Favoured Soul is great. Come level 6 you've enough spells slots that you can cast Haste every combat in an average day. That's three attacks without BAAs, plus elevated speed and AC. After that you gain more and more spell slots to cast regular spells with - and thanks to Haste you still get a weapon attack.
D&D 5E Best Gish
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Thanks [MENTION=6780961]Yunru[/MENTION] for making me think about Haste. There are a number of bonus action attacks and the like that trigger off an Attack action, so aren't usable with GFB or BB. But Haste explicitly allows the Attack action, just limitting it to a single attack. So You can use one of the attack cantrips and then an Attack action from Haste which then triggers a bonus action attack (dual wielding, polearm), ranger Hordebreaker extra attack, UA Ranger Beastmaster beast reaction attack, or whatever.
(Didn't list crossbow expert because we're talking GWF/BB which are melee, and Sage advice nerfed melee+hand crossbow.)
Not needed with quickened GFB/BB, but if you aren't a sorcerer or want to conserve SP still useful.
(Didn't list crossbow expert because we're talking GWF/BB which are melee, and Sage advice nerfed melee+hand crossbow.)
Not needed with quickened GFB/BB, but if you aren't a sorcerer or want to conserve SP still useful.
In order of powergaming "best" builds for being a Gish:
1. Vengeance Paladin 6/Sorc +
Heavy Armor + Paladin Aura are, by FAR, the best abilities for being a gish. With Resiliency (Con) you can auto-save your concentration saves on your buff spells. Sorc provides lots of spell slots + metamagic + damage resistance for the power popular elemental type aka fire.
GWM + Bless + Aura + Vow of Enmity + Sorc spell slots to power Smites = bad, bad, very bad single target damage.
2. Tempest Cleric 6/Sorc +
Mostly the same as the Paladin build EXCEPT build for crushing hordes as well. Your saves will be a bit weaker, but you'll be solid with your buff spells.
Much, much more importantly, is the Channel Divinity. Holy jebus is this a gish power. Start dropping Maximized Chromatic Orbs/Shatters/Call Lightning and watch your DM realize how OP this combo is.
Except you're not done yet. Because you also get protection against the typical weakness of gish builds, which is hordes of smaller creatures in melee with you. Aka....Spirit Guardians. The spell works great with multiclassing because you still get full spellcasting slot progression to upcast SG.
3. Fighter 2/Abjuration Wizard +
Contrary to popular belief, the ward is amazing straight from level 1. Mathematically it provides more benefit than the Fighter levels for health because it's twice your Wizard level (effectively turning D6 into a D10 average, aka same as a Fighter) + int mod. Plus, people always forget that it recharges off of Abjuration spells, aka Shield and Counterspell, the two most used spells in combat. Shield = effectively healing for 2hp, Counterspell = effectively healing for 6hp.
More importantly, for a gish build, it can prevent you from even having to make concentration saves if the ward eats all of the damage. Plus, it lets you stack sources of temp HP which AoA does not.
Lastly, it gets you the Wizard spell list, which is simply the best spell list. The SCAG cantrips make you threatening in melee, Haste shores up some defenses while providing the de facto Extra Attack ability without actually getting it. Find Familiar gives you great utility for scouting, etc.
Gish builds, in general, will need to have more defenses than people give them. This is why Bards/Warlocks tend to suck for gish builds because they don't get Shield and Counterspell by default. You need to be able to support your main spell casters with Counterspell, and Shield is just too good not to have.
1. Vengeance Paladin 6/Sorc +
Heavy Armor + Paladin Aura are, by FAR, the best abilities for being a gish. With Resiliency (Con) you can auto-save your concentration saves on your buff spells. Sorc provides lots of spell slots + metamagic + damage resistance for the power popular elemental type aka fire.
GWM + Bless + Aura + Vow of Enmity + Sorc spell slots to power Smites = bad, bad, very bad single target damage.
2. Tempest Cleric 6/Sorc +
Mostly the same as the Paladin build EXCEPT build for crushing hordes as well. Your saves will be a bit weaker, but you'll be solid with your buff spells.
Much, much more importantly, is the Channel Divinity. Holy jebus is this a gish power. Start dropping Maximized Chromatic Orbs/Shatters/Call Lightning and watch your DM realize how OP this combo is.
Except you're not done yet. Because you also get protection against the typical weakness of gish builds, which is hordes of smaller creatures in melee with you. Aka....Spirit Guardians. The spell works great with multiclassing because you still get full spellcasting slot progression to upcast SG.
3. Fighter 2/Abjuration Wizard +
Contrary to popular belief, the ward is amazing straight from level 1. Mathematically it provides more benefit than the Fighter levels for health because it's twice your Wizard level (effectively turning D6 into a D10 average, aka same as a Fighter) + int mod. Plus, people always forget that it recharges off of Abjuration spells, aka Shield and Counterspell, the two most used spells in combat. Shield = effectively healing for 2hp, Counterspell = effectively healing for 6hp.
More importantly, for a gish build, it can prevent you from even having to make concentration saves if the ward eats all of the damage. Plus, it lets you stack sources of temp HP which AoA does not.
Lastly, it gets you the Wizard spell list, which is simply the best spell list. The SCAG cantrips make you threatening in melee, Haste shores up some defenses while providing the de facto Extra Attack ability without actually getting it. Find Familiar gives you great utility for scouting, etc.
Gish builds, in general, will need to have more defenses than people give them. This is why Bards/Warlocks tend to suck for gish builds because they don't get Shield and Counterspell by default. You need to be able to support your main spell casters with Counterspell, and Shield is just too good not to have.
mellored
Legend
The only big downside to haste is concentration. Which could take some extra feats to make sure you arn't wasting your spells.
mellored
Legend
Bards suck. Warlocks don't.
They get darkness + devils sight. Which is like +5 AC. +5 to hit, immunity to OA's, and immunity to several spells like hold person which require you to be seen. Not to mention THP generation fiend and the fact that Tome can do this all with Cha.
And they do get counterspell.
Of course, you need to reserve all your spells for that, which only leaves you some invocations for utility.
Still probably want to start fighter for armor and con saves though.
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Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Great point. Probably works best on a gish framework based on Bladesinger for the Concentration bonus, or on a gish with proficiency in Con saves though that doesn't align that great with some of the other bits.
mellored
Legend
Resilient Con and Warcaster are both good options.
One of those tactics that is great on paper, but fails miserably in actual gameplay. Several principal reasons:
1. It 110% completely screws your party. The minor bump in your effectiveness is MORE than offset in the reduction in your ally's abilities in combat.
Basically, unless you are solo gaming OR in a party with other Warlocks, you'll never end up using this combo.
2. A surprisingly number of enemies get Blindsight, True Sight, Tremorsense, etc. This means not only are you screwing your party, but now the enemies also don't care.
3. Even moderately knowledgeable DMs know how to by-pass sight restrictions. For example, Grapple. Grapple + Shove prone checks are not impacted by Darkness. Fairly easy counter to put you at rolling regular (Prone disadvantage cancels Darkness Advantage) as well as enemies rolling regular.
Totally agree Darkness + Devil's Sight should be a great argument for Warlock gish builds. Except it just doesn't work in actual play.
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mellored
Legend
1: Not seeing an enemy cancels out the enemy not seeing you.
"When you attack a target that you can’t see, you have disadvantage on the attack roll."
"When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it."
Thus an ally can attack, and be attacked, without penalty.
It does screw up other sources of advantage, and disavantage since they don't stack. So probably not best for shield master fighters or barbarian.
2: What is the %? But yes, truesight is a counter, it also counters illusionist, and flying ranged attacks counter paladins and barbarians, and hold person counters the fighter, ect... Though you can levitate (bypass tremmorsense) and still have a ranged attack to attack (with advantage) from outside of blindsights range. Armor of agathy is also pretty good.
3: Grapple+Prone works against any gish. Darkness + devils sight isn't special in that regard. Though a good reason to take athletics/acrobatics skill.
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