D&D: Optimized Episode 19 - Bladesinger 2.0

[Music] welcome welcome welcome to dnd optimized the show where each week we take a deep dive into one or two specific character builds for dungeons and dragons 5e and we do our best to crush the numbers and optimize it to give you the greatest numerical advantage for your character's chosen role so if you like me love to play dungeons and dragons for a few hours a week and love to spend a few more hours a week fantasizing and dreaming about the characters you would like to be playing in dungeons and dragons and theory crafting and and crunching numbers and thinking about what would be the best way to create the most fun most powerful version of a character that you're working on um welcome home this place is for you so we're happy to have you grab a flagon of your favorite beverage pull a seat up by the fire and um join me for some theorycrafting so my name is colby thanks for being here appreciate having you today is the much anticipated um update to my blade singer episode so for those who've been watching for a little while um a couple of months ago i did an episode on the blade singer um which has been the class or subclass i guess that i've had personally the most fun playing in all of my dnd tenure um perhaps my enthusiasm caught on or you guys just all know that the blade singer's amazing because it's been by far my my most popular video and podcast download um and so thanks to all of the changes that came about with tasha's cauldron of everything a couple of weeks ago and to the the demand i decided that i better update it and put out a 2.0 version because a lot has changed and i wanted to share that with you guys so super excited about this i know a lot of you been asked have been asking um for this so we're gonna jump in you guys why doesn't anybody get it why why is it that before tasha's almost every guide that i would read on the blade singer or youtube video that i watched done by people who are much more popular and probably smarter than me seemed to say about the blade singer blade singers are great um but what makes them great is that you're a wizard and that you have access to your wizard spell list and that's what's fantastic and blindsinger brings some nice sort of defensive buffs to you but don't think that you ought to be in there mixing it up in melee with the fighters and barbarians because you shouldn't be and that always blew me away because i crunched the numbers and and played one in in game and and thought no you know these guys if you build them right you use the right spells and things they can do as much damages you know as a good barbarian or fighter depending on the level depending on the enemy armor class you know etc but but they are super competitive and have access to the wizard spell list and all those things and now post tashas it seems like people are starting to come around a little bit and go okay fine you can ba you can be in melee you know good good job little blade singer now you you can you can maybe hang with the big boys and i'm looking at it and going no this is like the best melee damage subclass in all of dungeons and dragons um you know when when you do it right so you know i get it um yes wizards have access to the biggest and best spells and spell list in the game um you know but but it's not like going into melee and and fighting is a waste of your action you know you wouldn't tell a great weapon master polar master barbarian or fighter or hex blade warlock that they're wasting their action by being in melee and doing crazy damage right and and that's what that's what the blade singer is capable of doing um they just have the added benefit of all of the mobility and versatility and tankiness that comes with um you know being a high armor class wizard that has access to all of the the amazing spells that they have um so you know they're they're they're so much fun and the damage that you do if you do it right it can truly be sustainable um you know yes you will have all of those spells but you don't need to use them you don't need to burn them every single round uh in order to keep up on the damage and then find yourself out of spell slots and just have to sit in the back and use firebolt right that's what makes the blade singer so amazing is the versatility coupled with um the fantastic damage so um today we're going to talk about the blades we're going to go in level by level i'm going to have to i feel like i need to um give it the same treatment that i do for all my other my other episodes that is going kind of level by level i i can't assume that you've watched blade singer 1.0 um maybe you have and and if you have great and if you haven't feel free to go back and watch it but but it's kind of unnecessary because i'm really going to try and pretend like that doesn't exist and just start from scratch here's how you build the blade singer in order to to make it optimized um you know some of the stuff will be review but a lot of it is new a lot of it is new um that said if you need to watch it on one and a half times speed because you've seen the first one i'm not gonna i'm not gonna uh i'm not gonna be upset with you um so first of all let's talk about kind of an overview of what tasha's has done for the blade singer there's there's good news and there's bad news right so the bad news first bad news is shadow blade is mostly dead and i know it hurts believe me it hurts me as much as it hurts you it's not totally dead we'll still be using it at times um but yes having a basically a lightsaber in dungeons and dragons is and was amazing um i love it i mourn it a little bit but but it is time to move on um for the most part also um big nerf to our early levels this is bad so in case you don't know thanks to the changes in tasha's cauldron of everything bladesong used to be usable twice per short rest and that meant that you could pretty much rely on having it for just about every combat encounter now it's changed to you can use it a number of times equivalent to your proficiency bonus per long rest did i say long rest before i met short rest if i did anyway now it's your proficiency bonus number of times per long rest and that's a real bummer especially at early levels um later on once your once your proficiency bonus gets up it's kind of a wash it's not a big deal but you know when your proficiency bonus is only at a two or a three you might find yourself having to pick and choose when to actually activate your blade song and that feels bad early on especially when it's only twice per long rest you're probably going to really have to choose you know when to activate it and go into melee and when to maybe play it safe and hold back i mean you can still be in melee without your blade song active it's just your armor class is going to be a lot lower and your concentration save is going to be lower and so it's just going to be tougher to both stay alive and also maintain concentration on your spells which is such a huge important source of the damage that we do as a blade singer so that's a bummer and you're gonna have to you're gonna have to think about that and sort of be smart about that um there is good news however uh changes with tasha so the good especi the biggest the biggest one is the change to the blade singer's extra attack so at level six not level five like most martial classes but at level six blade singers do get the extra attack feature and now that says that you can either make two attacks or make one weapon attack and make one cantrip you know cast a hand trip um this though coupled with the changes to booming blade we talked about them a little bit last time we'll get into it later are really what kind of kill shadow blade because now we've got cantrip options and we can't use shadow blade with a booming blade but again we'll get into it fear not it's still an overall buff there are great new alternatives for our concentration spell that we will talk about and so overall it's going to be um a dpr a damage per round increase so i'm excited to get into it let's jump into the build all right first um a narata from my first video uh first episode on the blade singer um i know many of you have pointed out um for whatever reason i was talking about rapier in the main hand short sword in the off hand don't know why i had a little brain slip there i am fully aware that um unless you took the dual wielder feet you cannot actually do two weapon fighting with a rapier in one hand and a short sword and the other they would both need to be light and rapier is not finesse yes light no anyway i know um okay so at level one blade singer um the race is as probably almost always will be going forward uh custom lineage custom lineage option that's going to give you plus two to a stat um and a free feed among other things it's so powerful um but you're going to want to make your custom lineage elf or half elf now again this is really just kind of a flavor role play aesthetic thing but the feet the free feet that we're going to be taking of an accuracy at level one still requires that you be an l for a half elf and so you can say custom lineage but i'm a half elf or i'm an elf um now here's the great thing about about the way that it describes custom lineage in tasha's right it says that you are a humanoid you determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin so you are that gives you a lot of room to play here right you could say that you're a half elf but you're half elf half orc and in fact you seemed to inherit all of the genes of of the orc parentage right so you kind of look more like an orc than anything or a dwarf or a gnome or kind of whatever you want um and yes maybe we're skirting the rules here but i think wizards of the coast's intent is for us to be able to do things like this and play with and have more creativity and more variety and versatility in our you know racial options and customization so you know get creative with it and have fun one big drawback to the custom lineage race is it does not come with any weapon proficiencies and wizards by default do not have proficiency with a rapier or a short sword or a simmeter so that changes things for us a little bit down the road and i'll get into that in a minute but just keep that in mind as i mentioned the free feat that we're going to take is elven accuracy it gives you a plus one to well for us dexterity and then again when you have advantage on an attack um instead of rolling two dice you get to roll three basically and that's fantastic um we we're always gonna be having advantage for at least one of our attacks and so that's that's important and starting off with an 18 dexterity at level one feels amazing so for ability scores right you're going to do i always assume point by you're going to you're going to buy 15 decks you're going to take your plus 2 ratio for that so that would bump you to a 17 and then you're going to get plus one for oven accuracy so you will start at 18 18 dexterity um that feels amazing the problem is um you're not going to be able to get to a 16 intelligence right because you don't get any more bonuses anywhere um unless you sacrificed in dexterity which i don't want to do so we're going to actually start with a 14 dexterity and a 15 constitution i'll explain the 15 constitution in a minute so those are our three um most important stats starting with an 18 dex feels amazing starting with a 14 intelligence feels lousy and you could finagle it to do like 16 and 16 if you wanted um you know i'm going to take i'm going to take the dexterity it's going to give us a better plus to hit and plus the damage you know we'd get some mileage out of the intelligence later we we'd get a bump to our armor class when we're blade singing but we always have a bump to our armor class with dexterity right um intelligence gives you a bump here to your armor class when you're blade singing only and we're not at least especially at this level early on we're not we're not needing a really high difficulty check on our spells or a spell plus to hit we will in a little bit but anyway i think you i think you're just better off with dexterity but if you want to go 16 and 16 uh you can um let's talk about class a lot of you have made the suggestion or asked the question what about starting fighter level 1 and then going blade singer and i know i get it it is very tempting to start as a fighter more hit points but more importantly proficiency with all weapons right which is huge which is it is very nice starting with a um fighting style is fantastic to be able to probably take the dueling fighting style and get a plus two attack um to to your sorry plus two damage when you're when you're attacking with just a single weapon in your hand or two weapon fighting but we're going to be doing a little bit of both here so you'd have to pick or choose you'd ideally want both but you could only get one but anyway it'd be nice to have most importantly proficiency with your constitution saving throw that fighters get and that's huge because we really want to maintain our concentration and that benefits a lot by having a higher concentrate constitution saving throw so having proficiency there would be really nice and all of those things to start at level one with would be fantastic however for me personally um it just it hurts so badly to not be able to well to always be a level behind um for all of those important blade singer milestones right starting with um starting with proficiency in your constitution saves and and fighting style and all those things that fighters get feel great but getting to level six and still having to wait even one more level to get to get you know the second attack especially when one of them can trip feels terrible and having to wait another level to get those high level higher level spells and more spell slots just it just hurts a lot um for me and so i would i would sacrifice that and just go all blade singer all the way all wizard all the way um if you got to take a a loved one fighter go for it knock yourself out as far as equipment um you're going to want to do a gold buy so that gives you 4 times 10 gold you roll those dice and cross your fingers you should have about 100 gold and you're going to want to make sure you pick up leather armor and then either two short swords or two simmeters if you can afford them and if you like simmeters better they're it's it's just flavor right um they do the same damage d6 and they're both light and they're both finesse weapons but make sure you save money for your spell book and you want some clothes and you know other necessities but you should be able to afford all those things at least as for spells that you get at first level so for cantrips make sure that you get booming blade or green flame blade it's less important at this level in fact well anyway get at least one of those both if you can and again for those who don't know booming blade as part of the spell you make a weapon attack green flaming blade works the same way you make a weapon attack and it sheathes your target in energy essentially and then if they move after that they will take damage if they move willingly they will take damage green flame blade is similar you make a weapon attack and then it does a little bit of extra fire damage to another enemy that's standing right next to them um those scale as all cantrips do uh with level and so so later on you're going to do extra damage on the hit itself and then even more damage if they move with booming blade right so that's going to be important to our build make sure that you have those um and you know probably pick up like firebolt or total the dead so you can do have a nice ranged cantrip for damage i love message it's great to be able to communicate with your friends telepathically but you know get get whatever else you need there make sure as first level spells you you pick up shield the shield spell which will let you when you get hit as a reaction um cast this spell and it will add five to your armor clasp and and that lasts until the beginning of your turn your next turn increasing your armor class by five until then right um so that's really great for our own tankiness and absorb elements another errata i know that i have spoken about absorb elements in the past wrong wrongly uh and the way that absorb elements works is that it basically when you cast it again as a reaction it will let you be resistant to um the da like acid fire lightning cold poison i think damage um elemental damage essentially uh it will be resistant so you so you'll take half damage on that on that damage when when you get hit by it um and then you get to add some additional damage d6 worth of that type of damage on your next attack um very great some nice little bonus damage but more importantly uh increases your tankiness so those are important spells for us to have at first level um as far as oh the last spell that you've got to make sure you get at first level is find familiar so find familiar you cast it as a ritual and then you get a little pet and they will follow you around they'll take um take take their own action on their own initiative but they cannot make the attack action you can see through their eyes so you can use them to scout i mean familiars are just so incredibly useful but for our purposes the thing that we'll primarily be using them for is to give us advantage so your familiar can take the help action in case you don't know when when somebody helps you in combat then on the first attack that you make you will have advantage and so you're going to be using your familiar to give to take the help action in combat all the time and give you advantage uh on at least your first attack thanks to their help they're coming in and distracting them i always recommend the owl owls are great because they have the flyby feature which means well and they can fly but they can fly in distract take the help action and fly away without taking an opportunity attack as they move so they can generally stay pretty safe and then always be there for you to take that help action and give you advantage on your first attack every turn so that's level one at level two you get an arcane tradition and you are taking the blade singer and from now on you are not a typical wizard and don't let anyone tell you differently um quote many who have have observed a blade singer at work remember the display as one of the more beautiful experiences in their life a glorious dance accompanied by a singing blade you have light armor proficiency so you can put on your armor now your letter armor that you've been carrying around and proficiency in one weapon of your choice and herein is our problem um we're not always going to be two weapon fighting i'd say maybe half of the time maybe even less than half of the time are we going to be two weapon fighting and the other half especially once we hit level nine um you know we'd love to have a rape here in our main hand for that teeny bit of extra damage but really the difference between a d6 for a short sword or a scimitar and a d8 for a rapier is one on average right um and that's just not worth spending in my opinion an entire feat you know uh to in order to pick up um dual two weapon fighting dual wielding dual wielding fighting whatever that feat's called that lets you use non-light weapons right um so or for that matter even it's not even worth taking a level and fighter for me personally um so pick pick a light weapon here short swords or scimitars and just commit to it all game um it's okay you know most of your damage is not going to be coming from the weapon itself so when you invoke your blade song of which you get two a day right now because your proficiency bonus is only a plus two but that will scale but when you invoke your blade song you have supernatural speed agility and focus it lasts for one minute it gives you a bump to your armor class based on your intelligence modifier so it hurts a little bit to only have a plus two um you get ten more feet of movement speed you have advantage on acrobatics checks and then you importantly get a bump to your concentration saving throws your your spells to maintain cons your saving throw to maintain concentration uh based on your intelligence modifier so again just a plus two um so from here on you are no longer standing in the back line throwing fire bolts you are wading into battle singing flying and dealing death unless you're out of blade song uses then maybe stay back and throw firebolts you know what you can still get into battle and do cool stuff it's just you're gonna be squishier you're gonna have a harder time maintaining concentration um it's not a huge difference so depending on what you're fighting you know consider that depending on how low you are in health but uh yeah just keep that in mind and maybe be wise be prudent um level three so you get level two spells now i'm going to recommend you take a couple misty step is fantastic and fun and it lets you teleport around the battlefield um as a bonus action i believe 30 feet to a place you can see and that's just great to have that extra mobility and a lot of fun to use um shadow blade we're going to take as well very important spell so yes we're still going to be using shadow blade for our concentration here it's not completely dead for those who don't know shadowblade you summon a a an illusory magical blade essentially it counts as both a light and a finesse weapon so you can use your dexterity and you can even do two weapon fighting with it if you have a short sword and you're off hand and it's just fantastic it does at this level it does 2d8 of damage you know using your decks bonus for plus to hit and plus to damage and that's way better than any other weapon that anyone else in your party probably has at third level right um so it's cool it's fun it's a lightsaber and yes i have crunched the numbers for shadow blade versus other concentration spells like flaming spear for example and shadow blade still comes out on top um especially because you get to use your bonus action still for for an offhand attack um especially if you're in dim light i didn't mention if you're fighting in dim light or darkness you have advantage on all of the attacks that you make with shadow blade and that's big because dungeons and dragons can sometimes be a little bit gloomy when it comes to our combat right in dungeons and fighting at night and things like that so shadowblade way to go uh it's super cool oh don't forget also when you can get it to pick up a mirror image as a spell this is going to help your defense tremendously and basically if you cast it as an action and it creates three duplicates of yourself and going forward then when a creature makes a an attack on you you roll a die and it potentially attacks one of your images instead of you and if it hits it no matter how much damage it does it just disappears and now you have two mirror images left and continue until you are all out of mirror images this coupled with shield and absorb elements and your high armor class make you really hard to hit and um it's a lot of fun to be in there doing tons of damage as a typically squishy wizard um and being really hard to hit and really hard to kill even at this level and so what what your combat's going to look like for me and i've played a couple of blade singers actually now and and love them and they're a lot of fun but generally when combat starts i will bonus action start singing my blade song and then as an action if i have the spell slots uh cast mirror image and then so it's around of setup on round two summon your shadow blade with a bonus action it's a bonus action to cast and then make your attack um and so anyway you that way you you you go into battle ready and defensive right if you summon your shadow blade right off the bat and start swinging and then wait to maybe do blade song next round you might get hit and take damage and lose your concentration and now you just wasted your your spell slot on the shadow blade and you got to start over so anyway at level four you get a feet or an ability score increase and previously i recommended taking warcaster at level four i'm going to change that or recommend that that you change that warcaster is great it lets you cast a spell when you have a weapon in both hands a spell that has somatic components and otherwise you would need at least one free hand right it lets you take a cast a cantrip on an opportunity attack which is great but less great than it used to be for us which i'll get to in a second and it lets you most importantly have advantage on concentration saves that was the main reason why we took warcaster um having that advantage on your on your concentration saves because you're always going to be concentrating on a spell and you don't want to lose that right so here's the thing in a few more levels we're we're not going to be dual wielding anymore uh we're going to be single wielding and and so that you know ability to um cast a spell when you have two weapons in your hand becomes kind of moot for us in a little bit in the meantime um if we don't have warcaster i'm thinking you could probably drop your um drop your offhand short sword if you need to you know cast um shield in a pinch talk that over with your dungeon master make sure that that's okay with them um but you know you could always drop a weapon to cast a spell should be allowable as a free action and then just pick it up later but most importantly shadow blade and booming blade no longer work together rules as written as we discussed in the episode last week booming blade and green flame blade now have a material component that is the weapon that you use to cast the spell essentially in making the attack and that weapon has to be worth at least one silver piece and as an illusory blade of magic shadowblade does not qualify rules as written despite jeremy crawford's tweet that he would allow it at his table right um and so casting a cantrip on an opportunity attack is not as cool as it used to be um you could just you you could if you have shadow blade summoned and you get an opportunity attack you could just hit them with shadow blade and that's gonna do at this level more damage than hitting them with booming blade well depending on if you get the bonus damage if they move anyway comparable damage to hitting them with a short sword right in fact it is better damage at this level until you hit five anyway um so you still can make opportunity attacks with a shadow blade summoned so we're not really losing much there now thanks to the change to booming blade shadow blade um and you know admittedly in in my own games anyway speaking personally i don't get a ton of opportunity attacks right they happen once in a while but generally my dungeon masters are not real excited about giving me free attacks on their monsters and so usually the monsters won't run away from me and take an opportunity attack unless they've got a really good reason to do so it just doesn't happen a ton um so that leaves us with advantage on concentration chicks checks admittedly um that's that's huge and really important for us but what i would recommend taking instead to make up for that is at this level uh resilient constitution feat so what that does is a couple of things one it will bump our constitution by one and as you recall we started with a 15 constitution so now we're 16 giving us a plus three bonus and that feels fabulous it's going to be more hit points it's going to be a bump to our concentration well our constitution and therefore concentration saves um and it lets you add your proficiency bonus to your concentration saves now so you know it doesn't feel as bad not taking that first level in fighter now we get to add our proficiency bonus what's better having your proficiency bonus or having advantage on your constitution concentration saves if you crunch the numbers they're they're awash really and so but but uh adding a proficiency bonus gets better as your proficiency goes up so i think long term your your ability to maintain concentration is better by taking resilient constitution than it is taking more caster now obviously if you started fighter go with warcaster or if you really just want you know the other benefits that you get from warcaster go for it but for my money i'm taking um i'm taking resilient constitution you know if you're blade singing and you get hit with an attack and you need to make a concentration check you're getting a plus three from our constitution because it's 16. you're getting plus two from intelligence because that's the blade singing bonus right um and then plus two at this level from our proficiency bonus so that's a plus seven to our concentration saves usually you know monsters at this level are hitting you and in order to maintain concentration you have to do you know you have to make a check the greater of half the damage or ten right so usually it's just going to be 10 for us at this level and if you have a plus seven just don't roll a one or a two and you'll maintain concentration you've got a 90 chance to keep your concentration so i love it if you want to take warcaster go for it at level five you get third level spells and we get summon fae okay i mentioned last week that this the new summon spells in tasha's are fantastic and they are they are so so good they they're great damage and even uh depending on what you're summoning great utility um the one that we're going to focus on is summon fae because it's it's it has the edge in damage versus the other summon spells take a look at the other ones if there's something else that just really speaks to you because of the flavor or the utility that it brings go for it um and and the damage is going to be almost as good right summon fae gets a little edge and who doesn't want tinkerbell following them into battle um so great it's it's almost worth giving up our lightsaber so okay summon faye it's amazing um it requires concentration it's a very expensive spell material component wise um you need a gilded flower that's worth 300 gold then i'm guessing you're gonna have to have some sort of artisan craft for you in town somewhere that's not easy to come by at this level you might need to take out a loan or something so i'm assuming that you can actually get that um it's not consumed so that's nice uh but you but you do need to have it in order to cast the spell um it summons a fae creature that obeys your verbal commands and does not require your action or your bonus action for it to make attacks on your behalf every single turn um it takes its turn right after you and it gets for now it gets to make one weapon attack that'll scale and it hits really hard it's a it's a it's a short sword attack it's a d6 plus three plus the spell level which is three for now so uh plus another d6 in force damage so two d six plus six total damage on a single attack that fey is making they are summoned for an hour as long as you maintain concentration so potentially will still be there there over multiple combat encounters and you don't have to burn another spell slot that's amazing um also when you when you do up cast this it they get to make a multi-attack equivalent to a number of attacks equivalent to the spell level halved so when you cast it at a fourth level spell they get to make two weapon attacks right at level six it's three um it's really strong it scales really well and my favorite part of this spell actually is when you summon them you get to choose the phase mood it's either fuming mirthful or trixie this just this is so great for roleplay and storytelling um and then as a bonus action going forward they get to teleport 30 feet and then do something based on their mood it's so cute i could die mirthful mood can try and charm the enemy awesome control trixie mood can fill a five-foot cube with magical darkness which can have some great utility or what i'm always going to be assuming just for number crunching's sake is fuming which gives them advantage on their first attack role this turn so now you have a cute fuming tinkerbell that's flying into battle and just screaming expletives in uh in in faye at the top of her cute little voice and i could die it's the best thing ever um the bummer is they use your spell attack modifier to hit so right now that's just your proficiency bonus plus intelligence of two so they're only a plus five to hit that's a bummer and it's not going to go up for a little while um but still when you crunch the numbers this is better than shadow blade at this level when you're only getting one attack so so long lightsaber at level five you will be missed um yeah so that's summon fae at of course other third level spells pick up i mean get fireball right it's great to to have it and i i love to throw it out there at the beginning of combat if the enemies are all grouped up soften them up and then go in there and finish them off with my weapons but anyway level six you get an extra attack and as we mentioned as a blade singer that can be either two weapon attacks or one weapon attack and a cantrip um now as we've we've talked about the the booming blade change right so you can't use shadow blade and and cast booming blade with your shadow blade um because the spell has a material component um like like we've discussed so at this level only at a third level spell if you are in dim light or darkness you actually are better off still using shadow blade for your concentration casting it up casting at the third level so now it does 3d8 per attack and for going the the cantrip and just making two weapon attacks um and then you know an offhand short sword attack that's going to be your best sustainable dpr damage per round if you're in bright light you you're instead going to want to go summon fae and use that for your concentration and then as your action you make one short sword attack and then cast the booming blade or green flame blade cantrip um giving you a second attack plus a 1d8 because we are at level 6 now and at level 5 booming blade got a bump and green flame blade so now they do an extra 1d8 on a hit and then for booming blade 2 d8 if they move um right so you're getting some nice extra damage so you're so you're booming blade for one regular attack for another um offhand short sword attack for your bonus action and then of course verbally commanding your fae to attack your target as well make sure that you are using your um your familiar that you have your owl or whatever it may be to to take the help action for you and cast booming blade first because because the familiar is giving advantage on the first attack and it doesn't say in the rules that you have to make a weapon attack first and then cast a can trip it just says one of your attacks can be a cantrip so booming blade first because it's most important for you to have advantage on that one that's where more damage is going to come from obviously so booming blade first get that extra damage make a weapon attack make an offhand attack and then you're fuming fiery fae is going to come in and do some damage as well they will if they are fuming they will get advantage on their attack as well which is great and important and uh yeah so you're doing really good damage here at six now question what about other cantrips does it have to be booming blade or green flame blade no it doesn't have to be um there are some great options to consider are they sensitive to fire damage great throw out a firebolt um do you need to slow him down shoot ray of frost multiple targets standing next to each other go ahead and acid splash told the dead is going to be your best your go-to for single target damage unless they're resistant to necrotic damage or have a really high you know plus to save on their wisdom score which not a lot of monsters do um so so yeah you know do do you use told the dead instead you know if you're using shadow blade and dim light no you're making two weapon attacks um if you're in bright light using summon fae maybe um you know you just have to ask yourself what's the likelihood of you making that weapon attack uh landing that weapon attack versus them resisting um your spell damage right making their making their wisdom save against all the dead uh you know the the booming blade weapon attack is gonna do a d6 for the sword a d8 for the booming blade um plus your decks of plus four um on average that's 12. and told the dead is 2d 12 if they fail so that's on average 13. difference of one right so just just know the situation i love the idea love the idea of going in weapon firebolt you know another weapon attack fae coming in owl swooping in it's just it feels really cool and it feels like a real gish you know build actually making weapon attacks and casting spells in the same turn but um depending on their armor class and their you know resistance to your spells uh you're gonna be booming blading um as often as anything maybe more often particularly after level 14 when you get to add your intelligence modifier to the damage you're doing on a weapon attack um but just know your options and know your enemies and uh you know make your decision accordingly for ease of number crunching i'm just assuming that we're casting booming blade every time because it's easier to quantify against enemy armor class and that's what we always do anyway so speaking of damage damage report gosh we just got to our first damage report i told you this episode was going to be long assuming now for for these numbers at level six i'm assuming that you are in dim light or darkness which you which happens a lot in dnd at least in my campaigns it does um so i don't think that's asking too much to make that assumption but i'm assuming we're in dim lighter darkness and i'm using shadow blade it's the only time we're going to be using shadow blade for damage report here so um again if you're bright light you'll be doing it differently and the damage will be slightly less summoning fae and bright light and making weapon attacks booming blade um it's gonna be about five to ten less but assuming shadow blade against an enemy with a 10 armor class on average you'll be doing 43 damage per round and against an enemy with a 15 armor class it's only a 41. um it is a little better than blade singer 1.0 primarily because of you know starting with an 18 dexterity and of inaccuracy uh that early like we got to do so anyway numbers are looking good and they're going to get a whole lot better level seven um so you have level four spells and you know knock yourself out for the most part polymorph always a great go-to there's other good ones but um keep in mind that your concentration now should be reserved at this level for summon fae upcast to the fourth level um and i i'm gonna put in the in the video description in the show notes a little cheat sheet for um what spell to use your concentration for based on the spell level okay so feel free to consult that if you would like but here for level four spells we're we're doing some enfay because as i mentioned now they get two weapon attacks making it that much stronger and it's really great right now and and that's even indian light and darkness by the way it's still better so um again don't forget to give yourself advantage on that first attack with your familiar that you're making and let your fae do its work at level eight you get an ability score increase or feet and we are going to cap our dexterity so take a bump to your decks now you're at 20 congratulations that feels fantastic to be there by level 8 already at level 9 we get level 5 spells i talked about animate objects a little bit in my blade singer 1.0 episode not as much as i should have frankly um it's our new go-to concentration spell and actually is going to be probably for the rest of your character's career um you so how the spell works requires your concentration and you animate a number of objects ranging in size from tiny to huge but the smaller they are the more you get and so we're always going to go with tiny okay so you start at level at a level five spell you get 10 tiny objects i like to carry a bag of silver coins in a in a separate pouch and then as a free action throw them out there and then animate them right it's an action to do and then as a bonus action on that turn and going forward um you can make weapon attacks with them they fly and you get more of them for every level that you upcast you get two more for every spell level that you upcast it which is which is amazing and why we're going to just continue using it for the highest level spell slot that we have available to us depending of course on the situation that you're in and how badly you may need a different spell at the time um i like to make them silver coins in case you're fighting something that's resistant to non-silvered attacks um and and they do so they do each one is a plus eight to hit which is quite good and they each do a d4 of damage plus four so if every single one of them hits which they won't um that's 65 damage on average which is a lot um for a bonus action right um because you also get to make your two weapon attacks on your on your subsequent turns one of which with booming blade right or cast a different cantrip if you want um you you don't get to make an offhand attack any longer right because you're using your bonus action to command your animated objects um so it's just one two with the weapons and go get em magic coins it's so fun uh and it's so chaotic now there are some drawbacks to animate objects first of all i think the biggest one these are not as per mike merle's co-creator of d5e these these are not magical attacks even though you're animating them with a magical spell they just deal bludgeoning damage and so if you're fighting something that is resistant to non-magical weapon attacks you don't want to use this spell basically now that said there are fewer monsters in dnd5e than you may realize unless you're unless your dm is meta-gaming you um that are resistant to non-magical weapon attacks ancient red dragon not resistant to non-magical weapon attacks right there there there are some out there of course but not as many as you might think um so don't be afraid to use this liberally um another potential drawback obviously is that they they are susceptible to being wiped out um if there's an enemy spellcaster and they've got a fireball and all of your coins are in the same place right um they could get hit by a fireball and die they're they're pretty tanky um they have they have a they have 20 hit points an 18 armor class and an 18 dexterity so plus four to their deck saves if they need to make a save against a fireball um i mean it could happen they could get wiped out but just be aware in my personal experience with this spell i'm using it pretty much every time i have the spell slots and it's incredibly powerful also one note about using this spell and any time you're you're summoning large numbers of creatures right that each get to make a spell attack um please for the sake of your dungeon master and your companions don't make 10 separate attack rolls for 10 different items unless your dungeon master insists on doing it that way talk it over with them but you know we like my table we will just divide it in half and these five make a make an attack boom they all hit or they all miss these five make an attack boom they all hit or they all all miss it hurts really bad when they all miss but um you know nothing will make you hated at your table more than slowing combat down to a crawl with ten animated object attacks and then your own two on top of that it's just no it's terrible so anyway figure that out and uh and handle it but animate objects is fun and really powerful so damage report at level nine assuming you're using animated objects and then making two weapon attacks one with one with the booming blade can drip um and of course or green flame blade right especially if they have somebody standing right next to them that's guaranteed damage guaranteed extra damage based on your it's either your spell casting modifier your proficiency bonus i need to remind myself of that um but anyway if they're going to move and you know that they're going to move somehow then go for booming blade regardless um your average damage versus an enemy with a 10 armor class is 85 dpr at level 9 and against an enemy with a 16 armor class it's a 64. putting this build ahead of every other sustained damage build that i've ever looked at at this level including the hex blade warlock including the barbarian fighter mix with a rune knight even pre nerf to rune knight that came out with tashas more damage even than the death cleric who i was who was getting damage against multiple targets in a round okay really powerful level 10 you get a blade singer feature called song of defense it's great basically um it lets you use a spell slot as a reaction to reduce damage done to you if you get hit by an enemy um it the the damage you reduce is five times the spell level so um obviously if you can cast the shield spell as a reaction instead and make them miss completely do that but if they rolled so high that shield spell isn't going to help you and you really need to reduce the damage otherwise this is this is great to have as an option at level 11 you get six level spells we're going to talk about tensor's transformation so this spell is so fun and so on point with this character right requires your concentration and for 10 minutes after you cast it or until you lose concentration you can't cast other spells but you undergo a transformation that makes you even more powerful in your martial abilities so you can't cast other spells including booming blade so no more using booming blade um right on your attacks while you've got tensors active but you do get 50 temporary hit points which is almost double your hit points at this level advantage on all of your attack rolls weapon attacks amazing and again because you have eleven accuracy you get to roll 3d20 you have triple advantage and all of your weapon attacks that hit do an extra 2d 12 of damage um that's fantastic and super cool and as awesome as all of that is um you're still better off using animated objects uh against low armor class enemies up until about an enemy ac of 15 you're gonna want to use animate objects of course if they're resistant to non-magical weapon attacks and you have a magical weapon right um then still stick with tensors regardless of the ac if you don't have a magical weapon and they're resistant to magical weapon attacks you're actually going back to shadowblade um now big potential drawback with tensors is when it ends and it might be in the middle of combat if you lose concentration um you have to make a dc-15 constitution saving throw or suffer suffer one level of exhaustion that doesn't hurt that bad when you just have one level of exhaustion it's just um disadvantage on all of your ability checks and that you know your exhaustion levels last until you finish a long rest so that's not the end of the world if you get two though um your movement speed is halved and that hurts and from there it gets much worse so avoid two levels of exhaustion and beyond at all cost um but this is another good reason why resilient constitution was better than warcaster in my opinion because you're making a constitute constitution saving throw here not a concentration check and warcaster just gave you advantage on your concentration checks not your constitution saves right uh concentration versus constitution yeah so anyway um that's a fun spell super cool um has some great use especially if you have a magic weapon um at level 12 you get another ability score increase or feet and we finally get to put points into intelligence and so now our intelligence is a 16 and that's going to bump your armor class thanks to blade singer your concentration saves thanks to blade singer your spell hit and difficulty check obviously and in a little bit it's going to actually increase your weapon damage so you know i never talk about magic items i i can't assume that you're going to have magic items or at least which magic items you will have access to but i kind of feel like for this build um maybe the best magic item you could get would be a headband of intellect especially if you could get it early and save yourself from putting points into intelligence and put them somewhere else or pick up a different feat it lets you it bumps your intelligence to 19 and we're not going to get there until level 16 right we're not going to get that bonus that level of bonus until level 16 so almost the end of the game if you can find a headband of intellect or get one talk your dungeon master out of one get one early that would be amazing for this guy or girl at level 13 um you have level 7 spells and um i'll just mention that as amazing as tensor's transformation is it does not scale right it just it just is what it is uh and animate objects since our last since our last damage report has four more animated tiny animated objects doing lots more damage for you so at this point you know you're better off with animated objects regardless of the enemy armor class unless they're resistant to non-magical weapon attacks and you have a magical weapon uh preferably two so you're so you're off hand will do damage too uh or they won't resist the damage from your offhand um if you don't have a magical weapon by the way and they're resistant to magical weapon attacks you're actually going back to shadowblade um but by level 13 who doesn't have at least a plus one shortsword right make sure you have a magical weapon by level 13. so damage report at level 13 assuming um you're using animated objects summoning 14 tiny animated creatures or animating 14 tiny creatures and then making two weapon attacks one with booming blade versus a 10 armor class you're doing a 115 damage per round on average and versus a 17 armor class you're doing 81 damage per round now quick note you know is this damage sustainable i'm always talking about sustainable damage not really because you know i'm always assuming that you're using your highest level spell slot to up cast your spells and things like that and of course you know you only get one per long one seventh level spell at this level per long rest right you have one sixth one seventh one eighth one ninth um so later on yeah keeping up this level of damage or close to is is pretty sustainable um but you can always fall back to a lower level spell slot and still do really great damage um if you know you need to and you're out of those higher level uh spell slots animate objects you can cast at fifth level and and it's still gonna be really good and pretty sustainable uh you know from this point on at level 14 you get a blade singer feature called song of victory and from now on you get to add your intelligence modifier to the damage that you do with weapon attacks awesome and i'm glad that at least it's a plus three by this level um that that will work for tensor's transformation too don't forget to use it at level 15 you get level eight spells but our concentration is going to be used for basically the same thing at least when we're crunching numbers animate objects up cast unless they're resistant to non-magical attacks etc etc but of course use that eighth level spell slot for something else that's more world changing and amazing and important as the case may arise at level 16 we get another ability score increase and we're going to bump our intelligence again so now we're at 18 intelligence that feels more respectable for a wizard and uh then at level 17 we get ninth level spells so i mean on the one hand you have wish so it feels a little silly to talk about anything else but we need to talk about the new spell from tasha's uh cauldron of everything the blade of disaster which sounds really cool so the way blade of disaster works requires a concentration you summon a three foot long planar rift blade and you can make two melee spell attacks so again this is going to use your intelligence modifier not your dexterity but two melee spell attacks with it on a target within 60 feet they don't even have to be in melee range they can be up to 60 feet away and each hit does 4d 12 plus nothing 4012 damage not amazing unless you consider that they crit that these attacks will crit on an 18 a roll of 18 or better so not just a 20. so that's a 15 chance to crit right um and if you crit it does triple damage it does eight an extra eight d12 instead of an extra 40 12 right so for a total of 12 d12 each hit now those and those two attacks are made as a bonus action going forward which is fabulous um so freeing you up to still make your weapon attacks um you know using booming blade for one of them and by the way booming blade got a bump here final bump to 3d8 on a hit plus an extra 48 if they move um so even with all of that said you actually don't necessarily want to use um blade of disaster for sustained damage every time only if the enemies have an armor class of 15 or better now granted at level 17 just about everything you're fighting is probably going to have an armor class of 15 or better but just keep that in mind below 15 animate objects is actually still going to be your go-to upcast unless they're resistant to magical non-magical weapon attacks now definitely make sure that you're saving your familiar in the help action for for one of these if you're using blade of disaster for one of these attacks because because when it crits on an 18 or better and does triple damage you definitely want the advantage on one of those attacks right you're going to be creating a lot if you can get advantage and frankly you know if if you can find a way to get advantage on both attacks do so at almost all costs if there's somebody else in your party that has a familiar that can help on the second attack or you know cast fairy fire or or whatever um really really strong because again remember with oven oven accuracy applies here of inaccuracy states that when you're making an attack with dexterity wisdom intelligence or charisma then you get to roll that extra d20 and have that triple advantage and you're using intelligence because it's a spell melee spell attack for you so it qualifies for elven accuracy um you're going to be creating a lot with this and it will feel really cool when you do damage report at level 17 against an enemy armor class of 10 which i'm assuming you're using animate objects for by the way um you're doing 153 damage per round um and at an enemy armor class of 18 you're still over 100. you're still at here at 115 and at that point you've switched right to blade of disaster so you're amazing um final thoughts for my money the strongest subclass in all of dnd 5e thus far um top tier damage with all of the bells and whistles and bag of tricks that come from playing a wizard all the control all of the aoe area of effect damage all of the ability and wish um what more could you ask for i don't know you're you're tanky you're hard to hit you're mobile you're all over the battlefield and it's just it's it's so much fun to play so so speaking of okay yes your sustained dpr is amazing but don't forget to be a regular wizard you know when the situation calls for it those those high level spells of course are amazing and fantastic and powerful um so you know when you need it throw up that wall of force right uh fireball the group of hobgoblins um misty step over to an ally that's gone unconscious and then on your next turn you can bring him back from the brink of death with life transference um yes you do a ton of damage but that's not what makes this class so amazing and so fun what makes it so amazing and so fun is that you do a ton of sustainable damage while throwing out and being able to throw out all of those awesome fun versatile powerful spells when you need it so you know you you have all these spell slots and there's a reason why i tried to create this in a sustainable way where you're only hopefully using one spell slot per encounter you've got all those other spell slots well maybe you're using others for defense right shield and things like that you've got all those other spell slots use them when you need them and you're gonna have a blast doing so you are the jack of all trades and master of most so have fun um one thing make sure that you figure out what your blade song is and you better damn well sing it in character in game when you activate your blade song for me mine personally is um a song called i believe it's pronounced ebuday by enya see along the bottom i'll i'll put i can't i can't play it for copyright reasons but check it out google ebuday by enya it's got a nice marshall cadence to it i love it feels very celtic um find a blade song sing it in game and have so much fun with it you guys that is our episode for the week thank you so much for joining really appreciate it as always find us on twitter on facebook email me at dnd optimized gmail.com like us review us subscribe review share all of the things um and yeah comment and if you especially if you have a build that you would like me to do an episode on give me as much detail and information about the build and the role and and you know the specifics of it as much as you can and i will do my best to optimize it for you thanks everyone have a fantastic day love you guys and we'll see you next time you

Channel: D&D: Optimized

Views: 50,564

Rating: 4.9412098 out of 5

Keywords: D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, dnd, 5e, Bladesinger, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, guide, Shadow blade, Summon Fey, Animate Objects, Blade of Disaster, Custom Lineage, TashasCOE, wizard, Bladesinger Guide

Id: 8g869Lju5Ws

Length: 69min 35sec (4175 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 01 2020