I've been looking at how to capitalize on the Wildhunt Shifter's ability to negate attacks at advantage against itself while shifter. The build I came up with is Eldritch Knight 8 (Polearm Master, Crusher and Warcaster), Barbarian 2 and then Hunter Ranger the rest of the way.
The idea is to force movement and rack up the damage that way with a combination of booming blade, crusher and spike growt. By taking every attack at advantage while shifted I maximize my odds of hitting and there creating damage triggering movement by my enemies.
Why Polearm Master? The only thing you get from it is the Opportunity Attack since you will never take the Attack action because you will be casting Booming Blade and you already get a Bonus Action attack from War Magic. I would instead get Great Weapon Master and use a Maul. If you are using a shield build then I would instead take Gift of the Gem Dragon to bump up Wisdom and for more potential forced movement back into the Spike Growth.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
Fair enough. One thing I noticed is your build doesn't get going until quite late. 8 levels EK + 2 levels Barb and at least 5 levels Hunter before you get Spike Growth and you have to be at least level 15 before living your best life. May I suggest 3 levels of Genie (Dao) Warlock instead of Hunter to reach Spike Growth quicker. You can then fill out the rest of your levels with Paladin to start adding Divine Smites to your poor crushed and booming foes lol.
You get more forced movement with swarm keeper no? Unless I'm missing something you can't use your extra attacks with booming blade so maybe just swarm keeper and barbarian. Alternately you can push and pull with eldritch blast and appropriate invocations if you go warlock instead of ranger.
You get the same amount of movement with Swarmkeeper as it's still once per turn. If I hit with booming blade and the rider hits than it's better than 2 attacks.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
Fair enough. One thing I noticed is your build doesn't get going until quite late. 8 levels EK + 2 levels Barb and at least 5 levels Hunter before you get Spike Growth and you have to be at least level 15 before living your best life. May I suggest 3 levels of Genie (Dao) Warlock instead of Hunter to reach Spike Growth quicker. You can then fill out the rest of your levels with Paladin to start adding Divine Smites to your poor crushed and booming foes lol.
I think if I was going to go the smite I'd want more spell slots and would probably go a different route, more GWM and piercer and go crit fisher rather than sustained damage route.
If I were you, I'd cut out ranger from the build. To have constant advantage, we must invest in 2 levels of barb. To consistently make the most out of booming blade, those listed feats work too good to not have if you want to rack up damage that way. So, the soonest we're online is lvl 10, but honestly? A fighter with PAM is not bad. A fighter with crusher and PAM is never bad. So, while it won't be doing these awesome things until near the end of a campaign, it'll still more than pull its own weight.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
I think this will work with a quarterstaff/spear, but not a reach weapon. Booming Blade has to attack a creature within 5 ft of you.
Crawford RAI has said that PAM is intended to only work with the polearm allowing the opportunity attack. But this would still be using that polearm for the attack, just via Warcaster and Booming Blade. So I believe it will work both RAW and RAI.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You do know that knocking a creature back won't cause an Opportunity Attack or trigger Booming Blade damage, right? Crusher will knock them back, but that's not "willing movement" so no AoO or extra Thunder damage from BB.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You do know that knocking a creature back won't cause an Opportunity Attack or trigger Booming Blade damage, right? Crusher will knock them back, but that's not "willing movement" so no AoO or extra Thunder damage from BB.
Based on the language used, where the movement damage is hoped for rather than guaranteed, the idea is that by pushing them back you'll force them out of range, causing them to have to take the BB and spike growth damage a second time in the same turn.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You do know that knocking a creature back won't cause an Opportunity Attack or trigger Booming Blade damage, right? Crusher will knock them back, but that's not "willing movement" so no AoO or extra Thunder damage from BB.
Based on the language used, where the movement damage is hoped for rather than guaranteed, the idea is that by pushing them back you'll force them out of range, causing them to have to take the BB and spike growth damage a second time in the same turn.
If they have to move into range to attack you again, they will trigger the BB damage. But just wanted to be clear the forced movement by the player, won't trigger BB. It's the creature's voluntary movement that will trigger it.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You are going to need spell sniper too is you want to combine war caster, polearm master and booming blade. The opportunity attack from PAM happens when they enter your reach 10ft but booming blade is limited to 5ft without spell sniper.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You are going to need spell sniper too is you want to combine war caster, polearm master and booming blade. The opportunity attack from PAM happens when they enter your reach 10ft but booming blade is limited to 5ft without spell sniper.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You are going to need spell sniper too is you want to combine war caster, polearm master and booming blade. The opportunity attack from PAM happens when they enter your reach 10ft but booming blade is limited to 5ft without spell sniper.
No it is totally doable with warcaster and either a staff or a spear.
Also spell sniper does not work for booming blade because the range is self, not 5 feet.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
You are going to need spell sniper too is you want to combine war caster, polearm master and booming blade. The opportunity attack from PAM happens when they enter your reach 10ft but booming blade is limited to 5ft without spell sniper.
Spell Sniper won't work with Booming Blade. BB has a range of self than a parenthesis 5 ft range.
I hate that the blade cantrips do not just use your weapon hit. Instead of self (5ft) just self like searing smite would have been great.
Personally, I think the best way to take advantage of wild hunt would be with a barbarian combined with a rogue, paladin or smite warlock. The idea being to use reckless attack to trigger sneak attack or crit fish.
Yeah, sorry, I should have included that the plan was to use a staff in order to get the bludgeoning damage that would trigger crusher. I felt this was especially necessary since I wouldn't be using the PAM bonus action attack after Fighter level 7.
I hate that the blade cantrips do not just use your weapon hit. Instead of self (5ft) just self like searing smite would have been great.
Personally, I think the best way to take advantage of wild hunt would be with a barbarian combined with a rogue, paladin or smite warlock. The idea being to use reckless attack to trigger sneak attack or crit fish.
I looked at crit fishing with paladin, GWM and piercer but decided to go for more of a sustained damage approach. Although after playing a similar character it can be hard to trigger that movement damage if your party isn't aware of what's going on. Wasn't shocking but I was surprised how often they negated the damage by moving up to the creature I had just pushed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've been looking at how to capitalize on the Wildhunt Shifter's ability to negate attacks at advantage against itself while shifter. The build I came up with is Eldritch Knight 8 (Polearm Master, Crusher and Warcaster), Barbarian 2 and then Hunter Ranger the rest of the way.
The idea is to force movement and rack up the damage that way with a combination of booming blade, crusher and spike growt. By taking every attack at advantage while shifted I maximize my odds of hitting and there creating damage triggering movement by my enemies.
Why Polearm Master? The only thing you get from it is the Opportunity Attack since you will never take the Attack action because you will be casting Booming Blade and you already get a Bonus Action attack from War Magic. I would instead get Great Weapon Master and use a Maul. If you are using a shield build then I would instead take Gift of the Gem Dragon to bump up Wisdom and for more potential forced movement back into the Spike Growth.
Polearm Master is for the Opportunity Attack so I can cast Booming Blade a second time, force movement again and ideally get more movement damage off booming blade and more movement damage off spike growth.
Fair enough. One thing I noticed is your build doesn't get going until quite late. 8 levels EK + 2 levels Barb and at least 5 levels Hunter before you get Spike Growth and you have to be at least level 15 before living your best life. May I suggest 3 levels of Genie (Dao) Warlock instead of Hunter to reach Spike Growth quicker. You can then fill out the rest of your levels with Paladin to start adding Divine Smites to your poor crushed and booming foes lol.
You get more forced movement with swarm keeper no? Unless I'm missing something you can't use your extra attacks with booming blade so maybe just swarm keeper and barbarian. Alternately you can push and pull with eldritch blast and appropriate invocations if you go warlock instead of ranger.
You get the same amount of movement with Swarmkeeper as it's still once per turn. If I hit with booming blade and the rider hits than it's better than 2 attacks.
I think if I was going to go the smite I'd want more spell slots and would probably go a different route, more GWM and piercer and go crit fisher rather than sustained damage route.
If I were you, I'd cut out ranger from the build. To have constant advantage, we must invest in 2 levels of barb. To consistently make the most out of booming blade, those listed feats work too good to not have if you want to rack up damage that way. So, the soonest we're online is lvl 10, but honestly? A fighter with PAM is not bad. A fighter with crusher and PAM is never bad. So, while it won't be doing these awesome things until near the end of a campaign, it'll still more than pull its own weight.
I think this will work with a quarterstaff/spear, but not a reach weapon. Booming Blade has to attack a creature within 5 ft of you.
Crawford RAI has said that PAM is intended to only work with the polearm allowing the opportunity attack. But this would still be using that polearm for the attack, just via Warcaster and Booming Blade. So I believe it will work both RAW and RAI.
Just want to be sure this is clear...
You do know that knocking a creature back won't cause an Opportunity Attack or trigger Booming Blade damage, right? Crusher will knock them back, but that's not "willing movement" so no AoO or extra Thunder damage from BB.
Based on the language used, where the movement damage is hoped for rather than guaranteed, the idea is that by pushing them back you'll force them out of range, causing them to have to take the BB and spike growth damage a second time in the same turn.
If they have to move into range to attack you again, they will trigger the BB damage. But just wanted to be clear the forced movement by the player, won't trigger BB. It's the creature's voluntary movement that will trigger it.
You are going to need spell sniper too is you want to combine war caster, polearm master and booming blade. The opportunity attack from PAM happens when they enter your reach 10ft but booming blade is limited to 5ft without spell sniper.
Check out my Disabled & Dragons Youtube Channel for 5e Monster and Player Tactics. Helping the Disabled Community and Players and DM’s (both new and experienced) get into D&D. Plus there is a talking Dragon named Quill.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPmyTI0tZ6nM-bzY0IG3ww
Not all PAM weapons have reach.
No it is totally doable with warcaster and either a staff or a spear.
Also spell sniper does not work for booming blade because the range is self, not 5 feet.
Spell Sniper won't work with Booming Blade. BB has a range of self than a parenthesis 5 ft range.
I hate that the blade cantrips do not just use your weapon hit. Instead of self (5ft) just self like searing smite would have been great.
Personally, I think the best way to take advantage of wild hunt would be with a barbarian combined with a rogue, paladin or smite warlock. The idea being to use reckless attack to trigger sneak attack or crit fish.
Yeah, sorry, I should have included that the plan was to use a staff in order to get the bludgeoning damage that would trigger crusher. I felt this was especially necessary since I wouldn't be using the PAM bonus action attack after Fighter level 7.
I looked at crit fishing with paladin, GWM and piercer but decided to go for more of a sustained damage approach. Although after playing a similar character it can be hard to trigger that movement damage if your party isn't aware of what's going on. Wasn't shocking but I was surprised how often they negated the damage by moving up to the creature I had just pushed.