5e Feat "Tier" List

[strangebloke]

[..] I find it best not to rely on their existence. This may be just a personal thing, but I enjoy the thought that my character is powerful without fancy weapons... [...]

[...]
You can, theoretically, get a constant source of advantage if you can Hide every round (the Rogue is mechanically balanced based on the fact they will trigger SA every round, and this is one enabler), or get a Greater Invisibility buff from an ally or yourself. A Faerie Fire also works as a consistent source of advantage.
[...]

I'm just saying, that your examples, regardless of how you came to them are immensely favorable to EA.

And yeah, you can get advantage, but it's an additional investment. Your earlier statement that picking SS over EA is 'gimping yourself' is a little overdoing it.

[MaxWilson]

This example is flawed. Your base damage is small in comparison to your modifier, and thus it does not allow EA to be at its strongest.

Moreover, how did a -5/+10 bring up a 43.62 DPR up to 61.74? At most, that should be 53.62. The most damage SS can convey per shot is +10, that is more like a +20.

Large base damage is commonplace for 5E, in particular for DPR-focused Sharpshooter builds. There's nothing unusual here--I'm surprised you haven't seen this before.

A 20th level fighter has four attacks. I showed the math already for regular vs. Elven Accuracy, but here's the math including headshots:

Regular (+15 to hit for d8+7): (1 - 0.3^2) * 4 * 11.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^2))) = 43.62 DPR vs. AC 22 with advantage
Elven Accuracy (+15 to hit for d8+7): (1 - 0.3^3) * 4 * 11.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^3))) = 47.33 DPR vs AC 22 with advantage.
Sharpshooter headshot (+10 to hit for d8+17): (1 - 0.55^2) * 4 * 21.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^2))) = 61.74 DPR vs AC 22 with advantage.

Without advantage, as shown previously, Sharpshooter beats Elven Accuracy hands-down because Elven Accuracy is irrelevant.

I do wonder, how often do you plan to shoot with disadvantage and a -5 penalty? Do you expect to do it all the time? If so, neither SS nor EA will help you.

Going prone is an easy countermeasure against archers and sharpshooters. You should expect smart enemies to do it a lot if there isn't a melee threat. So Elven Accuracy is useless in all of those cases even if you had Greater Invisibility cast.

Sharpshooter is still useful, as should be obvious by this point. Tell me if you need to see the math.

Yes, SS can be used even when you don't have advantage. But if you're not using a build built around EA to always get advantage, you are actually using EA wrong. Advantage on one shot is not difficult to pull off if that's your build.

On one shot? I'm starting to think you're focused entirely on Rogues with Elven Accuracy. Is that the case?

Getting advantage on four shots is not so easy. Certainly not something to take for granted.

Your example above is wrong. Also, it is suboptimal on top of that.

Yawn. It's not wrong, you just don't know the rules for Extra Attack at Fighter 20.

Let me re-frame that. Elven Accuracy breaks bounded accuracy by serving as a +2 to-hit, unlike SS. Thus you are relieved from taking further ASI's to your main stat (though you can still do so). SS necessitates maxing out your main stat.

At the cost of forcing everyone except Rogues to spend lots of resources casting Greater Invisibility or similar all the time, or otherwise arranging for advantage before acting.

DPR comparison shows that EA is better, not SS. SS requires you to use a generic build with low damage and a smaller critical hit window. EA makes you be better than all the SS builds.

You haven't even done any DPR analysis in this conversation. You did a tiny bit in a separate conversation with Talamare upthread, where you discussed how Elven Accuracy gives a modest +20% boost to Champion/Rogue DPR. Can you confirm that you're deliberately focusing on Rogues with Elven Accuracy to the exclusion of fighters? Because a Sharpshooter Fighter with advantage (with or without Elven Accuracy) will out-damage your Elven Accuracy Champion 3/Rogue X at most levels (values of X), but admittedly the Sharpshooter Fighter will have a harder time gaining advantage than a rogue will.

If your contention is simply that Rogues and Warlocks benefit more from Elven Accuracy than from Sharpshooter, well, on that point we agree. Clearly they do.

[LeonBH]

I'm just saying, that your examples, regardless of how you came to them are immensely favorable to EA.

And yeah, you can get advantage, but it's an additional investment. Your earlier statement that picking SS over EA is 'gimping yourself' is a little overdoing it.

I agree it favored EA, but the reason EA is easy to favor is because it's stronger than SS at its best.

I don't think I was overdoing it. It's a statement of fact that when Hexblade was introduced, that was the only melee bladelock patron choice. If you chose something else, it's the same as choosing to play suboptimally.

The same is true when EA was introduced.

[LeonBH]

[QUOTE=MaxWilson;22877023]Large base damage is commonplace for 5E, in particular for DPR-focused Sharpshooter builds. There's nothing unusual here--I'm surprised you haven't seen this before.A 20th level fighter has four attacks. I showed the math already for regular vs. Elven Accuracy, but here's the math including headshots:Regular (+15 to hit for d8+7): (1 - 0.3^2) * 4 * 11.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^2))) = 43.62 DPR vs. AC 22 with advantageElven Accuracy (+15 to hit for d8+7): (1 - 0.3^3) * 4 * 11.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^3))) = 47.33 DPR vs AC 22 with advantage.Sharpshooter headshot (+10 to hit for d8+17): (1 - 0.55^2) * 4 * 21.5 + 4 * (4.5 * (1 - (0.95^2))) = 61.74 DPR vs AC 22 with advantage.Without advantage, as shown previously, Sharpshooter beats Elven Accuracy hands-down because Elven Accuracy is irrelevant.[QUOTE]Ignored my previous points, huh? Suit yourself. I shall not repeat myself for you.I did not notice you were using all four attacks for your calculation though. That's certainly not what I was doing, because if I made a build that exhausted all four shots, it would deal more damage than 67. I showed a L16 build that dealt that much on one hit - which means there are 4 more levels of literally anything else I could tack on that will far exceed that. Let me know of you need to see the math.[QUOTE]Going prone is an easy countermeasure against archers and sharpshooters. You should expect smart enemies to do it a lot if there isn't a melee threat. So Elven Accuracy is useless in all of those cases even if you had Greater Invisibility cast.Sharpshooter is still useful, as should be obvious by this point. Tell me if you need to see the math.[QUOTE]No need. I already know going prone is going to disadvantage SS and EA equally.[QUOTE]On one shot? I'm starting to think you're focused entirely on Rogues with Elven Accuracy. Is that the case?Getting advantage on four shots is not so easy. Certainly not something to take for granted.[QUOTE]No, but something I would expect of any L20 EA build is the capacity to gain advantage on all shots.Obviously, my example focuses on Rogues. If that path is better than going ranged Fighter, then EA has just obsoleted ranged Fighters.[QUOTE]Yawn. It's not wrong, you just don't know the rules for Extra Attack at Fighter 20.[QUOTE]Yawn. It's wrong.

At the cost of forcing everyone except Rogues to spend lots of resources casting Greater Invisibility or similar all the time, or otherwise arranging for advantage before acting.

A feat that is within the realm of L20.

You haven't even done any DPR analysis in this conversation. You did a tiny bit in a separate conversation with Talamare upthread, where you discussed how Elven Accuracy gives a modest +20% boost to Champion/Rogue DPR. Can you confirm that you're deliberately focusing on Rogues with Elven Accuracy to the exclusion of fighters? Because a Sharpshooter Fighter with advantage (with or without Elven Accuracy) will out-damage your Elven Accuracy Champion 3/Rogue X at most levels (values of X), but admittedly the Sharpshooter Fighter will have a harder time gaining advantage than a rogue will.If your contention is simply that Rogues and Warlocks benefit more from Elven Accuracy than from Sharpshooter, well, on that point we agree. Clearly they do.

My contention is that EA has rendered SS obsolete to the extent that the best EA build is the same as SS with to-hit bonuses. You can use SS effectively, as has always been the case. But SS does not break bounded accuracy. EA does.Thus you are wrong when you assert that SS is better than EA. It is almost laughably wrong, but you seem to want to set aside this point. Suit yourself.

[Willie the Duck]

Hey guys, did you hear? You're not just wrong, you are laughably wrong. I guess you better roll over and differ to Leon. With a response like that, he must be right.

[AHF]

Just want to make sure I'm sorting through this correctly as I've never had someone use SS or EA. With EA when you get advantage you get the best of 3 rolls on every attack with advantage. If you face an opponent with something like Blur or in dim light without Darkvision or who drops to the ground etc (something imposing disadvantage that is offset by the EA user getting advantage as planned), you can't use EA against that opponent.

With SS, the attacker chooses on each shot whether to take -5/+10 or not. (Probably useless with disadvantage, very useful with advantage and useful against most ACs when neither condition is present).

[strangebloke]

My contention is that EA has rendered SS obsolete to the extent that the best EA build is the same as SS with to-hit bonuses. You can use SS effectively, as has always been the case. But SS does not break bounded accuracy. EA does.Thus you are wrong when you assert that SS is better than EA. It is almost laughably wrong, but you seem to want to set aside this point. Suit yourself.

See, this? This is a very strong claim.

You are arguing that the best EA build is better than the best SS build at everything.

Everything.

This is trivial to prove false.

Times when SS is better than SA:
-You do not have advantage, for whatever reason. (darkness, target is prone, target is using Blur, fireball killed your familiar, etc.)
-Target is behind cover
-you are a hexblade archer. (the +1 DEX is more or less wasted)
-Your campaign stops at level 5. (vHuman can take SS at level 1)
-You have a hit chance greater than 50% before advantage, and you don't have some means of making your crit damage super good.
-You have some means of mitigating the attack penalty. (bardic inspiration, superiority die, bless, bracers of archery, archery fighting style)

If you don't believe me, I did a little work here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

As far as builds that use both are concerned, EA is better when
-you have lots of bonus damage die, either because you're a rogue or because you have a sweet magic item. Rangers might have a tough time picking.
-Your hit chance is less than 50% before advantage (although if you don't have bonus dice, you're dealing at most +2 damage per round)

EA is only OP when combined with SS. Viewed individually, EA is a more generally applicable feat that still offers a little less to builds that need it. As such, I would say that it is more comparable to Lucky than to SS. SS is used in a few rather OP builds. EA is a solid (but not crazy) boost to every non-str-based build.

I would actually argue that the best usage of EA is on a Dex paladin with a level in hexblade. More crits -> bigger smites.

[Willie the Duck]

Just want to make sure I'm sorting through this correctly as I've never had someone use SS or EA. With EA when you get advantage you get the best of 3 rolls on every attack with advantage. If you face an opponent with something like Blur or in dim light without Darkvision or who drops to the ground etc (something imposing disadvantage that is offset by the EA user getting advantage as planned), you can't use EA against that opponent.

With SS, the attacker chooses on each shot whether to take -5/+10 or not.

This is a correct summation of the situation.

(Probably useless with disadvantage, very useful with advantage and useful against most ACs when neither condition is present).

With disadvantage, it becomes a serious hail-Mary, probably one that is statistically advisable in a infinitesimal number of situations). With neither condition, there is some formula which dictates whether it is a good idea based on opponent AC and average damage you would deal with/without it. With advantage it looks pretty good, and the entire discussion of the value of SS hinges upon those last two situations and the 'how often does one run into...' question (what is the normal ac of opponents one runs into, and how often does one get advantage on ranged attacks).

I've found that few if any DMs run vision, stealth, etc. completely by the book, so how well any of this translates into one's home campaign will be highly questionable regardless of where we land.

[strangebloke]

With disadvantage, it becomes a serious hail-Mary, probably one that is statistically advisable in a infinitesimal number of situations). With neither condition, there is some formula which dictates whether it is a good idea based on opponent AC and average damage you would deal with/without it. With advantage it looks pretty good, and the entire discussion of the value of SS hinges upon those last two situations and the 'how often does one run into...' question (what is the normal ac of opponents one runs into, and how often does one get advantage on ranged attacks).

The decision of whether or not to sharpshoot (without advantage) is:
[(hit chance-0.25)/(hit chance)]*damage<10

It's basically a question of how big +10 is in relation to your normal damage, and how high your hit chance is.

Generally, a ranged attack usually looks like 1d8+5=9.5 (fighter) 1d8+1d6+5=13 (ranger) or xd6+5 (rogue). So sharpshooter increases a fighter's damage by 100%, a ranger's damage by ~77%, and a rogue's damage by a relatively small amount (on the sneak attack) So with a fighter you can reduce your to-hit chance by 50%, and with a ranger you can reduce your chance by 38%. Rogues really shouldn't sharpshoot if they haven't gotten the SA off yet.

So, looking at chances without advantage, a fighter should sharpshoot if his hit chance is ~50% or better, and a ranger should sharpshoot if his hit chance is ~65% or better.

Advantage squares the miss chance, so things become more complicated.

[Willie the Duck]

And crits on 20 (or heaven forfend, on 19+) are a spanner in the works. I'll admit that my eyes glaze when people actually start doing the math. Not because it is too hard (it's all still algebra, and I've calculated heteroskedasticity scores by hand in intro stats before), but because this is supposed to be my leisure activity.

Regardless, all of it is going to be dependent upon a bunch of campaign specific stuff (again, the 'how often do I run into-'s) that we'll never know for anyone else's campaigns. So we really are arguing over how many angels can dance on a pinhead.

[MaxWilson]

No need. I already know going prone is going to disadvantage SS and EA equally.

False.

Sharpshooter headshots can still be used to increase DPR against prone targets, especially if you have an offsetting source of advantage.

Elven Accuracy is useless against prone targets even if you have an offsetting source of advantage.

This is because Elven Accuracy does nothing unless you have advantage, unlike Sharpshooter.

No, but something I would expect of any L20 EA build is the capacity to gain advantage on all shots.Obviously, my example focuses on Rogues. If that path is better than going ranged Fighter, then EA has just obsoleted ranged Fighters.

It's not better than going fighter--you simply pretended in your analyses that Fighters don't exist.

[Ryuu Hayato]

Prone
• A prone creature's only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
• The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls.
• An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage (PHB, page 292).

People, please, stop thinking that prone condition give advantage to a range character.

[Willie the Duck]

People, please, stop thinking that prone condition give advantage to a range character.

No one is making that mistake, you are misreading them. It makes other forms of advantage on ranged attacks irrelevant, since once you have one level of disadvantage, you cannot regain advantage.

[strangebloke]

And crits on 20 (or heaven forfend, on 19+) are a spanner in the works. I'll admit that my eyes glaze when people actually start doing the math. Not because it is too hard (it's all still algebra, and I've calculated heteroskedasticity scores by hand in intro stats before), but because this is supposed to be my leisure activity.

Regardless, all of it is going to be dependent upon a bunch of campaign specific stuff (again, the 'how often do I run into-'s) that we'll never know for anyone else's campaigns. So we really are arguing over how many angels can dance on a pinhead.

Well the whole point of this guide is to do all the finicky math so that future people don't have to.

Did you look at my spreadsheet? I realize that it might make you yawn, but I pretty much covered everything within the narrow field of "guy with advantage and either EA or SS" including crit buffs.

And as to the what-about-isms... eh. It is pretty much strictly true that your hit chance is going to be very good by the end of the game. At a minimum you can get +12 via stats and proficiency, and almost everyone has less than 20 AC.

[Galactkaktus]

Did you look at my spreadsheet?

I looked at it and i think that comparing d8+5 damage and the same base accuracy is abit disengenious, it doesn't take the extra stat point from EA into account at all. Which should be pretty important since you probably want both for an archer build and the only real question is in what order you should take them. Well anyways if we go with pointbuy the maximum attainable dex on lv1 is 17 15+2 which should give EA abit more accuracy and damage in the early stages.

[strangebloke]

I looked at it and i think that comparing d8+5 damage and the same base accuracy is abit disengenious, it doesn't take the extra stat point from EA into account at all. Which should be pretty important since you probably want both for an archer build and the only real question is in what order you should take them. Well anyways if we go with pointbuy the maximum attainable dex on lv1 is 17 15+2 which should give EA abit more accuracy and damage in the early stages.

Yeah, that's fair, although...

Level	elf	vhuman
1	17(+3)	16(+3)
4	18(+4)	18(+4)
8	20(+5)	20(+5)

If vhuman is allowed then the SS build will be ahead from 1-3
If vhuman is banned then the SS build will be behind in DEX from 4-8
If all PCs get a free feat at level 1, the vhuman will be behind in DEX from 1-3

Mostly I just left it out because comparing the +1 of EA to the other benefits of SS is not a mathematical comparison at all, and ventures heavily into the what-about-ism that Willie was talking about. What if there's cover? What if you want to hit the enemy from 300 feet? I only compared half of each feat because that's all I could do, really.

Both feats are much, much better than an ASI.

[Galactkaktus]

Yeah, that's fair, although...

Level	elf	vhuman
1	17(+3)	16(+3)
4	18(+4)	18(+4)
8	20(+5)	20(+5)

If vhuman is allowed then the SS build will be ahead from 1-3
If vhuman is banned then the SS build will be behind in DEX from 4-8
If all PCs get a free feat at level 1, the vhuman will be behind in DEX from 1-3

Mostly I just left it out because comparing the +1 of EA to the other benefits of SS is not a mathematical comparison at all, and ventures heavily into the what-about-ism that Willie was talking about. What if there's cover? What if you want to hit the enemy from 300 feet? I only compared half of each feat because that's all I could do, really.

Both feats are much, much better than an ASI.

I assumed that you whould take both so vhuman is out since humans can't possibly take both. Which order is best? 1st feat EA 2nd feat SS or 1st feat SS 2nd feat EA? And no i absolutly think the +1 is quite important since it's alot easier to utilize +1 to dex than it is the SS extra stuff for the simple reason that every time you can benefit from any of those bonuses you can also benefit from the +1.

[strangebloke]

I assumed that you whould take both so vhuman is out since humans can't possibly take both. Which order is best? 1st feat EA 2nd feat SS or 1st feat SS 2nd feat EA?

My chart was looking at picking one without the other to see which would have the bigger impact, regardless of build.

If you can convert an odd ability score to an even one, an SS build does better than an EA build when it has a hit chance (before advantage) of 55% (60% for the EA build) or better. That means a hit on a 10 or higher, which is in my experience true at most levels. Not too many lvl 1 enemies have higher than 15 AC, and not many lvl 20 enemies have higher than 22.

And no i absolutly think the +1 is quite important since it's alot easier to utilize +1 to dex than it is the SS extra stuff for the simple reason that every time you can benefit from any of those bonuses you can also benefit from the +1.

Well, at other times (particularly if you roll for stats) you won't have an odd ability score to convert. Even then, if SS didn't have any ancillary bonuses and EA gave you a flat +2 to DEX, SS would usually still be better for an Archer build.

What I've maintained throughout this thread is that EA is good because it's powerful in a huge number of builds and situations, but that for certain builds (archers) and certain situations (enemy behind cover) SS is much much better.

You can slap EA onto any non-STR build and it will be a good choice. On an archer build that gets advantage every turn, though, it's worse than good-old-fashioned SS.

[Galactkaktus]

If you can convert an odd ability score to an even one, an SS build does better than an EA build when it has a hit chance (before advantage) of 55% (60% for the EA build) or better. That means a hit on a 10 or higher, which is in my experience true at most levels. Not too many lvl 1 enemies have higher than 15 AC, and not many lvl 20 enemies have higher than 22.

Is this with the extra +1 dmg for EA? The reason why i'm asking these questions is that the only time which is better of EA and SS is even an issue is if i play some kind of elf archer since you have concluded that both are better than an asi it becomes a question of in what order should i pick them.

[strangebloke]

Is this with the extra +1 dmg for EA? The reason why i'm asking these questions is that the only time which is better of EA and SS is even an issue is if i play some kind of elf archer since you have concluded that both are better than an asi it becomes a question of in what order should i pick them.

EA with 60% hit chance: 10.533813
SS with 55% hit chance: 10.38375

About even. If you have less than 55% hit chance (most of the time you won't) EA adds at most 2 damage. If you have better than 55% hit chance (much of the time you will.) SS adds upwards of 4 damage.

If you can't get advantage every turn, SS is better. If you are a rogue archer, EA looks better. If cover or range is important, SS is better. If you're a rogue archer and cover is in play and you can't get advantage every turn....

*Shrug*

[Galactkaktus]

EA with 60% hit chance: 10.533813
SS with 55% hit chance: 10.38375

About even. If you have less than 55% hit chance (most of the time you won't) EA adds at most 2 damage. If you have better than 55% hit chance (much of the time you will.) SS adds upwards of 4 damage.

If you can't get advantage every turn, SS is better. If you are a rogue archer, EA looks better. If cover or range is important, SS is better. If you're a rogue archer and cover is in play and you can't get advantage every turn....

*Shrug*

Thank you.

[Grondsmash]

Don't mean to disagree but you need to move Spell Sniper up to Tier A. Half the players I have played with take it.

Get eldritch Blast that advances at your Character Level. OP if you are not a caster, or MC.
No need for non-caster to worry about readying a weapon, ammunition or being disarmed.

Ignore all but full cover for your blast, and any other range spell of a caster.
All your range/attack spells are doubled.

Very powerful feat, some would say specific to class, but a lot of non-casters take it for their range weapon, and it sits up there with War Caster for spell casters as a must take in my books.

[MrStabby]

Don't mean to disagree but you need to move Spell Sniper up to Tier A. Half the players I have played with take it.

Get eldritch Blast that advances at your Character Level. OP if you are not a caster, or MC.
No need for non-caster to worry about readying a weapon, ammunition or being disarmed.

Ignore all but full cover for your blast, and any other range spell of a caster.
All your range/attack spells are doubled.

Very powerful feat, some would say specific to class, but a lot of non-casters take it for their range weapon, and it sits up there with War Caster for spell casters as a must take in my books.

There are a few different types of feat. In combat I would say that you are either looking to enhance a strength or cover a weakness. Enhancing a strength is things like SS, GWM and so on. Covering a weakness being resilient or an armour feat. I take your point on this - it is quite an effective way for a lot of classes to cover a weakness in ranged combat with one feat as well as to add to strengths of other classes.

Being a caster isn't hard. Lots of races have casing built in and every class has an option that gives is spell casting before level 4.

I have only seen this feat once - with a bugbear and SCAG cantrips, but I can see what you say.

My concern is that to make this work efficiently (to add a ranged element rather than to enhance existing ranged options) you need a casting stat as a secondary stat and your primary stat should be strength (or you get other ranged options). This seems to be likely to only be Paladins and maybe some strength based martial bards.