This misreports the facts. We showed definitively that BS had at least two and more likely all three 3rd level slots unused by the end of the day. And that is assuming that their whole day is hard encounters against CR 5 Hill Giants that solely target them. They are hit twice per encounter.
Mage Armor
E1 Blur, Shield
E2 Blur, Shield
SR Arcane Recovery
E3 Blur, Shield
E4 Blur, Shield
+1 Shield to the combo of lose initiative + hit by rock
No, the analysis I did was for the 20I, 18D bladesinger. The difference between a 23 AC (20I) and a 22 AC (18I) is significant, and accounts for, at the 1 in 2 chance, a change from 6 to 8 expected hits. Adding in the loss of initiative round, that's 9 hits on 50% of the days.
But, again, the 1 in 2 metric is a poor assumption. Even going to 1:3 days the 18I bladesinger is taking 9 hits, and 1:4 10 hits. That burns out all 3rd slots. AND the fact that double the previous number of hits for 23 AC cannot be shielded at all. If we go for the 1:10 days, the takes 12 hits.
I'm not misrepresenting anything -- you've cherry picked an outcome that supports your premise. You cannot claim that you always keep all 3rd level slots when that obtains a bit less than 50% of the time (47% of the time) across the example day.
When you playtest this, what you find is that the second hit comes late enough that much of the time you don't need to refresh the Blur (Giant will die before another swing). BS has 75% chance to maintain Blur. So overwhelmingly most of the time, there is no need to refresh Blur. Worst case, you need to refresh it once per day. That leaves two 3rd level slots remaining.
At the 47% of days mark, sure. Are you really claiming that slightly less than half of all days is the appropriate baseline for assessing bladesinger power?
Let's have a bit of fun and go the other way. Let's look at the 2:3 day, the 67% day. The bladesinger uses 1 less 1st slot. At the 3:4 or 75% day, it's 2 less 1st slots. And, at the 9:10 day, or 90%, it's 3 fewer 1st slots. The take on this is that even great days, where the giants can't roll, you pick up some 1st level resources. On bad days, you burn 3rd level resources. Do you not see yet that the 50% mark you've chosen isn't a valid assumption of actual usage?
And we now need to find out how Diviner does. What I'll do is report spells cast in each playtest.
I've playtested this character now through numerous scenarios, and I am playing in a campaign right next to one. I know how the tradition works out.
Put concisely, PDFs based on all hard, all CR 5 Hill Giant encounters (with atypical attack bonuses for their CR) fail to capture adventuring days at the table. Playtesting quickly reveals that factors a PDF doesn't capture, like range and position, matter.
No, which is why I insisted that if we're going to compare how a bladesinger can tank, it needs to be on a per hit basis, as all the other things that confound, including scenario and actions taken biases, will result is skewed representations. For instance, it's possible to kill the giants effectively without a tank character at all -- in your scenario you're already kiting with 3 characters, so why not kite with all 4 and really get in some advantaged DPR?
This is why I completely discount your playtesting as anything but anecdotal.
Based on what I have seen so far (numerous playtests replacing BS with a Diviner or offensive Battlemaster or defensive Champion) the resource cost for BS is less than that of the alternative parties. You've remained stonily silent on that issue. What spells are your alternatives casting?
Because it's a bogus determination. In three fights, three hypnotic patterns shut down the giants (at least 1), dramatically reducing load on the champion and allowing focused fire damage. A fog cloud can allow for separation of the giants, again leading to defeat in detail. Many tactics exist to reduce incoming attacks with wizard spells that it's going to be highly dependent in each test what the dice roll.
Heck, a fireball 1st round adds enough damage on average (28) to each giant that they die a round earlier to the champion party, significantly reducing incoming attacks, and that assumes nothing but flame bolts after the first round cast.
YOU can't come up with a scenario that defeats a hard encounter with fewer resources than your favored bladesinger.
If offensive Battlemaster and defensive Champion aren't better than BS, what martial build is? Nominate it and I will test it.
What offensive battlemaster? An offensive greatsword weilding battlemaster with GWM, defensive style, and plate is AC 18, +8 (+3) to hit, and deals 2d6+15 per hit, with precision to boost hits (which are at 50%). The DPR output over the bladesinger is (assuming round 1 cast by bladesinger and javelins by battlemaster) almost double (110 to 65). The battlemaster accounts for a giant by himself in 4 rounds, even opening with javelins. A scenario where
If the resource cost was high, or BS survival in these fights felt risky, I'd agree with you. But it isn't, and they don't. The strongest tactic that I have found so far for foes is to pretend BS does not exist: spiking Booming Blade damage.
ONLY in situations where the rest of the party can kite, which, incidentally, limits incoming damage to rocks only. A better tactic for the giants is to leave a single giant holding the bladesinger while the other engages the party. And, I'm assuming you also are using perfect party cohesion where everyone else in the party attacks the giant held by the bladesinger? So, perfectly run party against giants that charge and you're shocked to find out your tactics built for this encounter work pretty well, but when you substitute in other builds and use the same tactics things don't work as well?
Come on, man.
