I think the clearest demonstration of the problem with great weapon fighting is that if you're using a longsword, attacking one-handed with dueling does more damage than attacking two-handed with great weapon fighting.
Not really sure why it underperforming with a weapon it’s clearly not intended for as opposed to using the style intended for that weapon proves anything. GWF is for dedicated two-handed weapons- interacting with Versatile is just maintaining internal consistency. Versatile itself is almost never worth using the second hand for, so a subpar fighting style on top of it doesn’t really rate notice imo.
The reason it's not as good as it looks for the 2d6 weapons is because of probability. The rolls where it makes the biggest difference are comparatively rare -- You get a 2 only one time in 36, and a 3 only another 2 in 36. It has no effect (6 or higher) a full 27 out of those 36 rolls. (3 in 4)
Which isn't to say it's useless -- never doing less than 6 dam on your 2d6 weapon is not nothing.
But it isn't all that great.
(On the other hand, the 2d6 weapons are pretty good in and of themselves, so a lackluster style makes less of a difference to your combat effectiveness than it would for weaker weapons.)
Would you say that the Defense Fighting Style and its +1 to AC is more valuable? I just leveled up to 6 and I am switching to 2 handed weapons with Great Weapon Master as my Level 6 Feat and can change my fighting style. I've been doing 1 handed weapon and Shield with Dueling thus far.
So, the real answer is that I don't make my decisions based on the hard numbers. D&D combat in most campaigns is not something where these kind of marginal differences swing fights with any regularity. If I'm choosing a fighting style, it's based on the sort of character I'm playing, and whether they're the sort of person who fights defensively, or whatever.
That said, what does your character _do_ in the party? Are you the only front-line tank? You probably want defense. Do you have no darkvision, and do you fight in environments where the lack of it matters? Blind fighting. If you're just using great weapons because you want to do good damage, and there are no other overriding concerns, GWF is fine. It may not be good in terms of straight DPS, but a little DPS is more useful than AC that never makes a practical difference, or blind fighting that you never use. (And if things change so that you think one of the others will be better, this is not your only opportunity to swap it out.)
I am a Battle Master Fighter and one of 3 front liners, along with an Oath of Devotion Paladin and a Path of the Zealot Barbarian. I do have Dark Vision The Paladin and I each have Sentinel and we tend to tag team the strongest enemies. I believe I am going to change my Fighting Style to Superior Technique. I get an extra Superiority Dice (a 1d6) and can choose a fourth Maneuver, which would be Brace, which allows me to attack an enemy if they move to within 5' of me.
Great Weapon Fighting seems to be more about getting consistent damage, rather than adding additional damage. Perhaps that's it's main purpose.
The minimum damage of 6 per attack is tempting. Great Weapon Master and Great Weapon Fighting would allow me to currently do a minimum of 13 damage on every hit with a Greatsword.
I'm not going to lie, I like the idea of being able to do a minimum of 13 damage on every hit and with a Greatsword and Graze. I'd also get to do 4 damage on every miss.
I've been tempted to take it as my new fighting style. Superior Technique with the Brace Maneuver might be a better fit for my Battle Master though.
That said, what does your character _do_ in the party? Are you the only front-line tank? You probably want defense. Do you have no darkvision, and do you fight in environments where the lack of it matters? Blind fighting. If you're just using great weapons because you want to do good damage, and there are no other overriding concerns, GWF is fine. It may not be good in terms of straight DPS, but a little DPS is more useful than AC that never makes a practical difference, or blind fighting that you never use. (And if things change so that you think one of the others will be better, this is not your only opportunity to swap it out.)
I am a Battle Master Fighter and one of 3 front liners, along with an Oath of Devotion Paladin and a Path of the Zealot Barbarian. I do have Dark Vision The Paladin and I each have Sentinel and we tend to tag team the strongest enemies. I believe I am going to change my Fighting Style to Superior Technique. I get an extra Superiority Dice (a 1d6) and can choose a fourth Maneuver, which would be Brace, which allows me to attack an enemy if they move to within 5' of me.
Seems sensible. Be warned that, if you're building in DDB, Superior Technique doesn't work with a 24 rules character, but you can work around that by using the Fighting Initiate feat to take it, and leaving your fighting style unselected.
That said, what does your character _do_ in the party? Are you the only front-line tank? You probably want defense. Do you have no darkvision, and do you fight in environments where the lack of it matters? Blind fighting. If you're just using great weapons because you want to do good damage, and there are no other overriding concerns, GWF is fine. It may not be good in terms of straight DPS, but a little DPS is more useful than AC that never makes a practical difference, or blind fighting that you never use. (And if things change so that you think one of the others will be better, this is not your only opportunity to swap it out.)
I am a Battle Master Fighter and one of 3 front liners, along with an Oath of Devotion Paladin and a Path of the Zealot Barbarian. I do have Dark Vision The Paladin and I each have Sentinel and we tend to tag team the strongest enemies. I believe I am going to change my Fighting Style to Superior Technique. I get an extra Superiority Dice (a 1d6) and can choose a fourth Maneuver, which would be Brace, which allows me to attack an enemy if they move to within 5' of me.
Seems sensible. Be warned that, if you're building in DDB, Superior Technique doesn't work with a 24 rules character, but you can work around that by using the Fighting Initiate feat to take it, and leaving your fighting style unselected.
Thanks, I saw that workaround on Reddit and left my DDB fighting style unselected. I used Martial Adept to add the Maneuver to my character sheet on DDB.
i could get over GWF's weakish bonus to greatswords and mauls getting a quarter weaker in exchange for greater reliability, but the bonus to greataxes went from "already statistically weaker than the one greatswords get now" to "basically nothing" (about three tenths of its previous effect, as far as averages go), which doesn't seem reasonable given it was already the weaker "great-weapon" of the three, and the other two-handing options have been put in the nearly the same position (three eights of the previous effect, only one-fifth more than the greataxe gets)
to have an equivalent effect with greataxes as it currently does for greatswords and mauls, the greataxe's single d12 of damage would need any roll lower than 6 to be replaced with a 6, which might actually be well liked given the greataxe already has a much less reliable (and slightly weaker on average) damage roll than the greatsword's 2d6; the average damage increase would be a quarter more than the greatsword gets now, but that's still only half the difference between their average rolls to begin with, so that would have been "evening out the playing field" a little
if the d10 weapons (versatile and reach weapons) were similarly given a minimum roll of 5, they'd be receiving exactly the same average bonus as greatswords/mauls, and so would not encroach on their higher-damage cousins; in both cases this would have been a significant improvement to the fighting style for the non-2d6 two-handed weapons, gaining much more reliable damage rolls _and_ a better average damage increase than they had before - again: "evening out the playing field", but within the fighting style, compared to what we had before, and with a unique emphasis on reliably hitting hard instead of just hitting harder overall
instead, we're stuck with something that demonstrates a complete lack of care and attention, which i have no faith WotC will ever commit to fixing
i could get over GWF's weakish bonus to greatswords and mauls getting a quarter weaker in exchange for greater reliability, but the bonus to greataxes went from "already statistically weaker than the one greatswords get now" to "basically nothing"
The easiest option I can see for making it work reasonably for all weapons is: "treat any roll of less than half the die size as equal to half the die size". This is actually better for a d12 weapon (+1.25 damage) than for a 2d6 weapon (+1 damage), though the d12 still averages lower damage (7.75 vs 8).
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Not really sure why it underperforming with a weapon it’s clearly not intended for as opposed to using the style intended for that weapon proves anything. GWF is for dedicated two-handed weapons- interacting with Versatile is just maintaining internal consistency. Versatile itself is almost never worth using the second hand for, so a subpar fighting style on top of it doesn’t really rate notice imo.
I am a Battle Master Fighter and one of 3 front liners, along with an Oath of Devotion Paladin and a Path of the Zealot Barbarian. I do have Dark Vision The Paladin and I each have Sentinel and we tend to tag team the strongest enemies. I believe I am going to change my Fighting Style to Superior Technique. I get an extra Superiority Dice (a 1d6) and can choose a fourth Maneuver, which would be Brace, which allows me to attack an enemy if they move to within 5' of me.
Great Weapon Fighting seems to be more about getting consistent damage, rather than adding additional damage. Perhaps that's it's main purpose.
The minimum damage of 6 per attack is tempting. Great Weapon Master and Great Weapon Fighting would allow me to currently do a minimum of 13 damage on every hit with a Greatsword.
I'm not going to lie, I like the idea of being able to do a minimum of 13 damage on every hit and with a Greatsword and Graze. I'd also get to do 4 damage on every miss.
I've been tempted to take it as my new fighting style. Superior Technique with the Brace Maneuver might be a better fit for my Battle Master though.
Seems sensible. Be warned that, if you're building in DDB, Superior Technique doesn't work with a 24 rules character, but you can work around that by using the Fighting Initiate feat to take it, and leaving your fighting style unselected.
Thanks, I saw that workaround on Reddit and left my DDB fighting style unselected. I used Martial Adept to add the Maneuver to my character sheet on DDB.
i could get over GWF's weakish bonus to greatswords and mauls getting a quarter weaker in exchange for greater reliability, but the bonus to greataxes went from "already statistically weaker than the one greatswords get now" to "basically nothing" (about three tenths of its previous effect, as far as averages go), which doesn't seem reasonable given it was already the weaker "great-weapon" of the three, and the other two-handing options have been put in the nearly the same position (three eights of the previous effect, only one-fifth more than the greataxe gets)
to have an equivalent effect with greataxes as it currently does for greatswords and mauls, the greataxe's single d12 of damage would need any roll lower than 6 to be replaced with a 6, which might actually be well liked given the greataxe already has a much less reliable (and slightly weaker on average) damage roll than the greatsword's 2d6; the average damage increase would be a quarter more than the greatsword gets now, but that's still only half the difference between their average rolls to begin with, so that would have been "evening out the playing field" a little
if the d10 weapons (versatile and reach weapons) were similarly given a minimum roll of 5, they'd be receiving exactly the same average bonus as greatswords/mauls, and so would not encroach on their higher-damage cousins; in both cases this would have been a significant improvement to the fighting style for the non-2d6 two-handed weapons, gaining much more reliable damage rolls _and_ a better average damage increase than they had before - again: "evening out the playing field", but within the fighting style, compared to what we had before, and with a unique emphasis on reliably hitting hard instead of just hitting harder overall
instead, we're stuck with something that demonstrates a complete lack of care and attention, which i have no faith WotC will ever commit to fixing
The easiest option I can see for making it work reasonably for all weapons is: "treat any roll of less than half the die size as equal to half the die size". This is actually better for a d12 weapon (+1.25 damage) than for a 2d6 weapon (+1 damage), though the d12 still averages lower damage (7.75 vs 8).