Published: September 24, 2023

Last modified: June 21, 2024

DnD Quick Builds: Melee & Ranged Martials

Author: Moonsilver | Stefan

Mid-High Op

Welcome to our Quick Build guide where we unveil two excellent character builds that stand as the epitome of weapon-focused mastery for both melee and ranged combatants in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. If you’re on the hunt for the pinnacle of martial prowess, your search ends here. While the Ranger and Paladin classes undeniably wield superior potential, our aim is to cater to those who want to play something closer to the essential core of the martial archetype – excellence at attacking with weapons. Our readers commonly ask for the “ultimate martial build”, so we proudly present our alternatives built around the Barbarian and Fighter cores respectively. These refined builds serve as a hands-on demonstration of the insights laid out in our multiclassing guide, displaying optimization theory in action.
Before we dive into the heart of these builds, it’s worth noting that if your goal is simply to play the most powerful weapon-using builds, look no further than our Flagship Paladin for melee and the formidable Flagship Ranger for ranged. The builds we’re about to explore deliberately favor options that prioritize weapon mastery over spellcasting potency, aligning them more closely with the idea of a traditional martial build.

Melee: The Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger Core

Optimization level: mid-high.
This build focuses on immense nova and high sustained damage with a combination of Reckless Attack, Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Extra Attack, Action Surge, Precision Attack, and Dread Ambusher. At lower optimization levels, your raw consistent damage from Reckless Attack, Great Weapon Master, and Polearm Master will carry fights. At higher optimization levels, you need to play more carefully due to your poor defense compared to vastly more durable casters. Stay back until you can reach and burst down an important target or the enemy has closed into melee with the group, at which point you want to accelerate the fight by unleashing your damage on the priority target.

Race: Custom Lineage

Feat — Polearm Master. Make sure to use your glaive’s reach correctly to maximize the number of opportunity attacks generated by this feat.
Variable Trait — Darkvision.

Ability Scores

14+2 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 9 INT, 13 WIS, 8 CHA

Background: Investigator

Background Feature — Researcher. This feature is better the more likely you are to fail an Intelligence check, so it’s great for us!

Proficiency Selections

Skills — Athletics (class), Perception (class), Stealth (background), Acrobatics (background).
Tools — Thieves’ tools (background), smith’s tools (background).
Languages — Common (race), Dwarvish (race; can be any language).

Starting Equipment

From background: magnifying glass (sell this), evidence from a past case (item 47, black thread), common clothes, 10 gp.
From class: glaive (b1), quarterstaff (b2), an explorer’s pack and four javelins.

Purchasing Goals

Sell your superfluous starting items. Get scale mail as soon as possible. Buy a longbow and enough arrows, as well as javelins. After that, allocate your money to half plate. For everything else refer to the mundane item guide.

Level 1: Barbarian

Level 2: Barbarian

Level 3: Barbarian

Primal Path — Path of the Zealot.
Primal Knowledge (TCoE) — Choose this optional feature. Survival.

Level 4: Barbarian

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Great Weapon Master.

Level 5: Barbarian

Level 6: Barbarian

Note: If you do not require the fourth rage and rerolled save, you can delay this level until you need it.

Level 7: Fighter (Barbarian 6/Fighter 1)

Fighting Style — Defense.
Fighting Style Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.

Level 8: Fighter (Barbarian 6/Fighter 2)

Action Surge — Make sure to use this to burst down priority targets — preferably early in a combat encounter.

Level 9: Fighter (Barbarian 6/Fighter 3)

Martial Archetype — Battle Master.
Combat Superiority (Battle Master feature) — Menacing Attack, Precision Attack, and Trip Attack. Menacing Attack can shut down melee-only enemies by stopping them from coming closer while no one is in their reach, which even you can take advantage of using the reach of your polearm. Precision Attack is used for added damage in your nova round. Trip Attack is especially useful if your first attack in a turn hits and you’ll be able to walk up into 5 feet range to the prone enemy and attack with advantage and Action Surge if you do not want to expose yourself via Reckless Attack, or if you want to generate advantage for an allied -5/+10 feat user.
Maneuver Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.
Student of War (Battle Master feature) — Mason’s tools.

Level 10: Cleric (Barbarian 6/Fighter 3/Cleric 1)

Note: If you will not get a magical weapon and need one to overcome resistances, pick forge cleric – earlier than this level if you have to (but not before level 5). If you already have a peace cleric in the party and do not require forge cleric, or you find that you need the massive out-of-combat healing that the Life Domain provides in combination with goodberry, then delay your cleric level for later and pick Life Domain after you’ve got your goodberry from ranger. If that interaction is banned, delay cleric even more and eventually pick Twilight Domain after Gloom Stalker 5 for the initiative boost.
Divine Domain — Peace.

Emboldening Bond — This is the reason we take the Peace domain. Make sure to use it when entering dangerous territory. It’s a substantial bonus to accuracy and saves for the entire party.
Additional Cleric Spells (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.
Spellcasting — guidance, light, mending; bless, healing word, heroism (domain), sanctuary (domain).

Level 11: Fighter (Barbarian 6/Fighter 4/Cleric 1)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Resilient (Wisdom). Wisdom saves are critical for us, as many Wisdom effects prevent us from using our melee attacks. For example, failing the save against a dragon’s Frightful Presence ability means we are likely unable to enter melee at all!
Martial Versatility (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.

Level 12: Ranger (Barbarian 6/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 1)

Favored Foe (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Deft Explorer (TCoE) — Canny. Perception, Draconic, Undercommon. Adjust the languages as needed.
Skill — Insight.

Level 13: Ranger (Barbarian 6/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 2)

Spellcasting Focus (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Additional Ranger Spells (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Fighting Style Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Fighting Style — Blind Fighting.
Spellcasting — absorb elements, goodberry.

Level 14: Ranger (Barbarian 6/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 3)

Ranger Archetype — Gloom Stalker.
Dread Ambusher — During the first round of combat, this gives you an additional attack and extra speed. It synergizes with Action Surge, both by bringing you into position to use your action effectively and by allowing you to double dip on Dread Ambusher by taking the Attack action twice to get a second extra attack from the feature.
Umbral Sight — This will sometimes save us from having to Reckless Attack, or at least from some of its drawbacks. It’ll conserve our HP and that is valuable. It’ll also make us untargetable in some situations for some nasty WIS-Save based effects due to denying sight.
Primal Awareness (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Spellcasting — +fog cloud, +longstrider (archetype), +speak with animals (primal awareness).

Level 15: Ranger (Barbarian 6/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 4)

Note: Taking the 5th level of Ranger here would give us powerful options in 2nd level spells (pass without trace or spike growth, rope trick) that would be a greater increase in effectiveness, but we choose to focus on martial prowess in this build rather than mixing in more spellcasting to maximize power.
Ability Score Improvement — +2 STR.

Level 16: Barbarian (Barbarian 7/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 4)

Instinctive Pounce (TCoE) — Choose this optional class feature.

Level 17: Barbarian (Barbarian 8/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 4)

Ability Score Improvement — +2 STR.

Level 18: Rogue (Barbarian 8/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 4/Rogue 1)

Skill — Investigation.
Expertise — Athletics, Stealth.

Level 19: Rogue (Barbarian 8/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 4/Rogue 2)

Cunning Action — This is the main feature we take Rogue levels for. Cunning Action Dash allows us to move much further when we need to, making entering melee early (when it’s most impactful) more reliable. Keep in mind that you still shouldn’t close the distance with enemies who are much more effective in melee than at range unnecessarily.

Level 20: Ranger (Barbarian 8/Fighter 4/Cleric 1/Ranger 5/Rogue 2)

Spellcasting — +pass without trace, +rope trick, +beast sense (primal awareness).
You can use spike growth in case your table nerfs pass without trace (such as by changing how surprise works).

Ranged: The Fighter/Ranger/Rogue Core

Optimization level: mid-high.
This build provides immensely reliable nova and high consistent damage from a safe distance, allowing it to exist at higher optimization levels at relative comfort — for a martial character. The core combo of the build is Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter + Extra Attack + Action Surge + Precision Attack + Dread Ambusher + Assassinate (for the advantage, not the surprise) to take out priority targets as early as possible from nearly any position on the battlefield.

Race: Custom Lineage

Feat — Crossbow Expert.
Variable Trait — Darkvision.

Ability Scores

8 STR, 15+2 DEX, 14 CON, 9 INT, 13 WIS, 13 CHA

Background: Investigator

Background Feature — Researcher.

Proficiency Selections

Skills — Athletics (class), Perception (class), Stealth (background), Acrobatics (background).
Tools — Smith’s tools (background), thieves’ tools (background).
Languages — Common (race), Dwarvish (race; can be any language).

Starting Equipment

From background: magnifying glass (sell this), evidence from a past case (item 47, black thread), common clothes, 10 gp.
From class: chain mail (a1), a hand crossbow and a longbow (a2), light crossbow (sell this) and 20 bolts (a3), dungeoneer’s pack (a4).

Purchasing Goals

Sell the superfluous items you got at character creation. Get enough bolts and arrows, scale mail (eventually half plate, and then studded leather once your DEX reaches 20). For everything else, refer to the mundane item guide.

Level 1: Fighter

Fighting Style — Archery.
Fighting Style Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.

Level 2: Fighter

Level 3: Fighter

Martial Archetype — Battle Master.
Combat Superiority — Menacing Attack, Precision Attack, and Trip Attack. Menacing Attack can shut down melee-only (or strongly melee-favored) enemies by stopping them from coming closer while no one is in their reach. Precision Attack increases damage and consistency in your nova round. Trip Attack is especially useful if your first attack in a turn hits and you can walk up within 5 feet of the prone enemy to attack with advantage and Action Surge, or if you want to generate advantage for an allied -5/+10 feat user.
Maneuver Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.
Student of War (Battle Master feature) — Mason’s tools.

Level 4: Fighter

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Sharpshooter.
Martial Versatility (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.

Level 5: Fighter

Level 6: Fighter

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Piercer. Note that this increases your Dexterity modifier.

Level 7: Ranger (Fighter 6/Ranger 1)

Favored Foe (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Deft Explorer (TCoE) — Canny. Perception, Draconic, Undercommon. Adjust the languages as needed.
Skill — Insight.

Level 8: Ranger (Fighter 6/Ranger 2)

Spellcasting Focus (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Additional Ranger Spells (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Fighting Style Options (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Fighting Style — Defense. If invisible enemies or heavily obscured areas feature heavily in your campaign, you can consider taking Blind Fighting instead.
Spellcasting — absorb elements, goodberry.

Level 9: Ranger (Fighter 6/Ranger 3)

Ranger Archetype — Gloom Stalker.
Dread Ambusher — Dread Ambusher gives us an additional attack in round 1 of combat, which we can get a second time by using Action Surge. This makes us incredibly effective at taking out priority targets, especially thanks to the peerless target selection offered by Sharpshooter’s ability to ignore cover.
Umbral Sight — Use this in conjunction with the fact that you are ranged to gain advantage often. Use the extended range of your Darkvision to play around 60 ft. ranged Blindsight when applicable. Try to coordinate with your party to travel at night and actively get rid of light sources — advantage is almost a 50% damage boost for you!
Primal Awareness (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Spellcasting — +fog cloud, +longstrider (archetype), +speak with animals (primal awareness).

Level 10: Cleric (Fighter 6/Ranger 3/Cleric 1)

Note: If you will not get a magical weapon and need one to overcome resistances, pick Forge Cleric – earlier than this level if you have to (but not before level 5). If you already have a Peace Cleric in the party, and do not require Forge Cleric, then delay your Cleric level for later and pick Life Domain Cleric to increase the healing of your goodberries from Ranger once your team is in need of additional healing throughout the adventuring day. If that interaction is banned, delay Cleric even more and eventually pick Twilight Domain after Gloom Stalker 5 for the initiative boost.
Divine Domain — Peace.
Emboldening Bond — This is the reason we pick up the subclass. Make sure to use it when entering dangerous territory. It’s a substantial bonus to accuracy and saves for the entire party.
Additional Cleric Spells (TCoE) — Pick this optional class feature.
Spellcasting — guidance, light, mending; bless, healing word, heroism (domain), sanctuary (domain).

Level 11: Ranger (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Resilient (Wisdom).
Spellcasting — +detect magic.

Level 12: Rogue (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1/Rogue 1)

Skill — Investigation.
Expertise — Athletics, Stealth.

Level 13: Rogue (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1/Rogue 2)

Level 14: Rogue (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1/Rogue 3)

Roguish Archetype — Assassin.
Assassinate — While crits on surprise are nice, make no mistake: this dip is taken for the advantage this feature grants when winning initiative against someone, allowing us to deal substantial damage to priority targets in round 1 with Action Surge and Dread Ambusher.
Steady Aim — Pick this optional feature.

Level 15: Rogue (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1/Rogue 4)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) — Alert. This feat allows us to more reliably take advantage of Assassinate and take out deadly threats before they can hurt the party, and it helps mitigate the threat of the party being surprised on the off chance something beats our excellent Passive Perception.

Level 16: Sorcerer (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1/Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1)

Sorcerous Origin — Divine Soul.
Additional Sorcerer Spells (TCoE) — Pick this optional feature.
Spellcasting — control flames, fire bolt, mold earth, resistance; silvery barbs, healing word, shield.
Note that we use the sorcerer feature to replace a sorcerer spell when gaining a level to replace bless with healing word. If silvery barbs is not available, pick feather fall.

Level 17: Ranger (Fighter 6/Ranger 5/Cleric 1/Rogue 4/Sorcerer 1)

Spellcasting — +pass without trace, +rope trick, +beast sense (primal awareness).
You can use spike growth in case your table nerfs pass without trace (such as by changing how surprise works).

Level 18: Rogue (Fighter 6/Ranger 5/Cleric 1/Rogue 5/Sorcerer 1)

Level 19: Fighter (Fighter 7/Ranger 5/Cleric 1/Rogue 5/Sorcerer 1)

Combat Superiority (Battle Master feature) — Ambush, Rally. Ambush can be used in encounters where winning initiative is essential or to pass critical Stealth checks, while Rally generates temporary hit points using a short rest resource, allowing you to give your allies a temporary HP buffer. Make sure to use Rally every morning and immediately take a short rest if at all possible; it’s free HP!

Level 20: Fighter (Fighter 8/Ranger 5/Cleric 1/Rogue 5/Sorcerer 1)

Ability Score Improvement — +2 DEX.

38 Replies to “DnD Quick Builds: Melee & Ranged Martials”

  2. Wouldn’t the echo knight be more interesting than the battle master for the melee build ?

    The two additional attacks/ long rest can give you a stronger nova in a difficult fight, and you get extra attacks of opportunity and a lot of utility from the echo. In particular why spend 2 levels of rogue to get a bonus action dash when you can get a bonus action teleport instead?

    Reply

    1. Echo Knight is a valid choice, though we judge it to be weaker than Battlemaster in this context:
      The nova it has isn’t actually stronger than what’s offered by superiority dice, and echo’s nova is also more limited so you cannot play around short rests to get more mileage.
      Additionally, opportunity attacks and possible Sentinel utility are less relevant due to this being a mid-high op build, meaning you’d play it in campaigns where your party actually knows what they’re doing; and at that point there’ll be an abundance of difficult terrain and forced movement effects that will largely just do what echo does but better, and PAM alone will fill your reactions plenty via forced movement.

      Yes you could spend 2 levels somewhere other than rogue at the very end, but that’s not worth the power-cost you pay for the majority of the campaign before then – also dashing actually has really nice synergistic effects with speed increasing items and spells (especially Fly) that you cannot replicate with echo knight.

      But if you like Echo knight, you can take this same build (possibly put the rogue levels somewhere else instead), play it with echo knight, and still be mid-high optimization whilst having some unique strengths of your own

      Reply

  3. Great article guys, thank you for giving a chance to martial characters! Quick question, have you considered the newly released Path of the Giant for this build? I feel like the Thrown property + 1d6 damage die per attack from level 6 as well as the damage bonus from the oversized weapon allowed by the subclass could strongly outdamage Zealot. Unless survival featured such as Warrior of the Gods and Fanatical Focus are that good? Thank you for reading

    Reply

    1. Giant barb is a very viable choice for this build, and depending on the circumstances of your table of campaign, it has good potential to be better than Zealot.
      Zealot features the better tier 1 and level 5; it also has some defensive utility for a good long while.

      As for giant: Rulings on oversized weapons and allowed play material are less consistent, especially when you get into *magical* oversized weapons, so there will be a lot of table variance. Also depending on what % of fights you have rage for, you’ll want to make different build choices if you want to fully optimize, things like Sentinel or Crusher could take precedent over GWM for example – but they don’t necessarily cause that % might go some other way, too. This makes it ridiculously hard to write an article about it, and the build wouldn’t necessarily be useful to people trying to play a different subclass.

      I’d rather have an oversized weapon giant barb with a magical weapon and a peace cleric dip than this Zealot build.
      But I’d also rather have this Zealot with a peace cleric dip than a giant barb forced to take a forge cleric dip to make their weapon magical

      Reply

      1. Wouldn’t it be enough to just use a Medium-sized magic weapon and make it Large with the Giant Stature feature? Everything you are wearing becomes Large with you from what I understood from the subclass, which includes weapons. We would technically still get the bonus boost from the Oversized Weapon rule without attacking at disadvantage as well. Unless you want a magic weapon that is directly Large so it becomes Huge for even bigger damage dice? I don’t know which one would be more optimal mathematically but the former probably makes the build easier to achieve at least.

        Reply

        1. Maybe, just a lot of table variance there. We can write with one assumption and then 90% of readers will come back with house rules differing from those assumptions. Or we can talk about all combinations that we can come up with, still miss half of them, and then 90% of our written work is irrelevant to our readers.
          If the rulings and cirucmstances for giant barb are good at your table, it’s an excellent choice for this build, especially when tier 1 and saving throws don’t matter that much at your table. If there’s enough rage uptime, then it’s possible GWM is incorrect, but that depends on accuracy boosts in your party and needs to be mathed out

          Reply

        2. The “oversized weapon rule” is from a section of the Dungeon Masters Guide which provides guidelines for DMs when crafting their own monster statblocks: it doesn’t apply to player characters. I wouldn’t even call it tech, honestly, I think its just an incorrect interpretation of the rules, at least when applied to features like Giant’s Might, the Enlarge spell, or the new Path of the Giants. These features all specify how they impact damage, and don’t make any reference that section of the DMG.

          Your best case would be if you turned large, disarmed a giant enemy, and took their weapon and lugged it around.

          Reply

          1. Sure, but… all large and bigger monsters use exactly these rules for their weapon attacks? It’s very likely that this is not because they all have specially made weapons for them specifically. Instead, the DMG tells us the rule for all large+ weapons. Yes, you are right, this is a suspicious position for a general rule, but it makes sense to use it.

          2. But again, those are guidelines for monsters, not player characters.

            For instance, the monster stat block for Duergar has an “Enlarge” feature, which explicitly states it doubles the damage dice for strength-based attacks from that creature. While the player character race “Duergar” also can cast Enlarge on itself, but it follows the rules for the spell Enlarge, which only increases its damage by 1d4 per attack.

          3. This is a good point! Unfortunately, this interpretation makes the spell enlarge very sad and leaves a mess of the rules for large+ weapons. Find one from an enemy? Extra damage dice. You enlarge one of your own? No change. You pay a smith to make some for you? Nobody knows.

  4. Also, there seems to be a typo with the Longstrider spell in the first build. It says that this spell comes from the Gloom Stalker spell list while it’s clearly Disguise Self that should be here I think.

    Reply

    1. The ranger spellcasting feature allows you to replace a ranger spell you know for a different one when you gain a level. Gloomstalker spells are ranger spells, so you can replace them. This is what’s happening here.

      (People will argue this doesn’t work on D&DBeyond, but neither does the explicitly described swapping of Clockwork Soul and Aberrant Mind spells, and neither did picking spells on Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster for the longest while, so that really isn’t a valid counter claim.)

      Reply

      1. That’s fair, I totally forgot about the “you can replace 1 Ranger spell per level with another” feature. Does that mean you could also do it with the spells provided by Primal Awareness?

        Reply

        1. The rules of Primal Awareness are just entirely broken and contradict other points in the rules, especially in that they don’t assign the spells to a class but also all spells must be assigned to a class. So the game just doesn’t work properly in that place and we’re not touching it with a 10-foot pole. You can see this reluctance in action in the flagship ranger article

          Reply

  5. Cool builds! I was looking for a Barbarian build for a long time 🙂 Is there any particular reason for picking Fog Cloud with our Ranger levels? Also, since you round up your Wisdom score with Resilient, you’re allowed to prepare another 1st level spell from the Cleric spell list. Which one do you think could work the best?

    Reply

    1. Another small correction for the ranged build: at level 11, it says that you pick a Fighter level, but it is actually a Ranger level. See below:
      Level 10: Cleric (Fighter 6/Ranger 3/Cleric 1)
      Level 11: Fighter (Fighter 6/Ranger 4/Cleric 1)

      Reply

    1. It’ll be substantially higher than paladin melee damage, though their smite damage burst can compete in very short days/for single important tasks/undead and fiends. However, you lack the excellent supportive capabilities that paladin brings to the table and the ranged ability (eldritch blast) that flagship paladin has. To deal with ranged enemies – sometimes it’s not worth rushing into melee with them, since they or their allies might be even scarier in melee, but sometimes you do need to just reach them and kill them. For that, I recommend a good warhorse, or better yet a phantom steed. We also take Rogue levels later in the build to get Cunning Action bonus action Dash for the additional mobility. As with all melee builds, however, engaging effectively at range is something that this build struggles with.

      Reply

  7. I love these builds, the peace cleric dip is my favorite part. I feel like people sleep on the one-level dip of bless + EB, but I have a question, about the melee build.

    I’m running a melee build with a similar premise, but instead, I’m going Fighter 12/Cleric 1/Ranger 3. Currently level 6 and picked up the one level in Cleric, I’m planning to go straight to Fighter 12, but should I go Ranger 3 first instead?

    Reply

    1. You absolutely should go ranger 3 before gunning for the fighter 11.
      A huge issue for melee fighter is that Great Weapon Master doesn’t actually really increase your damage unless you have substantial accuracy boosts going, which is why barbarian 2 is so core. Gloomstalker can give you some of that via conditional invisibility, though overall you should really consider the barbarian 2 dip and give up on the the third fighter attack: 3 attacks with advantage with GWM are better than 4 straight rolls – and you can get them earlier.

      Reply

  9. Level 11 for the ranged build has an error – it says fighter, but should have been a ranger level instead.

    Reply

    1. Melee, provided you get into range – though you’ll be taking disproportionately more damage, so range is generally better overall.

      Reply

    2. it would be worse for both builds, but not because of what Laughing Goblin says (which are both incorrect statements)
      In the case of the melee build, rage will disrupt your concentration.
      In the case of the melee build, you won’t have 2nd level slots to recast Pass Without Trace until level 11, and this slot availability hardly improves by the end of your progression at level 20.
      In both cases, what you get out of the race is not worth the much worse tier 1 performance and slower progression to critical feats for damage.

      Reply

  12. Can you comment on taking Hunter in the melee build to get a reaction attack whenever you’re in melee with a Large or larger creature? Most monsters are in the medium-large category, and a lot of “boss” type enemies are Large or Huge. This wouldn’t increase nova dpr, but would help with sustained dpr. My play experience rarely involves truly dark environments. Inevitably there’ll be some party member who needs a light source or the dungeon will be at least dimly lit, making gloomstalker advantage relatively unreliable.

    Reply

  13. Hi Moonsilver and Stefan.

    Many thanks for the inspiration of the two fantastic builds.
    Increasing the damage in the melee build, we can a use a heavy 2h glaive through GiantStatue if we take Barbarian – PathOfGiant instead of PathOfZealot.

    Can you please give this a thought? I think it will be at least as good as your build.

    Thanks a lot for the great work you did!
    Cheers!

    – Ranged but Fighter – RuneKnight instead of BattleMaster uses heavy 2h

    BattleMaster provides higher nova damage but using

    Reply

    1. For the melee build, i can absolutely see giant barbarian being better – I just did not feel like having the oversized weapon discussion and giant barbarian was released while i was editing the article, so i didn’t feel like reworking everything for a frankly somewhat fringe source book. The builds presented here should be interpreted in the context of ‘the big 3 core books’ of PHB + Xanathar + Tasha

      For ranged, i’d absolutely stick with battlemaster. the DPR increase matters *so* much less than the nova damage and you’re infinitely more likely to get it off than the melee build is

      Reply

  14. PS: Copy & past error. Please ignore in the previous post:

    – Ranged but Fighter – RuneKnight instead of BattleMaster uses heavy 2h BattleMaster provides higher nova damage but using

    Reply

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