D&D 5E What Melee class does the most damage?

[hecetv]

It's highly dependent on the situation. Assassins and battle master fighters using action surge have the highest burst for pure level 20 classes. Paladins have really good burst which is mostly radiant which isn't commonly resisted. Paladin 18/fighter 2 can burn most of his resources to outburst almost anyone, but after popping their highest slots and action burst they really fall off.

A 20 berserker in frenzy (and maybe even just in rage) will wreck a 20 fighter if they just stand there trading blows. Maybe some maneuvers can help. With magic weapons it just depends.

Generally fighters fare best with a feat offering +10 damage because that's +40 with four attacks. Same with berserkers. For paladins it's not so important because most of their burst is in smites.

Thieves can be a corner case.

Most other classes can keep up pretty well overall but not in burst, though say a blade lock has some tricks up her sleeve. Hex plus hurl through hell is almost up with paladin burst and also all non mundane damage.

Point being............... it's really all dependent on the situation and dnd is a team game so.......... It depends

 

[Zardnaar]

If you consider ranged attackers, a fighter with a hand crossbow and shield is surprisingly strong. With the Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter feats, your attacks can be at -3 attack (-5 and +2 from archery fighting style) and +10 damage, and you can take a bonus attack every round.

You don't have disadvantage from firing in melee or long range and you ignore cover, so you can attack anyone within 0 to 120 feet equally well, and you can also have top-end AC with a shield.

As before, Battlemaster using Precision Attack is very strong as a subclass choice.

THis here is the most damage from a martial class, puts the Rogue to shame. For melee though a high level fighter wins (level 20) otherwise the prize goes to the Paladin until level 11 maybe when the fighter gets his 3rd attack and has enough feats to use great weapon fighting and if said fighter can mitigate the -5/+10 damage part the fighter wins. Fighter using polearm master + great weapon master deals the most damage and has enough feats compared with the Paladin to pick the combo up early and buff strength to 20. 4 attacks a round with +15 damage at level 11 and likely a 5th via an attack of opportunity is hard to beat if that fighter can mitigate the -5 to hit part. When fighters get 4 or 5 attacks a round they can just spam attacks and if 2 of them hit they have done well enough.

Paladins will run out of smites as well and it doesn't take long either at lower levels due to few spell slots. Spells that grant advantage (Faerie Fire, Greater Invisibility, Foresight)+ Great Weapon master or sharpshooter and things like bless ramp up damage to absurd levels with those 2 feats. I have seen level 9 fighters put out 100+ damage in a round via action surge and using a hand crossbow getting 5 hits in even at -5 to hit.

 

[DaveDash]

Here are some damage calcs for level 20. I've left out the -5/+10 feats and a couple of other things, so these are baselines and not 100% accuracy in game play. Obviously if you include feats like Sharpshooter and combine it with Bless, Foresight, etc then Crossbow suddenly becomes the best damage in the game.

The SorcLock Twinned Quicken EB damage is impressive, but it requires 2 foes to get that damage. Against a single target, their damage is lower than a Fighter.

Paladin lags way behind after a while.

 

[guachi]

What level characters? What AC are we attacking? What possible combat bonuses are you counting to consistently receive?

The only person who bothered with actual math is DaveDash and I don't know what level, weapon, or target AC we are looking at.

Plus, some characters can enable their friends to really boost damage. You can certainly calculate damage as if there is no party, but the extra damage from a bless spell should count for the player casting. The damage from a Wolf Totem granting advantage to his friends should count for the Barbarian.

Calculating level 20 only is a bit silly if players never reach there. A more relevant range would be 3-15 as 1 and 2 are easy levels and 15+ has a low chance of being played.

If anyone else has actual math to show besides Dave, I'm willing to read it.

 

[guachi]

For example:

Rogue/Ranger wielding one melee weapon (duelist style) with a shield, horde breaker, Sentinel feat. At level 20 (15 rogue/5 ranger) will, if he can use horde breaker, his sentinel feat, and hunter's mark, do 65 dpr at 50% hit and 84 dpr with 70% hit. Will you get all of these things every round? No.

Note: the shield makes you harder to hit (duh...) and is there because it's how I wanted to play my rogue and it lessens the chance of my hunter's mark breaking. The build also has the Resilience feat in Constitution so you don't fail the save if you get hit.

EDIT: Gah! Those numbers are without accounting for critical hits. It's about 5-10% boost if you don't have advantage.

 

[DaveDash]

What level characters? What AC are we attacking? What possible combat bonuses are you counting to consistently receive?

The only person who bothered with actual math is DaveDash and I don't know what level, weapon, or target AC we are looking at.

Plus, some characters can enable their friends to really boost damage. You can certainly calculate damage as if there is no party, but the extra damage from a bless spell should count for the player casting. The damage from a Wolf Totem granting advantage to his friends should count for the Barbarian.

Calculating level 20 only is a bit silly if players never reach there. A more relevant range would be 3-15 as 1 and 2 are easy levels and 15+ has a low chance of being played.

If anyone else has actual math to show besides Dave, I'm willing to read it.

Why don't you reread the post, you may find enlightenment to some of your hard thought out questions in there.

 

[Celtavian]

Since this is addressing a subject I brought up, I'll tell you my opinion within a party environment.

Consistent Damage:
1. Great Weapon Users (Barbarian, Battlemaster Fighter) : Great Weapon Mastery is far easier to use than I expected. With buffs like bless and/or faerie fire, AC of mob creatures lower than expected, and the ability to spike hit rolls with special abilities like Feinting Attack, Vow of Enmity/Devotion paladin Divine Channel thing, and Precision Strike.

2. Archers: Archery Fighting style gives a +2 to hit. Bless gives an average of +2. Combined with Sharpshooter, there is basically no penalty for using it. Sharpshooter also eliminates cover bonuses to AC. This makes Sharpshooter very easy to use in conjunction with ranged attacks.

3. Rogue: He generally does more single target damage than casters or single weapon users that focus more on defense. Third is not bad.

Don't know anything about the monk. I haven't seen them in action.

Spike Damage:
1. Paladin: Being able to choose to use Divine Smite after a critical hit can spike damage substantially. Combining Divine Smite with a smiting spell is immense damage. Being able to active an ability once every short rest that gives you either Advantage on attacks or Charisma bonus on attacks makes using Great Weapon Master easier than any other class. A paladin can spike his damage quite effectively. This he gets along with all his other nifty healing and defensive abilities.

I don't begrudge the paladin. I love paladins. I love that paladins are powerful defeating powerful enemies. I think it is appropriate.

2. Rogue Assassin: The rogue Assassin can do insane damage with an opening attack usually a single time per combat. The reason I put them second to the paladin is because the paladin can do their thing during combat without having to hide or set it up. A creature that can see the rogue automatically such as having blindsight pretty much negates this ability. It's powerful. It does hammer.

3. Fighter: Action Surge is powerful. It becomes more powerful the more attacks you get. Combining this with bless and other helpful bonus like a magic weapon with bonus dice damage such as radiant or flame makes this every powerful. The thing about multiple attacks is that they make static or dice bonuses per attack even more powerful. The reason I place the action surging fighter behind the Rogue Assassin is because the Rogue Assassin can use his ability anytime he can hide whereas the fighter gets one per short rest. So the Rogue Assassin will get that opening damage spike nearly every combat he fights something that doesn't have Blindsight.

AoE Damage:
1. Wizard or other arcane caster with AoE Spells: Casters are still the king of AoE. No one else can match them in this category.


Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master provide a greater benefit with more attacks. That's what gives classes that can use them such a major advantage.

 

[Zardnaar]

What level characters? What AC are we attacking? What possible combat bonuses are you counting to consistently receive?

The only person who bothered with actual math is DaveDash and I don't know what level, weapon, or target AC we are looking at.

Plus, some characters can enable their friends to really boost damage. You can certainly calculate damage as if there is no party, but the extra damage from a bless spell should count for the player casting. The damage from a Wolf Totem granting advantage to his friends should count for the Barbarian.

Calculating level 20 only is a bit silly if players never reach there. A more relevant range would be 3-15 as 1 and 2 are easy levels and 15+ has a low chance of being played.

If anyone else has actual math to show besides Dave, I'm willing to read it.

Theory crafting doesn't work so well. The short version in most circumstances the crossbow expert+sharpshooter fighter with some form of enabling deals the most damage. A polearm fighter+great weapon master does the same thing with melee builds. The more attacks you can make with +10 damage the more lopsided the damage is in the fighters favour. The archer builds get +2 to hit which with bless more or less mitigates the -5 to hit, AC do not scale that well anyway and the archer builds get to attack most of the time where mellee build comes up short sometimes due to range.

Sorlocks can deal spike damage more than fighters and are easier to set up as they do not have to worry about -5 to hit but by level 20 can in effect action surge around 40 times per day. Foresight at level 17, Greater invisibility at level 7 and Faerie Fire circumstantially can enable the uber damage builds although they can often just attack anyway and spray and pray by sucking up the -5 to hit.

 

[Zardnaar]

Since this is addressing a subject I brought up, I'll tell you my opinion within a party environment.

Consistent Damage:
1. Great Weapon Users (Barbarian, Battlemaster Fighter) : Great Weapon Mastery is far easier to use than I expected. With buffs like bless and/or faerie fire, AC of mob creatures lower than expected, and the ability to spike hit rolls with special abilities like Feinting Attack, Vow of Enmity/Devotion paladin Divine Channel thing, and Precision Strike.

2. Archers: Archery Fighting style gives a +2 to hit. Bless gives an average of +2. Combined with Sharpshooter, there is basically no penalty for using it. Sharpshooter also eliminates cover bonuses to AC. This makes Sharpshooter very easy to use in conjunction with ranged attacks.

3. Rogue: He generally does more single target damage than casters or single weapon users that focus more on defense. Third is not bad.

Don't know anything about the monk. I haven't seen them in action.

Spike Damage:
1. Paladin: Being able to choose to use Divine Smite after a critical hit can spike damage substantially. Combining Divine Smite with a smiting spell is immense damage. Being able to active an ability once every short rest that gives you either Advantage on attacks or Charisma bonus on attacks makes using Great Weapon Master easier than any other class. A paladin can spike his damage quite effectively. This he gets along with all his other nifty healing and defensive abilities.

I don't begrudge the paladin. I love paladins. I love that paladins are powerful defeating powerful enemies. I think it is appropriate.

2. Rogue Assassin: The rogue Assassin can do insane damage with an opening attack usually a single time per combat. The reason I put them second to the paladin is because the paladin can do their thing during combat without having to hide or set it up. A creature that can see the rogue automatically such as having blindsight pretty much negates this ability. It's powerful. It does hammer.

3. Fighter: Action Surge is powerful. It becomes more powerful the more attacks you get. Combining this with bless and other helpful bonus like a magic weapon with bonus dice damage such as radiant or flame makes this every powerful. The thing about multiple attacks is that they make static or dice bonuses per attack even more powerful. The reason I place the action surging fighter behind the Rogue Assassin is because the Rogue Assassin can use his ability anytime he can hide whereas the fighter gets one per short rest. So the Rogue Assassin will get that opening damage spike nearly every combat he fights something that doesn't have Blindsight.

AoE Damage:
1. Wizard or other arcane caster with AoE Spells: Casters are still the king of AoE. No one else can match them in this category.


Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master provide a greater benefit with more attacks. That's what gives classes that can use them such a major advantage.

The rogue is more like 4th or 5th place.

1st place.

Crossbow expert+sharpshooter

2nd place
heavy weapon master+polearm master


3rd place. Sharpshooter+ bow

4th place Great weapon fighter+ half orc champion


Sorlock is 1-3 depending so the Rogue falls even further down. I also need ot have a look at lance+ great weapon fighting+mounted as the advanatge offsets the -5 to hit and you have a shield and a d12 weapon in one hand. Throw in some ranger and paladin builds and I suspect the Rogue will fall even further.

 

[Zardnaar]

For example:

Rogue/Ranger wielding one melee weapon (duelist style) with a shield, horde breaker, Sentinel feat. At level 20 (15 rogue/5 ranger) will, if he can use horde breaker, his sentinel feat, and hunter's mark, do 65 dpr at 50% hit and 84 dpr with 70% hit. Will you get all of these things every round? No.

Note: the shield makes you harder to hit (duh...) and is there because it's how I wanted to play my rogue and it lessens the chance of my hunter's mark breaking. The build also has the Resilience feat in Constitution so you don't fail the save if you get hit.

EDIT: Gah! Those numbers are without accounting for critical hits. It's about 5-10% boost if you don't have advantage.

Fighters are getting more than that at level 11. Just saying.

DaveDash apparently you can only twin EB at level 1-4, you can still quicken it though.