I played the cheese grader and my dm was really into it. We ended up approaching every encounter more strategically than usual, talking about combat positions, aoe placements and all. Great fun 👍

Id like to recommend a small amendment to the ranking method. I think itd be helpful to divide the Score by the level the damage report was taken at, or by a flat number given to each damage report (divide by 1 for the level 6 damage report, divide by 2 for level 9, so on and so forth) This way, you get a score based on what youve gained per level. As it goes currently, the ranking is more friendly to builds that excel at higher levels, whereas i think its more useful to prioritize the lower end of the level spectrum where the majority of D&D takes place. All this aside, i love the content and im always appreciative of this weekly distraction from my Day-To-Day.

I love your channel so much, Colby. I'm chronically ill & any time I have a bad pain flare or come down with something else that knocks me down flat, I always come back here for thoughtful content presented in a comforting, conversational way. This does legit feel like Home, even (especially) on days I can't really focus but need something to help me tune out of reality. Thank you 🙏💖

I watch these videos often, just to reflect on how my "character build moods" change. More please! 🎉

You probably have a backlog at this point already, but I’d love to see an “ultimate damage reducer build”. Something like an ancestral barbarian 3/ twilight cleric 2 for temp hp and party resistance to attacks. Maybe sub twilight cleric for the artillerist artificer. Many different routes you could go with it.

How did I miss so many of these videos. This will keep my playlist going for awhile. Thank you

You're blessing us with so much content! You're the man Colby hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving! ♥️

I love these recap/best of videos but more than the summary of the main builds is being able to see the amazing evolution of your channel since it started. I found it during covid year and has been a staple of mine ever since, promting me to not only create so many characters that i will never use in play (or will I?!) but also making several of yours on my DDBeyond account to just look at and revisit between new videos. Thank you sir for the amazing content and may 2024 bring you so much more success.

Thanks for the recap, Colby! Starting a Play-by-post [PbP] 5e campaign so this is great for build ideas.

The video I was hoping and waiting for. Thanks!🙏

I've said this before but I'll say it again in hopes this catches your interest :D It would be really cool to see some day separate lists for builds that require set-up rounds and those that don't. For my games it's a huge factor.

Yes! I need this- starting a new campaign and have been in the muck sorting through build ideas all day :) Have played the Full Time Healer in Avernus with 10 cleric 2 Druid (Amazing btw) and a version of the Needler in Eberron. Have been looking at the Control Freak and the Tentacle (?) builds...Thanks for all you do Colby

Love these videos and the builds. I would also like to see your Top 10 builds/ favourite builds, top 10 to theory craft, top 10 "fun to play" - get a little more Colby a little less numbers ranking

This is straight up my favorite channel on KZfaq! I've played a version of the frost mage build that went aberrant mind sorcerer/fathomless warlock and it was one of my favourite (especially non-bard) characters I've ever played! The next character I'm dying to play was heavily influenced by your psi warrior/soul knife build. But playing it as a faerie rogue primarily who take ranger levels for spell slots, fighting style and extra attack, before going back to rogue. The idea being that this tricksey fae creature accidentally ate a stray mind flayer tadpole and developed these psionic abilities, combined with faerie fire shinanigans.

Your first video was the first build video I ever watched. Saw u could make it from even then 🔥

I love these videos. A good yearly tradition! Any ideas for another Healing/support build?

thanks Colby. Another awesome video

I really love your content! Especially the suggestions on the roll-playing aspect by still being effective. Just a suggestion for future burst damage builds, would it be possible to got a side information about the DPR after the first/second round?

As much as nova can be more optimal, there's something in my soul which loooove sustained damage builds.

I don’t really use any particular build but learning about all these optimizations usually makes it possible for me to make a any character(as opposed to Build) idea i have actually pretty effective at what i want them for. It sucks having a great character idea and they’re mechanically useless in combat.

I always love when these come around! Still waiting for the Monger 2.0!

Can't believe the bardic brawler is so underrated when its easily my favorite of your builds. Actually inspired a lil strategy i pulled off in a game called bladenado involving stacking cloud of daggers on a single area using a bag of holding full of glyph of warding upcast with warlock slots. Was pretty insane and ended up with my character instantly dying after getting grappled and dragged through

Love your videos. Hoping for more frequent videos even.

Love this! I know you already have a Sorcadin build or two, but recently ive been noodling on a Paladin(Conquest?)/DS Sorcerer build to fulfill the Paladin/Cleric build I'll never have. A video on that would be 🙏🙏🙏

Your first video is my favorite and my Pamlock was the star of the show that campaign! Still my most favorite character ever!

My favorite two classes have always been Druid and Bard - me and some friends are talking about playing a campaign where we all play D&D versions of ourselves, but I’ve been struggling to make it effective. I would love to see your take on it!

Thanks Colbs!

@33:40 I would love to see this build again with the new monk, using the old open hand subclass. I think it would take it up quite a bit!

Excellent video!!! I came here months ago for the Baldur's Gate 3 content and now stay for the excellent D&D content !!!!

This video convinced me to become a member. I still need to finish my journey through the backlog (I am a long-time viewer but rare commenter) but yes... excellent stuff. Always happy to click when I see a new D4 video pops up. Supernova Moon video... the algorithm.. man...

I recently came up with possibly a better way to exploit Spike Growth damage, a Tabaxi MoonDruid 4 Rogue 2 take the Mobile feat at 4 if you're insane (or Resilient CON if you aren't), you cast SG, turn into a Moorbounder with a 70ft speed and +4 STR, grapple and bonus action Dash and Feline agility for A TON of free un-saving throw damage. From rogue you get expertise in athletics to make the Grapple consistent and bonus action Dash ofc. Could go monk and take Skill expert, it's more damage and better AC in the long run for your forms but IDK

And bringing back the OG intro music. I’m feeling nostalgic!

Yearly rankings return!

So much content this week 😃 🎉

Two videos in one day? LET'S GOOOOOO!!!

Brandon Sanderson has some phenomenal series. Really like that he finished Jordan’s epics, his others are great too. Mistborn is a winner too. Great videos sir.

Ahhhh. So fun to look back.

Keep it up Colby!

I used your intellect artificer build in a Victorian era setting and it absolutely blasted plus it was fun roleplaying as a professor.

Great video Colby. Have you ever looked into doing a build using either Benjamin Huffman's Pugilist or Heavy Arms' Gunslinger? I'd love to see some more 3rd party builds with some of the solid options out there.

A new build coming soon where shadow blade spell is used more effectively than ever before?! You spoil us

14:00 I'd love to see a "next step" version of the Magic Touch Sorcerer. I've been looking into a similar character idea but also allowed to use cone range spells and concentration spells that then use your action/bonus action on subsequent turns (like Dragon's Breath)

So many great builds! ~_~

Colby, I would love a conquest paladin, dragon fear build. Just letting you know. You're doing awesome work, your vids are like my podcasts

I played the Ashardalon Strider build in the 2023 Gencon several different games and it was pretty glorious. Everyone loved it.

The Three Bears build is my favorite build you've done. Its not even that its silly. It's genuinely a Voltron style of play but allows you to function as three parts that when you put together is shocking effective. Yes, if I remember correctly its bonus action dependent but honestly its novelty combined with its functionality is so cool, I LOVE it. Also, I ran it by one of my gurus whose been playing since the 80s and he's a fan of the channel because of it. He said: "I've never seen anyone do this type of thing before and I would love to run a game for a player brave enough to try it." I am probably going to get to be that player brave enough to try it.

19:50 there are a ton of channels like Tuloc the Barbarian that have that little niche fairly well locked down. It’s fun to think about, and can be a great thought experiment. I think I personally enjoy the more mechanics driven concepts you and Treantmonk put out to a greater extent. Optimization for flavor is fun, but it feels less like true optimization.

Thanks Colby

I made your Fey Wanderer, and names him P. Turpin, and his fey he summoned were named the Los T Boyz. The dancing shadow was a great hit, but gave away the idea of the toon before I wanted my fellow players to figure it out.... also his quarterstaff was a wooden sword that did bludgeoning damage for sheleighleigh purposes.

Pumped for the monk builds next year

I’m pretty new to the channel, so I went back to see some of the builds, and I think the Holy Warrior would gain SO MUCH dipping in Hexblade, having access do Armor of Agathys, Longstrider and Hexblade Curse would take this build to another level, and maybe starting with a Half Elf to gain access to Elven Accuracy would do wonders for this build

We need a similar video about best outro songs of the year. It’s honestly one of my favorite parts of your videos.

Hey Colby, I have a build challenge inspired by your and Chris's positive videos on the new playtest monk, as a kind of final reckoning with the 5e monk class: The MiniMonk. Make a build that feels and plays like a monk (a fast, agile, bare-chested and fisted martial artist) while having as _few_ monk levels as possible. Then compare it to a straight class monk. My take is a Barbarian 1/Monk 1/Battlemaster Fighter X, but I'd love to se your take on the idea and the creative methods used to get the effectiveness and flavour right.

A channel called Blumineck recently did a video quickly going through an archer build for every class, and I think you might be able to put some more depth into them.

"If you were looking for a quick overview..." ^^

I never realized that was Dalinar and Nale, awesome. I want to create an Illusion using character like Shallan, my favorite character from the series.

I played an ashardalon's strider in a home game of ToA, It was quite fun and good at minion control. However, it comes online pretty late (level 5 for AS, but really level 9) I was a wood elf sorc 6/rogue 2 with mobile, but died so I didn't get get to upcast AS, really sad. It was fun to run around and sneak attack people, but I would recommend going sorc/wiz 7 first to upcast, then rogue for cunning action. I recommend Sorc over wizard bc of transmute spell (which really doesn't come into play in ToA, but I would still recommend or grabbing elemental adept) and what I wished I picked, quickened spell. I always had a surplus of sorc points, and wasn't really utilizing my BA before cunning action so being able to quicken a spell as I ran around would've been nice. I also recommend Rogue over monk because of the limited ki despite the +10 ft movement and the need to be less MAD, though with the new UA I would definitely recommend it, since BA dash is DP free and you get a BA punch at level 1 before you get the BA dash. On being MAD, 13 wis isn't too needy, getting studded leather with rogue makes your AC better, but if you don't need 1st level slots, just use mage armor. Beware HP pools though. Its a menace to the commoner stat block (with their 1d8 hp), but its a chip damage dealer. Once minions start getting like 20~30 hp, it suffers big time.

I made my own grappler cheese grater for a lvl 14 one-shot and it went very well. DM and players both into it. The build was: Centaur, Rune Knight 6 (to get Large and adv for grapples), Stars Druid 4 (Conc protection and Spike Growth), Monk 2 (extra movement), Rogue 2 (BA dash and Athletics expertise) Key thing was I had a belt of Giant Strength and a potion of giant size. There's a bit of setup as you ideally want to pop Longstrider, and Starry Form before the fight, then you need to use Giant's might and drink your potion to become Huge. You can do this in turns while you're grappling with your action. Then you are ready to drop Spike Growth and start Dashing with Cunning Manoeuvre. When its all up and running you are base speed 40 from Centaur, +10 for Longstrider, +10 from Monk, +10 from Mobile for 70ft, and your turn is Move, Dash, Dash to drag Large or smaller creatures 210ft or Huge and Gargantuan creatures 105ft per round (thanks to counting 1 size larger from Centaur's Equine Build feature). In the game we were fighting a gargantuan Demon and it had to teleport away from me as it couldnt excape my grapple, and i was dragging it for 100DPR. I also had fun running all over the map grabbing smaller enemies and holding them in the path of an ally's Whirlwind. Great fun!

Hey Colby, I’m a long time listener and I was wondering if you have an Email or some other way that I can talk to you and ask you some questions. Love the videos! Never stop doing great things!

Its looking like EK might get the same extra attack feature bladesinger has now in 5e. This will make their design make sense and synergize with the other features they get.

1. My favorite build was a Sorlock (Storm Sorcerer+Hexblade) with a fighter dip. 2. I also love Stormlight Archives. 3. I didn't realize until this video that the build so strongly represents Kaladin 🤣 it's even more perfect now.

Listening to this while building flat pack furniture and enjoy the reminiscing

Just had an idea for a build that you might think is fun. An unkillable warlock that is an orc with relentless endurance, uses the death ward spell, the gift of the protector's invocation, and maybe shadow sorcerer levels for Strength of the Grave. Could be a fun one that takes 3 instances of damage to finally go down. Then with a hexblade level of 10 it gets extra hard to hit. Just an idea, there could be some fun multiclassing to really bump up the survivability.

There is a weaponized shield in 5e that isn’t a magic item, on the lizardman statblock you’ll find a Spiked shield that you can use as a weapon, so if you go for a weaponized shield fighter you could always as your DM about getting one of those.

Going to try the Flamesinger next game! I need DnD to give us a Gish like the Pathfinder 2.E Magus though!

That Dalinar Kholin poster is sick. Love that guy--based my first PC somewhat on him, even! Where'd you get it?

51:41 An Adventurer needs to be daring! Don't let those pesky scholars and sages stop you! You got this!

Haven't been entirely up 2 date with your recent builds because our campaign took a break but we will start a new one soon and I had a suggestion/request for you if you don't mind :) I know min-maxing and theory crafting is one of the most fun parts of dnd builds and what brings you joy but I wanted to ask if you ever thought about doing a "more casual" approach to builds in a video series or different form. I love all the nova burst builds and strategies etc., but I rarely get to play them because I wanna be in line with my table and it could end up feeling less fun if one of us has a really well thought out build with maximum damage etc. Especially when the other players at the table are more casual, not as strategy oriented etc. (i'm sure you know what I mean). I understand if thats not the sort of content you are interested in creating but I think it would be very fun to watch you do "less ambitious" builds or the strongest one for a certain strategy, but to focus on a overall fun playing experience with out of combat and roleplaying stuff as well! Like, just a solid character overall that is still very strong in combat or might even focus on supporting your other party members so they can be the "main character" and dish out damage (from my experience supportive builds can be as strong as nova damage builds in a certain way but other players tend to not "appreciate" the support as much or don't view a op build that focuses on backing up your party with utility rather than being upset with a build bursting the enemy in your first turn). Just a overall solid/strong builds that focus on still having great combat without feeling too op or out of place on a normal/casual table and with some great out of combat RP utility (which is honestly one of the most fun parts for me, doing silly stuff with minor illusion or mage hand etc.) Would love to see a few videos on the topic even though I thoroughly enjoy your very well thought out builds

You should do some episodes where you build straight class characters like a battle-master fighter, and a zealot barbarian, and a genie warlock so that when you do these tier lists, we can see where a straight class character fits in the rankings with all these builds.

The Frost Mage. Super fun. Bonch Iller. Probz one of my fave characters I have ever played.

Another one hour video from my man Homelander himself Thank you for your content I really appreciate it and watch full videos at 1x speed :)

Moonsinger: "You're weak!" Bladesinger 2.0: "I'm you."

Yessssssss finally!!!!

Hell yes

I'm about to join a last tier campaign at around 12-13, and i was really looking for the Moonsinger build. However, as you said, i may not go that route, as the very low AC for the bear and health-pool really scares me. Even with mage armor and blade-song, it's only a 17-18 AC . When you have monsters hitting with +10,+12, etc at these levels, mostly with breath/aoe attacks, you're going to be one shot. Do you have an other viable ranged DPS build based on INT or WIS? You got so many videos now, hard to skim them all :3

Links in the description for these ranking videos could help a good bit

Amazing content Colby! Any advice on how to make a tank bladesinger? lol

hey Colby, have you ever checked out Valda's Spire of Secrets? It's a unnoficial d&d book made by Mage Hand Press with multiple new classes and subclasses. I cannot name a d&d book that improved my tables this much and I recommend it very very much.

I always love these videos. It makes it a lot easier to figure out what to do with future characters! Thank you Colby! I also played at a table where one of the other players did a Sheperd Druid/Conjure Animals type of character, and it was pretty painful. They were actually really good about making their animal's turns quick, and it still just slowed down the game. I don't recommend it.

Its a really wack idea but I'd love to see a build that uses the crusher, piercer and slasher feats as much as possible. Probably with thrown weapon fighting to not have to worry about weapon drawing

While this is not sustained damage related, what are your thoughts about merging your Hypnotic Enchanter and Hobgoblin Helper into one mega support -- Hobgoblin with School of Enchantment (3) and Mastermind (3).

Came for the rankings. Stayed for the mind giggles. 😂

How would you rate the lockadin Bard in this tier list?

Hey Colby! I'm about to play your sorcerer/warlock cheese grater in an upcoming battle royale one shot. I will let you know how it goes.! We are playing at level 20 so I went 6 sorc/11 warlock/2 fighter

Would love to see an update on the fighter barbarian

I think half of those soul knife vid watches are probably me lol, the only one I watch more is the Starry Twilight Healer (and MAYBE now the Stars Druid XD)

Hey there Colby, I don't know if you'll see this comment, just wanted to let you know that I'm a big fan! You mentioned in this video at the stars druid part that you ended up mixing your Stars Druid build with the Light cleric one, how did you build this? It sounds super interesting.

Bg3 introduced me to this channel and I super fuck with that. If I could, I would ACTION SURGE the subscribe & like buttons.

Anyone have any idea what 'tierscore' the normal non-multiclass builds would have? To get some perspective on this

Always appreciate the original opening music

Wooo Stormlight archive rocks

Do you think your fighter barbarian build would be better with the path of the giant?

It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiime of the yeeeeeeeear🎉🎉🎉

Wooo memory laaaane! 😀

Have you done a build on a Kalistar Soul Knife 5 + College of Whispers? I would call him Mind Blower

Banana-creme pie confirmed best sustained damage.

Well that just proves my theory that the Roguebarian is the best pure martial for DPR. (By the way I've been running my Karlach as Berserker/Thief with GWM and the Eilistraee longsword and she is absolutely KILLER) Unless Colby wants to accept my CHALLENGE to try to beat it 😁

Im currently experimenting with an elven echo blade ranger who dual wields. Whats your take on that?

Colby, any fun, powerful or original idea for a one-shot lvl 3 character? :)

Thinking about an Echo Knight Horizon Walker Swordmaster that goes in, slashes multiple times and step out every round