Your Unfinished Business MVPs

[Frostfeather]

I've been trying many of the new Unfinished Business mod classes, and while most of them are objectively overpowered, some are just ridiculously good. Maybe not always because they're the top damage dealer themselves, but for what they bring to the group. I'm curious to know what classes from the mod people think are the best.

So far, mine are:

Dead Master Wizard - completely busted and can solo everything. You get an army of undead all day that don't require Concentration and that recover all hp on short rests. The undead generally aren't amazing on offense, but you can use them to soak all hits for your group (often with resistances and immunities) which means you don't need a healer.

Raven Rogue - oneshots like crazy, and can do it more than once per turn later on. The Improved Critical Feats stack with the critical threat range on Heart-Seeking Shot. Just make up for the hit debuff with Bless and/or Elven Accuracy and you'll be a monster.

Marshal Fighter - activates ally AoOs constantly, which is particularly useful for a Rogue so they can Sneak Attack twice per round the vast majority of the time. The summon they get is a flying undead with resistances/immunities and can block attacks on allies... and is recovered on a short rest(!). And Encouragement is a free Bless aura. They bring so much to the group it's ridiculous.

Grenadier Inventor - all Inventors are fantastic already, but Grenadiers have crazy burst damage and/or debuffs that turn the tide of every fight in the first round or two via bombs you use twice per turn. Eventually, you get any type of non-physical damage with a wide variety of debuffs to suit any situation or buff any party's attacks/spells. I found the Radiant Precise Bombs to be the most useful overall. And even though I was focusing on debuffing, my Grenadier still did the most overall damage in his campaign.

Field Manipulator Sorcerer - legendary resistance is the only thing that can save enemies against your Heightened spells. Any enemy without it is easily CC'd 99.5% of the time. Throw out debuffs that don't require Concentration (like Blindness) while you keep the most dangerous enemies locked down.

Honorable mentions go to Elemental Warlock for blasting all day, Way of the Distant Hand Monk for versatility, and Divine Heart Sorcerer for Metamagic on Cleric spells.

[Frostfeather]

Publicado originalmente por vazhatavberidze:

Publicado originalmente por night4:

My latest couple MVPs with recent UB changes are:

- Heavy Crossbow Weapon Master Fighter

Deals at least as much damage vs a Raven Rogue, but is tankier and doesn't need to stay stealthed. Especially strong in PoI or Devilish Deals or any other campaign where the Driller is available. Other ranged weapons are viable too, of course.

Just stack Elven Accuracy, the crit Feats (they now stack with Fighter crit Feats), Deadeye, Piercer, etc for massive damage and very high crit chance as you get 3 chances to crit with every attack. An easy to use character that can give themselves Advantage as needed and will still make almost any attack regardless thanks to Feats and extra Weapon Specialization.

Couldnt you go even further and add 4 levels (3 to get to raven + 1 for ASI/Feat) of Rogue? Heart seeking shot works with weapon masters lowered crit range, no? So you d crit on 16 as early as lvl 6 (if you go non optimal route, otherwise lvl 8). Add to that two sneak attack dice, Raven special sneak attack, stealth expertise + cunning action so that you can easily kite & hide.

This sounds so good I want to try it now. I am thinking Rogue 1 (purely my preference for expertise and skill monkeying mostly, you could easily start off with fighter, in fact you d be stronger out of the gate with archery) + fighter 5 so that my extra attack is delayed only by one lvl+rogue 4 (if you want to get the needed feats sooner, otherwise leave it at 3 and rush for Weapon Masters lvl 7 feature (extra attack on kill) and eventually third attack)+ fighter for the rest, or you could get inventive and another dip if your campaign ends on odd levels. I will be playing the Forsaken Isle campaign which is lvl 12 so I am planning to go 8 / 4 to get all the feats and compensate on missing out on fighters third attack.

For brevity, I didn't list every permutation of Weapon Master/Raven, but yes, I've tried about 10-12 different variations on them now, lol.

And going with straight up Weapon Master at least until level 7 is usually better (though this will depend on group comp, strategy, and difficulty settings). Focused Strikes + Momentum + Action Surge + Extra Attacks + Haste (+ another Action Surge later in the same round) is just too good.

I usually just stay Weapon Master also partly because it's faster vs running around hiding and you're naturally tankier too. Then Perfect Strikes (at 18) synergizes very well with Focused Strikes for damage. It's just a faster, easier character that blows through any fight regardless of circumstances. I feel like Raven needs to rush Killing Spree to justify the penalties and micro, which means getting Focused Strikes/Momentum rather late in a campaign (if you even get it at all).

But... they're both such strong subclasses that you can't really ruin your character no matter what direction go you in.

[Frostfeather]

Another thing: I find that having more instances of medium damage at a higher hit rate (Weapon Master) is generally better vs fewer instances of high damage at a slightly lower hit rate (Raven). You get less damage wasted to overkill, and you can spread out damage across more targets to synergize with AoE spells whether it's before or after the AoE.

Basically, it's more reliable damage and more reliable control over the damage.

[vazhatavberidze]

I already disagreed before, but thought I would play both characters (Forsaken Isle, cataclysm difficultly) and then compare & comment. And while both characters are undoubtedly strong (and would breeze through base game), the hybrid version comes out on top big time - dps, maneuverability, burst damage, you name it. Heart seeking shot is just that good. Moreover, with Rogue being such a frontloaded class, you hit the sweet spot way earlier, around lvl 8 and only get stronger from there on, as opposed to having to wait till lvl 18 to come into full force if you go pure WM. The tankier argument is also kinda moot, because when the enemy cant see you it doesnt matter whether you are tanky or a con-dump glass cannon, while if they see you - and in pure weapon masters case they certainly will, they might target you and in this case no amount of "a bit more tankier" is going to help.

One other thing - in your build, you suggested a heavy crossbow weapon master. If you are going crossbows, why heavy and not light crossbow, when the latter would ve given you an extra attack via the crossbow mastery feat and therefore an extra chance to crit? The damage difference is negligible compared to the extra attack. My thinking is you'd be heavily armored and use str instead of dex for heavy crossbow?

With that said, here are some of my personal mvp-s, having played Forsaken Isle and now playing its sequel Morrows Deep on cataclysm difficulty (both scenarios are rightfully considered as the hardest ones out there, far surpassing anything base game can offer in terms of challenge, provided you don't abuse the game ai via broken spells like greater invisibility):

1. Tank - I recall spell shield mentioned here as the best tank. It's not, simple as that. Best CC-er, definitely, but not the best tank. Enter the Blade Dancer, a wizard subclass. Blade Dance ability allows you to add your intelligence modifier to your armor class, provided you are wearing light armor and no shield. Combo that with arcane defense and you are looking at 25 naked AC when blade dancing at about lvl 8, much earlier if you're human. And its only the beginning: we get blur to cause the enemy to attack us with disadvantage OR haste for an extra 2 AC and extra attack, mirror image for duplicates and most importantly, shield as a reaction, which ups our AC into stratosphere. at lvl 7 we can use a cantrip in place of one of our attacks, which means that if we're tanking several enemies at once, we can cast blade ward and suddenly become a barbarian-lite. Moreover, if you're hit, most likely by a half damage on save spell attack, you can always expend one of your higher spell slots to drastically reduce the damage (5 times per spell slot lvl). It might be tempting for this build to try and go dual wielding route, but it requires a ton of feats to work and you'd probably have to multiclass and hinder your spell progression, therefore the best way to go about it going in with one weapon + fencer feat for an extra attack, which means you're getting three main (or a spell, one main +1 bonus) attacks at lvl 8 (or lvl 6 if human). One perhaps overlooked feat for this character is cloak and dagger. It grants you an additional 2 AC for the turn if you attack (and hopefully hit) with a light weapon. The process goes as follows: we get a spell in, get a main attack or a bonus attack in through a scimitar and enjoy that nice 2 AC. Works best (30 + AC) with bracers of defense, assorted rings and cloaks, and a scimitar to proc cloak and dagger.

Needed stats: Dex 20, Int 20
Best Races to pull it off (UB Races): Human (early feat), Shadow Gnome (takes longer but adv on spell saves is tremendous), High elf, halfling perhaps, with a bit more tinkering than usual.

Feats needed to make the build work: Arcane defense - absolutely crucial (+1 to needed mental stat, in this case int, armor class becomes dex+pref mental stat), fencer, blade mastery for +1 att/ +1 AC on that scimitar and Cloak and Dagger feat for that sweet sweet +2 AC for a turn. Even the stats out with an ASI whenever necessary (at earlier levels, 23 naked AC is already top tier, so you can wait with improving the attributes until you reach somewhere lvl 8).

2. Above mentioned Weapon Master / Raven hybrid - shreds everything, you just need to see it in practice. Ideal distribution would be either rogue 4 + the rest of WM, or if you are really keen on extra sneak dice (both regular and heart seeking shot dice) and evasion, rogue 8 instead. First option is preferred, as it blossoms earlier.

Needed stats: Dex 20 is all that matters, really.
Feats: you're blessed here as both classes have feat-rich progression. Essential picks: archery via fighting style, elven accuracy, improved critical, hammer the point (one of the most underappreciated feats - on cataclysm difficulty its a huge boon) and piercer. Apart of that, you can take crossbow mastery if you're going crossbows and proc extra attack when using light crossbows for more crit fishing. Bow mastery isnt really worth it, as you wont be using shortbows instead of longbows unless you are a raving lunatic.

3. Heavy hitter & tank in one package. This one has been a revelation and my personal favourite. Not sure if the mod makers intended it to be quite so OP though. Enter College of War Dancer bard / Spell Shield hybrid. Could probably solo the game on lower difficulties. Now take a seat and listen:

"Level 3
Armor and Weapons
You can wear Light Armor, Medium Armor and Shield and also gain proficiency with martial weapons.

Dance Of War

You gain Bardic Inspiration and for the next minute add your Charisma modifier to attack rolls. You are immune to difficult terrain, your speed is increase by 15ft, and you can switch your weapon freely. Each successful attack grants Momentum - a buff that decreases attack rolls, but grants bonus to damage depending on weapon weight:

•Light: attack: -2 per Momentum, damage: 1d6 per Momentum
•Heavy: attack: -4 per Momentum, damage: 2d10 per Momentum
•Other: attack: -3 per Momentum, damage: 1d8 + 1d8 per Momentum

This extra damage is not multiplied on critical hits. Momentum is lost on your turn end. When you take damage you roll concentration check and on failure Dance Of War and all Momentum is lost, as well as all extra attacks from Improved War Dance.

War Casting
Advantage on concentration checks, be able to use your weapons as spellcasting focus, and be able to perform somatic components of spells while holding items."

Sounds too good to be true, right? + charisma modifier added to attack, no limitation on armor type, no need for spell focus, adv on concentration. And dont forget the switch weapons freely bit, which means you can freely switch to Wardenblade & shield at the end of the turn, gaining at least +3 AC. But wait, there's more! read this:

"Level 6
Improved War Dance
While Dance Of War is active you gain extra main hand attack after all main actions are spent. Each hit with that extra attack grants another extra attack, up to half your proficiency bonus (rounded down) extra attacks in total. These extra attacks can only be melee."

...Where do I even start? It's bonkers. This means that with some feats and bless/haste on, you can routinely hit for up to 100 damage at around lvl 8, if not more, per turn if you go in with a two-hander. Both Fencer and dual wielding route are doable and effective, but the two-hander is just god tier. Now if you fine-tune it with carefully selected feats, the damage output is just obscene. And you get bard spellcasting to boot (healing, mostly, and an odd mirror image here and there).

But its not over yet! It's a hybrid, remember? We will only ever need 6 bard levels - (the later powers of this subclass and the bard in general are kinda meh, at least for what we are trying to accomplish here). That's where the tank bit comes from - for our second class, we opt for the Spell Shield, which gives us several very tangible benefits:

1. easy and rapid access to feats (and great weapon fighting style for maximum damage)
2. superior wizard spellcasting - you'll need shield / blur / haste for your tanking duties, and bard offers none of those.
3. option to dump dex to a middling stat (say 14) and instead go for the heaviest armor available + armor feats to increase tankiness
4. At lvl 7, ability to squeeze in a defensive cantrip a la blade ward in place of one of your many attacks, if you know you'll be hit a lot next turn.
5. Late game, when you are lvl 10 spell shield, you can add your strength or dex modifier to your spell DC. Now thats... bonkers, again. This means that with a circlet of intellect, you can reasonably CC the entire battlefield and then proceed to beat the everliving ♥♥♥♥ out of whoever you please.

In short, try it, if you havent already. Its hella fun. I went in with a reach weapon and found out later on that it was excessive caution on my part, as not much was able to hit me anyways, so probably the a greatsword would work best (with blade mastery feat). Or alternatively a versatile weapon, if you take a half-and-half fighting style as a feat later on - with Wardenblade, that would net you a +1 attack, +1 damage and +2 AC, but you'd have to give up the follow up strike for that and I don't think that would be a good tradeoff.

Needed Stats: Strength 20* + (* considering strength is the one stat which you can dump at the char creation phase as you can find giant belts and easily increase it past 20, Strength trumps dex and fencer/two weapon options in this case, as you'll desperately need everything that boosts attack to fine tune this build), Charisma 20 (prioritize this)

Best races to pull it off: Human (that first feat goes a long way to set your stats straight), half elf (for reasons stated above), tieflings (feral's the best) and my personal favourite - Dragonkin Kobold: +3 attribute points for you to spend as you see fit, therefore you can sink all three into charisma if you rolls arent that good) and easy to get ability to gain advantage on (a single) attack that will be a god-sent for you early on while you still have 1 or two main attacks, and will remain very useful throughout.

Feats (in this order): 1. This is where Hammer The Point truly shines - it makes the momentum attack penalties far less painful than they have any right to feel like. It's absolutely crucial for this build.

2. Follow up strike (yes, you already are attacking 4 (5 with haste) times per turn, at that stage the attack penalty is really steep, but much like smites, momentums also proc on follow up strikes, which means that if you hit, it might be something like +40 damage.

3. Blade mastery - this is tailor made for the build as it isn't chasing crits, therefore just needs reliable damage, and neither greataxes nor mauls have a similar feat that would confer both +1 AC and +1 attack

4. Mighty blow - sure, cleaving attack and power attack might be very tempting and will up your damage into stratosphere, but you cant really afford any attack maluses, so I'd instead go for a much safer way of getting half your strength mod (rounded up) as damage on every two-handed hit. That means +12 damage if all your four attacks hit, more if you manage to squeeze in more attacks. Not too shabby and no nasty attack maluses. With bonkers strength (say fire giant belt / potions), it can scale up to very respectable damage.

That's my two cents, folks!

[Frostfeather]

It doesn't take level 18 for Weapon Master to become good. They've got a very steady power curve, but I mention the level 18 ability because it's like a kind of "capstone", and further removes the need for multiclassing at all. I almost never see level 20 in campaigns I play, but I do often see 18.

Their tankiness is certainly not "moot", at least not for any of the dozen groups I've used them in (even when they're stealthed most of the time). What tends to happen, though, is that the other 3 party members are stealthed and far away from the WM, and the WM is the first to break stealth as needed to corral enemies away from the others because 1 - it doesn't matter as they give themselves Advantage as needed and 2 - they can easily survive some hits. So they're effectively the star damage dealer and main tank all in one.

Heavy crossbow is usually for Driller, but yes, you can take another weapon before that. Shortbow works well if that legendary is available, or crossbow otherwise. The increasing number of specialized weapons is another reason to go deeper into WM as switching to suit the situation is usually ideal.

And I did say it was going to depend on several factors... I notice you didn't mention the synergy with area attacks, for example. That's just one single example of play style that will affect the effectiveness, and there can be many such examples.

For the record, I have done that hybrid multiple times, and single class Weapon Master is still hands down the clear winner for me. Which is kind of saying a lot because I have a *very* strong tendency to play casters. It takes a special, versatile kind of martial to make me this passionate about one.

[Rocky]

Publicado originalmente por guard65:

You can bring the weight of the game against you and make it fun.

Bard / Sorc offers not just inspiration and the rest extra die with Bard(Guts) you also get two attacks per round, marshal weapons, medium armor. Combined with Sorc Quick and Twin, you can attack twice in a round and cast a full spell as a bonus action. Plus twin cleric bonus action spells.

Another Favorite of mine is Orc Barbarian (Stone) / Rogue (Opportunist) as my super mobile tank. Clearly a dex / con build with no armor but with two weapon fighting and advantage on most attacks. Combine that with Power Attack (-3 to hit) and Sentinel and you kill anything in your path and CC the ones that try to run past you.

Rogue (Raven) / Wizard (Arcane Fighter) is a better choice for me. Heart-Seeking Shot (-4 to hit) only has an effect on a critical hit. However if you combine it with Dead Eye (-3 To Hit) when you do hit from your advantage sniper point (-7 To Hit) they feel the pain. Since I play on Cataclysm Plus I also have an additional -3 to hit for all players so my Raven ends up with a -10 to hit. It can get painful when you go four rounds without a single hit.

Also why combine with Arcane Fighter you ask, well it gives you two attacks per round and marshal weapons and improved concentration. Combined with invisibility and hide you can usually get advantage every round making Heart-Seeker have a chance to land a shot, twice with advantage.

Playing on CAT+ enemies that deal 200% damage and have 200% hit points as well getting +3 on everything, well you have -3 on everything. Your not going to be getting a 1-shot kill unless you land both your hits as a critical. Since, at least in my case having -10 to hit for Raven and -6 to hit for other classes you will miss a lot but when you hit, you hit. I feel odds are best if they are against me.

That is basically my current three man crew I am running through CotM. (Party size over-ride (3) to use 1-6 players in the campaign.

What race and class split are you using on the Rogue/Barb?

[Sogreth]

I made a Fighter Sub-class (I cant remember the sub-class name) that turns Second Wind into a group heal with like 5 uses. Give them Healer feat and they become the best healer in the game, along with being able to use shield and heavy armour.

[charles_watkins]

I used to be enamored with the Raven, but lately I've been favoring the Arcane Archer for my shooter build. Deadeye and Heart Seeking Shot are about the same and I can't afford to use both and still have a reasonable chance of hitting. The Ranger comes with some good spells and gets that extra attack at level 5.

The new version of Raven removes the to-hit penalty but only adds your level in extra damage. No increased crits, but you do get free Archery.

[Frostfeather]

Publicado originalmente por charles_watkins:

I used to be enamored with the Raven, but lately I've been favoring the Arcane Archer for my shooter build. Deadeye and Heart Seeking Shot are about the same and I can't afford to use both and still have a reasonable chance of hitting. The Ranger comes with some good spells and gets that extra attack at level 5.

The new version of Raven removes the to-hit penalty but only adds your level in extra damage. No increased crits, but you do get free Archery.

I'm planning on using an AA in my next run for sure. Haven't done much with them yet but they look pretty good.

And yeah, I think at least half the subclasses from my original post have been redesigned or nerfed or whatever by now. Probably a good thing overall though.

Editing to say I finished the 6 player Red Crow campaign and AA was decent but not amazing. The biggest problem by far is the fact that they can only apply one arcane arrow per turn, which is absolutely crippling on a class that can have so many attacks. Just criminal. Also, they get these arcane archer points pretty slowly.

They do get a lot of rerolls, so can be good in situations/groups without much support. And Blinding arrow was pretty nice... (though not as nice as a ranged Weapon Master, for sure).

[Frostfeather]

To try more classes and some of the newer ones, I started a run with:
- Arcane Archer Fighter
- Celestial Warlock
- Vitriolist Inventor
- Defiler Cleric
- Blade Dancer Wizard
- Psion Sorcerer

Blade Dancer and Psion are rock stars, especially the Blade Dancer. Can tank anything, do good weapon damage, apply debuffs, and maybe shoot a cone spell or two here and there. Psion cannot be bad since it's a Sorcerer. Just more of different flavor of Sorcerer, which is great for some basic rp and a theme to pick spells around. Great balance of damage and debuffs/control.

Defiler Cleric is very good. Giving Vulnerability is very valuable and fairly rare. I let him have the Corrupting Bolt spell, too, which works well for him. Arcane Archer is very good, but doesn't really compare to a ranged Weapon Master. On the upside, they can apply a nice variety of debuffs to help the group more whereas Weapon Master is a bit more of a "selfish" subclass.

Then Celestial Warlock and Vitriolist Inventor fell flat for me. I *love* the rp idea of a healing Warlock, but there's almost nothing there that a Divine Heart Sorcerer can't do better. Pretty much the only way Celestial is better is if you're obsessed with relying on Short Rests as much as possible. Vitriolist is disappointing because their special debuffs have a terribly short range and can only be used as Bonus Actions. Grenadiers are far better.

I ended up respeccing the Warlock into a Divine Heart Sorcerer and the Inventor into a Demon Hunter Pally and I'm *much* happier now. The Paladin is fantastic at single target burst damage and exploiting Vulnerability from anywhere on the battlefield.

Anyone have any thoughts on these classes or any others?

[charles_watkins]

My ultimate archer is Arcane Archer 6/Demon Hunter Paladin 3/Harlequin Bard 3. The Ranger gets an extra attack and crossbow mastery gives another. The ranged smites are fantastic and a kill leaves the rest Terrified.

[Frostfeather]

Publicado originalmente por charles_watkins:

My ultimate archer is Arcane Archer 6/Demon Hunter Paladin 3/Harlequin Bard 3. The Ranger gets an extra attack and crossbow mastery gives another. The ranged smites are fantastic and a kill leaves the rest Terrified.

Nice, I've been playing around with some of those classes myself.

Though I notice Thespian Bard says that requires a melee weapon. Is that not true or are you using an older version of UB?

[Frostfeather]

I've been working on some Sorlocks that mainly revolve around Eldtrich Blast + Potent Spellcaster + Agonizing Blast + possibly more along with themed spells. Usually Quickened Spell and Powerful Spell for either a spell + Powerful EB or Quickened EB + Powerful EB in a turn.

And it's a bit tedious, but once you burn through your level 1 Sorcerer spells, you can cannibalize unlimited Warlock spells for Sorcery Points as long as you can Short Rest.

Some of my favorites are:

"Corrosive Sorlock": 2 Hive Warlock (for Weakening Pheromones + Corrosive EB) + Black Draconic Sorcerer. Revolves around debuffing and obviously acid damage.

"Monochromatic Sorlock": 2 Elementalist Warlock (for Elemental Form + Chilling/Fiery/Fulminating EB) + matching Draconic Sorcerer. Take the Elemental Feats and matching elemental spells.

"Divine Sorlock": 1 of whatever Warlock + Divine Heart Sorcerer for a more versatile Sorlock.

"Sorr-Akkath-lock": Haven't tried yet but Moonlit Warlock + Sorr-Akkath for Spell Sneak Attack EB.

I'm using a Silver/cold Monochromatic Sorlock and a Divine Sorlock now and they're both great. Using fully min/max characters tends to get boring and make the game too easy, so going about ~85% there and the rest flavor or theme is the perfect way to go imo.

[Firfurz]

Publicado originalmente por night4:

My latest couple MVPs with recent UB changes are:

- Heavy Crossbow Weapon Master Fighter

Deals at least as much damage vs a Raven Rogue, but is tankier and doesn't need to stay stealthed. Especially strong in PoI or Devilish Deals or any other campaign where the Driller is available. Other ranged weapons are viable too, of course.

Just stack Elven Accuracy, the crit Feats (they now stack with Fighter crit Feats), Deadeye, Piercer, etc for massive damage and very high crit chance as you get 3 chances to crit with every attack. An easy to use character that can give themselves Advantage as needed and will still make almost any attack regardless thanks to Feats and extra Weapon Specialization. This character had 94% hit accuracy in my last campaign even though it used Deadeye (-5 to hit) on literally every attack from level 1. And did more damage then the other 3 characters put together, partially thanks to round 1 Action Surge in every fight to take out the greatest enemy threat immediately.


- Sorr-Akkath Sorcerer as an Eldritch Blast spammer

Outperforms Eldritch Surge Warlock overall. Potent Spellcaster stacks with Agonizing Blast (via Eldritch Adept), along with Spell Sneak attack and Powerful Spell Metamagic. So that's 2d10+10 damage per Eldritch Blast hit with Spell Sneak Attack on top of one (plus maybe Malediction). And you're swimming in Sorcery points, so you can Quicken and/or Powerful Eldritch Blasts all day. Maybe Quicken an area spell + Powerful Eldritch Blast when outnumbered.

You will need Magic Initiate to give you Eldritch Blast and Malediction. But it's worth it for a better spell list, higher level spells, and more Metamagic/Sorcery points vs a Warlock.

Crossbow build is truly impressive. I like it.
As for the Sorr-Akkath Sorc being better than an Eldritch Surge, I have to deeply disagree, and this is why.
I trialed both, in a binge from lv. 1 to lv. 20, so I know what I'm talking about.
First, issues with your point: Spell Sneak does not make that much of a difference. Only if you get a feat to add your CHA to damage, it does scale properly. Metamagic will help you for a bit or if you're going full Nova, sure, but you WILL run out of Sorc points. You can burn your spells to get points, but that burns through your bonus action (more on this later) and, if you have like 6-7 fights between campsite, you will run out of spells just to fuel your metamagic to improve and quicken your blasts. Also, as a Sorc, every spell you cast and slot you use is gone until the next LONG rest, and that is an issue for long crawls, for which no classes excel above Fighter and Warlock, due to them getting almost everything back on short rests. I tried a highly optimized build of this and a mid-optimized build of a warlock (half/halfed it as a blade pact sorc, and I could have gone Chain, which would have made it even more powerful, what with the resistances and that all, but it wasn't necessary in the end), and the warlock absolutely trounced the Sorc at almost every level, and more so when you get the cantrip duplication feature for bonus actions.

First, there's no economy of slots for casting large amounts of blasts with an Eldritch surge: at some levels, it casts the same number of blasts, but most of the time it cast 1 blast more than a sorc that spent a feat or a level getting the spell. And when you get to use eldritch blast with a bonus action every round without having to spend resources, unlike the Sorc's case, we're talking of a constant 5-12 blasts per round for free, or just cast a CC spell to help the rest instead. Only drawback is that Sorc allows you to quicken a regular spell AND then cast Eldritch blast, so you can have the best of both worlds, but if you go for full Force damage, Eldritch Surge worked much better all the time, without worrying about slots, and whenever I had to spend a slot, I knew I would get it back immediately after the fight with a short rest.

Your sorc build can get a bit more damage per blast if you have the sorcery points, but in the end, when you can constantly cast 2 blasts more every round, with repelling and lethargy features, the damage and CC of the warlock becomes much, much better.
Also, remember, once you've run out of sorc points, you can only, reasonably, quicken and cast once every 2 rounds, because you're likely gonna be using the round inbetween to convert slots into sorc points. It is not sustainable.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the build, and Sorcs have a much, MUCH better selection of spells than Warlocks, but if you want a blast machine, Eldritch surge is way superior. Then your build, then other basic non-surge builds. Serioulsly, the Eldritch surge build is so broken that it makes no sense to have any other caster class or subclass as magical damager.

For CC? Sorc. For versatiliy? Wizard. For utility and making sure no one misses hits? Bard. But Warlocks have always been categorized as strikers and that's for a very simple reason.

[Frostfeather]

Publicado originalmente por Firfurz:

Crossbow build is truly impressive. I like it.
As for the Sorr-Akkath Sorc being better than an Eldritch Surge, I have to deeply disagree, and this is why.
I trialed both, in a binge from lv. 1 to lv. 20, so I know what I'm talking about.
First, issues with your point: Spell Sneak does not make that much of a difference. Only if you get a feat to add your CHA to damage, it does scale properly. Metamagic will help you for a bit or if you're going full Nova, sure, but you WILL run out of Sorc points. You can burn your spells to get points, but that burns through your bonus action (more on this later) and, if you have like 6-7 fights between campsite, you will run out of spells just to fuel your metamagic to improve and quicken your blasts. Also, as a Sorc, every spell you cast and slot you use is gone until the next LONG rest, and that is an issue for long crawls, for which no classes excel above Fighter and Warlock, due to them getting almost everything back on short rests. I tried a highly optimized build of this and a mid-optimized build of a warlock (half/halfed it as a blade pact sorc, and I could have gone Chain, which would have made it even more powerful, what with the resistances and that all, but it wasn't necessary in the end), and the warlock absolutely trounced the Sorc at almost every level, and more so when you get the cantrip duplication feature for bonus actions.

First, there's no economy of slots for casting large amounts of blasts with an Eldritch surge: at some levels, it casts the same number of blasts, but most of the time it cast 1 blast more than a sorc that spent a feat or a level getting the spell. And when you get to use eldritch blast with a bonus action every round without having to spend resources, unlike the Sorc's case, we're talking of a constant 5-12 blasts per round for free, or just cast a CC spell to help the rest instead. Only drawback is that Sorc allows you to quicken a regular spell AND then cast Eldritch blast, so you can have the best of both worlds, but if you go for full Force damage, Eldritch Surge worked much better all the time, without worrying about slots, and whenever I had to spend a slot, I knew I would get it back immediately after the fight with a short rest.

Your sorc build can get a bit more damage per blast if you have the sorcery points, but in the end, when you can constantly cast 2 blasts more every round, with repelling and lethargy features, the damage and CC of the warlock becomes much, much better.
Also, remember, once you've run out of sorc points, you can only, reasonably, quicken and cast once every 2 rounds, because you're likely gonna be using the round inbetween to convert slots into sorc points. It is not sustainable.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the build, and Sorcs have a much, MUCH better selection of spells than Warlocks, but if you want a blast machine, Eldritch surge is way superior. Then your build, then other basic non-surge builds. Serioulsly, the Eldritch surge build is so broken that it makes no sense to have any other caster class or subclass as magical damager.

For CC? Sorc. For versatiliy? Wizard. For utility and making sure no one misses hits? Bard. But Warlocks have always been categorized as strikers and that's for a very simple reason.

I guess I wasn't specific enough in my original post on it, but "outperforming overall" meant that the Sorcerer's area damage (and better spell list) put it above the Lock for me. I know I spent more time talking about the single target aspect but that was partially for my own reference in remembering exactly what stacked together since I play many different games and need a refresher when I come back to one.

I'm not denying that Eldritch Surge is a great option. I just found the Sorc to be much better for me "overall". I think it's extremely rare that any campaign in Solasta would have you go 6-7 fights in a row.

Another factor I think contributes to this is my groups have a tendency for higher damage and area damage across the entire group, making limited spell caster resources easier to manage. Also, I tend to use extremely efficient spells like Wall of Fire, which can do damage to most/all enemies multiple times. Basically, a Sorc doing this and then piling EB with bonuses on top is usually going to outperform a Lock in terms of raw damage over the course of a campaign.

Much will come down to personal preference, playstyle, and group needs I suppose. Maybe even some changes UB has made since then too?

[GhostshadowX]

Publicado originalmente por vazhatavberidze:

2. Above mentioned Weapon Master / Raven hybrid - shreds everything, you just need to see it in practice. Ideal distribution would be either rogue 4 + the rest of WM, or if you are really keen on extra sneak dice (both regular and heart seeking shot dice) and evasion, rogue 8 instead. First option is preferred, as it blossoms earlier.

Needed stats: Dex 20 is all that matters, really.
Feats: you're blessed here as both classes have feat-rich progression. Essential picks: archery via fighting style, elven accuracy, improved critical, hammer the point (one of the most underappreciated feats - on cataclysm difficulty its a huge boon) and piercer. Apart of that, you can take crossbow mastery if you're going crossbows and proc extra attack when using light crossbows for more crit fishing. Bow mastery isnt really worth it, as you wont be using shortbows instead of longbows unless you are a raving lunatic.

Hey guys, sorry to necro an old thread. I am now revisiting Solasta and I was really excited to try this build, but.. the UB mod maker removed / deprecated quite a few classes and feats, notably Hammer the Point. I don't suppose I could bother you to come up with an updated ranged (preferably bow based) build now? Would be appreciated. I know many people use UB but honestly it's pretty frustrating that one guy is deciding what to keep and what to discard, and it makes it really difficult trying to come up with builds. I also note, it's almost impossible to find clear, concise build guides to **any** UB builds, never mind this one!