Huge giant Crab (CR 8) has 161 HP, AC 15, blindsight and amphibious... but only one claw attack, which though, does grapple, Giant ape deals more damage and is smarter (both as a creature and probably as a pick). Neat build. Personally, I'd love an update to the Eternal cockroach.

AoA is one of my favorite spells. I love that this video exists.

I absolutely love this video release format. Multiple videos deeply explaining specific mechanics that pertain to the final build video. Very enjoyable build up and pay off.

WHHAAAAAAA DUDE. You are letting my secret AG/Clockwork build out of the bag?! AHAHAHA man, on the real though, it is super gratifying seeing a build concept that I have had in my head for the last year get conceptualized by Chris as well. I have yet watched through the whole video, and I am sure that the way he went about this build is different than mine, but I do think its a potent "spike damage/tank" build.

Love this! It's fascinating to see how well CS sorcerer and AG barbarian can actually compliment each other. I've always been a fan of mage dips on a barbarian, but this is definitely a new favorite combo. Great video!

Good morning Chris! I made it through the two mounted builds yesterday! If i made a Knight in shining armor build I'd have to find a way to make a D&D KZfaqr cuz all these videos have made you one by giving me tons of content while at work! 😉 Thank you for all the effort you put into these videos, hope your day is a great one! 💜

I really like the more recent format -- where you break up longer build videos into an intro video or two on the specific mechanics, spells, or abilities that the build will feature. It makes longer videos more digestible (better for viewers, better for KZfaq algorithms) and it leaves optimizing the mechanic as a fun "exercise to the viewer". If it's an ability I like, I often spend some time thinking about my own "optimized build" featuring that ability and then waiting to see if I guessed right. =)

Been wanting to do a build like this but I couldn't figure it out. Thanks for another awesome video!

I did a build sort of like this which combined the armorer artificer with totem warrior barbarian (also paladin dip) to rage after casting fire shield (cold). It was fun playing an intelligent, near-indestructible barbarian shaman running around in polar bear skin armor. I’ll probably end up stealing inspiration from this video for my “white dragon trapped in a human body by a wizard’s polymorph spell” character. The point of all this is that your barbarians can be cool (pun intended) regardless of whether you dump of max INT.

Really enjoyed the build and appreciate the time and effort you put into your builds and wider channel content. Fantastic stuff! I love the way you break down and explain the DPR figures in your math(s) so that if we are involved in games that have more or less combats per day / rest we can adjust accordingly.

Great video. I really think you’ll get more than 2 instances of AoA and FS, especially at higher levels. Most creatures have multi attack by that level and with the protections you have, it should take over 70 damage to bring AoA down. And FS doesn’t go down, so I’d expect 5+ instances per combat. I’ve been playing around with a similar build for a few months. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I really like the idea. Mine uses Goliath and doesn’t take Paladin levels, but otherwise it’s almost the same.

I love the concept and flavor of this build! Will definitely be using it in a one shot.

Counterspell is a very good choice of spell since Tasha came out because of Magical Guidance. If you fail to counterspell, with only 1 sorcery point you can try again.

I think that they already had the categorization of spells into arcane, divine and primal in mind when designing the clockwork soul sorcerer. Notice how you can change spells for ones from the wizard, warlock or sorcerer spell list.

Flavorful idea! Some of my favorite effects in games are Reflect Damage and Lifesteal builds. Different effects help to build different characters with vastly different tactics they bring to the table. Love the Overview section! Great way to touch on all the complexity while giving people a full picture

Seems like a lot of fun. I also like the idea of going mark of warding dwarf with moon druid, and could still take barbarian for rage and/or pally for smites if your not planning on making it to level 20.

I’m a huge fan of this build! I’ve seen similar ones with warlock levels instead of sorcerer/paladin levels, but Bastion of Law is a cool incentive to go sorcerer. One other fun combo, if and only if you’re starting at level 15+, is Berserker 6/(Celestial Warlock or Clockwork Sorcerer) 9. Being able to Greater Restoration away exhaustion unlocks the offensive potential of the berserker, while the charm/fear immunity is fabulous at higher levels. Great vid!

I think this is my favorite build I've seen in 5E, can really think of interesting flavor to go with it.

amazing build Chris, another option would be to get emerald gem dragonborn with barbaric bear totem would still keep the flight beyond all resistances as the emerald grants psychic damage resintence

I really like the video format recently! Video 1) a breakdown of a spell/feature. 2) Some different options to optimize around that spell 3) A build you’ve made to take advantage of the optimizations you laid out. I’d love to see this format continue

With the new Rune Carver background from GotG, you can get AoA spell for free along with some other utility spells right at level one. This could free you to choose a different Sorc subclass like Devine soul (works better with Asimar race for flavor and gives access to spirit guardians)

I love the concept of multiclassing 5 levels of martial with x levels of caster, not unlike your old Gloomstalker/Forge Cleric build. It's interesting to see the differences between your approach to AoA and that of Bilbron. Almost opposite approaches with two powerful results

This build is amazing! Really good content!💜

I like this. I played a barb/warlock that used AoA a bunch and it was really fun and solid. I grabbed extra attack and eldritch smite from warlock though, and only had 2 levels of Barb.

Hey nice video! I played a similar build once which took 5 levels of undeadlock, diped 4 levels in ancestral guardian and them went back for more undeadlock levels... The combination of armor of agathis, ancestral protectors and the imunity to fear and the fear effect per tur of form of dread made the build really fun (and pre casting aid or protection from death was also really good)

It's heeere! Now we can learn how to be chillin' like a villain

Oh man. This is extremely similar to a build I made when Spell Jammer came out. It was made to maximize the Hadozee reaction abilities. It was a Bear totem to gain resists to everything, use the Hadozee reaction and bastion of law to reduce damage even further. I just went 2 paladin for smites though and went 13 in sorcerer for more spell slots and sorcery point.

Solid build. Can’t wait to see how it compares to bilbron’s AoA build.

Something nice for the algorithm: That is a great angelic character idea. Thanks for this build.

I had an idea of mixing this with a higher level twilight cleric for more temporary HP, the final build was barb 5 sorc 6 cleric 9

I really like the use of clockwork soul here for all the reasons mentioned in the prior video. I had a build on the discord awhile back called the Blade of Levistus, which was 3 levels bear totem, 17 levels field warlock. In practice, I don't think that build held "aggro" as well as this one would, but it did end up getting resistance to all damage types while raging, which was nice.

Great flexibility, while staying focused at the same time. Respect

Would love to hear the cost benefit decisions you made with adding paladin vs staying sorcerer.

Stone's endurance might not be as objectively powerful as limited use flight/teleport, but I think the Goliath would have been a more thematic/synergistic race for this build. Resistance to cold is also nice, about on par with necrotic in terms of frequency.

Cool build. This video had me frozen to my seat. Dealing massive damage whenever a creature hits you is ice cold.... I should do a Mr Freeze build.

I've been playing a bear totem barbarian 3 / fiendlock X in adventurer's league for years now. Clockwork sorcerer wasn't an option at the time but it barb/fiendlock has proven to be very, very effective and nice to be able to plug the psychic resistance hole. I've been thinking about how I might make a similar character with clockwork and really like the choices you made here. A similar build I've been kicking around used tiefling and the Infernal Constitution feat to stack those other resistances. I've also wanted to get Blink and action surge on an ancestral barbarian for awhile now too. Different way of taking advantage of the ability but haven't figured out something I'm happy with yet.

Great build as always, but the problem is you don't feel like you're really playing the build until high tier 2. I played a similar character but going Fiend Warlock (before Clockwork Soul was out). I went Barb 1 > Warlock 5 > Barb 2 > Warlock 11 > Barb 3 > Warlock 17. I got up to 9th level spells and took the pact of the blade invocations (Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite, etc) as well as anything else that helped me in melee. At every level fights would usually play out like this: I rush in and reckless attack with AoA and Fire Shield up. By the time my AoA goes down, the enemy is usually very close to death. I then kill it and get the Fiend pact temp HP. There were some times fighting hordes of minions where it was literally impossible for me to die because my temp HP kept getting re-upped every round and with Rage's resistance, they had to do about 30 damage to me to even get to my real HP every round. Low Int minions would often just kill themselves if they hit me.

What a *cool* build! 🥶

Awesome video! I would love to see a dragon-fear conquest paladin video sometime in the future, it would be super cool and thematic.

This is such a cool build

this build blew my mind

Been waiting for this one, what a long tease! Since you posted the AoA video this really lit a spark... my favorite thing I came up with on my own was Mark of Warding Dwarf, Psi Warrior 5 > Abjurer. Similar idea to yours (melee to 5, spell slots after). Less tanky due to no resistance from rage, but 2 different shield abilities with independent resource usage is a lot of effective HP uptime to string out the AoA. More gishy due to ability to concentrate all the time, less flexibility on the AoA without metamagic or sorcery points. I also just love the idea of Int on melee classes, I don't like to play a dummy every time I want to swing a sword :) I guess the equivalent of your paladin dip on this build would be an artificer dip, though you couldn't rely on Int to attack because it would come so late. I'll have to play around with that idea...

I think there’s a very interesting option out there for this same build that doesn’t take Barbarian levels, but instead goes for Earth Genasi (MOM) Paladin and uses Sorc points to BA Blade Ward each turn. You get a bit less focus but you can maximize the build for spellslots as a Sorcadin and it would be a very interesting take away. You could even double up the build that way with your Steed as both AoA and Blade Ward would effect your steed. Cool video nonetheless Chris. I also love these deeper dive formats, please maintain this.

Redemption pally gives a reaction channel divinity that reflects damage of a hit (save for 1/2). That seems to fit well with the reflect damage character design and gives creatures another incentive to attack you instead of an ally (they don't know you only had one use of it right?).

I did a similar concept a few weeks ago, though went a different way . For a level 8 one shot, went 3 barb, ancestors, and 5 warlock , fathomless, on a Goliath. Grabbed the gem dragon feat. The extra damage as a reaction was fun. The fathomless BA tentacle was actually pretty useful. Got multi attack from warlock.

I don't think I've seen pyrotechnics on many builds on this channel, but that's a Bilbron staple. I was thinking of taking that spell on my next wizard.

I did this build and currently playing it! I went wild magic barbarian and rely on slasher to cut off enemy movement to force enemies to attack me, tho

Playing an insanely strong Bear Barb 3/ Undead Warlock X build right now and its been awesome. So much Temp hitpoints and your AoA lasts along time. Also you cause Frightened with undead and are immune to the condition, very barb fitting

I was pretty close with the build I suggested. I went with more Sorcerer and less Barbarian (which I think is still probably a bit better, so you don't lose those high level slots), but this is absolutely still serviceable and probably *does* put more focus on AoA than mine does.

So I was thinking, you probably do not want to rage with this build if you are having a battle with spell casters. They will mainly not making attacks and they will not deal physical damage. So the main benefits you get from raging are not applying. If you are in this situation do not rage and keep the options for absorb elements and counter spell ready beside some other usefull spell options. If you come quite often in this situation I would prefere Oath of the watcher over Conquest, having the CD option to gain advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws.

No love for Winged Tiefling + Infernal Constitution. More and better resistances, perma flight, dark vision.

Fey Touched grants Compel Duel. It’s bonus action to cast and concentration. It won’t work well for Barbarians but it will work with Armadillo build.

Nice build chris. Funnily Bilbron just released his own AOA Sorc just a few minutes after yours. Personally, i would've skipped paladin and focused on getting more sorc levels for higher slots. my own build doesn't have rage but uses blade ward/stoneskin as i have a clock 7, hex 1, abjurer x. if i was playing at a table though that the stoneskin componenets would be an issue then i most likely would have gone ancestral barb as well much like yours.

Seems really cool, but has the eternal dilemma of not coming online until pretty late. It feels like things that dont come online in levels 1-5, dont really get to see play in many typical campaigns/adventure paths

Fun build for melee players who aren’t overly interested in spellcasting. I have a player in mind who would love this.

Whoo Ancestral Guardian Barb!

I’m very curious to know specifically how to tweak the abdjurer Armadillo. I don’t have the knowledge to do it myself but that build is so cool 😎

I don’t know why I did not see the Clockwork coming. Really nice touch and the flight on Aasimar is No Concentration is just perfect to deal with the fly away from the Martials situation. Nice.

If you wanted to take the build even tankier you could go goliath for PBxDay 1D12 reaction to damage

28:23 13th level it would recover L3 slot.

Love the build but I wish it came together a little sooner, of course it is still strong at every level but if I am looking to play a barbarian with agathys up I’m gonna want that happening at least by level 6

Thematically I like Warforged for this build. Excluding optimization of course.

Does anyone know how or if we can get clockwork soul’s clockwork magic to work on d&d beyond?

I like this - I have a similar build in my "drawer" for a game one day. What about making this character a tielfing (levistus) instead? To make room for the "infernal constitution" feat - for 3 resistances. AND to have access to a 2nd level armor of agathys for those 8 levels it takes before you gain a 2nd level spell slot?

So basically you could play as a clockwork sorcerer an using blade ward, armor of agathys, bastion of law, and cash out most of your slots except the highest lvl slots for sorcerer pts. So literally you could just walk into the heat of things while letting enemies smash you while eating them up with armor of agathys an refreshing bastion of law with bonus actions as needed.

Booming blade does encourage foes not to leave melee range. Could be worth using against intelligent enemies

Very nice build, Chris, thanks! Two questions: - you mentioned that Sentinel was a strong pick but took ResWis instead. I was wondering whether it'd be better to pick it instead of raising Strength once? - I feel that Bastion of Law is underleveraged. Did you consider Warlock levels instead of Paladin levels? Warlock spell slots converted into Sorcery Points, assuming two short rests per day, could feed Bastion of Law for more reduction

I'm currently playing a tiefling ancestral guardians barbarian. I did not make the choices to go with this build, but it sure looks fun. My goal is to take the tiefling racial feat and get resistance to physical damage, fire, cold, and poison. Hopefully he lives long enough to become unkillable.

Rage mages are so underrated, this build rules

This looks fun. And really inspires me to build a unique character for it. If you went shadar Kai, then you would have access to elven accuracy. Would you fit it into this build? If so how?

I think Levistus Tiefling could serve better; gives access to a free casting of Armor of Agathys (useful in a pinch), and also grants access to the Infernal Constitution feat; resistance to fire, poison, and cold sounds a *whole* lot more useful then resistance to radiant and necrotic.

*The Remorhaz laughs at your insolence* Haha - kidding kidding. This is a really fun build idea - I’ve always looked this spell and seen it’s potential. Sadly - I always seem to be on the other end of a white dragon or a Remorhaz when I try builds that involve Armor of Agathys. I don’t think my DMs of the past enjoyed the idea as much as I did >.>

I like 6 vengeance paladin, 5 divine soul sorcerer, 2 fighter, rest sorc. You get to resist aura by 6, quickened hold person by 9, twinned haste by 11 and plenty of spell slots for smiting/hold person, action surge by 13 and then load up on more spell slots and eventually hold monster. Take polearm mastery, sentinel and gwm early, then load up on charisma and do what you can to get str/con items. You have access to some great spells with divine soul sorcerer. You can take enlarge, glyph of warding, spirit guardians or spirit shroud, shield of faith, shield, silvery barbs, absorb elements, mirror image, fireball, magic missile, etc. Eventually you have great control, burst damage, sustained damage and some heals. Three attacks a round + bonus action or action surge for 7 attacks with enough spell slots to smite freely.

Your thoughts on Tiefling, Dragonborn, or Aaracockra for AoABarb builds?

I noticed if you are a mark of warding dwarf, take a level in peace cleric and 10 level chronurgy wizard then you can give your familiar an arcane abeyance with warding bond. I pretty sure this gives u resistance to all dmg during Armor of A. Then you can animate objects and physic lance to victory. Advice if this is wrong or not? Ps main account is Master Caster.

Love the build but when you worked out the lvl 11 DPR I don’t see where you factor in the Bastion of Law ability to reduce damage taken, thereby increasing the amount of the AoA damage.

What to use your BA for consistently? (i see Rage and Aasimarwings of course, and every third round or so GWM BA) Are there anything else? (PAM would be the obvious choice, but cant be squeezed in)

I don't know that I'd even consider paladin levels. I'd go straight sorc, maybe one more lvl of barb for a 6/14 split.

hey. new to the channel but I was looking for a similar build only warlock instead.

What about generating 5th level slots with sorcery points? Easily done if you take Metamagic Adept feat in place of Resilient WIS

👍🏻

Saving for later. Work sadly gets in the way.

Hi I have a question about a homebrew of one of my players that want a Armor of Agathis build. Our group came up with the idea of a mechanic called Signature ability witch let's Character's choose a signature ability that they have and we make a customized improvement for it. It must be obtained at level 3 or lower and get's boosts at level 6,9 and 12. For primary Spellcaster it's always a spell of second level or lower. It's power should be increased about 25% at level 6, 50% at level 9 and 100% at 12 level. One player wanted to play a character quite similar to your character and asked for these improvements. LV 6 (25%) : when he deals damage with the spell he regains HP on his Arcane Ward equal to the spells level. LV 9 (50%) : doesn't increase the damage but the temporary HP of Armor of Agathis by 100% LV 12 (100%): It also deal's damage on ranged attacks Dose that sounds to strong or about right? It would be nice if a few people could help me because I think I could be way stronger than I expected

With reckless attack (aka advantage) you only have a 9.75 % chance to crit. I assume this was rounded to 10% for ease of calculation :D

Just curious, if you know the double AoA will come up, why not shift the level progression a little, so perhaps go 3 levels pal, and then the sorcerer and the last level of paladin. I know it delay the last sorcery point a level, but remove the double spell quicker. Also on the sheet, is the pyrotechnic spell wrong in the text?

attacking with advantage actually only gives a 9.75 % chance to crit.

How would it be if we chose a barbarian warlock variant?

I know you don't do a lot of homebrew on the channel, but what would you think about a feat (see below) patterned off Fey Touched/ Shadow Touched? Do you think it could be decently balanced, just ok or OP? Any thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated. My concern is even though it seems cool making it Spiritual Weapon may be "too good" and a PC could get Spiritual Weapon and Armor of Agathys too cheap & without multiclassing. Thanks in advance, I thoroughly enjoy your videos and I plan to join your patreon as soon as my budget allows 👍🏼 Angelic Touch Your exposure to celestial magic has changed you, granting you the following benefits: Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20. You learn the Spiritual Weapon spell and one 1st-level spell of your choice. The 1st-level spell must be from the Abjuration or Evocation school of magic. You can cast each of these spells without expending a spell slot. Once you cast either of these spells in this way, you can’t cast that spell in this way again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. The spells’ spellcasting ability is the ability increased by this feat.

Why not start as Conquest Paladin? Hmm 🤔 I guess that delays the rage resistance to long.

I think you've gotta take first level of sorcerer at 2. It's your whole character concept. Waiting until 6 is half the campaign at a lot of tables.

i love this but 5lvls of barb is rough. no spellslot progression or concentrating during combat. I love barb builds but it just feels bad to be a lvl 7 char and only return 5 dmg. id probably go artificer armorer for the "taunt" and use booming blade to discourage movement. maybe warcaster. take mom's earth genassi too for that blade ward.

Hmm I like the idea of this build but not a fan of AoA build that doesn't start actually using AoA until 6th lvl. I'd be curious to see how the damage of 5ft AoE cantrips compares to baseline if you're actually hitting 2 enemies 50% of the time. AoA builds are one build that could do use those cantrips safely.

would it not be better to go for a 9th level AoA and just dip barb and drop paladin? 45 Thp and dmg vs 20/25

Why no considering Goliath? so the Agathys can last longer no?

You said it correctly, but your level 11 graphic shows 58% to hit, not 51%

Am I missing something or is your maths a little wrong on the level 17 part? I get why you're dividing armour of agathys by 4, but why is the fire shield also divided by 4? fire shield is persisting for those 4 rounds, so unless you're assuming you'll go down or not get hit as much you're probably missing off a small amount of damage.

This is most interesting Barbarian build i have ever seen (and Barbarians are pretty boring to me). However, waiting until level 6 before you get the biggest feature of this build that maks it interesting is boring. If i did this build, i would need to tweak it to make it interesting at level 2 or 3. There have been a lot of interesting builds i had been working on but then just dropped when i realized it took too long for the interesting parts of the build to come together.

That's such a gimmick build. Relying on ancestral guardian to trigger aoa/fire shield and doing ok to meh damage. Utility is good outside of combat, sure, but in-combat setup is insane. Aoa, rage, bastion, longstrider, fire shield, etc. Here's much simpler build. Bear3(5)/fiendX. Custom lineage for PAM. Same point buy(might swap 15 in CON for 15 CHA, though, but not strictly necessary). Start bear, go for 3 levels (5 if you want second main attack and ASI asap), then go full fiend. Or go ancestral for the same tank utility. You don't rely on aoa as much(I'm aware that the build in the video revolves around aoa), but could still cast it, then rage. Build is online. Fiend gives temp hp per kill(cha+warlock lvl), 1d10 to patch up weak save once per rest, flexible resistance(psychic for bear, any other relevant for ancestral) and decent capstone, but that's if you manage to reach lvl17-19. Fiend also provides fire shield. You have less spell slots, but you get higher level slots quicker for bigger aoa or fire shield. Grab GWM and you essentially become catch 22 tank. Option 1: mobs attack you because of advantage, they get aoa/fire shield damage. You resist 99% of any damage. Option 2: you are too dangerous to attack. Which means you're free to run and murder with 3 GWM attacks(pact weapon and reckless help mitigate -5 penalty). Your dpr after second attack feature is around 40(rage, str, +1 pact, gwm) and only gets higher(higher str with later asi, +2 or +3 pact, may be liferdrinker, eldritch smite). You are nearly impossible to kill (bear + more consistent temp hp generation because of 3 attacks), have a shot at making really important wisdom save(d10 is slightly better than advantage), have nearly full blade warlock utility(flesh sculptor, other invocations) and 3 rages per long rest, which is good enough amount for really tough battles. But also you could go full dpr mode with spirit shroud. 3 attacks with 1(2)d8 is huge. Plus you're tougher than just rageless barbarian because of temp hp from fiend.

I'm gonna be the nerd here that points out attacking with advantage doesn't give you a 10% to crit, it's a 9.75% chance since you're counting the scenario where you roll double 20s twice with 10%.

Wouldnt topaz dragonborn do much the same?