D&D 5E (2014) The highest sustained DPR build I could make

[TwoSix]

Seriously though, I am going to stress test the Asslock just to see what it feels like.

Pretty sure Asslock teams up pretty well with an AssPal, but playing with an AssBarb can be a painful combination.

 

[Fenris-77]

Assbarbs? Yikes, I think we need to take care of some preliminaries first. My safe word is cheeseburgers.

 

[TwoSix]

Assbarbs? Yikes, I think we need to take of some preliminaries first. My safe word is cheeseburgers.

Weird, I associate cheeseburgers in my area with Five Guys, which seems problematic with AssBarbs.

 

[Cadmius Clairmonte]

Yea, not to rain on your parade, but there are several problems with this build. The problem that [MENTION=59057]UngeheuerLich[/MENTION] listed above (Extra Attack/Thirsting Blade/Haste stacking) is the main one. Any tier 3 build that's getting more than 4 attacks per round needs to make really sure they've checked their work. It would usually take Fighter 11 to pull that off.

The other problems with your build is that your stats are invalid, assuming point buy, and that you can't take a warlock multiclass with a 10 Cha. Granted, you can certainly get a 20 Dex by level 12, but you're wasting one of the best features of Hexblade by doing so, and your AC and spell attacks suffer by the stat split.

I don't want to dissuade you from building cool characters, and the concept is certainly an effective and fun one. But stuff like "best sustained DPR build" or "best nova DPR" are pretty much already solved problems, and the threshold to find something competitive with those builds is very high.

Yea, the multiclass rules dealing with extra attack do significantly lower the damage of the build. You're right about the stats too, but to be honest I just didn't want to figure out what stats would come of a point buy system. I just made them up because I didn't really care about having anything other than 20 dex since the main damage contributions from the warlock multiclass are hex and baleful curse, which don't scale with charisma. I must say though, I am always impressed by how robust the rules for multiclassing are in the phb. It's actually pretty difficult to poke holes in them.

As far as the haste spell giving only one extra attack, I guess I should just learn to read lol.

 

[Satyrn]

I think it would have helped if you adressed the OP after my quote so it he notices it and it does not sound as if you are adressing me.

If there is no space in the name, it is easy. I am not sure how to use the following mention with the name of the op correctly.
@TwoSix

The @ works fine even with spaces.

Protip: With long names, or just to ensure you get the name right, right-click (or long-press) the username and se!ect "copy link text," then just paste the name perfectly into your post.

 

[TwoSix]

Yea, the multiclass rules dealing with extra attack do significantly lower the damage of the build. You're right about the stats too, but to be honest I just didn't want to figure out what stats would come of a point buy system. I just made them up because I didn't really care about having anything other than 20 dex since the main damage contributions from the warlock multiclass are hex and baleful curse, which don't scale with charisma. I must say though, I am always impressed by how robust the rules for multiclassing are in the phb. It's actually pretty difficult to poke holes in them.

As far as the haste spell giving only one extra attack, I guess I should just learn to read lol.

No worries. As a general assumption for damage builds, you'll generally have a 16 in your attack stat for Tier 1, an 18 somewhere in Tier 2, and a 20 by tier 3. Fighters a little earlier, builds with heavy feat investment might be delayed.

Using feats in generally a prerequisite for really high sustained damage builds, as you'll almost always need either the Sharpshooter or the Great Weapon master feat to pull it off. The only real exception is Warlocks and Sorlocks using Eldritch Blast.

The highest (semi-)sustained damage build for tier 3 I can think of is a Hexblade Divine Soul Sorlock using Darkness/Devil's Sight to gain advantage on a cursed target. Using twinned Eldritch Blast, that would be 6 attacks at 1d10+9 baseline, with triple advantage (assuming Elven Accuracy and a half-elf). That's about a 90% chance to hit assuming a moderately armored target, and a 27% chance to crit per attack. You could also use Spiritual Weapon to get an additional 1d8+9 attack, or 2d8+9 if you're willing to upcast. It's only semi-sustained, of course, but it's a damn good trick against one enemy that needs to go down.

The only other really high damage build I can think off is a Zealot Barbarian leveraging Reckless Attack, Great Weapon Master, and probably Polearm Master. GWM and Sharpshooters are also really good, but don't have on-demand advantage.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yea, the multiclass rules dealing with extra attack do significantly lower the damage of the build. You're right about the stats too, but to be honest I just didn't want to figure out what stats would come of a point buy system. I just made them up because I didn't really care about having anything other than 20 dex since the main damage contributions from the warlock multiclass are hex and baleful curse, which don't scale with charisma. I must say though, I am always impressed by how robust the rules for multiclassing are in the phb. It's actually pretty difficult to poke holes in them.

As far as the haste spell giving only one extra attack, I guess I should just learn to read lol.

It is still a very solid build. I just wanted to emphasize, that your stats (which you arbitrarily set to 20 and 10 respectively) are easily achievable with standard array. 20 dex and enough wis and cha to allow multiclass and even allow enough constitution to make your concentration checks.

I also thought about how to multiclass monk or warlock nice and efficiently. I lile the idea of being independent from armor and maybe weapons. So armor of shadows, unarmed defense and unarmed attacks go a long way. A blade warlock in shadow armor being able to summon a kensai weapons sounds like a lot of fun. An alternate Idea would be using the sorcerer shadow blade with a hexblade warlock multiclass. Level 3 to 5 sorcerer, level 7 to 9 warlock and using charisma as attack stat could be a lot of fun.

 

[Cadmius Clairmonte]

No worries. As a general assumption for damage builds, you'll generally have a 16 in your attack stat for Tier 1, an 18 somewhere in Tier 2, and a 20 by tier 3. Fighters a little earlier, builds with heavy feat investment might be delayed.

Using feats in generally a prerequisite for really high sustained damage builds, as you'll almost always need either the Sharpshooter or the Great Weapon master feat to pull it off. The only real exception is Warlocks and Sorlocks using Eldritch Blast.

The highest (semi-)sustained damage build for tier 3 I can think of is a Hexblade Divine Soul Sorlock using Darkness/Devil's Sight to gain advantage on a cursed target. Using twinned Eldritch Blast, that would be 6 attacks at 1d10+9 baseline, with triple advantage (assuming Elven Accuracy and a half-elf). That's about a 90% chance to hit assuming a moderately armored target, and a 27% chance to crit per attack. You could also use Spiritual Weapon to get an additional 1d8+9 attack, or 2d8+9 if you're willing to upcast. It's only semi-sustained, of course, but it's a damn good trick against one enemy that needs to go down.

The only other really high damage build I can think off is a Zealot Barbarian leveraging Reckless Attack, Great Weapon Master, and probably Polearm Master. GWM and Sharpshooters are also really good, but don't have on-demand advantage.

I've heard about Sorlock and twinning eldritch blast before, but wouldn't twinning it mean you need to have a second target? PHB 102: "...you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level to target a second creature in range with the same spell." I also read somewhere that twinning eldritch blast would only create an extra missile, not give an entirely new casting of it with say 3 more missiles at level 11. Perhaps I saw it in a sage advice or something. Anyways, it's still a cool build and I do love the darkness spell, it's one of my favorites. It kind of sucks when you finally fight an enemy with blindsight or truesight though lol.

It is still a very solid build. I just wanted to emphasize, that your stats (which you arbitrarily set to 20 and 10 respectively) are easily achievable with standard array. 20 dex and enough wis and cha to allow multiclass and even allow enough constitution to make your concentration checks.

I also thought about how to multiclass monk or warlock nice and efficiently. I lile the idea of being independent from armor and maybe weapons. So armor of shadows, unarmed defense and unarmed attacks go a long way. A blade warlock in shadow armor being able to summon a kensai weapons sounds like a lot of fun. An alternate Idea would be using the sorcerer shadow blade with a hexblade warlock multiclass. Level 3 to 5 sorcerer, level 7 to 9 warlock and using charisma as attack stat could be a lot of fun.

I was thinking the same thing. Thematically, the multiclass just sounds really cool, as you said they don't rely on any armor or weapons. Alternatively to kensei, shadow monk could also be a really cool choice too. As for Armor of Shadows, from what I know it wouldn't stack or work alongside Unarmored Defense. You'd have to pick either Unarmored Defense to calculate AC, or the Mage Armor. I think it could be good though, because it could free you from having to go for a high wisdom mod, and instead you could points somewhere else. Honestly, I don't know what having a high wisdom does for monks other than increase stunning strike's save dc. It's a good ability, don't get me wrong, but it's not the worst thing to have a monk with low wis. Especially in this scenario where they don't need it for unarmored defense because of Armor of Shadows.

 

[Cadmius Clairmonte]

@TwoSix

I went to look for sage advice wording on twinning eldritch blast, and on twitter Crawford says that if a spell is able to target more than one creature with its casting, then it is not eligible for being twinned. By definition, eldritch blast can target more than one creature when you hit level 5, since you can use one missile on two different creatures. Because of this, you can't twin eldritch blast when you hit level 5.

You can of course still quicken it though.

 

[TwoSix]

I've heard about Sorlock and twinning eldritch blast before, but wouldn't twinning it mean you need to have a second target? PHB 102: "...you can spend a number of sorcery points equal to the spell's level to target a second creature in range with the same spell." I also read somewhere that twinning eldritch blast would only create an extra missile, not give an entirely new casting of it with say 3 more missiles at level 11. Perhaps I saw it in a sage advice or something. Anyways, it's still a cool build and I do love the darkness spell, it's one of my favorites. It kind of sucks when you finally fight an enemy with blindsight or truesight though lol.

You are absolutely correct, I misspoke (mistyped?). You would need to quicken EB, not twin it.