, I do not know every assumption you made, though I did notice the flat dpr of both 2024 and 2014 at level 9 is higher than level 10 and 11, is this a typo perhaps? Cause I find it very strange looking at final graph for barbarian 2014 to have a massive dpr spike at lvl 9.
Also, I understand why you chose great axe, but maybe wizards balanced it against PAM. In this case, graze, additional rage damage, and new GWM scaling will make the new barbarian scale a bit more linearly at higher levels.
Thanks for taking the time to peruse the spreadsheet. I'm sure I could do a lot to make it easier to read and understand. I'd appreciate any feedback.
You have a great question. It's all because of to hit chance being based on average monster AC. If you follow normal progression, you have a 65% chance to hit at almost every level, but there are some that actually end up as 70%, so the actual output ends up with a weird bump there.
Some people use 65% regardless of hit bonus. Maybe I should change the ACs at those levels slightly to make it 65% under all normal circumstances and prevent weird bumps.
Love this video, but one thing you said survivability didn't change but does that take into account the extra hp from persistent rage?
It's a good point I should have mentioned in the video. I showed that table in the video about how likely you are to get back up and make the save, but I didn't add it into survivability because I wasn't sure the best way to do it considering it was so variable.
I think if I did it as a percentage of how likely you were to survive for an additional round, then I could add that in, it would make sense.
@DndUnoptimized ok In my own playtesting it really did help a lot when stacked with rage damage resources
@@justink4051 nice! I'll try to do some calculations of it perhaps and see if I can come up with something that makes sense and I might add a note updating it. Thanks for sharing your playtest experience!
Maybe i missed it in the video but now you have more reliability because of the aditional rages per day and aditional raging time
Yea I talked about how you can rage really consistently now. It's very helpful.
I really want to see the fighter on next tbh
Awesome! It's coming up next!
@@DndUnoptimized bet!
Can you do a video about the new chromatic orb comparing it to other spells like fireball and chain lightning would love to see the math on it
I've got quite the backlog already, but I'll probably get around to that kind of thing eventually once I hit spells. I'll add it to the list
New to the channel, if you like teamwork then you likely share my feelings for the order domain cleric as the sleeping giant of clerics
Oh yea! Order domain is probably my favourite cleric subclass. It's so great to use and great to have in a party.
@@DndUnoptimized my favorite version of this is actually a took silvery barbs and managed to convince my DM to let me use fey touched to grab vortex warp. It was a blast
@ryanscanlon2151 oh yea, silvery barbs and vortex warp on an order cleric is amazing. So much fun
@@DndUnoptimized I'm about to get the chance to play a build called the dark rider that's an Oathbreaker Paladin with a 1 lvl order domain dip so that when the paladin casts spells on themselves my find steed can make a reaction attack, I really hope I get to cast shield and have my mount kill my attacker lol. Sadly this won't work in the 2024 book :(. However I think it would work with the beast master ranger, food for thought
Lol! What a combo
Awesome Video! But I find using Cleave consistently will be... well, it's not very consistent.
If your DM is always grouping enemies together, yeah Cleave will boost damage alot, but if you are facing solo monsters more often, or spread out enemies. Cleave does nothing.
I appreciate the damage comparison, but I don't see it being super accurate.
If you have focused on somthing like TwoWeapon Fighting /Single target damage it would be alot more accurate.
Given the amount of forced movement you can pull off as a barbarian, it seems pretty likely you'll get to cleave regularly, but you are right, it is going to be table dependent.
TWF will be better against single targets, but I just went with the "Stereotypical" Barbarian, which if you are going to do broad strokes of the class I think you have to do. This is in no way an optimized build, but is meant to give some rough idea.
What do you think the stereotypical Fighter is? I'm trying to decide that for the next video. Sword and board?
@DndUnoptimized unfortunately I feel like GWM and PAM 2014 feats have made the "stereotype" for most fighters be heavy pole Weapon users. Or Crossbow/Long Bow if it's ranged build.
I really like the idea of Sword and the board being the typical fighter archetype. And I think it would be a very cool comparison, I think you can do good damage now with Sword and Board with Weapon Mastery and Feats like Sheild Master.
It's a lot more work, but you could compare multiple builds. Typical ranged build and a typical melee build. Either way, I look forward to checking out what you put out next!
@chrisg8989 yea I agree, Polearm is pretty typical fighter too. I might try to do both Sword and Board and Polearm.
@@DndUnoptimizedI think sword and board might be better for the paladin. The stereotypical knight in shining armor. Pole arm is probably better for fighter and that was the meta for 2014 rules, so it makes a good comparison.
i feel like, after the serie is done, you could do a vid that compares Fighter Monk Barb and Pali in 2024.
Maybe even Ranger... but i do not like it lol
which could give us an idea about how they stand to eachother, damage wise at least
Yea I definitely plan on doing some general comparison between all martials and then the martial vs casters too. It'll probably take me a while to get there though haha
19:27 i dont think this graph takes into account the fact youre still raging, which will give you some resistance to damage from the monsters, making their damage less likely to kill you. This is especially prominent if youre something like the wildheart barbarian, who chose the bear totem after a long rest, giving resistance to almost all damage the enemies would do
@@mrinfinity5557 so actually you made me double check my math and I realized I was doing immunity to BPS for this table instead of resistance! So the damage you take will actually be more than what is shown there in the table. Whoops. Thanks for that.
Unfortunately I think it's the opposite of what you were going for.
Topple benefits barbarians by giving them the option to take less damage. Topple is a defensive
mastery on barbarians.
This is especially important for combats where you are not raging. A barbarian cannot rage every combat in a day if there's even 3 combats. Any more and they're only raging on half of them. Giving all of your enemies advantage, especially when there are many, is not always a good idea. Making your first attack topple, can stand in for reckless attacks when you aren't raging and want to take less damage.
That's a possibility if you can reduce their speed so they can't stand up. Good point
@@DndUnoptimized not just the speed. I'm saying you can more comfortably turn off reckless attacks to save yourself some Hit Points if you use the topple mastery to stand in for your advantage
I see, you mean topple first then the rest of your attacks will be at advantage so you can turn off reckless attack? That's a possible strategy, if you seriously can't rage and need to be conservative about HP. With the new rage rules, I think you'll have rage pretty much every fight, but it's definitely campaign dependent.
@@DndUnoptimized fair, it's 2014 rn that's keeping me wary of spending rage. I always run out by the dungeons completion, and there's always more combats than rages in a dungeon so far. I guess keeping a rage going could help with this
Can you do multi-attack with brutal strike? I thought you could do brutal strike twice per action, giving you 2d12+2d10+mods on each attack
If you can only brutal strike once per round, that heavily nerfs the damage. An extra d10 once per round is mediocre, especially compared to something like paladin's improved divine smite which is an extra d8 on every attack.
The way I read the rules, it seems like only one brutal strike on your turn. And yes, it doesn't really boost your damage output, it's almost entirely control, but with the damage boost to make it feel better.
It's close to divine smite in many ways, but feels more in line with Barbarian flavour. Smites are certainly better for damage, and the other smite spells will have decent control too, but Barbarians can do it all day every turn, and that's pretty significant.
I'll have to dive into Paladins to see how I feel about their new smites, but so far, I don't hate it honestly. I know a lot of people do.
Edit: I misread your post, you are taking about their level 11 feature to add damage to each attack. Yes, that one is better for damage to be sure!
@@DndUnoptimized no, thats actually a misunderstanding about thinking you misunderstood me.
I thought you could add the extra damage (1d10) to every attack from a barbarian, like from extra attack. But you would only get the one manuever from those two attacks.
So with something like great weapon master and a +2 great axe at level 9, you would do 1d12+1d10+5+4+3+2. (Strength mod, gwm, rage, weapon enchantment, in that order) And you would do that damage twice, including the 1d10 from brutal strike.
If you only do the 1d10 once a turn, wouldn't it be better to attack recklessly for the first attack, then do a brutal strike for the extra attack, so you have advantage on at least one of your two attacks?
I see, because reckless attack has to start from the first attack on the turn? It will still work to Brutal Strike first because you are still reckless attacking, you just aren't gaining any benefit from it for that one attack. Is what what you mean?
@@DndUnoptimized now i think im having a misunderstanding. I thought when you did brutal strike, you forgo advantage for your other attacks. Which would have been changed because all attacks have advantage, your first and second and opportunity attacks.
Honestly that does actually make me wonder if you changed the graph due to reckless attack. I feel like between levels 5-8, barbarian should have gotten a different line than 2014 barbarian, since both attacks from your attack action should have advantage.
But to clarify: previously, i thought you could do brutal strike more than once when you did the attack option. Youd ard the bonus damage from brutal strike to both attacks. I just thought that you could only do one manuever or effect from it.
Second thing to clarify, i thought that it you did brutal strike, all other attacks would lose Advantage from reckless attack through the round, so i thought attacking with reckless attack first would be optimal since you still have one instance of advantage. It seems i may have been wrong with that.
This is quite the convoluted back and forth. You can Brutal Strike once on your turn, you must be reckless attacking, BUT you give up the advantage on the ONE attack you get from brutal strike. Other attacks are unaffected and still have advantage and are not brutal strikes.
I think you have a mistake on 26:37. You deal extra damage on a critical hit equal to the ability score(not mod) increased by this feat. So on lvl 19 once you crit you deal extra 21 damage
I think I said that exact thing a couple seconds back. Its just that our crit chance is low, so adding 21 damage on the crits doesn't actually increase our DPR by that much.
@@DndUnoptimized You are right, sorry
@squidjob no worries, people often catch me on mistakes so it's totally fair. Thanks for taking the time to verify.
I really think the weapon swap mechanics need an errata. There is no way that swapping between weapons should speed up the rate that you attack. It’s so gimmicky. Personally I will not be allowing this abuse of the poorly written rules at my table and am going to push for limitations at my game store league.
I'm not a fan of it as an idea, but I do really like the fun it brings and cool stuff martials can now do with it. It does seem like it is intended by the game designers, but of course you can run your table however works for you.
I might just let martials use whatever mastery on whatever weapon so they can get the control and options they want without it being all swappy swap. (With limitations, like vex and Nick have to be light weapons, cleave/graze have to be heavy, stuff like that)
Brutal critical could've been devastating if you got a 19-20 crit at 9th lvl, 18-19-20 13th lvl and at 17th lvl make normal hits or miss become critical once per rage or so, or rerolling 1 attack per turn
Oh yea, that would be much better for sure! The designers are extremely careful with expanding Crit chance in 5e.
Taking damage doesn't maintain your rage, don't know why they dropped that part from the old rage.
Very true. I think it's because it's not under your control. In 2014 if you force someone to make a save, you are hoping that the enemy attacks you AND deals damage so you can stay in rage. Now, the circumstances to maintain it are under your control.
topple??? bad for barbarian???
Aside from doing stealth and perception from stealth, I like it. That is a bit silly
You mean rage perception and stealth you don't like, but intimidation and the other skills you think fit?
I think perception and stealth are iconic predator skills, so it makes sense to me.
@@DndUnoptimizedYes, but I can't really see how xould anyone use strength to stealrh. Maybe I could see getting expert in those skills for the duration, or getting some flat bonus
Rogues are still the best. 😊
Haha we'll get there
Danger sense is pretty good if you take a 2 level barb dip on a shield master fighter
If you want to play a full full tank, using a reaction to nullify damage from a dex save seems pretty nice, and using rage to reduce everything that is non-magical is great
Also fighters get a great 10th level feature for making saves
But, if you just went barbarian, you can absolutely go shield and sword for both sap and a shield, personally I think shields are alot more viable in general due to shield master
Yea shield master is pretty good, but the reaction still isn't that great in my mind unless you have a really good dex save. I'll have to run the numbers though to see for sure.
Fighters are fantastic at saves now! I love that feature now.
@@DndUnoptimized with resilient dexterity and advantage on the save from danger sense, you will do pretty well
Fighters don't need resilient dexterity because their 10th level feature just lets them auto succeed a save
I think straight valor bards could be good with shield master as they often use shields anyway and have dex save proficiency
@nyanbrox5418 yea for sure if you pick up resilient Dex then shield master will be great on the Barbarian! That is dedicating a lot of feats to defense at that point, but it could be worth it.