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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashrym" data-source="post: 9453043" data-attributes="member: 6750235">A greater degree of diversity in fighting style feats would be my first thought.My second thought is that an eldritch knight subbing in truestrike, green-flame blade, or booming blade for an attack adds several more dice into the equation.  Truestrike dice at 11th level is 4d6 using a greatsword.  That's 16 average damage vs 14 for the +2 damage bonus as long as the INT bonus equals the STR bonus.  That got me thinking that in epic tier the cantrip attack does more damage in the attack chain but the rest of the attacks still do less so dueling would still be overall more damaging, but the base weapon is still more damaging but a  person would be looking for niche builds along that line of reasoning.So that led my thoughts to the paladin and smites.  A thunderous smite in a 3rd level spell slot with a greatsword does 6d6 for 24 damage instead of 21 for +3 damage.  I think there's a place for the fighting style with that low roll protection and better average while smiting significant opponents.  It also benefits d6 smites better than d8 smites to close the damage gap a little and therefore better encourages those d6 smites with status effects over just d8 smites.Then I thought about d4 bonus damage spells paladins have.  Divine favor or crusader's mantle adds with the great weapon fighting style +1.75 damage.  With both on it's +2.5 damage.  So the EK at higher levels concentrating on enlarge and also subbing in cantrip attacks or the paladin concentrating on elemental weapon in a higher slot plus divine favor suddenly look better.  That paladin is getting +3.25 and better smites.After that I thought about hunter's mark.  Then I thought the base damage argument still applies but there aren't enough bonus dice in hunter's mark to catch up in the direct comparison.  Elemental weapon upcast would be better.I think we have to make assumptions to keep the damage down to +1 when instead there are options for players to stack on dice to take advantage of those mechanics for a better effect.Anyone taking a weapon like that for damage anyway is going to consider the fighting style.  The easiest way to make better use of this particular fighting style is by using classes that can stack on several dice.  It seems made for a paladin -- if I roll a natural 20 for a crit I can apply my bonus action for a smite spell and combine the extra dice from the crit with the low roll protection from the feat to make sure my crits count for a lot.I don't think the fighting style is nearly as bad as some people think because we're not looking at the bigger picture.</blockquote>

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