D&D 5E Best Crit-Fisher Builds

[Yunru]

What's your best crit-fishing build?

Mine is a Half-Elf Barbarian 2/Champion 5/Rogue 13. Whom likes to reckless stab people in their weak points.
Pros:
+ Online by 6th level.
+ Has 3 attacks by 7th level. (Thank you dual wielding!)
+ Deals competitive damage to a Polearm Master build.
+ 27.1% chance of scoring a critical on any attack (by level 6 no less!).
+ 61.25...% chance of scoring a critical on your turn.
+ High accuracy even when not critting.

Cons:
- Somewhat MAD, requiring 13 Str, Dex and Con.
- Damage doesn't spike until 7th level.
- Uses Reckless Attack for advantage, so risks getting hit.
- Needs Duel Wielder to work with Reach.
- Doesn't get an ASI until 11th level (assuming you take Elven Accuracy ASAP).

The meat of the build is Reckless Attack, Elven Accuracy, and Improved Critical. The levels of Rogue are just because Sneak Attack is the best additional damage for criticals.

[sblock="DPR by Level"]
First up, this assumes you only Sneak Attack on a critical (which considering you have three attacks each with a 27.1% chance of critting...), or on your last attack for the turn (If you haven't critted before that).
Second, it doesn't assume you use Action Surge (which should be used to ready an action to attack to double tap that SA (crit or not, it's free)).
Level | DPR
1: 10.35
2: 10.6825
3: 13.6825
4: 13.6825
5: 14.33
6: 14.897
7: 22.3455
8: 27.98952829
9: 27.98952829
10: 33.63355658
11: 36.63355658
12: 42.27758487
13: 42.27758487
14: 47.92161315
15: 50.92161315
16: 56.56564144
17: 56.56564144
18: 62.20966973
19: 62.20966973
20: 67.85369802

A link to the maths
[/sblock]

 

[RulesJD]

What's your best crit-fishing build?

Mine is a Half-Elf Barbarian 2/Champion 5/Rogue 13. Whom likes to reckless stab people in their weak points.
Pros:
+ Online by 6th level.
+ Has 3 attacks by 7th level. (Thank you dual wielding!)
+ Deals competitive damage to a Polearm Master build.
+ 27.1% chance of scoring a critical on any attack.

Cons:
- Somewhat MAD, requiring 13 Str, Dex and Con.
- Damage doesn't spike until 7th level.
- Uses Reckless Attack for advantage, so risks getting hit.
- Needs Duel Wielder to work with Reach.
- Doesn't get an ASI until 11th level (assuming you take Elven Accuracy ASAP).

The meat of the build is Reckless Attack, Elven Accuracy, and Improved Critical. The levels of Rogue are just because Sneak Attack is the best additional damage for criticals.

What exactly is "Elven Accuracy"?

The two best races for a crit-fishing build is either a Greataxe wielding Half-orc (brutal critical) or a PAM + Quarterstaff wielding Halfling (can reroll the 1s from Reckless Attack for every greater chance of critting).

 

[Yunru]

https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/RJSJC2017_04UASkillFeats_24v10.pdf

Elven Accuracy
Prerequisite: Elf or half-elf
You have uncanny aim. You gain the following benefits:
• Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll, you can reroll one of the dice once.

 

[mellored]

Warlock 2/paladin 2/Barbarian2/champion 3/Rouge 11.

Reckless smites with short rest recharge. Dual wielding for 2 chances, and multi-beam range attack.

Fortunately to-hit doesn't matter for crit fishing.

 

[faria]

If you're going for a crit build, I'd go Half-Orc for the extra damage die...

 

[mellored]

If you're going for a crit build, I'd go Half-Orc for the extra damage die...

Elven accuracy requires you to be an elf.

 

[Blue]

Elven accuracy requires you to be an elf.

If there were more things that triggered off a crit that would be fine, and I guess eventually the dice of sneak attack will climb up.

But a STR-based (reckless attack) Elf (no STR) with a finesse weapon (SA) that has a smaller damage die isn't the fastest growing way to exploit those crits. As a theoretical discussion we're just looking for the most crits, but I'd like to expand to where's the level cut-off where that is balanced vs. a half-orc barb/champion with a great axe in DPR? (I'm assuming that build wins at 20 and the half-orc at 1st, and there's a dividing line somewhere.)

Also of interest is besides SA and Divine Smite, what triggers on crits that we can add to take advantage of the high rate. With a 27.1% chance of crit per attack with an expanded crit range and advantage+elven accuracy, we should be expecting several per combat and want to make best use of it.

GWM, ignoring the +5/-10 part, can give another attack on a crit. But there are plenty of ways to get a bonus action attack so that's not a big deal. What other crit-triggers are out there? I wonder if any of the UA subclasses have things that trigger on crit.

 

[Yunru]

Note you can be a Half-Elf and qualify, so you still get those juicy two +1's.

I haven't run the numbers, but a Champion Barbarian might be on par simply due to having larger dice (8d6 vs 4d12? 8d6?).

 

[zaratan]

Melee: hexblade 17/revised beast master 3
Elven accuracy
Constrictor snake for at will no action restrainned, curse bringer when you crit, hex curse for 19-20 crit and foresight obviously. You only get at will 19-20 crit at hexblade 14 which is a problem.

Ranged: archefey 5/champion 3/wu jen mystic 9/beast master 3
Moon bow when crit, concert pp in spellslots, darkness+devil's sight for 1pp and no concentration, reaction atrack again if miss for 2pp and your snake. Only be full on at lvl 14 too. You could go as sorcerer instead of mystic for spellslots and quick eldritch blast for more 4 attacks with bonus action. Shadow sorcerer for darkness+devil's sight for 1 SP is great.

Probably none of those are good options starting at lvl 1

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[Yunru]

I have an update on my original design. By being a High Elf Half-Elf variant, you can pick up Booming Blade. This means two levels of Fighter can be swapped out for Rogue, upping the final damage immensely without penalty to lower levels.

Unfortunately it might mean rejigging the order of levels somewhat to put Elven Accuracy first. I'm thinking Barbarian 2/Rogue 4/Fighter 3/Rogue 15.

Edit 2: My numbers are telling me that going for Improved Critical first over Elven Accuracy is better for the chance to crit, but it's only by 4.7% and you don't get Sneak Attack so meh.

Edit 3: Also by switching to Booming Blade you're no longer Two-Weapon Fighting, so feel free to pick up a shield and the Duelling fighting style.