Ranking My Nova Builds 2021

hey everybody how's it going um  welcome to my very sterile office i'm gonna record a video today that ranks my  burst or nova damage builds against each other so   for those who don't know every time i do  a weekly character build i will always put   them in a like master comparison spreadsheet  to compare them to other builds that i've done   of that type so for example if it's a sustained  damage focused build then i will compare them to   other sustained dpr builds that i've done to see  how they how they compare if it's a tank build   you know compare them to other tanks to see how  their survivability stacks up against each other   etc so earlier this week i did a way of the  ascendant dragon monk build that was first   that was focused on burst damage nova damage um  and when i went to put them in the spreadsheet i   realized that there just wasn't enough room to fit  them in the spreadsheet i had run out of space so   similar to what i did many many months  ago i had to do the same thing with   my sustained damage builds i had too many of them  i had to split them up and so i ranked them there i decided okay i think it's time to  split these up into two tiers here   and so that we can create a little more  space in the spreadsheet so it's a little   more user-friendly it's a little more readable so  as far as how i do this it's very oversimplified   it's just a very simple number that takes an  average of all of the damage that they do from   armor classes enemy armor classes 10 through 25 at  levels 6 9 13 and 17 when i do my damage reports   and just takes all those numbers and averages them  all into one single number and that's their score   and that's how i separate them it's imperfect but  i didn't want it to be overly complicated and to   that end i have not created an extensive script  for this i've created some notes that you'll   see me glancing at here and i'm not going to  heavily edit this because i just don't have five   hours to dedicate to editing a video another  video this week so you're gonna get a lot more   ums and likes and maybe awkward pauses but it's  just it's a fun exercise that helps me kind of   split these into two for usability purpose but  then also just kind of revisit and reminisce   about some of my favorite builds that i've done  over the last year or so maybe provide a little   postmortem postscript type thoughts about them  as i look back on them so yeah let's jump in   i've done 14 nova damage builds to date and  coming in at the lowest average damage number   is the whippoorwill the whipperwheel rogue this  was a lot of fun this was one that i did with my   friend randall hampton who's a fantastic artist  it was a collaboration video where i basically um   presented the build live while he drew art for  it and and did a fine job for it as well if i   if i do say so um this was this was my attempt  to optimize a character around the whip and so   they were primarily a rogue with some bard levels  and a splash of paladin basically the concept was   you fly over enemies and because you you have  range but also a finesse weapon you can you   know get your sneak attack damage for big smites  but also stay relatively safe and at a distance this build deserves an asterisk by it because even  though the numbers were pretty low by comparison   on average they could also burst more frequently  than i think any other build that i've done and   and in fact like the the builds at the very bottom  of this list here and the ones at the very top   both need asterisks and and caveats and qualifiers  um as i'll i'll explain when i get there but   yes that's number 14 the whipper will uh at  number 13 we have the way of the ascendant dragon   monk that i just did earlier this week this one  too probably needs an asterisk because it could   burst more frequently than most builds that i  did but also the burst damage was was done to   you know when i crunched the numbers it was  calculating for three enemies so it was total   damage done to three enemies right as opposed  to single target which was a little unique   um of course the damage might go up if you could  get more than three enemies in your area of effect   but you know like i said on twitter i think  this is probably the closest that we will come   outside of high level spells i suppose to feeling  like an actual dragon in game right you you you   were a dragonborn you could fly and you kind of  fly over your enemies and strafe them with lots of   blasts of your dragon breath um and even fear like  you know dragons have have a dragon fair ability   too so it was very draconic not surprisingly um  i stand by my statement that it would be a lot   of fun to play it's super thematic and flavorful  even if the numbers aren't amazing i think they're   good enough to make the character not just fun to  play in game but also viable and useful for a team   anyway at number 12 we have the storm sorcerer  tempest cleric with a score of 115. i don't   think i mentioned the ascendant dragon score  was 114. storm tempest 115 this was to date my   fastest video to ever hit 30 000 views um you know  i it's funny because i i've been getting requests   to do a storm source for a tempest cleric since  since i started the channel over a year ago and   i always put it off because i was like storm  storm sorcerers suck i don't want to do this but   i i i underestimated um how many people wanted  to see it anyway i should have done it sooner   so yeah this was obviously a storm sorcerer  with tempest cleric they did big max damage like   lightning chromatic orbs right coupled with  the the tempest clerics uh destructive wrath   for big big chromatic orb damage but then also  big blooming big booming blade weapon attacks   um together in a single round and yeah i had  a lot of fun with it and i think it turned out   pretty good i i think if  you're gonna play a sub-optimal   subclass um in the name of  you know sticking to a theme you could do a lot worse than the storm sorcerer  mixed with it with a tempest cleric although   admittedly the numbers probably would have been  better if i would have gone with a different a   different subclass but that's okay because numbers  aren't everything have i taught you nothing all right at number where are we number i better  number these 11 at number 11. we have the other   monk burst damage build that i've done the mercy  monk with a score of 120. i played this build in   a one-shot a couple of months ago and it was oh it  was so fun it it just satisfied all of my wildest   monkish fantasies and it was really powerful  it really was i i was actually i was a little   surprised when i saw the aggregate number that  that mercy monk didn't come in a little bit higher   and i think the reason is because it does  really well early but then like all monks um   you know once you get into those kind of upper  levels of play they just don't scale very well   despite my attempts to find ways to kind of prop  up the subpar damage that monks do as they level   um still it was i think a very viable build  a lot of fun loved playing it myself in game   and and also the nice thing about this  mercy monk this i think was the first   nova build that i ever did that kind of does big  nova damage and then when your nova round's over   like you have these other cool things you can do  it's not just go back to sort of subpar dps dpr   now damage per round but now you can be  a healer if you want support your allies   you know heal them maybe stun enemies obviously  with some control and things like that   and in a way that gave some fun sort of  versatility i think to the play style   itself so that you could do big huge damage  and then do other things and i don't know that   was cool and it ended up sort of resurfacing  that idea i feel like has resurfaced in a few   other builds since then but i think the mercy  monk was the first one that kind of did that   if i'm remembering right maybe that was the spore  beast that was a sustained damage build anyway   um okay at number 10 then cracking the top 10 was  the death knight with a score of 126. um the death   knight video held the record for a really really  long time for like most views in a single day and   and in the first week too in fact i remember being  a little frustrated by that for several weeks and   even a couple of months after the death knight  that i that nothing i did would was performing   as well as that one did it was the first video  i ever did that hit 10 000 views in a single day this was mostly grave cleric splashed with some  rune knight fighter and a conquest paladin um big   huge sort of straightforward damage with a great  sword you know thanks to like smite coupled with   path to the grave vulnerability that grave clerics  get you just action surge use that and then big   huge weapon attack with smite yeah super reliable  just sort of straightforward destruction and um   i think would be a lot of fun to play coming in  at number nine another one that surprised me that   that the score wasn't higher was my blade singer  nova you know i waited a really long time to do   another blade singer video because  i was a little nervous about   cannibalizing the success of my bladesinger  2.0 video i'll link to that there i suppose although if you're watching this video i'm  sure you've probably seen it it's easily   my my most popular video of of all time  at least at the time of this recording   and i think maybe forever but anyway um  yeah i didn't want to like cannibalize   blade sink you know people who are interested in  blade singer were watching that and i thought well   maybe if i pull them over to this then that will  kind of curtail the blade singer 2.0 continues to   perform out to outperform every other video that  i make other than like the most recent you know   ones from the last week or two so i guess i didn't  have anything to worry about though i cringe when   i watch that blade singer 2.0 because i don't know  it was it was early on in the channel's history   really it was about a year ago now and and the  lighting is terrible and i you know i was still   erroneously um assuming that that most of us  might be able to do elven accuracy and custom   lineage and i know that some of you have asked me  to kind of update that and do like a blade singer   3.0 to fix that and maybe a couple other things  if i would tweak um i might one day i don't know   that it's it's a it's really i don't know that  it's really high on my to-do list right now but   i don't know we'll see anyways um i love blade  singers i love them so much that's still today   the the most fun i've had playing a character  in a campaign um and i especially love using   shadowblade with blade singers and and and i was  thrilled with this build the blade singer nova to   find a way to just continue using shadow like  shadow blade uh throughout the character's   career right animate objects be damned you  know other high level concentration spells   didn't care about because um in a burst damage  capacity it just worked really really well multi-classing out of wizard is always hard i  think probably the hardest class to multi-class   out of maybe next to monk because of  key points and how important those are   but you know with wizard especially i think  of all casters like the next spell is just   on the horizon and stepping away from  it for any purpose is just if it's hard   and especially maybe with the blade singer  but but if you're confident that your nova   round at least will be better off with just the  second level spell shadow blade that you've got   it it became a little bit easier  to do and so yeah this was you know   blades this was a blade singer  coupled with a um with a a fighter come on brain you can do it battle master  fighter um that took advantage of not   only the extra burst damage you'd get from  your maneuvers but particularly the throne   the toss weapon or whatever uh battle master  maneuver um coupled with a shadow blade just   led to lots of attacks and and it was fun  and powerful i played this actually in our   20 000 subscriber sort of pvp celebration if you  haven't seen it check it out there that was fun   um and i think i played it to pretty good effect i  was outshined by a character that's going to show   up later in this in this list but um anyway it's  a lot of fun so much versatility and also damage   potential with blade singers um actually  speaking of really funny story last week i   received what i think is my favorite comment of  all time um on on of any comment in the channel   uh by someone who mentioned that they played  this character the blade singer nova build   um in a like a one-shot strod campaign like a  mini straw one shot that they did in in his group and when they got to straud um strod  promptly used dominate person on him and   like took control of his character and then he  turned and like one shot and one of his allies   and then proceeded to kill the other  two of his party members as well oh it had me laughing really hard for a  really long time and i kind of felt bad   but um so yeah if if you were the victims  of um this particular blade singer   i sincerely apologize but also thank you profusely  for um providing me with such great entertainment   and joy so anyway that was that was good  stuff okay moving on to number eight   that was my chair i promise uh the catch-22  so with a score of 142 the catch 22   you know i said this when i created  the video and i think it's still true   this is at the very top of my i want to play this  next list like next time we start a new campaign   and a longer campaign i think i'm going to play  this character unless i come up with something   else between now and whenever that happens um i  played it in a one-shot also and it was so fun   it was you know pushing enemies around and  into a situation where they're like damned   if they do damned if they don't just  felt powerful and kind of unique and   i don't know it's fun and also funny um so yeah i  mean yeah who knew cloud of daggers could could be   such a great spell if you use it right right  i didn't anyway i'm sure many of you did but   yeah the for those who don't know this was like a  sorkidan so sorcerer paladin but also fighter bard   who would booming blade and smite while pushing  enemies into a cloud of daggers that they had   summoned just behind them um with like a huge maul  and yeah it was like going golfing for goblins i   don't know it was it was awesome and fun and yeah  if you have not checked it out i think you should   in fact that video i was kind of surprised it  didn't do better i mean it's it's it's fine but   um yeah if you haven't seen that one you should  check it out it was it was fun but at number eight   also with a score of 142 but it beats out the  catch-22 by a fraction of a point um we have the   the one that i think i may be the most proud of of  all of my builds to date and it's the needler so at least the core concept here i think was  was just it worked out really well and it just   was so much fun to sort of realize all of  these things and put them all together i   right before the needler video i put out a  little short which for me is not very short   usually but anyway it was kind of talking about  um why throne weapons suck and then i proceeded   to a couple days later release a video like  on a thorn weapon build right using the dart   and it was really cool to find a way to make the  dart not only like viable but actually better than   any other weapon option at least with that build  and what the character was trying to accomplish   um you know coupled with some clever net use  it just felt really awesome and i will admit   the build does get a little wonky at later levels  i i was so impressed by the initial damage at the   like the level six damage report that i was  like i gotta keep this going i can't you know   plateau and so i got a little scrambly desperate  i think as i was trying to incorporate like the   poisoner feet in a way that probably wasn't very  practical and user-friendly um but yeah this was   a this was a battle master fighter coupled with  a gloom stalker ranger and an assassin rogue   and it just pumps out really impressive damage  right out the gate and was a lot of fun my friend   scott who plays with us in our tales of an area uh  live action or live action live play uh campaign   he played the needler in our 10k subscriber  gauntlet the pve gauntlet that we did that was   a lot of fun and and this build was definitely the  the vip of that it just devastated everything um   it was a lot of fun to see in action so anyway at  number whatever we are is it seven at number seven six five dang it i'm off again at number six with a score  of 152 was the lockadon bard   um this character has a very special place in  my heart because they were the one that sort of   started my current fascination with nova builds  um before this the only nova build that i'd ever   done was the accessor which i'm going to get to in  a minute and that was months and months before and   and that assassinator build i think was like  the fifth video i ever did was more of a thought   experiment exercise in silliness than something  i actually thought i'd ever play in game i   i fell in love with this with the lockadon so much  that i decided to play it in our current uh tales   of an area campaign um so yeah this is the this  is the build that ceradon cerry is modeled after   uh hex blade paladin bard whispers bard um that  said having played through seven levels of it   now at this point i think i'm probably gonna go  sorcerer instead of bard spoiler alert i should   put spoiler alerts before i actually give the  spoiler anyway um i'll miss out on the psychic   blades damage that whispers bar gave and the other  fun stuff that bards bring but our group right now   is very lacking in like area of effect damage  nobody's got a fireball you know um and we could   really use someone that could just throw out a  fireball once in a while when the situation calls   for it not to mention the other cool like control  spells and things that you can get as a sorcerer   but but more than that actually even i think i  really want to grab quicken spell for this build   so i can start making weapon attacks like right in  round one i don't know we'll see i'm still on the   fence about it a little bit um but that's kind of  my my current plan but yeah this was just you know   kind of your typical cover yourself in darkness  and go crit fishing with exploit curse on somebody   um and when you land a crit you smite for a  bazillion damage and so far it's been a lot of fun   although i just barely like last session that we  played hit level 7 and finally got divine smite so   i'm looking forward to playing well for us it's  tomorrow night and uh trying out my new toy   all right at number five we have the vengeance  paladin the oath of vengeance paladin that i   just did a couple of weeks ago um it's only two  weeks old and it's it's really high up the list   that's that's impressive to me and you know  i always thought i always used to think that   vengeance paladins were overrated yeah meia  culpa i mean you only get advantage on a one   enemy per short rest that sucks for sustained dpr  that doesn't do anything for me right and and of   course i used to be super fascinated and fixated  on sustained damage builds that i still love but   uh you know now that i've sort of i think evolved  a little bit and learned to appreciate the value   of a nova damage build in game and and i took a  closer look at the vengeance pallies spell list   i mean this this subclass is just made for  blowing stuff up it really is i combined   it as you probably know with echo night just  for ridiculous bursts so way too many attacks   in a single round um and and and for those of you  who who complain that echo knight's overpowered   and things and that you don't allow it at your  table or whatever like that's fine this i think   this build is still really strong and you could  you could multi-class it with like a battle master   or something else and still just get crazy strong  nova burst damage coupled with all of the just   innate defensive and support functionality that  paladins already bring it ended up being a more   well-rounded character than most of my build is  just super super strong coming in at number four   then with a score of 191 average damage over its  life was the flamethrower sorcerer i have always   been surprised that this video didn't do a little  better than it ended up doing for whatever reason   you know i would say that of all of my nova  builds this one is the strongest single target   damage build i've done to date that comes with  no asterisks or caveats so in a way i almost feel   like this might be the best burst damage build  that i've done for pure numbers single target   because everything above this as we'll get into  kind of comes with some serious this only works   in these situation type caveats not this one  um it just annihilates everything all the time and it's another one that i am really proud of  i think and i mean it's not like no one has ever   thought about you know using the scorching ray  spell to great effect which this primarily did   but i am a little surprised that i don't  see it talked about more than it is on you   know dnd subreddits and 3d6 and things like  that very few spells actually apply multiple   hits right with a single casting it's  it's kind of like this an eldritch blast and when you can couple that with some nice on-hit  damage it scales so well as you upcast it that   yeah i mean it's just it's devastating um and and  not only that but it it brings of course outside   of your nova round a lot of other power inherent  in just having access to the sorcerer's spell list   it's not as good as the wizard spell list i know  but there's still a lot of good stuff in there   um tori my friend tori played this build in  our 20k subscriber pvp extravaganza celebration   and she basically won the contest by herself with  this character um it yeah it was we all just kind   of sat around and watched her kill everything  it felt like to me anyway so anyway a lot of   fun if you haven't checked out flamethrower  i strongly recommend it but now we're coming   into the top three and so i guess the bronze  medalist um for the purposes of this exercise   would be the assassirer with 202 average damage  again my first and for a very very long time only   burst damage build up until the lock again as  i've mentioned so this was this was an assassin   rogue sorcerer paladin gloom stalker ranger and  again i made it almost jokingly like trying to see   just how high could i theoretically pump damage  in a single round um and the funny thing about   it looking back is i actually did it wrong and  i realized it right after i posted the video but   if i would have sacrificed a couple of sorcerer  levels to take two levels in fighters so i could   get action surge i would have broken potentially  a thousand damage in a single round by level 20.   um it would have been you know over 500 damage on  average uh yeah rookie mistake what can i say um   now the the big asterisk or caveat with this one  is that you would only hit those levels if you   had surprise on your enemy right so obviously  that's going to be highly situational depending   on your table who you're playing with what the  campaign's like you know how willing your dm is   is going to be to let you get surprised regularly  um still i did have a commenter once who told me   that a player at his table used this to take out  the final boss in his campaign in a single round it might have been a one-shot campaign i'm  not sure but um yeah i couldn't quite tell   if he was mad at me or like grudgingly impressed  maybe both but uh anyway i thought it was awesome   nonetheless so yeah the assassin that  was a that was a that was a crazy one um   and yet it is beat out by number two with 221  uh aggregate score here the evocation wizard um   this was my first like area of effect nova  damage build again like the ascendant dragon monk   the total damage was against three targets and so  that's the big asterisk there right big damage but   you know you're talking damage split that that  much damage split up between three characters   um i did this and the flame thrower like back  to back right after i did my burst damage spells   analysis video i'll link to that there i guess  uh to to pretty good effect i think that that   that video that analysis video helped me  put together two of what i think are my   stronger um know the damage builds so anyway  multiple big blast area spells per turn meant   lots and lots of dead enemies uh with no  risk of hurting your friends thanks to the   you know evocation wizard um it was a it was a  primarily a wizard but with uh dips into fighter   and actually even tempest cleric later on i don't  know when you want to kill lots of enemies at once   i can't think of a better build to do  it but that leaves us with number one so   the gold medal winner here of my silly little rank  my nova builds list is the kritlander of course   of course it's the kirklander what else would  it be on this channel yeah with a score of 243   um i mean was there ever any doubt really okay  of course this build has a massive asterisk even   bigger i think than the assassir which was you  were only hitting these crazy high numbers against   humanoids right because in case you missed this  it was a like a devotion paladin a divine soul   sorcerer splashed with some echo knight who would  use whole person with a quicken spell and then   just auto crit smite someone to the moon um it was  a lot of fun to build the thumbnail was fantastic   kudos to my friend preston for for doing it um  although yeah of course the reality is that this   would not work so well against non-humanoid  enemies and most of the enemies that you fight in   dnd are not humanoids outside of like a humanoid  heavy campaign right the numbers were about 25   percent less give or take against other creature  types so not half still really strong but not   quite this crazy high probably most of the time in  most of your encounters and speaking of kritlander   i did have somebody tweet at me a couple of days  ago a picture of like the monk form of bahamut   the the grand master of flowers and he was  laughing and he was like it's funny that monk is   your favorite uh character or your favorite class  and you look exactly like this artist's rendition   anyway of this you know dragon monk and i laughed  because you know what he's right i can totally   see the similarity and i was like man i would  i would way rather be compared to bahamut than   homelander thank you very much so um yeah let's  see if we can make that happen but anyway you know   even though the damage here was just against  humanoids and so maybe in a campaign you're not   going to see damage quite so high on a regular  basis if you are ever playing a pvp match   you should 100 roll this character and just  destroy your poor friends and if you're   ever in a pvp match where someone else  uses this build or you think they might   i really hope that you went with one of like  the new non-humanoid races like the ferry or   something or else you might be in really big  trouble so anyway that's it that's all 14 of   them um i hope you guys enjoyed watching  and had fun with it just as a as a note   um i'm not going to be putting out a slide into  my dms video this week again i know sorry because   i just don't have time to do this and that um so  anyway we'll get back to that next week but in the   meantime i love you guys you're fantastic thanks  so much for supporting me so that i could create   all of these fun uh interesting character builds  and i'm really looking forward to continuing to   do so for a long time to come so anyway have a  fantastic day and we'll see you soon take care you

Channel: d4: D&D Deep Dive

Views: 41,335

Keywords: D&D Optimized, dnd, dungeons & dragons, rank, ranking, nova damage, burst damage, 5e, character build, dpr

Id: nlTDiiASWn0

Length: 33min 40sec (2020 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2021