play a build that utilizes expanded crit range, like champion or hexblade via it's hexblade's curse.
Play an elven accuracy build, like the elf archer samurai.
Here's a neat idea:
play a half elf with the class spread champ fighter 15/hexblade 1/vengeance paladin 4, with the feat elven accuracy and with the legendary weapon Wave. On the first turn, you simply use your vow of enmity on your desired target, and attack. Critting on 18,19, and 20, and rolling three dice due to advantage, a single attack has a probablity of 29% to crit. You attack three times! If you action surge (and why not if you bothered using your vow of enmity), that's 6 attacks with 29% crit chance. Just crit twice, and you kill your target thanks to Wave's property.
cgarciao pretty much summed it up but I wouldn't combine hexblade and champion personally. You can't benefit from Hexblade's Curse's augmented threat range and it takes you 2 Bonus Actions to fully set-up both your Vow of Enmity AND your Hexblade's Curse. If I really wanted to just optimize for crits and didn't really care about the rest of the party, I'd probably go Hexadin with Devil's Sight and Darkness cheese for easy advantage on 95% of encounters despite the reduced threat range (19-20 vs 18-20 for champion).
I'd probably do something like Eldritch Knight 12/Hexblade 5/Vengeance Pally 3 instead to get access to both flavor of smites (Eldritch + Divine) 3 attacks and better spell slots (4/3/2).
Otherwise, Hex 11/Vengeance Pally 9 or Pal 11/Hex 9 would also be pretty good. Likewise, a Hex 7/Pal 2/Any Sorc/Bard 11 would also be pretty deadly. You do get forced to put a 13 in STR for multiclass requirements of the Paladin class which you won't need and can be annoying to work with.
You could also make a STR-based Champion 15/Barbarian 2/Rogue 3 to capitalize on 3 attacks (4 with TWF) at 18-20, reckless attack advantage and some extra damage dice from sneak attack and good utility. Assassin or Swashbuckler would both work for the Rogue archetype. But no Elven Accuracy then obviously since you can't use it with STR. Its pretty easy to get advantage on all your attacks every turn with reckless attack though, so that makes up for it.
If you don't mind dropping Champion down to 11 for 3 attacks (or 4 with TWF again) at 19-20 instead, you could tweak it to Champion 11/Totem Bear Barbarian 4/Rogue 5 for more sneak attack damage + resistance to most damage while raging and uncanny dodge so you don't go down as quickly.
Most of these multiclasses are AMAZING on paper, but they don't come online until very late. Its a PAIN to get them online if you're not already starting at a pretty decent level (like 10-15).
TL;DR, tons of options, take your pick! Just keep in mind that if you're starting at a low level, you want to get your extra attack and first 2 ASIs to pump up your stats ASAP and if you go with any flavor of spellcasting class, you also don't want to delay your spell slots and spell progression too much or you'll regret it for several levels as you play catch up with fellow party members.
Edit: There are potentially more options similar to these such as the level 3 Artificer Battle Smith ability that lets them use INT to weapon dmg rolls which would also work with Elven Accuracy. It can combine well with a Bladesinger. Or you could also play around with lady luck and abuse the Divination Wizard's Portent ability to force crits.
The only reason I suggested one lvl of hexblade was to attack with charisma with Wave, to qualify for elven accuracy otherwise you just roll two dice for advantage if you don't dip.
At that point, champion has a better crit range than what the curse offers. Granted, this build is just to show case a crazy idea. I might actually play it since it's very realistic in AL.
Simplest solution I've been able to put together in a relatively short period of time...
Play an Elf, Mark of Shadow, Hexblade Warlock for 2 levels, then take 18 levels of Champion Fighter, pick up the Elven Accuracy feat and the Metamagic Adept feat. Also grab the Devil's Sight Invocation.
At the start of combat, use your Metamagic to Quicken the Darkness spell, cast it on an object you're carrying. You're now a walking ball of magical shadow... anything without some means of seeing through this darkness has disadvantage on attacking you and cannot target you with spells or abilities that require seeing the target. More importantly, you have Advantage attacking anyone in your darkness.
The other stupidly-simple combo is to go Half-Orc Champion18/Barbarian2 just to nab Reckless Attack. You don't get the benefits of Elven Accuracy for triple-advantage on every attack, but if you're willing/able to tank the hits, you can just go Reckless round after round without needing to do any resource management, and Half-Orc lets you deal additional damage with every crit. This build also opens you up to using Heavy Strength-Based weapons so you can throw down bigger dice.
play a build that utilizes expanded crit range, like champion or hexblade via it's hexblade's curse.
Play an elven accuracy build, like the elf archer samurai.
Here's a neat idea:
play a half elf with the class spread champ fighter 15/hexblade 1/vengeance paladin 4, with the feat elven accuracy and with the legendary weapon Wave. On the first turn, you simply use your vow of enmity on your desired target, and attack. Critting on 18,19, and 20, and rolling three dice due to advantage, a single attack has a probablity of 29% to crit. You attack three times! If you action surge (and why not if you bothered using your vow of enmity), that's 6 attacks with 29% crit chance. Just crit twice, and you kill your target thanks to Wave's property.
I did this in fanatics. I was also using mounted combatant to get auto advantage. I got crushed by someone who hold person-ed me (that gives instant crit) then hit twice with wave.
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My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
There are quite a few builds out there designed to squeeze damage out of crits fir the player doing the crit fishing.
One that I’ve been toying around with recently is a crit fishing support build. By going champion fighter with one level of warlock genie patron Dao option we can expand our critical range, make use of slashing damage with weapons, and once per turn add bludgeoning damage to the same attack already dealing slashing damage.
by choosing the slasher feat AND the crusher feat, we can hold our gene bludgeoning damage die crits to make sure the creature we crit has disadvantage on all of its attacks AND our party has advantage on all attacks vs that creature.
the buffs and penalties applied by these crits bypass AC, checks, saves, legendary resistance, magic resistance, and even condition immunities.
if you go variant human/custom lineage then both feats can be picked up by level 4 fighter, allowing extra attack at level 5 and warlock dip at total character level 6. The feats require no resource upkeep either.
a 27% chance to crit atleast once per round with normal roles while two weapon fighting that debilitated almost all foes seems like a good deal to me.
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How would I maximize critical chance?
You got a couple options
you have a couple options
play a build that utilizes expanded crit range, like champion or hexblade via it's hexblade's curse.
Play an elven accuracy build, like the elf archer samurai.
Here's a neat idea:
play a half elf with the class spread champ fighter 15/hexblade 1/vengeance paladin 4, with the feat elven accuracy and with the legendary weapon Wave. On the first turn, you simply use your vow of enmity on your desired target, and attack. Critting on 18,19, and 20, and rolling three dice due to advantage, a single attack has a probablity of 29% to crit. You attack three times! If you action surge (and why not if you bothered using your vow of enmity), that's 6 attacks with 29% crit chance. Just crit twice, and you kill your target thanks to Wave's property.
cgarciao pretty much summed it up but I wouldn't combine hexblade and champion personally. You can't benefit from Hexblade's Curse's augmented threat range and it takes you 2 Bonus Actions to fully set-up both your Vow of Enmity AND your Hexblade's Curse. If I really wanted to just optimize for crits and didn't really care about the rest of the party, I'd probably go Hexadin with Devil's Sight and Darkness cheese for easy advantage on 95% of encounters despite the reduced threat range (19-20 vs 18-20 for champion).
I'd probably do something like Eldritch Knight 12/Hexblade 5/Vengeance Pally 3 instead to get access to both flavor of smites (Eldritch + Divine) 3 attacks and better spell slots (4/3/2).
Otherwise, Hex 11/Vengeance Pally 9 or Pal 11/Hex 9 would also be pretty good. Likewise, a Hex 7/Pal 2/Any Sorc/Bard 11 would also be pretty deadly. You do get forced to put a 13 in STR for multiclass requirements of the Paladin class which you won't need and can be annoying to work with.
You could also make a STR-based Champion 15/Barbarian 2/Rogue 3 to capitalize on 3 attacks (4 with TWF) at 18-20, reckless attack advantage and some extra damage dice from sneak attack and good utility. Assassin or Swashbuckler would both work for the Rogue archetype. But no Elven Accuracy then obviously since you can't use it with STR. Its pretty easy to get advantage on all your attacks every turn with reckless attack though, so that makes up for it.
If you don't mind dropping Champion down to 11 for 3 attacks (or 4 with TWF again) at 19-20 instead, you could tweak it to Champion 11/Totem Bear Barbarian 4/Rogue 5 for more sneak attack damage + resistance to most damage while raging and uncanny dodge so you don't go down as quickly.
Most of these multiclasses are AMAZING on paper, but they don't come online until very late. Its a PAIN to get them online if you're not already starting at a pretty decent level (like 10-15).
TL;DR, tons of options, take your pick! Just keep in mind that if you're starting at a low level, you want to get your extra attack and first 2 ASIs to pump up your stats ASAP and if you go with any flavor of spellcasting class, you also don't want to delay your spell slots and spell progression too much or you'll regret it for several levels as you play catch up with fellow party members.
Edit: There are potentially more options similar to these such as the level 3 Artificer Battle Smith ability that lets them use INT to weapon dmg rolls which would also work with Elven Accuracy. It can combine well with a Bladesinger. Or you could also play around with lady luck and abuse the Divination Wizard's Portent ability to force crits.
The only reason I suggested one lvl of hexblade was to attack with charisma with Wave, to qualify for elven accuracy otherwise you just roll two dice for advantage if you don't dip.
At that point, champion has a better crit range than what the curse offers. Granted, this build is just to show case a crazy idea. I might actually play it since it's very realistic in AL.
This will take you to a youtube video of an optimized build that maximizes crit chance and damage.
Simplest solution I've been able to put together in a relatively short period of time...
Play an Elf, Mark of Shadow, Hexblade Warlock for 2 levels, then take 18 levels of Champion Fighter, pick up the Elven Accuracy feat and the Metamagic Adept feat. Also grab the Devil's Sight Invocation.
At the start of combat, use your Metamagic to Quicken the Darkness spell, cast it on an object you're carrying. You're now a walking ball of magical shadow... anything without some means of seeing through this darkness has disadvantage on attacking you and cannot target you with spells or abilities that require seeing the target. More importantly, you have Advantage attacking anyone in your darkness.
The other stupidly-simple combo is to go Half-Orc Champion18/Barbarian2 just to nab Reckless Attack. You don't get the benefits of Elven Accuracy for triple-advantage on every attack, but if you're willing/able to tank the hits, you can just go Reckless round after round without needing to do any resource management, and Half-Orc lets you deal additional damage with every crit. This build also opens you up to using Heavy Strength-Based weapons so you can throw down bigger dice.
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I did this in fanatics. I was also using mounted combatant to get auto advantage. I got crushed by someone who hold person-ed me (that gives instant crit) then hit twice with wave.
Pronouns: he/him/his.
My posting scheduled is irregular: sometimes I can post twice a week, sometimes twice a day. I may also respond to quick questions, but ignore harder responses in favor of time.
My location is where my character for my home game is (we're doing the wild beyond the witchlight).
"The Doomvault... Probably full of unicorns and rainbows." -An imaginary quote
There are quite a few builds out there designed to squeeze damage out of crits fir the player doing the crit fishing.
One that I’ve been toying around with recently is a crit fishing support build. By going champion fighter with one level of warlock genie patron Dao option we can expand our critical range, make use of slashing damage with weapons, and once per turn add bludgeoning damage to the same attack already dealing slashing damage.
by choosing the slasher feat AND the crusher feat, we can hold our gene bludgeoning damage die crits to make sure the creature we crit has disadvantage on all of its attacks AND our party has advantage on all attacks vs that creature.
the buffs and penalties applied by these crits bypass AC, checks, saves, legendary resistance, magic resistance, and even condition immunities.
if you go variant human/custom lineage then both feats can be picked up by level 4 fighter, allowing extra attack at level 5 and warlock dip at total character level 6. The feats require no resource upkeep either.
a 27% chance to crit atleast once per round with normal roles while two weapon fighting that debilitated almost all foes seems like a good deal to me.