Highest DPR at Level 1?

[Yunru]

A more interesting (and perhaps more pertinent, given how fast early leveling goes,) question is what's the best at levels 1 through 3.

At 2 I'm guessing a Sharpshooter/GWF War Cleric, because oh my +10 to accuracy and unconditional BAAs.

At 3 I'm actually going to go for a dual wielding Hunter, because Horde Breaker means you're going to be doing between 2 and 3 attacks a turn. Not sure what race/feat though.

 

[Blue]

A more interesting (and perhaps more pertinent, given how fast early leveling goes,) question is what's the best at levels 1 through 3.

At 2 I'm guessing a Sharpshooter/GWF War Cleric, because oh my +10 to accuracy and unconditional BAAs.

At 3 I'm actually going to go for a dual wielding Hunter, because Horde Breaker means you're going to be doing between 2 and 3 attacks a turn. Not sure what race/feat though.

Sharpshooter/GWM V-Human War cleric has to deal with MAD. They could start with a 16 DEX|STR and a 16 WIS, but that still only gives 3 BAAs per long rest, and a +10 to hit once per short rest goesn't proc SS/GWM damage more often over the course of a day than +2 for Archery fighting style.

Remember, the OP qualified the DPR with 4 encounters per day and 1-2 encounters per short rest. We're not looking single attack DPR.

Hunter gets interesting, especially if the DM is using the UA Revised Ranger with Favored Enemy damage. As you mentioned, 2-3 attacks a round, if you consider one battle a day including favored enemy (and the categories are wide, that's not unreasonable averaged over time) thats +2 damage to each of those 2-3 attacks per round.

Oh, crossbow expert vs. dual wielding is close. d8 rapiers melee vs. d6 crossbow up to 30' but with +2 extra to hit for fighting style. If you go against higher AC xbow probably has the slight edge, if you go against lower dual wielding does. Both work.

 

[Yunru]

Sure, but the encounters where the War Cleric doesn't use their +10 feature, they can use Bless. Focusing only on single character, Bless is better than Archery fighting style.

I'm not expecting great DPS round 1 (unless you use your BAA the time you Bless), but it offers great party support, and good DPS rounds 2 onwards.

For sure, level 4 War Cleric can do serious sustained damage, as a War Cleric can breach 300 dpd even when capped at 16 Wis.

 

[Zene]

For levels 2 to 3, I haven't run the math yet, but I suspect that kobold moon druid might win out. Assuming the DM allows pack tactics to carry over to wild shape but sunlight sensitivity does not --which admittedly might be a big assumption, not looking to reopen that debate here-- the Deinonychus has 3 attacks per round (and a potential bonus attack in the first round given the distance to charge), all at advantage.

 

[Zene]

For levels 2 to 3, I haven't run the math yet, but I suspect that kobold moon druid might win out. Assuming the DM allows pack tactics to carry over to wild shape but sunlight sensitivity does not --which admittedly might be a big assumption, not looking to reopen that debate here-- the Deinonychus has 3 attacks per round (and a potential bonus attack in the first round given the distance to charge), all at advantage.

Only two uses though, and DPR would drop considerably outside of wildshape. So maybe not top overall.

 

[Yunru]

Only two uses though, and DPR would drop considerably outside of wildshape. So maybe not top overall.

Two uses per rest.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

For sure, level 4 War Cleric can do serious sustained damage, as a War Cleric can breach 300 dpd even when capped at 16 Wis.

I know this thread is about level 1 damage...but how can the War Cleric do that much damage?

 

[Yunru]

Dpd= Damage per Day.
Mainly it was a combination of a BAA feat, a -5/+10 feat, judicious use of Bless and full damage attacks 3/day.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Dpd= Damage per Day.
Mainly it was a combination of a BAA feat, a -5/+10 feat, judicious use of Bless and full damage attacks 3/day.

Gotcha. Also, what is BAA? (no sheep jokes please! =D )

 

[Yunru]

Bonus Action Ata-a-a-ack. (I'm not sorry )