Every forum I've gone on says the Vengance paladin is better at dealing damage then a devotion or any other oat thanks to hunters mark. I am not convinced an believe contrary to this point of view. For one everyone seems to forget that Hunters Mark is a concentration spell and deals only 1d6 additional damage as a lvl 1 Spell. This prevents you from using any other smite spells as a bonus action as they are all concentration spells. These smite spell carry from lvl 1 spell that cause 2d6 extra damage knocking targets prone to causing 5d10 and banishing a target at lvl 5 spell slots. All of which are concentration spells and cast a bonus actions. This makes hunters mark a rather useless spell.
Not really. Smite spells are only good for one hit and deal less damage than Divine Smite. They're situationally useful for their side effects.
Hunter's Mark deals 1d6 per hit and lasts up to an hour with just a 1st level spell slot. You only need to hit 8 times to deal more damage than Banishing Smite or 4th level Divine Smite and you can do that with a 1st level spell slot starting at 3rd level. You still have the option of using Divine Smite if you need a big dose of damage immediately.
Actually you have to hit 9 times to get close to max damage of damage in comparison with 5d10 something a paladin can deal in one hit and you can burn a level one spell slot to deal 2d6 damage. Yes hunters mark last for an hour but engagements do not. Engagements last minutes for the most part and using hunters mark with divine smite is pitiful in what a paladin can deal in a single hit.
Furthermore vow of enmity is only against a singular target. The Sacred weapon channel divinity of Devotion paladins turns your weapon magical creates light and adds your charisma to your attack. Maxed out that's a +5 to all hits against all creatures you hit. Burning your spell slots for smite in this situation with 2 attacks not only will any other paladin class outdamage a vengeance paladin usng hunters mark but a Devotion paladin is guaranteed to hit everything for the most part.
The only way a vengeance paladin can remotely outdamage the others is using hunters mark as its final spell slot or at very low levels and even then it's a question of I could have killed the ghoul in one hit but chose not to. If done this way and only this way would a vengeance paladin outdamage the others. Vow of Enmity is rarely useless given how fast paladins tend to kill things. At most it lasts 4 rounds against a singular target and is done. Sacred weapon last for 10 regardless of what you're attacking.
Actually you have to hit 9 times to get close to max damage of damage in comparison with 5d10 something a paladin can deal in one hit
The average of 5d10 is 27.5 which is less than the average of 8d6 is 28. The maximum damage is irrelevant; you're extremely unlikely to ever see it.
and you can burn a level one spell slot to deal 2d6 damage.
Or you could burn a 1st level slot to deal much more than 2d6 damage, since Hunter's Mark adds 1d6 to every hit.
Yes hunters mark last for an hour but engagements do not.
You're likely to get into more than one fight over the course of an hour if you're exploring a dungeon. Even if you don't, Hunter's Mark is still going to get you the best value for your spell slots.
Engagements last minutes for the most part and using hunters mark with divine smite is pitiful in what a paladin can deal in a single hit.
Hunter's Mark is cheap. Blowing your highest level slot on Banishing Smite isn't, and you don't have unlimited spell slots.
Furthermore vow of enmity is only against a singular target. The Sacred weapon channel divinity of Devotion paladins turns your weapon magical creates light and adds your charisma to your attack. Maxed out that's a +5 to all hits against all creatures you hit.
Advantage is better if you don't have +5 CHA, and +5 CHA won't help you crit more either.
If you're fixated on burning all of your spell slots right off the bat, by all means, don't pick Oath of Vengeance. That's not the subclass's strength; it's dealing great damage without blowing through all of your spell slots first thing in the morning.
So what you're saying is you want your point to hinge on the difference of.5 damage of an average over 8 turns vs 1 turn. .5 damage difference over the course of 8 rounds is not higher damage especially when the capability is so much higher in damage potential. 8 ends of combat is a long time in d&d. You're most likely never gonna get close to that on a singular target.
Hunters mark only gives you value over repeatedly hitting things over a long period of time. It does not give you higher damage out put when you have the capability to end a fight with a boss in the second rnd of combat which mind you also prevents yourself and other party members from getting hit. The only way hunters mark outdamage other oaths as I've stated is by using it as a last spell slot or at low levels in longterm damage. Nothing more.
Adding your charisma to attacks against all targets is far better than advantage against a single target that is dead after the second rnd of combat. Oh wait I forgot you dont do nova damage and wait 8 turns before you can deal the same damage you could otherwise do in one attack.
Not obsessed with burning spell slots. More focused on ending a fight quickly, which from your points laid out a vengeance paladin is not. Giving the vengeance paladins lack of an additional aura doesn't help the party in any way. But dealing subpar damage of a paladins capability in a one hit scenario is because hunters mark. Which still is only advantageous as a last use of a spell slot.
Multiple times have I had AL paladins end a fight at low level with a boss in the 2nd rnd, if not the 1st, burning spell slots and saving the party from taking worse damage because of not wanting to not use spell slots and taking longer to deal the same amount. Your entire argument is not convincing and my point still stands. Hunters mark remains a useless spell for paladins in dealing damage.
Damage potential in one hit vs undead using a long sword and divine smite with improved divine smite would be 8d8+5d10 vs you're 8d8+1d6 and this is where a crit on this by far jumps ahead. This a potential maximum of 228 points of damage on one hit via a crit vs 140. It would take an entire crit at max pulse one hit at max (70) plus another hit for a vengeance paladin using hunters mark to match the one hit potential of something all paladins can do. And before you bring up averages again I am not interested in you're ability to deal more then that in more than one turn. If you have the potential as a paladin to end a fight that fast you do it.
Also if you're not using banishing smite at this point and can, well I pray for you because you get no damage bump in using 5th lvl spell slots for divine smite.
Most Likely if you can use level 5 spells on a paladin you're using circle of power for support or holy weapon for 2d8/hit (only marginally less than 5d10/first hit if you hit both your attacks and it lasts for 10 minutes). Imo the biggest win for oath of vengeance is vow of enmity not hunter's mark. hunter's mark is great in T2 AL because fights tend to drag on (as an anecdote). Additionally the better comparison against banishing smite is as a 3rd 4th or 5th level cast wherein hunter's mark will last the entire adventuring day. So you're comparing 5d10 against 1d6/hit for every round in a day. which adds up quickly.
I'm comparing one hit potential and while that tapers off over time even thunderous smite at 2d6 deals more damage then hunters mark. Again the choice of ending combat quickly opposed to dealing damage over time.
Vow of Enmity as I've already stated is uselessin comparison to Sacred Weapon. Vow of Enmity only works against a singular target for advantage. The only way you get perceived damage increase is by dragging out a fight with said singular target.
It's a good thing you bring up AL a recent game I played in AL myself a lvl 4 Paladin of Devotion with sword and shield and a Paladin of the Ancients great weapon essentially soloed a tier one dungeon twice finishing off a higher lvl enemy character in one round of combat. This is a lvl area where, in one of the few cases does a Vengeance Paladin out damage others with hunters mark as Paladins only have access to 3 lvl 1 spells. That being said Vow of Enmity would still have been absolutely useless fighting something that lasts one round , maybe 2, of combat. Where in case Sacred Weapon allows you at this lvl to hit all creatures with a plus 7 magical weapon. At this lvl is virtually guaranteed hits as well.
You make another point with holy weapon. There are various other spells that paladins get access to that are far better then hunters mark. From being able to pick your own type of damage with elemental weapon (yes it's only 1d4) but your weapon also becomes a plus 1 magical weapon. The arguement that a Vengeance Paladin is better at dealing damage is thus void using this arguement.
I'm comparing one hit potential and while that tapers off over time even thunderous smite at 2d6 deals more damage then hunters mark. Again the choice of ending combat quickly opposed to dealing damage over time.
Vow of Enmity as I've already stated is uselessin comparison to Sacred Weapon. Vow of Enmity only works against a singular target for advantage. The only way you get perceived damage increase is by dragging out a fight with said singular target.
It's a good thing you bring up AL a recent game I played in AL myself a lvl 4 Paladin of Devotion with sword and shield and a Paladin of the Ancients great weapon essentially soloed a tier one dungeon twice finishing off a higher lvl enemy character in one round of combat. This is a lvl area where, in one of the few cases does a Vengeance Paladin out damage others with hunters mark as Paladins only have access to 3 lvl 1 spells. That being said Vow of Enmity would still have been absolutely useless fighting something that lasts one round , maybe 2, of combat. Where in case Sacred Weapon allows you at this lvl to hit all creatures with a plus 7 magical weapon. At this lvl is virtually guaranteed hits as well.
In Tier 1 the big damage dealers are fighters and gloomstalker rangers (extra attack in tier 1 is a heck of a drug). If you're talking about oath of ancients paladins they're less dpr than an equivalent oath of vengeance paladin who is also using GWM and the sword and board paladin of devotion is effectively burning their first turn for their channel divinity. Youre missing the big win for oath of vengeance which is that it allows you to consistently use your bonus action and reaction to increase your damage. at later levels you get an attack as a reaction against your vow target, at lower levels you have hunter's mark as a bonus action (and your vow as a bonus action).
Additionally thunderous smite is hot garbage in comparison to hunter's mark since you're comparing something that would do more damage as a smite against something that gives consistent damage that scales with extra attack. and 2d6 is not less than 2 groupings of 1d6.
It really seems like you just want oath of vengeance to be less damage than the other options for some reason. I don't know what happened there but the thing is that oath of vengeance is generally speaking more damage against a single target than the other oaths. Oath of devotion "can" catch up via its channel divinity; however, that takes an entire action to get up and running so they 1 only get 9 rounds out of it and 2 have to burn their first turn to turn it on. Oath of ancients is just straight up better in party play due to the extra spell resistance - I don't think they actually get anything that boosts their damage (other than the restrain effect which is similar to vow of enmity but relies heavily on an extremely common saving throw).
I mean the only paladin "oath" that consistently outdamages oath of vengeance as a core feature is oathbreaker and that's mainly due to +cha to damage at all times.
Additionally paladins don't get that many spell slots. so if you're constantly burning them on the smite spells then you're probably out by the time you get to the BBEG whereas hunter's mark is more or less around all day for just 1 level 3 spell slot.
Nothing anyone has provided has show that a Vengeance Paladin deals more damage over a singular target in comparison to other oaths. I've crunched the numbers. Most singular targets are or can be killed in 1 to 2 hits from a paladins smite. Now if you're talking damage over time a Vengeance Paladin deals slightly more damage. In comparison when using hunters mark it's in adequate compared to what all paladins can do to singular targets. Everyone seems to forget that Paladins Specializes in singular target damage.
Now if smites are only used on crits a Vengeance Paladin using hunters mar, the claim to flame spell people some how swear by, you are not dealing more individual target damage by any means. Using all but one spell slot on devine smite and one for hunters mark with out critting a Vengeance Paladin deals 836 total damage in 14 attacks. This is only 50 points more then any other paladin using the best damage combo they can deal with out burning spell slots in 12 attacks.
This is not more damage to a singular target. This is more long term damage and only by 1 turn longer and 50 points more. All paladins can deal a potential 228 damage on a single hit with a crit using a long sword. Yes the likely good of maxing damage is unlikely, but as was pointed out earlier it takes hunters mark 8 attacks to match one banishing semites average damage.
This does not include if any paladin uses holly weapon which deals 2d8 damage per a hit compared to hunters mark 1d6 and lasts for the same amount of time. Which mind in the same amount of rounds that a takes a Vengeance Paladin to deal 836 damage as my paladin using holy weapon would deal 976 + another 28 damage when you choose to drop the spell.
There is a reason why people dont use Vengeance Paladins when min/maxing. Its Oath abilities at higher lvls are lack luster in comparison specifically to Devotion Paladins. It's one hit damage is not impressive using hunters mark, and vow of enmity does not compare to a +15 to attack with out magical weapons.
You must not have read my comments fully as I've clearly said multiple times that at low levels a vengeance paladin can in long term damage out damage other paladins. At higher lvls this is not the case.
As for you're comment on thunderous smite. Tier 1 is lvls 1-4 you get one attack per a round and can outright kill most things in one hit from Divine Smite and thunderous smite. I dont think you understand what you are talking about when you say Vengeance Paladins deal more singular target damage over 2 rounds of combat vs killing something in one. Yes you have one less smite and yes as I've even said m uh multiple times now at this lvl vengeance paladins can deal more over all damage but this is not against a single opponent in one hit.
For a moment lets just look at your claims about devotion paladins. Yes the channel divinity is great; however, at +5 it is only marginally better than advantage which is effectively +3.35 and more crits. Additionally I think you're missing the whole thing about it taking a full action to use whereas the vengeance paladin's ability takes a bonus action. That means that at most levels the devotion paladin burns a turn to get it up and running.
So for a level 4 comparison you're talking about 2 turns for the vengeance paladin vs 1 turn for the devotion paladin if you require both to use their channel divinity. That means you're talking about 1d6 + 2 attacks vs 1 attack + 2d8 (smite) and for many weapons the 1d6 + 2 attacks will win out there. I think for a longsword its slightly worse if 3d8+mod will kill the monster and 1d6 + 2d8 +2*mod wont; however, in that case why are you bothering to use your channel divinity. If it takes say 5 rounds (which is entirely possible for tier 1 characters in several mods that center around a singular large enemy) you're looking at 4d6 + 5*weapon + 5*mod vs 2d8 + 4*weapon + 4*mod for the same resource expenditure. If both paladins are burning all of their resources the vengeance paladin still gets more damage out over the course of the 5 round fight due to hunter's mark being per hit.
Take a tier 2 case of level 8. Assuming that you're talking about ~18 str, longsword you're looking at 8d6 + 10d8 + 40 + 15d8 vs 8d8 + 32 + 17d8. In that case the vengeance paladin is ahead by 8d6 + 8 before you're even looking at the probability of more crits.
Tier 3 characters of level 16 (lets just max str and cha. because why not) 20 str, 20 cha, longsword you're looking at 8d6 + 10d8 + 50 + 43d8 (2 level 4, 2 level 3, 3 level 2, 3 level 1 smites) vs 8d8 + 40 + 45d8 (2 at 4, 3 at 3, 3 at 2, 2 at 1). At this point the only difference is the 2 extra attacks (which will hit slightly more frequently as the effective to-hit is ~1.5 higher. However, that's not accounting for critfishing) and hunter's mark. However, I used a level 3 spell slot for hunter's mark on purpose because you also have to account for the other 7 hours or so of hunter's mark being up.
Tier 4 is a silly place and honestly core class components on paladins are not what breaks things here. I feel like this is adequately covered by the tier 3 case barring holy weapon (which you're probably using circle of power instead because its a group game) and banishing smite (which should really just be replaced by holy weapon since you get all of 2 of those slots by level 20 so holy weapon is getting you ~20d6 instead of the 5d10 if you get to use all of it).
Additional notes - the vengeance paladin will probably get more hits in at the target of its vow due to its level 15 ability. The devotion paladin will die less (more defensive abilities). In cases where to-hit is absolutely a major component of damage then devotion paladins will definitely feel better (not arguing that). Both are less tanky than oath of Ancients paladins which can do similar crap to vengeance paladins (minus hunter's mark and assuming a failed str/dex save on account of the target) which is why a lot of people use them for min-maxing.
Please point out if I've missed something here about vengeance vs devotion paladins. The final big conclusion is that vengeance is generally going to be ahead by 1 full action, and a d6/hit. and the other big conclusion is that by the time smiting spells are worth anything (banishing and such) you're probably concentrating on other things that then make advantage the big thing that you care about from vengeance paladins.
I'll argue about thunderous smite and the to-hit shenanigans later. The to-hit is pretty easy to compare since you're talking about 5 (str) + 6 (prof) + 5 (cha) vs 5 (str) + 6 (prof) + 3.5 (average of advantage). If you have another easy source of advantage then yeah devotion paladins win. In all other cases its only a 1.5 point difference at best (and that's not accounting for critical hits)
Oh and I'm not planning on doing 1 hit comparisons since that turns into brutal dice half orc gotta use a greataxe comparison math.
Again I really feel you are not reading what I've wrote. I've stated multiple times that a Vengeance Paladin can deal more long term damage. Vs in undead, fey, or fiends 3d8 +2d6 does not equal 3d8+1d6 in damage output against a single target. As 3d8+2d6 will one hit kill a singular opponent a majority of the time. Now yes a vengeance paladin deals more damage in the long term. This is not against a singular target. Why people are saying against a singular target is intellectually dishonest as at low levels most things a paladin runs into are killed in one to two hits using devine smite. Now a Vengeance Paladin over 2 attacks (3d8+1d6,3d8+1d6) at this damage deals the same as any paladin that uses thunderous smite w/divine smite over 2 attacks (3d8+2d6,3d8). In a two attack situation a Vengeance paladin deals no additional damage. And as I've previously stated this is the only time a vengeance paladin deals out more damage. It's still not singular as everything at this lvl is dead after the 2nd hit. Regardless of what your strength modifier is my original statements on this are still correct and unchanged.
At higher lvls hunters mark is ineffective with paladins as every paladin access to holy weapon which deals far more damage over the same period of time with out having to use a bonus action to move targets.
Vow of Enmity is still not a guarantee to hit vs sacred weapon and is still limited in scope as it's only against a singular target which in 3 rounds of combat or 18 seconds with a party is dead if everything hits it and a paladin uses its more deadly nova damage spells. Using a +5 to strength and charisma plus procientcy you're looking at a +16 to hit vs an average of +14 because decimal points make no difference in d&d, why I find averages lame and only worry with max potential. A Vengeance Paladin while more likely to crit is more likely to miss as well, again averages. This meaning that assuming a creature you're hitting has an AC of 18 a Devotion Paladin has to roll a 1 to miss a Vengeance on average would have to roll a 3 or lower. Again higher percentage to miss. Burning an action for guaranteed hits is perfectly acceptable. Plus a Devotion Paladin can still deal damage to creatures that require magical weapons to damage them, where a Vengeance can not.
Furthermore Ancients are only more of a tank compared to Devotions in terms of spell casters, where areas Devotions are against Fey, Fiends, Aboritions, Celestials, Elementals, and Undead by having them all at disadvantage.
Again I really feel you are not reading what I've wrote. I've stated multiple times that a Vengeance Paladin can deal more long term damage. Vs in undead, fey, or fiends 3d8 +2d6 does not equal 3d8+1d6 in damage output against a single target. As 3d8+2d6 will one hit kill a singular opponent a majority of the time. Now yes a vengeance paladin deals more damage in the long term. This is not against a singular target. Why people are saying against a singular target is intellectually dishonest as at low levels most things a paladin runs into are killed in one to two hits using devine smite. Now a Vengeance Paladin over 2 attacks (3d8+1d6,3d8+1d6) at this damage deals the same as any paladin that uses thunderous smite w/divine smite over 2 attacks (3d8+2d6,3d8). In a two attack situation a Vengeance paladin deals no additional damage. And as I've previously stated this is the only time a vengeance paladin deals out more damage. It's still not singular as everything at this lvl is dead after the 2nd hit. Regardless of what your strength modifier is my original statements on this are still correct and unchanged.
At higher lvls hunters mark is ineffective with paladins as every paladin access to holy weapon which deals far more damage over the same period of time with out having to use a bonus action to move targets.
Vow of Enmity is still not a guarantee to hit vs sacred weapon and is still limited in scope as it's only against a singular target which in 3 rounds of combat or 18 seconds with a party is dead if everything hits it and a paladin uses its more deadly nova damage spells. Using a +5 to strength and charisma plus procientcy you're looking at a +16 to hit vs an average of +14 because decimal points make no difference in d&d, why I find averages lame and only worry with max potential. A Vengeance Paladin while more likely to crit is more likely to miss as well, again averages. This meaning that assuming a creature you're hitting has an AC of 18 a Devotion Paladin has to roll a 1 to miss a Vengeance on average would have to roll a 3 or lower. Again higher percentage to miss. Burning an action for guaranteed hits is perfectly acceptable. Plus a Devotion Paladin can still deal damage to creatures that require magical weapons to damage them, where a Vengeance can not.
I actually have no idea where you're going with any of this.
Decimals matter because we're talking about probabilities.
Low levels - Hunter's mark is just straight up better than divine smite as you only get 2-3 smites. If I use 1 hunter's mark an encounter then I'll have gotten (probably) a minimum of 2d6 damage out of each and probably significantly more than that (at least in the games I've played).
1 hitting things -> smite + longsword = 4d8 + str or 20 + str. A Ghast (CR 2) has 36 hit points. You didn't 1 shot it. You might 2 shot it. Strahd Zombie (CR 1) has 30 hit points. Again maybe 2 shot it. On top of that something to keep in mind is that in these 2 cases where you 2 shot them you've expended almost all your resources for the day on a single target. Sure you've nova'd; however, you're now dealing less damage than the vengeance pally that hunter's marked and then kept going at d8+d6+str or 9+str (half the damage with less investment). Yeah you might've added a turn that they lived; however, you can also hit the other mobs that are in the encounter or just smite it for 23.5 + str. I really don't think you've thought the math through beyond a 1v1 fight for the low level math.
At level 5 your example of 2 level 1 smites + hunter's mark / thunderous smite is 3 spell slots in a single attack for ~38+2*str damage. the next hit (since you're almost out of spell slots on the first monster) would be 18+2*str vs 11+2*str. which for Tier 2 can occasionally still not be enough damage. I mean, if your DM is planning 1-2/day CR appropriate encounters then sure, this is fine. However, a lot of the time you're looking at multiple encounters per day and if you're burning your slots like this your damage is going to fall off. Additionally Tier 2 starts to see CR5+ creatures that have 100+ hitpoints. So the 38+2*str is not in 1 or 2 shot territory and if you're unlucky might not be in the 3 shot territory.
The single target damage argument for oath of vengeance deals with a couple things -> 1: at higher levels hunter's mark is a cast once and ignore it kinda thing. Again - at higher levels you cast it in the morning with a level 3 spell slot. It lasts 8 hours. that is more efficient than a smite and more efficient than holy weapon 2: level 5 spells are more useful for things like holy weapon (if nova'ing) or destructive wave (if mooks) or raise dead (since you only get 2 of them) and aren't seen till level 17. 3: advantage leads to crit fishing which leads to (iirc) 2-4% more critical hits on every roll and 2-4% fewer critical failures on every roll which drastically increases damage. Especially if you have magic items that increase your To-Hit 4: they don't need a turn to come online 5: They get additional hits due to their level 15 ability giving them attacks as a reaction 6: Advantage is almost exactly equivalent to an additional 3.5 tohit anyways.
Seriously dude the entire first part of your last post is irrelevant. I have literally said multiple times that in long term damage at low levels hunters mark wins. More over I state as such twice in the first paragraph of my last post. Either you're dense or you are not reading everything written.
More over I like how you are trying to state what I have or have not done in a game with out ever being at a table with me and further how you are not even using correct one hit potential that I've provided. So let's actually go over this scenario using my character for defined numbers then. In the AL game I play my Devotion Paladin at lvl 4 has str 16 dex 10 con 16 int 8 wis 8 chr 16 using point buy, variant human, resilent for con, and heavy armored master (so you all know how I've gotten those number.) He also has a longsword, shield, and plate armor with defense fighting style giving me a 21 AC. A ghast being an undead creature hit devine smite and thunderous smites is hit with 4d8+2d6+3 is being dealt a maximum of 47 points of damage. Or to spell it out 11 points more then is required to kill it with one hit. With out thunderous smites 4d8+3 that's a max of 35 points of damage. All this being said I've never stated what I've one hit a ghast but you can. Merrily that you can 1 or 2 hit most things at this lvl. I have one hit Ghouls and zombies. The hardest fight I had was as a lvl 2 paladin fighting a lvl 5 fighter in a tier 1 dungeon (longer story that's off track on how this happened) which took 3 rounds of combat to kill, mainly because I had used one of my lvl1 spell slots before the fighter showed up. Now what me and the other Ancients Paladin I mentioned have done is taken out a cleric in one round of combat, before taking out the remaining minions around it. Taken out a white in one round of combat, before taking out 2 ghasts and 2 oozes. The Cleric was hit with one Divine Smite, thunderous smite combo and one divine smite and the same with the white. Please continue to infer though how you think I play my character with out ever playing a game with me. As far as my roles go I've rolled 2 max stated lvl 1 characters, that's 18 to everything before racial features are applied.
The rest of you're comment in that paragraph is irrelevant, as again I've stated many times at low level the Vengeance paladin deals more overall long term damage.
So I'll say it again. The arguement with divine smite at low levels is that hunters mark does not match the one hit potential of thunderous smite. Plain and simple there is no arguement to that.
Where ever you're bringing lvl 5 out of stop. Lvl 5 is not tier 1. Why you're mentioning lvl 5 chatacters and tier 1 in the same discussion is beyond me. I have never made any comments about anything between tier 1 and tier 4. Bringing tier 2 and 3 into this is irrelevant to any point I've made. As I've only ever stated minimum to justify one hit potential vs Hunters Mark and what max lvl Paladins of any path can do to justify the uselessness of Vengeance Paladins.
Decimal points are irrelevant in d&d you dont get any benefit from a .35 and never have regardless of edition. Further more averages are even more irrelevant because your percentage of a better role is just perceived. At max proficiency and strength thats a + 11. Trying to hit an AC of 18 you still have to role over a 6 to hit. The percentage of doing so does not change with 2 dice as you have the same failure rate with both, in this situation that's still a 30% chance to roll a 6 or lower. This is why a guarantee to hit is always better than a chance 2nd role. Having a 70% chance to hit is not remotely equal to 95% chance (sacred weapon with +5) to hit.
I dont think you understand the concept of min/maxing, which is only concercened with minimum and maximum. This concept does not use averages to justify a hit potential of a class. It works with guarantees. A guaranteed +5 to a hit is far better then the equal probability to hit with 2 dice. This right here is why Devotions are used in min/maxing. It's a guarantee hit against all creatures not an individual. Which everything you mention is against an individual target. A Vengeance Paladin can not use any of its added advantage or a reaction against any other target in a fight. At High lvl this also limits its potential to deal damage over all and again why a +5 against everything is always better then an advantage against a singular target.
In min/maxing you also look at lvl 20 max potential damage. All paladins deal the same max potential damage 228 on a crit with banishing smite and a longsword not using modifiers. Vengeance Paladins can not deal more damage then this in a single hit. Even in the long game Vengeance Paladins have no advantage compared to the others as they all have access to holy weapon giving you a max potential damage of 978 vs a Vengeance Paladins hunters mark potential of 836 when using smites vs undead, again no modifiers.
The only perceivable way a Vengeance Paladin can even contend with trying to out damage any other Paladin Oath using holy weapon is by using holy weapon itself and saving an additional spell slot for hunters mark. In this scenario though the Vengeance paladin deals less damage then any other Paladin Oath in the first hour. This is completely reliant on continuous fighting for over 1 hr of in game time (over 600 turns of combat for 1 hr) using all spell slots and not getting a long rest in between. All of which combined is highly improbable.
So no they dont deal more damage in a hit. They dont deal more damage overall at high level. The only thing Vengeance Paladins exceed at is overall damage at low levels.
In the long scheme of things Vengeance Paladins remain an Oath that when it reaches max lvl bring nothing really to the table that other Oaths cannot match or exceed. Nothing anyone has said here has been able to argue this fact. You all continue to say the same thing of overal damage. At low levels I've even agreed to this. No one that has commented seems to grasp what is being said by ONE HIT POTENTIAL, which I've now capitalized because this is really starting to get ridiculous.
Read what has been said to its entirety before you comment.
So here’s the thing. Maximums and ignoring dice do not reflect actual performance. The only thing that matters is the probabilities associated with each action. Hence averages. Min maxers traditionally have focused on averages because that’s what you’ll actually see. Risk averse people focus on things that are gaurenteed because they don’t like the fact that probabilities have a distribution.
besides that you’re ignoring the simple fact that advantage (from vow of enmity for example) will cause you to criticize more often which makes the max damage show up more anyways.
I'm on a computer now so I'll go through and give a quoted response since that seems to be what you'd like.
Seriously dude the entire first part of your last post is irrelevant. I have literally said multiple times that in long term damage at low levels hunters mark wins. More over I state as such twice in the first paragraph of my last post. Either you're dense or you are not reading everything written.
I keep bringing up hunter's mark because you seem to be actively ignoring how it scales and how it preserves more spell slots for smites and other uses.
More over I like how you are trying to state what I have or have not done in a game with out ever being at a table with me and further how you are not even using correct one hit potential that I've provided. So let's actually go over this scenario using my character for defined numbers then. In the AL game I play my Devotion Paladin at lvl 4 has str 16 dex 10 con 16 int 8 wis 8 chr 16 using point buy, variant human, resilent for con, and heavy armored master (so you all know how I've gotten those number.) He also has a longsword, shield, and plate armor with defense fighting style giving me a 21 AC. A ghast being an undead creature hit devine smite and thunderous smites is hit with 4d8+2d6+3 is being dealt a maximum of 47 points of damage. Or to spell it out 11 points more then is required to kill it with one hit. With out thunderous smites 4d8+3 that's a max of 35 points of damage. All this being said I've never stated what I've one hit a ghast but you can. Merrily that you can 1 or 2 hit most things at this lvl. I have one hit Ghouls and zombies. The hardest fight I had was as a lvl 2 paladin fighting a lvl 5 fighter in a tier 1 dungeon (longer story that's off track on how this happened) which took 3 rounds of combat to kill, mainly because I had used one of my lvl1 spell slots before the fighter showed up. Now what me and the other Ancients Paladin I mentioned have done is taken out a cleric in one round of combat, before taking out the remaining minions around it. Taken out a white in one round of combat, before taking out 2 ghasts and 2 oozes. The Cleric was hit with one Divine Smite, thunderous smite combo and one divine smite and the same with the white. Please continue to infer though how you think I play my character with out ever playing a game with me. As far as my roles go I've rolled 2 max stated lvl 1 characters, that's 18 to everything before racial features are applied.
1: 4d8 + 2d6 + 3 is on average 28 damage. That means that on average you are not 1 hitting it. That means that on average you're going to need a second hit. If you max out on damage sure you've one hit it; however, that's irrelevant because you're talking about a 0.000678168% chance. To one hit it with that hit you have a 7.54% chance.
2: I'm not inferring how you play your character. All I've assumed is that you've rolled high. As such I've been using statistics to get the average damage for any hits and the probable outcome of part of an encounter. DnD is actually a fairly easily modeled game when you're looking at some basic assumptions such as advantage, only damage / buffs that you can cast etc.
3: Congratulations on 2 max statted characters. I pretty much only play point buy so I'll continue only really talking about situations where that applies. Honestly if you have a character with 6 18s at level 1 before racial features that character SHOULD be broken as all heck. I mean you're talking about potentially having 3 max stats by level 4.
The rest of you're comment in that paragraph is irrelevant, as again I've stated many times at low level the Vengeance paladin deals more overall long term damage.
So I'll say it again. The arguement with divine smite at low levels is that hunters mark does not match the one hit potential of thunderous smite. Plain and simple there is no arguement to that.
1: sure. if you're only looking at cases where I get 1 weapon attack and then I'm done thunderous smite is better. However, that is extremely rare at low levels when you're looking at encounters as a whole.
2: Multiple hits / attacks / enemies scales very well with hunter's mark and it lets you conserve your spell slots for bigger smites. Seriously if you're using thunderous smite as a level 1 spell you should've just used smite instead for 2d8 instead of 2d6 (unless of course you're trying to knock it prone to help allies. In that case go for it!).
Where ever you're bringing lvl 5 out of stop. Lvl 5 is not tier 1. Why you're mentioning lvl 5 chatacters and tier 1 in the same discussion is beyond me. I have never made any comments about anything between tier 1 and tier 4. Bringing tier 2 and 3 into this is irrelevant to any point I've made. As I've only ever stated minimum to justify one hit potential vs Hunters Mark and what max lvl Paladins of any path can do to justify the uselessness of Vengeance Paladins.
I only mention level 5 since it is the first level where you have extra attack. I do not agree that Tier 2 and 3 are irrelevant as most surveys have shown that games rarely get past level 11-14 which is smack dab in the middle of Tier 3. Additionally as I've been saying repeatedly one hit max damage potential is meaningless when looking at a character as a whole.
Decimal points are irrelevant in d&d you dont get any benefit from a .35 and never have regardless of edition. Further more averages are even more irrelevant because your percentage of a better role is just perceived. At max proficiency and strength thats a + 11. Trying to hit an AC of 18 you still have to role over a 6 to hit. The percentage of doing so does not change with 2 dice as you have the same failure rate with both, in this situation that's still a 30% chance to roll a 6 or lower. This is why a guarantee to hit is always better than a chance 2nd role. Having a 70% chance to hit is not remotely equal to 95% chance (sacred weapon with +5) to hit.
using your proficiency and strength - tohit +11
advantage chance of hitting ac 18 so you need a 7 -> 91% burning a turn to get +5 more to-hit so you only have to roll a 2 -> 95%
I have no idea where you're getting a 30% change for 6 or lower. I recommend you use this site: anydice.com to calculate the actual probabilities of getting specific values with dice rolls. The real comparison is a 91% to hit vs a 95% to hit with the 91% having a 9.75% chance to crit vs the 95%'s 5%.
I dont think you understand the concept of min/maxing, which is only concercened with minimum and maximum. This concept does not use averages to justify a hit potential of a class. It works with guarantees. A guaranteed +5 to a hit is far better then the equal probability to hit with 2 dice. This right here is why Devotions are used in min/maxing. It's a guarantee hit against all creatures not an individual. Which everything you mention is against an individual target. A Vengeance Paladin can not use any of its added advantage or a reaction against any other target in a fight. At High lvl this also limits its potential to deal damage over all and again why a +5 against everything is always better then an advantage against a singular target.
Min/Maxing is a term that's been around for a while that's intended to maximize something with respect to something you're trying to minimize. In DnD for dpr that's traditionally been maximizing damage per round while minimizing the chance of missing (power attack in 3e, gwm in 5e, sharpshooter, etc). You have to account for all of the probabilities and additional features otherwise you are not doing a genuine comparison. You're just picking things you want (which is totally fine in DnD. Its a cooperative game) and ignoring things you dont like even when they're shown to be similar if not better.
In min/maxing you also look at lvl 20 max potential damage. All paladins deal the same max potential damage 228 on a crit with banishing smite and a longsword not using modifiers. Vengeance Paladins can not deal more damage then this in a single hit. Even in the long game Vengeance Paladins have no advantage compared to the others as they all have access to holy weapon giving you a max potential damage of 978 vs a Vengeance Paladins hunters mark potential of 836 when using smites vs undead, again no modifiers.
Max Damage has such a low chance at higher levels that realistically you should only be looking at average damage. that 228 that you're talking about has a 5% chance for the opportunity and a (1/10^10)*(1/8^2)*(1/8^10) for a 1.4551915228366851806640625 × 10^-19 % chance of happening. That's completely irrelevant to most people. It'll probably never happen. The average is a much better method of computing how good something is. btw the average of 10d10+10d8+2d8 (no modifier critical hit on a level 4 smite / banishing smite) is 109. which btw has a chance of being exceeded or met of just about 50%.
If you're looking at the long game you're looking at 2 minutes of holy weapon and 8 hours of hunter's mark (traded for 3d8 smite damage). its not really comparable because of the additional d6 on every hit.
The only perceivable way a Vengeance Paladin can even contend with trying to out damage any other Paladin Oath using holy weapon is by using holy weapon itself and saving an additional spell slot for hunters mark. In this scenario though the Vengeance paladin deals less damage then any other Paladin Oath in the first hour. This is completely reliant on continuous fighting for over 1 hr of in game time (over 600 turns of combat for 1 hr) using all spell slots and not getting a long rest in between. All of which combined is highly improbable.
So no they dont deal more damage in a hit. They dont deal more damage overall at high level. The only thing Vengeance Paladins exceed at is overall damage at low levels.
I have no idea where to even begin with this. if vengeance paladins would deal less damage than other paladins for the first hour they would just do the same thing. However, this is irrelevant since hunter's mark would come on on round 21 (or encounter 3.) of the day.
In the long scheme of things Vengeance Paladins remain an Oath that when it reaches max lvl bring nothing really to the table that other Oaths cannot match or exceed. Nothing anyone has said here has been able to argue this fact. You all continue to say the same thing of overal damage. At low levels I've even agreed to this. No one that has commented seems to grasp what is being said by ONE HIT POTENTIAL, which I've now capitalized because this is really starting to get ridiculous.
One hit potential is irrelevant. It is a fun number that people like because you can keep track of it. However, the truth is that it doesn't mean anything. Take for example your example of a level 20 paladin doing its max nova damage. Anything higher than ~149 (pre-modifier) has effectively no chance of happening. 149 has a 0.04% chance of happening. Saying that a one hit potential of 228 or something is the mark that it should be measured by doesn't make any sense because you're talking about something that may happen once over the lifespan of a character (and if it happened twice the DM should honestly get a bit suspicious).
As a side-note the devotion paladin only has a 5% chance of even getting a chance to see that max hit while the vengeance paladin (vow of enmity) has a ~9.5% chance of trying for it.
I really don't know what to say here. Statistics is useful for a reason and as you make the computations more complicated, more and more and more dice, it becomes the only actual way of measuring anything to do with the outcome. Ignoring it is just going to lead to deeply seated false conclusions =/.
This I have not done I have stated repeated at low level Hunters Mark does more damage in long term damage at low levels. I know very well you can expand higher lvl spell slots yo use it longer. This is in my opinion a waste of a higher lvl spell slot and prevents fights from ending quickly as more powerful spell can be used in its place.
1. Averages are relevant to the individual rolling a dice. Example: Will Weatons Average has a high count of natural ones and is a lot lower then you would say. Some people also naturally role higher which increase their average. Thus averages of dice is irrelevant because its subjective to individuals you stating what an over average is does not constitute an individual average. Furthermore anyone could repeatedly roll a 20 sided dice and come up with completely different averages depending on the amount of times rolled and the numbers rolled. There is so such thing as a mass average it's a statistical guess and not a guarantee average. This is why working with averages to determine chance is asinine.
2. Again with multiple hits tier 1 characters do not have the ability to multiple hit. At higher levels there are better spells that deal more damage then hunters Mark.
What in god's name made up math are you using. Doubling the same type of dice does not change the ratio and therefore does not change the probability or percent for success. Rolling a 6 or under to miss is 6/20 chance of missing, or 30/100, which is 30%. This gives you a 70% chance to roll something other than a 6 or lower. Rolling 2 dice does not increase percentage as now you have 12/40 or 60/200 which is still 70%. This all being done with the assumption that you are trying to hit an AC of 18 and have a +5 strength and +6 proficiency, giving you a +11 to hit requiring any roll above a 6 to hit. This gives you 14/20 or 70/100 or 70%. Someone needs to learn some basic math. When the ratio doesn't change, in this case a 20 sided dice, percentage and probability do not either as a 20 sided dice and the final goal are a fixed constant in this scenario.
If combat last for a solid hour to, the length of the spell of holly weapon, in D&D that's 600 rounds of combat. As each round is 6 seconds of in game time. A Vengeance Paladin would have to save a whole other spell slot to do this. Take you're pick it matters not because regardless of what spell slot they save they are down on damage regardless. Regardless in that hour the Vengeance paladin is less likely to hit in comparison to a Devotion Paladin in the first 10 rounds of combat. After that even with advantage the percentage to hit or not remains the same.
You are making absolutely no sense now. A Vengeance Paladin does not have more of a chance at rolling max damage as no matter what no paladin re roles damage. Again the ratio of rolling a 20 to get a 20 does not change ever the ratio is never increasing as the 20 sided dice does not change it's a constant. You always have a 1/20 or 5% Chance to get a nat 20. As the ratio does not change the more you add the same dice the percentage and probability never changes. To roll an 8 on an 8 sided dice you always have a 12.5% chance of success. Now throwing all those together changes ratio which in turn changes percent of success and probability, but the same dice no matter how many times rolled never changes percent or probability.
You might want to learn basic math on percentages and probability again. Your math is off.
1. Averages are relevant to the individual rolling a dice. Example: Will Weatons Average has a high count of natural ones and is a lot lower then you would say. Some people also naturally role higher which increase their average. Thus averages of dice is irrelevant because its subjective to individuals you stating what an over average is does not constitute an individual average. Furthermore anyone could repeatedly roll a 20 sided dice and come up with completely different averages depending on the amount of times rolled and the numbers rolled. There is so such thing as a mass average it's a statistical guess and not a guarantee average. This is why working with averages to determine chance is asinine.
If you honestly believe this you should talk to your DM because this is insane. That is not how statistics works. That is how observed statistics CAN work (because randomness is random). However, if you're saying that your dice have a nonuniform distribution when tested a reasonable (200+) amount of times then you should get different dice.
What in god's name made up math are you using. Doubling the same type of dice does not change the ratio and therefore does not change the probability or percent for success. Rolling a 6 or under to miss is 6/20 chance of missing, or 30/100, which is 30%. This gives you a 70% chance to roll something other than a 6 or lower. Rolling 2 dice does not increase percentage as now you have 12/40 or 60/200 which is still 70%. This all being done with the assumption that you are trying to hit an AC of 18 and have a +5 strength and +6 proficiency, giving you a +11 to hit requiring any roll above a 6 to hit. This gives you 14/20 or 70/100 ir 70%. Someone needs to learn some basic math. When the ratio doesn't change, in this case a 20 sided dice, percentage and probability do not either as a 20 sided dice and the final goal are a fixed constant in this scenario.
The chance of getting a 7 or higher out of 20 on a d20 is 70%. The chance of getting 7 or higher on at least 1 of 2 d20s is 1-0.3*0.3 or 0.91 aka 91% not 70%. If you don't get this then you really should look at some statistics tutorials.
You are making absolutely no sense now. A Vengeance Paladin does not have more of a chance at rolling max damage as no matter what no paladin re roles damage. Again the ratio of rolling a 20 to get a 20 does not change ever the ratio is never increasing as the 20 sided dice does not change it's a constant. You always have a 1/20 or 5% Chance to get a nat 20. As the ratio does not change the more you add the same dice the percentage and probability never changes.
You might want to learn basic math on percentages and probability again. Your math is off.
Chance of getting a crit w/o advantage - 5%. Chance of NOT getting a crit with advantage 0.95 * 0.95 or 0.9025. This forces the chance to get a crit with advantage to be 9.75% which is almost double the chance that you get without advantage.
You might want to try https://anydice.com/ if you want to check your distributions.
Every forum I've gone on says the Vengance paladin is better at dealing damage then a devotion or any other oat thanks to hunters mark. I am not convinced an believe contrary to this point of view. For one everyone seems to forget that Hunters Mark is a concentration spell and deals only 1d6 additional damage as a lvl 1 Spell. This prevents you from using any other smite spells as a bonus action as they are all concentration spells. These smite spell carry from lvl 1 spell that cause 2d6 extra damage knocking targets prone to causing 5d10 and banishing a target at lvl 5 spell slots. All of which are concentration spells and cast a bonus actions. This makes hunters mark a rather useless spell.
Not really. Smite spells are only good for one hit and deal less damage than Divine Smite. They're situationally useful for their side effects.
Hunter's Mark deals 1d6 per hit and lasts up to an hour with just a 1st level spell slot. You only need to hit 8 times to deal more damage than Banishing Smite or 4th level Divine Smite and you can do that with a 1st level spell slot starting at 3rd level. You still have the option of using Divine Smite if you need a big dose of damage immediately.
Other subclasses don't get Vow of Enmity either.
Actually you have to hit 9 times to get close to max damage of damage in comparison with 5d10 something a paladin can deal in one hit and you can burn a level one spell slot to deal 2d6 damage. Yes hunters mark last for an hour but engagements do not. Engagements last minutes for the most part and using hunters mark with divine smite is pitiful in what a paladin can deal in a single hit.
Furthermore vow of enmity is only against a singular target. The Sacred weapon channel divinity of Devotion paladins turns your weapon magical creates light and adds your charisma to your attack. Maxed out that's a +5 to all hits against all creatures you hit. Burning your spell slots for smite in this situation with 2 attacks not only will any other paladin class outdamage a vengeance paladin usng hunters mark but a Devotion paladin is guaranteed to hit everything for the most part.
The only way a vengeance paladin can remotely outdamage the others is using hunters mark as its final spell slot or at very low levels and even then it's a question of I could have killed the ghoul in one hit but chose not to. If done this way and only this way would a vengeance paladin outdamage the others. Vow of Enmity is rarely useless given how fast paladins tend to kill things. At most it lasts 4 rounds against a singular target and is done. Sacred weapon last for 10 regardless of what you're attacking.
The average of 5d10 is 27.5 which is less than the average of 8d6 is 28. The maximum damage is irrelevant; you're extremely unlikely to ever see it.
Or you could burn a 1st level slot to deal much more than 2d6 damage, since Hunter's Mark adds 1d6 to every hit.
You're likely to get into more than one fight over the course of an hour if you're exploring a dungeon. Even if you don't, Hunter's Mark is still going to get you the best value for your spell slots.
Hunter's Mark is cheap. Blowing your highest level slot on Banishing Smite isn't, and you don't have unlimited spell slots.
Advantage is better if you don't have +5 CHA, and +5 CHA won't help you crit more either.
If you're fixated on burning all of your spell slots right off the bat, by all means, don't pick Oath of Vengeance. That's not the subclass's strength; it's dealing great damage without blowing through all of your spell slots first thing in the morning.
So what you're saying is you want your point to hinge on the difference of.5 damage of an average over 8 turns vs 1 turn. .5 damage difference over the course of 8 rounds is not higher damage especially when the capability is so much higher in damage potential. 8 ends of combat is a long time in d&d. You're most likely never gonna get close to that on a singular target.
Hunters mark only gives you value over repeatedly hitting things over a long period of time. It does not give you higher damage out put when you have the capability to end a fight with a boss in the second rnd of combat which mind you also prevents yourself and other party members from getting hit. The only way hunters mark outdamage other oaths as I've stated is by using it as a last spell slot or at low levels in longterm damage. Nothing more.
Adding your charisma to attacks against all targets is far better than advantage against a single target that is dead after the second rnd of combat. Oh wait I forgot you dont do nova damage and wait 8 turns before you can deal the same damage you could otherwise do in one attack.
Not obsessed with burning spell slots. More focused on ending a fight quickly, which from your points laid out a vengeance paladin is not. Giving the vengeance paladins lack of an additional aura doesn't help the party in any way. But dealing subpar damage of a paladins capability in a one hit scenario is because hunters mark. Which still is only advantageous as a last use of a spell slot.
Multiple times have I had AL paladins end a fight at low level with a boss in the 2nd rnd, if not the 1st, burning spell slots and saving the party from taking worse damage because of not wanting to not use spell slots and taking longer to deal the same amount. Your entire argument is not convincing and my point still stands. Hunters mark remains a useless spell for paladins in dealing damage.
Damage potential in one hit vs undead using a long sword and divine smite with improved divine smite would be 8d8+5d10 vs you're 8d8+1d6 and this is where a crit on this by far jumps ahead. This a potential maximum of 228 points of damage on one hit via a crit vs 140. It would take an entire crit at max pulse one hit at max (70) plus another hit for a vengeance paladin using hunters mark to match the one hit potential of something all paladins can do. And before you bring up averages again I am not interested in you're ability to deal more then that in more than one turn. If you have the potential as a paladin to end a fight that fast you do it.
Also if you're not using banishing smite at this point and can, well I pray for you because you get no damage bump in using 5th lvl spell slots for divine smite.
Most Likely if you can use level 5 spells on a paladin you're using circle of power for support or holy weapon for 2d8/hit (only marginally less than 5d10/first hit if you hit both your attacks and it lasts for 10 minutes). Imo the biggest win for oath of vengeance is vow of enmity not hunter's mark. hunter's mark is great in T2 AL because fights tend to drag on (as an anecdote). Additionally the better comparison against banishing smite is as a 3rd 4th or 5th level cast wherein hunter's mark will last the entire adventuring day. So you're comparing 5d10 against 1d6/hit for every round in a day. which adds up quickly.
I'm comparing one hit potential and while that tapers off over time even thunderous smite at 2d6 deals more damage then hunters mark. Again the choice of ending combat quickly opposed to dealing damage over time.
Vow of Enmity as I've already stated is uselessin comparison to Sacred Weapon. Vow of Enmity only works against a singular target for advantage. The only way you get perceived damage increase is by dragging out a fight with said singular target.
It's a good thing you bring up AL a recent game I played in AL myself a lvl 4 Paladin of Devotion with sword and shield and a Paladin of the Ancients great weapon essentially soloed a tier one dungeon twice finishing off a higher lvl enemy character in one round of combat. This is a lvl area where, in one of the few cases does a Vengeance Paladin out damage others with hunters mark as Paladins only have access to 3 lvl 1 spells. That being said Vow of Enmity would still have been absolutely useless fighting something that lasts one round , maybe 2, of combat. Where in case Sacred Weapon allows you at this lvl to hit all creatures with a plus 7 magical weapon. At this lvl is virtually guaranteed hits as well.
You make another point with holy weapon. There are various other spells that paladins get access to that are far better then hunters mark. From being able to pick your own type of damage with elemental weapon (yes it's only 1d4) but your weapon also becomes a plus 1 magical weapon. The arguement that a Vengeance Paladin is better at dealing damage is thus void using this arguement.
In Tier 1 the big damage dealers are fighters and gloomstalker rangers (extra attack in tier 1 is a heck of a drug). If you're talking about oath of ancients paladins they're less dpr than an equivalent oath of vengeance paladin who is also using GWM and the sword and board paladin of devotion is effectively burning their first turn for their channel divinity. Youre missing the big win for oath of vengeance which is that it allows you to consistently use your bonus action and reaction to increase your damage. at later levels you get an attack as a reaction against your vow target, at lower levels you have hunter's mark as a bonus action (and your vow as a bonus action).
Additionally thunderous smite is hot garbage in comparison to hunter's mark since you're comparing something that would do more damage as a smite against something that gives consistent damage that scales with extra attack. and 2d6 is not less than 2 groupings of 1d6.
It really seems like you just want oath of vengeance to be less damage than the other options for some reason. I don't know what happened there but the thing is that oath of vengeance is generally speaking more damage against a single target than the other oaths. Oath of devotion "can" catch up via its channel divinity; however, that takes an entire action to get up and running so they 1 only get 9 rounds out of it and 2 have to burn their first turn to turn it on. Oath of ancients is just straight up better in party play due to the extra spell resistance - I don't think they actually get anything that boosts their damage (other than the restrain effect which is similar to vow of enmity but relies heavily on an extremely common saving throw).
I mean the only paladin "oath" that consistently outdamages oath of vengeance as a core feature is oathbreaker and that's mainly due to +cha to damage at all times.
Additionally paladins don't get that many spell slots. so if you're constantly burning them on the smite spells then you're probably out by the time you get to the BBEG whereas hunter's mark is more or less around all day for just 1 level 3 spell slot.
Nothing anyone has provided has show that a Vengeance Paladin deals more damage over a singular target in comparison to other oaths. I've crunched the numbers. Most singular targets are or can be killed in 1 to 2 hits from a paladins smite. Now if you're talking damage over time a Vengeance Paladin deals slightly more damage. In comparison when using hunters mark it's in adequate compared to what all paladins can do to singular targets. Everyone seems to forget that Paladins Specializes in singular target damage.
Now if smites are only used on crits a Vengeance Paladin using hunters mar, the claim to flame spell people some how swear by, you are not dealing more individual target damage by any means. Using all but one spell slot on devine smite and one for hunters mark with out critting a Vengeance Paladin deals 836 total damage in 14 attacks. This is only 50 points more then any other paladin using the best damage combo they can deal with out burning spell slots in 12 attacks.
This is not more damage to a singular target. This is more long term damage and only by 1 turn longer and 50 points more. All paladins can deal a potential 228 damage on a single hit with a crit using a long sword. Yes the likely good of maxing damage is unlikely, but as was pointed out earlier it takes hunters mark 8 attacks to match one banishing semites average damage.
This does not include if any paladin uses holly weapon which deals 2d8 damage per a hit compared to hunters mark 1d6 and lasts for the same amount of time. Which mind in the same amount of rounds that a takes a Vengeance Paladin to deal 836 damage as my paladin using holy weapon would deal 976 + another 28 damage when you choose to drop the spell.
There is a reason why people dont use Vengeance Paladins when min/maxing. Its Oath abilities at higher lvls are lack luster in comparison specifically to Devotion Paladins. It's one hit damage is not impressive using hunters mark, and vow of enmity does not compare to a +15 to attack with out magical weapons.
You must not have read my comments fully as I've clearly said multiple times that at low levels a vengeance paladin can in long term damage out damage other paladins. At higher lvls this is not the case.
As for you're comment on thunderous smite. Tier 1 is lvls 1-4 you get one attack per a round and can outright kill most things in one hit from Divine Smite and thunderous smite. I dont think you understand what you are talking about when you say Vengeance Paladins deal more singular target damage over 2 rounds of combat vs killing something in one. Yes you have one less smite and yes as I've even said m uh multiple times now at this lvl vengeance paladins can deal more over all damage but this is not against a single opponent in one hit.
For a moment lets just look at your claims about devotion paladins. Yes the channel divinity is great; however, at +5 it is only marginally better than advantage which is effectively +3.35 and more crits. Additionally I think you're missing the whole thing about it taking a full action to use whereas the vengeance paladin's ability takes a bonus action. That means that at most levels the devotion paladin burns a turn to get it up and running.
So for a level 4 comparison you're talking about 2 turns for the vengeance paladin vs 1 turn for the devotion paladin if you require both to use their channel divinity. That means you're talking about 1d6 + 2 attacks vs 1 attack + 2d8 (smite) and for many weapons the 1d6 + 2 attacks will win out there. I think for a longsword its slightly worse if 3d8+mod will kill the monster and 1d6 + 2d8 +2*mod wont; however, in that case why are you bothering to use your channel divinity. If it takes say 5 rounds (which is entirely possible for tier 1 characters in several mods that center around a singular large enemy) you're looking at 4d6 + 5*weapon + 5*mod vs 2d8 + 4*weapon + 4*mod for the same resource expenditure. If both paladins are burning all of their resources the vengeance paladin still gets more damage out over the course of the 5 round fight due to hunter's mark being per hit.
Take a tier 2 case of level 8. Assuming that you're talking about ~18 str, longsword you're looking at 8d6 + 10d8 + 40 + 15d8 vs 8d8 + 32 + 17d8. In that case the vengeance paladin is ahead by 8d6 + 8 before you're even looking at the probability of more crits.
Tier 3 characters of level 16 (lets just max str and cha. because why not) 20 str, 20 cha, longsword you're looking at 8d6 + 10d8 + 50 + 43d8 (2 level 4, 2 level 3, 3 level 2, 3 level 1 smites) vs 8d8 + 40 + 45d8 (2 at 4, 3 at 3, 3 at 2, 2 at 1). At this point the only difference is the 2 extra attacks (which will hit slightly more frequently as the effective to-hit is ~1.5 higher. However, that's not accounting for critfishing) and hunter's mark. However, I used a level 3 spell slot for hunter's mark on purpose because you also have to account for the other 7 hours or so of hunter's mark being up.
Tier 4 is a silly place and honestly core class components on paladins are not what breaks things here. I feel like this is adequately covered by the tier 3 case barring holy weapon (which you're probably using circle of power instead because its a group game) and banishing smite (which should really just be replaced by holy weapon since you get all of 2 of those slots by level 20 so holy weapon is getting you ~20d6 instead of the 5d10 if you get to use all of it).
Additional notes - the vengeance paladin will probably get more hits in at the target of its vow due to its level 15 ability. The devotion paladin will die less (more defensive abilities). In cases where to-hit is absolutely a major component of damage then devotion paladins will definitely feel better (not arguing that). Both are less tanky than oath of Ancients paladins which can do similar crap to vengeance paladins (minus hunter's mark and assuming a failed str/dex save on account of the target) which is why a lot of people use them for min-maxing.
Please point out if I've missed something here about vengeance vs devotion paladins. The final big conclusion is that vengeance is generally going to be ahead by 1 full action, and a d6/hit. and the other big conclusion is that by the time smiting spells are worth anything (banishing and such) you're probably concentrating on other things that then make advantage the big thing that you care about from vengeance paladins.
I'll argue about thunderous smite and the to-hit shenanigans later. The to-hit is pretty easy to compare since you're talking about 5 (str) + 6 (prof) + 5 (cha) vs 5 (str) + 6 (prof) + 3.5 (average of advantage). If you have another easy source of advantage then yeah devotion paladins win. In all other cases its only a 1.5 point difference at best (and that's not accounting for critical hits)
Oh and I'm not planning on doing 1 hit comparisons since that turns into brutal dice half orc gotta use a greataxe comparison math.
Again I really feel you are not reading what I've wrote. I've stated multiple times that a Vengeance Paladin can deal more long term damage. Vs in undead, fey, or fiends 3d8 +2d6 does not equal 3d8+1d6 in damage output against a single target. As 3d8+2d6 will one hit kill a singular opponent a majority of the time. Now yes a vengeance paladin deals more damage in the long term. This is not against a singular target. Why people are saying against a singular target is intellectually dishonest as at low levels most things a paladin runs into are killed in one to two hits using devine smite. Now a Vengeance Paladin over 2 attacks (3d8+1d6,3d8+1d6) at this damage deals the same as any paladin that uses thunderous smite w/divine smite over 2 attacks (3d8+2d6,3d8). In a two attack situation a Vengeance paladin deals no additional damage. And as I've previously stated this is the only time a vengeance paladin deals out more damage. It's still not singular as everything at this lvl is dead after the 2nd hit. Regardless of what your strength modifier is my original statements on this are still correct and unchanged.
At higher lvls hunters mark is ineffective with paladins as every paladin access to holy weapon which deals far more damage over the same period of time with out having to use a bonus action to move targets.
Vow of Enmity is still not a guarantee to hit vs sacred weapon and is still limited in scope as it's only against a singular target which in 3 rounds of combat or 18 seconds with a party is dead if everything hits it and a paladin uses its more deadly nova damage spells. Using a +5 to strength and charisma plus procientcy you're looking at a +16 to hit vs an average of +14 because decimal points make no difference in d&d, why I find averages lame and only worry with max potential. A Vengeance Paladin while more likely to crit is more likely to miss as well, again averages. This meaning that assuming a creature you're hitting has an AC of 18 a Devotion Paladin has to roll a 1 to miss a Vengeance on average would have to roll a 3 or lower. Again higher percentage to miss. Burning an action for guaranteed hits is perfectly acceptable. Plus a Devotion Paladin can still deal damage to creatures that require magical weapons to damage them, where a Vengeance can not.
Furthermore Ancients are only more of a tank compared to Devotions in terms of spell casters, where areas Devotions are against Fey, Fiends, Aboritions, Celestials, Elementals, and Undead by having them all at disadvantage.
I actually have no idea where you're going with any of this.
Decimals matter because we're talking about probabilities.
Low levels - Hunter's mark is just straight up better than divine smite as you only get 2-3 smites. If I use 1 hunter's mark an encounter then I'll have gotten (probably) a minimum of 2d6 damage out of each and probably significantly more than that (at least in the games I've played).
1 hitting things -> smite + longsword = 4d8 + str or 20 + str. A Ghast (CR 2) has 36 hit points. You didn't 1 shot it. You might 2 shot it. Strahd Zombie (CR 1) has 30 hit points. Again maybe 2 shot it. On top of that something to keep in mind is that in these 2 cases where you 2 shot them you've expended almost all your resources for the day on a single target. Sure you've nova'd; however, you're now dealing less damage than the vengeance pally that hunter's marked and then kept going at d8+d6+str or 9+str (half the damage with less investment). Yeah you might've added a turn that they lived; however, you can also hit the other mobs that are in the encounter or just smite it for 23.5 + str. I really don't think you've thought the math through beyond a 1v1 fight for the low level math.
At level 5 your example of 2 level 1 smites + hunter's mark / thunderous smite is 3 spell slots in a single attack for ~38+2*str damage. the next hit (since you're almost out of spell slots on the first monster) would be 18+2*str vs 11+2*str. which for Tier 2 can occasionally still not be enough damage. I mean, if your DM is planning 1-2/day CR appropriate encounters then sure, this is fine. However, a lot of the time you're looking at multiple encounters per day and if you're burning your slots like this your damage is going to fall off. Additionally Tier 2 starts to see CR5+ creatures that have 100+ hitpoints. So the 38+2*str is not in 1 or 2 shot territory and if you're unlucky might not be in the 3 shot territory.
The single target damage argument for oath of vengeance deals with a couple things ->
1: at higher levels hunter's mark is a cast once and ignore it kinda thing. Again - at higher levels you cast it in the morning with a level 3 spell slot. It lasts 8 hours. that is more efficient than a smite and more efficient than holy weapon
2: level 5 spells are more useful for things like holy weapon (if nova'ing) or destructive wave (if mooks) or raise dead (since you only get 2 of them) and aren't seen till level 17.
3: advantage leads to crit fishing which leads to (iirc) 2-4% more critical hits on every roll and 2-4% fewer critical failures on every roll which drastically increases damage. Especially if you have magic items that increase your To-Hit
4: they don't need a turn to come online
5: They get additional hits due to their level 15 ability giving them attacks as a reaction
6: Advantage is almost exactly equivalent to an additional 3.5 tohit anyways.
Either way, I don't think we're going to agree.
Seriously dude the entire first part of your last post is irrelevant. I have literally said multiple times that in long term damage at low levels hunters mark wins. More over I state as such twice in the first paragraph of my last post. Either you're dense or you are not reading everything written.
More over I like how you are trying to state what I have or have not done in a game with out ever being at a table with me and further how you are not even using correct one hit potential that I've provided. So let's actually go over this scenario using my character for defined numbers then. In the AL game I play my Devotion Paladin at lvl 4 has str 16 dex 10 con 16 int 8 wis 8 chr 16 using point buy, variant human, resilent for con, and heavy armored master (so you all know how I've gotten those number.) He also has a longsword, shield, and plate armor with defense fighting style giving me a 21 AC. A ghast being an undead creature hit devine smite and thunderous smites is hit with 4d8+2d6+3 is being dealt a maximum of 47 points of damage. Or to spell it out 11 points more then is required to kill it with one hit. With out thunderous smites 4d8+3 that's a max of 35 points of damage. All this being said I've never stated what I've one hit a ghast but you can. Merrily that you can 1 or 2 hit most things at this lvl. I have one hit Ghouls and zombies. The hardest fight I had was as a lvl 2 paladin fighting a lvl 5 fighter in a tier 1 dungeon (longer story that's off track on how this happened) which took 3 rounds of combat to kill, mainly because I had used one of my lvl1 spell slots before the fighter showed up. Now what me and the other Ancients Paladin I mentioned have done is taken out a cleric in one round of combat, before taking out the remaining minions around it. Taken out a white in one round of combat, before taking out 2 ghasts and 2 oozes. The Cleric was hit with one Divine Smite, thunderous smite combo and one divine smite and the same with the white. Please continue to infer though how you think I play my character with out ever playing a game with me. As far as my roles go I've rolled 2 max stated lvl 1 characters, that's 18 to everything before racial features are applied.
The rest of you're comment in that paragraph is irrelevant, as again I've stated many times at low level the Vengeance paladin deals more overall long term damage.
So I'll say it again. The arguement with divine smite at low levels is that hunters mark does not match the one hit potential of thunderous smite. Plain and simple there is no arguement to that.
Where ever you're bringing lvl 5 out of stop. Lvl 5 is not tier 1. Why you're mentioning lvl 5 chatacters and tier 1 in the same discussion is beyond me. I have never made any comments about anything between tier 1 and tier 4. Bringing tier 2 and 3 into this is irrelevant to any point I've made. As I've only ever stated minimum to justify one hit potential vs Hunters Mark and what max lvl Paladins of any path can do to justify the uselessness of Vengeance Paladins.
Decimal points are irrelevant in d&d you dont get any benefit from a .35 and never have regardless of edition. Further more averages are even more irrelevant because your percentage of a better role is just perceived. At max proficiency and strength thats a + 11. Trying to hit an AC of 18 you still have to role over a 6 to hit. The percentage of doing so does not change with 2 dice as you have the same failure rate with both, in this situation that's still a 30% chance to roll a 6 or lower. This is why a guarantee to hit is always better than a chance 2nd role. Having a 70% chance to hit is not remotely equal to 95% chance (sacred weapon with +5) to hit.
I dont think you understand the concept of min/maxing, which is only concercened with minimum and maximum. This concept does not use averages to justify a hit potential of a class. It works with guarantees. A guaranteed +5 to a hit is far better then the equal probability to hit with 2 dice. This right here is why Devotions are used in min/maxing. It's a guarantee hit against all creatures not an individual. Which everything you mention is against an individual target. A Vengeance Paladin can not use any of its added advantage or a reaction against any other target in a fight. At High lvl this also limits its potential to deal damage over all and again why a +5 against everything is always better then an advantage against a singular target.
In min/maxing you also look at lvl 20 max potential damage. All paladins deal the same max potential damage 228 on a crit with banishing smite and a longsword not using modifiers. Vengeance Paladins can not deal more damage then this in a single hit. Even in the long game Vengeance Paladins have no advantage compared to the others as they all have access to holy weapon giving you a max potential damage of 978 vs a Vengeance Paladins hunters mark potential of 836 when using smites vs undead, again no modifiers.
The only perceivable way a Vengeance Paladin can even contend with trying to out damage any other Paladin Oath using holy weapon is by using holy weapon itself and saving an additional spell slot for hunters mark. In this scenario though the Vengeance paladin deals less damage then any other Paladin Oath in the first hour. This is completely reliant on continuous fighting for over 1 hr of in game time (over 600 turns of combat for 1 hr) using all spell slots and not getting a long rest in between. All of which combined is highly improbable.
So no they dont deal more damage in a hit. They dont deal more damage overall at high level. The only thing Vengeance Paladins exceed at is overall damage at low levels.
In the long scheme of things Vengeance Paladins remain an Oath that when it reaches max lvl bring nothing really to the table that other Oaths cannot match or exceed. Nothing anyone has said here has been able to argue this fact. You all continue to say the same thing of overal damage. At low levels I've even agreed to this. No one that has commented seems to grasp what is being said by ONE HIT POTENTIAL, which I've now capitalized because this is really starting to get ridiculous.
Read what has been said to its entirety before you comment.
So here’s the thing. Maximums and ignoring dice do not reflect actual performance. The only thing that matters is the probabilities associated with each action. Hence averages. Min maxers traditionally have focused on averages because that’s what you’ll actually see. Risk averse people focus on things that are gaurenteed because they don’t like the fact that probabilities have a distribution.
besides that you’re ignoring the simple fact that advantage (from vow of enmity for example) will cause you to criticize more often which makes the max damage show up more anyways.
I'm on a computer now so I'll go through and give a quoted response since that seems to be what you'd like.
I keep bringing up hunter's mark because you seem to be actively ignoring how it scales and how it preserves more spell slots for smites and other uses.
1: 4d8 + 2d6 + 3 is on average 28 damage. That means that on average you are not 1 hitting it. That means that on average you're going to need a second hit. If you max out on damage sure you've one hit it; however, that's irrelevant because you're talking about a 0.000678168% chance. To one hit it with that hit you have a 7.54% chance.
2: I'm not inferring how you play your character. All I've assumed is that you've rolled high. As such I've been using statistics to get the average damage for any hits and the probable outcome of part of an encounter. DnD is actually a fairly easily modeled game when you're looking at some basic assumptions such as advantage, only damage / buffs that you can cast etc.
3: Congratulations on 2 max statted characters. I pretty much only play point buy so I'll continue only really talking about situations where that applies. Honestly if you have a character with 6 18s at level 1 before racial features that character SHOULD be broken as all heck. I mean you're talking about potentially having 3 max stats by level 4.
1: sure. if you're only looking at cases where I get 1 weapon attack and then I'm done thunderous smite is better. However, that is extremely rare at low levels when you're looking at encounters as a whole.
2: Multiple hits / attacks / enemies scales very well with hunter's mark and it lets you conserve your spell slots for bigger smites. Seriously if you're using thunderous smite as a level 1 spell you should've just used smite instead for 2d8 instead of 2d6 (unless of course you're trying to knock it prone to help allies. In that case go for it!).
using your proficiency and strength - tohit +11
advantage chance of hitting ac 18 so you need a 7 -> 91%
burning a turn to get +5 more to-hit so you only have to roll a 2 -> 95%
I have no idea where you're getting a 30% change for 6 or lower. I recommend you use this site: anydice.com to calculate the actual probabilities of getting specific values with dice rolls. The real comparison is a 91% to hit vs a 95% to hit with the 91% having a 9.75% chance to crit vs the 95%'s 5%.
Min/Maxing is a term that's been around for a while that's intended to maximize something with respect to something you're trying to minimize. In DnD for dpr that's traditionally been maximizing damage per round while minimizing the chance of missing (power attack in 3e, gwm in 5e, sharpshooter, etc). You have to account for all of the probabilities and additional features otherwise you are not doing a genuine comparison. You're just picking things you want (which is totally fine in DnD. Its a cooperative game) and ignoring things you dont like even when they're shown to be similar if not better.
Max Damage has such a low chance at higher levels that realistically you should only be looking at average damage. that 228 that you're talking about has a 5% chance for the opportunity and a (1/10^10)*(1/8^2)*(1/8^10) for a 1.4551915228366851806640625 × 10^-19 % chance of happening. That's completely irrelevant to most people. It'll probably never happen. The average is a much better method of computing how good something is. btw the average of 10d10+10d8+2d8 (no modifier critical hit on a level 4 smite / banishing smite) is 109. which btw has a chance of being exceeded or met of just about 50%.
If you're looking at the long game you're looking at 2 minutes of holy weapon and 8 hours of hunter's mark (traded for 3d8 smite damage). its not really comparable because of the additional d6 on every hit.
I have no idea where to even begin with this. if vengeance paladins would deal less damage than other paladins for the first hour they would just do the same thing. However, this is irrelevant since hunter's mark would come on on round 21 (or encounter 3.) of the day.
One hit potential is irrelevant. It is a fun number that people like because you can keep track of it. However, the truth is that it doesn't mean anything. Take for example your example of a level 20 paladin doing its max nova damage. Anything higher than ~149 (pre-modifier) has effectively no chance of happening. 149 has a 0.04% chance of happening. Saying that a one hit potential of 228 or something is the mark that it should be measured by doesn't make any sense because you're talking about something that may happen once over the lifespan of a character (and if it happened twice the DM should honestly get a bit suspicious).
As a side-note the devotion paladin only has a 5% chance of even getting a chance to see that max hit while the vengeance paladin (vow of enmity) has a ~9.5% chance of trying for it.
I really don't know what to say here. Statistics is useful for a reason and as you make the computations more complicated, more and more and more dice, it becomes the only actual way of measuring anything to do with the outcome. Ignoring it is just going to lead to deeply seated false conclusions =/.
This I have not done I have stated repeated at low level Hunters Mark does more damage in long term damage at low levels. I know very well you can expand higher lvl spell slots yo use it longer. This is in my opinion a waste of a higher lvl spell slot and prevents fights from ending quickly as more powerful spell can be used in its place.
1. Averages are relevant to the individual rolling a dice. Example: Will Weatons Average has a high count of natural ones and is a lot lower then you would say. Some people also naturally role higher which increase their average. Thus averages of dice is irrelevant because its subjective to individuals you stating what an over average is does not constitute an individual average. Furthermore anyone could repeatedly roll a 20 sided dice and come up with completely different averages depending on the amount of times rolled and the numbers rolled. There is so such thing as a mass average it's a statistical guess and not a guarantee average. This is why working with averages to determine chance is asinine.
2. Again with multiple hits tier 1 characters do not have the ability to multiple hit. At higher levels there are better spells that deal more damage then hunters Mark.
What in god's name made up math are you using. Doubling the same type of dice does not change the ratio and therefore does not change the probability or percent for success. Rolling a 6 or under to miss is 6/20 chance of missing, or 30/100, which is 30%. This gives you a 70% chance to roll something other than a 6 or lower. Rolling 2 dice does not increase percentage as now you have 12/40 or 60/200 which is still 70%. This all being done with the assumption that you are trying to hit an AC of 18 and have a +5 strength and +6 proficiency, giving you a +11 to hit requiring any roll above a 6 to hit. This gives you 14/20 or 70/100 or 70%. Someone needs to learn some basic math. When the ratio doesn't change, in this case a 20 sided dice, percentage and probability do not either as a 20 sided dice and the final goal are a fixed constant in this scenario.
If combat last for a solid hour to, the length of the spell of holly weapon, in D&D that's 600 rounds of combat. As each round is 6 seconds of in game time. A Vengeance Paladin would have to save a whole other spell slot to do this. Take you're pick it matters not because regardless of what spell slot they save they are down on damage regardless. Regardless in that hour the Vengeance paladin is less likely to hit in comparison to a Devotion Paladin in the first 10 rounds of combat. After that even with advantage the percentage to hit or not remains the same.
You are making absolutely no sense now. A Vengeance Paladin does not have more of a chance at rolling max damage as no matter what no paladin re roles damage. Again the ratio of rolling a 20 to get a 20 does not change ever the ratio is never increasing as the 20 sided dice does not change it's a constant. You always have a 1/20 or 5% Chance to get a nat 20. As the ratio does not change the more you add the same dice the percentage and probability never changes. To roll an 8 on an 8 sided dice you always have a 12.5% chance of success. Now throwing all those together changes ratio which in turn changes percent of success and probability, but the same dice no matter how many times rolled never changes percent or probability.
You might want to learn basic math on percentages and probability again. Your math is off.
If you honestly believe this you should talk to your DM because this is insane. That is not how statistics works. That is how observed statistics CAN work (because randomness is random). However, if you're saying that your dice have a nonuniform distribution when tested a reasonable (200+) amount of times then you should get different dice.
The chance of getting a 7 or higher out of 20 on a d20 is 70%. The chance of getting 7 or higher on at least 1 of 2 d20s is 1-0.3*0.3 or 0.91 aka 91% not 70%. If you don't get this then you really should look at some statistics tutorials.
Chance of getting a crit w/o advantage - 5%. Chance of NOT getting a crit with advantage 0.95 * 0.95 or 0.9025. This forces the chance to get a crit with advantage to be 9.75% which is almost double the chance that you get without advantage.
You might want to try https://anydice.com/ if you want to check your distributions.
My B. Missed that holy weapon was an hour