The 12 Days of Critmas: The Fighter
I really like fighters, and have played more than I have of any other class, by quite a long way. A few of my friends think they’re not that fun though, especially human fighters. Maybe the following large numbers can help them change sides.
For all of these builds, the general strategy will be to action surge and make four weapon attacks, then quicken inflict wounds on the bonus action. I’m no longer including the bonus damage triggered by booming blade in these calculations, as it doesn’t really go off on your turn, so that no longer competes with extra attack for these character’s actions. Fighters get a fighting style, three ASIs, and two martial archetype features. Their weapon choice is also an important consideration. Let’s take these one by one.
For fighting style, duelling will deal more damage across four attacks (8 total) than the 1d6 granted by superior technique once per short rest. So for one handed weapons, our builds will use duelling, and for all others they’ll use superior technique. I’ll explain the important features of the feats which could be considered too: crossbow expert lets you ignore the loading property of crossbows, so you can fire as many bolts as you like in a turn; GWM gives a +10 damage on hits with heavy weapons; sharpshooter does the same for ranged weapons; martial adept gives a bonus d6 damage per short rest; orcish fury deals an extra die of weapon damage; metamagic adept lets us cast an action spell as a bonus action; and shadow touched allows anyone access to inflict wounds.
Different weapons will use different combinations of feats to maximise their damage. All of our builds will use metamagic adept and shadow touched, leaving either one free feat slot, or two for a variant human. Every weapon user will also take martial adept, except for the crossbow user, who needs crossbow expert and sharpshooter instead. A heavy weapon or polearm user’s last feat then goes to GWM, a lance fighter’s to orcish fury, and a longbow user’s to sharpshooter.
Looking through the fighter subclasses, our damage-improving options are arcane archer, echo knight, eldritch knight, psi warrior, rune knight, and battle master. Let’s ignore eldritch knight for now, as spellcasting could open up some more unusual options. Rune knights, psi warriors and arcane archers can all deal some bonus damage dice once per turn. Of these, rune knights do the most, with 3d6 between the fire rune and giant’s might. A battle master can pick up damage increasing manoeuvres and deal 1d8 extra damage on each attack, which outpaces rune knight. The echo knight allows you to make an extra melee attack when you take the attack action, so if the total damage for two attacks is greater than 32 (4d8), it’s a better option than battle master. This is true for heavy weapon users. Sharpshooters won’t be making melee attacks so they’ll stay as battle masters.
Sharpshooter and GWM really overtake damage from other weapons with their +10s, so the lance won’t be a viable option with a maximum of only 17 (1d12 +5). The larger damage die of the crossbow will also beat the longbow for damage, even with martial adept. So our battle master build is a variant human with crossbow expert, sharpshooter, metamagic adept and shadow touched. They action surge with four attacks, then run to their target and quicken inflict wounds, dealing a total of 154 points (1d10 +3 +10 +1d8 +1d10 +3 +10 +1d8 +1d10 +3 +10 +1d8 +1d10 +3 +10 +1d8 +3d10).
Similarly with the echo knight, a greataxe, greatsword or maul simply does more damage on a hit than any polearm weapon, so our echo knight build will be a greataxe wielding variant human with GWM, martial adept, metamagic adept and shadow touched. They’ll also action surge, this time making a total of 6 attacks using unleash incarnation, then they’ll quicken inflict wounds. This will do 192 damage (1d12 +3 +10 +1d6 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d6 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d12 +3 +10 +3d10).
Finally, we’ll check if an eldritch knight can outdo this. They can upcast inflict wounds to do 4d10, and have access to shadow blade and enlarge, both of which require concentration. If shadow blade is up and running, and they have the duelling fighting style and martial adept, they can do 130 damage in a turn (2d8 +5 +1d6 +2d8 +5 +2d8 +5 +2d8 +5 +4d10). Alternatively, if enlarge is up and they wield a greataxe with GWM and martial adept, they’ll deal 162 (1d12 +3 +10 +1d4 +1d6 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d4 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d4 +1d12 +3 +10 +1d4 +4d10). Clearly, the echo knight remains the strongest subclass option for damage in a single turn. On crits, an echo knight wielding a greataxe will do 294 damage (2d12 +3 +10 +2d6 +2d12 +3 +10 +2d12 +3 +10 +2d12 +3 +10 +2d12 +3 +10 +2d12 +3 +10 +6d10). This puts fighters in third place for now, which is nice to see as they’re one of my favourite classes. Still about 100 shy of 10 big centipedes, but we are in some weird au where not just anyone can beat the druid class for pure damage output.