Optimizing Critical Role: Mollymauk

[@BigDaddy_Geoff]

I ran a curse of strahd campaign a while ago where I had a player play a blood hunter and he got so much mileage out of grim psychometry, probably one of the few situations where it’s genuinely great

[@the_ceeman]

The echo would be very cool as a little fragment of Lucien or another shard of his soul

[@cmccbuilds8229]

holy shit! I loooooove that

[@fightingfalcon777]

Since you got to do Level 17 for Molly (based off Kingsley in the two-shot), maybe you could do an epilogue episode where you tell us about what you have each of the Nein’s 17th level be, or do an optimizing Essek since he kind of became Matt’s DMPC?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I’m considering it for sure.

[@ethankendall9499]

@@cmccbuilds8229 DEW IT!!!

[@shealupkes]

Can you do one covering their final levels through level 20? Might need to wait out on level 20 kingsley and veth if they ever get there

[@ericgropuis]

Love the build and I do agree with Molly not multiclassing into Rogue because it fits Kingsley more with his want of being a pirate. I really love the choice of Echo Knight Fighter for the addition flavor and more hints Matt could have used for Lucien since the echo knights are suppose to be you from a different timeline (I honestly don’t remember) Also I really like Bloodhunter but haven’t had a chance to play it myself since I DM a lot but did have a player go for the sword and crossbow route for his bloodhunter to gets loads of damage out but then he did die due to his recklessness so unfortunately didn’t get to see more of that build

[@AmericanAurochs]

His death changed the mood and direction of the entire campaign. Love all of Talisen’s characters. Great work CMCC. I cannot wait for campaign 1!

[@Uranium_Diet]

Very happy you decided to do one fore Mollymauk as well :D

[@kaijutrainer2913]

Man, a patreon shoutout on the video of my favorite Campaign 2 character, amazing :D thanks man

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Are you Michael??

[@kaijutrainer2913]

@@cmccbuilds8229 Long may I reign

[@cmccbuilds8229]

VIDEO NOTE: My reading of Unleash Incarnation was that you can take ONE extra attack per attack action per use of UI. That seems to be a far too generous reading of the ability. The ability should be read as "Whenever you take the Attack action, you can make [A MAXIMUM OF] one additional melee attack from the echo’s position." My thought was that each use of the ability would trigger the ability again. That doesn't appear to be the case, although there is no official ruling on this that I could find. This means the build can't take the 4 unleash incarnation attacks, but only 2.

[@wanderingshade8383]

Making an attack isn't taking the Attack action, which is what Unleash Incarnation keys off of. No matter how many attacks you can make as an action, Unleash Incarnation just gives you one extra. This also means you can't Unleash Incarnation on Opportunity Attacks or Booming Blades, or two-weapon fighting.

[@shadowhell8378]

So when is the vox machina builds coming.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

When I have some time :)

[@tylerthompson4553]

I’m surprised the tough feat wasn’t one of the feat choices earlier in the build but after seeing the total damage output and stats as a whole towards the end this is quite an impressive build

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Yeah 18 con (compared to 14) is the same as the tough feat but with added benefits

[@errorelswoodnotfound]

Awesome build curious on if you would make an optimised blood hunter build since it’s a popular homebrew that even dnd beyond allows

[@adamdemayo5093]

i was waiting for this from the start!

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Best for last? I hope so.

[@adamdemayo5093]

@@cmccbuilds8229 its really is a funand special build. I like it alot

[@andrewhuerta7168]

love the build! Not sure when you are gonna do the C1 Characters, but I can't wait to see it! Hopefully soon :)

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Super backlogged with the Gauntlet right now. Hoping to get to it at some point.

[@regulardreamwalker]

IMHO Molly must be college of swords bard because of all of his circus child energy

[@cmccbuilds8229]

why does a circus background make you a swords bard?

[@regulardreamwalker]

@@cmccbuilds8229 An entertainer who uses two scimitars. Molly was often described as dancing dervish. He loved to play on public. He wanted to leave the city better than it was before him. I don't know, it just places right for me.

[@JnEricsonx]

@@regulardreamwalker Fits IMHO. FFS, I was planning on making Molly in BG3 as a Swords Bard/not sure what.

[@theFunkyThumb]

Ive played a similar build, and i think taking 2 levels in bladesinger is super underrated for this. You can skyrocket your AC, movement speed, and gain access to spells like shield. I did 3 ghostslayer, 2 bladesinger, using dual fighting with my rapiers, and when i hit ghostslayer 5 switched to dueling with extra attack and then grabbed battlemaster, but this makes me wish i went EK

[@aaxxeell92]

Would be a fantastic idea to optimize the Vox Machina characters since they got so popular as a tv show

[@cmccbuilds8229]

That was the plan until the gauntlet happened

[@NobodyDungeons]

So, I had a player who played a blood hunter barbarian mix with order of the Lycan, and beast barbarian with the long tooth shift race. This gave him 5 attacks per round for a amazing sustained damage which was made easier by me letting him activate all his beast abilities at once.

[@fsm1137]

Great video, loved the analysis

[@PlayWatch_616]

I would argue for hex instead of hunter's mark, because it is a type of curse (hence still thematic) and because of the disadvaantage of checks in case Yasha wanted to grapple, at the same time i understand that necrotic damage is worst than magic weapon damage so... i just thought a curse was more fitting than a hunter's mark as Molly was always more on the creepy magic side of the class than the hunter of monsters side. Still great video and very fun build

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Agreed on pretty much all accounts. I wanted to avoid hex because of Percy. And I like the idea of the mark. Hex is generally slightly better than hunters mark for reasons your touched on.

[@andrewdowns3673]

It's currently Oct. of 2023... where's the Optimization of Vox Machina? If ya did make it, then ignore this.

[@chillycharizard5985]

I've been thinking, Grog is already pretty damn optimized, save for his Maneuver picks and his level up path. I'm curious as to what you would change.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

2023, my friend :)

[@michelleeveret6087]

This is one of my favorite build variants you've done :) Do you have any analytical thoughts on the pros/cons of Fey Touched vs Shadow Touched? (In general, not necessarily for this character).

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Misty step is a better spell than invisibility. Invisibility has minimal combat applications unless you’re hiding. And the first level spell options for fey touched (divination and enchantment) are WAY better than the shadow touched options.

[@Gafizal1]

So nice to finally see a flying species on an optimization channel. I mean the decision never to use those is anti-optimization.

[@JoshSmith-lc2sn]

Good job optimizing this one

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Not sure what you mean

[@JoshSmith-lc2sn]

@@cmccbuilds8229 really more of a comment for other optimization videos. I feel you did better job on this one. The one for beau for instance didn’t add much mechanically.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

So why would you write that on this video? Because this one is certainly optimized.

[@JoshSmith-lc2sn]

Agreed , should have said on the one it applied 2

[@basementmadetapes]

Ghostslayer might be my fave subclass in all of 5e. Playing one in CoS rn. Big damage and so much flavour. But I don't think level 9 is bad bad, it's v Matt Mercer, but I think it requires the right type of GM and right type of game. It does feel like a bit of a dud but could be really dope too. But I wish something else came w it.

[@georgeskinner3217]

Campaign ones coming 😢…. Please Or C3 I just love these videos

[@andrewhuerta7168]

After seeing the Mighty Nein at Level 20 would you do an update for each of the chracters or no?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I’ve only watched 1 hr, but I like what I’ve seen so far! We’ll see.

[@shadowhell8378]

I'm currently playing a battle smith artificer with a hand crossbow and crossbow expert feat for 3 attacks per round and I define recommend piercer to reroll 1s I have rolled more 1s on damage with this character then I have ever rolled on all my other characters on all of their rolls.

[@TTRPGSarvis]

I'm interested to see this, because in most optimization circles I've seen, Blood Hunter is considered a flat-out bad class with no discussion.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Who says that?

[@TTRPGSarvis]

@@cmccbuilds8229 I don't think it's worth naming names because I'd just be calling out Joe Nobodies on a Discord server. But I've mostly stopped bringing it up in optimization circles because it's just called "Weak" and "Badly Designed", and I can never get advice for actually playing one.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

The design is certainly questionable. It’s not weak. It’s not a Paladin or anything but I think we see here, it can be optimized quite well.

[@sleidman]

Cool build. Seems like Tough would be more effective than +2 Con, no?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Tough doesn’t get you an extra attack (big on this build) or help with saving throws

[@tobycall8527]

Why does unleash incarnation give you 4 attacks? The ability states one extra attack every attack action. So when using action surge surely that's only 2 extra attacks?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Check the pinned comment

[@AmusinglySaunters]

What would you do with the extra level for Fjord?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Maybe I’ll do a prologue vid ;)

[@kartavbrar9374]

I thought that you could only make 1 unleash incarnation attack per attack action? So with using action surge that would bring the attack actions to a total of 2 meaning only 2 unleash incarnations would apply here? Reply if I'm missing something or if extra attack technically counts as another attack action instead of another attack. Just a thought and the wording is a little unclear.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Check the pinned comment

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

I'm not claiming its a good build but I sometimes wonder about a 12 echo knight, 4 gloom stalker, 2 paladin, 1 hexblade (why not for curse), 1 rogue (if using a rapier?), otherwise, make oath of vengeance?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

That’s a lot of classes!

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

@@cmccbuilds8229 yeah. only because I build to 20. decided to drop to fighter 11/ 4 gloom/4 oath of vengeance/hexblade 1. goal is nova of hb curse then lots of rapier stabs with action surge, dread ambusher and unleash incarnation. next round throw out a hunter's mark and maybe smite on crits.

[@shadowhell8378]

Now that the nien have ( except for Molly) gone to 20th level how about a redue/part 2 that goes to 20th level.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Gah, hating the algorithm

[@sohkaswifteagle2604]

1- if you want to optimize you cannot use roll stats. roll stats are not guaranteed. you need to do point buy 27 points. 2- optimizing on homebrew stuff (even if homebrewed by Matt Mercer) it's stupid since homebrew options are not balanced (somehow even when published by WotC... Echo knight and chronology wizard are stupidly OP and make all other fighters/wizards subclass useless, reducing the optimization option available. So this exercise is pointless from the start

[@cmccbuilds8229]

You can’t optimize on rolled stats is one of the silliest arguments I’ve heard on this channel. I think you’re confusing the reasoning that treantmonk and others make (including me) for using point buy as the method for general optimization builds/guides And the same can be applied to your second point. Thank you for watching! Check out the other (not critical role) builds. Those may better suit your needs.

[@mortalitydoesstuff8965]

@@cmccbuilds8229 you literally used the stat rolls that the original character was created with 😂 fuck is this guy complaining about

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Lol

[@tristinanderson6320]

He's optimizing somebody's actual character, so he used the stats the player rolled... like you should when doing this. Also, echo knight and both duneamancy wizards are no longer homebrew. They were published in an official 5e book... so they are official, and that's ignoring the fact that they come from the world this character is from, so even if it wasn't official, optimizing them makes sense. The only thing here that was pointless was your comment. This guys content is great.

[@AmericanAurochs]

Thank you for your opinion and good day sir.