Baldur's Gate 3 - The ULTIMATE Guide to Great Weapon Master!

[@mrbastone1992]

Nice video. Thanks for the link to the calculator. The intuition is, for those who dont want to get bogged down in numbers is basically the higher your base amount of damage (not including the GWM damage) from dice and other bonuses the higher the opportunity cost for missing that attack and thus the worse it is for going All-in. Any effects that add on upon hitting also suffer from this fact so its important to keep it in mind. Obviously anything that increases your chance to hit makes the opportunity cost for going All-In better.

[@MichelDood]

yooo i was literally wondering if polearms gave u high ground bonus just the other day. thats so sick, feels immersive too

[@kingjames3192]

You can use great weapon master all in with a Warhammer being wielded one handed. Great for having high damage while using a shield. Or could be used with a two weapon fighting thief multiclass. I am playing an oath of devotion 6 + college of swords 4 multiclass and it's super strong. Defense fighting style + using a shield + defensive flourish for 26 AC. +3 CHA with aura of protection so not only do I have high AC but also decent saving throws. Plenty of spell slots to spam smites. Any social encounter is a breeze with enhance ability + jack of all trades + expertise. Arcane synergy circlet + sacred weapon + increased damage gloves and rings + GWM + Thorms Warhammer for crazy damage. Have lots of utility with speak with animals, detect thoughts, feather fall, etc. Game is too ez lol.

[@Slanderbot]

Sharpshooter with DW handbows is insanely broken atm. No penalties to offhand, free bonus action attack without cbe, and thief rogue gives an extra bonus action. Rogue 4 / Fighter 2 = 3 1d6 + 1d4 + 15 dmg attacks per turn, two of which don't have the SS penalty. Add in action surge, sneak attack, and the ability to bonus action hide/disengage at any time... it's deadly.

[@kuma4590]

For the Goblin Boss in act 1, I cast Hold Person on him (guaranteed crits), used prep and reckless strike and crit him for 60 dmg, and killed him on a crit frenzy strike. Ty Great Weapon Master ;)

[@Blood_Ronin]

Calling it now, Crossbow Expert X Sharpshooter with handcrossbows is gunna be insanely good.

[@KazuYuuu]

it'll be great considering how consistent the dps is from that combo, but you would have to be minimum level 6 as a fighter before it comes online!

[@TheJudgeo7]

an oath of devotion paladin can use sacred weapon to add their charisma modifier to attack roll for 10 rounds. This should make GWM quite viable (you likely have at least +2, possibly +3 modifier as a pally)

[@KazuYuuu]

Yeah, that's something i forgot to mention in the ways to get attack bonus up! Late game it can entirely negate the -5 from gwm if you have 20 cha so it actually is super viable for a paladin gwm build

[@AmbroReality]

@@KazuYuuu I think only for devotion paladin. I dont think gwm is worth using on other 3 paladin sub classes. Maybe only at lvl 12, but at that point game should be at closing point and last feat wont change much.

[@KazuYuuu]

@AmbroReality the first part of the GWM is still really strong for paladins since you don't normally have a way to weaponize your bonus action outside of casting a smite spell. It's a significant increase to DPR on rounds where you can kill enemies or crit. But the all-in part definitely is much less valuable than using it on another class like fighter

[@FayeBloodPlays]

Sharpshooter is a bit better because most classes who will take sharpshooter either get access to the archery fighting style, which gives a +2 bonus to ranged attacks, or have reliable ways of getting advantage

[@KazuYuuu]

Oh most definitely, sharpshooter's all-in is much easier to take advantage of because at low levels you'd still have a +7 to hit with the archery fighting style and 16 dex. I'll definitely do a guide video on that feat once the game comes out, considering how they'll probably tweak cover and range part of it!

[@FayeBloodPlays]

@KazuYTGaming I'm going to be playing a spellcaster, so I'm more interested in having warcaster. If they added spell sniper, I want that as well. But I might have Astarion take sharpshooter if I put him in the party. Long range assassin with sharpshooter sounds awesome

[@aldoushuxley5953]

Also, high ground gives another +2

[@Anphey]

it`s also bugged, it doesn`t grant you -5 off-hand debuff, while providing +10 damage

[@FayeBloodPlays]

@@Anphey do you mean if you're dual-wielding hand crossbows for sharpshooter?

[@Slanderbot]

GWM is amazing, but I find it lacking early on for fighters. They don't have easy access to adv (reckless, hide bonus action, no flanking rules, etc) So ur stuck with a +7 to hit most of act1. It's amazing for berserker barbs tho. 5 zerker barb / 1 fighter for act 1. Two 2d6 + 1d4 + 15 dmg Reckless attacks per action, bonus action gwm proc/frenzy throw/attack. And great weapon fighting from fighter dip for higher avg dmg.

[@alanperry9304]

This is great, but why did you not add the +13 when doing the dice average on the everburn?

[@HomeroBorges]

Sir, the sentence "the higher your attack bonuses the less advantage matters" is only true if the target have low AC, ain't it? The gap from normal/advantage increases again as the AC goes up.

[@KazuYuuu]

true, you can't really go wrong with stacking attack mod buffs and advantage but it can be overkill depending on the AC. With bliss spores/bless/loviathar's love/hill giant str potion, the highest I was able to get my attack bonus up to was 14. Even against an enemy with 19-20 AC advantage was barely increasing damage output so you can save your resources for immobilizing your target or buffing yourself in other ways

[@randomly-genrated]

I've landed a bunch of crits and killing blows and I've yet to be able to attack again from it. I guess some kind of bug, I'll have to double check though. (I have the feat) Just realized it shows up in the extra UI box on the bottom right when it's available.

[@Natureorganica]

Thanks for all the info, trying to learn the hard way in this game but some stuff is out of my grasp. After getting GWM I'm missing way too many of my attacks. Although it seems to apply to all my regular attacks as well. This video got me closer to understanding it. Ill have to enable the passive tab and see when GWM is proccing/available and how to negate the loss in attack roll advantage.

[@KazuYuuu]

Early game it can be hard balancing the -5 on attack rolls if you have the All-in passive up, so save it mostly for lower AC enemies! I recommend having someone cast a bless spell before every fight, using enchanted +1/+2 weapons, and gaining advantage through reckless attack/faerie fire/etc. Later on you'll have plenty of ways to offset the -5 but some enemies have such high AC that it's still a tactical decision. My level 10 paladin has a +11 to attack rolls without bless and can usually wager for an all-in attack.

[@jonahdav9589]

alot of this great weapon master is having it turned on when attacking a "held" target or a slept target or a prone target for those auto crits

[@wes1958]

Did you know if exists some ranged version of pact of the blades and how we get it? I'm a warlock and play my role in dialogues but i'm not so much into casting Eldritch blast every time.

[@wes1958]

Your video are the most completed one that i have seen so far.

[@asvinhhelios]

Does frighten also give advantage?

[@thomasabreu6295]

Do Longswords work on GWM?

[@Sparkyville]

How does this pair with reckless attack? Also, let's say you have an improved crit, (19 and 20) and you roll a crit, but it doesn't succeed by 5, do you miss altogether if you are using the all in, or does it hit without the 10 bonus damage? Thank you, in advance.

[@Beavor921]

Will elven accuracy be available in the game?

[@KazuYuuu]

As of so far, feats that were added by other source books (i.e. TCoE, XtGE, etc.) aren't going to be in the release version of the game, so very likely no elven accuracy! I'm sure we'll be able to make do given how awesome the item and status effect buffs are!

[@bretthughes27]

Excellent! Had no idea there was a calculator for this. Debating between a Half-Orc Oath of Vengeance for 6 levels or Oathbreaker Paladin for 7 levels, followed by 5 levels of Warlock taking Pack of Blade on first playthrough, both having a 16 Str. Oath of Vengeance would have both Great Weapon Fighting & Master, and the Everburn Blade, while the Oathbreaker would have Dual Wielder, and 2 Morningstar+1. Any recommendation?

[@KazuYuuu]

Personally I think dual wielding is hugely underrated and really strong in the early game, especially since there are items that give you a second bonus action so you still have space to use a smite spell or jump. Not to mention the Morningstar's trauma attack can remove enemies from even taking their action! Great weapon master is less optimal in general for paladins than it is for other classes since you really only care for the extra attacks you get if you kill or crit. It's hard to justify all-in attacks because missing means you lose out on smiting too! Both will work but yeah I think I prefer dual wield atm

[@bretthughes27]

@@KazuYuuu Thanks, and again this was very helpful. Looking forward to more analysis like this.

[@mrbastone1992]

one thing to keep in mind in BG3 is (at least based on the Early access and assuming they dont remove them) there are a number of items that give you permanant boost to your Ability Scores. For example there is the Hag hair and the eye which give +1 to any AS and +1 to Charisma in exchange for -1 to Intelligence respectively. This means you can make a character that starts at 17 in a Ability Score at level 1 with the plan of giving that character the item, boosting them to 18 and then not being behind the Ability Score curve at level 4 (which is 18) and getting a feat like Great Weapon Master or just getting ahead of the curve by going straight to 20. The Cha increase and +1 anywhere is particularly nice for a Paladin so I just thought I would mention

[@figuures6098]

I’m going githyanki vengeance pala/blade lock myself. I’m thinking of going great weapon master just because of the lore of githyanki and their silver greatswords. All experience in bg1/2 says that dual wielding will likely have the higher raw damage output, especially with how you can get extra bonus actions with the right combo of items. Circlet of fire with a flame blade offhand comes to mind as something that popped off in early access

[@bretthughes27]

@@mrbastone1992 Appreciate the reply. Plan on stealing Volo's Ersatz Eye to get my PC to 18 Cha, but stopped eating the Hag's hair when I learned her plans for Mayrina's baby.

[@inamoto84]

1)So which class is best for GWM? 2) I am looking for a melee based GWM, crit focused Half Orc build. This is what I have in mind now. Barbarian "Reckless Attack" to have Advantage on all attacks. This serves 2 purpose, to crit fish more, and to miss less often. Multiclass it with Fighter's sub class Champion bonus “Improved Critical” that allows 19 to count as crit also Chance to not crit 90% Chance to not crit with Advantage 0.9x 0.9= 0.81 Chance to crit: 1 - 0.81 = 0.19 = 19% crit chance on advantage Please correct me if I am wrong in my math above. Would also like your opinion on which class is best for GWM?

[@KazuYuuu]

Champion doesn't make gwm better in the sense that the damage bonus is flat and doesn't get double when you crit. It's actually better for something like a multiclass with paladin so you can smite for extra damage dice that do double on a crit! I would recommend battle Master over champion if you specifically want to go great weapon master, as you can use trip attack to knock an enemy prone and then action surge for a nova turn using the all-in attack. Barb is really good with gwm since it can pretty much always attack with advantage every turn so long as it has the hp to tank hits. All you need is a bless spell up from another memember in your party and an enchanted weapon and your character will have a semi decent chance to hit. Honestly can't go wrong either way!

[@robbiedubes]

For the paladin, you won't be smiting on every attack will you? So does this feat make sense to take knowing that eventually you will have used all your spell slots for smites and won't be able to smite ?

[@KazuYuuu]

Yes, there's nothing wrong with taking GWM as a Paladin just keep in mind your window for using the all-in to increase DPR is much smaller while you still have spell slots. It's a good passive to have to upkeep the damage even after running out of gas, but enemies towards the end of Act 1 have pretty high AC so I wasn't using the all-in as much as I'd have like to even with advantage on attack rolls or bless active. And regardless of whether or not you use the all-in part, the first part of GWM is super nice for a pally

[@aldoushuxley5953]

The best way to use this is to add a controller. Add a bard to your party, and cast spells like hypnotic pattern, fear, hideous laughter, sleep, hold person... Many spells like this give you automatic crits against targets, so the -5 does not matter.

[@robbiedubes]

Thanks for the replies guys!

[@shakastaka8678]

Do Halberds count as Great Weapons for All-In?

[@KazuYuuu]

Yes! Any weapon with the heavy property work. This includes glaives and halberds!

[@TinyPirate]

The lack of talking in the first many, many seconds almost had me click away, bud. Cheers for the video tho :)

[@Fadi_Saab]

i was hoping for more details on GWM feat as Im planning on playing a warrior and berserker but you went off on a tangent talking about calculators, rolls, DPR, etc. I wanted to mainly get some insight on how do you offset the -5 penalty if you use GWM.

[@KazuYuuu]

Check the timestamps, I have a section that explains many ways how you can increase your attack bonus or gain advantage on attacks- doing either or both will offset the -5 you incur when doing all-in attacks!